Your survival guide to the infamous landmarks on Penn's campus and the lore behind them.
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Frat Flu Who? It’s the Season of the Networking Bug
Penn’s pre-professional environment dictates our academic and professional pursuits, but has it begun to infect our IRL social network too?
From the Classroom to the Picket Line, Pa.
Teachers Fight Against “3–5–7–9"
Philadelphia educators unite to protest the state’s draconian sick–day sanctions.
38 Beyond the GSR: Where to Study in Philly
Break free from campus and explore these ideal workspaces across the city.
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Home, Yard, Entryway
The ICA's fall exhibitions regard our most familiar and intimate spaces with new nostalgia.
Reimagining
the Classics
Percival Everett’s reworking of the 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' exemplifes unapologetic irreverence to the 'classics’.
FEATURE
While a new academic year begins, student protesters deal with the disciplinary proceedings surrounding the termination of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last spring
ON THE COVER
Embodying the noisy, chaotic, and urban beat of college life in Philadelphia, this cover is an homage to Penn and all its idiosyncracies.
By Emmi Wu
Philosophizing on nostalgia, overpacked suitcases, and the Penn experience
During the witching hours of August 19th, 2021, I was drowning. Drowning in a sea of clothes, that is. It was half past 2 a.m. and I had to catch an 8 a.m. flight to Philly the next morning to start my freshman pre–orientation here at Penn. Like many other freshmen who arrived on campus two weeks ago, I severely overpacked.
I didn’t need the six sweatshirts and the stack of books I impulsively squeezed into my suitcase. Because when freshman year ended, nine months later, most of those sweatshirts and books accompanied me home to California, unworn and unread.
Now, 1,096 days since I packed my first college suitcase, I am sitting on my same bedroom floor, surrounded by a much smaller pile of clothes and books, but this time I am swimming in nostalgia.
When I arrived to Penn I was naive to the campus culture and history, (despite my persistent efforts to learn everything I could about student life at Penn via Reddit for the months leading up to my arrival).
My pre–orientation, PennCORP—a program in civic engagement and social justice—was a crash course in the legacy of Penn’s often invasive relationship to West Philadelphia. The weeks that followed were my crash course in traditional college life. I navigated an ugly bout of pneumonia, failed my first economics midterm, and spent too many early mornings taking math quizzes in DRL.
My trials and tribulations, entirely non–unique and completely universal to the college experience, shaped this September’s back to school issue, “Word on the Street.” Partly inspired by Street’s personal narrative section “WOTS,” this issue highlights the raw testimonies of students on Penn’s campus. We know that being a college student is myriad experiences. You’ll spend back–to–back nights stumbling down Locust late at night, sometimes emerging from an all–nighter study session and other nights linked arm and arm with your friends after a party. As your campus magazine reporting on everything relevant from West Philly and beyond, this issue is here to tell you everything we wish we knew about college and everything you need to know about Penn—the good,
the bad, and the occasionally ugly.
This month's featured article, “A Well–Oiled Disciplinary Machine,” explores the aftermath of the spring’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Our profile article, "Disorient Yourself!," further highlights the decades of campus activism that preceded the encampment.
These past weeks you've probably been walking down Locust, noticing all of Penn's iconic admissions brochure landmarks. If you're curious about the unbelievable backstory and lore about the Compass, the Tampons, and the Button, you will definitely want to check out our article "The Lore and Lingo of Penn's Campus." But as you've traversed campus you may have also noticed signs around College Green delineating new restrictions about campus events and demonstrations—and for that our feature article will get you up to speed.
This will be the reality of your college experience: a complicated imbalance of joyous friendship and learning all while inevitably navigating the reality of Penn's institutional legacy. So I encourage you to find your niche and find your people, but when you find your voice, utilize the privilege of this education to contribute to a cause greater than yourself.
Because when you arrive at the beginning of the end of your college career, wading in the waters of nostalgia and ruminating on your time at Penn, I hope that you too can feel satisfaction for the life you built for yourself on this campus.
In the meantime, 34th Street Magazine will be here, capturing the campus’ and city’s Word on the Street, in print and online.
Charlotte Comstock, Julia Fischer, Caitlyn Iaccino, Andrew Lu, Maia Saks, Zaara Shafi, Aaron Visser, Samantha Hsiung, Katrina Itona
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Land on which the office of The Daily Pennsylvanian stands is a part of the homeland and territory of the Lenni-Lenape people. We affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold the DP and the University of Pennsylvania more accountable to the needs of Indigenous people.
The Land on which the office of The Daily Pennsylvanian stands is a part of the homeland and territory of the Lenni-Lenape people. We affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold the DP and the University of Pennsylvania more accountable to the needs of Indigenous people.
CONTACTING 34 th STREET MAGAZINE
CONTACTING 34 th STREET MAGAZINE
If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Walden Green, Editor–in–Chief, at green@34st.com You can also call us at (215) 422–4640.
If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Natalia Castillo, Editor–in–Chief, at castillo@34st.com You can also call us at (215) 422–4640.
As a kid, I wanted to be everything. My mom loves to tell the story of my kindergarten open house, where every child had drawn their dream job and placed it on their desk. Alongside all the abstract renditions of doctors, rock stars, and astronauts, I had simply drawn a question mark, captioned beneath with the words: “I don’t know.” After all, I was a kid who couldn’t even settle on a Halloween costume. (That year, I believe I was a “Friendly Ghost Superhero,”
which was an improvement from “Rockstar Flower Fairy.”) When adults asked me what I wanted to be, I would pretentiously launch into a song where I listed every career I knew. Thirteen years later, I arrived at college just as much of a question mark. Before I left home, my dad warned me: “The hardest part of college is the freedom.” By that, he meant college was the respite from parents’ watchful eyes, allowing for nearly unhampered access to your friends and drugs and all sorts of trouble
that result when you mix the two. But there’s more freedom at college than simply a nonexistent curfew. It’s also the freedom to be.
Suddenly, everything was in my hands: what classes I took, how I spent my time, and most importantly, how I defined the values by which I chose to live my life. In high school, my choices were limited, but here, the opportunities seemed endless. Each day, I would become a new person, trying on a new identity. My friends would joke that
they weren’t exactly sure what I was studying because my answer would change each day. I had a loose idea of wanting to go into academia—by which I figured if I was good at school, why not make it my job? I dabbled in everything I could—I coded, I philosophized, I calculated, I wrote—but I could not choose. I could not define my paradigms. To choose one thing was to give up another, to be an artist was to kill the scientist, it seemed. So instead, I was racing up the branches of my fig tree, trying to stuff myself full.
When you can’t choose for yourself, your instinct is to let others choose for you. It was in that moment of vulnerability that I was swept up by what I (affectionately) call the Church of Computer Scientology. I decided to take computer science classes if only because everyone around me was taking them too—and if I didn’t know what to do, it seemed only natural to trust the majority rule. But it wasn’t even a few months into my endeavor that I realized a scary fact—that in actuality, I could hardly rely on the people around me for advice. After all, everyone around me was on their own journey too, just as confused and with their own assumptions and standards in tow.
For some of the people I met during New Student Orientation, success was all about making money. There were those that cared about power or prestige. For some, success meant stability. In certain circles, success was defined as making an impact on the communities around them—though there were various different ideas on how that could be achieved. No one was right, and no one was wrong. They just all had their own terms with which to define their life, their own choices to contend with after weighing the values in their hands.
I was stuck in the middle of all these ricocheting definitions; each conversation or piece of advice found itself conflicting with the former. I had the freedom to pick the definition I wanted and determine exactly what I wanted to get out of college. Now, it was a question of whether I wanted to define my path for myself or attempt to resign myself of responsibility and follow everyone around me—either one was my choice.
Spoiler alert, it wasn’t until four semesters into college that I walked out of my computer science classes (much to the chagrin of Rajiv)
and decided to give my all to study English and political science. There were a multitude of reasons that went into my choice—a culmination of advice from other people (one of the best words of wisdom I ever got was “Don’t sacrifice your Plan A for Plan B”), work and internship experiences, lunches with my TAs, and plenty of hours running down the Schuylkill ruminating. But ultimately, it was an individual choice, one defined by my still–developing framework of self. One thing I am grateful for is that I didn’t rush into my decisions. I was on my own timeline, and after plenty of experimentation and fuckups, I eventually found myself right where I belonged.
I have had an English professor who studied theoretical math at Princeton before getting their Ph.D. in poetics. One of my best friends
came to Penn to study philosophy and now is the happiest I’ve seen him taking a software job. No path is linear, but every path is littered with choices—not just for your major. Really, that’s just the warm–up round, followed by the questions of your career, your lifestyle, the way you spend your time. Choosing the terms by which to live your life will often be one of the most difficult equations you will have to solve, the most difficult argument you will have to define. Each choice you make gives you either the confidence or lessons to make the next one even more informed.
One of the greatest myths is the expectation that you will come into Penn knowing who you want to be—when in reality, that’s something you will be figuring out not just over the course of these four years, but for the rest of your life. k
Hometown
Manhasset, Long Island
Major
Philosophy, Politics and Economics Activities
Creative Director of The Walk, VP of Events for Wharton Retail Club, Penn Counterparts, Penn Songwriters, Herzog House
As we get to know someone, we tug at a river of tendrils framing a person–shaped hole,” writes Sarahbell Kim on her second Instagram account, Swimming Magazine.
We’re on Zoom, but I can already tell that Sarahbelle Kim (C ‘25) is dressed to the nines. A fashion aficionado who cuts her own bangs, Sarahbelle exudes creative energy. She sings, she writes, and she throws transcendental parties as a member of the Herzog House.
But at her core, Sarahbelle is a friend. She’s a girl who carries a deep–seated love for the friends and transformative relationships she’s been able to nurture during her time at Penn. Whether she’s driving from San Francisco to Vancouver with her roommates, as she did this summer, writing profiles on the people she admires, or organizing a photoshoot for The Walk, Sarahbelle brings a distinct care to the world around her.
What have you been up to this summer?
So this summer, I interned at Bloomingdale's. I really want to go into the business side of fashion. So that's what I was doing for June and July. And then right after that, I went on my big road trip. So I went with my roommates from Herzog. It was five or six of my friends and a bunch of them live on the West Coast, so it was kind of a goodbye
EOTM
Sarahbelle Kim
This senior is letting her inner artist fourish, from her indie magazine to her summer fashion internship.
BY NORAH RAMI
Photos courtesy of Sarahbelle Kim
trip for some of the seniors. But it was also just really nice to see everyone before I go abroad.
You mentioned Herzog. I want to know a little bit about what it was like for you to find community here at Penn. What does that community mean to you?
Yeah, it means a lot to me because I'm a transfer student. I got here my sophomore year, and Penn is really overwhelming at first, but I really wanted to find a community and Herzog, I just kind of fell into it because my friend Tina pulled me in when I was looking for housing. So I started living there my junior year, and it just totally blew me away. It exceeded my expectations. It was so nice to find a cohesive group of people that were all doing different things and are super interesting, and we're not attached at the hip, but at the same time, we all get along really well. And it's ten people living in the same house. One of them is actually not a Penn student but goes to circus school, but it's been super fun to just hang out with them on the roof, but also put together parties throughout the year.
You sing, you write, you do fashion … where does your creative spark come from and how do you cultivate it?
It comes from a lot of different places. In terms of fashion, I'm just super interested in the world of fashion and learning about the history. But even more than the aesthetics of it, I think it's about the people and being around other creative people. I just always feel so inspired. Similar to the house, I'm just always inspired by people who are doing different things than I am. Which is also why, last year, I started this little side project called Swimming Magazine. It's literally just an Instagram account, and I like to post profiles with my best friends and also people that I don't know so well, but it's cool. Just like what you're doing right now, it's fun to interview and take a little look into other people's worlds.
Who are your fashion inspirations
right now?
That’s so hard. I really love Patti Smith, who is a singer–songwriter, amazing writer, and her style is really cool, kind of androgynous?
When do you think you sort of came into your own sense of style?
It changes all the time. I think, maybe after during high school, I just stopped giving a shit—caring—about what other people think. I gravitate towards colors. I think that's kind of the main thing, like, when I'm shopping, to think about are, do I like the color? I tend to gravitate to -
wards blues. And the other thing is, will I wear this when I'm 50 years old? Like, way down the line? I really don't like when I have to throw things away, so I just focus on longevity and what makes me feel good.
Do you feel like all these different creative things that you do—like singing, writing, fashion—do you feel like they blend into each other, or are they different endeavors for you?
I think that they are just different ways in which I navigate life. Writing and singing, it honestly just helps me get through
the day. A lot of times, if I'm having just a tough week, I will have to sit down and either write something about my journal or write a song about it. And I just find it so cathartic. It makes me feel better. I've always really loved to sing.
And Swimming [Magazine] is also just kind of like a diary for me. I can write down my thoughts on different subjects, and it helps me focus on continuously learning. But I will say I haven't really posted anything on there in a while, because I've just been so insanely busy this summer. But hopefully, when I go abroad, I'll have more time.
This summer, you were working in the business side of fashion? Do you feel like you still had space for your creative side there? Or do you think it was working a different part of your brain?
I think definitely both. Bloomingdale's really emphasizes, just a mixture between creativity and commerce, and it was a digital internship, but it was also very focused on buying, which relates to the clothing itself and the product. So, yeah, I think it definitely helped me strike a good balance, but also pushed me to think a little bit more analytically than I normally do.
How do you feel like you’ve changed since you first came to Penn and what parts of you are untouched?
I think I've always loved to write. I used to go to Brandeis University, and while I was there, I was more focused on writing. I was a comparative literature major. I also studied journalism, so I was doing a lot of reporting back then, more so than I do now. But I would say I'm still
in touch with that side. And then when I came to Penn, the atmosphere is just very different on campus, everything's a little bit more fast paced. People are doing a million different things. [...] I've learned to just reach out to try more things and not be scared of taking risks.
