Monday, February 16, 2004

by Josh Hausman
Gazette Weatherman

Summary: This week will begin with a reminder that winter is still
here. Highs today are likely to remain below freezing and some light
snow is possible on Tuesday night. By the end of the week, however,
daytime temperatures are again likely to reach the 40s.

by Maki Sato
Gazette Reporter

On Friday and Sunday evenings, February 13th and 15th, Swarthmore
College presented Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera “Orfeo ed
Euridice,” which is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and his journey
for the love of his wife. Mark Thatcher ’06, who directed the
production, sang the leading role of Orfeo, the distressed lover who
desperately tries to reunite with his departed wife, Euridice. He
earned great praise for both his hard organizational work and
magnificent performance in the opera. Soprano Emily Shrader ’04 sung
the role of Euridice, and was also very compelling in her character,
whose sadness and pleas for her husband’s attention were too powerful
for Orfeo to resist. Tammy Ryan ’06 charmed the audience in her role as
Amor, the goddess of love. As the character brought joyous hope for the
tragic hero, Ryan brought a light-hearted relief to the audience,
eliciting laughter at times for her goddess’ levity of personality.

Andrew Hauze ’04 conducted the orchestra in a riveting performance
that both captured the characters’ emotions and captivated the
audience’s souls. Jessica Gersh ’06, a flutist in the orchestra, said
after the performance, “Even though my part was really small, I was so
glad to be a part of the production because it was incredible to work
with such amazing musicians and performers.” The orchestra was arranged
to one side of the stage while the performance occurred on the other,
bringing musicians and singers together in an equal display of talent.
The opera overall was entirely student-produced, from the direction to
the choreography to the costumes.

Student reactions to the opera were two thumbs up: Saurav Dhital ’06
commented, “I was impressed most by the costumes. The costumes were
really creative and eye-catching. Emily Shrader (Euridice) has a really
nice voice: when she started to sing, I was awed. Overall, the opera
was superb, and to think it was a student-production is mind-boggling.”

*****

* Democratic front-runner John Kerry of Massachusetts declared
himself “ready for what [the Bush administration will] throw at me” in
a debate in Wisconsin last night. With the Wisconsin primary coming on
Tuesday, Kerry leads in opinion polls across the state. Kerry added two
more victories over the weekend, winning the Nevada and Washington, DC
caucuses on Saturday. Having won those contests, Kerry has now won 14
of 16 contests so far. Overall the debate seemed to find the candidates
in good spirits, and both Howard Dean and John Edwards refrained from
attacking Kerry directly during the debate. Indeed, when Dean was asked
about a video ad released by the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign
criticizing Kerry’s record last week, Dean came to Kerry’s defense,
saying “I think George Bush has some nerve attacking anybody on special
interests.”

* India and Pakistan have opened the first formal peace talks in
more than two years in Islamabad, Pakistan. The primary purpose of the
meeting is to arrange a schedule under which negotiations can continue
and to ensure that the situation does not devolve into another extended
silence. Human rights organizations estimate that more than 60,000
people have been killed in the disputed province of Kashmir since a
military insurgency began 15 years ago. A series of meetings between
middle-ranking diplomats on Monday and Tuesday will lead up to a
meeting between the two country’s foreign secretaries on Wednesday.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee agreed to restart the peace process during a meeting in
January.

* Members of an opposition alliance in Haiti known as the Democratic
Platform held a demonstration on Sunday in Port-au-Prince shouting
“Down with Aristide” and saying that while they don’t support violence,
they do support the goals of the rebel insurgency that has killed
nearly 50 people in the past few weeks that seeks the ousting of
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Militants who support Aristide
crushed a similar demonstration on Thursday, stoning opponents.
Dominican President Hipolito Mejia announced on Sunday that Dominican
authorities would arrest any Haitian entering the Dominican Republic
who is suspected of taking part in the uprising.

