April 2025: The Greens

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Greens, greens, greens: Coexisting with the environment can be a beautiful, almost otherworldly thing if we let it.

By Kate Hiewon Ahn

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Gardening in the Barrio

The Norris Square Neighborhood Project has been building community and culture in Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican barrio for over 50 years, and it isn’t stopping anytime soon.

Hills Burn in California; You Ignore Them

Addressing the gap between environmental musicians’ art and action

Kindling My Mind’s Wildfires

Sudden grief for what was once home and a greater manifestation of long–term climate anxiety

Ego of the Month: Natalia Castillo

The former Street HBIC philosophizes on Street, friendship, and the state of the world— one last time.

32 From Vacant

to Vibrant

The process of turning vacant lots green to improve Philly communities ON THE FRONT COVER

DOGE’s Wake of Destruction

As Donald Trump and Elon Musk lay waste to climate initiatives, thousands feel the impact, including Penn researchers and students.

42 45

Some Stars Shine Greener than Others

The success of environmentalist tours and who should be taking notes

The Commodification of White Lotus

A masterclass in muddled messaging

The Greens

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ON THE BACK COVER

Reuse and recycle this magazine. Tape it to your walls. Make a collage with it. Fold some origami. Use it as a coaster. April’s issue prioritizes the environment, and so should you!

By Insia Haque

Notes From an Overheating Editor–in–Chief

It’s sacrilege to spend the first day of spring inside, when the weather finally hits 70 degrees and you can leave the house without a puffer. At least, that’s what I told myself after deciding to skip my 10:15 a.m. class to sit on the green by Franklin Field to photosynthesize with my friends and pretend to do work—even though my computer was completely dead.

The other day, it suddenly struck me that eventually, I will have to work a big girl job in an office and sit inside at a desk. “I need a job where I can just go outside and do nothing if the weather is perfect,” I told Digital Managing Editor Hannah Sung. “I think that’s called being unemployed,” she replied.

Modern capitalism demands a divorce from nature. Time, once marked by the passage of the sun, has now been abstracted into the standard hour as the basis of wage labor. We spend most of our time nocturnal in front of a computer in an artificial paradise.

Spending all day inside and all night awake, it’s easy to forget that we too are reliant on the sun, the air, and wilderness—not just for enjoyment or beauty, but for our very survival as well. When we consider the catastrophe of climate change, humans aren’t merely acting on the environment from afar. Rather, we are irrevocably part of nature. It’s not just the polar bears’ ice caps that are melting; it’s our homes that are sinking under water as well.

The last time I went back to Texas over the summer, I could hardly step outside after 9 a.m. without risking heatstroke. Texas has always been hot, but in the last few years, it seems to have gotten even hotter. Rather than spiraling into climate despair, I decided to ignore the apocalyptic heat by simply blasting the air conditioning—probably sending out even more fluorocarbons into the ozone.

It’s easy to ignore that we are in a state of

crisis. After all, all you have to do is go inside. But as the wildfires in California and the hurricanes on the East Coast have shown us, the shields we have built are frail and impermanent. The more we try to build up our seawalls and barriers, the more we destroy the very ecosystem that we are part of. We are drowning in quicksand, frantically swimming toward doom rather than taking a step back and living alongside nature. The truth is that we can never fully separate ourselves from the environment. It is easy to cast ourselves as the villains in the climate crisis, but at the end of the day, we are natural beings, living on borrowed land.

In “The Greens Issue,” Street offers a voice to the face of the climate crisis at Penn. From community gardens to revitalized vacant lots, local Philadelphians are working to create a greener future in the city. Yet at the same time, integral environmental research at Penn is under attack amid political funding cuts. The climate crisis is much closer than the Great Barrier Reef. It’s right outside our window. Just look outside. Published on recycled paper, take this issue of Street and turn it into whatever you wish—be it a poster, an envelope, or a collage. But more than anything, turn it into a call for action.

SSSF,

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Norah Rami, Editor–in–Chief rami@34st.com

Jules Lingenfelter, Print Managing Editor

lingenfelter@34st.com

Hannah Sung, Digital Managing Editor hsung@34st.com

Fiona Herzog, Assignments Editor herzog@34st.com

Insia Haque, Design Editor haque@34st.com

EDITORS

Asha Chawla, Copy Editor

Garv Mehdiratta, Copy Editor

Nishanth Bhargava, Deputy Assignments Editor

Bobby McCann, Features Editor

Chloe Norman, Features Editor

Sarah Leonard, Focus Editor

Kate Cho, Style Editor

Anissa T. Ly, Ego Editor

Sophia Mirabal, Music Editor

Kas Bernays, Arts Editor

Jackson Zuercher, Film & TV Editor

Jackson Ford, Street Photo Editor

Danielle Jason, Street Social Media Editor

Makayla Wu, Design Editor

Cassidy Whaley, Social Media Editor

THIS ISSUE

Deputy Design Editors

Kate Hiewon Ahn, Dana Bahng, Annelise Do

Design Associates

Asha Chawla, T Fong, Tanvi Garneni, Abdel Hubbi, Katrina Itona, Danielle Jason, Chenyao Liu, Yvan Phan, Emmi Wu, Melody Zhang

Staff Photographers

Caleb Crain, Courteney Ross

STAFF

Features Writers

Caleb Crain, Diemmy Dang, Samantha Hsiung, Charlie Jenner

Focus Beats

Saanvi Agarwal, Mariam Ali, Sadie Daniel, Kayley Kang

Style Beats

Priyanka Agarwal, Kate Hiewon Ahn, Jack Lamey, Erin Li

Music Beats

Jett Bolker, Will Cai, Maren Cohen, Kyle Grgecic, Danielle Jason, Jo Kelly, Amber Urena

Arts Beats

Alex Gomez, Maya Grunschlag, Katrina Itona, Richard Paget, Lynn Yi, Logan Yuhas

Film & TV Beats

Aden Berger, Sophia Leong, Xihluke Marhule, Liana Seale

Ego Beats

Talia Shapiro, Christine Oh, Eva Lititskaia

Staff Writers

Isaac Pollock, Vivian Yao, Derek Wong, Luiza Louback, Maddy Brunson, Andrew Lu, Kyunghwan Lim, Insia Haque, Gia Gupta, Eleanor Grauke, Catherine Sorrentino

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The land on which the office of The Daily Pennsylvanian stands is a part of the homeland and territory of the Lenni-Lenape people. We affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold the DP and the University of Pennsylvania more accountable to the needs of Indigenous people.

CONTACTING 34 th STREET MAGAZINE

If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Norah Rami, Editor–in–Chief, at rami@34st.com You can also call us at (215) 422–4640.

www.34st.com © 2025 34th Street Magazine, The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. No part may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express, written consent of the editors. All rights reserved.

Kindling My Mind’s Wildfires

Sudden grief for what was once home and a greater manifestation of long–term climate anxiety

BY FIONA HERZOG

Illustration by Insia Haque

Fiona, wake up. Wake up and pray. Wake up and pray for Dad. Pray for our home.”

These were the first words my mom said to me on Jan. 8. It was 7:30 a.m. in Taipei, Taiwan, and 3:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, where the fire had begun its destruction just hours earlier. Five hours prior, in Pacific Palisades, Calif., dark, twisting plumes of smoke had curled through the sky, signaling the beginning of something far greater than I could imagine.

At first, my dad had been unperturbed. Wildfires were nothing new to us. I had grown up waking to ash scattered on our porch, the sun fighting to break through a sky turned an eerie orange–grey by the smoke. This was just part of life growing up against the mountains of the Palisades. I had evacuated before, watching the hills

light up like a Christmas tree with burning embers at night. So when the fire started spreading, my dad left our house with only the clothes on his back, assuming it would be another quick evacuation, a temporary inconvenience.

But three hours later, the fire had enlarged to six times its size, turning roads into immovable queues of cars and forcing people to flee on foot. The embers blazed brighter than the sun, burning the edges of the roads like glowing coals in the dusk. By the time I woke up, the inferno had already consumed much more than we could have known.

In Taiwan, far from the chaos of the Palisades mountains, I was seated in a temple garden. The calm rain softly trickled against lush greenery, the cool air carrying the scent of incense from the open doors.

Beads of water clung to the foliage, reflecting the muted glow of lanterns hanging from the eaves. Yet amidst the peace surrounding me, my heart thundered with the mounting sense of helplessness. Notifications blared from my phone, pulling me back into the fires raging thousands of miles away. In that moment, the stillness around me felt unattainable, distant, unreachable—my thoughts consumed by a desperate prayer, clinging to any trace of hope, even as they crashed through the floodgates of anxiety.

Long before the fires had started, I’ve grappled with climate anxiety. It has been a constant companion since I first felt the weight of the climate crisis in middle school.

This anxiety became particularly intense months prior, during my fall 2024 semester. Then, I couldn’t stop reading perpetually bleak news, a torrent of alarming statistics, wildfire warnings on both coasts, and urgency that wasn’t met with action. I spent countless nights drowning in articles, feeling the slow descent into despair. I kept moving, kept focusing on my assignments, on all the activities and events that filled up my Google calendar—but when I closed my eyes at night, I could see blazes swelling against the beat of my heart pounding. My sleep suffered as nothing seemed to quell it. It was a constant fear of impending disaster, one that came with no escape, no tangible solution, no relief in sight.

Then, my anxieties turned to reality.

For the week following that dreadful January morning, I couldn’t stop scrolling. I scrolled endlessly, ravenous for updates, for information—desperate to know what had become of my home, my friends. I scrolled to numb myself against the terrifying reality that loomed, inching closer to my sanity with each passing hour. The images began to flood in: my fire–scorched elementary school, ruined homes I spent time in for after–school playdates, a now blackened and crumbled mural I painted in high school, the grocery store where I bought my daily afternoon snacks reduced to ash, charred memories. I clung to these

photos with a desperate need. With each image that arrived, I begged for more—filling the void, even as it dragged me deeper into sorrow.

After landing in Los Angeles, my mom, brother, and I were armed with N95 masks bought in preparation in Taiwan, ready to face the overwhelming task of figuring out everything. Our priorities included securing a roof over our heads, as my dad’s office and car simply didn’t have enough room for all four of us. But as friends saw us return to Los Angeles, they rallied around us in an outpouring of generosity. Clothes,

This outpouring of generosity and unity changed something in me. I realized that no matter how helpless or overwhelmed I may feel, I am never powerless in the face of crisis.

toiletries, homes—anything to provide stability in the aftermath—arrived from friends and strangers alike.

In the midst of this overwhelming kindness, I began to reflect on how lucky and privileged I truly was. Despite the devastation, my house miraculously stood—still intact against a backdrop of melted cars and once lush mountains reduced to ash. Unscathed except for the acrid lingering smoke embedded within the walls, sofas, and curtains. My parents faced uncertainty, unsure of where they would stay long term as rebuilding and remediation efforts commenced. After our immediate needs were met (housing graciously provided by a close friend), I had the privilege of swiftly leaving for school at Penn, donning my N95 one last time to go to the airport.

What I didn’t expect to witness in the wake of this fire was the power of collective action. Across Los Angeles, communities rallied in ways that truly amazed me. Donations flooded in—not just the usual food, clothing, and toiletries, but items that breathed life into the soul of a city trying to heal. Musicians who had lost their instruments were gifted new ones, ready to create once again. Children who had lost their homes were soothed by puppet shows offered over FaceTime, finding comfort in laughter despite the turmoil surrounding them. Strangers opened their homes to those in need; neighbors came together to rebuild not only houses but the very heart of Los Angeles.

This outpouring of generosity and unity changed something in me. I realized that no matter how helpless or overwhelmed I may feel, I am never powerless in the face of crisis.

In times of tragedy, the temptation to falter is always present. The problems we face feel too large, too complex to tackle on our own. Even now, months after Jan. 8, I still carry the weight of anxiety. There are days when I quietly cry in lecture when I can’t help but think the worst of climate change is yet to come and the fear of the unknown tightens into a knot I can’t untangle.

But amid that fear, I’ve discovered that even the smallest actions can carve hope. Action can begin with something as simple as listening—being a compassionate ear for someone sharing their experiences, or absorbing the wisdom of those who have already walked similar paths of advocacy and rebuilding. From there, action can evolve into tangible contributions, like volunteering at a seed bank, aiding the recovery of native plants lost to fires, or assisting in food drives to support displaced families.

I don’t need to erase anxiety to find purpose. I can hold both: the ache of helplessness and the courage to act. Through the collective strength I’ve seen from Los Angeles, I find the will to keep pushing. For my home. For my community. And for a world that desperately needs all of us to keep pushing forward. k

Hometown

Marin County, Calif.

