ATLAS
Executive Board
Editor-in-Chief
Creative Director
Managing Editor Treasurer
Vice Treasurer
Diversity Chairs
Web Directors
Photography Director
Illustration Director
Style Director
Beauty Director
Style Editor
City Editor
Globe Editor
Arts Editor
Wellness Editor
Head Copyeditor
Social Media Director
Head Designer
Arushi Jacob
Erin Norton
Sydney Flaherty
Annie Douma
Elisa Ligero
Rheya Takhtani & Ayaana Nayak
Molly DeHaven & Jadyn Cicerchia
Ilana Grollman
Ayaana Nayak
Rheya Takhtani
Arshia Nair
Sydney Flaherty
Rowan Wasserman
Gray Gailey
Sidnie Paisley Thomas
Lily Suckow Ziemer
Kate Valentine
Annie Douma
Lilian Holland
Main Staff
Writers
Lucy Latorre
Emma Siebold
Rowan Wasserman
Callan Whitley
Vara Giannakopoulos
Ian Rossin
Audrey deMurias
Jadyn Cicerchia
Arshia Nair
Paige Shepherd
Lily Suckow Ziemer
Sophia Taylor
Gianna Silar
Annalisa Hansford
Liz Gómez
Sydney Flaherty
Laith Hintzman
Mars Early
Annie Douma
Erin Norton
Meghan Boucher
Abigail Lincks
Copyeditors
Kate Valentine
Rachel Dickerson
Jadyn Cicerchia
Kai Etringer
Lilian Holland
Gray Gailey
Photographers
Ilana Grollman
Keira Schuett
Laith Hintzman
Sasha Winett
Sophia Taylor
Designers
Lilian Holland
Erin Norton
Ugne Kavaliauskaite
Lauren Mallet
Molly DeHaven
Annabelle Kump
Mckenna Smith
Visual Arts
Ayaana Nayak
Sydney Grantham
Josephine Fontana
Hazel Armstrong-McEvoy
Sophia Taylor
Rheya Takhtani
Emily Hamnet
Hazel Armstrong-McEvoy
Elisa Ligero
Sasha Bruk
Beauty Team
Arshia Nair
Elisa Ligero
Sasha Bruk
Elise Guzman
Chloe McAllister
Social Media Style Team
Annie Douma
Gianna Silar
Colette Rogers
Aylin Isik
Elisa Ligero
Abigail Lincks
A note to our readers from The Editor in Chief & Creative Director
Hello readers,
Welcome to Atlas Magazine, the Reclamation Issue. Gratitude is not a strong enough word to describe what a pleasure and privilege it is to work with such an incredible group of people every semester. As a unit, our team collaborates on a vision until it is put out for print and our product becomes a reality. Here at Atlas, we recognize that not everyone has the privilege of having the creative freedom and ability to do what we do. Collectively, we have mourned the loss of human life worldwide along with schools and creative spaces that have been destroyed this past year and throughout history.
Born from the weight of our collective grief, we settled on the theme of reclamation. What does it mean to reclaim what was lost? How does one retrieve what was stolen from them? This is not just a national topic worth questioning, but also a campus wide one too. We hope that in reading this issue, you will feel prompted to take back what once yours and aid those around you who are on that same journey.
Forever in Solidarity, Arushi & Erin
Arts
Lost inTranslation: Why American Remakes of Asian Films Fall Short, and the Importance
of Watching the Originals
By Audrey DeMurias
American cinema has gained a reputation for remaking foreign films, with Asian cinema often serving as a primary source of inspiration. Whether it’s the gripping tension of a South Korean thriller or the profound spirituality of a Japanese drama, Hollywood sees potential to adapt these films for Western audiences. The experimental and rebellious nature commonly portrayed in Asian cinema is reminiscent of arthouse films that have recently gained popularity in the U.S. due to studios like A24. However, more often than not, these remakes fail to capture the essence that made the original films so compelling. In the process of localization, which is the adaptation of a movie to appeal to certain audiences through changing culture and language, what made the original film unique is often diluted or distorted. This leads to inferior products that lack the emotional depth and cultural specificity of their Asian counterparts.
