You’re hungry. You and your friends decide to go to Thayer Dining Hall since Collis is crowded and chaotic, as usual. When you reach Thayer, you enter a large, emotionless abyss—a sea of chairs, fans and fancy TV screens, along with troops of tired, hollowed-eyed students trying to clock in their social time for the week. The fans are so loud that you usually are limited to small talk and niceties. Buying food and catching up with friends has never been so dull and boring.

Thankfully, the college is planning on renovating Thayer beginning this summer, and will be renamed to the Class of 1953 Commons when it opens. That may mean that sophomores will not be able to eat at FoCo during their sophomore summer, but hold your groans, for Collis will remain open. Moreover, in the long run, this renovation can potentially reinvent the facetime rat-race that is the Dartmouth dining experience.

Although the Thayer renovation seems recent in our minds, it’s actually a part of a 10-year plan that began with a proposal to expand north campus by constructing the Class of 1953 Commons (separate from the future Class of 1953 Commons that is currently Thayer/FOCO), which would act as Dartmouth’s second major dining hall, house ORL’s Office and Dartmouth’s first graduate suite/headquarters, among other purposes. The Commons would have temporarily replaced Thayer as the main dining hall while Thayer was to be demolished and rebuilt. However, these plans were delayed several times, and the Class of 1953 Commons construction has since been canceled amid budget cuts.

In planning stages, designers had considered possibilities of a completely new Thayer dining hall; however, because they have started a new proposal to renovate the existing Thayer, the designers are now limited to working with Thayer’s existing skeleton. The schedule gives them just about one year to finalize the proposal, get permits, and finally start the physical renovation. Although there is a decade of off-and-on preliminary plans behind them, there still seems to be no precise plans on how to best use the existing Thayer, including how to make it more sustainable, though the redesign commits to reducing energy consumption.

With everyone involved in finalizing proposals, now seems like the best opportunity to have a say in Thayer’s renovation. If the plans follow the timeline, they would directly affect the ‘12s, ‘13s and ’14s, and it’d be something that we ‘10s and ‘11s would be coming back to in future visits to our alma mater.

The current renovation plan features an increase in Thayer seating from 700 seats to 1000, a change from the original plan to decrease the number to 600 seats. It has yet to be illuminated whether this change will improve the dining experience, or if the new plan will make it easier for people to work and cook. Maybe it will just turn into a suffocating zoo like our favorite morass, Collis, where the staff must constantly retrieve food from downstairs, and where we must constantly bump and spill coffee on other harried students.
One Collis is enough, thank you.

Also, there seems to be no official plan for the basement and 2nd floor, two potentially cool new social spaces. The Thayer basement—particularly the area with the ping pong tables—has a kitchen that is rarely used. I mean, there’s already a kitchen down there, and it would not involve drastic renovations. Plus, pubs are fun. I’m not thinking that it should be another Lone Pine necessarily—it was difficult to have a conversation there, too. I’m thinking more along the lines of Wellesley College’s Punches Alley and The Hoop—fun, relaxing, a good place to hang out with friends and, of course, a good place for face-time.

The main floor of Thayer could easily be divided and refurbished to look more welcoming and satisfying, or they could throw in a bunch more chairs and call it Class of 1953 Commons. The designers may have years of technical experience, but they don’t know what it’s like to eat at Thayer every day for four years; there exists no open forum between the designers and the staff and students. Parkhurst, where’s the line of communication? Let’s talk.

THE MASTHEAD
Editor-in-Chief: James H. Wang
Publisher: Amy Gu
Executive Editor: Amanda R. McNally
Managing Editor: Paul Lintilhac

If you thought you knew all that’s in the small town of Hanover, I have a surprise. I, too, thought I knew all the nooks and crannies of this small town until a few days ago. I took a shortcut between Eastman’s Pharmacy and The Gap, and I noticed for the first time an inconspicuous underground art gallery. Hasse Gallery, to be exact.

People like to say that you can run into fellow Dartmouth alumni across the globe. When they say this, I don’t think they expect you to meet one just across the street in Hanover. While the sentiment still holds as true, I’d like to add that you can meet some of the most interesting people—people such as Eric Hasse—right near campus.

