What Brothers Lacks - Thoughts on Authenticity

Often a place or an experience is declared so [negative adjective] its [positive adjective]. To me this is a hallmark of an authentic experience. Perhaps the best illustration of this concept can be found in the bars of Champaign. The most authentic bar is by far the Illini Inn. Almost anyone who has ever set foot inside would describe the bar as so shitty its good. The Inn has graffiti on the front door, broken neon signs, a sticky floor, three beers on tap a dartboard and some really dirty bathrooms. The owners of the Inn maintain the place only to the minimum level and offer no special deals or gimmicks to get people in the door; The place is always crowded due to some unknown appeal I refer to as authenticity. Each small detail of the Inn experience would be next to impossible to reproduce anywhere else but was not even considered by the owners of the Inn. The are no deep considerations as to where the decorations were placed other than available space on the wall. The half-functioning, one bartender, drink-with-a-bunch-of-middle-aged-townies-and-retired-Chicago-firemen ambiance exudes pure authenticity.

The opposite of the Inn is a far inferior establishment known as Brothers. Everything which is right with the Inn is wrong with Brothers. After having only spent a few minutes in the bar I knew it was more devoid of authenticity than a cave is of light. The two year old graffiti of the Inn is replaced by larger than life advertisement of Brother’s drink specials. The line stretches out the door only to lead to a bouncer who charges $5 for those under 21 and nothing to those of age; a clever policy to maximize profits. Each night features a new gimmick to get people in the doors whether it be wings night, cheap pitchers or any other crafty ploy. The rail-thin, tattooed bartender of the Inn is replaced by trendy, good looking college kids waiting to serve the throngs of carousing students. During my sole attendance of this inferior establishment the experience was hollow. I felt as though I was riding the pot pie machine from chicken run. Instead of being turned into a pie, I was being sold the cookie cutter ‘good time’. The homey, dive personality of the Inn is the opposite end of the authenticity spectrum from the loud, sterile, mass produced demeanor of Brothers. Brothers is a bar which takes itself far too seriously catering to an audience of kids who take themselves too seriously.

Perhaps to provide more examples of authenticity, it would help to consider other Champaign bars. KAMS has the school spirit, UofI tradition, orange and blue, rah-rah, lets get obliterated market so far on lockdown it even calls itself 'the home of the drinking Illini'. Anyone who has seen the KAMS commercial on TV has witnessed '10,000 watts of fun' and 30 seconds of pure authenticity. JOE'S calls itself a micro brewery yet has stripper poles on the dancefloor; to my knowledge a combo only found one place in the world. Murphy's has generations of woodcarvings on every table. Even the deafening groping pit known as Red Lion shows more authenticity than Brothers. The thing all those places have in common is the lovable, so-shitty-its-fun, uniqueness only found in one place on the face of the earth. Brothers can and does exist all across the country.

The idea of authenticity is not limited simply to the realm of college bars, in fact it extends into almost every human endeavor and has been a philosophical question for thousands of years. For me, authenticity can be found when a person, group or establishment completely ignores external pressures and instead focus on what they themselves feel is important regardless of the expected result.

Under this definition questioning authenticity is self-defeating. As soon as you question it, you are considering the influence of outside pressure which by my definition yields said experience inauthentic. This ephemeral nature makes authenticity hard to identify and even harder to achieve. Perhaps the best way to achieve authenticity is to not consider it at all. Below are examples of things I consider authentic.

Authenticity is cussing bond traders (http://youtu.be/npAWlZGlqLk?t=1m35s)

Authenticity is the Illini Inn

Authenticity is beer league softball

Authenticity is trash in national parks (I'll explain)

Authenticity is NOT Brothers.

Authenticity is NOT PAUL KWIAT

Authenticity is NOT that fedora guy in your physics discussion

Authenticity is NOT putting a 26.2 sticker on your minivan after running a marathon

All authentic things have a subtle, genuine quality which cannot be quantified, and certainly not faked. One simple way of testing authenticity is to ask "If I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, would I still do this?" Some of the actions listed above would easily fail this test the most notable being wearing a fedora and running a marathon. The example of trash in a national park is a curious one and one I admittedly took from Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The the novel, the narrator visits Crater Lake national park and takes note at the museum-like preservation of the parks, particularly the lack of litter. The author notes this would be realistic thousands of years ago, but in modern society a forest absent of trash is unusual, unnatural and inauthentic. The passage is below.

