February 8, 2022

February 8, 2022 | 34st.com

Wax

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A FIREABLE OFFENSE are some

protect in order to free speech

in order

is it tenure.

institution.

Despite repeated racist remarks, Amy Wax is still teaching at Penn. Where does the University draw the line between free speech and hate speech?

for this

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 8 Definition Please

and South Asian Stereotypes

10 Learning to Laugh with Prof. Rabaté

12 A Fireable Offense

16 Tarot Tuesdays

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On accountability, restorative justice, and reckoning with our past

A

ccountability is hard.

Whether it’s being accountable for your own actions or figuring out how to hold someone else accountable, the process often feels uncomfortable in a world that grants the powerful with such strong protections against the impact of their own actions. We see it in the disparate effects of climate change on communities of color, in the nearly constant revolving door of the companies we should boycott this month that bounce back the next, and in the reluctance of our own university’s administration to address discrimination on its campus.

It’s even harder to define what accountability is.

We’re taught to think it’s retributive, that whoever caused the wrong must have wrong done to them in turn, but this feels reductive. Centuries of activists have worked to redefine the concept of accountability to be community–centered and restorative. But this new vision of accountability—one that focuses on the needs of whomever experienced the harm and sees justice as a process—requires deep introspection and a constant questioning of what we’ve been taught.

For all the work that practitioners of restorative and transformative justice have done to build better systems of accountability, the rest of the world hasn’t caught up. Maybe that’s because it’s easy to look for someone to blame, but it’s

so much harder to decide who’s responsible for fixing it.

Street is reckoning with this too. Each year, a new board inherits the publication from the last—and with it all of the mistakes they made. We’re still learning what it means to repair a complicated 50–plus–year history when none of us are around for more than four.

This week, we dug deep into the scandal surrounding Amy Wax, attempting to understand exactly what it means for Penn to hold her (and other tenured faculty) accountable.

Of course, we’re still learning how to cover the complicated web of issues that exist at this university when we’re students here too, inevitably affected by the same issues we cover. But we’re hoping that features like this week’s are a step in the right direction.

SSSF,

What's a Musician?

Illustration by Rebekah Lee Emily

34TH STREET EXECUTIVE BOARD Emily White, Editor–in–Chief: white@34st.com Eva Ingber, Campus Editor: ingber@34st.com Walden Green, Culture Editor: green@34st.com Arielle Stanger, Assignments Editor: stanger@34st. com

34TH STREET STAFF Features Staff Writers: Sejal Sangani, Angela Shen, Jiahui (Emilee) Gu, Avalon Hinchman

34TH STREET EDITORS Mira Sydow, Features Editor Meg Gladieux, Features Editor Julia Esposito, Word on the Street Editor Jean Paik, Focus Editor Kira Wang, Style Editor Alana Bess, Ego Editor Evan Qiang, Music Editor Irma Kiss–Barath, Arts Editor Cindy Zhang, Film & TV Editor Andrew Yang, Multimedia Editor Kira Wang, Audience Engagement Editor

Style Beat Writers: W. Anthony Pérez, Anna Hochman, Shelby Abayie, Naima Small

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Focus Beat Writers: Gabrielle Galchen, Sheil Desai, Connor Nakamura, Lina Chihoub, Sruthi Srinivas

Music Beat Writers: Derek Wong, Grayson Catlett, Kate Ratner, Samara Himmelfarb Arts Beat Writers: Jessa Glassman, Kaliyah Dorsey, Emily Maiorano Film & TV Beat Writers: Jacob A. Pollack, Kayla Cotter, Julia Polster Ego Beat Writers: Anjali Kishore, Vidur Saigal, Grace Busser, Ariella Linhart

34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Staff Writers: Natalia Castillo, Chloe Hunt, Xinyi (Cindy) Jiang, Emma Marks, Shahana Banerjee Multimedia Associates: Roger Ge, Max Mester, Derek Wong, Andrea Barajas, Rachel Zhang Audience Engagement Associates: Kayla Cotter, Yamila Frej, Vidur Saigal, Caleb Crain, Katherine Han, Daniel Kochupura, Emily Xiong, Gemma Hong THIS ISSUE Copy Editor: Brittany Darrow Design Editor: Tyler Kliem Cover Design by Tyler Kliem

CONTACTING 34TH STREET MAGAZINE If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Emily White, Editor– in–Chief, at white@34st.com. You can also call us at (215) 422–4640. www.34st.com © 2021 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 (but I bet we will give you the a–okay.) All rights reserved.

34th Street Magazine is published by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc., 4015 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa., 19104, every Tuesday.

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WORD ON THE STREET

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Premier League Matches and Perfect Daughters My struggle with meeting my mom’s hopes for a feminine daughter | ESTHER LIM

W

henever I watch soccer with my mom at home, she sits with me at an arm's length away, and deciphers aloud what’s happening on the screen. She doesn’t really care whether her comments are accurate. Her chipper narrations in Korean coagulate with the anxious English commentary of Saturday Premier League, and I dedicate an ear to each language.

Next to her, I sit with the posture of my father, which she points out every time. I stubbornly persist. My feet are up on the coffee table and I nudge away the pretty tray of potpourri with my toes. It’s a habit that prompts my mom’s nose to curl, like I do at missed volleys from my favorite strikers.

0:00 — We’re watching one of the last winter matches before I leave for campus. Her narrative of nostalgia commences with the shrill of the first whistle, and she quips about anecdotes I’ve heard too often: giving birth to me during the 2002 World Cup, how I was a fat baby, and the challenges of raising the most un–daughter–like daughter (in her opinion).

“It feels like only yesterday you were this little!” she sighs. I remind her of how I’ve grown by stretching my legs like a cat, to which she remarks that I have thighs like a man. I then watch as Bruno Fernandes sprints across the screen, boosting himself with his massive quads, and I choose to embrace my

mom’s comment as a compliment. I wish he’d run a bit faster after the ball, though.

5:00 — “Who’s this fine young Englishman running right now?” is her first genuine question. “The one just now— he was wearing a red shirt.”

I can’t tell which of the ten men on the pitch wearing a red shirt she is referring to. I point to one of them when he flashes across the screen. “That’s Raphael Varane,” I explain, “and he’s French, not English.”

She rolls the name around in her mouth a few times to feel how it sounds on her Korean tongue—Raphael Varane? She’s disappointed; the r’s aren’t Korean enough and they feel like concrete behind her teeth.

“He’s very good looking!” she notices. I knew she would mention that.

And maybe I agree. I describe to her his good-looking career so far, from his professional debut at 17, to how he played every minute for France’s 2018 World Cup win.

I’m not sure she’s listening. Until she eventually nods and comments, “You probably know more about soccer than a boy would.”

I think I do.

10:00 — Mom explains how she’d pester Dad to drive her to Friday night prayers when she was pregnant with me—how she’d sit and petition God, “Please have this one be a daughter. I already have a son!”

I ask how she would have felt if I

were a boy.

“I’d have dolled you up the same,” she assures, “like I did your brother.”

I’ve seen his baby photos—swaddled in white lace, banana yellows, and bowedup ribbons. He was a pretty baby, and Mom would agree: much prettier than I ever was.

“When you were finally born, I truly felt confident God had answered my prayers with a girl,” she coos.

My prayers are that our center backs stop losing the back line. Is there a limit to how many of my prayers can be answered? If so, how many have I already wasted on an Englishman’s ball game?

20:00 — Mom preaches about the joy of little girls’ clothes. After I was born, she would find her way to Lenox mall and search for wares to dress me like a colonial doll. People mistook me for a boy so often that she’d douse me with florals and pink and tulle.

Mom continues. One Sunday, she took me to church in the cutest outfit matched in pastel pinks and yellows.

Then a newcomer peered into my stroller and congratulated, “I didn’t know you had a son!” I looked so boyish, she reminds me. Maybe that’s why I still sometimes imagine whether I would have been better looking as a boy. Or maybe I’ve been coping under the covers of Maybelline.

“I think I might buy a Marcus Rashford jersey,” I comment, hoping Raphael Varane might have convinced her that the shirts look nice.

She doesn’t even have to think. “Girls

shouldn’t spend so much on sportswear.”

30:00 — ”I wished you had done ballet—something prettier than this,” she says, motioning towards myself.

She’d be the mom at recitals with a camcorder to her chin and nodding along to the accompaniment as I’d flutter across the hardwood stage in delicate pointe shoes. But instead, she is here watching me hurl criticisms to eleven men on the screen who do not know I exist.

I wish I was good at sports. I look at my own feet. I stare at them as if I could see through all the tissue and bones and cells into all the chromosomes and DNA I got from her; each nucleobase spelling out “these feet can’t do sports!” over and over into my genes.

Mom watches the men on–screen stomp at each others’ ankles for a tackle.

She wears a face of relief that I settled for more graceful hobbies like painting.

But I’m still jealous of the men who can shove into each other and wear grass stains on their shirts as an accolade.

45:00 — Mom still doesn’t understand the rules of soccer and insists she’s bored of the sport. Yet she tries to survive until 45:00 minutes of every soccer match she can, so humored by her past hopes of wanting the prettiest little daughter, while watching me gracefully name the bald–headed referees as blind bats and air-headed cunts out loud. She gets up and sighs, “God must have a bad ear, because I think he’s misheard my prayers and given me another son.”

I wish that were the case.

FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE

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EGO

JORDYN KAPLAN HOMETOWN: Media, Pa. MAJOR:

History, minors in political science and urban education

ACTIVITES:

Kite and Key, Class Board, Penn Hillel, Chi Omega, West Philadelphia Tutoring Project, Community School Student Partnerships, History Undergraduate Advisory Board

Meet the aspiring teacher changing the world one student at a time. | ANJALI KISHORE 34th STREET: Out of all your extracurricular activities, which would you say have had the biggest impact on your experience at Penn so far?

JORDYN KAPLAN: Definitely Class Board and Kite and Key. Class Board has probably had the biggest impact because it made me much more of a team worker. It takes a lot of open and clear communication, and that was something I jumped into as soon as I got to campus [my first] year. I was running a campaign within basically two weeks of coming to school, which was so intimidating to me. I love talking to people and I’m very much a people person, but the idea of approaching strangers right away in college was terrifying. Luckily, I got on board and I’ve been on board since, which has been really important for me to feel like I have an impact on the class here at Penn, even though I haven’t met a large majority of our class.

Knowing that I can give P sweaters with direct shipping over quarantine, that I can plan Hey Day, knowing that Econ Scream is still a highlight for a bunch of people, that’s really special, so Class Board is definitely the biggest.

4

With Kite and Key, it just reminds me how lucky I am to be at Penn.

Even though that’s so cheesy and I obviously don’t love to be at Penn all the time, every time I’m giving a tour and talking about my experience, it’s very grounding, even when I’m super stressed out about a 20–page paper

“

I want to be a teacher because I love learning and I want to make sure students feel empowered … I also think that on–the–ground work is really important and as a teacher, I get to shape the leaders, the politicians, business people, doctors, lawyers, everyone."

I need to grind out for my history class. It’s also a great sense of community as well. When I was applying, I’d been around campus a lot informally, but I actually didn’t want to go here, because my dad went here and it was too close to home. But once I actually went on a tour and heard the student perspective, I decided I

34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

had to be here. My tour guide from when I visited was actually one of the board members when I got into Kite and Key and I went up to him to say, “Just so you know, you were my tour guide and why I wanted to come to Penn.” He got really emotional, and it was a super cool connection. Now I’m the outreach chair, which means my responsibilities include handling alumni connections, homecoming events, and Quaker Days, which are coming up in the spring to connect with admitted students.

STREET: How does your dream to be a teacher tie into your Penn experience?

JK: I started my urban education minor and volunteer work my sophomore fall. It just started out because I missed working with kids—I babysat and taught at Hebrew school when I was in high school, and my mom was a teacher, so I always grew up reading and going to museums and libraries.

Education was already really important to me, but I never really thought of it as something that I could really invest myself into longterm until I took a class my sophomore year called “Learning from Children.”

Our professor Gillian Maimon is a professor in the Graduate School of

Education (GSE) and also a second grade teacher at a local elementary school. We would go into her classroom once a week to observe how she communicated with the kids, how they learned, and the learning types that were most beneficial to them. Learning from her was really what made me realize that teachers are students’ best advocates.

I’d been thinking of doing education policy, but then I saw that she was balancing all this activism while in the classroom and building these one–on–one relationships, which made me realize that was what I wanted to do. Through the urban education minor, I’ve been taking a lot of cool classes with some in GSE because I’ve decided to submatriculate. Technically, I’m working on my master’s degree and a teaching certification.

I want to be a teacher because I love learning and I want to make sure students feel empowered and capable, but I also think that on–the– ground work is really important and as a teacher, I get to shape the leaders, the politicians, business people, doctors, lawyers, everyone. I’ve always loved kids and working with them, but I never thought of it as some-

EGO

thing I wanted to do long term, just because there’s such a stigma about teaching at Penn, which was something that was hard to overcome at first. Going into the classroom with [Maimon] made me realize that being passionate about education is amazing and impactful and not something to feel bad about.

STREET: Have you gotten the chance to teach thus far?

JK: Last summer I was a full– time teacher with Breakthrough Collaborative, a nationwide program that has summer programs for underrepresented students with locations in 20 different cities. I was a seventh grade literature teacher and also taught a theater elective. I wrote daily lesson plans, taught two sections a day, and had a mentor teacher who helped me workshop my ideas.

A really important part of that was just building the relationships and seeing how I, as an individual, would function as a teacher, especially because my whole class was students of color. I’m a white woman, and although I was able to learn about the different dynamics of race and socioeconomic status as an urban education minor, actually seeing and learning how that plays out in a classroom and a school system was really impactful. Not only was it an amazing teaching experience, but also the students had a really huge im-

pact on me. I still play GamePigeon Connect Four with some of them, because that was something we did together over the summer, so being able to maintain those relationships has been really influential.

STREET: How does an urban education minor expand your understanding of education as opposed to just education in general?

JK: I love to learn, and I always want to be growing, so with the urban focus you’re thinking so much about race, power dynamics, and institutional racism.

These were things that I’d thought about before—I care a lot about social issues, but actually seeing them in person in Philadelphia schools made me really upset: seeing the discrepancy between my education and the education in the Philadelphia school system.

Among political science, American history, and urban education, there have been so many classes that overlap. I took a history class about the transformations of urban America the same semester I was taking "Learning From Children," so while I was learning about things like redlining and discriminatory loan practices, I was also going to a West Philly school and seeing how these students are stuck in poor neighborhoods because of the redlining processes of the 20th century.

There’s so much overlap in

studying history and seeing how much different developments have impacted the world. A lot of these issues fall back into education—it’s impacted by race, immigration, socioeconomic status, and so much more. I’m angry, but it makes me want to take action. I know I have a lot to learn, and I’m very cognizant of the white savior complex, so I try hard to just be a listener and learn from people who have relevant firsthand experiences.

I know that I’m constantly going to be growing and being challenged; these are the students that need advocates the most. The system is really unfair towards them, so if I can be that bridge between the students and the institution, that would be really rewarding.

STREET: How did it feel to hear that you're a Fulbright Scholarship semifinalist?

JK: I was thrilled, I was shaking, I was crying. It was basically like college acceptance all over again. But because I, and everyone, had a really hard year, this was something that I did for myself and I had been working on for so long. Having that validation was just really heartwarming and super exciting. If I get it, that’s one way I might teach English in Spain.

STREET: What’s next for you after Penn?

JK: I’m going to defer my ac-

ceptance at GSE for a year and hopefully teach abroad, and then decide whether I want to do Penn’s program or the same one– year program somewhere else. My goal for next year is to either teach English in Spain or to get a job at a school in London because I’m really big on traveling.

When study abroad got canceled because of COVID–19, I became fixated on the idea of going abroad and having that self– growth but also building connections with people from different cultures. I love Jane Austen, tea, and British history—I’m just obsessed with London culture, so to be there for at least a year would be amazing. But I’m neck–and– neck between England and Spain.

My sophomore year, I had an internship at a program working with refugees and immigrants, and for some of the conversations with them, I needed to use my Spanish and speaking with them helped me get it back quickly.

That also made me realize how important it is to be bilingual if I’m going to be working with city populations as a teacher. I want to be able to bring the family into the students’ education, so speaking Spanish would be a huge asset for that.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

LIGHTNING ROUND

STREET: Last song you listened to?

JK: “I Drink Wine” by Adele.

STREET: Favorite artists?

JK: I feel so basic, but I’m big on Taylor Swift, so basically "Fearless" and "Red (Taylor’s Version)" on repeat. I’m also a big Lizzo girl: I know “Truth Hurts” is old, but it always makes me feel so hype and good about myself.

STREET: What's your death row meal?

JK: My mom’s Friday night Shabbat dinner. She would always make sesame chicken with apricot sauce, kugel, homemade challah, and more.

STREET: There are two types of people at Penn …

JK: Those who go to [Pret a Manger] and those who go to [Williams Cafe].

STREET: And what are you?

JK: I’m a big WilCaf fan. I’m there very frequently to get my iced dirty chai with lavender.

FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE

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EC GU OS FO

Penn Needs To Take Better Care of Its Student–Athletes While Penn has taken some measures to ensure the wellness of its players, there’s still more to be done. | GABRIELLE GALCHEN

T

he cult mentality of American football is like no other. Shockwaves rippled through the sports world recently when Philadelphia Eagles player Lane Johnson opened up about his struggles with depression and anxiety—but this is just one instance in a larger trend of mental health struggles faced by professional athletes.

Professional football players meet a unique set of challenges—an intense pressure to perform, a pervasive culture of toxic masculinity, and a rigid schedule that can easily lead to overexertion.

Football players are also more prone to injuries, which can cause severe mental health strain. A 2017 study found that severely injured football players were nearly two to seven times more likely than non–injured players to develop symptoms of mental health problems. Many athletes also suffer from brain injuries due to the high rate of concussions from football games. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma, causes individuals to become more prone to mental illness, and has been found in the brains of more than 315 football players.

However, football players often lack the support needed for both mental and physical recovery. Players are rarely given a game schedule that permits time for leisure, 6

relaxation, or self–care. Furthermore, physicians for sports injuries have been ineffective at educating athletes about coping with injury and facilitating access to psychological support services.

Football players recovering from injury are also typically

ers have said they fear being perceived as weak or incapable when opening up about their mental health—whether this would mean losing fans or losing the respect of their coaches and teammates.