Established in October 2006 with the support of friend and fan Paul Olsen, Hasse Gallery has been the gallery and studio space of Eric Hasse ’80. Hasse has early onset Parkinson’s disease, and is unable to talk or hold a brush. However, through his newly digitized method of artistic expression, he is still able to practice visual arts on a daily basis.

Unlike a “usual” art gallery, where exhibition openings are held with wine, cheese, and artsy schmoozers throughout trying to make superficial conversation and win facetime, Hasse Gallery looks—and is—anything but that. With several pieces in a store display window, a “for lease” sign for a home taped on the window, and the interior of the gallery containing as many artworks as Beast’s Library in Beauty and the Beast, Hasse Gallery is more of a secluded oasis and trove of discovery than just another pretentious art gallery. At Hasse, all that is important is art and the free-flow of expression. Fortunately, the gallery was open that day, and I finally had a free afternoon to check it out.

Born in Palo Alto, California, Hasse moved to Connecticut when he was 7 years old, where he adjusted to life on the East Coast. An English major who graduated Dartmouth in three years (to save money, he wrote, to which I agreed), Hasse has also been committed to literary arts, particularly poetry. Even though he has not continued writing poetry, he continues to publish his work—one of which was through an International competition published in 2008 and was on display at Oxford.

After graduating from Dartmouth, Hasse was a chef at the 5-star hotel The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, ran Jesse’s Restaurant in 1980-1981, and toured Europe, North Africa, and Greece for 10 weeks. After his time working professionally in the culinary arts and traveling, he came back to the Upper Valley to work in various aspects of finance and ultimately raising capital for Internet start-ups. Despite his life on the fringes of the corporate world, as an artistic person, Hasse continued to write poetry, read all of Carl Jung’s works, and picked up visual arts (sumi ink drawings) in the 1980s, the decade before his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease at age 35. He continued to work in finance until 2003, when the progression of Parkinson’s put him “at death’s door.” He writes that his health is “far better today since my deep brain stimulation neurosurgeries.” Still, the uncertainties of Parkinson’s causes him to be particularly vigilant of taking “each day as it dawns.”

Despite his condition, Hasse works at his gallery most days, creating giclées on canvas. Hasse defined a giclée as a French term meaning “ink spraying” to define the technical process of printing digital files. Currently, he scans different objects such as fabrics and combines different images into a single image. He particularly focuses on creating images from mundane objects I scan. Images from this series are extremely colorful with layers of texture, each seeming to accent the beauty of the objects within.

In some of his earlier works around 2003 with a focus on visual arts, he applied saturation to the black and white sumi ink drawings he made during the 1980s to produce color and create new works of art. Each digital image is made into a print, of which Hasse displays throughout his large gallery space. This entire process is done right in Hasse’s gallery, allowing him to be fully self-sufficient in making art. “I can’t imagine returning to paint. The possibilities for print series are huge,” writes Hasse, with a smile.

Besides displaying his work at the Hasse Gallery, Hasse is not interested in seeking fame or fortune, or to “fill the void with my visions in the usual careerist sense of narcissism.” He is most interested in “conveying my joy and wonder in the world of living,” especially his consideration of “the life immanent in all things and their luminosity—an outpouring of the spirit.” Carl Jung is one of his primary influences, particularly Jung’s idea of the Collective Unconscious. He also believes in the “Zen/Taoist concept of living in the present moment,” which is constantly apparent in his work.

Since The Dartmouth’s reporting of the opening of his gallery in 2006, Hasse has created 5,000 new prints. His goal is to make “10,000 digital images in honor of the Taoist ‘ten thousand things’ [their way of saying infinity] by my 30th reunion in June.”

Besides working at his studio, Hasse continues to “devour art books from the Sherman Art Library, make repeated visits to the Hood Museum of Art, and listen to and absorb more fully the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tsu.” With the help of his friends and family, he hopes to “continue my quiet work in the gallery space beneath The Gap…providing an oasis of contemplation in a boogie woogie world upstairs, outside, and far, far away.”