"We arrive at the turnoff to Crater Lake and go up a neat road into the National Park...clean, tidy and preserved. It really shouldn't be any other way, but this doesn't win any prizes for Quality either. It turns it into a museum. This is how it was before the white man came...beautiful lava flows, and scrawny trees, and not a beer can anywhere...but now that the white man is here, it looks fake. Maybe the National Park Service should set just one pile of beer cans in the middle of all that lava and then it would come to life. The absence of beer cans is distracting." (page 307)

I very much enjoy our nations national parks and have no problem to paying the permit fees to keep the trails clean and well marked. I feel the preservation of the natural wonders is important but with regards to authenticity, I agree with Pirsig's stance. It also reveals the transient nature of authenticity. What is authentic today may not be tomorrow and vice versa. As I mentioned before, people have been debating abstract concepts such as authenticity for millennia and I don't claim to have any definite answers. Except for the unequivocal fact that Brothers lacks it.

The RLA

 Synesthesia: The Reactive Lighting Array



Using an Arduino UNO, some LEDs and a bit of Pure Data I was able to hack together a surprisingly agile lighting array. The key ingredient is a wonderful library called Pduino which allows the Arduino to talk directly to Pure Data using the Firmata firmware. With this communication in place processing the audio and lucifying the sounds was no trouble at all. The RLA has a couple modes of operation, the most dramatic of which is reactive mode shown in the video above. The code is on my github under the project name 'RLA'.

Some screen shots

The setup interface 

Light controlling interface

The reactive calculations

The Seven Boroughs of Campustown

Champaign Student Housing - An Unscientific analysis.

The 7 Boroughs of Campustown

Off-campus housing is a central part of the student culture here at the University of Illinois; approximately 75% of all undergrads (everybody but freshman) live in non-university housing. Perplexed by this large percentage and intrigued by the apparent self separation of the students, I have taken it upon myself to investigate the culture of off campus housing.

The borders of campus and campus town are fairly well defined. The train tracks mark the western border, University Ave marks the northern border Kirby/Florida marks the southern border. The eastern boundary is a bit less concrete, however I have not heard of anyone living east of McCullough.

Within this trapezoid lies campus and most of the off-campus housing. It would be easy to take a random sample of 20 apartments in this box and call it a day, but to paraphrase somebody important I chose to do this not beacuse it is easy, but because it is hard.

To make things more interesting, I divided the greater campus area into 7 areas which I claim to be culturally unique. A brief overview of the boundaries of each borough as well as a couple sentences about the culture as I see it along with an average price and standard deviation for an apartment or house in that region. Details of my methodology can be found at the end of this post.


The first borough I consider is my own neighborhood, the Green Street Strip. Green Street is considered to be the social and ecomic hub of campustown. Home to many restaurants, bars, shops and a growing number of high rises, real estate on the strip is at a premium. The asute observer will notice more than just green street is included in the green box. I have taken the liberty to include the apartments above TIS, Fat Sandwich and the surrounding area as it is closer in price to Green Street proper.

Region 1: Green Street
Who Live here: Complacent rich kids
Average Cost: $668 / Person month (s = 117)
Advantages: You live on Green Street
Disadvantages: $$$

The second neighborhood considered lies just north of Green Street. I do not take credit for the name browntown; the boundaries of this borough were explained to me when I was touring a house last spring. As the name suggests, Brown Town is predominately inhabited by those of Indian descent. Due to the close location to the engineering quad and a block or less from green street, Browntown ranks as the second most expensive place to live.

Region 2: Brown Town
Average Cost: $462 (s = 112)
Pros: Close to class /bars /food
Cons: Expensive and small floor plans

Yet again a name not coined by me but rather by a former roommate of mine who once lived in this loosely defined area. It serves as more of a catch all than a definite cultural area.