One of the most glaring examples of this phenomenon is “The Ring” (2002), an American remake of the Japanese horror classic “Ringu” (1998), directed by Hideo Nakata. “Ringu” was groundbreaking for its minimalist approach to horror, relying on an eerie atmosphere, slow pacing, and Japanese folklore to build suspense. Nakata used subtlety to invoke a sense of dread, focusing on psychological terror rather than jump scares. However, when Hollywood remade “Ringu” as “The Ring,” directed by Gore Verbinski, the cultural nuances of the original were overshadowed by a more formulaic, loud, and stylized approach to horror, one that prioritized shocking visuals over psychological depth. While “The Ring” was commercially successful, it lacked the haunting subtlety that had made Nakata’s original such a masterpiece.
Another example of this trend is Spike Lee’s re-
make of “Oldboy” (2013), originally directed by South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook. The 2003 version of “Oldboy” is a gritty, violent tale of vengeance, steeped in themes of fate, redemption, and moral ambiguity. Park Chanwook’s film was critically acclaimed not only for its complex storyline but its bold direction and striking visuals. Spike Lee’s version, however, stripped the film of its emotional intensity and cultural context. It instead focused on the violence and action, which is reflective of the type of movies that Hollywood believes audiences in the U.S. are inclined to enjoy, tying back to the rising popularity of arthouse and experimental films. While Park’s film explores deep philosophical questions grounded in South Korea’s unique socio-political landscape, Lee’s “Oldboy” merely amplifies the violence and brutality, without paying proper homage to the intricacy of the plot or the torment of its characters. The remake feels disconnected from the moral complexity that made
the original so thought-provoking, reducing a nuanced narrative into a superficial spectacle.
What’s lost in these remakes is more than just the artistic flair or thematic richness—it’s the cultural context that gives these films their power. Asian cinema, especially from countries like Japan, South Korea, and China, often reflects specific social, historical, and cultural struggles of its people. When filmmakers like Hideo Nakata or Park Chan-wook tell a story, it’s not a universal narrative but one deeply rooted in their respective cultures. The horror in “Ringu” is tied to Japanese beliefs about spirits and the afterlife, while the complex ethical dilemmas in “Oldboy” resonate deeply when understood within the context of South Korea’s post-war trauma and rapid modernization. These elements cannot simply be translated or substituted with Western equivalents without losing their impact. Asian cinema is more than just the
spectacle of experimentation. The deep-rooted culture and extensive outside-of-the-box thinking distinguish it from the remakes attempted by American filmmakers. They take pride in political and societal commentary, as well as relating to civilians through the narratives. This element of personality, relatability, and relevance to historical and current events are what make the films unique.
Moreover, the filmmakers themselves bring a distinct vision to their works that is often irreproducible. Directors like Wong Kar-wai (“In the Mood for Love”) and Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Shoplifters”) are not just storytellers; they are auteurs whose unique style, pacing, and philosophical musings cannot be replicated by another director with a different cultural background. Wong Kar-wai’s slow, poetic take on love and memory, for instance, is deeply connected to Hong Kong’s cultural identity and history. Attempting to remake “In the Mood for Love” in an American setting would not only be misguided but impossible, as the film’s melancholic nostalgia is inextricable from the era and place in which it is set.
There is also a growing sense that Hollywood often underestimates its audience, assuming that Western viewers are either unwilling or unable to appreciate foreign films. This notion is quickly proving to be outdated as films like “Parasite” (2019) by Bong Joon-ho and “Rashomon” (1950) by Akira Kurosawa have found international acclaim, proving that audiences are hungry for authentic, original stories—regardless of language or cultural origin. When “Parasite” won the Academy Award for Best Picture, it sent a clear message to the industry that subtitles and foreign contexts are no longer barriers to enjoying compelling narratives. By watching the original films, viewers are not only exposed to a different cinematic experience but are also given the opportunity to engage with the culture, history, and philosophy that shaped those films. Instead of be-
ing filtered through an American lens, these stories retain their authenticity and power when experienced in their original form. Audiences are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones, embrace different perspectives, and realize that the emotional truths in these films are universal, even if the cultural specifics are not. Remakes may offer a convenient introduction to a film’s concept, but they rarely capture the magic of the original. As cinema becomes increasingly globalized, viewers need to seek out and appreciate the authentic voices behind these films, rather than settling for diluted remakes. By doing so, we not only honor the artistic vision of filmmakers like Hideo Nakata, Park Chan-wook, and Bong Joon-ho, but we also expand our understanding of the world, one film at a time.