When you look back on your college time in forty years, what story from your time here do you think you’ll still be telling?
Definitely, stories from my house at Herzog, anything related to my friends. I think those are the long lasting memories. Somebody was telling me about a study where they were interviewing people on their deathbeds. They asked what they are most proud of and what they'll remember, and they always say relationships. So I definitely think it's the rela -
tionships that I've cultivated over the course of my time at Penn. Just the people that I found are really special.
Any shoutouts?
Tina, who pulled me into Herzog. Also my co–creative directors of The Walk— Vic Rosa and Darya Ameri. Super awesome people and great to work with. And I could not have gone last year without them.
What’s on your senior year bucket list?
I'm so sad that I have to leave soon. Um, but when I get back, I'm really excited for Feb Club, but I also want to go out and see more of Philly before I go, just because I really like Philly as a city. My hot take is that I like Philly a lot better than Boston, which is where I was located when I went to Brandeis k
What’s your song of the summer?: “I’ll Know” by Fiona Apple.
Guilty pleasure at the moment?
Watching ridiculous TV shows and eating a lot of radishes.
Favorite class you’ve taken?. Filming the Future of Philadelphia.
Last book your read? The Coral Sea by Patti Smith
There are two types of people at Penn… SABSers and non SABSers.
And you are? I would say SABSer.
From the Classroom to the Picket Line, Pa. Teachers Fight Against “3–5–7–9”
Philadelphia educators unite to protest the state’s draconian sick–day sanctions.
BY CHLOE NORMAN
Graphic by Anish Garimidi
Post–pandemic, hand sanitizer has emerged as a sacred commodity while every ill–concealed cough is met with glaring suspicion. As students across campus gulp down packets of Emergen–C and shovel cough drops down their throats, their frantic efforts to dodge an invisible enemy are eclipsed by the inevitability of illness.
In the face of sickness, many students are inclined to spontaneously begin a ritualistic diet of Campbell’s chicken soup in lieu of attending classes. While sick days have become a naturalized entity in students’ minds, teachers are not afforded the same luxury of taking time off to attend to their personal health.
Although Philadelphia educators are contractually granted ten sick days a year, they are paradoxically penalized
for their sanctioned absences. Under the state’s “3–5–7–9” policy, teachers are forced to have a conference with the principal after their third absence—regardless of whether the absence is taken non–consecutively or consecutively. Following their fifth absence, teachers have an informal warning memo added to their permanent file, and, after their seventh absence, the informal warning is increased to an “unsatisfactory event” memo in their file in addition to a required disciplinary conference. A teacher’s ninth absence culminates in a second unsatisfactory incident report, a recommended suspension, and further disciplinary conferences with upper administration.
The policy can be traced back to a case from 40 years ago that saw a district
secretary terminated on the grounds of “poor attendance.” Although the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) sought to appeal the verdict, their attempts failed under the arbitrator’s assertion that “management can require It’s like gay McCarthyism
reasonably steady attendance as a condition of employment, regardless of the reasons for the absences, since otherwise the employee is of no practical value to the enterprise.” As a result, the state can circumvent teachers’ right to take their contractually allotted sick days to exert progressive discipline against their “absences.”
Even though the policy has been in practice for over a decade, the city’s school district has recently found itself under fire for the mandate’s threat to teachers’ welfare. As educators are forced to weigh whether their own health is worth bearing the state’s disciplinary retribution, they have begun to demand an end to the antiquated mandate.
On May 23, teachers from across the district gathered to protest against the
state’s “3–5–7–9” policy outside the School District of Philadelphia’s headquarters. Congregating in a circle, educators brandished picket signs denouncing the mandate and belted a litany of chants expressing their frustration with the district’s stance.
The demonstration was organized by the Caucus of Working Educators, which drew together two dozen teachers from across the city to criticize the district’s apathetic response to past complaints about the policy. Peter Doherty, a fifth–grade English and language arts teacher at John Welsh School, helped encourage other teachers throughout the district to attend the protest through social events, telephone campaigns, and inter–communal outreach initiatives.
Throughout the protest, teachers
shared insight into how the policy has impaired their quality of life. For educators with chronic illnesses, the district fails to account for the unpredictable and unavoidable nature of long–term health conditions, forcing teachers to decide between protecting their health or their job security.
Similarly, the mandate places an undue burden on educators caring for young children who are prone to frequent bouts of illness. Often, teachers must use their own sick days to care for their children, making it that much more difficult to adhere to the policy’s restrictive limits. Thus, teachers with children find themselves situated in a stressful dilemma as they attempt to avoid professional repercussions while still attending to their children’s health needs.
“[The policy] has affected me personally when I’ve had to take sick days, and I’ve gotten memos,” Doherty says. “This year, there have been days where I’ve had to care for my children, and there was no one else to. I can’t leave a five–year–old at home, and I can’t send him to school when he’s sick.”
Prior to his tenure at John Welsh School, Doherty worked for the New York City Department of Education and other schools on the East Coast. When he first joined the School District of Philadelphia two years ago, he was shocked by the city’s use of an “escalating punitive policy” that undermined teachers’ legal rights. Currently, Philadelphia’s school district is the only major urban school district on the East Coast that has continued to use the “3–5–7–9” policy, leading Doherty to wonder: “Why are we trying to be unique in penalizing teachers?” Philadelphia educators’ recent protest builds upon past efforts to push the school district towards amending the policy. Back in February, the PFT presented the school board with a petition signed by 2,000 members that demanded a revision to the mandate. However, a spokesperson for the board claimed that “the issue is not something the board can take action on for now because it’s a district policy.”
In turn, although School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington Jr. has publicly expressed that he is open to revising the mandate, he has failed to take any definitive action toward implementing an updated version of the policy. On the contrary, Watlington’s Deputy Chief of Communications Monique Braxton wrote in a statement to Street that “discipline of a teacher for poor attendance, including suspension or termination, is extremely rare.” According to Braxton, rather than endanger teacher welfare, the policy is considered an incentive to promote teacher attendance, one of the focus points for the district’s desired areas for improvement. “The goal of these conversations is to encourage attendance and provide support when needed, similar to encourage -
ment and support we provide to students about their attendance,” Braxton said in a public statement. “We offer many days of paid time off per year and no teacher should come to work when they are sick.”
"For educators with chronic illnesses, the district fails to account for the unpredictable and uanavoidable nature of long–term health conditions, forcing teachers to decide between protecting their health or their job security."
Despite the superintendent’s claim that a correlation exists between improved teacher attendance and the policy’s enforcement, many teachers believe that the mandate has the opposite effect.
“Let’s say I take one sick day,” Doherty says. “The next day I’m feeling better and can come back to work, but then my child unexpectedly gets sick. If I decide to take another day, that would count as two occurrences, whereas if I had just taken three days in a row, that would still count as one occurrence, and I’m not moving up the ladder of punishment.” According to the mandate’s guidelines, a single sick day will be considered an occurrence. While sick days are individual days taken off due to illness, occurrences are a three–day period that can be used for other types of absences. “It creates this idea in the district where if you’re going to take one sick day, you might as well take a couple because that way you can use your sick days while avoiding further penalty.”
By encouraging educators to extend their leave so as to not feel the policy’s punitive wrath, district officials are adversely harming students by subjecting them to a subpar education. Because many students are dependent on the continuity provided by sustained interaction with their instructors, substitute teachers are unable to offer the same level of support as an educator who is acquainted with their specific academic needs. Gaps in student–teacher interaction can lead to decreased student engagement and lower academic performance.
“Students only thrive when they have their regular teacher in a safe and stable environment,” Doherty says. “[Teachers] need to take a day off just as we would want a student who’s genuinely sick to take time to recuperate and get better.”
Beyond its detrimental impact on student and teacher welfare, the policy simultaneously fuels national trends in teacher shortages. A recent analysis by The Pennsylvania State University found that teacher attrition in the district has steadily increased since 2018, with 23% of charter teachers and 13% of district teachers leaving their roles in 2022. Researchers concluded that “[t]he number of teachers leaving the profession in Philadelphia County exceeds the number of newly prepared teachers by local teacher preparation programs.”
As a result, the district has become increasingly reliant on hiring teachers outside the state or those who lack the requisite credentials. Rising trends in teacher attrition across the state raise the question: What role does “3–5–7–9” play in spurring teachers’ decision to leave the profession? By penalizing teachers for taking sick days, the district’s policy dismisses legitimate health issues and familial obligations of educators. Chronic illnesses and personal health emergencies are common realities that teachers are not immune to. By reforming the “3–5–7–9” mandate, the district has the opportunity to begin crafting a more equitable educational system, starting with granting teachers the sick leave that they deserve. k
Welcome to Herzog
Jonathan Song leaves behind a lasting legacy as the founder of Penn’s first–of–its–kind artistic housing collective.
BY ELLA SOHN
Photos by Jean Park
This is no ordinary house.
Walking down the shadowy hallway, you pass items that seem pulled from a cold, industrial future. A dismantled drawer full of shoes and various mechanical tools. A metallic skateboard. Hangers of outerwear under sharp fluorescent lighting. Banks of dark pebbles encroach on either side, forming an increasingly narrow path around your feet. Then, in a startling swell of space and light, you enter the bedroom.
Airy white fabric and bursts of greenery fill your vision: a small tree leaning over the foot of the bed, fronds slicing up sunlight from the window, vines trailing down a three–tiered glass cabinet that holds jewelry and camera lenses. A white keyboard sits against one wall, while a nook in one corner contains a tea–making apparatus and a spiral bookcase.
After the narrow hallway, stepping into the room feels like exhaling. The effect is intentional: “It’s constriction and expansion,” Jonathan Song (C ‘24) says.
He explains that the idea came from the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who built tight spaces leading into large rooms to create a sense of freedom as guests pass through. Jonathan’s hallway—designed in the aesthetic of a commodified, mechanical world—is compression, while the bedroom is release.
“I want people to expand back into nature, back into a forest, back into tea, you know,
sitting on the ground … like a simplicity that makes you feel a release,” he says.
Jonathan is an animated speaker, constantly rephrasing his own sentences and pausing to find the right word to capture his freewheeling thoughts. After a moment, he adds that the room can also serve as a reflection of his identity. “[The hallway] is my exterior shell, and this”—gesturing to the space around him—“is the heart of who I am.”
Jonathan is one of ten students living in the “Herzog Collective,” a historic West Philadelphia mansion named for the 19th–century artist Herman Herzog, who lived and worked there for over 60 years. It’s no wonder that Jonathan feels such a strong personal connection to the space: He was the key figure who established the Herzog Collective in 2022. Since then, he has devoted countless hours to envisioning and building the house’s identity as a safe space for alternative communities and artistic expression.
Stepping into the house for the first time feels a bit like entering an alternate universe. The space overflows with art in all of its forms,
from paintings on the walls to music playing from speakers in nearly every room. Like in Jonathan’s room, the entire house is filled with potted ferns, vines, and succulents.
The house’s abundance is as multifaceted as Jonathan himself. His work lies at a unique intersection of his architecture and physics majors and an English minor. What he calls his “toolbox” of artistic skills ranges from painting and photography to musical composition and creative writing. As Jonathan prepares to leave Penn, the house is a living testament to his evolution, inner turmoil, and aspirations as an artist.
Emerging from his first year at Penn, Jonathan struggled with disillusionment from being immersed in Penn’s pre–professional culture and social hierarchy. “It’s just a process of your idealism suddenly confronted with the reality of the world, and you see it slowly die, and so we conform,” he says. “And that idealism, I think initially for a lot of people, is to change the world for the better.”
When the COVID–19 pandemic hit, he took a gap year that reoriented him toward archi-
tecture and physics as areas of study. The idea for the Herzog Collective began when Jonathan visited a student commune in Berkeley, Calif. that transformed the way he thought about art and community. “Standing there, it was the physical manifestation of another possibility for us to arrange ourselves,” he recalls.
Jonathan returned with the goal of turning this possibility into a reality at Penn. He made passionate speeches about his vision for the collective to several student organizations. Eventually, he gathered four friends willing to go all in on the project. They signed the lease on Herzog’s mansion the day after the property opened up. The availability was a “godsend,” he emphasizes, given the competitive real estate market around Penn’s campus.
That was just the beginning. According to Jonathan, the Herzog Collective experienced a difficult first few months of stress and internal conflict. Each resident had a different idea of what the collective was meant to achieve, and agreeing to the same contract was a chal-
lenge. At times, Jonathan recalls, the turmoil made him doubt the house’s rationale as a whole.
“How do I describe to you the feeling—my feeling of how this is a momentous undertaking, you know, a titanic undertaking for me to change the world,” he says. “So it felt at the time that if this project failed, that means the world can’t be changed.”
Yet the group weathered through its disagreements, and in October 2022, the house held its first major event. The party, called the “Transcendence Carnival,” featured activities such as piano performances, photography exhibitions, and tattoo sessions. It was free and open to the public. Jonathan says this was a deliberate effort to “tilt the culture of exclusivity upside down,” in contrast to the selectivity of Penn’s greek life. He describes the party as a pivotal moment in changing how its residents thought about the project.
In December 2023, the Herzog Collective hosted its second major party, “Festival Universality.” Partygoers wandering through the
house could listen to a “Jazz Prelude” on the first floor, watch student performances on the second, and introspect in an observatory on the third. “For the voices singing music, hearts beating to rhythm, and souls yearning for connection,” the event poster beckoned.
As much as the house seeks to create a safe haven for artists, its members also have to reckon with the everyday financial reality of maintaining an 11–bedroom residence. After all, even the most transcendent celebration must be balanced with the mundanity of chores, midterms, and grocery shopping.