Region 3: China Town

Who lives here: Those from the suburbs of Chicago or suburbs of Beijing
Average Cost: $454 (s = 95)
Pros: Close to the new ECE building
Cons: Good luck getting to the arc

The part of campustown which lies below Green, above Gregory, East of First and West of 4th I refer to as the frat borough due to the high concentration of frat houses and a park colloquially known as 'Frat Park'. The close proximity to Green Street, the ARC and the quad makes the frat borough a desirable place to live. As expected the great location pushes the average rent up. Don't expect to have quiet neighbors.

Region 4: Frat Borough
Who lives here: People who go out a lot.
Average Cost: $454 (s = 95)
Advantages. Close to most things
Disadvantages: LOUD

Known to some as senior town, I prefer to call this region the Booze Borough due to its proximity to Picadilly, DP Dough and nothing else. At just over a 0.5 miles to the quad at the closest point the Booze Borough isn't exactly close to anyones classes. Scenic features of the Booze Borough include a coal burning power plant, freight rails, a large warehouse and a gravel pit. The remoteness and overall dilapidation of this area are reflected in the average rent, the second lowest of all boroughs though new developments are driving it up.

Region 5: Booze Borough
Who lives here: DUDES
Average Cost: $428 (s = 131*)
Pros: Close to Picadilly, Beer Barn and DP dough
Cons: Class? 

* the most inexpensive apartment was found here at 204/person month

Geographically speaking, the smallest of any region considered is also the cheapest. Only about 4 blocks of CS kids separate the Siebel Center from Lincoln Avenue. I guess its nice if you take nothing but CS classes.

Region 6. Siebel Borough
Who Lives here: CS kids
Average Cost: $397 (s = 122)
Pros: Close to the Siebel Center
Cons: Food?

The street signs refer to this area as 'Historic Urbana' but I prefer the more concise term hippie borough. A quick saunter through the cobbled streets will reveal houses with names such as 'The Harvest House' and 'The Painted Tree'; a far cry from the kiddie pools full of beer kegs found in other parts of campus. The hippie borough is almost entirely houses although some apartments can be found closer to Lincoln. The going rate for a house is seemingly fixed at 2000/ month so pack 'em in to save some green.

Region 7: Hippie Borough
Who Lives here? Hippies
Average Cost: $436 (s = 93)
Pros: You live in Urbana
Cons: You live in Urbana

Methodology:
I used the internet to look up the posted rent for various properties. If a range was listed, I took the average of the extremes. The commentary is from my own observations and experiences from the past 2.5 years down in the 217.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet. If you are in the crowd sourcing mood, feel free to add a pad in the proper column to extend this experiment.

The War on Unofficial

It is a fact that all big ten universities worth their salt have a drinking holiday. Wisconsin has Halloween, Indiana has the Little 500, Northwestern has Dillo Day and the University of Illinois has Unofficial St Patrick's Day. A little bit of history to get all readers up to speed: The university always schedules spring break to coincide with St. Patrick's day in an effort to make large scale drinking doesn't take place on campus. However in 1996 a creative bar owner decided that it doesn't need to be St. Patrick's Day to party like its St. Patrick's Day and Unofficial was born. Unsurprisingly, the nascent  holiday was a big hit among the student body.

Fast forward to 2013. Unofficial is bigger than ever. Unofficial buzz has been heard across the campus; from the seats of the MTD to the labs of the DCL, March 2nd is the number one topic on everybody's mind. Websites and facebook pages have been set up for peddling overpriced, unoriginal t-shirt designs, shifts for jobs have been rearranged, cases upon cases of beer have been purchased. Some students are even dedicated enough to plan their semester's schedule around freeing up March 2nd.

Unlike any of the aforementioned drinking holidays, Unofficial lacks on crucial element, central planning. From my limited understanding of the workings of the Little 500 and Dillo Day, the respective institutions or a directly affiliated group is responsible for the planning and execution of the event. Although the UW Madison Halloween party is not university sanctioned, it is one, singular event unlike the scattered, potpourri of underage drinking found on Unofficial. The is no central attraction such as a parade or a concert but rather drinking for the sake of being intoxicated. 