Directors like Wong Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love) and Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) are not just storytellers; they are auteurs whose unique style, pacing, and philosophical musings cannot be replicated by another director with a different cultural background.
“B” is for “Books”
By Ian Rossin
Since probably around middle school— definitely throughout high school–there was a part of me that knew I liked boys. Being as naïve as I was, I didn’t fully acknowledge it or embrace it at the time. However, there were occasions when I’d be strolling around a Barnes and Noble, and an unidentifiable force made me buy a book about a boy who liked a boy. Aside from those experiences, though, I never felt the need to confront my personal truths.
Fast forward to December 2023: I had been living in Fort Myers, Florida for a couple months after relocating in late October. I was working as the resident stage manager at a dinner theater in the area, but my experience hadn’t been particularly positive. I’d become increasingly bored and lonely, despite my efforts to befriend some of the actors I was charged with supervising. By the time New Year’s had rolled around, I’d begun to accept my fate of being forever a hermit. That is, until I read They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. Without revealing too much, the book sparked a desire in me to pursue a relationship—forcing me to come to terms with my identity and sexuality—while inspiring me to start a collection of books featuring MLM (men loving men) bi-boy characters.
When I realized what I wanted to see in literature, I began following LGBTQ+ Bookstagram accounts. These are a type of Instagram account dedicated to book
recommendations, usually centering on specific genres. I wanted to see what they’d have to recommend. To my surprise, a majority of the covers I’d see on the posts gave me the impression that they mostly centered on female bisexual characters in female/female (F/F) or male/female (M/F) relationships or male bisexual characters in M/F relationships. There was usually one girl, two girls, or a boy and girl on the covers. These graphics can potentially enforce harmful stereotypes like ones that claim if a bisexual girl is in an M/F relationship, she’s faking bisexuality for attention. Or if a bisexual boy is in a M/F relationship, he’s forcing down the “gay side” of his sexuality.
In addition to the challenge of finding book recs with the representation I wanted, when I did find a book I was interested in, I wouldn’t be able to find it on the shelf. Bookstores these days have a trend of possessing one small LGBTQ+ section, and in that section, having the same LGBTQ+ books as every other bookstore in the country. What does that say about the accessibility (or lack thereof) of books that represent 7.6% of the United States population? Bisexuals make up 3/5 of LGBTQ+ adults. Why aren’t bookstores making more of an effort to invest in diverse reads? Though e-books do exist, and yes, I could have ordered the respective books to my apartment online, nothing beats reading a physical book. Whether by the poolside or taking in that fresh, new book smell while
browsing the shelves of an actual bookstore.
Despite the trials and tribulations faced in my quest to find books featuring maleidentifying bisexual characters in MLM relationships, I did end up amassing a small collection of books that fit my criteria.
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera has had a large impact on me, as mentioned. The premise is that on the day they receive the calls telling them they’re fated to die, Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio come together thanks to a “Last Friend” app. They help each other live their last day to the fullest, becoming friends (and more) in the process. Rufus Emeterio is the bi-boy representation, but other LGBTQ+ representation includes Mateo Torrez, who identifies as gay. This story made me realize that, in order to boost my quality of life, I need someone to push me and help me outside of my comfort zone. I’d spent years before reading this book not thinking or caring about pursuing a relationship because I didn’t think it was worth the drama, but They Both Die at the End forced me to look past my initial, negative views on dating and allowed me to feel comfortable enough to find my person.
The Heartstopper series is an incredibly heartfelt coming-of-age story following Charlie Spring and Nick Nelson, two British schoolboys who first meet when they’re assigned to the same homeroom. Together they navigate issues regarding identity, relationships, mental health, and more. Nick Nelson is the bi-boy representation in the series, other LGBTQ+ representation include Charlie Spring (gay), Tara Jones (lesbian), Darcy Olsson (lesbian), Elle Argent (transgender), and Tori Spring (asexual). I didn’t get into the Heartstopper series until after the television adaptation became popular, but I’m glad I gave it a chance. The relationship between Charlie and Nick is so pure and wholesome, and all the issues touched upon are handled with extreme sensitivity and care. It contributed to the image I created in my head of what I want my future to look like.
Despite the name, Icarus by K. Ancrum is not about Greek mythology. Icarus is a boy who, employed by his father, is tasked with breaking into the house across the street and switching valuable paintings with near-perfect replicas. One night, when completing a job, Icarus encounters a surprise: the man who usually occupies the house no longer lives by himself.