“Some days we get tired; we have exams. We’re just people. Not everyone is drinking tea together all the time,” Jonathan acknowledges.
In its first year, the collective settled on a pay–what–you–can system for residents in order to make the house financially accessible for anyone who wanted to live there. Each resident contributes what they are able to, whether that’s $700 or $2,200, in order to make rent. Aligning with the collective’s emphasis on
transparency, the house’s finances are openly displayed on posters in the entryway. As house treasurer, Jonathan was responsible for managing the Herzog Cooperative Fund and ensuring that the project was economically feasible. Other house roles include kitchen director, steward of maintenance, botanist, and scenter (the resident who ensures that Herzog smells good every day).
“These are important financial and social contracts everyone needs to agree with in order to make this communal living space almost an anti–nuclear family kind of structure, pleasant enough to prefer over living by yourself,” Jonathan says.
The financial aspect brings in another complication, one at the heart of the house’s identity. Jonathan has struggled intensely with how to define the Herzog Collective given its proximity to an Ivy League institution, simultaneously reaching for and shying away from the idea of “utopia.” He acknowledges the criticism one could leverage at Penn students who choose to pursue an alternative housing project, when those resources could go to supporting less privileged communities. “Someone has the right to call this entire thing a bourgeois project,” he says. “You know, you’re turning money into pleasure dust when you could be turning it into food and bread.”
He is still confronting the contradiction between the house’s central purpose and the socioeconomic context in which it exists. But he has come to believe that the project does have value in staking out a different possibility of living within the “mainstream culture” at Penn. “I think that has value in affecting brilliant minds in this school at their most plastic time of potential,” he says.
As Jonathan explains other projects he has completed at Penn, it is clear how deeply entwined his own artistic identity is with his physical surroundings. A glance around his bedroom reveals a blueprint of a city bench inspired by a seashell, a floating stage that rotates with the water levels of the Schuylkill River, and a graph mapping the Herzog Collective in relation to other schools of thought such as the Frankfurt School and “Pennism.”
At one point, Jonathan unfurls a huge piece of black paper across the bed and begins explaining his theory for a new way of concep-
tualizing jazz music, which uses astrophysics instead of sheet music. Star qualities such as luminosity and supernova type determine the structure, volume, and timing of piano chords.
While the graph might seem like the final project for a class, it was entirely self–motivated, a synthesis of his own making from astrophysics and jazz classes he was taking at the time. Jonathan thought of the idea in one night, created the graph the next day, and printed it during finals season. While he admits that the impulsive project may have been “foolish,” the graph also taps into his love of how architecture can transform complex ideas into elegant design.
“Seeing information as it’s presented, you suddenly understand that there’s circuitry and intentionality in how I process information. And you can accept my conclusions with more confidence,” he says. “That’s essentially the power of architecture. It’s a medium to communicate.”
That description may well serve as a metaphor for Jonathan’s relationship to the Herzog Collective. In a sense, the house is a physical
manifestation of years spent engaging with art, architecture, philosophy, and literature. It’s the ultimate example of complex ideas distilled into a beautiful model. “I don’t know if [the house] is art,” he reflects. “But I think if you’re an artist—your work will show your intellectual process. Your art will communicate in a way that words can’t.”
Jonathan recently completed a website where curious students can explore the structure of the Herzog Collective and view rooms for themselves. The website is one way that the project will live on after Jonathan graduates. Its vision will evolve as other students step up to lead, and he accepts this change as an inevitable part of the group’s growth. Yet as Jonathan departs from Penn, he hopes above all that the collective remains true to its founding values of inclusivity and artistry—a possibility for a different way of living.
“I wish that it doesn’t become an institution that is consumed,” he says. “My hope is that it can become something new and a beacon of idealism in this school, in this dark, dark place.” k
Home, Yard, Entryway
The ICA’s fall exhibitions regard our most familiar and intimate spaces with new nostalgia.
BY KATRINA ITONA
Graphic by Katrina Itona
Walking into the Institute of Contemporary Art on Penn’s campus, the inaugural work of the Entryways project greets you: Nontsikelelo Mutiti’s cut–vinyl depiction of ironwork and braided hair calls upon African craftsmanship and memories of the design and textures that have guarded her life. The curling imagery pays homage to the protective hairstyles and gates found in African communities around the globe: particularly, Mutiti’s motherland of Zimbabwe and neighborhoods in Brooklyn. The ornate visage adds to the otherwise flat, modernist architecture of the building.
Entryways: Nontsikelelo Mutiti is one of three exhibitions on display this fall at the ICA. All of the installations take a look at intergenerational tradition, vulnerable performance, and the built environment of our homes.
Where I Learned To Look: Art From the Yard , curated by artist and art historian Josh Franco and organized by two ICA curators, Hallie Ringle and Denise Ryner, is the exhibition on the ground floor.
Placed as though it were a front yard of a home, the exhibition sees Franco examine the practically quirky, adoringly sentimental, and handmade work of yard art. Within a collection of over 30 works by varying artists, paintings, videos, sculpture, and assemblage represent the yard, a space which Franco describes on the wall text as “a patch of grass, a strip of sidewalk, a fencepost, the open woods, or even a notebook” and a transition “between the home and wider world.”
Yard art typically exists outside of traditional gallery spaces in museums as lawn ornaments, garden sculptures, or topiary shrubs, but Art from the Yard conceptualizes the yard as a much more abstract respite between interior and exterior. Franco lugs the painted snakes, rusted metal works, and implanted foliage inside gallery walls, exhibiting an American tradition of yard space and domestic decoration that began in the postwar period and continues on to today.
Franco emphasizes in his chosen pieces that a yard is a place to look in from the
outside and vice versa. One work, shared by Baltimore’s Painted Screen Society, consists of painted canvas screens, meant to replace open windows during hot, humid days. The colored imagery on the outside, blocking the view to perhaps a busy living room or kitchenette, disappears and becomes see–through on the opposite side.
A silent film, Modest Livelihood by Brian Jungen and Duane Linklater, connects the Indigenous home and idea of yard to their communities’ reservations. By documenting the life and work of Indigenous peoples in the Treaty 8 territory of Canada, Jungen and Linklater commentate on the cumbering moderation of “custodianship” by the Canadian government while engaging with the land–based knowledge that helps Indigenous communities survive.
Lawn ornaments, religious memorabilia, and found–object sculptures adorn other corners of the exhibition. Although our manicured or unkempt lawns are everyday metaphors for the high and
low culture of America, artworks set out on grass patches or sprawling knolls alike are inherently subversive to the world of fine arts. Community artwork is highlighted for its reproducibility—like Rocksanne , a painted rock snake originally made for a library—and West African myth and tradition are photographed in David Driskell’s personal bottle trees. These mundane items are far from the archetypal works of visual arts galleries. Yet, the duplicity of a yard art exhibition, Franco argues, does not take away from its lexicon and “language.” Jeff Koons’ Gazing Ball Birdbath , which was originally created for commercial viewings in galleries and museums, expands the lineage of yard art, just as a broken–down car left for memorial or hand–painted signs for a passerby.
Moving upstairs in the ICA replaces the exterior of our homes with a sequestered interior. Walk through a gallery of sensory memory, prophetic imagining, and deep privacies. Take careful steps on bubblegum–pink carpet and allow the
silver gelatin prints to reveal a back door to your bedroom, your heart, your fears, or forgotten scars. These are the motions of Joanna Piotrowska’s first United States solo museum exhibition, unseeing eyes, restless bodies .
Piotrowska, a Polish artist based in London, works primarily in photography and collage in this exhibition. Her black–and–white photos are anonymous portraits, cut and scaled with missing bodies, close–ups on gestures, and other intimate documents of domestic power and oppression. Based in offices, bedrooms, and cribs, the winding pathway and carpet takes you out of a gallery to an intimate place. A sense of family archive, psychotherapy, and confidential afflictions also carve a nonfiction edge into the otherwise performative photos. They are not just beautiful quietudes; they are scary moments of dissonance.
This is the essence that undercuts the exhibition’s nestled rooms and “family photos”: a transformation of domestic pleasure into an emotional landscape
of the violent underbellies of humanity. The curve of an arm in one photo and the movement of a hand become indicative of the ways the greater systems of discrimination and oppression in the world find their ways into our homes.
Piotrowska’s female subjects are subjugated to ambiguous touches of affection or violence. Many individuals are pictured faceless, thus becoming bodies without autonomy, contorted and posed as though recitals of memory. The effect and psychology of Piotrowska’s work sink further than skin, and examines the way violence and self–protection work with our vulnerabilities.
There is stunning, nostalgic beauty that comes with the visual landscape of a home, a yard, an entryway. Each artist reminds us that our places of respite or childhood experiences envisaged an affected version of us for the outside world. Reciprocity is key—as Piotrowska’s sole film work among the photographs states—to experience with another, to welcome touch as we are touched. k
SPRUCE ST
PINE ST
GUTMANN
ACME
POTTRUCK
RODIN
COMMONS
VAN PELT
KCECH
POTTRUCK
RODIN
ANNENBERG
HUNTSMAN
COMMONS
VAN PELT
KCECH
FRANKLINFIELD
A WEL–OILED
D ISCIPLINARY MACHINE
While a new academic year begins, student protesters deal with the disciplinary proceedings surrounding the termination of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last spring.
BY BOBBY MCCANN, JULES LINGENFELTER, HANNAH SUNG, AND ELEANOR GRAUKE
On the afternoon of April 25, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment was set in motion. Earlier that day, a protest—organized by the Philly Palestine Coalition—began at City Hall and marched its way throughout Philadelphia, arriving at Penn’s campus by 4 p.m. It culminated with protesters pitch -
ing about 20 tents on College Green, with the support of an organized faculty walkout. The encampment, joining an ongoing international struggle, began.
Penn’s encampment wasn’t an isolated incident. Rather, it was the product of growing tension on campuses throughout the country, surrounding the
Israel–Hamas war. In the lead up to the encampment, Penn revoked Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine’s club status on April 19; soon after, Penn’s Muslim Student Association and Penn’s Israel Public Affairs Committee began circulating counteractive referendums about Penn’s response to the war.
Designs by Emmi Wu | Photos by Jean Park and Chenyao Liu
PAO’s three demands, detailed in an Instagram post, called for the University to disclose “individual and active financial holdings under the associated investments fund,” divest from both corporations and institutions that fund “Israel’s war on Gaza and occupation in Palestine,” and, finally, protect Palestinian students, their allies, and those involved with pro–Palestinian protesting “beginning with the reinstatement of Penn Students Against the Occupation.”
The morning following the encampment’s commencement, Interim Penn President Larry Jameson issued a statement stating that the University was closely monitoring the demonstration and that, while it supports open, peaceful protesting, the administration would intervene should it turn violent. However, by that night, Jameson sent an email claiming that the encampment violated Penn policies and demanded its immediate disbandment.
At roughly 6 a.m. on May 10, the dim sunlight threw a blanket over the treetops on College Green. Sleep deprived protesters were met with around 100 police officers in riot gear descending on campus. Thirty—three people were arrested, nine of whom were Penn students. In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, a University spokesperson wrote that “Protestors were given multiple warnings that they were trespassing and offered the opportunity to voluntarily leave and avoid citation. Those who chose to stay did so knowing that they would be arrested and removed.” By 9 a.m., all those arrested had been released.
The encampment was officially disbanded after 16 days.
One week later, in the evening hours of May 17, pro–Palestinian activists attempted to occupy Fisher–Bennett Hall. Shortly after students blocked entrances to the building, Penn Police and Philadelphia Police Department forces descended on the building, arresting 19 individuals, of whom seven were identified as Penn students.
On July 2, after the academic year ended, the Freedom School for Palestine posted that a few days before, on June 27, four Penn undergraduate and graduate students were notified that they were being placed on semesterlong or yearlong suspensions. Sent by Penn’s disciplinary office via letter, the group describes the suspensions as brought about by “pro–Palestinian activism on campus.” Nearly two months prior, on May 9, the DP reported that Penn had placed six students on mandatory leaves of absence for involvement with the Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
In the months since the initial arrests, students have faced ongoing disciplinary action from Penn. Student activists have declared Penn’s use of disciplinary action as means to deflect from the encampment’s demands. Distracting through flurries of emails, all the while sowing seeds of disunity and disorganization among protesters, the administration used calculated tactics to suppress the visibility of protesters on
campus. Playacting good–faith negotiating, administrators quickly showed their true colors by allowing Penn Police and Philadelphia Police to brutalize students while the University barred them from campus housing and services. When its interests are threatened, Penn functions as a well–oiled disciplinary apparatus, quickly and effectively suppressing student voices.
A Wave of Suspensions and Disciplinary Proceedings
To some of the activists, the disciplinary notices that arrived in their inboxes came as a surprise. The charges ranged from suspensions to mandatory leaves of absence. Emma, a student that was placed on a mandatory leave of absence on May 9, describes how the en
campment protesters had a more hopeful meeting with administration on May 7, only a few days prior to the disciplinary action. Jameson and Provost John Jackson, Emma notes, she felt were more
optimistic about the more immediately actionable goals of the encampment, which included clarifying what genocide means to the University and allowing and supporting an independent Middle Eastern cultural space on campus.
Within 48 hours of the May 7 meeting, despite the air of the previous talks, Emma wasn’t allowed back on campus. She later received a “suspension–not–imposed” notice from Penn administration, which carries the same weight as a suspension, though without the time off of school, as she was a graduating senior. However, the punishment is still substantial and is a disciplinary mark that can be viewed by graduate schools
and jobs.