Amidst the countless aspiring artists and gallery owners, Hasse is indeed one of the most successful, though he may lack the grandiosity of more celebrated artists. Shedding the superficiality, prima donna attitudes, and unnecessary glamour associated with the arts, what Hasse conveys through his art and space is genuine curiosity and loyalty to the arts—a rare find these days with the loudness of the contemporary art world. In the manner he makes and presents his art, Hasse does have a unique voice to contribute to the contemporary art canon that should not be missed.

Finally, as I usually do with all Dartmouth alumni, I asked Hasse about how to make the most of one’s college years, and how to prepare for what’s to come after college. With that, I’ll leave you with his words:

“If you seek fame and fortune, I am not your counsellor. If you are in quest of a life comparatively contented and at peace with your modest place in the grand scheme of the Tao, I would encourage you to start your journey of a thousand miles with your first footsteps here at Dartmouth. Learn all you can from courses, experiences, and folks you meet along the road about the lessons of compassion and tenderness and let them ripple out from your center in the life ahead.

Finally, in the words of T.S. Eliot: ‘Teach us to care, and not to care. Teach us to sit still.’ …tough advice in our hustling world, but still the best if we are to survive as individuals, and as a species.

Oh, and have fun!”

Ornaments made by Claflin Jewelry Studio staff for sale. Photograph by Candais Crivello.

This past weekend several DFPers and I took a trip to the jewelry studio in the basement of the Hop. For most of us, it was our first time stepping into the studio, much less making jewelry.

If you’re curious about the jewelry studio, now is the time to go. Schedule a time in your planner and go with some friends. If you’re like me and don’t get around to it until senior year, you may regret passing up the jewelry studio for watching YouTube or playing Farmville all afternoon—save that for your 2 a.m. procrastination.

The jewelry studio offers much more than expected. You can make beaded bracelets and earrings, but metal engravings, rings, and soldering tools also (with supervision). Not everything that comes out of the jewelry studio is girly and froo-froo, either. It can be anything whatever you imagine. It doesn’t even have to be jewelry. Just check out some of the samples that are by the window or inside the studio; there’s a wide array of styles you can make.

You can also come in and fix broken jewelry or take apart your old jewelry to create new pieces. And, if you’re feeling really creative, you can probably bring in normal objects to turn into jewelry. That way, you can not only make something cool, but can also take pride in being sustainable. By using things you already have, you not only recycle and give use to your broken pieces, but you also save money on material costs. The studio accepts cash or DA$H for any costs, which are pretty reasonable. A simple silver ring, for example, only costs about three dollars.

Although I realize I’m waxing poetry on the jewelry studio right now, I know it’s not for everyone. First, it can be difficult to schedule a time to go to the jewelry studio while you’re busy with classes, organizations, hanging out, and living the Dartmouth life. Although the jewelry studio is open on Saturdays, it isn’t open on Sundays. The hours are pretty flexible during the week though it might become difficult to keep going to the studio during midterms and afterwards.

Secondly, if you want to make a super-amazing-extravagant-detailed-10-years-of-skill-necessary jewelry piece, you can’t do that if you only go to the jewelry studio once or twice. Generally you start with something simple, like a band ring or simple beaded jewelry, though you can elaborate on the first piece of jewelry you’ve made by adding a stone or engraving on it. If you want to get serious about making really stylized jewelry, you need to make going to the jewelry studio a commitment. You get what you put into your time at the studio. Like everything else, you’ll benefit the most when you do put in that effort.

Lastly, jewelry making isn’t for everyone, and that’s O.K. You might find that you absolutely hate making jewelry, that it’s too cumbersome, or your appreciation for jewelry stops at wearing it. Still, if you’re curious about the studio, it doesn’t hurt to try it. Find out if you enjoy it and spend a few hours in the afternoon or evening. At worst, you’ll come out with a shiny new ring, bracelet, or pair of earrings. You might even find that the woodshop next door or the pottery studio across the bridge in Norwich may be more your thing. Finding a new passion can be a fulfilling lifetime joy.

Beg’o'matic, Anyone?

Take a failed business idea, make it more costly to students by making them pay upfront instead of through their tuition dollars, and unleash it again! That’s a sound business plan—or at least Hanover Bucks thinks so.