His son has come back to the house. Once the boys discover each other, a connection forms that can’t be broken. Icarus is the bi-boy representation, while Helios Black, the love interest, is gay. Other representations include that of disability (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) and intersex representation. This book didn’t have as much of a personal impact on me as a person like the others detailed did, but it has an extremely unique premise and was a very captivating read. If memory serves correctly, Icarus never explicitly says he’s bisexual, but his bisexuality is displayed through the way he navigates his feelings for his future lover, Helios, and his friend, Celestina. The way
Icarus’s bisexuality isn’t the center of the story or the main focus is a refreshing change of pace compared to other LGBTQ+ stories.
Having any of the three stories mentioned above would increase the quality of your bookshelf as well as open your eyes to new perspectives and realities as they did for me. If you want to see yourself and your identity represented in modern literature, put in the work to find those stories. Don’t let your voice go silent just because modern bookstores won’t further their efforts to diversify their catalogs. Once you find your story, you’ll find yourself in the end.
Glitter is the Real Gold
By Jaydn Cicerchia
Amy Oung, my long-time nail technician, sits across from me in her studio, the same way she has for the past five years when she works on my nails. Her gold locket rests on her chest, adorned with gems of all colors of the rainbow, turning something classic into something fun, a visual representation of her spirit.
At age 42, Oung is proud of the life she has built. Having sold the salon she owned for 8 years in 2019, Oung now works alone out of a small, slightly cluttered office room in Rhode Island. Even though owning a salon is what many in the industry consider to be the ultimate goal, Oung says, “I began to lose myself in the management of it, and I am lucky enough now to be able to focus solely on my creativity, while making even more money than before.” Her clients were so loyal that they followed her out of the salon world, and she has so many permanent customers that she has not been taking any new ones since I met her. However, becoming more private didn’t exclude her from being well-known in the beauty space, as she was recently featured in InStyle magazine to speak about her innovative techniques. She is now known for her ability to shake up the industry to make room for her creativity.
Oung was no stranger to the beauty industry growing up in Boston, but it was not the career path she had originally considered following. “My parents are Vietnamese immigrants, and if you weren’t aware already, these are the people who run a majority of the American nail industry,” says Oung. It was a way for women to take care of their families when they emigrated during the Vietnam War. “I always thought what my parents did was awesome, they were the owners of the first ever Vietnamese walk-in salon chain in Boston, T&J Salons,” she says. “But, you know, the public opinion of careers in the arts isn’t always positive, people looked down on my
family for it.” There is a stereotype that art is a profession done by those who are not smart enough for what some would consider to be a “real job.” This judgment is made even worse when combined with the racist stereotype that immigrants, such as Amy’s parents, are only capable of working service jobs, or what is seen as menial labor because they are somehow inferior to Americans. So, she worked hard in school and went off to college to earn a degree in political science.
“I desperately missed being creative,” says Oung. “I began to work at my parent’s salon part-time while I was in college, and it was then that I realized what a high demand there was for nails,” Oung says. “But it was still all very standard back then, french tips or a plain color.” Since her main artistic interest was drawing, painting, and sketching, she found herself bored. She says that nail art was not completely unheard of, but it was typically considered unprofessional or childish. “I actually just started to make stuff up,” she says. “People were in the chair for around an hour, and I would talk to them about how certain designs were in style, and they began to just trust me to draw it on them.”
A roadblock she had to conquer was the use of acrylic, one of the most common practices in the nail world. It involves gluing a plastic nail tip to the natural nail for length, then covering everything in a mix of acrylic powder and acetone, creating a hardened naillike substance. “The chemicals that we used to form nails were extremely harsh,” Oung says. “I remember seeing my parents come home nauseous from fumes.” She says that it was also not great for the client, as it would damage their nails over time, and the nails would break more easily due to acrylic being a harder substance.
Oung says she always wanted to be one step ahead, and while watching for new
products she came across a gel that was made for nail building. Similar application, but a different substance. This is not to be confused with the popular GelX, a nail tip made out of cured gel. Amy’s method does not include any tip extensions, as she builds the nail entirely out of the gel builder.