Emma also recounts ambiguity around whether she would be allowed to walk at graduation. With her family seated in Franklin Field, she lined up with the rest of her class on graduation day. But as she was ready to walk, Apex security officers pulled her out of line. Emma remains uncertain on how they identified her and the other two students pulled out of line, and she also is unclear on the basis of her removal.
As an undergraduate, Emma specialized in post–colonial literature. Her dedication to the subject extended beyond the classroom, and her involvement in the protests reflects her commitment
to amplifying the voices of those facing colonial oppression. Among students involved in the encampment, a background in social and political issues is common. Another student demonstrator, Taja, has a deep–seated interest in political science, and her research has been recognized at Penn. While these students see a connection between their education and their activism, Penn’s disciplinary response is inherently contradictory to its reputation of marketing Penn as a hub of civic engagement and social justice scholarship.
Taja was unsurprised by the disciplinary action, as she had been facing it for months prior. Taja had been organizing with the Freedom School for Palestine and noticed an increase of visibility for the Palestine–solidarity movement both on campus and internationally. She thinks that once it became clear that the movement was a threat to Penn’s image and capital, they moved to repress the encampment, using “smoke screens of … you’re disrupting campus life, you’re making students feel unsafe. … Just anything to basically get us out and make us invisible again.”
Rishi, a student at Temple University, recounts the brutal experience of being taken into custody by Penn Police officers in riot gear when the encampment was swept. Rishi saw fellow demonstrators around him getting thrown to the ground and injured; at least two people were sent to the hospital.
“It’s difficult for me to even walk on campus without … thinking of that [day] and thinking: This is how Penn chose to respond to us, as many of their own students, of their own community members, chose to speak out against genocide, speak out against their involvement in it,” Taja says.
All three students recount the “brutal repression” of protest and the “unprecedented” identification of protesters.
According to guidance released by the University’s Committee on Open Expression in April, University officials who request identification to make a record
for “purposes of a possible disciplinary action” must state their intent to do so at the time of the request. However, students allege that throughout the encampment, administrators and Penn Police officers would enter the encampment requesting PennCards and, when asked to state whether students’ identities would be noted for disciplinary purposes, the University officials refused to clarify. Emma believes that many of the students served with the first round of disciplinary letters from the Penn Center for Community Standards and Accountability were “targeted students who they saw in the media.”
Student protesters speculate that they were recognized by their faces. During her disciplinary hearing, Emma recalls being told by Julie Nettleton, CSA’s director, that administrators “knew her”— despite having never met her or requesting to see her ID.
The pattern of alleged interactions between students and administrators “set a precedent for the way that the University interacted with [them] during the encampment,” Emma says. “The administration started very obviously pinpointing students rather than [going through] the regular steps in the Guidelines [on] Open Expression.”
Intimidation set the stage for the bad–faith negotiations and disciplinary proceedings that followed.
“The disciplinary actions were a really useful tool of distraction, from the University, and … there were points when they, very effectively, sowed seeds of disunity and disorganization among us,” Emma says. “Oftentimes [discipline] was used as almost a bartering chip to distract us from our very reasonable concerns of the University’s investments and endowment transparency.”
Taja similarly says, “With the encampment, and the yearlong build up of protests, the administration felt threatened by this visibility and the power that we were building on campus, as it was a threat to their image and capital, and in turn they had to brutally repress it.”
When considering opposition to the encampment, Taja states, “people are pulling the wool over their eyes.” She rejects condemnation of the encampment and dismisses suggestions that they should tailor their protest by engaging in non–disruptive demonstrations, ensuring that they remain under a decibel limit, and requesting pre–approval for protest space. “That’s never how any transformative change happened. It’s never how students have interacted with global movements,” she concludes.
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment is not an outlier for student protests. As recently as 2022, encampments, like that of Fossil Free Penn, have been set up on College Green. Sit–ins and other demonstrations have been a tried–and–true method of open expression in Penn student history. But it’s noted that the approach taken by the administration for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment
was markedly different, as was the University’s response.
On the day the encampment was cleared, “Philadelphia Police and the University police brutally arrested students for over an hour,” Taja says. “There were …hospital visits. There were concussions, dislocated joints, fractured joints, internal bruising.”
Students weren’t the only ones to note Penn’s unconventional approach to handling student demonstrators on College Green and in negotiation rooms.
State Rep. Rick Krajewski’s (D–Philadelphia), (E ‘13), came to Penn’s campus multiple times during the spring semester, in an attempt to mediate between student protesters and the administration.
“From the get–go, when I had heard about the encampment, I wanted to sup -
port the right of students to protest, to organize, to express their perspective on political issues,” Krajewski says. “That’s important for me, not just as an elected official, but also as an alum of Penn and as a community member in West Philadelphia. It’s also important for me as an elected official who is very concerned and horrified about the ongoing genocide and war in Gaza.”
Along with Philadelphia City Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier, Kendra Brooks, and Nicolas O’Rourke, state
bia and Princeton and other campuses where there was just brutalization of student protesters, and we were deeply concerned about that occurring in Pennsylvania, at Penn,” he says.
But the administration did not respond to the local government officials’ statement, according to Krajewski.
Penn’s unprecedented response to the encampment has extended beyond the disciplinary proceedings, bleeding into the 2024 fall semester with new restrictions on campus demonstrations.
Sen. Nikil Saval (D–Philadelphia), and state Reps. Chris Rabb and Tarik Khan, Krajewski led efforts to put forward a collective statement, calling for Penn to negotiate in good faith with the protesters, refrain from enforcing disciplinary criminal charges, and not engage violent police force in clearing the encampments. “We saw that occur in Colum -
On June 6, an email was sent from Jameson to all students, faculty, staff, and postdoctoral students, with the subject “Temporary Standards and Procedures for Campus Events and Demonstrations.”
The Temporary Guidelines are, by and large, exactly what they sound like— temporary standards for speech and
expression that the members of the Penn community will be held to for the 2024–25 academic year, at the very least. Crucially, however, the Temporary Guidelines are not revisions on the Guidelines on Open Expression, which have not been updated in over 30 years, but rather will be acting in their place for the time being. Created at the recommendation of the University’s Task Force on Antisemitism, the Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community, and the Faculty Senate, the Temporary Guidelines state that they are in place to ensure “expressions of free speech are appropriately managed.”
Where the Guidelines on Open Expression left greater room for interpretation, the Temporary Guidelines do not—free speech is coming with a larger asterisk, limiting the time, scheduling, and locations of protest. Features of the guidelines, including clauses that allow the school to take disciplinary action in cases of online harassment and allow the restriction of filming by the press, are particularly alarming.
Krajewski critiqued the Temporary Guidelines, remarking, “I am concerned about the banning of encampments, because we have seen the University able to approach encampments and student protests with a less hostile tone. … The University didn’t employ police to clear the encampments [in the past]. They didn’t approach it with the same hostility as they did the protests this spring, and that’s inherently because this is a political issue.”
A Well–Oiled Disciplinary Machine
In the waning days of the spring semester, the focus on the disciplinary hearings from the University and the media buried the encampment’s original intent and demands. Lost under a mountain of bureaucracy and bad–faith negotiations with University representatives, student activists’ efforts seemed to fall to the wayside. Moreover, the media circus around College Green eclipsed news of the condi-
tions in Gaza. Starving Palestinians were without aid for another day, poor conditions were reported from Israeli prisons, and over 100,000 fled Rafah with the United Nations warning of a humanitarian crisis at the hands of Israel. Moreover, the Biden administration admitted that American weapons were being used in Gaza in ways “inconsistent with international humanitarian law,” according to CNN.
But throughout, the student protesters interviewed were adamant on bringing the conversation back to Palestine. The focus on bureaucracy and disciplinary actions distracts from the protest’s exigence: transparent finances, divestment from direct profiting from the Israel–Hamas war, and the promotion of education in Gaza.
Two months after the clearing of the en-
campment, students face repercussions, while Netanyahu continues his push into occupied territory, recently speaking at the United States Congress condemning former Penn President Liz Magill. The dissonance, on the one hand, between the University’s repression of protests and lack of negotiation to meet protesters’ goals, and on the other of the horrors in Gaza, strikes a hypocritical chord for some.
“It goes to show that Penn is not really interested in ‘education, but also building global leadership, and civic engagement’ and all the things that they claim to care about,” says Taja. Student protesters, while from different backgrounds and motivated for different reasons, speak in one voice on this topic: Penn is a well–oiled disciplinary machine, efficient in an elusive bureaucratic strategy for sup -
pressing the pro–Palestinian protests.
Disciplined students have faced backlash this summer on different fronts: some legal, some academic, and some online. Met with clashes with police, vaguely worded emails from school administrators, and the might of the internet doxxing, the students still felt an obligation to put their studies on hold, aware of the potential consequences.
Still, for students like Taja, protest is worth the disciplinary repercussions when weighed against the alternative of inaction. “[Protest has] always been how students use their education to push for change for decades, centuries,” Taja says. “If you’re not organizing, and you’re not pushing back against a place like Penn and speaking out against a genocide when it’s happening, then your education has no teeth.” k
UMPIN THAT AT THE FRAT BOILER ROOM
Songs 34th Street Wants to Hear Mixed At Every Euro-Boy's Frat Basement Set This Fall
BY THE 34TH STREET STAFF
Design by Anish Garimidi
The beauty of boiler rooms exists in spite of the insipid, and frankly, disgusting conditions of the space itself. The beauty of Boiler Room, is that really, it can be created anywhere, can't it? It's a dingy, industrial space that defies all science—heat doesn't rise, but wraps like a damp blanket around you—and social conventions, where the DJ is within our eyeline,
"Alter Ego (with JT)" — Doechii
If you've ever dreamt of a world where you could listen to "212" again for the first time, "Alter Ego" is the song for you. Doechii's recent drop with JT was first teased last spring, and it was worth the wait. "Unfazed, unbothered / Unfuckwitable bitch, why bother?" Enough said.
- Kate Ratner, Assignments Editor
"Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl" — Chappell Roan
In the wise words of reverend mother Chappell Roan: "Can you play a song with a fucking beat?" If you want to feel like you've been transported to the dance floor of the '80s clubs your hot urban studies professor probably ( definitely ) frequented, then it's time to queue up "Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl."
- Natalia Castillo, Editor–in–Chief
and frenetic, atmospheric beats aren't just something you hear, but also feel.
While we might not be on the ground floor in Ibiza, watching Charli xcx freak out as The Dare plays "Stress" by Justice, with the right music, we can cultivate this vibe, right here in UCity. Luckily for us, the perfect boiler room setup exists: frat basements. A world where frats axe the tired "Pepas" and in its stead,
"Pull Over" — Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
"Pull over!" Zendaya marches out of the car to a pulsing techno beat into the night, the whirlwind of paper scraps and dissonant feelings surrounding her. "Hey! Your hotel's that way!" Zendaya pauses. The synth chords kick in. She
play an inspired mix of Snow Strippers to "Get it Sexyy—Bass Boosted," is my utopia. (The lack of rap at frats is an entirely different bone to pick). Street's contribution—if frats ever want to release the rotation of same three songs back to the early aughts—is our ultimate boiler room set, from mainstream hits for the masses to niche hyperpop. - Hannah Sung, Features Editor
turns back towards the car and to Josh O'Connor, their faces bathed in red by the taillights—the color of passion, danger, and forbidden love. Now just imagine if frat parties could feel like this.
- Jake Falconer, Music Beat
"Friesenjung" — Ski Aggu, Joost, & Otto Waalkes Germany was the birthplace of techno music, and they remain at the top of the electronic game. From its opening chipmunked vocals, "Friesenjung" transports you away from the hot, crowded frat basements of Philadelphia to the
rolling pastures of East Friesland, where life consists of drinking beer, listening to Crazy Frog, and then drinking more beer (at least, if this song is to be trusted). What more could one ask for?
- Nishanth Bhargava, Music Editor
"Club classics" — Charli xcx
Amid the highs of Brat Summer, we've let a girl who's been there since the beginning slip through our fingers. "Club classics" is almost a directive— tell your crossed econ classmate–turned–student–DJ when you go to the club, you wanna hear those club classics. Bonus points if they're able to mix this song with something from the Challengers score.
- Diamy Wang, Staff Writer
"HEAT" — Tove Lo & SG Lewis
Close your eyes. Think about an avant–garde international pop artist who made mainstream hits in the 2010s, teaming up with another veteran pop producer this summer. You're not picturing Tove Lo and SG Lewis? Shame on you. Only will hearing the entirety of the "HEAT" EP cure you of Euro summer club withdrawals.
- Hannah Sung, Features Editor
— Joey Valence & Brae, Ayesha Erotica
LET’S GO. LET’S GO. LET’S GO. HANDS UP! Okayyyy HANDS UP! I’M THE BADDEST BITCH IN THIS CLUB. WHO’S THE BADDEST BITCH IN THIS CLUB???? I’M THE BADDEST BITCH IN THIS CLUB!!!!!!!!! Do we need to say more?
- Catherine Sorrentino, Print Editor
"Nightmusic" — Grimes and MajicaCloudz
Semi–controversial, but who's going to be brave enough to play Grimes? Is it you, [insert frat]? I could be posted up at a late night, SABS–reading The Communist Manifesto whilst the comp lit ethereal bicurious DFMOs with the PPE man who similarly wants to experiment, but with girls who won't make money later on in life (let's call him buy–curious). On the perfect amount of substances, this could be beautiful; otherwise, be warned.
- Anonymous
"JOYRIDE" — Kesha Kesha's first release as an independent artist is, for lack of a better term, a joyride. Zany, whimsical, and full of frantic energy, Kesha's comeback will hit when you're on your third can of cheap beer from questionable sources, or looking to get a little frisky with that girl from your finance class.