Major

Philosophy, politics, and economics with a concentration in globalization, minor in English

Activities

34th Street Magazine, Penn Women’s Club Water Polo, Marks Family Writing Center fellow, climate research, Civic Scholars Program, Penn Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics, Penn Club Swim

Mommy pays,” insists Natalia Castillo (C ‘25), picking up the bill for the two of us at Abyssinia—before sheepishly asking me to calculate the tip. For the past year, Natalia has dutifully played the role of Street’s mother. She has stayed up till 4 a.m. to finalize the Dining Guide, stood out in the cold forcing issues of Street into the hands of reluctant readers, and even faced off against a booing crowd at Smokey Joe’s for a Street launch event. But more than anything, Natalia has been a mother in the way that she has turned Street into a home for so many.

The first time I met Natalia was during my freshman fall, when I came into the Marks Family Writing Center with my very first college paper; it had something to do with Berlin. At that moment, I got my first glimpse of Natalia’s acute ability to bring out the best in any writing placed before her. I had no clue that within a few years, this intimidating and clearly quite talented tutor would become my colleague, partner in crime, and one of my best friends—who would also bring out the best in me. Set upon the background noise of a couple on an excruciatingly painful first date, Natalia and I dug into a shared plate of Ethiopian food and an even more filling conversation about friendship, writing, and all the other cliches that make Street the home that it has become over

EOTM

Natalia Castillo

The former Street HBIC philosophizes on Street, friendship, and the state of the world—one last time.

BY NORAH RAMI

Photos by Jackson Ford

interview has

this past year. When we finished, I walked Natalia back to her house just to keep the conversation going for a few more minutes before she headed off to water polo practice, and I walked back to the Street office.

Your Letters from the Editor when you were editor–in–chief were all about philosophizing in Philly. What have you been philosophizing about recently?

I’ve been philosophizing a lot about what comes next. This is going very serious, very quickly. With everything that’s been happening under the Trump administration, I’ve been talking about what environmentalism means. How do you embed yourself in your communities? I was talking with my friends a lot over break during our Global Seminar class (“Comparative Cultures of Resilience and Sustainability in the Netherlands and the United States” taught by Simon Richter) about how important it is to do work within your community, focus on grassroots efforts, and make change in small ways. If everyone does that, then you actually have change on a mass scale. So many people have been saying lately that culture is upstream from politics, so how do we make a positive difference in our culture? On a lighter note, I’ve been philosophizing about how important hobbies are. When you stop something like Street, you return to the things that used to fill your free time. I used to be very good about things like

crocheting, crafting, drawing, journaling, and reading, so I’ve been enjoying getting back into those things and reading a lot more.

In the letter of extent you wrote to me during my transition to editor–in–chief, you told me to “give them a place to call home.” What was your journey like at Penn in finding your own home?

I was very lucky to find a community my first semester of freshman year. I saw a lot of people finding that group that they would do everything with. I didn’t feel like I had that quite yet, but club sports was that first “thing” for me, and it’s where I met my best friend and roommate, Allison Jiang. It was so beautiful to find that community early on in sports, especially because so many people at Penn get the advice to do extracurriculars, but they don’t get the advice to do things that are non–academic or non–professional. With club sports, there are no stakes. You’re not making it your profession. It’s such a great place to find people and also escape the bubble. Then I watched Kate Ratner write for Street, and I thought she was the coolest person ever. I really, really wanted to do editing. I didn’t even want to do writing at first, because I liked helping people write. I learned very quickly that’s not how Street works. I started as a staff writer, and because the people that I met were so encouraging—like Arielle Stanger (139th Print

Managing Editor) and Walden Green (139th Editor–in–Chief)—I felt like there was a place for me to grow there. I owe so much of who I am now to upperclassmen who showed me a way to be part of the Penn community. One of my friends that I met through water polo was the reason that I became a writing tutor, and then the people that I met in Street were the reason that I stayed at Street.

What does editing mean to you?

I always just loved helping friends and my brother edit their papers. Eventually, it became a way to connect with other people and make writing an accessible tool where people can find their voice. So many people grow up thinking that writing is a skill that you’re born with, and that some people are just good writers and some people are bad writers. That’s so far from the truth. I have found that editing is a way to help people find their voice and find their confidence. I also just love being able to look at a piece from a bird’s eye view and puzzle things together. Another thing that shaped the way I view writing was talking to Walden about the Writing Center. He told me about how he views writing as this act of communion between reader and writer. You know what you want to say in your head, and you have your perspective, but your reader is probably not in the same place. So the act of writing is moving closer together to reach that reader in the middle.

Last summer, you were reporting on climate disaster recovery in Puerto Rico as a fellow with the Pulitzer Center. I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about that experience and how it is inspiring your future work.

I’ve been so lucky to do work over the summers that aligns with what I would like to do long–term. My family is Puerto Rican, and so I have had a close relationship with climate change. I also hadn’t visited Puerto Rico in quite a few years, so going back this summer was really a homecoming. I felt like I could be reintegrated into a culture that I had experienced from childhood. Seeing my family and hearing their stories since Hurricane Maria was so moving. Plus, getting to speak Spanish was such an asset, and it was such a special experience to be united with my family in that way. Whenever we think about climate change in the classroom, it’s very theoretical. I often shied away from climate change research in high school because the only people around me doing it were people who didn’t look like me and who were only worried about the environmental aspects—which are still really important. But at the same time, my perspective on climate change is very much informed by distributive justice and the inequities of climate change’s impacts. Being on the ground in Puerto Rico and hearing from people about how they think disaster recovery and climate adaptation should be happening was so important for my understanding of how we should approach that change, especially from a grassroots level. I would like to continue with climate–based research, with a particular focus on communities in the Global South. I was so honored to be able to talk to people who were willing to share their experiences and were so energized to do something about climate change.

How do you feel like your experience as a student journalist is impacting that perspective that you have on research or policy or whatever it might be that you end up doing?

I’ve always felt very drawn to narratives. During my freshman year, I remember procrastinating studying for my math quizzes because I was reading a profile

about Jeremy Strong, the Succession actor. The way that journalists take what seems at face value like a singular fact or story and open up an entire world is so impactful. It teaches us not to just see things as a list of facts on paper, but to see the people and the issues we’re engaging with as an entire world housed within. A lot of the research that I’ve read when it comes to climate change can feel two–dimensional because it focuses on the science or theoretical questions but doesn’t engage with the people that are already being impacted by these issues. Climate change is not five or ten years off. It’s already here, and it’s been happening for many years already. Being able to integrate storytelling and interview–based research is so important, and I wouldn’t be able to do that if I hadn’t had a background in journalism.

We’re at the final question, and I’m stealing this one verbatim from Walden: How has Street changed you?

For the better. Street has really been my family in the last couple of years. It has made Penn feel like a home. I was

someone who came into college freshman year not knowing what path I would follow. Street taught me how to care for a community—not only when it comes to journalism and thinking about how you engage with communities that aren’t your own, but it also made me feel like a mother hen dealing with all of my writers and editors. It taught me how to listen to people when they’re talking about what they care about or what they’re experiencing. It taught me how to cultivate a community, which is so “life–transferable.” Street also taught me to be curious. When you’re at a party and you don’t know anyone, or you’re in a space where you are an outsider—if you’re just curious, you will always find your way. I think that people who are bad at making conversation are just not curious enough. Curiosity will get you anywhere. I also think being part of Street allowed me to experience Philly in such a different way. I am coming away from these four years feeling like I did live here, and I did get to really learn about Philly. Not just Penn’s campus and Rittenhouse Square. I really got to experience so much more. k

What’s the soundtrack of your life right now? “California” by Joni Mitchell

Who would play you in a movie? Michelle Zauner in her acting debut

What mystical creature would you be? I think one of those frogs that has a mushroom hat

What does PPE stand for? Wrong answers only. Picture–perfect and ethereal

There are two types of people at Penn… People who pick up Street on Locust and people who don’t

And you are?

A secret third thing, the one who hands it out

A

Our Personal Poxes

review of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower

BY ETHAN SUN

The climate change apocalypse in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower is frighteningly tangible. Written in 1993, the novel is presented as a series of journal entries beginning in 2024, which tell the story of Lauren Oya Olamina as she navigates a particularly tumultuous period of American history. Journalists will come to describe this era as “accidentally coinciding climatic, economic, and sociological crises,” literally coining it “the Apocalypse” (or “Pox” for short).

Our parable opens on a bleak image of Robledo, Calif., Lauren’s relatively affluent neighborhood. “Relatively” does a lot of work here, as the residents of this Los Angeles suburb scratch out a living behind a massive wall meant to keep out the hungry, crazy “street poor.” In the Pox, fresh water is a treasured commodity, crime is a given, and jobs are nigh impossible to come by. Still, the residents of Robledo cling onto their old lives, dreaming of a return to the good old days even as the nation

descends further into anarchy. Families lend each other resources, temporary shelter, and neighborly gossip. All the while, news of pyromania–inducing drugs and growing instability reach the townspeople, who continue to compartmentalize the issue as an outside problem.

Meanwhile, we learn that Lauren has been putting together plans for the inevitable collapse of Robledo. We even learn through her journals of the religion she has started to develop, coined “Earthseed.” Each chapter is prefaced by a passage from Lauren’s self–written holy texts. The daughter of a pastor, Lauren chafes under the antiquated rituals and expectations of her father’s faith, instead turning to Change as her God, the dominant power in her universe. At 15 years old, she is already writing passages that refine her vague belief in Change to a holy text, which teaches her future disciples to navigate the Pox without becoming complacent, myopic, or nostalgic.

When outsiders inevitably raze her neighborhood, Lauren must brave a world she has prepared her whole life for but never properly known. What’s more, she must do so while hiding a secret: She is afflicted by “hyperempathy,” feeling the sensations, both pain and pleasure, of any living person she sees. While hyperempathy may seem initially like a unique power, it means that as part of the street poor, she must act ruthlessly—killing, rather than wounding, any assailants.

A striking feature of the Pox is its normalcy. Butler does not sell us a romanticized view of apocalypse, with joyous last hurrahs, agrarian lifestyles, or rugged–yet–principled survivalists. Her America is filled with the industrial complexes, desperate behaviors, and politics that make the Pox a believable period of history. At chain supermarkets, Lauren must buy such unglamorous things as water purification tablets and tampons (under armed guard, of course). On the road, she must join a grow-

Illustration by Yvan Phan

ing wave of street poor on the journey north, in blind search of greener pastures without the drugs or droughts of Los Angeles. And in the outlying hills, Lauren must band together with her small group of survivors to fend off wild dogs, criminals, and the odd cannibal.

Critics of Butler’s novel cite its uncharismatic storytelling, with unchanging characters and a relentlessly bleak plot, as reasons to set it down. When I asked, a friend described it as “competency porn,” and this takeaway is valid if you are looking for a character–driven, coming–of–age story. Lauren starts out as a remarkably cynical 15–year–old and ends as the same depressing, slightly older know–it–all. With few exceptions, she makes a prediction about the future, complains about the myopia of those around her, and turns out to be right. The plot seems to reward this obnoxious pattern ad infinitum.

The parable’s biggest supporters, however, point without fail to Butler’s apparent clair-

voyance, her uncanny prescience as she so accurately holds a mirror to our cultural moment. I must confess this takeaway irritates me. To laud the author’s intelligence and bash capitalism, partisanship, insufficient group organizing, or whatever other specters haunt the merry–go–round from hell is to miss the point of Butler’s novel. Parables are written as lessons, not predictions, so what universal insight did Butler want to pass on? The one I find most relevant today is the frightening ease with which we settle into new normals. Big deals that quickly become yesterday’s news— the price of eggs, the newest war, the report that this year’s glacier melt, wildfire, hurricane, or drought was the worst on record— become the background buzz to classes, then vacations, then internships, to the unfounded belief that we are too big to fail.

And then, once something finally gives, we must settle into a new normal. I was shocked at the ease by which Lauren’s day–to–day took

on a steady rhythm after she escaped the burnt ruins of Robledo—walk north, sleep, take watch, count pennies, buy things and kill people, continue walking north. Audaciously, I relate the possibility of graduating without a job—shock, then shame, then an inevitable yet unimaginable life afterward—to the fall of Robledo and the grueling interstate. How must it feel to fall off track, to lose the reassurance of upward mobility that has given me the base confidence to navigate life? And if the ground does open up beneath me, how will I abide? While a far cry from the gore and horrorfest of Butler’s Pox, the very real possibility of unemployment and purposelessness never fails to bring me fresh waves of panic.