That’s all for this week! Stay warm and stay safe this weekend.

*****

Academic Programs Abroad Info Meeting: Paris, France
Pearson 113, 12:00 p.m.

Lecture: “Then Maybe I’m Fabulous Too” by Marc Siegel of UCLA
LPAC Cinema, 4:15 p.m

Lecture: “Art History’s Black Subject: Edmonia Lewis, Cleopatra, and
the Failure of Description” by Dr. Kirsten Buick.
Scheuer Room, 4:30 p.m.

Tamar Yair Dalal Concert
Upper Tarble, 7:00 p.m.

SWILL Movie Night: “Adventures of Baron von Munchausen”
Science Center 101, 10:00 p.m.

*****

For questions regarding Cooper applications please contact any of
the following committee members: Syd Carpenter, Maurice Eldridge, Farha
Gannam, Ann Garrison, Jerry Levinson, Jeffrey Murer, Rich Schuldenfrei,
Daryl Smaw, Susan Smythe, Helene Shapiro, and students Tanya Aydelott,
Jyothi Natarajan, and Stephen Wang.

The deadline is Monday February 23rd at 12 noon. Applications should
be delivered to the Art Department office in Beardsley. No applications
will be received by the department of Music and Dance as originally
indicated on the application form.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

by Alex Glick
Sports Editor

The men’s basketball team was certainly not scared of the Green
Terror this past Saturday as they showed a little love to the hometown
Valentine’s Day crowd with a 66-61 win over McDaniel. This marked the
Garnet’s fourth win in a row in their hunt for a spot in the Centennial
Conference playoffs.

The Garnet basically owned the game, especially in the first half.
Jeff Maxim ’07 won the jump ball, but the Terror scored first. The
Garnet took the lead for good at 2:54 via a Matt Gustafson ’05
3-pointer; these 3 points were only the first of 24 total that we
scored before the half was over.

The Garnet’s offensive onslaught forced McDaniel into two timeouts
early in the first half. Swarthmore was able to capitalize on almost
all of McDaniel’s mistakes. Swat had many key rebounds and a few
important steals that led to big baskets. The Garnet defense was also
very good throughout the game as they made it very difficult for their
opponents to take a shot; one series of defensive maneuvering led the
Terror to become flustered and make a wild pass that would go out of
bounds. Swarthmore led McDaniel 37-27 at the half.

The second half had the home crowd roaring with what many believed
were a series of inconsistent calls, a great number of which involved
hand checks. Though McDaniel outscored the Tide by 5 points in this
half, it was not enough as Swat pulled out yet another victory.

Gustafson, who scored 3 from beyond the arc, cooled down in the
second half but led the scoring with 31 points. It was senior Jared
Passmore who was on fire in the second half though as he scored a
career high 12 points when his team needed it; he also added four
rebounds. Maxim added 11 points, while Jacob Letendre ’04 posted a
team-high 5 assists. Dillon McGrew ’07 and Chris Loeffler ’04 also
scored key points for the Tide.

Swarthmore, now 12-10 (9-6 in the CC) is tied for fourth place in
the conference with Gettysburg. The Garnet returns to action on
Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. at Washington in another crucial matchup. Swat
will close out the regular season with games against Gettysburg and
Haverford and hopes to stay in fourth place or better in order to make
the playoffs. You can catch the Gettysburg game next Saturday at 4:00
p.m. at Tarble Pavilion.

*****

by Alexis Reedy
Features Editor

What’s love go to do with it? A lot if you are playing tennis on
Valentine’s Day. Amid many and colorful Valentine’s Day cookies,
Swarthmore Men’s Tennis beat Temple University 5-2.

In doubles action, Swarthmore won one game 8-4 (played by Zach Rodd
’06 and Bryan Park ’06) and lost one game 8-4 (played by Ben Rae ’04
and Jon Reise ‘ 07). In the first seed doubles game, it was extremely
close up to the last play, where they lost the point due to a tragic
slip by Frank Visciano ’04, who was partnered with Mike Noreika ’05.
Swarthmore entered singles play down one point.

