Framing Sacco and Vanzetti
by Sara HirschhornOne fall day in 1971, Neil Thomas Proto had an epiphany. It wasn’t
about God, or Vietnam, or flower power, or love. For the George
Washington University law student, studying the execution of two
Italian-American shopkeepers for robbery and murder in a Boston prison
on August 23, 1927, was an awakening. Proto recalls hearing a few
conversations about the case in a class and going to see a recently
released film on the subject (the one with the Joan Baez soundtrack, he
fondly remembers these days). Then he just knew: Nicola Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti were about to change his life. When “Justice On
Trial: Ben Shahn’s Case For Sacco And Vanzetti,” a collection of the
modernist painter’s gouaches and tempera paintings accompanied by
historical photographs and film, opened at the Yale Art Gallery on
October 14 for a two month run, it was not only one of several events
commemorating the 75th anniversary of their deaths, but also the result
of a one-man mission to bring Sacco and Vanzetti to New Haven.When you talk to Proto, who tends to get hysterical when addressing the
subject, it is hard not to feel like those dim memories from the annals
of high school history are going to change your life as well. Though he
now lives in Washington, dc, and works at a high profile law firm,
Proto was born and raised in New Haven and still maintains a residence
here. He has devoted the better part of his life to reading, studying,
and educating about the Sacco and Vanzetti case. In the process, he has
constructed his own revisionist history of Sacco and Vanzetti’s story,
become a collector of Sacco and Vanzetti-related folk music, and
co-adapted an operetta—“The American Dream: The Story Of Sacco And
Vanzetti”—which debuted at New Haven’s own Shubert Theater this April.After that fateful day in 1971 when he first realized the spiritual,
philosophical, and historical significance of the case, Proto hit the
books. For the next two years, it got “a little intense.” He spent
months studying the eight volumes of transcripts and reading every work
he could find on the execution. Finally, in 1996, Proto began his
magnum opus, a manifesto published in Italian America, the magazine of
the national Sons of Italy, on the significance of the trial. But after
publishing a second article in 1997 for the 70th anniversary of Sacco
and Vanzetti’s execution, Proto had a second epiphany: that the message
was not getting out. So, after 27 years of devotion, he redoubled his
efforts. “Why was this not talked about?” he remembered. “And what does
it mean that it wasn’t talked about?”
Proto started talking to important people. He got on the phone with
Mayor John DeStefano, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and Yale Law School
Dean Anthony Kronman to put together a symposium that was the first
phase in a mission to bring Sacco and Vanzetti to New Haven. He played
on Yale’s historic connections to the case—countless articles in the
Yale Law Review, petition drives by the yls dean, and the advocacy of
the Supreme Court Justice and then-Professor William L. Douglas—and
wasn’t above drumming up a little Yale/Harvard rivalry over the issue
either, like calling up the Mayor to suggest, “John, would you call the
mayor of Boston to ask him what he is going to do to commemorate the
anniversary of Sacco and Vanzetti?” Slowly, he converted them to his
idea of bringing Sacco and Vanzetti to the city.
Proto’s crusade paid off. “I was just tickled,” he recalls, “it was
great fun, a merry experience.” There were large turnouts at events
like the gallery exhibit, the New Haven Colony Historical Society
reading, and the “compose-your-own-Sacco-and-Vanzetti-folksong” evening
sponsored by the Eli Whitney Folk Festival. Proto proudly remembers “a
very bohemian crowd.” And, the operetta played the Shubert to a
sold-out crowd.
If the exhibit’s coming to New Haven started with Proto’s epiphany, it
is only appropriate: The art itself was the product of a full-blown
religious experience. The painter Ben Shahn (a Jewish immigrant who
arrived in the United States only two years before Sacco and Vanzetti)
called his series of 32 modernist, distorted gouaches (8 of which are
on display at the art gallery) and 2 tempera canvases “The Passion Of
Sacco And Vanzetti,” in reference to the death of Jesus. Shahn
explained his political art with an epiphany of his own: “Ever since I
could remember, I’d wished that I’d been lucky enough to be alive at a
great time—when something big was going on, like the Crucifixion. And
suddenly I realized I was. Here I was living through another
Crucifixion. Here was something to paint!”
For Proto, his own is as much a “great time” as that of Ben Shahn.