- Derek Wong, Staff Writer
"She's Gone, Dance On" — Disclosure
If there's anything to be learned from this summer, it's the sovereignty of electro–pop. Brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence and their latest release are only a taste of the revolution. But alas, the glory of August fades into first semester. You've found yourself in the basement of some indiscriminate frat, no sunshine in sight, and a fragment of better days blares at an impenetrable volume
around you. What else can be done but … dance on?
- Sophia Mirabal, Music Writer
"Welcome To My Island (George Daniel & Charli XCX Remix) — Caroline Polachek
If you're a Wharton girlfriend with an LSM boyfriend and you relate to the proclamation: "We're always showering each other in expensive gifts / I put the two–tone Cartier on his wrist," then this Charli xcx remix of Caroline Polachek's iconic song is just what you need. Here at Street, we like to think that sometimes the remix is just better than the original, but who are we to make such a bold statement?
- Natalia Castillo, Editor–in–Chief
"Tangles in my hair" — Cowgirl Clue
A select few at Penn know that the hottest, stinkiest club in Center City is First Unitarian Church. It's quite reminiscent of that of a frat. Sticky floors, bumping bodies, low ceilings. Except for one major caveat: Does [insert frat] play Vada Vada hyperpop? There's something beautiful and sororal about Texan hypnagogic pop that only one Cowgirl Clue can deliver.
- Hannah Sung, Features Editor
Listen to these songs and more with the Street Frat Boiler Room playlist. Scan this code with the Spotify app.
Honorable Mentions "New Bottega" — Toreen Foot, Azealia Banks
"360" — Charli XCX "Best to You" — Blood Orange "Neverender" — Justice, Tame Impala "mute" — Shygirl
"The Baddest (Badder) [feat. Ayesha Erotica]"
FRAT FLU WHO? IT’S THE SEASON OF THE NETWORKING BUG
Penn’s pre-professional environment dictates our academic and professional pursuits, but has it begun to infect our IRL social network too?
BY DIAMY WANG
Design by Wei-An Jin
The Student Activities Fair crowds College Green every fall like a choose–your–own–adventure game. For a newly minted first–year student, each club is a different path down a unique Penn experience—and at the club fair, they’re all trying to get your attention. Handmade poster boards, innovative merch, and sometimes a glossy magazine grace nearly every single table, marketing consulting clubs, pre–professional organizations, and fun social groups. Like open doors, they provide a peek into what life might look like for the next four years. And for first years, those possibilities spark all kinds of new questions, with scenarios they never even thought could become a reality—“Should I rush a business frat?” or “Is pre–law in the cards for me? Do law schools like service clubs?” or “What if I joined a club sport?”
And just like that, new students be -
come infected with the networking bug.
Most Penn students are no stranger to looking towards the future. After all, it’s that drive that got us here in the first place. Now that we’re here, the goalposts have shifted to the job market, and the picture that’s painted for us isn’t pretty—unsustainable living costs, stagnant entry–level wages, and layoffs soon after we land a gig. The pressing need to network as much as possible and as early as we can is imbued into Penn’s culture, so much so that we sometimes value our pre–professional pursuits over our academic ones.
While some students, like myself, like to think that we’ve successfully avoided the hypnotic appeal of finance and consulting culture—which is a real feat, given that 50% of recent grads land in those jobs after Penn—there’s no way we could escape the networking bug.
“Get out there and network!” It’s
the advice given to every student and heralded as the silver bullet—you can be the world’s most qualified applicant but still not get the internship of your dreams because you didn’t have the right person to vouch for you. The appeal of any Ivy League or elite institution, for many, isn’t necessarily the quality of education: It’s the network that accompanies it. And the moment New Student Orientation begins—or even before then, on Instagram—the rat race of trying to develop that network begins.
But then there are the roadblocks. Being cut from Greek life, or not getting a callback from an a cappella group—that’s par for the course. But as it turns out, it feels like everything at Penn is selective. Getting into the Global Research and Consulting club or the Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) is not as easy as it seemed on the Penn Clubs website. Like clockwork every fall, first–year students find out just how hard it is to build that precious network.
In a school where “work hard, play harder” is practically our official motto, it’s unsurprising that the lines between personal and professional are almost entirely erased. When half of our friends and classmates want the same “Big Three” consulting internships as us, our relationships take on a different dimension. The concept of networking transcends a recruiting event or nervous cold–emails. Networking is sending a LinkedIn request to someone we spoke with for three minutes in our psych class, asking our friend to put in a good word for us when we’re rushing a business frat, or desperately texting an acquaintance so we can get into a Homecoming darty. Our experiences at Penn—and what feels like the entire trajectory of our lives and careers— seem to be shaped by who we know where.
It’s hard not to have a doomer mindset about knowing just the right people in college. After all, Mark Zuckerberg
famously founded Facebook with his Harvard University classmates, and well–known companies such as Warby Parker and Thrillist were created by people who had met during their time at Penn. It stems from the competitive, perfectionist mindset that feels intrinsic to Penn’s culture—the constant need to be one step ahead of the game. For many first–year students who are entering a foreign environment when they step foot onto Locust Walk, the game could be anything. So knowing the right person, joining the right club, and being in just the right circle feels like it could be the domino that tips the other ones down the road to success, wherever that leads.
At Penn, we’re always saying that we yearn for real connections, true friends, and maybe even the loves of our lives. Of course, it stems from a place of truth, because we’re not disingenuous robots. But our dirty little secret is that we do want to be special—to have something to ourselves, to be part of an inner circle that other people don’t get to experience. In a pressure–cooker environment like Penn, that can seep into some of the relationships we establish. It’s why the second question out of our mouths when we meet someone for the first time is “What are you studying?” or “What’s your major?” We’ve attached people’s professional capital to them as individuals right off the bat, creating a culture where connecting with our friends on LinkedIn is funny but not out of the ordinary.
For better or for worse, I’ve been infected with the networking bug since coming to Penn, and I fear that a cure has yet to be found. But that doesn’t mean that it’s all bad. If utilized correctly, responsible networking can be a marginally healthier approach to blending business and pleasure, by centering true friendships with a side of professional connection. It’s just a matter of knowing which one should come first—or else the networking bug gets you sick. k
ISORIENT YOURSELF
What the writers of the Disorientation Guide have to say about student activism, past and present
BY ISAAC POLLOCK
Design by Emmi Wu
WARNING: The University Of Pennsylvania is Dangerous To Your Health,” reads the typed subhead on the 1972 Disorientation Guide, the first edition of the now regularly produced student activist response to Penn’s traditional, institutional orientation.
The ‘72 DG is a bright pink, 52–page pamphlet that was sent to me by Owen*, one of the writers and editors of the upcoming 2024 edition. Today, the pamphlet
lives primarily on the DG’s Instagram and their website, but its heart remains the same—to be a platform for student activists who want to e ect change in the University.
The Disorientation Guide started with the ‘72 pamphlet and has been an on–again and o –again production orchestrated by student organizers on campus since. Penn having one isn’t unique, but it’s notable. With a 54–year legacy, the DG is an archive of the social issues of
the time, all from the perspective of Penn students and how such issues are felt at Penn. In recent years, editions have focused on issues like the UC Townhomes, or racism and sexism at Penn. This year’s issue, according to writers and editors interviewed by Street, will have an additional focus on pro–Palestinian activism on campus and Penn’s temporary open expression guidelines.
The Disorientation Guide’s aim is to provide a non-institutional perspective on Penn, from its politics to its history to its general goings–on, while also giving student activist groups a place to speak their piece. The DG covers both the hyper–local campus culture to much broader involvement Penn has had with Philadelphian and Pennsylvanian politics, like the MOVE bombing. But from each publication in the last three years from the revival, one thing has remained the same: the DG ends with a list of on–campus and o –campus organizations and resources that students can look to if they want to get involved with activism at Penn or in the broader Philly community.
These days, the pamphlet is accompanied by Disorientation Week, which is “an on–the–ground manifestation of the Disorientation Guide’s principle,” according
to Owen. The title is a ri on New Student Orientation week. It’s a week of illuminating the activist groups and spaces at Penn, allowing them all to talk and host various events to get newcomers interested.
In 1972, one of the most pressing issues tackled by the DG was the Vietnam War, but the DG also discussed rape culture on campus, sexism in hiring practices, and being Black at Penn. “The anti-war movement was huge,” says Sherrie Cohen (C ’75). “The civil rights [movement] and then the Black Power movement was huge [...] and then the beginning of the Women’s Liberation Movement. That was just so exciting.”
Cohen, David Fair (C ’75), and Carol Tracy (a 1975 graduate of the College of General Studies, which is now the College of Liberal and Professional Studies), are buoyant in their Zoom reunion, talking animatedly about sit-ins in College Hall and fighting with the administration for a sta ed Women’s Center as opposed to having “a little room someplace where we could have volunteers,” which Cohen says was what the University initially suggested as the Women’s Center.
“We were on the ground floor of that,” Cohen remarks. “[...] And many of the issues have stayed the same over the decades.” Indeed, many of the issues talked about in the ‘72 DG are still being written about today. One example is a ordable housing, which the DG dedicated space to in their 2023-24 issue and The Daily Pennsylvanian has reported on frequently. Ken Kilimnik (C ‘73) notes that this issue is one that the DG is still focusing on and one he worked heavily on while at Penn, including contributing to the housing section of the ‘72 DG.
Both the ‘72 DG and the ‘24 DG also tackle war and conflict. The ‘24 DG will, according to its contributors, have a lot to say about student activism regarding the ongoing war in Gaza; the ‘72 DG placed the Vietnam War front and center. “I like to believe that the [support for] anti-war resistance was more commonly held within the university community,” says Fair, in discussing protests against the Vietnam
War. “When I look at things that are going on now, like the recent Palestinian demonstrations, it brings back those memories.”
Kilimnik, on the other hand, says he’s not sure if the situation is exactly the same—the ‘72 anti–Vietnam War protests had to do specifically with the U.S. Army’s direct involvement with the war, whereas many of the demands of the recent occupation of College Green had to do with Penn’s and the United States' financial relationship with the Israeli government.
Cohen says she’s “thrilled that the pro-Palestinian movement is stronger than ever.” Tracy lauds the early e orts of the encampment: “I was seeing posts from people who were talking about these really important conversations that were going on between Jews and Palestinians, really serious, thoughtful [conversations],” she says.
And whose voices are contributing to those conversations is a question some are raising, with an increased focus on
anonymity among student activists. Gone are the days when the DG’s contributors wrote their names on the inside cover of the booklet. Kilimnik argues that there’s a need for transparency in activism; anonymity avoids letting readers know whose voices are being amplified.
The ‘24 contributors, however, see this as a matter of personal safety and academic security. Owen, who, like all the other ‘24 DG contributors interviewed, requested anonymity to avoid University retaliation, is slow and careful when Street interviews him. “I think we are expecting some—at least a little trouble. Even if it doesn’t come, we are expecting and planning for it […] We use encrypted messaging services and non–Penn emails, because [the Penn emails] are monitored, and there is a possibility of [retaliation from the Center for Community Standards and Accountability] from this.” According to Penn’s Policy on Privacy in the Electronic Environment, “[w]hile the
University does not generally monitor or access the contents of a student’s e-mail or computer accounts, it reserves the right to do so.”
Tracy notes that there’s also a financial element to the fear of University retaliation. She says that these days, students are graduating with a lot more debt and paying a lot more for tuition. “It makes people a lot more careful about the thought of getting thrown out of school and having a record around it. I think the
“And, third, I think it’s just important for, in my view, just a historical record of, this is what’s happening. These are our perspectives… not just the Pennsanctioned story.”
price is much higher [these days] for that kind of activism.”
The potential negative response from Penn is certainly on the minds of some of the DG contributors. But a recent shift in the guerilla production and distribution of the guide—from physical to digital— works as extra protection from administration, says Sam*, a rising junior who is a writer and the website designer for the 2024 DG.
They add: “Honestly, this year, I’m really unsure on how people are going to take the Disorientation Guide […] but I’m very confident that the people who will want to seek out the information [will], and join us.”
There is a sense of pride in the palpable impact the DG can have. Indeed, Kilimnik says that it’s undeniable that the work of
student activists had some sort of direct impact—a 1969 housing sit–in, for example, got the University to come to the table and talk to student activists about mitigating Penn’s impact on the community. Tracy and Cohen are quick to hammer home the ways that activism on campus led to the Women’s Center and the establishment of the women's studies program in 1973. “I think dissent is always good,” Tracy says. “I think that it pushes the needle, pushes the envelope. We always need to have people who are out on the edge.”
That group of people seems to find the DG—or else it finds them. Rising sophomore writer and editor for the 2024 DG Tara* discusses her initial involvement with the DG: she was first introduced to the DG via a flyer handed to her during NSO. Tara and her friends read it later that day. “It sparked a conversation. We’re at Penn, and we’ve just had a really rich week of being shown all these opportunities that can help us get involved in our community. And now what are we going
to do to get involved in this other side of campus that we haven’t heard this much about?”
From there, Tara joined the DG. She says she wants to “help showcase a fuller picture of the power at Penn,” and investigate “who’s really running Penn and what types of interests or morals or values they might uphold.”
This reflects what’s to come for the fall issue: “A flagship and thematic focus of this year’s Disorientation Guide is who owns Penn,” says Owen. “There’s a lot of donor influence, donor voices influencing the administration this year, and the different policies—that will be a specific article, exploring that relationship in terms of the Liz Magill resignation.”
The sentiment of investigating what interests are supported by the University is one that was felt in 1972 as well, with high–profile protests against involvement in Vietnam, and against ROTC at Penn, to which the ‘72 DG dedicates an article. “One thing I love that we did is just exam-
ining the power structure of the university,” Cohen says. “[What made things like] the displacement of the Black Bottom so possible [was] because Penn had placed itself in the top of the city’s power structure.”