Recognizing that this is a widespread problem—includ-

In addition to meeting with academic advisors, Penn student–athletes are given access to meetings with a sports psychologist. Joel Fish—a psychologist who has worked with teams like the Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia 76ers, among others—is a

Illustration by Alice Choi expected to immediately return to practice, and are not given any long–term tools to psychologically cope with their injuries.

Although players like Kevin Love, A.J. Brown, Lane Johnson, Calvin Ridley, and many others have shared their experiences with mental illness, the stigma surrounding mental health remains. Football players like Solomon Thomas of the Las Vegas Raiders, DJ Chark of the Jacksonville Jaguars, and countless oth-

34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

ing on college campuses— Penn has taken some measures to account for the mental health of its student–athletes. The Mental Health and Performance Department of Penn Athletics has partnered with Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and the Center for Student–Athlete Success (CSAS) to prioritize student–athletes with mental health concerns. Each team at Penn also has a specialized mental performance liaison.

notable resource for the Penn football team. Fish meets with the players at the end of each practice to conduct group discussions about coping mechanisms for anxiety, self–esteem, and time management as student–athletes. He also reaches out to players individually to discuss their personal headspace, and offers athletes the option to contact him.

But there’s much more that Penn can and should do to take care of its athletes. While Penn facilitates workshops

about wellness, it doesn’t specifically address the broader challenges that football players face: rigid norms of toxic masculinity in football, burnout, and the constant pressure to perform, to name only a few. Penn has also hired a single sports psychologist for all of their athletic teams, making it impossible for every student–athlete to receive the help and resources they need.

Penn could also learn a thing or two from other colleges. For instance, the University of Southern California is home to the largest sports psychology team in the nation, one which reflects the diverse backgrounds of its student– athletes. USC has instructed its sports psychologists to hold team meetings to discuss team dynamics and performance, as well as educate coaches and players about depression, anxiety, suicide prevention, substance use, body image, eating disorders, healthy relationships and the psychological effects of an injury.

Ultimately, more funds should be allotted, more services provided, and more consideration given to taking care of the mental health of student–athletes. As mental health remains an ongoing issue for both professional football players and student– athletes, it's imperative that Penn recognizes that its players have needs, and struggles which can be amplified in high–pressure environments, whether that's in the classroom or on the playing field.

FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE

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FILM & TV

'Definition Please' is a Hot Take on South Asian Stereotypes Sujata Day dismantles damaging stereotypes in her genre–bending directorial debut. | CINDY ZHANG Illustration by Tyler Kliem

D

efinition Please, directed by and starring Sujata Day, begins with a flashback of a young Monica Chowdry correctly spelling out "opsimath," earning herself the title of the 2005 Scribbs National Spelling Bee champion. What she seems to be doing is spelling out success—the audience is set up to believe that this is a story about a precocious child going on to do great things.

However, when the film fast forwards to the present day, all expectations are shattered: Monica’s still living in her childhood home in Greensburg, and splits her time between tutoring kids in the neighborhood—relying on her credibility as an ex–spelling bee champ—and taking care of her ill mother. She receives a job offer at a clinical research lab in Cleveland, but for the most part, she appears to drift through life with little purpose. Within the first ten minutes of the film, Day makes one thing clear: This is not your average, stereotypical portrayal of South Asians.

In introducing a South Asian character who isn’t embellished with fancy accolades, Day addresses a common insecurity: the fear of failing to achieve conventional forms of success among Asian Americans, propagated by the model minority myth. Day articulates this sense of lost potential in a scene where the mother of one of Monica’s tutees labels her as a failure for not capitalizing on her childhood success.

The rest of the film sees Monica grap8

ple with not just her ambitions, but her strained relationship with her estranged brother, Sonny. He comes back home, to her utter displeasure, to attend their father’s memorial and it is revealed that their seemingly petty fights are rooted in something deeper—Sonny struggles with bipolar disorder but doesn’t want to admit it. This alienated Monica, who presumably bore witness to his violent tendencies but couldn't convince him to get help. This brings attention to the stigmatization of mental health in the Asian American community, which has too often caused people to retreat, rather than treat. In an interview with the The Hindu, Day recalled:“When we reached ninth or tenth grade, one of our [Indian American] friends ran away from home."

Day tackles the theme of mental health with refreshing nuance, offering her interpretations on how and why mental health issues remain unaddressed and feelings get bottled up in South Asian households. It is only through honest conversations that the family is able to heal from their trauma and admit their mistakes. In many ways, the film is a love letter to familial love.

Perhaps the most striking part about this indie dramedy is that it explores the experiences of a first–generation Indian American without making questions about her identity central to the plot.

In fact, both Monica, affectionately nicknamed Boony, and Sonny are incredibly at ease with their heritage and intercultural identities. Desi culture is

34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

woven into the fabric of the movie, like when the siblings share a can of Thums Up, a popular Indian soft drink, or play a game of carrom. The intersection of Western and South Asian culture is also reflected in Day’s directorial choices: she fuses features of Western indie films and Bollywood classics. Keep an eye out for the comedic slo–mo scenes, where the camera subverts the male gaze by shamelessly scrutinizing an attractive male passerby, backed with a soundtrack reminiscent of Bollywood films.

Inspired by Issa Rae’s The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, in which she co–stars as CeCe, Day creates a narrative that undermines the monolithic perception of the South Asian diaspora. Definition Please stands out in its ability to normalize flaws and invite universally relatable conversations about family dynamics and conflicts (as well as gifted child burnout).

Above all, its female lead subverts damaging South Asian stereotypes by rejecting characters whose only interesting quality is being Asian, whose love life revolves around an arranged marriage, and whose main purpose is to add dimension to the white protagonist.

Granted, South Asian representation in films is far from perfect; in the 2020– 2021 season, the South Asian share of the screen on streaming platforms was a meager 1.5%. On the bright side, alongside Day and Khaja, the talents of actresses of South Asian heritage are

slowly being acknowledged in the film industry. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan plays the short–tempered yet endlessly charismatic Devi Vishwakumar in Never Have I Ever, a coming–of–age dramedy co–created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher. Simone Ashley, who plays modern–day mean girl Olivia in Sex Education, is set to co–lead the second season of Bridgerton.

With Asian reality shows like Single’s Inferno continuing to aestheticize pale skin, casting actresses of Tamil Indian heritage confronts and upends the colorist beauty ideals within Asian culture. This increasing, albeit gradual, recognition of South Asian women is also reflected in the growth of communities like BrownGirlGang, which was founded in 2017 by Sanjana Nagesh to uplift South Asian women and empower brown girls who rarely see themselves reflected in the media.

Progress isn’t just measured by the number of South Asian characters in a film—it’s measured by the diversity of narratives and stories told. By letting her own experiences growing up in an Indian American community in the predominantly white city of Greensburg guide her creation of a fictional South Asian American family, Day crafts a film that is powerful in its authentic specificity. Definition Please unapologetically challenges the expectations of an audience used to stereotypical portrayals of the South Asian diaspora, and that’s what makes it feel alive.

FILM & TV

Are Penn Students Experiencing 'Superhero Fatigue?'

Some fans have become increasingly burned out from the redundant storylines of comic book movies and shows. | JACOB A. POLLACK

S

uperhero movies have been around for decades, with the first superhero movie arguably being a 1916 French film called Judex.

Judex centers on a dark–cloaked vigilante named Jacques de Tremeuse who possesses no powers and relies on high– tech gadgets. Sound familiar? Yes, 23 years before writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane created Batman in May 1939, a Batman–esque hero had already been introduced to the world.

Now, over a century later, this vigilante archetype is returning with Matt Reeves’ The Batman hitting theaters in March 2022. While this iteration of Batman is promised to be a gritty and dark tale of Bruce Wayne’s early years of fighting crime, one can’t help but make comparisons to Christopher Nolan’s own Batman trilogy, which premiered a mere decade ago. While film tropes underpin some of Hollywood’s greatest movies, like the organized crime trope in The Godfather and Goodfellas, today's overabundance of superheroes has resulted in divided opinions within Marvel’s fanbase.

In 2021 alone, the top domestic earners at the box office were all comic book movies, with Spider–Man: No Way Home leading the charge with over $700 million. It’s no wonder why Hollywood loves superhero movies—they make a ton of money. And when it comes to the MCU, many fans are invested in this connected universe and are willing to watch whatever Marvel Studios creates. But even some Marvel fans are experiencing a loss of enjoyment with these movies. A new 2021 study from Morning Consult showed that 29% of Marvel fans feel worn out from the genre.

Among Marvel fans on Penn’s campus, the sentiment was varied. Eli Katz (E '25), who’s been reading comic books for years, shared his opinion on Marvel movies.

“I really think that the worst parts of Marvel are that they kind of don’t know

Illustration by Rebekah Lee Photo Courtesy of Marvel

when to play things as a joke and when to play things as serious,” he says. Eli further discusses his thoughts on Spider–Man: No Way Home: “When they reveal Andrew Garfield, like, this is fantastic. This is merging [with] my childhood, and this is everything I ever wanted. And then they turned it into a joke."

Eli was not as fond of Spider–Man: No Way Home as other fans but, nonetheless, he's excited for the future of comic book movies and shows. "I'm a little bit excited because you're starting to see people realize that the superhero medium might be an avenue for more creative methods of filmmaking," he adds.