Much like the United States' war on drugs, the UIUC Administration employs a similar, non-compromising abatement strategy. To further the analogy, the war on Unofficial is colossal failure. The university spends copious amounts of time, money and personnel in a Sisyphean quest to fully eradicate Unofficial. About a month in advance, several warning emails are sent to everybody associated with the university. On the day of Unofficial, one can find increased Police activity in and around campus, guards in front of large lecture halls, all RAs on duty in all the dorms; some dining halls even close earlier than normal. 

Despite  the extensive measures the popularity of the holiday continues to grow. Thousands of  green-clad party-goers will still take to the streets to celebrate the death of a Irish monk from the dark ages on the wrong day regardless of  what UIUC says or does. The University fails to accept the fact that each one of us is an adult who understands there are risks and repercussions associated with certain kinds of behavior.

<possibly false economic reasoning>
From a purely economic perspective, the cross price elasticity for participation in Unofficial is very inelastic. Unofficial is weather, repercussion, price inelastic just to name a few. For example, one cost of walking around drunk on a cold, rainy day is the possibility of falling and the loss of utility (time, destruction of clothing, expense of a trip to the emergency room, etc) associated with that. By testing the limits of possible scenarios it is not hard to imagine the worse the weather, the fewer people will participate in Unofficial. The rate at which the two are related is the elasticity of Unofficial, and I claim that the weather elasticity of Unofficial is very inelastic, meaning if the weather is bad, roughly the same amount of people will participate.
</possibly false economic reasoning>

Tolono

Earlier this month, the weather was unseasonably warm for December so I decided to ride my bicycle far. My target destination was Tolono, Illinois, a small town about 10 miles south of Champaign. Now is where the rant starts. For all the people out there who claim that Champaign is not in the middle of nowhere, the rest of this post is for you . You couldn't be more wrong. On my ride, the streets stopped having names about a mile and a half into the ride; there were no buildings other than barns after about two and half. When I see like garbage like this

I can't help but cringe. These creative film maker forgot to show images like this

Those buildings you see; that's campus. Right next to the farm. If you look closely, you can make out more corn on the other side of the patch of trees that is Champaign All the people that have been down to Champaign know that south of this shot(It is a north-facing picture) is nothing but corn. And Tolono. I see absolutely nothing urban about this bucolic scene. The people who claim Champaign is a fast growing city may be correct, but in its current state there is very little urban-ness to be found here.

Jim vs Red Lion

For the maybe two people that frequent this blog, ya'll knew Lion was a rant waiting to happen. Last Thursday, I got my first Red Lion experience; based on the the people I was with, it was a good night to go. When we rolled up at around 11:00, the line of sorostitutes was all ready out the door and growing quickly. For most UIUC students this was the last night for (gasp) a week to get their Lion on. After about 10 minutes of waiting in the Red Line, I presented my state ID to the ID checker who glanced at it for just longer than the Planck Time. I handed one crispy Lincoln to the cashier, and I was in.

As a second year student, I have never experienced an Illinois sans Red Lion, but apparently it opened for business just months before I arrived for orientation. Keeping this fact tucked in the back of my mind I slowly inched forward in the alien world of graphic tees and "button-up, stripy, going-out-to-get-laid shirts".(Seriously, click that link) My jungle guides on this quest are a team of seasoned Lion veterans. The first thing I noticed about the bar its size. From the exterior the building doesn't appear to be spacious, but upon entrance I realized that it is simply one, large open room. Another puzzling aspect was the decor. Large pennants and flags drape from the steel rafters giving the impression that I had just walked into a Dark Age Mead Hall. I half expected to see Grendel's arm hanging from the rafters.