“It’s stunning how analogous it is to what is going on today,” he
remarked. Although the anniversary celebration was planned years in
advance, the themes of anti-immigrant sentiment and criminal justice
seem especially pertinent—a connection which exhibit curator Robin
Jaffee Frank did not hesitate to acknowledge. Perhaps the yearlong
commemoration is unlikely to inspire miracles. But did it change Neil
Proto’s life? “Absolutely.”
Mussel Man
by Meredith Angelson
At the corner of Elm and Howe, in the huddle of establishments famous
for their quick eats and cheap drinks, something has changed. There is
a strange new glow around Rudy’s Bar & Grill. It might be the new neon
signs in the window. It might be the sunlight reflecting off the new
sliver furniture outside. It might be the blinding whiteness of the
“Belgian Frites” banner above the door against the crusty sienna bricks
of the wall. One can’t quite be sure. The ineffable magnetism which
surrounds the dimly lit and cozily grimy dive draws you in to press
your nose and grubby fingers against the window and peer in with the
wonderment of a child at the window of a toy store on Christmas Eve; or
more poignantly, a college student at the window of a bar on a midweek
afternoon.
You cannot have failed to realize last year’s addition of Belgian
frites to Rudy’s menu. Even if you’ve never tasted them (for shame!)
the legend of their succulence and superiority to any fry you’ve ever
tasted has surely wafted down Elm Street and piqued your interest and
your appetite. You may even have heard of the man behind the myth, Omer
Ipek, known to those less intimately acquainted with him as “the frites
guy.” Ipek, a Belgian native who came to the United States three years
ago, started working at Rudy’s a year ago. No mere fry jockey, he
trained as a chef at the Cuisine Belge Enseignement Internationale in
Brussels. (He also, conveniently, has a degree in Economics.) While
working in New York at “Belgian Fries” fast food chain, he met former
Rudy’s owner Thomas Henniger. As the two discussed Henniger’s business,
Ipek says, “I told him it was a good idea to add Belgian fries to his
menu, because in a bar you drink beer, and fries go along very well
with that.” Omer Ipek is a wise man with good taste.
He has imported from Belgium the most essential tool of his craft: the
frites machine. “You can’t find that kind of machine here,” he
explains. Belgian frites friolators are more powerful than the machines
typically used in fast food restaurants in the United States, and they
are larger and have round frying baskets. “With round baskets, the heat
moves all around the sides of the basket, which cooks the potatoes
faster and makes them crispier,” Ipek says. The differences between
Rudy’s plump and juicy frites and McDonald’s fries, parched and chewy
by comparison, don’t stop there. Ipek’s fries are 100% vegetarian,
cooked in soybean oil, and his potatoes are carefully hand-picked and
prepared. “I don’t buy Idaho or some cheap potato. I try to get the
right size: 70 count potatoes”—that is, 70 potatoes per 50 pounds of
potatoes—“which have a better taste for fries than Idaho.” Ipek
hand-peels the potatoes and soaks them overnight. Each day he dries
them out before he “blanches” them in the fryer for several minutes at
a low temperature. He sets them aside for at least half an hour before
cooking them a second time at a higher temperature until they are ready
to serve. Ipek then presents each customer with a silver funnel
overflowing with fries, gently glistening with soybean oil amidst the
folds of wax paper and crowned by a tiny plastic spear, plunged
whimsically into a frite. He offers his customers over 20 different
sauces with which to eat their frites, including Belgian Mayonnaise,
Curry Ketchup, Thai Peanut Butter, Andalouse, Americaine, and his
personal favorite, Samurai. He imports their ingredients from a Belgian
sauce company because, he says, “In Belgium they are very fancy about
sauces.” We’re pretty damn fancy in New Haven too: Rudy’s now goes
through 600 pounds of potatoes a week.
Omer Ipek has certainly brought a great deal to this bar with his
frites. Before their advent, few people realized that Rudy’s even had a
menu. Now, thanks to Ipek’s European sensibility and talent in the
kitchen, Rudy’s is becoming known as a place for meals and snacks, as
well as quality brews, good conversation, and loud punk music. But the
mystique of the frites cannot wholly account for Rudy’s new appeal.
Those neon signs in the window are new. The stretched bunting set up
outside when the weather is warm welcomes customers to “Rudy’s Bar &
Grill” and invites them to relax Parisian café-style in the outdoor
furniture. Perhaps one should not be surprised to learn that Ipek
himself is responsible: He is the new owner.