Owen agrees that the DG does a lot of work shining a light on power dynamics in and around Penn. But the organizers don’t want readers to stop there. “Now that you’re aware, this is how you learn to engage.”
The DG also is a living archive for generations in the future. “It’s important for, in my view, a historical record of, ‘this is what’s happening.’ These are our perspectives […] not just the Penn–sanctioned story.” ‘72 contributor David Spector, a student at Penn o and on from 1970–1975, agrees that the ‘72 DG does much the same, writing that “the booklet is a fair representation of us as individuals and as a group, the state of parts of the Left, and the critique of Penn as an institution—as things were at that time.”
Since this year’s DG will pay extra attention to pro–Palestinian activism on campus and the temporary Guidelines on Open Expression, Sam says that they want to shed a light on the suspensions of four students involved with the encampment on College Green this past semester. “The sanctions are just completely unjustified and unprecedented,” they say. “[...] We’re going to really dig deep into what’s happening and do a full report on Penn’s response and what actually happened at the encampment.”
Owen points out how the guidelines would impact who is able to share their opinions on campus. “If tabling on Locust is something you have to get approved by Penn, no matter what, or else you get kicked o , or you have a CSA case, there’s little to no chance that you could table about Palestine on Locust Walk.” He notes that pro–Palestinian organizations like Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine were delisted from Penn’s club directory in the spring.
But overall, the contributors to the Disorientation Guide have a lot of hope about what it can do for engagement with ac-
tivism on campus. Tara, for example, expresses gratitude for the role it’s played in her early time at Penn, and how the DG connected her with “activist and cultural organizations on and o campus.”
Almost everyone who contributed to the Disorientation Guide past and present made it very clear that the DG is not — and should not be — above growth, criticism, and change. Kilimnik says that it’s important to be critical of everything and not believe everything you read, and that it’s important to understand other people’s point of view. He notes that he does not agree with a lot of what’s in the Guide today; he says that people’s opinions change as they grow, and people’s focus should be on creating a framework within which everyone should coexist, avoiding falling into an echo chamber.
Fair, an out, gay man, says that the gay rights movement is conspicuously absent from the ‘72 DG. “I never remember that
community being seen as a constituency that we needed to advocate for until several years later.” Spector echoes that, noting that though overall the booklet did a good job of summarizing the activist atmosphere at Penn at the time, nowadays there would have been a more concerted focus on and integration of women’s rights and gay rights, and that they “probably would not have segregated the women’s or Black articles toward the back of the bus booklet!”
At the end of the day, the Disorientation Guide is a publication like any other—with an extra emphasis on public. “I think that anybody can digest it,” Sam says. “Anybody should be able to criticize it if they would like. We’re not perfect. As long as it’s constructive criticism, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.” k
*Some names were changed to preserve anonymity.
Take It to the Streets
What to Do in Philly This Month
This month: internationally famous mushrooms, stand-up, endless concerts—and lots more to explore.
Going to college in Philly, we’re so often bombarded—on social media and IRL—with seemingly endless options for how to spend our free time. So, I’m delighted to announce that Street has done the hard part for you: We’ve rounded up what we think are the can’t–miss events for the month in one convenient place. If I’ve done my job right, there’ll be something in here for every one of our readers, no matter what you like to do with your weekends.
Catherine Sorrentino, Print Editor
Free entry with costs varying by vendor booth, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 1500 Pattison Ave. and S. Broad Street.
Sept. 5: Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll
A twice–a–year event perfect for the broke college student, the Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll is a night of cheap, good eats. From 40th to 51st streets on Baltimore Avenue, enjoy a variety of local vendors while exploring the West Philly community.
$1-5, 4300 Baltimore Ave.
Sept. 5-29: Philadelphia Fringe Festival
If you’re looking for an all–in–one arts experience, the Philly Fringe Festival has you covered. Festival events will include film screenings, theater and dance performances, installation and gallery artwork, immersive workshops, and much more.
$15 Curated Fringe Festival tickets, $5 off Independently Produced Fringe Festival tickets with student ID if original price is $15 or more, 140 N. Christopher Columbus Blvd.
Sept. 6: Cage the Elephant @ TD Pavilion at The Mann Center
After five years of silence, the iconic indie rock band is back with their latest album Neon Pill . Catch them live for one night only in Philly, because who knows when you’ll get to see them next.
Tickets starting at $52, 5201 Parkside Ave.
Beginning Aug. 5: Firing the Imagination : Japanese Influence on French Ceramics, 1860-1910 @ The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Calling all pottery lovers! The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a new exhibition highlighting Japanese–inspired European pieces. Known as “Japonisme,” this era of ceramic art combines traditional Japanese imagery with modern (at the time) techniques. With beautiful sculpted vases and detailed statuettes—all vibrantly colored—this collection is not
one to miss.
Free with admission, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.
Every Saturday and Sunday beginning March 30: Southeast Asian Market @ FDR Park
A hallmark of West Philly’s vibrant food landscape, the Southeast Asian Market comes alive each weekend with delectable, home–cooked dishes from Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Lao, and Khmer cuisines. You’re certain to leave the park with a full heart and belly.
Sept. 7-8: Kennett Square Mushroom Festival
Kennett Square is allegedly the “Mushroom Capital of the World.” If you’ve ever wanted to try dozens of mushroom food items and learn about the lore of these luscious fungi, this is your chance. We can say with certainty that you don’t want to miss this chance to check out these gourmet shrooms.
Sept. 7, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sept. 8, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., $5 to enter, cash only.
Sept. 7: Philadelphia Honey Festival
A sweet treat for the whole gang, the Philadelphia Honey Festival features honey tastings, plenty of snacks, and a chance to extract your own honey.
Free entry, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 6026 Germantown Ave.
Sept. 7: An Evening With Fran Lebowitz @ Miller Theater
If you’re sick of Netflix stand–up comedians populating your feed, it might be time to get out of the house and return to the context of all in which modern comedy is situated—and by that, we mean none other than the good old commentary of Fran Lebowitz.
Tickets starting at $35, 250 S. Broad St.
Sept. 9: Beabadoobee: This Is How Tomorrow Moves Tour @ The Met
Kicking off at The Met Philadelphia, Beabadoobee is set to perform her newly released album of the same name: This Is How Tomorrow Moves . If Beabadoobee devouring “Take A Bite” is any indication of what to expect from performances of the album, you won’t want to miss attending her captivating performance of delicate guitar meshed with silky voice.
Tickets starting at $50, 858 N. Broad St.
Sept. 12: Everything but the Kitchen Sink Mosaic Workshop @ Magic Gardens
The famous mosiac–covered gallery is letting us in on their art secrets. In this beginner–friendly workshop, learn how to create mosiacs like a pro while exploring the all–encompassing beauty that Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens has to offer.
Tickets starting at $45, 1020 S. Broad St.
Sept. 19: The Try Guys: Eat the Menu Tour @ The Fillmore
Keith and Zach from The Try Guys bring a live version of Keith Eats Everything to Philadelphia. Head over to the Fillmore for a live mukbang and a chance to meet
two of the Try Guys!
Prices vary, 29 E. Allen St.
Sept. 21-22: We Are the Seeds Philly, PECO Multicultural Series @ Cherry Street Pier
Celebrate Indigenous arts and culture with September’s entry for the PECO Multicultural Series. Hosted at Cherry Street Pier, enjoy this two–day market while taking in live performances, painting, and panels over the waterfront.
Free entry, 12-9 p.m., 121 N. Christopher Columbus Blvd.
Sept. 25: SWEAT Tour: Charli XCX and Troye Sivan @ The Wells Fargo Center
The music writers at Pitchfork may have declared Brat summer to be over, but what they don’t know is that the SWEAT renaissance is on the horizon. For those of us who have been shuffling between Troye Sivan’s Something To Give Each Other and Charli XCX’s Brat , this joint tour is the best thing since gay marriage was legalized. Between this power duo and their opening act Shygirl, this is a night of music you won’t want to miss.
Prices vary, 7:30 p.m., 3601 S. Broad St.
Sept. 27: Remi Wolf @ The Fillmore
Street’s learned a thing or two from Remi Wolf’s raspy voice singing about making babies on the company dime. Wolf’s latest album Big Ideas is a tromp through jazzy, soulful pop numbers—it’s got perfect grooviness. Get your tickets and get ready to dance.
Tickets starting at $110, 29 E. Allen St.
Sept. 28: Mural Arts Fest: Roots and Reimagination
Philly’s artsiest nonprofit is celebrating its 40th year of transformation. Watch the magic escape the walls and leap onto the streets with performers, dancers, and DJs at Love Park. Grab a friend, a brush, and paint the town with fun!
Free entry, 2300 S. Swanson St.
Sept. 28: Vampire Weekend: Only God Was Above Us Tour @ TD Pavilion at The Mann Center
When it comes to Ivy envy, we as Penn students haven’t really been envying Columbia students, but we’ll be the first to admit that we really wish we could say that cool indie band Vampire Weekend was formed at Penn. As a consolation prize, we’ll probably find ourselves at the band’s Philly tour stop, wishing that we could trade some of Penn’s finance bros for just an indie rock boy or two.
Tickets starting at $55, 7:30 p.m., 5201 Parkside Ave.
not the brightest bulb. I’m not even sure she turns on...
I need to be a house husband so bad.
She’s
Beyond the GSR: Where to Study in Philly
Break free from campus and explore these ideal workspaces across the city.
ANNA O'NEILL–DIETEL
Photo by Nathaniel Babitts
As the semester begins, we’re itching to escape the too–soon drudgery of studying in stuffy GSRs (group study rooms, for the uninitiated). This is the guide to the top spots in the city to conquer homework fatigue. Whether you crave airy spaces or eclectic vibes, Street’s curated the perfect mix. So clock in, fire up Canvas, and let’s get some work done.
Free Library of Philadelphia Parkway Central Branch
After a $35.8 million expansion, the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Central Branch is a college student’s dream. The new area boasts 7,200 square feet of clean, airy public space with comfortable chairs, couches, and tables all within reach of power outlets. The space also includes meeting rooms for that study group that actually made it out of the group chat. Want a cozier vibe? Check out the reading rooms on the second floor to get some work done among the stacks. Stick around after work for a free author event in
the basement auditorium.
The Ground Rittenhouse
This is quickly becoming a favorite café for us. Part plant store, part coffee shop, this is a funkier spot for work. With cushy seating up front by the large display windows and tables in the cordoned–off café area, you can choose whether you want people–watching or privacy. The menu boasts coffee–shop staples and excellent bubble tea. If you have a sweet tooth, we recommend trying their chocolate–covered–strawberry latte and a croffle (a French croissant baked as a Belgium waffle with a light brown sugar brûlée). With this spot located steps away from Rittenhouse Square, if you didn’t already get enough nature time inside with the plants, you can take a stroll in the square during your break.
South Philadelphia IKEA
Okay. Hear us out. IKEA makes for a great work spot. Head up to the second–floor caf-
eteria for loads of seating, views of the Delaware River, and Swedish meatballs. Seriously, the food is pretty good, and prices are student–friendly. And fear not—despite the sheer size of the cafeteria, during weekdays the space has coffee–shop level background noise and, miraculously, isn’t echoey. If you’re getting bored between assignments, you can even tour around the rooms and lounge on a Friheten or Pärup. Sorry, *sofa.
The Board and Brew
Our favorite West Philadelphia board game café is a remote–work hidden gem. Known by most for its second–floor board game room, the first floor is a bustling coffee shop. It’s just steps off of Penn’s campus, so we suggest linking up with a friend to work at this café and take advantage of their sprawling library of games for a break. This café also goes way beyond “brews,” with sandwiches, soups, and salads—not to mention its wine and cocktail menu for a post–study pick–me–up.
Green Line Cafe
We’d be remiss if we didn’t include Green Line on this list. There are five locations in Philadelphia, so you’re bound to be within a SEPTA ride of one—even during the Trolley Blitz. We recommend starting your day with a Green Line Latte and having one of their signature paninis for lunch. Our favorite spot is the 44th and Locust location right next to campus. With a full rowhouse footprint, this café has tons of seating options with lots of natural light.
Vernick Coffee Bar
This ethereal café is in the Comcast Technology Center and is perfect for a few hours of work. It’s located on the second floor of the building, and you can lounge among the lobby treetops and finance bros staying at the Four Seasons on the top floor. There are plenty of seating options, all in varying shades of beige–mom tan. This is a Four Seasons café, so expect a $4 iced coffee. While there are USB charging ports at most tables,
there aren’t many three–pronged charging outlets, so make sure to come with your devices fully charged.
Four Seasons Meeting Rooms
We’re including this option as a “secret third thing.” Situated in part of the Comcast Technology Center in Four Seasons territory
is the tallest work spot in the city. Located on the 59th floor, right below the SkyHigh Bar and Restaurant, is one of the bougiest places one can study. With large tables and private meeting rooms—not to mention the best views in Philadelphia—this space has it all. Obvi, be courteous, you’re not a guest. But we won’t tell. k
Nicole Rafiee is Chronically Online
The lifestyle YouTuber is hoping to expand beyond the limits set by those before her.
BY JULES LINGENFELTER
Graphic by Maggie Gu
I..am a consumer first, and then a YouTuber second,” says Nicole Rafiee, an up–and–coming content creator. “I still feel like a 12–year–old fangirl watching YouTube on my computer in the basement.”
Perhaps, Rafiee admits, it’s a slight case of imposter syndrome that leads to her ranking of these identities. But a much larger part appears to be the way she grew up: online. At her discovery of YouTube around the third grade, Rafiee became obsessed with the site, spending her days watching stop motion animation, home–film–esque music videos, and a lot of Webkinz content—the bread and butter of early YouTube.