Aiden Sessa (W '23) is a massive Marvel fan who grew up watching the Tobey Maguire Spider– Man trilogy and loved the recent Spider–Man crossover film. Still, Aiden has also found himself experiencing superhero fatigue. According to Aiden, “In the early days, Marvel was very unique. When [the original Avengers] came together, it was like, wow, all of these different things are combining and that’s so great. And then as Marvel went along, they just turned every movie into the same movie."

Comic book movies have always centered on complex characters who grapple with their morals and ethics. But comic book movies in the twenty–first century may have become overly reliant on computer–generated imagery (CGI) and green

screens when creating fictional worlds.

In many instances, a Marvel/DC movie has become more of an animated film than live–action. “I was really into the stuff Marvel did with [Shang–Chi’s] dad,” Aiden says, while discussing Shang–Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, “but then the third act came and a giant dragon appeared, and they completely lost me.”

Many of Hollywood’s greatest directors have also expressed criticisms of the MCU, including Martin Scorsese, who, during his press tour of The Irishman, lamented that MCU films “just aren’t cinema” and are “closer to theme park rides.” Aiden partially agrees with Scorsese’s characterization of Marvel

movies, noting that watching Marvel movies is a collective experience akin to going to a theme park. “The biggest difference between the two kinds of films is that comic book films do tend to be more audience–focused rather than story–focused,” Aiden remarks.

It’s silly not to acknowledge a Marvel movie as part of cinema, given that it plays in theaters and is watched by millions of loyal fans. Just as Titanic and Star Wars were landmark films in their respective eras, Marvel movies have captured the zeitgeist of what audiences are interested in today. But only time will tell if they'll be considered classics alongside these other cultural milestones of the silver screen.

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FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE

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ARTS

Jean–Michel Rabaté Makes the Case for Laughter In 'Rires Prodigues: Rire et Jouissance chez Marx, Freud et Kafka,' the English professor smiles at the end of the world. | IRMA KISS BARATH

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here’s no denying it: It’s been a rough year. From lockdown blues, to stateside political upheavals, to an escalating climate crisis, we’ve had to learn to weather the challenges as they come. In the face of all this gloominess and uncertainty, it’s no wonder that so much recent academic research has a pessimistic bent. The past year has seen a spate of research on darker subjects like death, decay, illness, and depression by prominent scholars—all against the backdrop of recent trends towards doomsaying and reactionary rhetoric in and outside of academia. Pundits all across the board sound the death knell for democracy, civil liberties, and even basic human decency. Whoever you listen to, one thing is clear: the world as we know it is ending. But in the current moment of dystopian

thinking, one scholar’s work stands apart from the crowd.

Enter Jean–Michel Rabaté, a professor in Penn’s Department of English and Comparative Literature. Rabaté’s bibliography runs the gamut from a comparative study on Beckett and Sade to an excavation of the term “modernity” and all its implications— but it’s his most recent book, a monograph on laughter, that really stands out. In Rires Prodigues: Rire et Jouissance chez Marx, Freud et Kafka (in English, that’s Prodigal Laughter: Laughter and Delight in Marx, Freud, and Kafka), Rabaté offers an irreverent take on the title’s intellectual heavyweights.

For a book that concerns itself with laughter, the tone is fittingly irreverent throughout. While Rabaté tackles his subjects by way of Lacan, Lacan himself is spared no jest. In fact, Rabaté opens with a delicious jab

10 34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

at the famed philosopher: “I will make a confession: oftentimes, Lacan made me laugh when I attended his lectures.” So Lacan, famously obtuse to the point of absurdity, could be funny—et alors?

In fact, the barb goes deep—Rabaté states that most of Lacan’s funniness was inadvertent, a result of his notorious tendency towards obfuscation. But the punchline here is that his students either failed to remark the obfuscations or dismissed them out of hand.

Rabaté goes so far as to conjure the image of the rapt students sitting beside him, who followed teach’s every word with “serious, intense, devoted enthusiasm.” Rabaté pulls no punches here, eagerly interrogating the philosopher’s legacy. But if the book, in all its cheekiness, seems like a perfectly–of– the–moment antidote to all

the pessimism and fear-mongering of 2021, rest assured that it’s been in the works for a long time.

Rires Prodigues emerges on the heels of what Rabaté views as a troubling trend in academia: Scholars’ and students’ inability to laugh.

“These days,” Rabaté says, “people are afraid to laugh and afraid to make statements that could trigger laughter because it’s felt as if laughter could too quickly aggravate, antagonize.”

Whether this fear of laughter arises from reverence for the canon, fear of authority, or a simple instinct towards selfpreservation matters little.

Whatever its root, Rabaté finds this tendency problematic, not least because it goes against the natural instinct towards laughter. “Teachers are afraid of making jokes.

Students are afraid of laughing. And I think this is not very healthy,” he says.

Illustration by Amy Krimm

What’s in a Joke?

And in the world of humanities academia, laughter keeps the machine running—it’s at the root of every scholarly breakthrough. Without a willingness to poke the bear, there’s simply no way to move beyond conventional wisdom, no way to bring fresh takes to an age-old discipline. Rabaté, both as a teacher and a researcher, takes this willingness to break with the canon to heart. On paper, he’s attached to the English department, but his unique approach involves a blend of disciplines, including philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology—all key ingredients in his creative vocation.

But it’s not just professional creativity at stake: Our ability to learn also depends on our willingness to laugh.

Laughter, at its core, means taking a hammer to old wisdom and applying your own perspective to established

ARTS

ideas. It means going beyond a superficial understanding of a given text. It means actively inserting yourself into the issue at hand. Rabaté sees this as the key to engaging with old guard thinkers, Freud among them. It’s why the controversial thinker, often ridiculed in popular conversation, still resonates so deeply with his students.

“He talks to certain situations like trauma, exclusion, racism”—issues that weigh heavily on students’ minds.

It’s easy to make fun of ideas like the Oedipus complex or penis envy, but laughter doesn’t happen without a little reflection, and reflection drives us to learn.

Beyond the humanities bubble, there are broader stakes here. Jokes, with all their subversive potential,

are powerful political acts.

“It can be dangerous,” Rabaté says. But within that danger lies great possibility: to inspire, to reform, to revolutionize. Assuredly, there’s a line between reactionary jokes and progressive ones— but the challenge of distinguishing between them is all the harder if we aren’t willing to joke in the first place. So how can we free ourselves to laugh, at ourselves if nothing else?

Self–irony, like any virtue, takes practice. We might take a few cues from an unexpected maestro, Lacan himself. Rabaté witnessed firsthand the philosopher’s reaction when a student radical attempted to humiliate him. The key takeaways?

Keep your composure. Turn the tables on the humilia-

tor—revel in the embarrassment. Besides, there’s a certain unity in laughter and tears, as Rabaté sees it.

“Often,” he says, “you think you love because you are sort of happy, sunny, on the side of pleasure or enjoyment. And you cry if you are sad or melancholy.” But Rabaté challenges this way of thinking, arguing in Rires Prodigues that excessive enjoyment eventually amounts to suffering. And conversely, we so often laugh to relieve suffering, to cope with all our daily miseries. A key lesson emerges: To function in our ailing society, we must learn to weld the negative and positive tendencies into one. Especially so in 2022.

In the wake of the pandemic, we need laughter more than ever.

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FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE 11

F E AT U R E

F E AT U R E

Wax

Carey

organize this

that

Law School

are some

protect in order to free speech

A FIREABLE OFFENSE

in order

is it

tenure.

for this

institution.

Despite repeated racist remarks, Amy Wax is still teaching at Penn.

Where does the University draw the line between free speech and hate speech? | MIRA SYDOW

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ou’ve probably heard of University of Pennsylvania Robert Mundheim Professor of Law Amy Wax (or “‘Racist’ Penn Law Prof,” according to a recent Daily Beast headline). If you haven't, she’s pretty easy to find—and she may have publicly disparaged your identity.

Down the Wax rabbit hole, you might peruse The Daily Pennsylvanian’s dozens of articles about her offenses, piecing together a matrix of questions of academic freedom and accountability. You might Google “Amy Wax” to 19 million results in 0.57 seconds (or “Amy Wax racism”: 6 million, 0.42 seconds). Or, you might follow Apratim Vidyarthi (L '22) on Instagram, where he chronicles the Wax Resistance to fewer than 500 followers through media commentary

and screenshots of correspondence with law school administrators and hate comments from free speech enthusiasts.

A few months away from graduating from Penn Law School, Apratim is the latest in a line of Penn Law student organizers advocating for Wax to be fired. He can’t remember the first time he caught wind of her inflammatory remarks, just that he heard whispers before he even arrived on campus in 2019. As a first–year law student, Apratim joined student government in the midst of a conflict between cultural organizations and law school administrators after Wax remarked that America is “better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.” Some students met with administrators, including Penn Law Dean Theodore Ruger, to discuss repercussions and sup-

1 2 34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

port for students of color, but three years later, Wax is still teaching and doubling down on her remarks.

"Wax's racist comments have become a semi– annual ritual that receives temporary furor and temporary consequences" Apratim Vidyarthi (L '22)

On paper, Wax is exactly what you’d expect of a lauded Penn Law professor. She at-

tended an exhaustive list of elite institutions: Yale College, University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Law School, and Columbia Law School. Before coming to Penn Law in 2001, she worked in the Office of the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice and taught at the University of Virginia Law School, amid clerkships, residencies, and publications in prestigious law journals.

