Pol Rebaque/Staff

“Cloyne Court — Silence in an insane world,” wrote famous composer Ernest Bloch in Cloyne Court Hotel’s guestbook in 1944.

With 149 UC Berkeley residents during the school year and a reputation for hosting well-attended parties, the student housing cooperative now commonly referred to simply as “Cloyne” is, for many, no longer thought of as the tranquil oasis Bloch described.

Current house garden manager Ariel Cherbowsky has recently set out to restore what Cherbowsky’s manifesto called Cloyne’s “naturalistic charisma” by calling for residents to become involved in its garden. In his recently released 50-page work, titled “A Guide to Growing Cloyne Court Community Garden: A Hopeful Manifesto,” Cherbowsky makes a history-based critique of a current culture that he sees as being harmful to the land it occupies and outlines an idealistic vision for the cooperative’s future.

Cherbowsky’s manifesto begins 300 years ago with the land use of the Huchiun Ohlone tribe of Native Americans, tracing history through Spanish missions and subsequent European land speculating.

“It is actually a pretty solid piece of scholarship,” said Cherbowsky’s friend and current Cloyne resident Jake Rosen.

In the manifesto, Cherbowsky discusses maps and architectural reports, interprets logos and provides psychological diagnoses, developing a narrative that laments the spiritual loss of a land battered by what the manifesto calls the “trash of the intoxicated and the tossed junk of the inconsiderate.”

Cherbowsky, whose mother is a plant ecologist and father is a psychotherapist, has long been interested in how human relationships and ideas affect local ecology.

When Cherbowsky moved into Cloyne, he was inspired by the expansive space of the property but quickly encountered a major obstacle — the garden he saw potential for cultivating was directly adjacent to the paved courtyard, the primary site of Cloyne’s parties and social events.

As Cherbowsky swept up the broken glass and trash from Cloyne’s courtyard for his weekly co-op work shift, he began to think about the state of the house’s relationship to the land it was built on.

When Cherbowsky became co-manager of Cloyne’s garden in spring 2012, he began to investigate the role the garden played historically in the house’s culture and think of how the garden might reshape it in the future.

Ru Apt, a garden manager at Kingman Hall, a neighboring co-op a block away from Cloyne, reflected on the importance of a cooperative housing garden in maintaining larger groups’ values.

“The garden adds to the house’s image as sustainable, connected to the earth and mindful about food production,” Apt said.

Cherbowsky said that he couldn’t properly approach gardening in Cloyne without understanding the history of the way the land had been shaped in the past. He started to research old maps, journals, photographs and history books, in addition to sources as diverse as a student-created video ethnography from the 1990s “cloynarchy” era and a thesis on pre-Spanish Bay Area ecology.

“I want people to have conversations about how the land has changed so that we can transition to talking about how we want to interact with and influence our present-day landscapes,” Cherbowsky said.

Some house members disagree with Cherbowsky’s view that Cloyne’s parties are destructive to the property. Cloyne’s current social manager, Monica Finc, says that what she called Cloyne’s “party culture” is an integral part of the house, fostering a sense of unity that can be difficult to find in a large residence.

While Cherbowsky’s manifesto is filled with pictures of the trash-covered soil in Cloyne’s garden, it also depicts some of the natural beauty of the trees and plants that are thriving there.

In order to encourage positive additions to Cloyne’s natural landscape, Cherbowsky has passed a request through the house’s council to create funding for a system of land grants. Anyone from the house or surrounding community is invited to submit an application requesting funding, materials and land for gardening projects to take place within the property.

“Ari’s manifesto is a great example of the sort of member involvement that the coops thrive on,” wrote Graham Stanley, the live-in facilities manager at Cloyne, in an email.

Cherbowsky says he hopes that through his project, residents of Cloyne and the surrounding community will be encouraged to try to understand the history of the land they live on and feel empowered to shape it.

“It isn’t the only perspective,” Cherbowsky said, “but I have weaved together these stories in a way I thought would move people to become interested in how this land has come to its current form.”

Contact Micah Fry at mfry@dailycal.org

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rocor//creative commons

Contact Josh Escobar at jescobar@dailycal.org.

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At its meeting July 2, the council supported the Berkeley Student District Campaign map, which creates a student-majority district south of the UC Berkeley campus and could increase the chance of a student being elected to the council. However, a new amendment that was unfairly rejected at the meeting seems to suggest that the ASUC map could leave out students who live in International House, nine student cooperatives, and three dormitories on Northside.