“The people I worked for dismissed it when I brought it up,” says Oung. “I get it, it was weird, and new, and seemed hard to work with.” But she was determined, showing up to a class that was teaching about the new product. Not only was it a much safer option, but it also offered a more natural finish, allowing for more bend in the nail. With her interest piqued, she spoke with the educator after class and received the offer to shadow them, “After about three classes she said I had a unique way of understanding people and then shocked me even more by asking if I wanted to take over the class,” says Oung. After that, she quit her political science track. People within the industry began to notice Oung due to her unique teaching style, and as her popularity grew she began
to receive some offers from brands. At first, she was mainly invited to trade shows, which are get-togethers of different brands in the industry where they can showcase and demonstrate new products. “I prided myself on being able to find a way to teach anyone how to use a certain product, which was the sort of thing these companies were looking for at the shows,” says Oung.
Outside of brands, Oung believes that she was able to cultivate her clientele due to her use of both gel and hand-drawn artwork. Most people in the industry use stamps or stickers for nail designs, as they are the quicker and easier option. Oung completely refuses to use them. “Due to my art background, I can promote myself as someone who hand draws 100% of their designs,” she says. Oung combined her love of drawing and nails. Customers come to her with inspiration from the internet, and she draws what they want, “It also allows me to form genuine connections with a lot of people,” she says, “Sometimes they are in my chair for up to three hours.”
Oung also likes to show off her artistry at nail competitions, her biggest award being third place at the US Invitational, which allowed her to go on to the World Cup. She says, “That is how I got to interact with international brands.” She has worked mainly for the large nail brand, Orly, for the past few years, and as a brand educator known internationally, she gets to travel a lot. She says, “Art is like a universal language.” Just this year she has been to Kuwait, Malaysia, Egypt, and the Philippines. As I am speaking with her, she has just gotten back from Dubai.
Even with all this success, Oung is never one to shy away from a challenge. With both her children away at college, Oung decided to start another education. She is currently starting her first year of working towards a business degree after receiving a full ride at Brown University. She hopes that a better understanding of business will aid in her work with brands.
“I always tell people that you can do whatever the hell you want with some passion and originality,” she says. It’s the same thing she told me when I cried over not knowing what I wanted to do with my life during my senior year of high school while she painted a flower on my pinky.
As someone with a fear of the unknown and failure, I am not sure if I will ever be able to fully adopt Amy’s free spirit. But as I watch her continuously succeed at whatever the
“I always tell people that you can do whatever the hell you want with some passion and originality,” she says. It’s the same thing she told me when I cried over not knowing what I wanted to do with my life during my senior year of high school while she painted a flower on my pinky.
hell she wants to do, regardless of confusion from others, I become less embarrassed by the pitying stares I receive when I tell someone I am majoring in writing and publishing. I am reminded that what I want to be truly is not a question that needs to be answered anytime soon, or even at all– and that we will always
I am reminded that what I want to be truly is not a question that needs to be answered anytime soon, or even at all.
need people working in the arts, whether or not outsiders deem it to be unstable or frivolous.
We often talk about opening a store together one day. We giggle over the idea of her doing people’s nails while I sell books. I leave her studio, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it all, declaring the idea impossible. But somewhere in the back of my brain, our store remains. Because with Amy Oung, anything is possible.
Marina’s Mosaic: Abramović Pieces Together Art and Self at the Stedelijk
By Vara Giannakopoulos
What is the “self,” if not a collection of consciousness, creations, and connections? This year, the five-month residency retrospective exhibit of Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, redefined reclamation at its highest form: identity.
Abramović, often hailed as the ‘grandmother of performance art,’ has consistently pushed the boundaries of what art can be by using her body as both subject and medium.
Spanning from March through July, the exhibition boasted over 60 displays of her vital works, spanning five decades. I was fortunate enough to be in the Netherlands on the last day of the exhibit. I forced everyone I was with to come with me, even though none were familiar with her or her work. As I stepped into the vast halls of the Stedelijk, I was immediately struck by the palpable energy of Abramović’s presence. While striking, it wasn’t surprising that, as you enter the exhibit, you are welcomed by an obtuse sign of her name in big red letters. Abramović, often hailed as the ‘grandmother of performance art,’ has consistently pushed the boundaries
of what art can be by using her body as both subject and medium. This retrospective offered more than a mere chronological journey through her career. It became a performance in itself—a meta-narrative of an artist taking control of her legacy.