Her love for the game that is YouTube began with a love of watching others play. But it didn’t take long for a young Rafiee to start uploading her own work, inspired by the greats before her.
“I started at a very young age, like elementary school, and then deleted it all,” she says. Though Rafiee enjoyed the process of creating content, the idea of people watching it, particularly those who knew her off–screen,
was much less enjoyable. “I started up again in middle school ... making bits and skits. People found it; I deleted it and started up again,” Rafiee explains of the cycle she was stuck in, starting up and deleting her online presence.
For a time, Rafiee attempted to consider a more tangible, traditional career: she attended Temple University to be a physician assistant. However, the likes of biology, anatomy, and kinesiology proved too rigid for her, and Rafiee found herself “daydreaming about making videos.” By the beginning of her sophomore year, she scratched that creative itch and again began uploading videos with a new mindset—she was ready for the world to watch.
Never is it a better time to watch Nicole Rafiee than when she’s info–dumping internet lore. “I have always been that friend who will tell you about all my interests,” she says. “Even if you don’t care, I will tell you everything that I am currently obsessing over— artists, movies, shows, bands—like I am that annoying friend that will drag six friends to a
concert that they don't care about.”
An established expert in pop culture, Rafiee has put her years of digital fandom experience to use in a series dubbed “Chronically Online Girl Explains.” Rafiee has found her perfect niche. From Chappell Roan, to Challengers, to Street favorite Brat, she’s reached a corner of the internet where her explanations are near gospel.
Though she’s cultivated a community of pop culture obsessives, Rafiee is determined to be more than just another content creator existing in the vacuum that is the internet. In early spring, Rafiee became one of the founding members of Creators for Palestine, originated by YouTuber Nikki Carreon.
“It was just so incredible to see what it became, because, no joke, it literally started as like 20 of us in an Instagram group chat,” she says. The group grew to over 130 members— with the likes of Kurtis Conner, Hasan Piker, and The Try Guys—and culminated in a livestream on May 30 that helped the campaign raise over $1.5 million. Rafiee, who insisted on not only digitally promoting the event,
but also taking part of the livestream, flew to Los Angeles for a mere 12 hours. “I know it was last minute, but I was one of the founding creators of it. So I really, really wanted to be there.”
For Rafiee, the money raised was far beyond the belief of what the original group thought could be accomplished. But she believes it may pave the way for future content creator activism. “It’s so cool to see the power that so many people have,” she says. “I think that it maybe has opened a lot of people’s eyes, especially creators’ eyes, [about] how much of an impact they can have.”
Though Creators for Palestine was a major event in which she took a large role, using her online platform for good has always been a running theme of her content. Notably, Rafiee has talked openly about her journey with OCD to further raise awareness around mental health.
“I started my YouTube channel not knowing I have OCD,” she says. “It’s kind of hard to watch a lot of those videos because I am so evidently clearly struggling with OCD, or severe anxiety, or depression, or whatever …
but I just didn’t have a name for it, and I was clearly using YouTube to cope.” An outlet, she’s quick to acknowledge, that she was glad to have in her life at that time.
Interspersed between more frivolous videos like Colleen Hoover readings with her best friend Jake and Sims 4 play–throughs with rather salacious goals, Rafiee has documented the various aspects of her life affected by OCD. In a recent video entitled with the double entendre “i fear i’m being followed,” she talks freely of her struggles of having an online presence and experiencing bouts of paranoia: a topic that, though she originally wanted to shy away from due to fear of seeming ungrateful for her audience’s support, she felt a necessity in wanting to share.
Rafiee talks of the few instances where viewers have reached out and were able to look into an OCD diagnosis after watching her content and seeing how the symptoms pervade in real life. And though she speaks mostly of her own experience with the condition, she hopes that her sharing her experiences with mental illness will encourage others to seek wellness in whatever form
they need.
“I’m so happy that there are so many people out there seeking a diagnosis, whether it’s OCD or just getting mental health help in general, because it’s getting around [to] where it’s not as stigmatized as it was before. But we have such a long way to go,” she says. “I’m just an advocate for any help that people can get—whatever that looks like. … I think that it’s important to show that, like, yeah, it took some time, it took a lot … to get here. And like, if I can do it, anybody can do it.”
The success she’s experienced, though more than welcome and gratifying, is still unbelievable. Rafiee keeps herself grounded by her day–one philosophy: being authentically herself, especially the obsessed–with–lore–that–no–one–with–a–day–job–has–time–for aspects of herself. At the end of the day, Rafiee stumbled into becoming a voice for the chronically online niche internet people, a group she has always been a part of.
“I’m like, damn, I scammed my way into this. … I don’t know how I technically got here. Because at the end of the day, I’m still just a big fangirl.” k
Percival Everett reread Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 15 times before reimagining the classic in his newest novel, James. “Those who fail to reread are obliged to read the same story everywhere,” writes literary critic Roland Barthes. Everett is sure to have read Barthes, an expert in semiotic theory, writing a baby–savant character in the novel Glyph. Everett’s James from the titular enslaved person’s perspective echoes Barthes’ sentiment, in a retelling in which a radically different story plays out.
From reading Voltaire and debating with John Locke in dream sequences, James, an escaped enslaved person from Hannibal, Mo., is surely more emotionally complex
than Jim was in Twain’s novel. James cares deeply about Huck Finn, a white boy, and uses his intellect in fascinating and unexpected ways to save both himself and Huck on numerous occasions as they run away from home for different reasons. We also learn of James and other enslaved peoples’ mastery of their own dialect, which entails speaking obsequiously to white people, so as not to garner unwanted attention and be viewed as threatening. When on their own, however, the enslaved people speak Standard American English, grasping the intricacies of conversation fully.
This literary code–switching is almost the reversal of what we see today. It’s not SAE that would most threaten white America,
but rather African American Vernacular English. There are numerous examples of cops feeling threatened by a suspect’s way of speaking; for instance, many view the arrest of Sandra Bland, a Black woman pulled over for failing to signal a lane change, a result of her “Black expression” being perceived as threatening by the arresting officer. While Bland was ostensibly speaking SAE, tone and emotion can play a factor in perception. Bland later died by suicide in jail. Other more common examples include how speaking AAVE can impact testimonies in trial settings, learning in schools, and success in professional environments. Code–switching remains a survival tactic of Black existence in the United States, not just
a historical phenomenon during slavery. Everett deliberately changes Twain’s vernacular to include these nuances, explicitly relaying how enslaved people would speak to make white people feel better. If they did not, Everett makes clear that the consequences could be fatal. Twain’s masterful rendering of vernacular English is one of the reasons the book remains a time–honored classic and a window into antebellum 19th–century America. Twain writes in an explanatory note enumerating the different dialects expressed, which include “the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary ‘Pike County’ dialect; and four modified varieties of this last.” Only
Reimagining the Classics
Percival Everett’s 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' reworking exemplifies unapologetic irreverence to the “classics.”
BY BOBBY MCCANN
Graphic by Janine Navalta
through many rereadings is it possible to distinguish between each of these dialects. Everett exploits Twain’s mastery, turning it on its head, to support the demographic that gets the least nuanced treatment: enslaved people. In fact, as early as 1957 and more explicitly in 1982, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called for the removal of Huckleberry Finn from the classroom due to its treatment of Black characters.
Everett’s language is not the only time he appeals to modern sensibilities while simultaneously keeping a fidelity to Huckleberry Finn. In the original, Jim would spend large chunks of the narrative simply waiting by a raft, or in the woods. Twain would develop
Huckleberry’s adventures, leaving Jim as an auxiliary character. In James, these swaths are instead colored with exciting and terrifying adventures of the escaped enslaved person. The hard truths that serve as the backdrop to the happy satirical experience of Huckleberry Finn for the white reader, and the truths that in fact allow for such an experience (at the behest of characters like Jim), are illuminated in the process.
During some of these tribulations, white–passing individuals—those who can claim ancestry from Africans brought over on slave ships, but appear white to the eye—emerge. Norman, an escaped enslaved person who has phenotypically white features, acts as James’s owner, because an enslaved person
without an owner is soon to be caught. They dream up schemes of raising money to buy their families, some of which include Norman selling James into slavery and then later helping him escape. When Norman eventually dies in a boat crash, it’s because James was confronted with a hellish philosophical choice: to save his friend, or Huck Finn. He chooses Huck Finn, revealing to the white boy that he was not in fact white, as he had been led to believe his whole life. Rather, Huck Finn was James’s son, and “Pap Finn” was merely his stepfather.
A feminist rendering of the Trojan War. A Jane Eyre prequel from the perspective of a Creole heiress. A modern retelling of Frankenstein in a cryonics facility, featuring a transgender physician and an AI expert. Albert Camus’ The Stranger from the perspective of the brother of “the Arab.” Modern reimaginings of classics are becoming classics themselves.
A common move in all of these novels is to undermine the power hierarchy of the original, subverting the racist, sexist, and xenophobic gaze and giving back a voice to marginalized characters. By focusing on these characters, the author is effectively saying that a different story is possible and that the stories we know and love are not immune to a critical lens.
In a way, this corresponds to what Barthes has already noted. Without rereading—and rewriting, for that matter—we are doomed to read the same story everywhere. Instead of intellectualizing a story, analyzing its language, structure, and context, with all due fidelity to the original author–turned–saint, writers are being creatively irreverent. And the readers are here for this iconoclasm.
Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, a modernization of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, was named one of the ten best books of 2022. The popular social media website Goodreads has a list of over 1,000 classic retellings, accompanied by ratings of each work. There are even lists of retellings specific to one work: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier has 12 renditions (and counting).
One would be misled, however, to view reimaginings as simply “retellings.” It is not
the same story being retold. Authors are bringing their own creative flair and literary genius to the table. One of the best parts about reading James and Huckleberry Finn side by side wasn’t the twists that Everett made to the original narrative, but rather the altogether novel augmentations that seem to come out of nowhere. For example, James is bought by a minstrel group that performs in blackface for white folk. The problem is that James is already Black; he must live in fear that his mask will not be seen as too authentic, that his skin and hair underneath are seen as merely good props, and that his code–switching is impeccable. Given the recent awareness brought to the problematic nature of minstrel shows, Everett throws a highly successful curveball, drawing out the intricacies of what it means to present a certain way, and how others react to that presentation.
As readers grapple with the sometimes shocking frequency of the n–word in Twain’s version, it is hard to reread the classic without some sort of remedy for this linguistic violence. James provides a remedy, but also a new narrative in its own right. This story, as it turns out, is mostly about storytelling itself, and the power of having one’s own story.
In Huckleberry Finn, it is not Jim who can read, but Huckleberry. In Everett’s James, the roles are reversed: James is a prolific reader and aspiring writer. He has read everything from European classics to narratives by enslaved people, and aches to get his own story in writing. It is not a wish for him but a necessity. “My interest is in how these marks that I am scratching on this page can mean anything at all. If they can have meaning, then life can have meaning, then I can have meaning,” writes James. He risks his life and the lives of others to procure books, a notebook, and a pencil (indeed, an enslaved person is lynched over the stolen pencil). To the white public, it is not the fact that James has murdered that is the most concerning— it is his intelligence, manner of speaking, and ability to read and write.
Everett moves the narrative up to the Civil War, making the issue of slavery even more at the forefront of the minds of non–Black
people. It is noted that no matter the good intentions of the Union, the freeing of enslaved people is only an “incidental premise and would be an incidental result.” This cold cynicism looks good on James: he turns into a cool runaway, finding no qualms with upsetting white people and risking life and limb in the process. For James, no life is better than enslaved abuse, and clawing words out from the abyss of language is better than perpetually waiting for an opportunity to speak.
"One would be misled, however, to view reimaginings as simply “retellings.” It is not the same story being retold. Authors are bringing their own creative fair and literary genius to the table."
Reading becomes the ultimate private affair and step to freedom, where no one can tell if the linguistic signs have any meaning to the reader, where enslaved people in particular can feel an autonomous power hitherto unexperienced, perhaps save the subversive code–switching with each other. Writing becomes an actualization inseparable from this freedom garnered by reading and is the fulfillment of this freedom in a new modality. It is in this sense that as soon as James—stolen property himself—writes “My name is James” on a stolen notebook; etching laboriously with a stolen nub of a pencil, he steals back himself and his agency. He reclaims himself regardless of the “enlightened” racism of Locke and Voltaire, from the white people who know him as Jim, from the prejudices of the reader, and from Twain himself. k
Straight Out of Cannes
Street previews this fall’s most anticipated films, where nostalgia and realism rule the screen.
WEIKE LI
Graphic by Janine Navalta
The claim that 2024 was a lackluster year for the Cannes Film Festival had been heard almost throughout the two weeks of the festival, even with features such as body–horror freakout The Substance (out on Sept. 20) or emphatically political thriller The Seed of the Sacred Fig (out on Sept. 18), the latter which garnered a nearly 15–minute emotional standing ovation after its premiere. Most main competition films, according to my fellow journalists, are dull and horribly nostalgic, while many sidebars—notably the Directors’ Fortnight, which used to present surprisingly refreshing selections—also seem to have lost their charm.
The claim is not without its validity, given that 2024 is indeed the year that we are fully out of the shadow of the pandemic but still burrowed within a creative crevice that resulted from the prolonged lockdown. The gap also manifests itself psychologically, as filmmakers around the world are still processing the spiral effect of COVID–19 that seems to assert its presence of de–globalization, mistrust, and conservatism, beyond medical discourses.
Films, like all mimetic mediums, reflect but also participate in public conversations. Festival de Cannes, the crown jewel of the world festival circuit, has emphatically made its mark and decisively shaped that conversation in advance of these films’ releases for wider audiences this fall. What is happening, then, to our world cinema, according to Cannes?