Granted, one right thing they’re doing is catering the program to rich kids who don’t have enough time to call or e-mail their parents to ask them for money. Who else would want to use this program anyway?

You can tell that Hanover Bucks is definitely catering to the rich kids because it has a “Beg-o-matic” feature on their website to beg for money from your parents, similar to the “poke” feature we all used to poke our friends and crushes on Facebook four years ago.

Really?

Really.

I’m not joking. This is a real business initiative at Dartmouth. Having a currency similar to Disney Dollars, where there is no worthwhile incentive to use it instead of U.S. currency, is just ridiculous.

While the “Beg-o-matic” is amusing, it’s depressing how these developers think rich kids are distant from their parents and treat their parents as just money bags.

Maybe the developers did their research this time and found that rich kids do treat their parents like money bags. But based on how they’re bringing back a failed business plan with few improvements, I doubt it.

On the other hand, if you actually DO use it, feel free to write us at dfp@dartmouth.edu—though we reserve the right to ridicule you.

Should’ve Rocked The Green

On September 26th, Programming Board hosted “Big Green Live,” the fall concert to kick off the beginning of the year. More importantly, it was the first “extensive outdoor concert in recent history,” according to PB’s Budget Coordinator Caitlin Halpert. The concert was also a response to Dartmouth students’ extensive criticism that Programming Board’s past concerts were not inclusive of all students or in exciting outdoor venues.

I wasn’t too crazy about the featured performers—Gym Class Heroes, Wale, and Mike Posner; however, I’ve never been much of a music person either. The overall scene was overall pretty nice—even fun, and I usually never attend PB events. It even avoided the usual whiney opinion article from The D that no one ever reads anyway.

Holding a big concert for the entire student body outside with free admission (yes, free!) is the perfect recipe to create an awesome event for Dartmouth students. Extra props to PB for having some sweet, salty and fatty foods. My Nutella and banana crepe pretty much sealed the deal, though a part of me wished that we could have at least used DA$H to pay for the food. I whole-heartedly approve of the changes they made so far to the concert format and hope to see more refinements to PB concerts in the future.

However, despite providing the student body with some good changes, I’m not sure that they answered its concerns in the best way possible. Yes, the concert took place outdoors, but a fall opening concert should take place in the quintessential Dartmouth location—the Green. A prime location would have taken care of most of the logistical problems Big Green Live had. If Big Green Live had taken place on the Green, there would have been less confusion about whether this was a concert-type or a festival-type event, the flashy food stands would not have blocked the stage, and the event would have seemed more official, something very Dartmouth.

Before we pull out our pitchforks and head over to a PB meeting, this wasn’t entirely Programming Board’s fault. Now, PB certainly has its share of criticism, but the College is largely responsible and has a lot of input for available spaces, especially for concerts. Yes, the Green is reserved for special events and rightly so. After all, the College does need to maintain an image for Dartmouth. However, there simply aren’t enough events that receive the proper space they need to be a successful student event. Events like the PB concert need to have the Green as a potential option now and then. It’s a prime location to have a concert, and would make students happy, or at the very least, not as unhappy.

The College and the town of Hanover, both of whom co-own the Green, may say that the concert would be too loud, or that it would harm the grass, etc. If that’s the case, why do we have any of their “approved” events on the Green? If that’s what they want, let’s keep the grass green on both ends, Dartmouth. Of course, that’s not what any of us would want to do. What else is the Green for except to host a menagerie of Dartmouth events like Homecoming and the Native American Pow-Wow? Noise may be an issue, but that’s primarily if it is after certain hours. It isn’t unreasonable to have a fun event during the day—we definitely need some excitement and variety around here.

Essentially, what it comes down to are a few officials, from the College or town, who are opposed to student activities, fun, and enduring a little noise. Technically, as a private entity, Dartmouth officials can do whatever they want, but honestly, it just makes them seem as if they oppose change, even if it’s for the better. Come on, Dartmouth and Hanover, let us have some fun. Give us the space we need. We’ll complain a bit less and wander outside of Webster Ave. a bit more often. Isn’t that what some of you want? Let us have our social space and let our concerts succeed.