In the midst of our brief personal apocalypses, I believe we must act a little like Lauren—however obnoxious it may sound, we must know better. When the walls come crashing down, Parable of the Sower teaches us how to survive the fallout. k

A Conversation With PARMA Recordings’ Bob Lord

This record label CEO is fighting to keep classical music open and exciting for all.

BY JO KELLY

Even from a Zoom–window–sized look into Bob Lord’s life, it’s immediately apparent that Lord loves music. The PARMA Recordings CEO joins our meeting from a swivel chair in what appears to be a makeshift studio space, grinning widely and surrounded by instruments, equipment, and music stands. It’s the kind of place where any musician would feel immediately at home; I know I certainly feel a comfortable familiarity upon noticing the clutter. It confirms for me that Lord is indeed the source of the spirit and deep love for music that you can feel behind any PARMA recording.

PARMA Recordings is one of the leading classical music labels in the industry, specializing in new art with an innovative twist. The company has been at the forefront of the classical music scene since the COVID–19 pandemic, responsi-

ble for producing some of the most ambitious, revolutionary projects in recent years, including the 2022 world premiere of a newly discovered string quartet written by an 18–year–old Leonard Bernstein, a large–scale collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra, and, of course, works by The Crossing, Philadelphia’s own professional choir, which recently won its fourth Grammy.

Lord has been recognized by New Hampshire Business Review as one of the state’s “Top 200 Influential Business Leaders” for his commitment to both artistic and economic growth in New England. One of the most compelling things about Lord’s aforementioned commitment is his specific dedication to innovation in the arts and the industry, and our conservation only served to underscore this further.

When I ask about his passion for music and how it has motivated him in his career, he answers succinctly, “It consistently surprises me.” He launches excitedly into an anecdote about driving alone the week prior and encountering a piece that deeply moved him. Finding the name of the piece to be “Consort for Ten Winds” by Robert Spittal, Lord “sent him a fan mail message,” quickly discovering through Spittal’s reply that PARMA had in fact assisted in producing the piece. Lord laughed heartily, remembering this happy coincidence.

The anecdote is striking, namely considering there exists the misconception that classical music is an outdated (and therefore irrelevant) genre. To many, Lord’s discovery of such a touching, contemporary piece would seem like a fluke. When I ask his opinion on the general

Illustration by Insia Haque

feeling among some populations that classical music’s days are over, he replies by explaining that fighting this notion is in fact a central part of PARMA’s work. He describes his deep interest in “creat[ing] premiere recordings of new works by living composers,” citing Caroline Shaw and her work with The Crossing as an example. He mentions also his interest in cross–genre collaboration as a method of dynamizing classical music, explaining passionately that “there are so many combinations of music left to be hybridized. … I’m interested in taking tight genre conventions and combin[ing] them with other genres with their own conventions. How do you make something out of that?”

We touch briefly on the problem of classical music’s close association with exclusivity, and Lord talks about his own unconventional journey to discovering the genre. “No one sat me down at a piano when I was five,” he assured me. Lord himself started as a bassist in a rock ‘n’ roll band, coming only to the classical side of the industry after discovering, in young adulthood, 20th–century classical music that spoke deeply to him. But as a kid, he wasn’t so sure about classical music, as he was a little intimidated by the seemingly insular nature of the classical world. He told me about visiting Tower Records in his youth, wanting to get his hands on some jazz. “In the back of the room was this glassed–in compound,” he recollects, “and that’s where the classical music was.” He explains that PARMA is invested in dismantling these systems and creating a culture of inclusivity. “All these hangups about how we interact with classical music,” he said, shaking his head. “No one should be made to feel bad about interacting with art.”

I leave the meeting feeling invigorated: excited by PARMA’s work, inspired by Lord’s words, and reflecting on the deep truth that drives PARMA’s initiative. The world would be remiss to lose the beauty of classical music, but sometimes the genre seems to insistently demand exclusivity, rendering it decidedly un–algorithmable and leaving it out of spaces where it might belong. During our meeting, Lord asked one rhetorical question that seems to summarize the many issues surrounding the genre: “[Is classical music] a museum? Or are we creating new art … maintaining an open sense of wonder?” Some labels may not be. But rest assured that Lord and PARMA are and will continue to. k

You know that one senior who never fails to bring a smile to everyone’s face? Who always has the craaaaziest stories? Who you’re going to miss so much when they graduate? It’s time to give them the recognition they deserve. Ego of the Week seeks to showcase seniors, not for their grades or other fake academic construct, but for who they are as a person and the joy they bring to the people around them!

Chasing Stars Among City Lights

HOW HENRY MONTANO IS MAKING SPACE FOR STUDENTS TO SLOW DOWN, LOOK UP, AND APPRECIATE THE WORLD AROUND THEM. Whw

BY DIEMMY DANG

Photo by Jackson Ford & Design by Dana Bahng

It’s the middle of a busy week on campus. The rhythm of Penn student life has kicked into full swing, and it feels as if everyone is stuck in a constant rotation between dorm, class, and library. Everyone is rushing—to finish the coveted club application, to score an A on the next exam, or to nail their upcoming internship interview. Amid it all, on a Wednesday night, Henry Montano (C ‘26) gathers the Penn Outdoors Club to play Pictionary.

Henry grew up in Los Angeles, where the urban landscape held few chances to connect with the outdoors or see the stars. “I never realized how bad it was in LA until I came, and I thought Philly was good compared to LA. In LA, I can see maybe four stars in a night.”

Amid highways and high rises, Henry found his love for astronomy while watching Nova on PBS. As he learned about galaxies and nebulae, he began to nurse a passion for the natural world that would extend to his college career. As a recipient of the prestigious Gates Scholarship, Henry was one of 300 students selected out of a pool of 34,000 to have his undergraduate education fully funded. At Penn, he chose to major in physics and concentrate on astronomy.

Ironically enough, Henry explains that moving from Los Angeles to Philly, from one city to another, has fostered his love of the natural world. He attributes this to the climate—the climate created by the people he has found in UPOC and the Penn Astronomical Student Association.

“It’s definitely a fun group of people,” Henry describes. “They’re not gonna pressure you to do anything. They’re not gonna grill you on any specifics of your career. They’re just really fun people, really spontaneous, erratic.”

As the president of both UPOC and the PASA, Henry is an expert at finding and carving out room for things that often go unnoticed on Penn’s campus. Running out-

doors clubs in an urban space requires a unique ability to find pockets of time to appreciate the natural world within the racing bustle of city life.

“I think being in an urban area, even doing something slightly related to the outdoors, gives you a nice break from the city. I think it’s something people appreciate a lot more, because it’s not something they get exposed to a lot,” Henry says.

Henry has cultivated a rare kind of space on campus. Open to any and all students, UPOC’s Wednesday meetings are meant to be an escape from the busyness and stress of campus life. Over icebreakers, snacks, and activities that range from games to outdoor safety education, UPOC meetings are a chance for members to slow down. In an environment that often feels shaped by pressures to get ahead, UPOC’s primary mission is simple: to connect students to each other and to the world around them.

“When I first came to Penn, I really did not want to [have to] apply to something to enjoy an activity,” Henry says. “So I really was drawn to clubs like the outdoors club. There’s no obligation. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t do a resume or anything to get into the club. You stay in the club. You just show up when you can, enjoy the people.”

Henry has dedicated himself to reminding students to slow down and connect with the outdoors throughout their daily lives. On clear Thursday nights, PASA can be found in the middle of Locust Walk with their four–foot telescope, giving passersby a chance to look at Jupiter. On cold winter days, UPOC can be spotted having snowball fights on College Green. When the weather is nicer, club members stretch a slackline between the trees by Harrison and Rodin College Houses, inviting students to join in on the tightrope–like activity.

Henry has also helped students discover worlds outside of campus. Under his leadership, UPOC has taken trips from Vermont to West Virginia, participating in activities that range from camping and hiking to boul-

dering and backpacking. Meanwhile, PASA makes a trip to Cherry Springs State Park every semester, where open fields far from the city’s light pollution give way to thousands of stars. The club has also gone to Acadia National Park, which lies in a dark sky zone that makes it possible to see the Milky Way in the summertime.

It goes without saying that they did not miss the opportunity to catch the solar eclipse last April. After trekking to Ohio and camping out for the weekend, the club woke up to cloudy skies on the day of the once–in–a–lifetime event. Just as he was driving everyone home, however, Henry spotted a tiny patch of blue sky miles away. He decided to follow his gut, chasing that patch of sky until he found it. “We saw the entire eclipse. It was perfect. It was just nice that everything worked out at the very end, right when it needed to. I guess that just gave me a sense of reassurance that things work out. Everything. Everything always works itself out,” Henry adds. Trips like these go beyond club bonding events, becoming first–time experiences and lifetime memories for members.

“We’re trying to make it a more regular thing, so that we can take more people to see dark skies, which a lot of people haven’t. One member mentioned that they’ve never seen so many stars when it came to Philly, which, to me, is insane,” Henry exclaims.

After he leaves Penn, Henry aspires to attend graduate school, where he plans to study cosmology or astrophysics. Beyond that, though, he will continue to embrace the kind of spontaneity that he has discovered in UPOC to guide himself through whatever comes next.

That’s who Henry is—the kind of person who chases solar eclipses all the way from Pennsylvania to Ohio, trusting he will find that tiny patch of clear sky; who will have impromptu snowball fights and look for planets in the middle of Locust; who will look beyond the hustle of daily life to what we sometimes forget really matters—the world and the people around us. w

DOGE’s Wake of Destruction

AS DONALD TRUMP AND ELON MUSK LAY WASTE TO CLIMATE

INITIATIVES, THOUSANDS FEEL THE IMPACT, INCLUDING PENN RESEARCHERS AND STUDENTS.

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BY BOBBY MCCANN & CHLOE NORMAN

Illustrations by Melody Zhang and Insia Haque

Every single person that I have worked with in the past ten years in this field who is not at the World Bank is either furloughed or terminat-

ed,” says Penn professor Heather Huntington

As associate director of Penn’s PDRI–Devlab, Huntington leads an initiative dedicated to applied social science research, including climate–oriented projects that benefit foreign

countries. The lab’s work spans conflict and security, governance, economic development, migration, and global health, providing a foundation for policy development that serves vulnerable populations. Bringing together faculty and graduate students from seven schools

across Penn, researchers collaborate with government agencies and private companies to design and evaluate impactful research projects. With a focus on the human consequences of policies—such as in the case of deportation and forced displacement—the Devlab carries

out important projects in gauging the success of initiatives globally. Its very existence is being called into question by Donald Trump’s wide–ranging slashing of research initiatives.

The carnage resulting in the layoffs described by Huntington began on Jan. 24, when

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency issued stop–work orders to multiple departments, including the United States Agency of International Development, in order to review grants. Departments were notified of contract terminations shortly after and mass

layoffs ensued, nearly decimating USAID despite questions of constitutionality.

The loss of federal jobs is only the tip of the iceberg. Government grants first flow to private–sector companies, which then in turn subcontract work to research labs at universities. Universities will be and have been affected, as seen at Penn’s Devlab, but the impacts extend far beyond academia. DOGE is directly or indirectly responsible for over 170,000 layoffs across industries, all linked to these cuts in various contracts.

DOGE is not only withdrawing grant funding, but it is also dismantling the very mechanisms and institutional structures that allocate grant funding. DOGE claims to be getting rid of specific projects that it deems wasteful, but in reality, these policies are indiscriminately debilitating research across the board. For example, the Department of Defense’s Minerva Grant Initiative was slashed wholesale. While research assistant professor at Devlab Jeremy Springman will no longer receive money from this initiative for his climate change research, his colleagues who conduct research in other areas of social science unrelated to sustainability, such as national security, were also affected.

The world of climate research transcends researchers in labs at universities: Both large and small businesses in the private sector, as well as international communities relying on research for sustainable agriculture and land use policy, have all felt the impacts of these cuts. According to Springman, decadelong projects have now been completely scrapped with little hope of revival. Springman, whose own position depends on his ability to bring in grants, fears his position will be terminated. Huntington adds that some positions have already been terminated, prospective employees have had their acceptances rescinded, and the lab is undergoing a period of downsizing that will last around six months.

As the private sector, universities, and the government negotiate the fickle whims of an elite few, the climate continues to deteriorate. Last year was the hottest year on record, with temperatures reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius

above preindustrial levels—the threshold and maximum target limit set by the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. This is not just some arbitrary number; rather, it represents life and death stakes for humans and animal species. At this precipice, news of massive cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency rings alarm bells for scientists and engaged citizens alike, constituting a decisive step in the wrong direction.