“When I came here, I started by working in the kitchen,” he says. “Then
I began to work behind the bar as well. Then it happened that Henniger
and I made a business deal and now I am in charge of all this. I want
to add mussels to the menu. In Belgium this is very famous. You serve
mussels in a pot with fries on the side and you have your beer. It’s
very popular.” Expect the mussel premiere in three months. Ipek is also
planning to renovate the equipment behind the bar and the kitchen,
which he says is “good for the fries, but when you want to expand the
menu you need more facilities.”
So, with the imminent addition of mussels to the menu and the décor
taking a new vibrant turn, we can only expect more new facets to the
once comfortably dingy face of Rudy’s. Whatever comes out of the vision
of the owner, patrons can rest assured that it will be as closely
monitored and cared for as the frites. “When you own your own
business,” Ipek explains earnestly, “you have to be always here to
check the quality of the food. You have to make sure your fries are
different from other fries. They have to have something special or no
one would come to eat them.” So far, Ipek has satisfied at least his
own tastes with his creations. “I like them a lot,” he says smiling. “I
am crazy about potatoes!” And New Haven is crazy about Omer Ipek. After
all, he’s put the ‘N’ back in Rudy’s Restaura_t.
A Fashionable Cause
by Coco Krumme
León, Nicaragua is perhaps the last place you’d expect to find a pair
of colorblock Mickey Mouse shorts or, for that matter, tapered corduroy
slacks. But León, Nicaragua, is no stranger to such anachronisms of
taste and missteps of fashion. Each year the city receives more than
18,000 pounds of clothing and material aid from the residents of New
Haven, all of it selected, sorted, packed, and shipped by members of
the New Haven-León Sister City Project.
Packing the clothing, which is donated by local consignment stores,
into boxes is a monumental triannual affair: The latest session takes
place on a dreary Friday that threatens to dump a week’s worth of rain
on a New Haven back porch covered in clothing bound for Nicaragua. At
its epicenter are five middle-aged women, all of them long-time Sister
City volunteers. The packing is lively, punctuated at times with the
conspiracy and subdued gossip of an afternoon bridge club or the
negotiated push-and-pull of an urban flea market. But at its core it is
governed by the supreme taste of five unabashed fashionistas. Patti,
one of the quintet, holds up a brown flowered skirt and matching
headband. “That’s cute!” another exclaims. “But look, the headband is
stained right here. It’s insulting to send something dirty like that,”
someone else responds. A third asks: “We can’t send the skirt without
the headband. Can we?”
The ladies do not take lightly their roles as guardians of good fashion
sense. A first round of inspection expels all dirty or torn items, as
well as winter clothing: peacoats and J. Crew sweaters would elicit
only laughter if, through some slight of judgment, they were to
infiltrate the Central American heat. The second round is crucially
important: Beyond the obvious rejects like stonewashed jeans and
t-shirts bearing names of long-defunct sports teams, sorting through
the heaps of clothing requires subtle discrimination. Should a wooly
vest with short sleeves be sent? A size 14 white tennis dress? An
unsightly pair of cargo shorts? Lingerie?
In León, where the clothing is sold by local residents for a nominal
price in order to fund community projects, another round of selection
awaits the boxes marked ‘ropa hombres’ and ‘ropa mujeres.’ Many of the
members of the Sister Cities have visited Nicaragua and report that the
women of León are not eager to suffer the beige and gray staples of a
New England wardrobe. Brenda recalls describing her cupcake Connecticut
home to the women of León: “They were astonished. They said, ‘pink and
blue! Why, those are the sad colors!’” Someone tsks: “The ‘sad colors’…
imagine! When I was there, I went to a weaving workshop. They wanted to
dye everything bright orange. They don’t understand that no one here
wants to buy a bright orange shirt.”
Clashes of culture and cotton notwithstanding, the insatiable wheel of
fashion keeps on turning: Garments made in Nicaraguan factories are
peddled to trend setters by stores in the United States; rejected items
eventually stagnate in consignment stores and charity trucks, then wax
back to Nicaragua. The first material aid to reach León arrived in the
suitcases and knapsacks of a handful of New Haven residents, who came
with a ‘Witnesses for Peace’ group during the Contra War of the 1980s.