Throughout the exhibition, I found myself continually challenged by how she redefines bodily autonomy in art. This theme reached its apex in the display of “Rhythm 0” (1974), a seminal piece in Abramović’s exploration of the limits of artist-audience interaction. Upon entering the exhibit, it is the first display you see, immediately engrossing and enveloping you in Marina’s world. In the original performance, Abramović stood passively for six hours while the audience was invited to use any of the 72 objects on the table in front of them on her body as they wished. These objects ranged from feathers and flowers to a loaded gun. Audience members started with gentle acts like offering her fruit and caressing her with feathers. As the performance progressed, however, the mood shifted dramatically. Emboldened by Abramović’s unwavering passivity, participants became increasingly aggressive. Her clothes were torn, her skin cut and bruised. The situation escalated to a critical point when one audience member aimed the loaded gun at Abramović’s head, only to be forcibly restrained by another participant. By
surrendering control of her body to the audience, Abramović not only questioned the boundaries of artistic autonomy but also starkly illustrated the potential for both tenderness and violence inherent in human nature.
Viewing this piece in 2024, in an era of heightened awareness around consent and bodily autonomy, “Rhythm 0” took on new dimensions. It prompted me to question: Where does the artist’s autonomy end and the audience’s begin? How has our understanding of consent in art evolved since the 1970s? The re-creation of this piece in the Stedelijk retrospective served as a powerful reminder of the ongoing negotiations between artist, artwork, and audience. As someone who frequently puts their work into the world, I’ve grappled with this boundary extensively. When I release my writing into the public sphere, I understand that readers will interpret
it through their lens of their own experiences, often finding meanings I never intended. Yet unlike Abramović’s radical surrender of control in “Rhythm 0,” I maintain certain boundaries around my work’s presentation and context. This tension between artistic intention and audience interpretation has become central to my practice, leading me to view my pieces as living documents that evolve through their interaction with viewers while still maintaining core elements that remain inviolable.
One of the most striking pieces was “Imponderabilia” (1977), originally performed by Marina and Ulay, her former partner and collaborator, now recreated at the retrospective with new performers. As visitors squeezed through the narrow space between two nude performers to enter the next gallery, they were forced to confront their discomfort and become unwitting participants in the art itself. This piece, more than any other, exemplified Abramović’s genius in reclaiming human connection in our increasingly disconnected world. By creating a moment of intense, intimate proximity between strangers, she challenged our notions of personal space and social norms. The recreation of this piece in 2024, decades after its original performance, took on new significance in a post-
pandemic world where touch and closeness had become laden with anxiety and fear.
As I approached the performers, I found myself acutely aware of my own body, my breathing, and the choices I was making. Which way would I turn? How quickly would I pass through? The simple act of entering a room became a profound moment of self-reflection and human connection.
The anticipation of choosing sides left my friends noticeably on edge.
“Who are you going to face?” someone asked. “Definitely the girl,” one replied. “Yeah, agreed,” another said.
“I’m going to face the guy,” the original asker stated. This was met with shocked “Whats?” and “Whys?”
“I don’t want a dick touching my butt. I’d rather it in the front where I can put as much space between me and it as possible.”
The rest of us hadn’t thought of it that way. The visceral reactions to the piece revealed how differently we all navigate intimate spaces and physical proximity. While some focused on practical concerns about physical contact, others approached it as a psychological challenge about vulnerability and trust. This highlighted how a seemingly simple physical act could become a mirror reflecting our deepest insecurities, social conditioning, and personal
boundaries. The piece had transformed a mere doorway into a profound meditation on human connection precisely because it forced us to confront these usually unspoken aspects of our social existence. It reminded me how the most meaningful human connections often arise from moments of shared vulnerability when we’re stripped of our usual armor.
We watched and waited for our turn. I went first. It was my idea to come, after all.
When I approached the actors in that narrow doorway, all thoughts and preplanned executions flew out the window. The immediacy of the moment overwhelmed my careful mental preparations—not from shock or intimidation exactly, but from the sudden realization that this was no longer a theoretical exercise. The presence of two living, breathing humans transformed the intellectual concept into an intensely personal experience. My heart rate quickened, and I found myself hyperaware of every breath. It was the difference between reading about skydiving and actually standing at the open door of an airplane. I went with my gut while trying not to lead with it, sucking it in as I squeezed through. I faced the woman and tried not to make eye contact, but by trying not to, I inadvertently assured that we did. She had soft, green eyes. My friend was right, the male performer’s dick did brush up against my backside, and I nearly fell, trying not to step on their very closely placed feet. It was messy and embarrassing and perfect.