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Penn’s Devlab is one of the many moving parts thrown into turmoil by Trump and Musk’s disruptions, which are creating huge consequences for not only research, but also a whole ecosystem of policy implementation, project evaluation, and international aid.

Professor Irina Marinov in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science has been collaborating with Springman and Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Political Science Erik Wibbels on a project to leverage large data sets to evaluate global climate security. Springman had been compiling data from news outlets in developing countries for a long time to analyze links between political instability and climate risks. The collaboration with Marinov and Wibbels draws from a few hundred data sets to provide information on global climate. Their idea was to eventually create an open source platform that draws together climate risks and socioeconomic factors to produce a starting point to take informed climate action. The project would also bring together natural scientists and social scientists in useful and productive ways.

Now, due to lack of funding, the project has been shelved indefinitely. “USAID really invested in this, allowing us to build this research infrastructure that allowed us to do a whole bunch of different types of work with one set of staff and one apparatus, that now just goes away overnight,” Springman says. The staff working on this project had been working on specific tasks for five–to–six years, and they cannot be replaced easily, even if funding were to be reinstated.

Huntington has also faced similar setbacks.

Previously, she had been working with countries like Burkina Faso, Mozambique, and Uganda, mainly focusing on issues like land rights, disputes over land, and conflict resolution, but all of her ongoing projects in sustainable agriculture and conservation in Africa are now canceled. This situation is not unique to her; the majority of ongoing projects at the Devlab have been scrapped.

The impact of the abrupt end of research projects is hard to gauge. Beyond a projected loss of jobs at the Devlab, projects that evaluate the success of environmental initiatives around the world will now cease yielding results.

This means, among other things, that scientists and policy makers could be in the dark about the effectiveness of health, economic, security, climate, and migration policies in countries around the globe.

Research is not the only part of climate science at Penn that will be affected—the trickle–down effects of funding cuts will reach all aspects of the EESC department. The ability for the department to effectively teach is greatly impacted. Marinov explains that Penn’s EESC department, compared to those of other top universities, is small and has far fewer faculty. Now there will be a halt on planned growth, which will inhibit the ability of the department to teach new classes, as there will be no new professors to develop them.

As a small department, EESC also lacks in–house labs, relying on free access to data from institutions such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research or the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University which receive funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In her course “Climate and Big Data,” Marinov connects 30 students to both NCAR and GFDL models. Beyond the classroom, researchers from all areas use this integral

data for modeling and projects. However, even these well funded labs are on the chopping block for DOGE, with a host of GFDL employees having been fired two weeks ago.

Marinov is worried about the possibility of some of these labs closing or their output being affected. For example, the NOAA office in Hawaii, which manages the Mauna Loa Observatory, a famous site that has been collecting data since 1958, might lose its lease. “The disappearance of data sets or stopping the collection of data sets of climate and stopping the production of climate model runs will affect not just the U.S., but the entire science community, especially scientists in smaller universities that cannot produce their own data sets or the developing world,” she says. “It’s going to destabilize science at a larger scale.”

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Since DOGE began its rampage, the status of climate research and foreign aid projects has become tenuous. “We really don’t know what’s going to be cut and when and why,” Marinov says. Amid concerns about the status of ongoing environmental research, professors are anxious about the University’s reaction to mounting government pressure.

In an email from March 17 obtained by Street, Interim Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Jeffery Kallberg and Vice Dean for Finance and Administration Corinn Harrel state that the University will remain proactive in its response to impending government policies. The correspondence emphasized a freeze on hiring staff past March 10, a forewarning of “extremely limited” future faculty searches, and the cessation of SAS–based research grant programs. Another email obtained by Street from Feb. 23 announced that SAS would be limiting the acceptance of prospective Ph.D. students by “one third,” reiterating that “this is not a step any of us wanted to take.”

While the University has continued to issue resolute responses to imminent funding cuts, Marinov believes that Penn could be more trans-

parent about the motivations underlying its financial decisions and their potential impact on professors and faculty researchers. “Why are certain cuts imposed? How healthy are the University budgets?” Marinov asks.

Broader dissatisfaction with Penn’s response to funding cuts culminated in a rally on March 20 composed of graduate workers, Penn faculty members, and nonprofit membership associations including the American Association of University Professors. Protesters demanded that Penn “uphold research, sanctuary DEIA, nondiscrimination, and the rights of all members of our community.” According to Pennsylvania state Rep. Rick Krajewski, who was in attendance, the demands included drawing from the University’s $22.3 billion endowment as a measure to “counteract federal funding freezes.”

Despite criticism expressing concern for the fate of climate studies and environmental research at Penn, Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action Michael Mann maintains that “We remain undeterred in our work involving teaching, research, outreach, and stewardship in the area of climate and sustainability.”

Although Penn has expressed an unyielding commitment to protecting climate studies and subsequent research, uncertainty persists over the broader future of sustainability studies in higher education. Julian Dautremont, director of programs at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education describes how universities across the country are burdened with mounting financial pressures and administrative shifts, pushing them to implement cutbacks in sustainability projects:

“There hasn’t been a universal response from institutions,” Dautremont says, explaining how sustainability offices in higher education find themselves forced to prioritize projects with clear financial benefits, such as decarbonization, while deemphasizing broader sustainability goals.

Comparing the plight of climate change studies to universities’ erasure of diversity,

equity, and inclusion initiatives, he notes that many offices engaged in University–wide efforts to “scrub” their websites of controversial language to avoid federal scrutiny of their work. Similarly, research and funding tied to climate change and clean energy is being restricted or delayed, with many institutions unsure of what will happen next. “A lot of institutions are either actually facing financial challenges or potential financial challenges,” Dautremont says. “That is increasing the emphasis on cost savings.”

The ripple effect of these changes extend beyond individual funding. While many universities have had to lay off significant portions of their sustainability staff, other universities are struggling to determine how new federal policies will impact their climate–focused research. This uncertainty has induced what Dautremont calls “anticipatory actions,” where institutions are forced to make strategic adjustments to brace for potential funding losses in the future. Similarly, investment initiatives tied to the Inflation Reduction Act, which once promised to accelerate clean–energy projects on campuses, are now stuck in limbo due to the rapidly shifting political landscape. “Higher ed is, in a sense, under attack,” Dautremont says. “American leadership in science and technology, including sustainability–related work, is very much in question.”

Despite monetary setbacks, sustainability in higher education remains a valuable part of universities’ curriculum. Many institutions are working to find ways to prioritize projects with strong financial returns, and student interest in sustainability does not appear to be wavering. Amidst ongoing uncertainty, many universities are turning to collaboration and internal support networks rather than external policy advocacy. AASHE has been facilitating discussions among sustainability professionals to help universities share strategies and resources. However, Dautremont admits that the climate of unpredictability in today’s political landscape has made it difficult for organizations such as AASHE to provide concrete

guidance.

For institutions such as Penn, where climate researchers have already begun reporting funding cuts and project cancellations in growing numbers, the stakes of Trump’s policies are markedly high. “It’s tragic,” Dautremont says. “This is the time that we need that kind of research to help, because it’s not like climate change is slowing down.”

As federal leadership on climate issues becomes increasingly unstable, experts warn of dire consequences not only for higher education but also global climate cooperation. Michael Weisberg, Deputy Director of Perry World House, points out that the trust deficit between the United States and developing

The future of climate studies in higher education is balancing on an uneasy precipice—driven by long–term global consequences and immediate financial pressures.

countries—already strained in international forums such as the United Nations and the Group of 20—will only be further exacerbated under Trump’s presidency.

“The current administration’s policy changes will make this worse,” Weisberg says. “And I’m not sure how that trust can be recovered. It’s a very long–term project.”

This erosion of international credibility, Weisberg notes, could fundamentally reshape how and where climate action takes place. Just as in Trump’s first administration, he predicts that much of the momentum for climate progress will shift away from national governments and toward cities, states, and other sub–national actors. “Nation–to–nation climate cooperation will be challenging,” he says. As climate change efforts are increasingly undermined by

federal officials, universities and local governments may emerge as key players in preserving sustainability efforts and climate solutions.

Weisberg emphasizes that universities have and will continue to play a crucial role in climate research, technology development, and policy reform. However, with federal funding at risk and institutional budgets tightening, even vital research projects and international collaborations are faced with unprecedented threat. The future of climate studies in higher education is balancing on an uneasy precipice—driven by long–term global consequences and immediate financial pressures.

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The Devlab is a unique nexus point between science, the government, companies, and the global community. During this period of uncertainty, researchers emphasize the importance of having robust relationships between scientists and their community. “In these times, it seems silly to just be doing the science. The question becomes: ‘How can we communicate faster?’ And this is something that a lot of us were not trained in,” Marinov says. “It was not part of my Ph.D. to think about climate communication.”

In practice, the different schools at Penn function like silos, despite having related interests and worries about the climate. Collaborations across departments and schools in the communication of results to broader audiences is needed to curb the war on climate science and to create a community more resilient to government cuts. Compounding the issue is proactive compliance and a lack of transparency. Penn has an important decision to make: It can either be swept into the deluge or take a stand for our future.

As Huntington warns, the consequences of these cuts extend far beyond their intended target. “[The funding cuts are] a U.S. tragedy story, as well as a tragedy for the research side and for all the people who live in these countries who were depending [on them].” w

Where God Lives: Inside the Machine

A LOVE LETTER TO SPEED, MEMORY, AND THE IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTY OF MOTORSPORT IN A CHANGING WORLD. Whw

BY KATE CHO Graphics by Emmi Wu

There are two religions in Italy: the Catholic Church and Ferrari.

One offers forgiveness.

The other offers a podium.

Motorsport has always demanded faith: in engineering, in weather, and in the hands of men hurtling down straights at 200 mph.

Lights out and away we go. Not just a race start, but a kind of prayer.

So what happens when something built on combustion and chaos is asked to become sustainable? When a sport defined by spectacle and excess is told to clean itself up?

Formula 1 has always been about speed, sound, and story. But lately, it’s being asked to be something else entirely.

In layman’s terms, Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport. Ten teams, 20 drivers, 20–something races a season, spanning five continents and hundreds of millions of fans. Each Grand

Prix weekend is a three–day spectacle—practice on Friday, qualifying on Saturday, and the main race on Sunday. Whoever crosses the finish line first wins. Points are awarded based on placement. The driver and team with the most points by season’s end take home the world championships.

In the legacy teams—Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren—history stretches back decades, and fanbases feel more like bloodlines than communities. The mythology lives in the circuits too:

Monaco with its hairpin turns, Silverstone with its wartime echoes, Monza with its holy speed. It lives in the dynasties—Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Lewis Hamilton—and in the chaos: the DNFs, the safety cars, the pit stops lost to a single misstep. It lives in the politics as well, in the quiet wars of team orders, national pride, and who gets to sit behind the wheel. It begins with the holy trinity: speed, sound, and story.

Formula 1 is a sport where entire careers are measured in tenths. A driver takes a corner at 180 mph not with instinct, but with memory—of grip levels, wind angles, tire wear, and telemetry from the lap before. They brake not when they need to but at a marker they saw out of the corner of their eye while traveling faster than most planes at takeoff. At Monaco, there are no runoff areas. A single mistake means your car is in the wall and your Sunday is over. At Spa, the cars go flat through Eau Rouge and Radillon with 50 meters of elevation change and no visibility. In Baku, you drive 200 mph through a medieval castle gate wide enough for a Toyota Corolla. Max Verstappen once drove an entire lap of Suzuka with purple sector times—in the rain. Hamilton won a championship on three wheels. Alonso drove with broken bones. Charles Le-

clerc qualified first in Monaco with a car that was already breaking. These aren’t just stats. They’re stories told in fractions of seconds.

Speed is sacred because it doesn’t lie. You either are fast enough, or you are not. No politics, no PR. Just lap time. And in a world obsessed with optimization and control, there’s something deeply human about watching someone flirt with the edge of chaos, lap after lap.

Sound is loss. The modern hybrid engines hum and whir, clean and restrained. But older fans still grieve the V10s, the V12s—those machines that screamed like they were dying. That kind of noise didn’t just fill a circuit. It possessed you. You didn’t hear it. You felt it: through your sternum, in your fingertips, in the part of your brain that registers awe. The sound was proof that something volatile and almost mythic was happening. Now, with every quiet lap, you can hear that era fading.

This is a sport that doesn’t just crown champions—it creates mythology and stories that Netflix executives love to snatch up. The stories and mythology are built by the ghosts in the machine.