Their purpose then was to assist the people of Nicaragua without
taking sides in the conflict. Almost two decades later, the war is
over, but the motivating principle remains unchanged and The Sister
City project has grown to include a bicycle exchange, a sustainable
agriculture program, frequent delegations to Nicaragua, and the
establishment of a locally staffed office to manage the projects.On the New Haven side, the León venture has struggled to maintain
significance in a decade without warfare. It is a question, as
enunciated by director Jean Silk, of making sure the project’s purpose
remains relevant and well-defined.
Purpose is indeed abundant at the box-packing session, and principled
aid has by no means given way to arbitrary altruism. Silk compares how
Austrians pick their sister cities—“by taking maps and drawing
concentric circles from each capital city”—to New Haven’s technique—
forming a connection based on similarities between the two cities and
the relationships that visitors formed and subsequent visitors continue
to nurture.
The story of the Sister Cities program is one of a group dedicated to a
cause stripped of its political luster but rich in personal meaning.
While other activists adopt sexy catch-phrases and campaigns for
‘social justice’ or ‘an end to all war,’ the Sister City project
measures its success not by how loudly it raises its voice but with
hard, material evidence: the number of t-shirts packed, wells built,
bicycles shipped. Many of the members have committed months or even
years to establishing functional civic projects in León. Theirs is a
brute materialism taken to a philanthropic extreme.
The political statement endures without being gaudy, and the fashion
statement is clear: New Haven is dressing the residents of its sister
city, and dressing them well.
Card Catalog Cartel
by Leo Oksman
Steve Bernstein, a cataloguer at Sterling Memorial Library, sees in his
job a lofty purpose: “mapping the collective subconscious of humanity.”
That includes, among other things, shelving full sets of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer books and multitudes of vanity press publications. But
nowhere is Bernstein’s description of a librarian’s work more accurate,
and its implications more meaningful, than in the library’s collections
of Third World literature.
For a librarian, every newspaper padding a garbage can is endangered
literature. African collection curator Dorothy Woodson, for example,
collects newspapers in over 500 African languages and puts on microfilm
those too old to travel. With the steadfast goal of “preserving
disappearing materials,” she avidly collects what is known in the
library world as ephemera. This includes posters, albums of
non-professional photos of South African and Zimbabwean ruins, stamps,
pictures, and a rare treasure: a letter from Cecil Rhodes to his
personal accountant. Africa’s civil wars, with their way of tossing
editors in and out of prison, make Woodson’s work rather difficult. Yet
she finds herself amazed at the “enormous amount of diverse scholarly
materials.” The books are thin and cheaply bound, made to be accessible
to an often destitute readership—but, Woodson says, they are widely
read nonetheless.
Rich Richie, curator for the Southeast Asia collection, encounters a
rather different kind of ephemera. Aiming both to preserve Cambodian
printed materials and to bring copies of them to the West, the Yale
Center for International Studies has recently helped establish a
Cambodian Center of Documentation in Phnom Penh. There, Richie
supervises the task of microfilming records from the Khmer Rouge for
Yale’s collections—quite a job, considering that there are no microfilm
cameras in Cambodia, and reliable electricity can only be obtained from
an imported generator. He describes the Center’s Cambodian staff
leafing through records of Toulsleng, the regime’s largest prison:
Every so often someone would stumble upon the name of a family member,
friend, or acquaintance—each a concise record of death by starvation,
unimaginable torture, or the brutal bareness of decade-long
imprisonment. Richie also watches the documenters scanning the infamous
“killing fields” for remnants of skeletons—a risky enterprise, since
some of those places are still controlled by Communist zealots.
Buying books can be just as interesting. Richie describes with gusto
open-air markets, where books are sold next to vegetables and household
items. In Cambodia, the curator’s place to be is the central Phnom Penh
marketplace; in Thailand, large modern bookstores are common; in Laos,
curators go to the government publishing office, the only one in the
country. The books themselves are no less diverse. From comics (an
important tool of government propaganda) to modern reinterpretations of
religious literature and folktales, they tend to be published in tiny
runs— twenty-five copies is not rare—which can be taxing for the
curator charged with keeping America’s oldest collection of Southeast
Asian literature complete.
Sometimes books are not published at all. Following a wave of student
uprisings over a decade ago, Burma’s universities have been closed, and
academic publishing prohibited. Richie resorts to collecting popular
magazines published on newsprint, with black-and-white pictures.