However, Wax’s academic career is poisoned with “thoroughly anti–intellectual and racist comments,” according to a Jan. 3 statement from Ruger. She’s championed the 1950s “bourgeois cultural script” which excludes Black, Hispanic, and working–class Americans, argued against affirmative action, and remarked that she’s never “seen a Black student graduate in

the top quarter of the class” at Penn Law. Most recently, Wax came under fire for statements from a Dec. 20 interview with Brown University professor Glenn Loury, where she contended that “the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”

Wax is a tenured professor at Penn, alongside about 472 standing faculty of Asian descent, and her classes are available to the 103 Asian students enrolled at Penn Law. Street reached out multiple times to Dean Ruger, Vice President of University Communications Stephen MacCarthy, and professor Amy Wax for comment about the University sanctions process and received no response.

Street also contacted the Office of University Life, which provided a statement in sup-

port of Ruger’s remarks and the statement put out by the Task Force on Support to Asian and Asian American Students and Scholars. Additionally, Street reached out to the Penn Law Office of Equity & Inclusion, which responded with background information about the Office, Penn Law demographic information, and diversity goals for the future.

Despite her inflammatory remarks, Wax seems “uncancellable,” according to Loury.

Wax faces backlash from students and academics following each racist outburst, but rarely receives administrative consequences for her hateful comments. In 2018, Ruger barred Wax from teaching mandatory first–year classes at Penn Law, but she is permitted to instruct non–mandatory courses—she’s teaching two this semester.

In the first few moments of her interview with Loury, Wax says, “I’ve been canceled so much that I feel like I’ve gone through the tunnel to the other side of cancellation.” She appears to view the students’ organizing as nothing more than a nuisance, the latest push in a campaign that has achieved little progress over the course of a decade.

Apratim hopes this isn’t true. As a member of the South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA), he’s been working with Penn Law’s affinity organizations to demand action from the University. On Wednesday, Jan. 12, Apratim sent a letter to Dean Ruger and the Faculty Senate Executive Board, which noted that, “Wax’s racist comments have become a semi–annual ritual that receives temporary furor and temporary consequences,” and set forth four demands: that the University begin an investigation into Wax's employment at Penn Law, increase transparency of systems of accountability, cre-

ate a committee to reform tenure with student input, and reaffirm the law school’s commitment to diversity.

Attached to the letter were 59 pages of over 2,500 signatures from Penn Law affiliates and non–affiliates. Six days later, Ruger announced that he had initiated the formal process to consider academic sanctions against Wax. While this is a step in the right direction, Apratim “hoped it would have happened a long time ago.” It’s also not clear what this potential action means. Ruger’s statement commits to compiling the complaints—notices of misconduct filed by students and staff over the years—against Wax to determine the level of punishment, which could be “major” or “minor.” According to Insider, the complaints against Wax allege “a pattern of discriminatory language and favoritism toward white students that put students of color at a disadvantage when they enter the legal industry.” Aside from descriptions of some complaints, which are hidden behind a paywall, the accountability process seems murky and the timeline unclear, even to Wax. She tells Loury on his show, “They’re still trying to fire me at my law school, but of course they have this … hideous [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] bureaucracy. I’m not terribly worried about it.”

Alexa Salas (C '17, L '23), a second–year law student, recognizes that communication and transparency are critical to the success of the movement to fire Wax. Alexa attended Penn as an undergrad as well—she returned to study at the law school because of the tight–knit relationships she formed with Philadelphia community members and organizations and her dream of pursuing public interest law.

She hardly expected to be so involved in this fight, but it’s

just her nature.

“I think one of our responsibilities as law students is not just to learn the law, but to also be able to scrutinize and critique legal institutions, how law and policy are made, who gets to make those choices, and who holds power,” Alexa says.

As the co–president of the Latinx Law Students Association (LALSA) and a member of the Penn Law Office of Equity & Inclusion’s (OEI) Student Advisory Board, she’s

"I think one of our responsibilities as law students is not just to learn the law, but to also be able to scrutinize and critique legal institutions, how law and policy are made, who gets to make those choices, and who holds power" Alexa Salas (C '17, L '23) been working to build a coalition of underrepresented voices at the law school and enter conversations directly with administrators. Both Apratim and Alexa are grateful for the supportive environment they’ve cultivated between law student organizations, the result of nearly a decade of advocacy.

“We've really built on the labor of our predecessors, of former law students and alumni, who have allowed us to even get to this point,” Alexa says.

But is it actually working?

Apratim and Alexa have both met with Penn Law Administrators: Apratim as a member of SALSA, and Alexa in her role on the OEI’s Student Advisory Board, but the closed–door conversations haven’t provided a ton of clarity. When a statement from Ruger hits the Penn Law website, the organizers learn the news at the same time as everyone else. Many times throughout the process, Alexa wondered if she was even talking to the right people.

“We may be able to share our frustration, but how much weight do those statements actually carry in that context, if the people to which we are speaking are not in a position to directly take action, to mitigate or to repair the harm that has occurred?” Alexa says, of her communication with the Office of Equity & Inclusion.

She now understands that the sanctions decision "lies with the University's Faculty Senate and the Dean of the law school."

Still grappling with the University’s “shroud of confidentiality” surrounding accountability measures, law students focus their efforts on two areas of reform: rooting out racism that permeates white–dominated spaces like Penn Law, and tenure, which has protected Wax and other controversial academics before her.

In 2019, Penn Law established the Office of Equity & Inclusion with the goal of “expanding access, increasing diversity, broadening educational opportunities, and fostering inclusion and community engagement,” according to an email statement. A year later, U.S. News & World Report included Penn Law in a list of “46 Racially and Ethnically Diverse Law Schools” with 33.4% minority students, ranked below Stanford

University, Yale University, and Cornell University. As of October 2021, the number has improved slightly to about 36% minority students, and around 23% faculty members are people of color. Penn Law publicizes the student racial breakdown, including a category for “Nonresident Alien,” but does not currently provide public statistics about the specific racial/ethnic membership of faculty. It's working on a platform to publish these numbers to be released later this year.

In January 2022, when Wax’s comments about Asian immigration sparked national outcry, members of the Philadelphia community denounced Wax, connecting her remarks to a larger trend of anti–Asian violence during the COVID–19 pandemic. In a Jan. 7 statement signed by 16 out of 17 Philadelphia City Council members, Councilmember David Oh wrote, “The sweeping, racially–biased assumptions espoused by Professor Wax are not only intellectually dishonest, but feed into dangerous trends of rising animosity and scapegoating of Asian Americans.”

Oh and Apratim consider Wax’s remarks harmful for two reasons: They’re blatantly racist, but they also come from someone employed by a prestigious university, a beacon of pioneering thought and correctness. In a Jan. 10 statement, the Penn Law Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) and SALSA summarized, “[Wax]’s statements add to this anti– Asian sentiment and bring it home to Penn Carey Law.” “[Penn is] one of the most prestigious law schools in this country, and [they] have espoused very high ideals,” Oh says. “You have to hold people to those standards, and we are challenging you to live up to what you say.”

Apratim explains that Wax’s

FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE 13

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commentary is especially damaging because of her position of power in the classroom. In a Medium article responding to comments from a fellow Penn Law student and prominent conservative academic, Apratim writes, “[the fact that] she finds immigrants and Asians (like myself ) inferior, combined with her elevated platform as a named professor at a prestigious Ivy League law school, means that those of us who do debate her will do so without a platform and without her respect.”

Student organizers agree that Penn Law can be doing much more to support students of color financially and systematically. In the APALSA and SALSA statement, the groups advocate for “increased financial and institutional support for diverse and first–generation law students,” as well as diversity trainings and workshops, more diverse hiring practices, and transparency in systems that impact student and faculty diversity, like tenure.

Alexa adds that Penn Law needs an accessible system to report incidents of discrimination from faculty members and administrators or other Penn Law students. If one exists already, she’s not aware of it, and the Office of Equity & Inclusion did not respond to a request for comment about an incident reporting system.

“Not every instance has to rise to the level of sanctions from the University, but there should be other mitigation, like resources and processes in place to effectively address these kinds of incidents,” Alexa says.

The University’s to Wax’s remarks more difficult by standing tenet of

response is made a long– academic

freedom: tenure. According to Penn’s Faculty Handbook, tenure is “the preeminent means of fostering and protecting academic freedom of the faculty in teaching and in scholarly inquiry.” It’s a practice that protects scholars’

on the last principle, extramural speech, which complicates Wax’s situation.

Students attempting to revoke Wax’s tenure will have to bypass two protections.

First, he notes, the line between “relevant” and “ir-

did not fire him or revoke his tenure. Kalhan attributes this to testimony from Ciccariello–Maher’s students, who “only had positive things to say about him.” Ciccariello–Maher’s remarks may have been outside his realm

Despite her inflammatory remarks, Wax seems "uncancellable."

speech by granting a permanent position at their institution, as long as they remain fit to instruct.

Alexa says that tenure is a huge privilege—it means that Wax is “institutionally insulated” and that she can’t face administrative repercussions, even for statements widely condemned as racist. She argues that a history of blatant discrimination is clear cause for Wax’s tenure to be revoked, but professor Anil Kalhan explains that “the line might not be that easy to draw.”