Though the final decision on which map to implement is not expected until September, the council should ensure that all student voices are represented in the newly drawn district by reconsidering the amendment in the fall.

The Berkeley Student Cooperative provides housing to about 1,250 UC Berkeley students, with most of those students living in the two largest Northside cooperatives, Casa Zimbabwe and Cloyne Court. International House is home to 600 students and campus affiliates. Together, campus dormitories Foothill, Stern and Bowles house 1,248 students. Though these students represent just 8 percent of the total student population, they still deserve to be represented in a student district with their peers. If they are mixed into a regular residential district, their opinions may not have enough of an impact when it comes time to make a vote.

At the July 2 meeting, Mayor Tom Bates said he did not want to call the ASUC-sponsored district a student district, but rather that he wanted to call it a campus district. Bates and other councilmembers should recognize that although they may not want it to be a student district, the ASUC map that is supported by the council has created just that. It is only fair that students get the opportunity to have their voices heard on the council.

The council has long been considering redrawing voting districts. By passing the measure to redraw the district in the fall through Measure R, city residents voted to have the job done in a timely fashion. Thus, the decision that Northside student residences be included in this student district should be made immediately after the council returns from its summer recess and not go through another long, drawn-out process.

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Levon Minassian/Staff

Since the start of last fall semester, I have been one of two food managers at Cloyne Court, the largest house within the Berkeley Student Cooperative system.  I decided to run for the position the previous spring, when my fellow housemate Maddie Tien asked if I would join her in being responsible for food-related matters within our house of 150 members.

Food and kitchen managers in the Berkeley Student Cooperative are elected by the members of their houses, and their main tasks revolve around ordering food for common use and dinners. Some of the co-ops have only one, while larger houses like ours split the duties between two managers and have another two managers be in charge of the kitchen and its cleanliness. Our main job is to buy food for our respective houses based on the collective preferences of our members as well as a food budget that credits $9.35 per resident per day.

Each member has the ability to express dietary preferences regarding budget allocation through surveys, house meetings or other methods by which opinions are cultivated. This process occurs differently at each house, but a common norm is that members are very vocal about knowing where their food comes from and are eager to express their preferences. While some may see this as a privilege for students — not having to worry about eating enough food to get through college — I believe that this has been one of the most important values that living in the co-ops alerts you to and that will stay with members after they leave.

Having lived in Cloyne since Spring 2011, I’ve come to see multiple shifts in the house’s food preferences and simultaneous changes in the kinds of foods in the kitchen as well as a constant level of concern about where food has come from.  Sometimes, some voices would be much louder than others. Each semester, though, the debate within the house can be roughly boiled down to whether to buy with an environmentally responsible mindset or prioritize low costs, which surrounds the co-op’s mission statement of how to prioritize low cost and quality housing. While ordering food, I’ve tried to find a balance between the two concepts.

In determining how to find this balance, I’ve relied on our members’ constant comments and conversations to guide how I spend the budget. Some members only wanted organic quinoa cereals, and others preferred cereals laced in sugar. Some only wanted fair-trade chocolate chips, while others felt any chocolate chips were a staple, regardless of where they came from. Most of our members were happy with the cow we bought direct from a farmer in Petaluma, but I also received complaints that the levels of meat at dinners was both too high and too low. I only purchased organic produce, but whether we should buy in-season or local, depending on the price difference, also yielded differences of opinions. In our pantry, we purchased a mixture of organic dried goods, as well as commercial ones such as brown rice, to reduce costs.

My experience has convinced me that any time a large number college students are put in charge of feeding themselves, there is bound to be lots of disagreement. But living in a co-op, where members have an equal say and equal share, has ensured that these disagreements are resolved through deliberation and debate rather than arbitrary decision-making.

Holding the food manager position at Cloyne has given me the opportunity to have these conversations to determine what is best to order while incorporating the dietary preferences and concerns for the environment that our house has had.  I find great value in having them, because they have prompted me analyze where the food I order and eat comes from, how it is produced and whether it is cost-effective. When people see something in the way that food arrives on their plate that they don’t like, they should have the chance to voice their concerns about it. Being a part of the co-ops allows students to engage with the food system this way.