Occasionally he does get other texts at the out-of-print market; but in
doing so, he risks accidentally buying materials stolen from the
country’s National Archives—“people need the money,” as he puts it.
César Rodriguez, curator for the library’s Latin American collection,
finds an “excellent” source of materials, particularly on economics and
human rights, in non-governmental organizations (ngos). Those sprang
up, he says, like mushrooms after the rain following the political
turmoil that plagued much of Latin America through the 1980s. But most
ngos are funded by us and European institutions looking to promote
Western ideals, an affiliation which can become problematic. Rodriguez,
for example, “knew [he] was being followed” in Cuba while smuggling
not-for-export books through the Swiss agency. Yet he managed to sneak
out, on his person, flyers published by the Cuban statistics office
containing figures on literacy and poverty rates—by hiding them in a
volume of Fidel Castro’s speeches.
Stairway to Heaven
by Tara O'DonnellSt. Mary’s Church towers high above Hillhouse Avenue. Inside are
vaulted ceilings, pastel walls, and lifelike statues, but the church is
most notable for being the only building on Hillhouse not owned by
Yale. When it was built in 1874, however, St. Mary’s was even more out
of place: It was surrounded by extravagant private mansions, whose
wealthy residents looked on in horror when the cash-strapped Roman
Catholic Church ran out of funds as the building neared
completion—leaving it without a steeple—and poor immigrants began to
flock to the spireless edifice, “ constructed of stone which gives it a
cold and repulsive appearance.” An 1879 article about Hillhouse
Avenue—described by Charles Dickens as the most beautiful street in
America—in The New York Times carried the snide subtitle, “How an
aristocratic avenue was blemished by a Roman Church edifice.”Fortunately for St. Mary’s, this less than flattering coverage did not
determine its resting place in history. Just a few years after its
opening, one of the parish’s young priests, Father Michael McGivney,
founded an organization to unite the men of the parish. He hoped to
offer an alternative to secret societies, a popular outlet for young,
lonely immigrant males who found themselves in a hostile new
environment. Instead of mysterious rituals and secret handshakes,
McGivney wanted to create a fraternal organization that combined this
sense of belonging with the values and charitable mission of the
Catholic Church. In 1882, in the basement of St. Mary’s, McGivney
founded the Knights of Columbus, a “fraternal service organization of
Catholic men.”
Today the organization has over a million members in 13 countries. The
support network that McGivney envisioned has expanded to even offer a
life insurance plan to its members. The Knights of Columbus current
headquarters—where the organization’s 750 employees manage its
insurance company and other worldly affairs—sits across town from St.
Mary’s. By espousing the doctrines of faith, fraternity, and life
insurance, the Knights of Columbus seems to have access to both the
pocketbooks and the willing volunteerism of its members: They claim to
have donated nearly a billion dollars and 400 million hours of service
to charity. They also proudly describe themselves as “the strong right
arm of the Catholic Church,” and their political views always echo
those of the Vatican.
One of the Knights’ charitable causes was a renovation of the roof of
St. Mary’s. In 1982, they set out to create “an architectural
exclamation point between heaven and earth”: a 179-foot steeple topped
with an eleven-foot gold cross. The crown jewel of the Knights’ New
Haven empire, however, is the two-year-old Knights of Columbus museum,
a block from the New Haven train station. On most afternoons, the
concrete building is quiet inside, but the front desk attendant is more
than happy to orient visitors and describe the temporary exhibitions—at
the moment, a display of Russian icons and a 9/11 memorial.
The bulk of the museum’s content, of course, is dedicated to the
fraternal order itself. The trophy room displays awards donated by
national Knights of Columbus councils, an article about Babe Ruth
establishing that the slugger himself was a Knight, and a letter signed
by current Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura proclaiming May 20, 2001,
“Knights of Columbus Day.”
In the Christopher Columbus room, the Knights’ patron is honored by
displays ranging from a sugar bowl bearing his likeness to a late
nineteenth century child’s penny bank upon which the explorer sits.
Father McGivney allegedly chose Columbus, a devout Catholic, as the
Knights’ patron with the intention of likening his Atlantic crossing to
those of the organization’s immigrant members. Another exhibit explains
why members are known as Knights—a dramatic flair that is the legacy of
James T. Mullen, the order’s first lay leader.