Senna, the saint of São Paulo, drove like he believed in God and no one else. He died in 1994, and fans still cry about it yearly at Imola. Niki Lauda was pulled from a burning car, his lungs

scorched, his face disfigured—yet he returned six weeks later, wrapped in bandages, because he had a title to fight for. Schumacher became a machine. Hamilton became a movement. Sebastian Vettel became a villain, then a father, then an environmentalist. Even now—Leclerc crashes at his home race in Monaco with a kind of tragic consistency, as if the city has a curse on his last name.

The teams are dynasties too. Ferrari, oldest of the old blood. McLaren, home of Senna. Mercedes, the silver empire. Red Bull, brash and brilliant and born from nothing. Even Aston Martin, with its British leather and luxury PR, dreams of myth. There’s a reason fans call Ferrari the Prancing Horse—not the fastest horse, not the winning horse, but the beautiful one you follow, even when it’s limping.

Formula 1 wants to produce net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. The plan includes synthetic fuels, greener freight logistics, carbon offsetting, and maybe even electric components that make the sport quieter, cleaner, more palatable.

This is a sport that exists to burn fuel and time. Twenty cars fly around the globe in a convoy of private jets, freight ships, and paddock palaces—for what? To chase milliseconds. To test tire compounds in the desert. To make carbon

fiber beautiful.

And yet, Formula 1 is not as wasteful as people think. Every team operates under strict limits: fuel flow restrictions, aerodynamic testing caps, wind tunnel hour allocations, spending caps down to the dollar. The engines are already hybrids, the most efficient in the world. Brake energy is harvested and reused. Power units must last multiple races. Drivers get penalized for taking too many components. Every tenth of a second is paid for in sweat, strategy, and spreadsheets. It’s controlled chaos, regulated brilliance. It’s not a free–for–all. It’s a game of limits, played at impossible speed.

If Formula 1 is champagne and blood, Formula E is a green juice you didn’t order.

It’s what people think they want—a cleaner, quieter, morally acceptable motorsport. Fully electric. Raced on temporary street circuits in city centers. Promising sustainability, innovation, and the kind of buzzword optimism that looks great on pitch decks.

A Formula 1 weekend at Spa–Francorchamps means 44 laps of elevation changes, unpredictable weather, 200 mph down the Kemmel straight, and history so thick you can feel it in the mist. A Formula E weekend in Jakarta, Indonesia means a tight street circuit that looks like an

overgrown go–kart track, lower top speeds, no tire strategy, and commentators trying to make “Attack Mode” sound dramatic.

It’s hard to mythologize a sport when the defining phrase is “Fanboost.”

Even the crashes feel different.

At the Monza circuit, Leclerc once spun out at 180 mph and slammed into the barriers in front of the Tifosi—he walked away, then apologized to the nation. In Formula E, a crash is more likely to be a clumsy tap into a wall on a track that barely allows overtaking. The cars bounce. The moment passes. No legacy, no heartbreak.

At the end of his final Grand Prix, four–time world champion Vettel stepped out of the car, removed his helmet, and bowed. Not to the crowd. Not to the cameras. But to the machine.

This was a driver who had become the conscience of the sport. One of the most decorated athletes on the grid, Vettel spent his final seasons speaking openly about climate change, equality, and sustainability—wearing “Save the Bees” across his helmet in Baku, planting trees in Canada, collecting litter after races, and acknowledging, with quiet clarity, the contradictions of the sport that had made him famous.

But even with all that knowledge, all that awareness, all that advocacy—he still bowed.

And that gesture carried more weight than any press release or policy goal. Because it wasn’t sentimental. It was reverent. It understood what outsiders often miss.

Formula 1 is not perfect. But it is not careless. It is not thoughtless. It is not, as many critics suggest, irredeemable. The cars themselves are among the most efficient machines in the world. Hybrid power units. Fuel flow restrictions. Engine allocations. Component penalties. Budget caps. Wind tunnel limits. Nothing is unlimited. Nothing is easy. The sport is not a free–for–all—it is a study in precision under pressure.

And still, the conversation often returns to a single binary: whether or not a sport like this should exist at all. Whether it’s sustainable enough to deserve its future.

Formula 1 does not ask to be loved by everyone. It does not seek to be morally simple. What it offers, instead, is something stranger, more enduring, and more difficult to replace. It is a living archive of memory and machinery, bound by contradiction and refined by time. And for those who understand what the sport is—not just what it looks like—it remains, even now, something sacred.

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The Museum as an Environment

WHERE THE ECOLOGY OF FASHION EXHIBIT AT DREXEL’S ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES WORKS AND WHERE IT DOESN’T.

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BY LOGAN YUHAS

Graphic by Dana Bahng

One day before spring break, during which I would be headed to New York and Mexico City—two internationally renowned museum cities—I had to make one last pit stop in my home base. Philadelphia is filled with heavy hitters itself, and I was excited to check out a new one: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. I wouldn’t just see the typical dinosaur bones and savanna tableaus, but also one of my true loves, fashion, in the museum’s Ecology of Fashion exhibit. Maybe my expectations were too high after hearing “fashion,” but I have never been more offended by a museum before in my life. Before even discussing the exhibit, I’ll have to start with the walk through the museum to

get there. At the ticket office, I was a victim of daylight robbery. For a city filled with students, why was the student ticket price only 10% off when the tickets themselves were $30 apiece? This price discrimination at the get–go put me in a bad mood before I even saw any of the artifacts. After a grindingly slow three–story elevator ride, my friend and I had to wade through hallways of fading taxidermy—their haunting “memento mori” diorama stares felt a little on the nose—before we approached where the Ecology of Fashion exhibition was supposed to be. In a corner that looked like a dead end, filled with only some stuffed pandas and a plain bench, the only indication there might be something to be found was some royalty–free pop music playing out of a blank wall. There were no signs anywhere in the quite massive museum for what

was where, including this exhibit (more on that later).

Following that perverse siren song, we were presented with a TV showing Drexel’s Department of Fashion, Product Design, and Design and Merchandising’s annual Garbage Gala. The designs presented were genuinely really inspiring student work, laying faith in the avant–garde sensibilities of the wonderful fashion students working there. Despite these displays of possible generational talent, we were worried this was the whole thing. Paying $26 for a TV show would have been a true slap in the face. Instead, they shelled out their library, all the way at the back of the museum, further alienating students wanting to study there, and placed a very silly show.

First, in a museum mainly targeted to (appar-

ently rich) children, there was an overreliance on very long, bland, unhelpful wall text. As we’re taught in my curatorial seminar, a good didact keeps itself under 60 words. You start with something very interesting to catch the many museumgoers who by and large feel like looking above reading—the average patron only looks at an object on display for 27 seconds before moving on. Instead, vast swaths of otherwise empty wall space were covered in what could almost have been AI–generated paragraphs. Phrases like “throughout history” appearing twice or references to “groups of women” did not narrow anything down. It was not only unhelpful to the viewer, but also underwrote the chief aspect of a museum: to educate.

The exhibit was incredibly sparse. Despite taking up an entire wall of real estate, the “Mur-

derous Millinery” section only had two objects. The fiber section had one bundle hanging between more of the burgeoning unnecessary text blocks. The synthetics section had a gap between the mannequins, as if inviting us to imagine a fourth garment. With Drexel having one of the most complimented costume archives, it

I know Drexel can do better. I hope to see what that could be.

was almost pitiful to see how few clothes they chose to display.

All that being said, there were some smart choices. I enjoyed how they activated the different Drexel archives, combining Jacqueline Kennedy’s leopard coat with an actual taxidermied

leopard or juxtaposing an ornate bird with a hat made of the same creature. They even used technology well, providing child–level touch screens with pertinent information.

The smart choices came only in pockets, however, with intriguing and fleshed–out cases contrasting heavily with the main displays. Learning about murex, kermes, and cochineal with their physical and dyed counterparts or viewing buttons beside the tortoises and mollusks they came from felt like actual illumination. It left me with something to ponder and provided me with new information, something I felt most of the other displays lacked. It was almost as if somebody did not consult the individual pieces together. Based on the work exhibited on the TV outside, however, I know Drexel can do better. I hope to see what that could be. w

Gardening in the Barrıo

THE NORRIS SQUARE NEIGHBORHOOD PROJECT HAS BEEN BUILDING COMMUNITY AND CULTURE IN PHILADELPHIA’S PUERTO RICAN BARRIO FOR OVER 50 YEARS, AND IT ISN’T STOPPING ANYTIME SOON. Whw

BY SADIE DANIEL

Photos courtesy of Norris Square Neighborhood Project

The smell of hot hibiscus tea fills the air and the acidity of freshly cut limes lightly stings my eyes as I stand in Las Parcelas, one of the largest community gardens in North Philadelphia. Roosters roam the streets, the homes are vibrantly painted, and music booms through car windows out into the air—it’s as if I have entered a new soundscape altogether.

Norris Square, located just west of York–Dauphin Station in North Philadelphia, has been home to Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican community for over 50 years. However, it’s far from the community’s first walking grounds.

Over the course of the 20th century, Puerto Rican Philadelphians have been pushed farther and farther east by encroaching developers and gentrification. Today, the neighborhood stands out in our city of brick row houses with vibrant Puerto Rican art dotting the landscape and architectural styles mimicking housing on the island. This has been a trend among Puerto Rican communities across the United States which, in hopes of maintaining their attachment to home, commonly attempt to recreate aesthetics of the island in their new neighborhoods.

The neighborhood still faces challenges with gentrification, though, with new apartment complexes popping up around the area. Music isn’t as frequently heard in the streets anymore, and passerby greet each other less and less. As the neighborhood changes, the community works its hardest to stand their ground.

Many residents in the area are second– or third–generation migrants to the United States, with the older generation slowly dying out over time. Of course, Puerto Ricans still frequently migrate to Philadelphia, especially after Hurricane Maria in 2017, which devastated the island and forced over 100,000 people to leave. But the large population of Puerto Rican youth who live physically disconnected from the island has presented a problem for the community: How can they maintain their cultural identity?

The Norris Square Neighborhood Project was founded in 1973 by Natalie Kempner, a local schoolteacher and active Quaker activist, and

Helen Loeb, a professor at Eastern University, to bring environmental education to youth from the neighborhood.

“They would take them on camping trips and canoeing trips and teach them about the trees in Norris Square Park, which is a publicly owned park,” Andria Bibiloni (C ’04), a former Street writer and now the current executive director of NSNP, says. “And over time, the members of the community, mostly … the moms, became a really important part of the organization in terms of teaching the youth about Puerto Rican culture and about the importance of actually planting vegetables and different types of plants that were significant to the Puerto Rican culture.”

Until the 1990s, this made up the vast majority of the project’s work. Throughout this time, the city tore down vacant and damaged homes, leaving massive empty lots scattered throughout the neighborhood. “There were no fences. People were dumping garbage. People were standing around, loitering, doing drugs,” Bibiloni says.

A group of local women, many of those same mothers from the 1970s, who called themselves Grupo Motivos, or “Group of Reasons,” banded together and “took it upon themselves to say, ‘Okay, you know, we’re going to clean this up,’” Bibiloni says. They worked to clean up the lots, fence them in, and transform them into gardens as a way of making their community safer. Carol Keck, the director of NSNP and a locally respected nun, took notice of their efforts and chose to use her political connections to support Grupo Motivos by providing resources and acquiring the legal rights to the lots. Through these gardens, they have planted their Puerto Rican roots in the soil of Norris Square.

Bibiloni, who joined the project in 2021, says that with the help of the gardens, the organization has been able to uplift its youth through gardening, cooking, and cultural programming. Although Norris Square has become more diverse over the years, its Puerto Rican roots are as vibrant as ever. With NSNP coordinators teaching local Puerto Rican youth recipes to bring home, growing produce local to the island, and holding arts and crafts events and community reading sessions in the gardens, they’ve ensured

the installation of Puerto Rican culture in their youth for years to come.

All but one of the women of Grupo Motivos have died, and they are memorialized through a Mural Arts Philadelphia project in Las Parcelas, the largest of the community gardens. Iris Brown, the last remaining founder of the group, was only recently brought out of retirement when Teresa Elliott, the last executive director of NSNP, managed to revive it after around 20 years of the organization dwindling down. She stepped into the role in 2019 when NSNP was looking to shut down, and instead of closing the organization, she was able to secure new funds and hire more staff. She reemphasized cooking through online Zoom classes, and the organization was slowly able to start rebuilding the garden education program and hire garden educators and gardeners.

Still, the organization faced legal challenges, especially with taxation on the gardening plots.

