What can I say about The Cave Dwellers? Firstly, the story is nonsense. I hate to start the review off negative, but I just needed to get that out of the way. The central romance of the story between The Duke (Tyler Nunez, senior) and The Girl (Donna Bella Litton, freshmen) is erratic, falling in and out of love over the matter of days, with a narrative conclusion that leaves much to be desired. The absurdity of the courtship makes Gorky the Bear’s (Matt McMillan) appearance seem ordinary. There’s my gripe. But, what ultimately saves the show is the committed performance of each and every cast member. Nunez’ punch-drunk Duke seems to recognize the heightened reality of the show, appropriately mumbling some of his line delivery, while still nailing the dramatic beats. Litton, who has the most underwritten role of the ensemble, acts as the audience surrogate, but gives hints of a sadder complexity beneath her doe-eyed innocence. As freshmen, it’s exciting to think what Litton has in store for audiences with more experience and juicy material. Rounding out the quartet of leads are The King (Colin McIntire, junior) and The Queen (Avery Cartwright) who bring their college veteran experience to their loquaciously eccentric roles. The scene stealers though, intentionally or not, were McMillan’s Gorky the Bear and Father (Hamilton Turner), his Russian bear trainer. The duo show tremendous chemistry, and elicit big laughs from primarily physical comedy. It should be noted too, that this was PAD’s first show “in the round,” on the the stage of the proscenium theater. All the performers adjusted competently, with any unintelligible lines few and far between. For those looking for a thought provoking show, you may have been disappointed. But, for any fan of top notch...

Marina Woollven, a Creative Writing junior from Texas, recently won third place in Playboy Magazine’s annual College Fiction Contest. Playboy has long had a prestigious reputation for publishing short stories by some of the most notable authors of our time, and it is an honor to have Woollven’s work recognized out of the thousands of submissions for the contest. Jackalope Magazine sat down with Marina to discuss her winning story, “Atlas,” and her life as a writer.   Jackalope Magazine: Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Marina Woollven: I’m from San Antonio, Texas. My interests are TV, lots of TV! I’m a huge TV junkie! I like TV series much more than movies but I do love movies. I dabble in photography. Sometimes I draw. I collect dolls, so that’s a thing!   JM: Why did you want to become a writer? MW: I’ve always been fascinated and addicted to storytelling. I just felt that I had things to say. I love to read, and I wanted to put something out there. I’m very grateful I chose this path.   JM: Could you tell us about the story that you won third place with in the Playboy College Writing Competition? MW: It’s called “Atlas”, and essentially it’s a sci-fi piece set in the future and it focuses on this very young housewife named Marcy, and she’s recently married but her husband has just decided to go on a trip for six months. So, she’s getting lonely, and she ends up purchasing a very human-like robot that she calls Atlas, and the story is kind of focusing on the relationship, but really, it’s about the human desire to not feel alone and the different ways in which we fulfill that.   JM: How did it feel when...

The weekly Awkward Shelby Comic is created by SFUAD studio art major Shelby Criswell. For more of Criswell’s work, check out the Awkward Shelby Comic series and her Tumblr....

Protesters gather at Santa Fe’s Hobby Lobby to denounce its policy on reproductive healthcare for women.

Driscoll Fitness Center Director Ron Nunnelly gives the lowdown on working out at the DFC.

SFUAD graduate C Alex Clark discusses ‘soft glitch’ photography in this audio-visual interview.

Complaints about the wifi on campus are a common refrain for SFUAD students. Although students received an email Sept. 2 asking for patience and promising a remedy for internet issues, student sentiment remains largely unchanged regarding connection issues. Jackalope spoke with the Information Technology Department several times since the start of the semester. Department employees maintain there is enough bandwidth and capacity to accommodate students on the network. “Students are averaging 250 megabytes per second a day. The full bandwidth is 600 megabytes per second, and students are nowhere near it,” Joshua Billiter, the residential network system administrator, says. “The fact that it’s sluggish is because of network engineering conflicts that we have since worked out.” In other terms, at the time of various interviews with IT, 1,218 different devices were connected to the school’s internet. That number represents Xboxes, Playstations, computers, phones, tablets—any device connected to the hardwire internet in the dorms, and anything else with any wifi connectivity. The hardwire internet, IT student employee Dylan Marlow says, “generally does not make internet faster because we give you 100 megabytes per second in your room, and typically a computer doesn’t work that fast.” However, students who “game a lot,” he says, may find use for the hardwire, as it’s “more reliable.” IT says it is finding that often problems faced by students are individual user issues unrelated to the campus wifi. “It can be the student’s computer, or how many applications are running,” Jeff Pearce, IT director says. “Students can be exhausting their own resources, and until we come and visit students, their problems may not be fixed.” As such, IT asks for students to submit a work order, and IT will set a time between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. “to do a room call, and see what students are physically...

There’s a fire going outside and people huddle together, laughing and otherwise going on excitedly about “have you heard this band? And this band?” There’s even a trampoline, one of those big ones. Inside, past the front door that never seems to be locked, a band sets up in a large warehouse space. The energy is buzzing, people are smiling and, best of all, there’s no cover at the door. This is all a very regular sight for Radical Abacus, a warehouse in one of Santa Fe’s more business-oriented areas that has become one of the city’s more prominent independent performance venues in the past few years. Contemporary Music Program major Angelo Harmsworth, who recently became one of Radical Abacus’ residents, has been increasing his involvement in booking shows for local musicians as well as touring acts from around the US. “Nicholas Chiarella [former SFUAD Studio Arts administrative assistant/contributing faculty] was responsible for the current incarnation of the space…,” Harmsworth said in an e-mail interview, “He made the space available to the local and larger DIY community for art shows, little happenings, and concerts.” Following that legacy, Harmsworth’s role is simply that of a host/curator; he and his housemates do not take money for hosting these shows. Donations are often requested to be given to touring bands, mostly for gas money, but other than that the focus is on music. This model differs greatly from that of a more traditional venue, such as a bar that features live music. This use of non-traditional performance spaces has become a more frequently seen phenomenon in Santa Fe as well as cities across the country as a larger DIY-based musical community grows. Why do some gravitate toward DIY over a bar or another more established business? Harmsworth...

Santa Fe University of Art and Design plays tribute to benefactor and legendary actress Greer Garson.