These conversations fulfill what I see as a simple responsibility we all have of knowing how our dietary habits affect the people that produce our food and the land it is produced on. One of the main things I have learned upon leaving Cloyne is that such dialogues need to be expanded in order for communities to understand how their diets relate to the issues of nutrition, food access, farm labor and environmental protection. The voices that I’ve been witnessing while ordering food over the past year makes me optimistic that such discussions are on the rise.

Contact Levon Minassian at lminassian@dailycal.org.

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Michael Ball/Staff

Clochella held at Cloyne Court this Saturday demonstrated that the local, independent music scene is alive and well at Cal.

An all-day event held from noon to 1 a.m., Clochella delivered as a music festival by constantly providing energetic live music throughout the day. Much like its namesake, Clochella had enough drinks and great vibes passed around. Clochella felt amicable and friendly to both residents and visitors. With two live band stages and a DJ stage, there were enough places to satisfy your dance or mosh-pit urges. And in between sets, you could easily find a place to lie down and rest in Cloyne’s backyard lawn and share a cigarette or drink with a fellow attendee.

As a concert venue, Cloyne Court held up extremely well. Sonically, there was rarely any overlap between the stages, which was surprising considering the stages’ proximity. The outdoor Panda stage attracted the most people throughout the day, as the early afternoon brought the perfect amount of sun, and the late night brought a cooling breeze to the sweaty indoors of Cloyne. The poorly named Swog Stage, located indoors in Cloyne’s dining area, attracted more thrash and punk bands, which provided more moshing and dancing than usual. And the Clonarchy Stage provided strobe lights and dance music for awkward couples to grind upon each other. But the acoustics for each area were well-adapted — never too loud and never too soft. If anything, the proximity of the stages made the music more seamless. After hearing the band Wheel On! play a cover of Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair,” you could, within 30 seconds, walk to the DJ stage and dance and rave along to Kanye West’s and Jay-Z’s “Ni**as in Paris.”

Clochella stands as one of the largest co-op concerts, which are not really advertised within the UC Berkeley community as a whole. If you are not caught up with the latest events at Cloyne or any of the other co-ops, it would be easy to make the mistake of thinking that the local music scene at Cal is dead. Besides 924 Gilman, located about 20 minutes away from campus in West Berkeley and known for its straight-edge no-alcohol policy, there are not many “basement show” venues near campus. The closest place to get your low-key live-music fix would be in Oakland, and after 1 a.m., you would be out of luck catching BART back to Berkeley. For an unadvertised event, Clochella had a modestly large turnout. If there was one thing to take away, it’s that there is an audience for this type of concert at Cal.

If you had only observed the crowd, Clochella felt like any other party full of people in their early 20s hanging out and drinking cheap alcohol on a Saturday afternoon. But local live music transformed Clochella from another college party to an event that embodies Berkeley’s culture. For an event that was about music, the experience of the show surmounted any individual act. Clochella showed that parties in Berkeley don’t have to consist of getting drunk off of jungle juice and dancing to bad remixes of Billboard’s Top 100 songs. There is an audience interested in listening to great live music, and one can only hope for a music fest bigger and better than Clochella here in Berkeley.

Contact Art Siriwatt at asiriwatt@dailycal.org. Check him out on twitter at @artsiriwatt.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the Swog stage as the Swag stage.

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Ha Duong/Staff

Despite both being relatively new to the music industry, headliners Hospitality, recently signed to heavy-hitter Merge Records (Arcade Fire, Conor Oberst, Camera Obscura, etc.) and openers Waterstrider exhibited their strong musical artistry and immense potential last Thursday at the Rickshaw Stop, hosted by Popscene. However, potential should not be taken as an implication of novice in either — their performances were adept and equal to more seasoned bands.

Before the official show started, Popscene DJs enlivened the scattered masses. Energy exploded onto the floor as concert-goers came together to dance and socialize. Waterstrider band members were some of the leading dancers, undoubtedly foreshadowing the spirited performance to come.

Once Waterstrider took the stage, cheers and shouts rang throughout the crowd. As former UC Berkeley students, the band formed out of the co-op Cloyne Court, where they still practice. There were sure signs of this as the crowd’s enthusiasm proved the band’s solid local following; however, by the end of the night, anyone that wasn’t already a fan surely converted.

Primarily playing from their debut EP Constellation, released last August, the band began with dim lights and gentle strums. Like their album title, the stage quickly became streaked with radiant glows that illuminated among the celestial yet earthy melodies formed out of the band’s muscianship. Performing with an array of instruments — a recorder, flute, ukulele and bongo drums, to name a few —  made their sound refreshing, quenching the thirst of listeners accustomed to the presumably stagnant music industry.