In the back of St. Mary’s Church, behind the rows of wooden pews,
stands a dark marble vault. The top of the structure is formed into a
crucifix, and a plaque on its side explains its contents: When the
Knights of Columbus gave St. Mary’s Church a steeple in 1982, they also
encased the remains of their founder, Father McGivney, in the church.
In 2000, they also lobbied to nominate him for canonization, the first
official step to sainthood in the Catholic Church. If the Vatican
declares him a saint, the Knights can rest assured that the soul of
their founder resides in heaven. Apparently, the Knights of Columbus
provide not only life insurance, but after-life insurance as well.
Dance, Dance, Revolution
by Zvika KriegerOn Old Campus, amidst a crowd of chanting, writhing students, a
silver-haired octogenarian executes a series of martial-arts kicks with
the easy grace of a twenty-five-year-old. I stand entranced by the
spectacle before me. The student at my side, noting the look of awe on
my face, mouths one word: capoeira.
At the time, I thought that I had discovered a new art form, something
I could only explain as a mix between Kung Fu and break-dancing. But
soon it seemed that everywhere I turned, someone knew someone who did
capoeira. And it seemed that everyone who did it knew my silver-haired
octogenarian, Professor Robert Thompson, aka Master T.
Later that week, I met Master T in the Timothy Dwight dining hall,
where it soon became clear that, given the opportunity, he could talk
endlessly, about almost anything. All I had to do was utter the word
“capoeira” to send him on a cultural journey back to Brazil, where
African slaves developed the martial art as a secret form of rebellion.
The words tumbled from his mouth so quickly that without the help of
the ta eating next to me, I would have been completely lost. Not that
Master T would have noticed. He seemed more intent on keeping himself
entertained than helping me understand the popularity of capoeira at
Yale.
In twenty whirlwind minutes, he described the appearance of capoeira in
the 1980s in New York, when of culture-starved yuppies mixed with the
70,000 Brazilians newly immigrated to the city. “Centers just shot up,”
he explained and jumped out of his chair. “Boom! Boom! Boom!”—the sound
of capoeira exploding across New York City.
Despite capoeira’s recent resurgence, Thompson admits that today’s
movement does not hold a candle to its peak of popularity in the 1980s
when it inspired “some jerky b-movies.” But, at least to him, its
continued popularity is not surprising: “In what other activity can you
defend yourself, dance, sing in a romance language, and be healthy?
It’s a total physical experience.” And without another word, he bounded
out of the dining hall with the ta following close behind.Still mystified by capoeira’s mass appeal, I visited a class taught at
a church near Olive Street. No one seemed to notice my presence as I
studied the walls plastered in photos of capoeira mestres. Housewives,
businessmen, and construction workers in various contortionist
stretches were scattered across the studio’s hardwood floor. Their
loose white uniforms were reminiscent of karate, but more causal—a
fitting characterization for capoeira in general.
The silent concentration of the students was broken by a belly laugh
from behind the studio wall. Efraim Silva entered the room, greeting
his flock with a warm smile and a sadistic call for even deeper
stretches. Silva, the self-proclaimed “embodiment of capoeira” in New
Haven, opened the city’s first studio, Gina Brasileira Inc., eight
years ago. Last year, he brought his class to Yale’s Payne-Whitney Gym.
“The first day of class, there were forty-one students,” he recalled in
a thick Brazilian accent. “We had to divide into two classes.”With the studio full, Silva paced the floor, watching his students
begin to put their own personalities into the movement, straddling the
gap between martial art and dance. Occasionally, he picked up a
jug-like instrument attached to the base of an archery bow, which he
played with a pick made of bean-filled maracas.
As the class neared the two-hour mark, everyone gathered into a roda,
or sparring circle. Here it all came together—the dancing and fighting
united in a seamless synthesis of body and soul, rhythm and mind, as
pair after pair faced off, at once partners and adversaries.
Back on campus, Yale capoeiristas have their own theories about the
popularity of the martial art. Becca Falik sees it as a break from
rigid classroom learning, a chance to experience “the wisdom of
generations of capoeira sages that is passed down through the spiritual
chain of master to student.” Ja-Shukry says, “Yale students are just
culture starved. All we really know is college culture, and in my
opinion it wears thin and lacks true substance.” Apparently, the
intellectual stimulation and cultural diversity offered by one of the
nation’s top universities pales alongside the wisdom of sages. Never
mind that this spiritually impoverished university offers courses in
capoeira and has a faculty member who is an expert on the art.