Bibiloni, who received her JD from Temple University in 2021, initially joined the project as a legal aid, rising up to her current position just last year. She caught notice of NSNP while she was a young real estate law volunteer in the area, helping community members assert ownership rights over abandoned properties they’d been taking care of for a long time through adverse possession: when a non–owner acquires legal rights to a property after several years of occupation. The community is rapidly gentrifying, with an increase of people losing their yards at sheriff sales—public auctions of foreclosed properties by a local sheriff. In doing that work, she met Elliott. NSNP was struggling to stay afloat due to tax lien issues—the government’s legal claim against a property when the owner fails to pay their tax debt—and so Bibiloni joined to help out.

Since her joining, NSNP’s two youth programs—Semillas del Futuro, or Seeds of the Future, and Raíces de Cambio, or Roots of Change—have grown, collectively serving over 100 youth annually. They teach 15–20 students a day during the school year, and over 50 students a day in the summer, with a majority of their students—74.6%—identifying as Latino, 17.5% as Black, 4.8% as white, and 3.2% as two or more races, according to Bibiloni.

Semillas del Futuro focuses on arts–related activities, but Raíces de Cambio hosts growth and

harvesting lessons that culminate in selling produce at a farm stand. “They’ve taken an interest in cooking as well, because sometimes they’re sitting at a farm stand and there’s not a lot of people coming, so they’ve installed an outdoor kitchen at the Raíces garden, and the youth cook there on Saturdays when they’re doing the farm stand,” Bibiloni says.

The gardens offer a diverse range of activities, with Las Parcelas having its own casita, a small Puerto Rican–style home, and kitchen, as well as mock market stands to emulate Puerto Rican life. Just across the street is Brown’s favorite garden, Villa Africana Colobó. According to its website, the garden “explores the West African diasporas intrinsic to Puerto Rican and Caribbean culture,” and is dotted with West African–style huts, a storytelling room, and El Fogón, one of NSNP’s outdoor kitchens. There are three small gardening plots within the garden, each dedicated to different parts of the diasporic experience. One grows produce local to West Africa, one to Puerto Rico, and one to the East Coast. Others, like Raíces, contain murals dedicated to Puerto Rican history or student–made mosaics. The El Batey garden, named after Taíno, or indigenous Puerto Rican, community plazas, is dedicated to Taíno ancestry and honors its indigenous visual language and agricultural traditions.

This programming is a big part of what keeps

the community alive, especially in the face of gentrification. “I’ve heard Iris talk about the fact that it was very important to her and her friends that their children and grandchildren understand how special it was to be from Puerto Rico, and to teach and pass on those traditions,” Bibiloni says. “Although I didn’t grow up in this specific community, I could speak from firsthand experience. You know, you do start to lose the language. You start to lose firsthand knowledge of recipes and things like that. Unless you grew up in a household where your grandma or your parents, you know, were really very connected to that and it was very important to them to keep that alive.”

Brown used to run a trip to Puerto Rico every year, taking a group of young students to the island to reconnect with their history. The tradition was expensive and fell out of practice, but it has been recently revived through alumni funding. Bibiloni explains that “[NSNP has] alumni … who are [now] parents themselves, [and] we talk about how impactful it was for them to learn what they learned here as children and go on that trip to Puerto Rico.” A grant came from one such alumnus last year who felt the trip had made such a huge difference in his life that he wanted kids today to be able to experience the same thing. With the money, NSNP was able to run its first trip back to Puerto Rico in over 30

years.

Things are undoubtedly tense right now under the current administration, as despite their citizenship status, many residents are at risk of harassment from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. NSNP puts red cards—small red slips with information on immigrant rights—out in front of its office for anyone to grab, but for safety reasons, the organization cannot comment on much of the happenings within the community. For now, it is “trying to just find a balance between, you know, educating them and not like overburdening them with stuff that’s just going to make them more anxious and afraid,” Bibiloni explains.

Despite looming fear, activities continue to grow at NSNP, with youth leaders planning out activities over the summer to respond to the interests of those around them. They promote “youth choice and youth voice,” according to Bibiloni, hoping to spur programming that fits within the goals of both adults and youth within

the community. Many of the students participating in the cooking program are now working on their food handling certifications, and in the past, students have gone to Harrisburg to advocate for after–school programming. This passion for education was recently expanded as the students are now frequently visited by a friend of Bibiloni’s, a law professor at Temple who has been hosting “Know Your Rights” workshops on educational rights.

In terms of the organization’s future, Bibiloni explains that “with all the unexpected things that are now happening because of changes in the government … we’re really just focused on making sure we can keep our programs intact, making sure that we can continue to serve the number of youth that we’re serving, and making sure we can continue to grow the volume of food that we’re growing.” After receiving a grant from the Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative, NSNP hopes to find new ways to donate surplus food to the community, as currently, most food grown

is used to cook for and feed the youth. “I think right now, we’re just trying to prove the concept … since we really tripled our annual budget during the time that Teresa was in leadership. I don’t know that NSNP has been quite this big in a long time,” she says.

Bibiloni encourages people from outside of the community to come volunteer as well, as the organization has just begun to host volunteer days every fourth Saturday of the month. Its next big volunteer day will be on April 26 for Earth Day, for anyone looking to get off campus and get involved in the greater Philadelphia community.

In the next few months, the NSNP gardens will be in full bloom, with various peppers and flowers sprouting across the neighborhood. Children will be playing in the park, giggles will fill the air while steam rolls off grills, and Bad Bunny’s new album—which is #IrisApproved—will be on blast in the summer heat. w

From Vacant to Vibrant

THE PROCESS OF TURNING VACANT LOTS GREEN TO IMPROVE PHILLY COMMUNITIES

BY CALEB CRAIN

Walking north from Penn’s campus, high rises and campus buildings quickly give way to rowhomes and small businesses. Just half a mile past Market Street, in a quiet area north of Lancaster Avenue, patches of green emerge between the houses.

Not every parcel is occupied by a home or business. But these vacant lots aren’t just lying idle—they’ve been transformed into urban oases in the heart of West Philly. Some measure just a few hundred square feet in size. Others take up most of a city block. But regardless of area, these green lots provide a space for communion with nature.

The lots are not ad hoc projects set up by local residents. They are parts of an orga-

nized project set up by citywide nonprofits like the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Buildings previously on the land were not maintained and therefore were condemned for destruction by the city. Instead of letting them lie as pieces of dirt accumulating weeds and refuse, community members transformed them into communal spaces filled with grass and greenery.

Throughout the city, PHS maintains over 12,000 green plots of land, largely clustered across North and West Philly. PHS works with community members to find land parcels which have been abandoned by their owners or condemned by the city. Once they acquire government approval, they work with local businesses—most of which are owned by women and/or minorities, according to their website—to transform these plots into miniature parks, free for residents to enjoy.

Their efforts have paid off in a multitude of ways. Residents who live near lots that were part of an initial greening intervention in the early 2010s were significantly less likely to feel depressed or self–report poor mental health than those in areas that didn’t undergo greening, according to research conducted by Penn Medicine professor Eugenia South. Neighborhoods where vacant lots were greened also see 29% less gun crime than other areas.

Visiting some of these lots in late March, the intangible benefits of turning the vacant lots green also became clear. True, most lots featured little more than a covering of grass, a low picket fence, and a few small plants and trees. But when the alternative consists of empty plots occupied by crumbling buildings and trash, these islands of greenery in West Philly feel like more than enough. w

Photos by Caleb Crain and Courteney Ross

N. 39th Street and Fairmount Avenue

N. 37th Street and Brown Street

Yellowjackets: Givıng in to (Human) Nature

THE WILDERNESS DOESN’T REFORM, IT REVEALS. Whw

BY LIANA SEALE

Illustration by Abdel Hubbi

ou survive the crash. You tend to the injured and mourn the dead. You descend, ravenous, on the burned body of your fallen teammate because you know that’s what you have to do to make it through to another day.

You’ve never felt more alive.

Showtime’s Yellowjackets is well into its third season, and it’s becoming clearer than ever that the girls are doing more than surviving—they’re thriving out there in the woods. The thrill of chasing each other through the woods with spears excites them. The idea of the wilderness as an apathetic god driving their each and every decision comforts them. And the notion that an unlucky pull from a deck of cards is enough

to end any one of their lives isn’t terrifying—it’s the law of the land. Things are different now. Better. How the hell did they get here?

These girls were supposed to be national champions. Bright, strong, and ambitious, they had entire lives planned—college, boyfriends, trophies. A single mechanical failure sends all of this tumbling down. But it’s not that the crash causes them to turn into cannibalistic, rit-

ual–sacrifice–performing devotees of the wilderness; it merely catalyzes a metamorphosis that’s been lying dormant in all of them since the very beginning.

So let’s look at how they used to be. Season 1 takes us through their lives before the crash—the newly crowned state soccer champs getting ready for nationals. Our beloved Wiskayok High Yellowjackets have the weight of the world—or, at least, suburban New Jersey—on their shoulders, and they look the part. Perfectly put together with ribbons in their hair, waving for an adoring crowd at a high school pep rally, kicking ass on the field in a scrimmage against the junior varsity team, keeping up the image of a teenage girl with everything figured out. Their high school’s vice principal admits, in a somewhat off–color sort of way: “Some of these kids, eh, no big loss if we’re honest. But those girls were special. They were … they were champions.”

And they were. Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) was set to go to Brown and captain Jackie (Ella Purnell) was set to lead them to victory at nationals—but with expectations of success set so high, so are the tensions that underscore the girls’ interactions with each other. Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) is so determined to win nationals that she pushes freshman Allie (Pearl Amanda Dickson) too hard and inadvertently breaks her leg. Shauna sleeps with Jackie’s boyfriend in a move that is somehow both overtly jealous and psychosexually obsessive. A blowout fight at a party makes them the center of attention—and it’s clear that there are issues between them that need to be resolved.

Crashing together in the wilderness, however, brings them together. Lottie (Courtney Eaton), freshly off her meds, becomes a sort of religious figurehead in their eyes—able to communicate with the wilderness as a sentient entity in a way that nobody else can, she leads group meditation sessions out in the snow. “The cold … it makes my cheeks burn … but it also makes me feel awake. Like really awake,” one of her acolytes admits. “It makes me feel alive,” Van (Liv Hewson) clarifies. We watch them connect with a part of them-

selves that’s only accessible because of where they are—and somehow, we’re proud. Shauna comes out of her shell, becoming self–assured and outspoken in a way she never was before. Natalie emerges as a fair and just leader whose empathy, at the end of the day, supersedes her commitment to order. And even as we remain horrified by their occasional dabbles in cannibalism, we can’t look away. We, as the audience, turn them into a spectacle.

Flashbacks and flash–forwards sandwich their time in the wilderness between periods of radical normalcy—adult versions of the girls are

But it’s not that the crash causes them to turn into cannibalistic, ritual–sacrifice–performing devotees of the wilderness; it merely catalyzes a metamorphosis that’s been lying dormant in all of them since the very beginning.

a senator, a housewife, a nurse. They’re haunted by their past, sure, but like their teenage versions of themselves, they seem to be perfectly assimilated into society. This contrast makes the show feel like it exists in two separate worlds and highlights the absurdity of their actions in the woods. Their wilderness selves, the ones that worship the ruthlessness of nature like it’s a sentient being, are unrecognizable, but are they really separate? Is it enough for us to forget that the seeds of their violence have been present from the very beginning?

We know they’re cutthroat—they’re too good not to be. But as teenage girls—soccer champs aside—we also know that they’re under a whole lot of pressure and even more scrutiny. Caught between the need to be feminine in their personal lives and fierce on the field, to represent not only their school but their town and their

state, they’re fraying at the edges before they even step onto the plane. “When things get tough out there, those girls are gonna need someone to guide them. Can you handle that?” coach Martinez (Carlos Sanz) asks Jackie in the first episode. Their scrimmages are underscored with intense orchestral music that communicates just how much is riding on this for them. Even Shauna’s acceptance letter causes inner turmoil when we find out that Jackie is dead set on them going to Rutgers together. No matter who they are or what they do, there is always someone they’re afraid of disappointing.

When they’re out in the woods, for the first time in their lives, nobody is watching them except each other. They can finally succumb to the ugly parts of themselves that are ordinarily too shameful to acknowledge—the jealousy, the violence, the rage. Years of resentment and built–up hostility—toward each other, toward their coaches, toward themselves—come pouring out, but maybe it’s not that the crash traumatized them to the point of insanity, or that the wilderness leads them to brutality. Maybe it’s that, for the first time in their lives, nobody is there to tell them “no.”

This sort of competition, this constant, underlying fear of not living up to your full potential, is a fear that remains relevant as ever—especially at Penn, where club rejections are many and internship interviews are few. We exist in a pressure cooker, and whether that pressure comes from parents, professors, peers, or ourselves, it’s constant and draining. There’s something in the girls’ terrifying, liberating transformation that relentlessly compels, that begs us to ask: Wouldn’t I do the same if that happened to me? Couldn’t I?