Perhaps the key to the band’s success that night was in their mannerisms, seemingly characterized by comfort and honesty. During the show, knowing smiles were exchanged and shoes were removed. Their genuineness and sincerity burst forth, completely unrestrained — not only did their music connect with the audience, but so did the honesty with which they performed. Their music visibly bled through their rhythmical movements, unquestionably infecting their listeners.

Still, their music speaks for itself. When their performance came to a close, the audience demanded more. Their encore made Waterstrider the first Popscene opener to do so, hopefully indicating the success in store for the sextet as they record their new album this summer.

Regardless of the talents of the opening band, the trio that makes up Hospitality, backed by drummer David Christian, did not fail to match the preceding performance. While the band spoke little and their style differed from that of the previous act, Hospitality had a rapture of their own. With front woman Amber Papini’s charming (yet surprisingly American) accent, tinged with melancholy, her guileless and upfront lyrics tied together with relentlessly upbeat songs

Each of the band’s songs seemed to be a story of its own — an example includes their arguably best-known song “Betty Wang,” a profile of admiration. Live, this translated into disparate experiences song after song. The variety was welcomed by the crowd, and though assumed to be fatigued by Waterstrider’s performance, they continued to dance with excitement.

While every song distinguished itself from the others, Hospitality’s developing signature bolstered their performance as each song tended to build to an explosion, a culmination of sound that threaded the separate instruments into one. Rather than disjointed strums and clangs, the band’s sounds became much more whole and unified than their recently released self-titled record lets on.

Sharing little more than their pop sensibilities, Hospitality’s minimalist, stream-of-consciousness rock and Waterstrider’s African, atmospheric beats made for a versatile and more than satisfying set. Filled with earnestness, both bands artfully moved their audience – physically and emotionally – infusing them with their contagious compositions.

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The mother of a former UC Berkeley student whose son sustained brain damage as the result of a drug overdose sued the Berkeley Student Cooperative and the UC Board of Regents Tuesday.

Madelyn Bennett claims that the cooperative failed to exercise reasonable and diligent care and supervision at Cloyne Court, allegedly resulting in ongoing illegal activities including the sale of illegal drugs. Plaintiff attorney Charles Kelly, II said the regents failed to provide adequate supervision or education for former student John Gibson, now 23, and other cooperative residents about responsible drug use and that certain policies discouraged students from contacting emergency responders or 911.

According to Bennett’s lawsuit, filed in the Alameda County Superior Court, Gibson sustained an anoxic brain injury after he and his roommate at the time ingested illegal drugs around St. Patrick’s Day in 2010. The lawsuit states that roommates attempted to perform CPR after finding Gibson the next morning with bluish lips, seemingly not breathing. He remained in the house for an additional two hours before emergency responders were called, according to the lawsuit.

Kelly said medical bills for Gibson are over $500,000 per year and that although a formal demand has not been made, any settlement would include future medical treatment, which now includes round-the-clock nurses. This future medical treatment could cost millions of dollars, he added.

UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said the campus is saddened about the injuries Gibson sustained and that although the campus cannot be held legally liable for the consequences of illegal drug use, it will continue to “work hard with the co-op to educate members about drug abuse.”

Although the lawsuit has been filed, Kelly said it would be at least two weeks before it is served. He added that he has not spoken with anyone from the university or the cooperative about the case.

“Illegal activity of any kind is prohibited,” said Jan Stokley, executive director for the cooperative. “The distribution of drugs on co-op property is strictly banned.”

The fall 2010 “Pirate Code” for the house — a packet which outlines house rules for its residents — does not include a policy on drug use, though it does address issues such as noise violations and smoking.

According to the cooperative’s Board of Directors website, the board adopted a new three-part strategy to address substance abuse in December 2010.

“These ideas came out of conversations held between Cloyne and BSC leadership and UC administrators in the wake of the two drug incidents at Cloyne in Spring/Summer 2010,” the website states.

Stokely said the cooperative is a student-run housing operation with student on-site managers trained to supervise the operations at Cloyne.

However, Kelly said a that third party on-site manager might be better suited than a student manager to oversee the cooperative’s activity, and that the case seeks to prove that the university and the cooperative administrators knew or should have known about illegal activities at Cloyne.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the lawsuit was filed Thursday. In fact, it was filed Tuesday.

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