Kalhan is a tenured professor of Law at Drexel University and has been an affiliated faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania South Asia Center since 2008. He also serves on the Association for American University Professors Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure (Committee A), the body that established modern interpretations of tenure with the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

The statement, sort of an academic First Amendment, breaks down tenure into three protected freedoms: freedom of research, freedom of relevant discussion in the classroom, and freedom of relevant discussion out of the classroom. Kalhan elaborates

14 34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

relevant” discussion outside of the classroom is often blurred. Wax’s discriminatory statements about Asian immigration and America’s demographic makeup could be classified as within the scope of her work in “social science and law.” The law school recognizes Wax’s remarks as “racist,” but the question seemingly remains: Are they technically unrelated to her body of work?

If the statements are deemed outside of Wax’s body of work, she must be proven unfit to teach in order to have tenure revoked.

Kalhan remarks that procedurally, “it would be really difficult to take the statement by itself and say that [it] determines whether the person is an effective teacher or scholar.” It’s rare, he says, that the content of a statement, or even multiple statements, is enough to dismiss a tenured faculty member.

Kalhan recalls a 2017 situation at Drexel University, when tenured Political Science professor George Ciccariello–Maher was scrutinized for making multiple controversial remarks about whites in America. “All I want for Christmas is white genocide,” Ciccariello–Maher tweeted. While the university suspended Ciccariello– Maher for his statements, it

of study (this is still unclear), but he was not found to be unfit to teach. Despite this, he resigned after receiving “death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family.”

"The burden is not on the faculty member to prove that they have professional competence in order to protect academic freedom ... That sheds a light on why the Penn administration appears to be proceeding … very carefully."

Professor Anil Kalhan, Drexel Law

Tenure is not designed to be easily revoked. “The burden is not on the faculty member to prove that they have professional competence in order to protect

academic freedom,” Kalhan says. Rather, the university must compile testimony that speaks to the faculty member’s teaching ability. “That sheds a light on why the Penn administration appears to be proceeding … very carefully.”

As the battle over Wax’s remarks draws on, students grow weary. The trials people of color already face studying at a prestigious law school are amplified by the labor of communicating with administrators, writing articles, poring over tenure research, and coalition–building.

“A lot of people [not just Alexa and I] are basically taking on an entire class worth of work and aren't getting anything substantial out of [the movement],” Apratim says.

Alexa adds that the process is definitely “labor intensive,” but she “feels like now we're finally at the cusp of real change.”

The students are currently working on an agenda for a meeting with Penn Law administration on Wednesday, Feb. 9, where they plan to emphasize the demands of their petition, especially reforming tenure and reinforcing support for minority students harmed by Wax’s words. Apratim notes that while students have received some communication from Ruger throughout the movement, the sanctions process is still clouded with mystery— it’s in the University’s hands now, not the law school’s.

Perhaps the only University affiliate who clearly communicates is Wax herself, to the disdain of Penn Law students. As she explains the students’ complaints to Loury, Wax smiles. “This is a fireable offense?” she says.

“Does that not sound preposterous?”

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Summer Walker makes space for interiority, proving she’s 'Still Over It' Walker's sophomore album places a premium on voice and navigates a complicated relationship. | KALIYAH DORSEY

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he quickest connection people make when attempting to validate the art of hip–hop is to compare it to poetry, or more specifically, spoken word. But no genre of Black music needs to be validated, as Black musicians and artists influenced and created the roots of most popular American culture. Either way, when I think of poetry, I think of love songs.

Considering a ballad is a form of verse set to music, described as a narrative poem or song, the connection between verse form, love, and music seems clear–cut. Being cautious to not reduce R&B to merely poetry with music behind it, and taking into account the complexities of the genre, there is something to be gained by exploring the lyriccs of Summer Walker’s Still Over It for their poetic significance, especially considering her rocky relationship with the music producer London on da Track, and therefore perhaps to the music itself.

Even as one of our generation’s leading R&B artists, social media has made Walker's private life a spectacle. London on da Track, her ex–boyfriend and the father of her child, produced her debut album.

He is surprisingly credited on a number of songs in Still Over

It, where she, directly and indirectly, describes the trials and tribulations of their off–and– on relationship. While Walker took to Instagram to deny his role in producing her sophomore album, his influence and partnership, both romantic and musically, inevitably complicates the narrative of this breakup album.

If you looked under the dictionary for “Rhythm and Blues,” Still Over It’s album cover would jump out at you, Walker's hand reaching out to block the flash, mouth open mid–speech, the black car, all– black interior centering Walker herself. The rhythm in R&B refers to the genre’s characteristic use of jazz–influenced beats, while blues focuses on the lyrical and melodic content, often full of melodrama and melancholy. If the rhythm is London on da Track and the blues is Walker, there's an implied need for balance, for both to come together. It makes sense, then, that when the two are in conflict, one might drown out the other, some worst–case scenario where London’s production drowns out Walker's interiority. Characterized by unique beats and hard–hitting bass, her debut studio album Over It’s success was perhaps a reflection of the then–couple’s blossoming relationship. In

Illustration

by Amy Krimm Still Over It, Waker's strongest moments are those where her storytelling prowess and ear for melodrama shines through, highlighting the “B” in R&B as a poetic space to hold Black women’s interiority.

In “Circus” and “Switch A N***a Out,” Walker highlights the power flow between partners. Describing a “fatal attraction,” “Circus” is honest about the lengths she will go to for love, the song’s simple, repetitive lyrics mimicking the euphoric, dizzying imagery of both a circus and a toxic relationship. Considering the producer–singer power dynamic, we can imagine Walker singing to London in the studio, powerful and powerless, vocal and melody–dependent on his rhythm. “Switch A N***a Out” is the moment where we most clearly see her interiority—the conflict between the independent woman she prides herself on being and the

person she has become in this relationship. After being “Bitter” in the opening, imagining her next relationship as purely desire–driven in “No Love,” and even questioning her own sanity in “Insane,” she finally admits that it just hurts. Outside of his faults, external influences, and other baby mamas, she is validating her grief process and admitting that no matter the circumstances, “It just hurts so much / When it ain’t working out.”

I envision holding space for interiority as creating some sort of chasm for the unsayable. In poetry, that looks like blank space, line breaks, and punctuation. In “Reciprocate,” Walker launches into a list of bare minimum expectations she lets London get out of, the same repeated, “You don’t have to.” In the middle of her rant, she just sings, “You don’t have to oh.”

That “oh” holds the unsayable.

She isn’t singing to London,

or even us; she is utilizing her blues as a means to some interior freedom. It’s like he doesn’t get it, or maybe he can’t, so in the middle of the list, she just takes a break and holds some space for her own spirit.

Still Over It is an affirmation. She tells women you can go ahead and rehash, re–feel, process a breakup however and how often you’d like. That doesn’t mean you need to “get over it.” In allowing us to witness her own complicated relationship with not only London but herself, Walker cements her album’s poetic value. Poetic value, rather than classifying the work as poetry, is intentional here, as Walker's whole body of work dissolves the tension between R&B and poetry— she utilizes a blues poetics by creating space for Black women’s interiority while highlighting the complex balance necessary to have both rhythm and blues.

FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE 15

ST YLE

Illustration by Lilian Liu

Tarot Tuesdays

Your Mercury Retrograde Messages for Feb. 8

Now that the chaos is over, what did you learn? | W. ANTHONY PÉREZ

W

elcome back to another rendition of Street's Tarot Tuesdays! We've got yet another special treat for you. With Mercury Retrograde finally over, it's time to reflect. You might have noticed that shit was just going left—communication was off and the atmosphere felt different. But despite all these challenges, you've survived the madness.

Whenever a planet goes into retrograde, it appears to be moving backwards in space. However, we know that planets don't move backward— retrograde is merely an illusion.

On top of its physical, mirage– like qualities, retrograde is a time meant to highlight what issues need to be worked out.

With Mercury being the planet of communication and intellect, retrograde calls for us to reevaluate our boundaries, plans, and expression.

If you have Virgo or Gemini placements, this time might have been extra rough on you as both these signs are ruled

by Mercury. That said, I have pulled some Tarot cards to see what messages have been prominent for every sign. Keep in mind that we won't be out of the woods until Feb. 23, when the post–shadow period is officially done.

Now that you have a better sense of what retrograde is all about, let’s dive into your messages. I recommend reading for your sun, moon, rising, and Mercury. Not sure what those are?

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Taurus … stop playing dumb. You are much better than whatever self–destructive thing you're thinking about doing right now. If you overcome the Eight of Swords, you'll be able to see your goal clearly. You have too many assets at stake to deal with untrustworthy energy—stay focused.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Jesus Christ, Gemini, get out of there ASAP! It's time to sail away from all the arguing, pain, and drama. You are an Emperor, and no matter what life throws at you, you shall prevail.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Lighten up, Cancer.

There's no need for you to overthink your situation.

With proper self–care and meditation, you will be charged up for the task at hand. There's a lot of money in your cards, so instead of playing yourself, play to win.

See the Queen of Cups and Eight of Pentacles.

(July 23 – Aug. 22) Aries (March 21 – April 19) Leo Leo! Brighter days are coming. The Devil might have been Aries, stop making things more difficult than they need to be. Take the blindfolds off and come from a place of humility.

The Wheel is spinning in your favor, and you have the fire in you necessary to be successful. Stop doing yourself a disservice and move about things objectively.

16 34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

keeping you shackled in the dark, but you are the Sun! There is synergy in your financial matters, and everyone will be doing their part in helping you succeed. This will help you build some stability and give yourself the leisure you deserve.

Keep doing your best!