The Yellowjackets find joy in letting go, in communal catharsis, and in embracing the parts of themselves that society deems unacceptable. Nature sets them free to revel in the absence of pressure for the first time in any of their lives—and while their response is an extreme one, it’s not irrational. And it’s certainly not as far away from any of us as we might like to think. w

Hills Burn in California; You Ignore Them

ADDRESSING THE GAP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL MUSICIANS’ ART AND ACTION

BY JO KELLY

Whw

Graphics by Insia Haque

It is no secret to (most) students at Penn that something must be done about climate change. Information about the climate crisis haunts our “For You” pages, taints our conversations with friends and family, and plagues our everyday lives with an omnipresent awareness of rising tension and temperatures. As the atmospheric carbon concentration mounts, so does our sense of impending doom—until we’re left with nothing but a sickening sense of helplessness and a high level of media fatigue. At times like these, it’s easier to detach from the world. Others choose to completely numb themselves to its chaos: The choice seems to be between Adderall, Van Pelt Library, or crawling back under the covers and never coming out.

Fortunately, all hope is not lost. We still have music. Music is cathartic; it forces us to confront what we feel and reconcile with it, and as a result, it’s tremendously politically effective. When we listen to music, we are influenced by the positive or negative affect of the song, reconnect with our emotional state, and maybe even empathize with the thoughts and feelings of the artist. This vulnerability motivates us to share this feeling with others and engage with it, politically and otherwise. Music allows us to cry in the short term and act in the long run. No one is more aware of the magic of music than artists themselves. In recent years, an increasing number of artists are using their work to spread messages about politics, and many have explicitly addressed the climate crisis. But, to what end? Are artists living up to their word, or are they merely using environmentalism as another PR campaign?

“Apocalypse pop,” a term coined by Vox in 2022, is a growing genre that attempts to describe Gen–Z panic, frequently referencing climate anxiety. Artists like Billie Eilish, Childish Gambino, and Hozier fall under this umbrella with their depictions of ordinary life in a warming world. Their respective songs “all the good girls go to hell,” “Feels Like Summer,” and “Wasteland, Baby!” are all examples of contemporary pop dealing, directly or indirectly,

with the lived realities of the climate crisis. Eilish, in particular, has aligned herself with the environmentalist movement, partnering with REVERB, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization aiming to minimize touring musicians’ carbon footprint. Eilish has also founded her own environmental initiative, “Overheated,” which urges audiences to “think deeply about our place in the fight against climate change.”

All this is fine and dandy. We need musicians with their huge platforms to spread awareness and inspire change. We need musicians with their art to stir emotions, to awaken more people to the danger embedded in this fragile moment.

But awareness alone isn’t enough—we also need them to contribute to the solution. REVERB might be a great start, but the bottom line remains that the music industry is one of the most environmentally harmful sectors of the entertainment industry. Tour buses, private jets, gigantic concert venues, and extravagant stage productions exemplify why popular musicians are among the worst offenders among us when it comes to carbon emissions. It’s easy to forget that these artists are also brands; they are corporate identities in themselves. Corporations, not individuals, are known to be the main drivers behind climate change, so what right do these artists really have to lecture us on the anxieties of our time? Should they even be making their art in the first place if it comes at such a high cost?

Yes and no. Environmentally conscious music is a balancing act: We want artists to spread awareness, but we don’t want them contributing to the problem. As it stands, many “eco–friendly” artists do not dedicate enough of their platform to environmentalism to justify their immense carbon expenditures. This could be solved in one of three ways: Either they increase their output of truly environmental art, they make their practices significantly more green, or they stop pretending to be something they’re not. They don’t deserve the PR clout they get from aligning themselves with these initiatives if they’re not truly contributing to the cause.

Environmental artists are invaluable to environmental activism, and they’re often overlooked for their efforts. Musicians in particular do so much in moving the needle. But if we

Take It to the Streets What To Do in Philly This Month

This month: Pandas, street food, Lucy Dacus, and learning to forage

Going to college in Philly, we’re so often bombarded—both on social media and in real life—with seemingly endless options for how to spend our free time. So, I’m delighted to announce that Street has done the hard part for you: We’ve rounded up what we think are the can’t–miss events for the month in one convenient place. If I’ve done my job right, there’ll be something in here for every one of our readers, no matter what you like to do with your free time.

Jules

Lingenfelter,

Print Managing Editor

April 15: Sex ed trivia at Tattooed Mom

How do you define sex? Is there a limited number of eggs? What’s the female equivalent of being pegged? These are questions that seem to baffle Street staff, but if they don’t baffle you, try your hand at some sex ed trivia. As a bonus, all proceeds go to the If/When/How Reproductive Legal Defense Fund. 21+, suggested donation of $5, 6–9 p.m., 530 South St.

April 16: Lucy Dacus at The Met Philadelphia

Lucy Dacus, a fan favorite of Street, is making a stop in Philly this month. Catch her on her Forever Is a Feeling Tour and cry at the barricade to this beautiful angel of music. With her beautifully rich vocals and sweetly melancholic melodies, a night of hearing Lucy Dacus live will change your life.

Tickets start at $65, 7:15 p.m., 858 N. Broad St.

April 17: Mod Podge: A Variety Night at Fringe Bar

No, it’s not a scrapbooking event or craft night. Mod Podge at Fringe Bar is a eclectic collection of performances that will titillate and delight audiences. Featuring drag shows, stand–up, and the occasional clown, the fast–paced two–hour show will keep audiences on their toes. The best part? It features all local artists!

Feb. 8–June 1: Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective at The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Best known for her fragmented explorations of feminine beauty rituals and standards, Christina Ramberg was an influential figure in Chicago’s contemporary art world. This exhibition features close to 100 pieces—from paintings, to quilts, to sketches—that span her 20–year career. They’re also accompanied by essays and other archived writing, allowing viewers a glimpse into the thought process behind the art. $14 for students, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.

April 12–Sept. 1: Boom: Art and Design in the 1940s at The Philadelphia Museum of Art

This PMA exhibit delves into the art of the ’40s in all its forms: clothing, paintings, furniture, and more. The decade was a time of social, political, and economic contention, bringing with it a prolific era of artistic expression. Tickets always include regular admission to the PMA.

$35, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.

$15 for students, 8 p.m., 140 N. Christopher Columbus Blvd.

April 18: Make & Take Activity at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens

Take a piece of the beautiful Magic Gardens home with you. The event includes general admission to the Gardens and the opportunity to create your own mini–mosaic fridge magnet. Let the colorful hodgepodge of this Philly staple make your day every time you open the fridge. $20 for students, 12:30–2:30 p.m., 1020 South St.

April 26: Karaoke night field trip at Let Me Know Club

What better way to shake off finals stress than belting out your favorite tunes at Yakitori Boy? If you don’t feel moved to sing along, don’t worry: This is an introvert–friendly night out! You’re always welcome to sit back and enjoy the performance, snack, and soak in the ambiance. $10, 211 N. 11th St.

April 26–27: Panda Fest at Dilworth Park

This nationwide festival is making a pit stop in Philly this month. Filled with Asian street food vendors, performances, and all things pandas, Panda Fest is one event you won’t want to miss out on.

Tickets start at $12, 10 a.m.–10 p.m., 1 S. 15th St.

April 27: StrEAT Food Festival at Main Street Manayunk

Dumplings, crepes, and barbecue, oh my! This street food festival has it all. Walk through the beautiful neighborhood of Manayunk and enjoy some unforgettable food. This fest also offers live music on different stages—we like to call that dinner and a show.

Free, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., 4000 Main St.

May 8–11: La Sylphide with Études at the Academy of Music

Performing a double feature of two different shows, the Philadelphia Ballet is bringing a weekend of dreamlike dancing to the stage. Flow through the hazy world of a farmer in the Scottish highlands discovering the magic of the forest, then follow up with a showcase of impressive ballet techniques to the classical score of Carl Czerny.

Tickets start at $28.25, 240 S. Broad St.

May 10: Eat the Weeds! at the Morris Arboretum and Gardens

Not often does one get to forage for their food in the city, but the Morris Arboretum is offering the chance to do just that this spring. Taught by Tama Wong, this class allows participants to forage for plants and then learn how to cook with what they find. Return to your roots, literally!

$55, 10:30 a.m., 100 E. Northwestern Ave.

What's Street Bumping?

Lisa's Alter Ego Would’ve Blown Her Cover

BY DEREK WONG

Lisa was the first of Blackpink’s four members to debut new solo material outside of YG Entertainment. Under her self–created label Lloud, the Thai rapper released “Rockstar” in June 2024 to a rapturous response. Critics praised the artist’s bold and braggadocious sound, with her cheeky lyric “Lisa, can you teach me Japanese? I said, ‘Hai, hai’” going viral on social media. Lisa showed herself to be capable as a solo artist—and when she announced she was releasing a solo album, fans were excited to listen to what the rapper had to say outside of her group. Alas, when Alter Ego dropped at the end of February, fans found themselves with an album that doesn’t have much substance besides highlighting the rapper’s boastful persona. And despite Lisa’s insistence on the concept of Alter Ego—where each song on the album is meant to highlight a different persona—her “secret identities” wouldn't hold up at even the simplest CIA training. Alter Ego presents a strong performer with a flimsy narrative and a strong need for backup, leaving the project very one–note.

Hurry Up Tomorrow Is an Underwhelming Finish to The Weeknd’s Persona

BY AMBER URENA

The album’s themes of doomsday and death were ever–present but lacked a lot of coherence. It felt less like a story and more like a vague series of emotional tangents—some good, but scattered, songs about The Weeknd’s imminent death warning, mixed with a variety of tracks that hail from his usual work. But Tesfaye might have done better by his audience by picking up in the purgatory Dawn FM left off and leading us smoothly and progressively into the end. Assessed apart from the trilogy, Tesfaye did good by The Weeknd’s memory, with some excellent songs on the album to boot. If this is truly the end of The Weeknd as we know it, it’s not a bad way to go out. I sincerely hope that he sees the pearly gates, just as he hoped.

Mother Monster Makes Mayhem Her Merriment

BY DEREK

WONG

Do we really have the era of The Fame Monster and “Born This Way” back? Is Lady Gaga “reheating the nachos” that made her the icon she is today? The answer, as it turns out, is both yes and no. While Gaga offers allusions of her imperial pop phase to listeners, Mayhem is the first time we’re able to see the pop star merge her two dueling identities—Lady Gaga, the world–renowned songstress, and Stefani Germanotta, the young budding musician from New York’s Lower East Side. As a result of this merger, Gaga regains the confidence she once had— perhaps for the first time since 2013’s misunderstood Artpop —while also creating an album that showcases musical maturity and genuine appreciation for her inspirations.

What's Street Watching?

Romance Isn’t Dead in Heart Eyes

BY LIANA SEALE

But if Heart Eyes opens like a slasher and ends like a rom–com, it struggles to define what’s in between. Its inconsistent tone, bouncing from bloody and brutal to downright sappy, makes it difficult to buy into for too long at a time. It’s not afraid to make fun of itself, but its methods of doing so don’t quite reach past “cringe” into “meta.” All in all, this was a film with an exciting premise, a strong aesthetic, and a striking villain design—and it came so close to being exceptional. It also came very close to making a compelling argument about America’s insistence on tying love to violence. Are we only trying to merge these genres because an onslaught of true–crime and sappy romance content has desensitized us to both? What does it mean that, for many of us, the promise of blood is enough to draw us back into the theaters on a holiday about love?

Beyond the Golf Course With Full Swing

BY SOPHIA LEONG

For more casual fans who watch the occasional golf tournament, it’s easy to assume that a professional golfer’s performance may just be based on skill level. However, there is so much more that could be happening behind the scenes that impact the success of a golfer, and it’s hard for individuals to see that side of their favorite professional athletes. Full Swing offers a rare insight into that little–explored world. Full Swing is a reality TV show that follows golfers like Keegan Bradley, Sahith Theegala, and Bryson DeChambeau throughout their time on tour, competition in major tournaments, and personal experiences. It dives deeper beneath what is usually streamed from a typical golf tournament. The third season of the series recently released on Netflix and follows matches like the Presidents Cup, the FedEx Cup, and the U.S. Open.

