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In the fall of 2023, I approached Mr. Hodgkins, our Director of Music, about writing a piece for the Commonwealth Chorale.

Usually, when I write a piece, the music comes first and the title comes later. But this was different. The only thing I ever knew for certain was the title. It comes from a phrase I overheard at a concert hall in Cambridge: “only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

Wondering if it was nothing but a clever philosophical conjecture made by an intellectual concertgoer, I looked up the phrase. I was wrong; it came from William Faulkner’s 1929 novel, The Sound and the Fury.

So I decided to read it. It was one of those books where I didn’t understand a single thing. You could have asked me “what happened?” two days into reading it, and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But I did notice one thing: Faulkner’s narrator repeats himself—a lot. Identical pieces of description, word for word, syntax for syntax, would come back again and again, phrases like “Caddy smelled like trees in the rain” or “I could hear the bright, smooth shapes” or “I’m not going to mind you” or “I wasn’t crying, but I couldn’t stop.” From those repeated phrases, I began my work on “only when the clock stops...”

Commonwealth students and alumni/ae consistently—and overwhelmingly!—praise our teachers for being undeniably, unabashedly enthusiastic about their subject material, whether that be differential calculus, photography, neuroscience, ancient history, or anything in between. For Michael Samblas, his life-long love of literature not only colors his English 10 and Dive In classes, but bubbles over into lunchtime and after-school activities, where he leads similarly enthusiastic students in conversations about Caribbean literature and hosts movie screenings to augment lessons on beloved classics like Frankenstein. Read on to learn more about this Miami native and discover a few more of his passions.            

The United States produces more than enough food to feed all of its citizens. The longstanding myth of scarcity is quite simply that: a myth. But if this is the case, why does food insecurity persist?

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), as of 2023, more than thirteen percent of American households—and thirty percent of Massachusetts residents—were food insecure, which means they lacked consistent resources to obtain nutritious, affordable food and were often forced to make tradeoffs between buying food and paying for other necessities such as housing, transportation, and medication. Food-insecure households are everywhere, in every community, including those perceived to be affluent.

Rachel Albert ’93, Executive Director at Food Link, a food-rescue nonprofit in Arlington, Massachusetts, explains that food insecurity is the inevitable outcome of economic and social policy decisions. “We talk about food insecurity as its own issue,” she says. “And I think that makes it a little more palatable, and it also makes it an issue that can be more unifying across political lines. But the reality is, if you’re going to trace its causes, it’s all economic,” referring to the deregulation, wealth inequality, low wages, and frayed social safety net at its root. “The bottom line is that food insecurity is no mystery to anyone. And the government has left the nonprofit sector to pick up the pieces.”