ST YLE

Virgo (Aug. 23 – Sept. 22)

I love this for you, Virgo. You are healed, replenished, and full of ambition. With the Chariot and Temperance in your cards, the journey ahead will be sacred. You are divinely protected and guided—what is meant for you will always be for you.

Libra (Sept. 23 – Oct. 22)

Libra, you've made it! You manifested the victory and have even more blessings in store. You are the Empress, birthing beauty and wonder into your life. Whether this is a financial goal or not, remember to do your homework and tune out the drama. You already know that the best things in life do not come easy. See the Page of Swords.

Scorpio (Oct. 23 – Nov. 21)

Chin up, Scorpio! It's okay to feel hurt and down sometimes, but you are capable of so much more. You can build the stability and freedom you want if you follow your heart. You and Libra have similar messages: in order to create what you need, you'll have to do some research. Once you find the information you need, you'll truly be able to embody your inner Empress. See also the Page of Swords.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. Pisces (Feb. 19 – March 21) 20) Sag, just go with the flow. You've accomplished more than you're giving yourself credit for. Before moving forward to something else, give yourself time to reflect and let go of that scarcity mindset. Things will fall into place eventually. For now, just breathe. See the Five of Pentacles.

Capricorn (Dec. 22 – Jan. 19)

Capricorn, you need to slow down. Obsessing over whatever is bothering you won't make it easier. Give yourself a break.

You're more than capable of achieving anything you put your mind to. See the Four of Swords.

Aquarius (Jan. 21 – Feb. 18)

Aquarius, remember that this is your path. Things will fall into place by their own accord. The Devil might be trying to hold you back, but you have answered the Judgement call.

Once you focus on yourself, you'll realize you've already won.

Pisces … stop trying to make everyone else happy and worry about you! You have so many good things in store, and you're getting in your own way with these blindfolds. The Magician, the Empress, and the Fool are in your cards. This is a wonderful new start. You are full of creativity and willpower, so don't waste it.

See the Eight of Swords.

Like what you read? Stay tuned for more Tarot Tuesdays. Until next time!

Live the Radian life.

Reserve your spot for Fall 2022 and you can have it all: Full kitchen Granite countertops In-unit washer/dryer High-speed internet

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F E B R U A R Y 8 , 2 0 2 2 3 4 T H S T R E E T M A G A Z I N E 17

MUSIC

What's a Musician, and Why Does it Even Matter?

In light of Damon Albarn and Taylor Swift's Twitter beef, it's time for us to reconsider who is and isn't a songwriter. | EVAN QIANG

M

uch like writing a book or directing a movie, crafting a flawless song is a complex, collaborative effort.

What we hear and perceive as music goes through many rounds of editing until perfection, which makes it easy for listeners to ignore all the steps necessary to get to the final product. Although we immediately recognize the main vocalist—your Justin Bieber's, Ariana Grande's, and Beyoncé's—and the instrumental accompaniment of a song, the co–writers, producers, and vocal engineers behind the scenes can go unnoticed. Their legacy lies in small print on the credits page, just another name that only the most passionate music connoisseurs would pay attention to.

For most artists who put so much hard work into their music, these distinct levels of recognition are important. Today’s biggest hits almost always feature the lead’s name as a songwriter, acknowledging their role in the track’s development. This label can be especially helpful for young musicians, whose dreams of getting signed by a record company can become true if they show promise in their self–penned songs. Part of Olivia Rodrigo's and Billie Eilish’s sudden rises to stardom can be attributed in large part to their marketing as relatable, honest, and down–to–earth writers.

Thus, questioning this well–deserved title is equiva-

Illustration by Rebekah Lee

lent to belittling one’s artistry. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn shaded Taylor Swift by denying her abilities as a writer. When the interviewer acknowledged that “Swift is an excellent songwriter,” Albarn’s main argument was that Swift “doesn’t write her own songs” because she’s a “songwriter who co–writes.”

He further clarified by praising Eilish’s writing and calling it more “minor and odd.”

Already, Albarn’s point falls flat because Eilish often collaborates with her older brother FINNEAS on her albums. Even more preposterous, however, is Albarn’s direct criticism of Swift. As evidenced by many of her peers who publicly defended her, Swift clearly has a hand in the writing process.

Swift herself fired back at Albarn’s comments, saying that “it’s really fucked up to

1 8 34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

try and discredit my writing.” For another artist, Albarn’s attack might have been career–ending. But Swift is no stranger to these remarks, which are often rooted in misogyny. Swift was first criticized for not writing her music after her breakthrough with Fearless, so she wrote her next album, Speak Now, completely by herself. After being accused of writing too many songs about her exes, Swift released folklore and evermore, albums that are more diverse and adventurous in their storytelling.

Behind the drama between two of the music industry’s most influential figures is a deeper battle for fair recognition. Albarn’s statement is mostly inaccurate, although he does make an important distinction. When Albarn calls Swift a “songwriter who co–writes” rather than just a “songwriter,” he’s referring to the thousands of legitimate

musicians signed with label companies who have relatively little solo music released.

Rather than following the path of pop stardom, these artists are furiously working behind the scenes, crafting the catchiest melodies and most memorable lines in today’s Top–40 hits. They're people like Victoria Monét and Emily Warren, two songwriters who supported a petition for artists to stop receiving publishing credits when they “did not contribute to the composition in any way.”

When Spotify and Apple Music already underpay their clientele, ghostwriters can be completely cut off from the revenue conversation, making their work seem insignificant.

It’s easy, then, to disregard most popular songs as inauthentic at best and and plagiarized at worst in the context of an artist’s discography.

But there’s a fine line between

stealing from others and participating in the music–making process. These artists still have substantial creative input, and there’s more to music than just writing. For example, consider Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” 2021’s most consumed song. “Levitating” was co–written by Sarah Hudson, the mastermind behind other hits like Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” and Iggy Azalea’s “Black Widow,” but the success of the track is not solely due to Hudson’s efforts. Lipa’s stunning performances, in tandem with her constant reworking of the infectious melody, require a strong understanding of music’s most integral concepts. Rather than dividing our attention between a songwriter or a songwriter who co–writes, we should be celebrating everyone’s artistic visions that combine to make a song so great.

Music, more than anything else, is a collaborative work of art. Every writer, producer, note, and word has its own special role in bringing a collection of cluttered sound waves to life.

Albarn’s remark is damaging not only to Swift but also to all the musicians fighting for appreciation of their hard work. When it comes to creating a song, there’s no such thing as an unnecessary role.

Each contributor deserves to be called a musician, because they've all played a part in our enjoyment and experience of the music we listen to.

MUSIC

Illustration by Tyler Kliem Photo Courtesy of Lila Dubois

Lila Dubois is a First–Year Student with an Album on Los Angeles native strikes an inspirthe Way ingThebalance between her passion and her education. | GRAYSON CATLETT

A

gap year can be an opportunity to start building anything from a nonprofit to a solid resume.

For Lila Dubois (C '25), it was the time she needed to start a music career. “I was just working a couple of waitressing and tutoring jobs,” she says about her time off. “Since I wasn’t doing any school, I had a lot of time to do music, and that was really when I started to actually record things.” Her time creating music has resulted in a promising trio of singles made with friend Miles Tobel, and with a full–length release planned for the summer, she’s just getting started. Her mindset, which reconciles artistry and education, only adds to her impressive work.

Lila—a first–year College student from Los Angeles—cited Phoebe Bridgers, Jade Bird, and Lake Street Dive as lyrical influences and named Anderson .Paak as an inspiration for “more upbeat” music. She collaborates with Miles on vocals, songwriting, and production. “Normally, we’ll start out with one of us sending a melody, a riff, or writing a poem,” Lila explains.

“Once we get a basic song structure down, we sit down and we’ll produce and record it.” She adds that the two occasionally sit together to think of lyrics, but joked that they “argue too much for that, most of the time.”

The duo met in Boston while attending summer courses at the Berklee College of Music. When they realized they were both from Los Angeles, they struck up a friendship that would yield three songs released over the course of 2021.

“Hold My Tongue,” the earliest of these releases, is a stirring folk duet about a crumbling relationship that swells with each verse. The ballad builds to an intense bridge that incorporates strings and percussion before closing out the song with a final chorus of just one piano and two voices.

“I can feel something’s wrong / Before it even comes / Can’t put my finger on / Hold my tongue,” Lila and Miles sing.

Lila recalls the diligence it took to make her debut single, describing a total of five rewrites for the lyrics of “Hold My Tongue.” Writing three versions together and two on their own, Miles and Lila settled on a variation that satisfied both of them. “I like it so much more,” Lila says. “I found a copy of our original lyrics, and I [did] not like them.” According to Lila, there are a lot more drafts that are saved for her future songs.

Lila's next song, “eyeswideopen,” is more spacious and solemn than its predecessor. The song opens starkly with

Lila's voice and a piano before giving way to sparse percussion, strings, and, this time, cavernous synths. The background offers a perfect complement to Lila's lyrics, detailing a dark drive home before wading into bed forlorn and restless.

The duo’s latest single, “Bones,” contains both their happiest writing and most haunting instrumentation.

The song's lyrics employ bodily imagery—bones, lips, eyes—and a light nod to John Denver to paint a picture of laying in an empty field with someone who sees into your soul, and loves you for what they see. “[Miles] had this melody for a little while,” Lila says about “Bones,” which she wrote herself. “Since we write a lot of sad songs … we wanted to write a pure, happy love song.”