As a waded through the swamp of people the lights dimmed and the music became louder, as though the bar was only allowed a certain amount of power to split between the lights and the sound system. As I was bushwhacking my way, an attractive waitress offered me a shot from her tray. I declined, but took note on the apparent ease of purchasing at this fine establishment, The bar is arranged like a NASCAR track with the bar as the infield, so naturally the party-goer field exhibits vector curl. After completing one full lap, I found the urge to use the facilities. Upon walking into the water closet, I   started to become more aware of the industrial scale of Red Lion. The Men's Room was a circular chamber with urinals lining the entire wall making it the most efficient restroom I had ever seen.

Into my second lap, I had lost all of my jungle guides but two. These two were anxious to get up on the dance floor to "rub our 3/4 boners into some sloot's ass" The term dance floor is a bit misleading as there is no actual floor or actual dancing. The dance floor comprises of a plywood stage and 4 tables. Dancing is taken to mean standing and drunkenly swaying back and forth with a member of the opposite sex. A more accurate moniker for this area would be the groping tables. I was charged with the task of plowing us through the ever growing crowds. Upon arrival at the other end of the groping tables, I found myself alone; the two had been engulfed by the ever-rising tide of humanity.

I found myself alone in a hostile environment. Desperately I searched for someone, anyone I was familiar with. In a last ditch effort, I looked in the outdoor smoking beer garden to see if any of the early defectors were taking a break, A quick scan of the crowd turned up nothing so I headed back inside to resume the search. From behind me I heard my name being called. Instinctively, I turned my head and searched for the origin but found nothing, Again, I heard it and looked closer. To my surprise, the person hailing me was none other than the girl who drove me when I was a junior in high school. To make things more bizarre, she was dressed as a bunch of grapes. A brief, uneventful conversation ensued and I cut my losses and headed home.

The solitary walk back proved to be most enlightening for processing my Lion experience. Everything about the bar was designed with one purpose in mind; casual sex. Lion is a product of the raucous, contemporary hook up culture and was designed for maximum effect. Like the Chicken Pot Pie Machine from Chicken Run, Lion delivers astounding efficiency in facilitating hook ups. The low lights obscure what it is you're grinding on. The loud music makes conversation near impossible. The constant stream of cheap alcohol keeps everybody loose. Patrons circulate in loops until finally they bump into someone with whom to "dance". The whole process repeats itself hundreds of times each night. People flock to Lion every weekend with the confidence that a hookup is less than 3 beers and 30 minutes away.

Eplilouge:

I was relaxing on a couch in my dorm, when one of the people I lost at the bar strolls down the hall, girl on his side. We make quick eye contact and he only says one word while nodding his head. "Lion".

In Defense of the MRS Candidates

Why am I in college? My answer to that question is always I am in college to gain the skills and connections necessary for future economic stability and self actualization. Keep that definition in the back of your mind.

Here in Champaign, there are a plethora of students who work their asses off in the library striving for the 4.0. Some are active members of 10+ clubs, some volunteer 20 hours a week. These dedicated young adults definitely fit into my definition of success in college. However, there is a definitely more than one way to skin a cat. Enter the MRS candidate. 

The MRS (Master of Residential Science) degree is not easy to attain and, especially in this economy, one that has a more than a bit of risk involved. First off, the buy in is steep; probably around 30,000 a year perhaps more just to go to UIUC.  The time commitment is also incredulous as MRS candidates usually are required to go out 5 times a week. The sheer amount of time spent on Green Street may cause their gpa's in unmarketable majors to plummet leaving them totally out of luck if they fail on the in the MRS program.

In addition to the great deal of risk involved, the MRS degree can be physically tolling. Most MRS candidates are required to spend at least 45 minutes on the elliptical a day and another 45 doing glute exercises. On top the the workout regimen, the incessant over consumption of cheap alcohol and screaming is thought to cause a condition known as sorority voice. 

Possibly the most challenging aspect of the MRS degree is the sense of impending failure. From day one of their freshman year these young women only have 35,040 hours to complete their degree. In the wise words of Apollo 13 Mission Control Director Gene Kranz, "Failure is not an option". Truly the sword of Damocles hangs low above the heads of MRS candidates. 

So next time you are complaining about your ECE 534 exam, remember that you don't have it so bad.