The Decline of White Nostalgia
A major source of disappointment in the main competition is a collective let–down
by the canonical—hence white and masculine—masterminds of film history, led by, arguably, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (Sept. 27), which has been 40 years in the making and since gained unparalleled hype before its premiere. Unabashedly titled as a fable of his own, Megalopolis is a straightforward outcry against the declining democracy typified by money politics and mobocracy of the present world, as Coppola unsubtly constructs a “New Rome” that looks identical to New York. What Coppola proposes in alternative, however, is nothing new but a nostalgic return to the rule of the clever few, as he superfluously quotes from Plato, Shakespeare, and Emerson. Similarly, despite the film’s sumptuous imagery of futurism and Art Deco decoration, the utopian city “Megalopolis” that Coppola conceives sadly looks more like a piece of real property advertisement from the 1980s.
"2024 is the year that we are fully out of the shadow of the pandemic but still burrowed within a creative crevice that resulted from the prolonged lockdown."
The film, hence, strikes more as a conservative indignation masked in an abstracted and hollow hope towards the future, a
glorious but overpriced flop that wants to speak nothing about the present crisis we’re in. While some may be touched by his impassioned and strangely innocent defense of the “beautiful and the impractical,” I can’t help but see it as a good–for–nothing remnant of the past—because, according to the visionary Cesar Catilina played by Adam Driver in the film, marriage is the only useful institution to preserve in his panacean utopia.
A similar nostalgia perpetuates this year’s main competition selection, from Paul Schrader’s Oh Canada (May 17), to David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds (Jan. 22) and Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope (Oct. 24). While Schrader dwells in the character’s (and arguably, by extension, his own) youth and romantic affairs, Sorrentino indulges in his hackneyed wistfulness for Naples, Italy by problematically allegorizing a female character’s life into the history of a city. Parthenope is not a bad film per se, especially given Sorrentino’s decadent camera movement that constitutes the best piece of advertisement for Southern Italy (and a much more enchanting one for visit than Coppola’s unimaginative utopia)—and I am frankly moved by Sorrentino’s anxiety over creative alienation and futility of tragic love—but there’s no denial that it is a hopeless film of the past.
A final addition to the hall of disappointment—and my least favorite of all—is Yorgos Lanthimos’ star–studded Kinds of Kindness (June 21). Albeit having obviously been given unrestricted creative freedom and resources (as the film is one of the longest in this year’s selection, at 165 minutes), after the commercial successes of The Favourite
and Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness is a nostalgic return to Lanthimos’ earlier, signature Greek–Weird–Wave style of deadpan parody and usual theme of “consent and control.”
However, his early work was still commenting on the world we dwell in. Dogtooth, for example, explores the parallels of familial and political totalitarianism through the psychoanalytic fixation on teeth and the politicized potential of language—a theme explored by The Seed of the Sacred Fig in this year’s main competition much more poignantly. Kinds of Kindness, on the contrary, is plainly a Lanthimos–themed–playground, best likened to, as far as it may seem, Martin Scorsese’s theme park comment on Marvel. The film is horribly detached from reality, with an annoyingly meticulous and spotless setting. Instead of saying something—anything—Lanthimos is bent more on playing his own sand–table game of manipulating characters into pointless madness and transgression.
The Rise of Imaginative Potentiality
What renders the collective nostalgia of our cherished auteurs even more problematic is the pronounced presence of another group of works that faithfully observes our reality and proactively participates in imagining a better future. Sean Baker, who received this year’s Palme d’Or for his new romcom Anora (Oct. 17), has dedicated his entire oeuvre to the de–criminalization and de–stigmatization of sex workers, as well as a genuine investigation into their circumstances in the capitalist society, without a trace of condescension. For me, Baker (at his best in, for example, The Florida Project) is always asking “what if”: What if our world doesn’t have to be like this? What if our children can actually have a better future? Two of my favorite works in the main competition, Andrea Arnold’s Bird (Nov. 8) and Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light (Oct. 2), similarly tap into the power of imagination, and are arguably the most tender yet empowering works of this edition of Cannes. Bird, directed by British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (who also received the Carrosse d’Or of this year’s Directors’ Fortnight), looks into the life of a brother and a sister.
Together, they are raised alone in a squat in northern Kent by an excessively young and unready father (Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan) and face an interaction with a mysterious bird–man (Undine’s Franz Rogowski). One of the most neglected films in this year’s selection, Arnold’s Bird brims with complicated emotions, indelible performances by Keoghan and Rogowski—the best casting ever across all the films at this year’s Cannes— and incisive commentary into a hereditary and institutional plight of negligence and precocity, all hidden behind the tender, melancholic, but magical gaze of the bird–man.
Alternative to Arnold’s investigation of the geography of English countryside, Payal Kapadia’s poetically–titled All We Imagine as Light (which won this year’s “second–place” Grand Prix) portrays the city of Mumbai, India like never before. Drawing inspiration from his last work A Night of Knowing Nothing, a political documentary told through a
dreamy and personal lens, Kapadia superimposes scenery shots of city streets and public transportation with the soft words, murmurs, and quick banters of her characters, who are tinged with authentically documentarian sensibilities. The film’s protagonists, three nurses of different backgrounds, are both adapting themselves to the daunting city filled with unrealized fantasy and unfulfilled promises, but also—like the superimposition suggests—imagining, molding, and queering their environment into a potentially habitable place for all. Herein lies the true potentiality of this group of films: As female filmmakers, Arnold and Kapadia aren’t just portraying empowering female characters; instead, they’re imagining how we can alternatively see—and queer—the world, from a non–normative perspective. If the “masters” of cinema like Coppola are still living in the entrenched past glory, a new generation of filmmakers like Kapadia is already radical-
ly stepping away from their legacies into a future of potentiality. As the name of Kapadia’s film suggests, as long as we’re still imagining a better future, the light won’t be far away.
The Call of the Real
It’s hard to ignore the usage of “real footage” in this year’s selection at Cannes, from TikTok and phone–shot portrait videos, to Zoom recordings and archival footage. Realism, as one of the longest artistic traditions, is a defining feature of the art of the moving image, which imitates our reality like never before possible in painting and literature. Our often unconscious perception of the real in film is indebted to the neorealist aesthetics of, for example, the handheld camera, natural lighting, and on–location shooting that originated from Italy in the 1950s.
However, when the means of image–making and image–dissemination are again de-
mocratized through infrastructures like phones, 5G networks, and social networks, the definition and value of the real in film become increasingly contested. If we can already see the “real,” arguably the most real, through TikTok videos, why do we still need realist films?
The direct response to the conundrum is to incorporate TikTok and portrait videos into the grammar of filmmaking. While it’s often naturally deemed to be “uncinematic” to show portrait video on a wide screen, a lot of the films in Cannes this year prominently feature them: Arnold’s Bird, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film (May 16). The latter two present a helpful contrast in understanding how realist filmmakers nowadays are coping with a call for the “most” real. While both films investigate political and social movements in a contested environment (Rasoulof portrays the “Woman, Life, Freedom movement” in Iran, while Lou reflects
on the democratic protest in China following the tightening lockdown), their usages of “real footage” are in starkly opposite manner.
Rasoulof, on one hand, directly employs TikToks and Instagram videos of real footage of the protest. We see the characters looking at their phones in anxiety, and the film then immediately cuts to a portrait video of what the character is looking at in the diegesis. The film ends with a political statement of the death of the patriarchy and a call for freedom; following the end of the film, we also see a wide array of portrait videos showing the extent of the protest. The “real footage,” in this sense, is used as evidence of or substantiation for the “realistic” quality of the film—when neorealist aesthetics ceases to be effective, filmmakers like Rasoulof turn to such footage to add to the power of the narrative.
On the other hand, Lou employs real footage as a destabilization. Instead of using such footage as a source of validation, Lou participates in a task of media archaeology as he presents a collage of all kinds of footage, ranging from video calls, propaganda advertisement, TikTok videos, popular songs as well as banned songs—a mix of good and bad media, in our conventional division. Instead of contributing to an unambiguous statement like Rasoulof does, Lou’s film, for me, involves a more chaotic and complicated job of destabilization, and in extension, politicization.
Like Cannes’ to foster discussions, Megalopolis—along with all the “old nostalgic flicks” of this year—refuses to dive into an oftentimes thorny reality but instead resorts to an easy way out. To keenly observe and represent our immediate reality, in this sense, is only the first step in a long journey searching for a better future. Realism does not equate to a strictly realistic portrayal—it can be imaginative, romantic, destabilizing, and even confusing, full of dazzling possibilities explored by some of our finest filmmakers around the world, from Arnold and Kapadia to Lou and Jia in Cannes. Instead, it represents a commitment to our emphatic reality, and for me, a hope in humankind’s ability to eventually take the right path. k
Daniel Min’s Journey From Twitch Streaming to Instagram Fame
“DM” is performing better in his internship than you think he is.
BY SAMANTHA HSIUNG
Graphic by Emmi Wu
There’s a chance you’ve seen Penn students giving “DM” a hard time on Sidechat for not taking his internship seriously enough.
“DM” is none other than Daniel Min (W’25), and he finds the posts “really funny.” As a rising senior studying Marketing and Operations Management, Daniel has accumulated over 17,000 followers on Instagram for his witty content about his summer internship.
RecruitU—the company he’s working at— is a startup dedicated to simplifying finance and consulting recruitment. The cofounders reached out to him after coming across his LinkedIn posts, which are anything but the typical “I’ve gotten a job!” announcement. Instead, Daniel likes to share videos of himself griddying with his professors and photos of his non–Penn friends sitting next to the Benjamin Franklin statue (who surely do not know the statue’s lore). Daniel refers to
this genre of content as “shit posts” because of their comedic nature. Along with entertaining content, Daniel also posts about his experiences in the world of social media and his roles at social media companies. Since then, Daniel has been working as an intern for RecruitU. One of his key projects is the development of an Instagram account called @firststeptofinaloffer, which features street interviews with bankers and consultants. In under a month, he has managed to
grow the account to over 36,000 followers.
Daniel conducts the street interviews himself, and it’s no easy feat.
“It’s relentless,” he says. “I’ll go up to people wearing AirPods. I’ll go up to people in the line at lunch. […] People have literally yelled at me before just like, ‘Get out of my face!’”
Although Daniel dedicates an hour to interview every day, he says that only two to three people agree to participate. “It’s
a brutal war every time I go out,” he says. The most remarkable part of it all is that he manages to interview strangers with social anxiety; in fact, some of his content is about his journey overcoming his social anxiety.
Daniel has filmed videos of himself belting out a solo of Sia’s “Chandelier” in Lauder’s crowded dining hall and shrieking “I Want It That Way” along with his friends in a packed Philly night market. It’s worked out well for him, as he no longer feels as nervous con-
ducting street interviews or embarrassing himself in public. However, there are some special areas of social anxiety that he has yet to conquer: “I probably can’t approach a girl I find attractive and be like, ‘Can I have your number?’ That’s a level of social anxiety I haven’t beaten yet,” he says, laughing. Daniel’s descent into social media began in high school, long before his Instagram breakthrough. Like many, he started with humble beginnings: Twitch streaming.
“The moment you start caring about the numbers is when you pretty much lose the battle and concentration."
“I was on the up every stream, and I was like, ‘Holy crap, like, I’m fucking invincible right now. I am popping the fuck off,’” he recalls.
Using his Twitch success, he built a Discord channel with around 300 of his loyal followers, hosting movie nights and other activities to foster a sense of community. However, with dwindling follower engagement and college looming around the corner, he decided to quit.
“The moment you start caring about the numbers is when you pretty much lose the battle and concentration,” Daniel says. “I should have just stuck through with it, but I was stupid, and I didn’t.”
After Daniel arrived at Penn, he felt “sucked” into Penn’s pre–professional culture, making his rounds at consulting and business clubs. But after his freshman year, he asked himself, “Do I want to be doing this shit?”
After realizing that the answer was no, he decided against taking on an internship and instead learned the ins and outs of Adobe Premiere Pro—a video editing software that would help him create content. That summer, Daniel also connected with another content creator, Mino Lee. Lee posted an Instagram story asking people to contact him if they were looking to dive into the content creator space, and “DM” took the chance to DM him. From that point on, the two kept in touch, with Daniel frequently reaching out to Lee for advice.
“I think the best thing that he said to me, that really struck me, was just him saying, ‘Dude, I believe in you. You have everything you need to succeed. And if you just stay consistent with it, I have no doubt that you’ll make it,” Daniel says. “That impacted me more than any form of practical advice he gave me.”
Attempting to further immerse himself in the content creator space, Daniel attended several conferences, such as VidSummit and Vidcon, quickly realizing that there was no space at Penn for rising creators. This epiphany inspired him to found Reach—a club at Penn dedicated to rising influencers and creators—at the end of his sophomore year. Eventually, Daniel invited Lee to speak at one of Reach’s events, which was where the two met in person for the first time. Fast forward to today, and the two are living in New York City together, with Lee frequently featured in Daniel’s day–in–the–life videos.
Lee isn’t the only influencer that Daniel has met through his content creation career. Recently, Daniel collaborated with Jerry Lee, the founder of Wonsulting, who boasts more than a million followers on Instagram.
“I think about all of [...] the opportunities that my content has given me,“ Daniel says. “Meeting Jerry, other content creators
"You don’t have to do internships that look good on your resume, there’s value to creating depth in your resume and things that interest you. I really think that more students should be trying to do that."
reaching out. I think building my personal brand online has given me a lot.”
Daniel’s content creation journey has been tumultuous, to say the least. He has faced obstacles and criticism from his peers. But he has also learned an important lesson from the experience: “You don’t have to do internships that look good on your resume,” Daniel says. “There’s value to creating depth in your resume and things that interest you. I really think that more students should be
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