Lila has the unique challenge of having to balance her music career with her work in college, especially when she plans on a double major and works with the Penn Jazz Ensembles and the Penny Loafers. Instead of perceiving the two as huge responsibilities that compound each other, she sees them more as a dichotomy. “To me, they’re such separate spheres that one kind of gives relief to the other,” she explains.

“Music is a really good reprise from the academic parts of the day.” She also

gives credit to college life for influencing her creative process through time management, writing courses, and meeting new people. “It just makes you value it a lot more, getting to have that time and space for yourself. It makes you appreciate how important it is to create that time, especially when there’s so much else going on,” she says.

While she speaks of having a small setup (just a microphone and MIDI keyboard) in her dorm, she mainly works on music at home. During winter break, Lila and Miles recorded and nearly finished their upcoming album.

They plan to release it over the summer so that they can perform shows in Los Angeles. Lila also quips about the album being “an excuse to have a big party.”

When asked about her ambitions with her music, Lila quickly responds, “I ask myself the same question.” She goes on: “Right now, I love to do it … and it connects me with people. I say I’ll just keep doing it until I don’t want to anymore. If it goes somewhere, it goes somewhere.”

Lila's view on the relationship between music and work can be an inspiring sentiment. When the final product of Lila and Miles' effort drops later this year, it might even serve as even more motivation for fellow Penn artists.

FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE 19

Everyone has a story.

Tell yours to Word on the Street.

Form: bit.ly/34stWOTS

20 34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

OVERHEARDS

Overheards 02.08.22 AK

UR

PRISINGLY, A HETEROSEXUAL

"As a heterosexual, I can sense heterosexual energy, and he's not giving that."

N

W YORK TIMES FELLOW NABE NE

"I would never have sex with the door fully open ... maybe ajar though."

WITH SOCIAL ANXIETY

"Messing with men online is one of my favorite pastimes."

BA C

MA

N

EATER

ING THE JEW CODE

"He's just throwing his brisket around willy– nilly, not caring who he hurts."

WA

UN

S

BR

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This week: cyberbullies, exhibitionists, and misleading meats

ARDS BANDLEADER KW

"Strings and percussion: the two genders."

FEBRUARY 8, 2022 34TH STREET MAGAZINE 21

UNDER THE BUTTON

Progressive! Frats Host Anti-Women’s Suffrage Fundraiser, Claiming They 'Don’t Want Women to Suffer Anymore' MARGARITA MATTA

T

ime and time again we have seen the overt sexism, prejudice, and womanizing behavior that plagues fraternity life nationwide. It is an issue across the country, and there are countless stories of the sexism faced by college women.

However, things are different here at Penn. In fact, Penn fraternities have never ever had any instance of sexism literally ever.

I am definitely not being held hostage in a frat house basement right now being forced to write this article. Wink wink. Someone please save me.

Anyways, back to the article. Penn fraternities have an-

nounced a new fundraiser to combat the stigma surrounding greek life and its association with sexist behavior. The fundraiser, which all on- and off-campus fraternities will be participating in, will be raising money to combat women’s suffrage.

UTB had the opportunity to interview director of fraternity life, College senior Alex Johnson, on the upcoming fundraiser. “It is a great opportunity to support such a horrible thing taking place in the world,” Johnson stated.

“We know this fundraiser won’t completely eradicate women’s suffrage, but we hope it is a step in the right direction.” Johnson

shares the sentiments of many members of fraternity life at Penn, and they all have been very adamant on putting an end to women who suffer. Banners have begun to be strung across Locust sharing these sentiments, with sayings such as “No more suffering. Enough is enough.” and “Come to Chouse for hot cocoa to help suffering women!”

Thanks to this campus-wide fundraiser, Penn fraternities have been able to end women’s suffrage in multiple countries, including Canada, Mesopotamia, Texas, ancient Greece, and the USSR. It is such a refreshing and beautiful thing to see Penn

Photo from Pixabay / Pixabay License / CC0 students getting involved in political issues that are important to them, and we look forward to seeing the many strides taken

to end women’s suffrage in the future. Perhaps one day, women won’t be able to vote in America, too! A girl can dream.

Desperate Sublet Offer Comes With Reduced Rent, Promise of First-born MARGARITA MATTA

Photos, with edits, from The University of Pennsylvania and Pixabay CC0 22 34TH STREET MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 8, 2022

I

f you are one of the hundreds of students struggling to find someone to sublet your off-campus apartment for the spring semester, you are not alone. Students planning on studying abroad in the spring have been shocked to discover that, after a year and a half away from campus and heavy travel restrictions in many overseas countries this past fall, there is practically no one who is only in need of housing for the second half of the year. A few very unhelpful economic majors

have explained this as a problem with “supply and demand,” although this is a very complex topic that no one else could possibly understand.

As next semester draws ever closer, desperate students have been forced to start throwing in some added perks to their sublet offers. Increasingly anguished pleas have been posted in the Penn Housing Facebook group. One student in the Radian offered to cover half of the rent for each month, provide all of her furniture, and even leave

UNDER THE BUTTON

behind her live-in maid and personal chef at no charge.

She is unlikely to have any luck, as most offers include many more bonuses than that. UTB reached out to Clare Heinz (C ’23), whose post in the Housing group included free rent for two months, a summer internship at her dad’s company,

and ownership of her future first-born child.

While initially pissed that we were reaching out with no intent on subletting her apartment, Clare did agree to speak with us. “It’s just really frustrating that I still haven’t gotten any interest yet. I didn’t think the first-born child thing would

work, but I was sure the internship would draw people in,” she told us. “My parents are gonna be so annoyed if they have to pay for an apartment that no one’s living in. Like they’ll do it, and it won't cause them any financial problems, but they’ll be annoyed.”

When asked if the promise

of her first-born was something she actually intended to follow through on, Clare assured us she was deadly serious. “I’ve never been super into the whole kid thing, so they can have it.

Worst case scenario: I can always make another one, but four months of wasted rent? That’s something my

dad can never get back in theory.” We applaud Clare’s wise economical decisionmaking, and wish her luck.

Luckily for anyone living in The Chestnut, one clause in their lease is that if they are unable to find a subletter Mommy and Daddy will still cover the rent no matter what.

Report: Nine Out of Ten UTB Writers Enjoy Lives of Fame, Luxury, and Excess IAN ONG

Photo by GoodFreePhotos / CC0

H

ere’s one for the moneyed folk! An internal report released on Monday indicated that nine out of ten writers for UTB lead cushioned lives of fame, luxury, and excess.

To learn more about this phenomenon, we reached out to long-time UTB writer Jim Allen. Although we were unable to secure an interview with him on account of his busy schedule, we were able to gain access to his personal butler, who subsequently handed us a copy of Allen’s itinerary for release to the hoi polloi.

Without further ado, here is a real day in the life of an average UTB writer.

8:00 a.m.: Wake up, snort cocaine off shiny platter from Borobudur, a ninth-century temple located in Java, Indonesia.

8:01 a.m.: Shout at top of lungs and break into furious sweat.

8:05 a.m.: Various birds walk into room, and are swifty slaughtered via battleaxe. Personal chefs prepare duck à l'orange decorat-

ed with dragées and confit.

8:30 a.m.: Feast begins.

9:30 a.m.: Feast ends. Staff sweeps up sinew and entrails.

10:00 a.m.: Go for a dip in 5,000-square-foot swimming pool with waterfalls. Splash water over barricade onto the Great Unwashed below.

10:30 a.m.: Get out of bed.

11:00 a.m.: Return to room.

Open up laptop to see the unimaginable sums of money generated by articles on UTB, Penn’s only intentionally satirical news source.

11:15 a.m.: Laugh as the numbers continue to rise. Various birds walk into room, and are promptly dispatched via modified flamethrower.

11:30 a.m.: Feast begins.

12:30 p.m.: Feast ends. Get architects to replace smashed mirrors and windows.

1:00 p.m.: Narcotic sampling platter arrives.

1:30 p.m.: Insider trading.

2:00 p.m.: Start shouting at people who ghostwrite articles to hurry it up, or their “heads will

be next on the chopping block.”

2:15 p.m.: Confer with personal lawyers about animal cruelty allegations.

2:30 p.m.: Start shouting, “Just make it happen! JUST MAKE THINGS HAPPEN, OKAY?” while frantically waving arms.

3:00 p.m.: Meet with assorted celebrities to make a TikTok. Slaughter a bird with your own bare hands and drink its blood for the camera.

4:00 p.m.: Narcotic sampling platter departs.

4:30 p.m.: Meditation and mindfulness session.

6:00 p.m.: Various birds walk into room, and are eviscerated in the worst ways imaginable. Chefs prepare ortolan buntings encased in candied foie gras.

6:30 p.m.: Feast begins.

8:00 p.m.: Feast ends. Send in construction crew to repair half of dining room which has been completely demolished by the events of dinner.

8:30 p.m.: Have butler read The New York Times (it will turn him into an upstanding young

gentleman).

9:00 p.m.: Slaughter more birds, just for fun this time.

10:00 p.m.: Gaze through transparent ceiling in bedroom at stars above. Point at random star and buy it.

10:15 p.m.: Shout, “I’m a star, a STAR!” while holding fists up in air.

10:30 p.m.: Get ready for bed.

Clean blood off clothing and hands.

11:00 p.m.: Say a quick prayer and get some well-earned Photo rest. by Thanks GoodFreePhotos for everything, UTB! / CC0

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