Lies Are Sweet and Truth Is Sour in Apple Cider Vinegar

BY LIANA SEALE

In 2013, an Australian influencer skyrocketed to fame after publicly claiming to have beaten her malignant brain cancer through healthy eating alone. Belle Gibson sold sick, desperate, and vulnerable people an enticing idea, leading them away from traditional medicine and toward the glittering mirage of alternative wellness. Her recipe app, The Whole Pantry, received hundreds of thousands of downloads in anticipation of her cookbook of the same name. If only any of that were true. Since then, it has been revealed that Gibson entirely faked her cancer diagnosis. There was never a malignant brain tumor, never a round of radiation, never even a hospital or an oncologist who diagnosed her. She endangered the lives of countless people by giving them false hope for a cure that never existed. Now, ten years later, her story has hit the screen.

Some Stars Shine Greener Than Others

The

success of environmentalist tours and who should be taking notes

BY HOWE CHEN

Graphic by Kara Butler

If you were able to snag tickets to your favorite artist’s tour, chances are you flooded your feed with 30–second clips featuring your painfully off–key scream–singing. If you didn’t, you probably clench your fists in anger at the mere mention of the show you missed. Touring has captured the attention of music enthusiasts around the globe (literally) for decades, playing an integral role in album lifespan and artist visibility. However, given the ticking climate clock, environmental activists have criticized touring musicians for their carbon emissions and energy usage, opening a discussion on the potential of sustainable tours.

Where does this environmental damage come from? Some sources attribute 70% of tour–based carbon emissions to commuter routes. Others credit tour lights, stage designs, and personnel transporting materials. More indirect damage surrounds overconsumption in cities, including non–biodegradable wristbands and food waste in local restaurants.

Some artists, specifically Billie Eilish and

Coldplay, transform these criticisms into active measures to reduce their eco–footprints. The former focuses on commuter routes and consumption, partnering with Google Maps to offer public transportation routes to venues and nearby plant–based restaurants. Her team also allows reusable water bottles with on–site refill stations, while also recycling food, camping, and toiletry waste. Coldplay, while also promoting local efforts, emphasizes sustainable tour production, powering their entire show with rechargeable show batteries, waste oil, and solar energy. They also employ “in–venue solar installations, kinetic dance floors, and power bikes,” supplying 17 kWh of power per show, and plant a tree for every concert–goer, totaling seven million trees so far.

Albeit different approaches, both initiatives are undoubtedly successful. Coldplay’s environmental triumphs are well documented; their tour website reveals statistics like a 59% reduction in emissions compared to their previous tour and 3,000 tons of carbon saved using sustainable fuel for mini-

mal flights.

However, the conservation of energy comes at an expense; it limits the flashiness of the stage. But is the magic of a concert really marked by an intricately decorated platform? Coldplay’s performance of “A Sky Full of Stars” for their sustainability–based Music of the Spheres World Tour instantly fills you with this warm feeling of belonging amid the beyond–ecstatic crowd, despite the minimally designed stage. As a concert enthusiast myself, I can confidently assert that 90% of the experience at a concert is about screaming along to my favorite songs while the music vibrates throughout my body—not fixating on an extravagant stage that two–thirds of the audience can barely see.

Another concern is that these efforts are expensive and difficult to execute. The merit of this excuse, for course, depends on the size of the artist. Sure, smaller performers usually can’t afford additional sustainability costs, but criticism isn’t necessarily directed to them because their tours are typically in smaller venues. For artists who can sell out

stadiums, however, this excuse is completely unreasonable. The Music of Spheres World Tour already grossed over $1.14 billion despite being the most sustainable tour to date. Even further, this mindset pushes a rich–get–richer narrative that places marginal millions into billionaire pockets while omitting them from social responsibility. Lastly, it’s just wrong to call small initiatives like allowing reusable bottles and providing public travel routes a hard–to–coordinate endeavor; this is genuinely the least musicians can do.

What are some examples, then, of sustainability negligence in tours? Infamously, Taylor Swift—particularly her famous 5,000–mile flight from Tokyo to Las Vegas for a football game, on top of the unnecessary flights she takes to and from concert cities— has emitted alarming amounts of carbon. Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour also had flight emissions, but what’s more pressing is her silence on the topic. Swift, at the very least, has recently purchased carbon credits to match emissions, but Beyoncé continues to remain silent. And frankly, now is the worst time for that.

Macroscopically, tours are small contributors to climate change, and green tours won’t magically prevent the Earth’s doom. However, global superstars serve as public influencers. Their efforts in promoting touring sustainability are long–term investments in the proliferation of pro–environment narratives amid a historically indifferent music industry. The fact that two of the biggest international icons (Swift and Beyoncé) have put in an underwhelming amount of effort in touring sustainably, knowing the precedents they set in industry standards, is both frustrating and neglectful.

This doesn’t mean to boycott the artists named above. Their tours are genuinely great for local economies, creating jobs, bolstering nearby businesses, and forging unforgettable experiences for devoted fans. The sooner mainstream fans demand environmental accountability from their favorites, though, the sooner we’ll see real change. The Earth is continuously baking in an oven set to overheat, and now, more than ever, we need our global superstars to lead the change. k

"The shorter the bang, the closer to God."

An email enters your inbox. The subject line reads “POV: UR AT THE WHITE LOTUS.” It’s from the clothing brand Cider—you know, the one all over TikTok that defines itself as an “Earth–Conscious Brand” while contributing to the erosive trend cycles of fast fashion. Scrolling through the email allows recipients to pick out boho–chic bikinis or cream, knit midi dresses listed under labels like “pretend like nothing’s going wrong in these tropic–ready pieces” or “just another retired millionaire, nothing to see here.” If none of these specifically curated looks tickle one’s fancy, there’s a whole page dedicated to playing dress–up for the “Lotus Escape.” For a little under $30 and the small price of potentially unethical labor, you too can look like the glamorously troubled vacationers of the White Lotus Hotel.

After a three–year hiatus, Season 3 of Mike White’s The White Lotus has finally started airing. Though the location has once again changed—this time, our characters find their way to Thailand—this season centers on yet another group of rich white people who only marginally veil their dark secrets and hidden resentments behind opulent exteriors. This formula is set in its ways, but the people still thirst for bourgeois drama; the first episode, “Same Spirits, New Forms,” premiered to 2.4

million viewers—57% and 155% higher than Season 2 and Season 1 respectively. The White Lotus has cemented itself in the cosmopolitan mainstream, and with its weekly releases on Sunday nights, it's become a you–just–have–to–be–there cultural moment. It seems everyone—co–workers, mutuals on Twitter, and even professors—has The White Lotus on the mind. It’s pop–cultural relevance harkens back a period of the classic “water–cooler” shows. And you’re in luck, because now you can emulate the very same characters you tune into every end of the week … just ignore the skeletons in their hotel closets.

If Cider’s unofficially inspired clothing line isn’t quite your vibe, you can check out the officially branded Abercombie & Fitch The White Lotus collection. Now you can live as a walking advertisement in this $90 crewneck sporting the White Lotus logo and beach skyline or imitate the on–screen inhabitants’ aesthetic with one of their many linen sets, always described as “breezy.” With this latest season, The White Lotus has not only delivered a new cast and a whole new level of crazy, but a perfectly curated ad campaign. Take a quick scroll through HBO’s official The White Lotus website, and you’ll find all the brands the show has partnered with, from the likes of American Express to Kiehl’s. It appears that, with this

most recent season, The White Lotus has lost the plot of its capital critique, commodifying itself to better sell to audiences.

When millions of viewers tune in to the latest salacious episode every Sunday night, they’re first met with a series of partnered advertisements curated to match the show’s aesthetic. This may seem like a small adjustment for viewers, who might not even realize the branded content. But it’s one huge step for advertising executives at Warner Bros. Discovery—HBO’s parent company. As Ryan Gould, the head of digital sales for the company, puts it, “By leveraging our premium portfolio of brands and platforms, we’ve created immersive, integrated campaigns that connect audiences to our advertisers in meaningful and innovative ways.” The inherent lavish branding of The White Lotus has created the perfect environment to partner with brands and sell specifically targeted products through curated ads.

Ketel One Vodka, for example, recently partnered with Patrick Schwarzenegger—the eldest brother of the fictional Ratliff family— to make him their first ever “spirit advisor.” In this 60–second ad, a suave Schwarzenegger shakes up a White Lotus Vesper Martini garnished with lychee, telling his beautiful co–star that he thought she “might want a

taste of Thailand.” With one sip she is whisked away to the shoreline, pink sunsets, palm trees, and steamy massages. Julie Yufe, the senior vice president of Vodka, Rum, and Gin at Diageo North America, speaks about the collaboration: “The show’s exploration of timeless hospitality aligns perfectly with the craftsmanship behind Ketel One Vodka and Tanqueray Gin, both of which are synonymous with the highest standards of quality.” Because, of course, there’s no better way to sell your show–branded alcohol than with the face of the character who is speculatively headed down an incestuous path with his younger brother.

Schwarzenegger is marketable. He’s an attractive choice to be the Ketel One spokesperson. He is, of course, not his character, Saxon Ratliff, a nepo–baby douchebag who makes comments about his sister’s sex life and masturbates with the bathroom door open while his brother is in the room. When the ad plays before the opening credits, it's hard to separate the commodified, luxurious lifestyle from show which is meant to critique it. There are conflicting values between The White Lotus the show, and The White Lotus the brand. The show is a humorous, biting satire on American social elites told through their frivolous vacationing habits with references to the colonial roots of the tourism industry. Hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) put it perfectly in the opening of Season 1: “They wanna be the only child, the special baby child of the hotel.” The characters are used to getting what they want, when they want it. They uilize their money and connections for the pettiest of reasons, always assuming that they matter more than anyone else around them.

Much of the critique that Mike White offers is revealed through the everyday obscenities these rich characters commit alongside the darker, albeit classic, flaws of the upper class— the culmination of these moments is enough to make the average person’s skin crawl at their cringey, shockingly out–of–touch behavior. Season 3 is no different from its predecessors in this way. The southern Ratliff family features a father in some dubious money scheme, a pill–popping mother, an eldest son riding off the coattails of his father, a daughter

who seems to function as the moral compass but whose obsession with Buddhism boils down to simply an act of rebellion against her mother, and a youngest son who acts as a people pleasing mediator, often leaving all sides unhappy. Not to mention childhood friends Kate (Leslie Bibb), Laurie (Carrie Coon), and Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), who are horrifically competitive with each other. The inherent ridiculousness of these caricatures can be pointed and laughed at—“Aren’t these rich people so freaky?”—but that’s where the critiquing seems to end.

There are conflicting values between The White Lotus the show, and The White Lotus the brand. The show is a humorous, biting satire on American social elites told through their frivolous vacationing habits with references to the colonial roots of the tourism industry.

As much as The White Lotus has billed itself as capital critique, it hasn't always walked the line between voyeurism and exposé well. In a review by The New Yorker, Inkoo Kang explains how Mike White has struggled with this delicate balancing. She writes, “At this point in the show’s award–laden run, it almost goes without saying that its creator, Mike White, glamorizes the lodgings as avidly as his most grounded character scorn them.” In Season 1, Olivia Mossbacher (Sydney Sweeney) and her college friend Paula (Brittany O’Grady) “read”

the likes of Freud and Nietzsche and criticize Nicole Mossbacher (Connie Britton) for destroying the social fabric with her capitalism as a tech CFO—while they themselves are still actively participating in the benefits of that wealth. It seems The White Lotus has yet to graduate from that surface–level rejection of capitalism. It’s trendy to be class–conscious, just not so class–conscious that you don’t buy what they’re selling.

The latest ad campaign and brand partnerships, though admittedly odd and a bit inharmonious, are the typical treatment of anti–capitalist media for mainstream consumption. The Korean thriller show Squid Game underwent similar treatment after its first season became a hit. Though the deadly game the characters play was a condemning allegory for capitalism, the concept of the game became a watered–down cultural obsession that received two real–life adaptations: Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge and Mr. Beast’s “$456,000 Squid Game In Real Life!” (which later became a full series). The Hunger Games, a dystopian anti–war series, suffered a similar fate when it was marketed as a teenage love–triangle. Original intent goes out the window when art gains such mainstream success and becomes highly profitable.

The commodification of The White Lotus has culminated in perhaps the only way it ever could: a real–life stay at the on–screen hotel. The show has notoriously only ever been exclusively filmed at Four Seasons’ locations, and following the second season in Sicily—where watchers flocked to the Four Seasons’ location in Taormina, Italy after season’s premiere—the show officially partnered with the “luxury hospitality brand” to create a White Lotus exclusive experience. As a part of the premier of Season 3, Four Seasons locations across the globe offered exclusive themed events like an afternoon tea event where participants get the “essence of Thailand through an elevated culinary experience” and exclusive screenings of episodes. Because, if you’ve been watching The White Lotus and the death, colonization, and exploitation haven’t turned you away, you’re more than welcome to live these very lives. Assuming you can afford it, of course. k