First to play were Rodd in the number 1 spot, Rae (#4) and Park
(#5). Rae was able to easily defeat his opponent 6-1, 6-2 . He says of
the win “I got ahead early. In the second set, he started to play a
little better, which made it a little harder for me in the end.” Park
took home a personal 6-2, 6-4 victory.

Rodd defeated his opponent in a close 7-5, 6-3 win. Rodd’s opponent
hammered at him with strong serves that pushed him to the end of the
court. Rodd on the other hand, varied his serves with smaller ones
intermixed with larger ones. After being behind for most of the first
set, Rodd was able to pull through at the end for his first set win.

Justin Durand pulled out another win against his #6 opponent with a
final score of 6-3, 6-1. Visciano etched out a close win against his #
3 opponent in three sets, 6-7, 7-5 and 6-0. The Temple Owls picked up
their second point against the Garnet in the number 2 match up of Reiss
and their Yhonny Murray.

In other action this weekend, the Garnet added its third consecutive
victory, this time with a score of 4-1 over Mount Saint Mary’s. Reiss,
Adam Wallwork ’07, and Sam Sidhu ’07 all picked up victories in singles
action with Visciano and Noreika earning the doubles win for the team.

The Garnet (3-0) play yet another Division I team next Saturday when
Saint Joseph’s takes on the Tide at 3:00 p.m. in the Mullan Center.

*****

by Maki Sato, Gazette Reporter
and Alex Glick, Sports Editor

The badminton team showed a lot of spirit yesterday at the Northeast
Collegiate and took second place overall but were unable to match first
place Howard University for the second year in a row.

The highlight of the day for the Garnet came with Anjali Aggarwal
’06 and Candice Cherk ’07, who reached the semifinals in the women’s
doubles competition to give them a spot in this year’s National
Championships. Andrew Sniderman ’06 made it to the men’s finals for the
second year in a row and also earned a nationals bid.

The rest of the Garnet team also played very well, including Jessica
Larson ’06, Ay Jy Phoun ’04, Laurel Beesemyer ’04, and Surbhi Gupta ’04
who won their way into the quarterfinals.

But it was Howard who captured first place in every bracket and who
took the win for the day. Many of the girls players seemed very relaxed
and composed throughout most of their sets. Their serves were light but
were able to get the job done, and their swings were hard yet graceful.

Most overall seemed to enjoy the tournament. Co-captain Liz
Leininger ’04 said, “It’s always an exciting tournament. We have a
large range of contenders and there’s lots of people here for the love
of it [badminton]. These are the players who consistently go to finals,
so they’re really good.” Wuryati Morris ’04 noted, “It’s always
exciting to play new people.”

Jeremy Loomis, coach of Swarthmore’s badminton team, said, “The
quality level of the tournament this year has improved. There are more
schools and it seems that they brought better players.”

The Garnet play again this Tuesday at rival Bryn Mawr at 7:00 p.m.

*****

Garret Ash set a new school record Saturday with a stunning
performance of 8:43.91 in the 3000 at the FasTrack Invitational at
Boston University. The previous record was set by Marc Jeuland with
8:45.41 in 2001.

*****

Though Katie Robinson ’04 and Ali Wolff ’06 made 16 and 15 points
respectively, the Garnet dropped Saturday’s game 57-48. Radiance
Walters ’06 managed 11 rebounds and Swat narrowed the lead to 7 points
with 5:07 left, but it wasn’t enough. Now, in order to make the
playoffs, the Garnet needs to win out and the Diplomats need to lose
all of their games.

*****

Today:
There are no contests scheduled for today.

Tomorrow:
Badminton at Bryn Mawr, 7:00 p.m.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before
breakfast.”
–Lewis Carroll

*****

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