This experience encapsulated the essence of Abramović’s retrospective: a reclamation not just of her narrative, but of the visceral, embodied experiences that define our humanity. In an age where so much of our interaction is mediated through screens, “Imponderabilia” served as a powerful reminder of the irreplaceable nature of physical presence and human touch.
But perhaps what struck me most about this retrospective was Abramović’s decision to showcase her collaborations with former partner Ulay. Works like “Relation in Time” (1977) and “Rest Energy” (1980) were presented not as relics of a past relationship but as vital, living artworks in their own right. As I moved between these pieces with my friends, who were now fully engrossed in the exhibition, I was struck by how Abramović had managed to separate the personal from the professional, reclaiming these works as part of her artistic legacy rather than mere artifacts of a former partnership. This curatorial choice offered a powerful message about the nature of collaboration in art. It suggested that the value of collaborative works transcends the personal relationships of the artists involved. In doing so, Abramović provided a model for how artists can continue to celebrate and build upon their collaborative works, even after personal relationships have changed. Abramović’s approach to this retrospective—one that actively engages with and reframes her past work—offered a new model for how artists can curate their own legacies. By treating her oeuvre not as a static collection but as a living, breathing entity that continues to
evolve, she challenges other artists to think more dynamically about their bodies of work.
As we left the Stedelijk, exhausted but exhilarated, I reflected on how Abramović’s influence extends far beyond her works. The exhibition left me with a profound sense of art’s capacity to dissolve the boundaries between observer and participant, between the personal and the universal. I felt both emptied and filled—emptied of preconceptions about what art could be and filled with new questions about human connection and vulnerability. The physical and emotional exhaustion seemed to have cleared away something stale in my perception, leaving room for fresh insights about the role of presence in both art and life. As my friends buzzed with a newfound appreciation for art and life and women, I pondered the lasting questions this exhibition raised: How does reclaiming one’s past work transform its meaning in the present? And ultimately, how does the conscious curation of our personal narratives blur the line between life and performance? These questions fundamentally shifted my approach to my own artistic practice. I began to see my work not as fixed artifacts but as evolving conversations with my audience. The realization that we’re all constantly performing our lives by selecting which moments to highlight and which to hide has made me more intentional about the authenticity I bring to both my art and my daily interactions. It’s taught me that perhaps the most honest performance is acknowledging the performance itself.
Style
PhotograPher
These Things That Make Us
By Sophia Taylor
We all have traits that define us: sports we played, people we loved, favorite movies, and songs that have stuck with us for years. Despite how we feel about these things, despite how much we may love them, that isn’t always enough to hold on to them. Sometimes things get taken from us and we must conform ourselves to a different narrative. This is a collection of stories from various sources, re-told by me, talking about the things they loved, the things they lost, and the things they got back. The things that make us who we are.
One I used to dress the way my parents wanted me to. My parents always wanted a girl, but I never felt like the right kind of
girl, and that bothered my parents. I never felt like myself when I wore traditionally feminine clothes.
As an artist, expression is a huge part of my identity, and the crazier the outfit, the more like myself I felt. I wore loads of jewelry, layers upon layers of bright-colored clothes, patterned baggy jeans, backward hats, and many other things that nearly drove my parents to their graves. At some point, I could feel the strain it had on my relationship with them and I decided to stop. At three am one night, I gathered all the “boyish” clothes my parents hated and threw them in a box in my closet. I was left only with the clothes my parents had bought in hopes I would wear them.
For a few months, in my junior year of high school, I completely switched who I was as a person. I wore leggings, simple crewnecks, sweaters, skirts with leggings, and leather clip shoes, and kept my jewelry simple and clean. I left my very artsy school and switched to a smaller, much simpler one. I said the things I knew my parents wanted to hear and could feel how our relationship started to heal. I had completely lost myself and it had brought my parents joy. They thought this “phase” of mine had ended and were ecstatic to be given back the daughter that was taken from them. But I was slowly starting to lose myself and I could tell my parents noticed. Despite their reluctance, they had to decide between not having the daughter they dreamed of or not having a daughter at all.
Now, I get to explore different clothing styles and see what works for me. My parents have become much more supportive and I am able to reconnect with that part of my identity. I’m very lucky to have found myself again. I know only some are able to.
Two
A few years ago I lost interest in dance. I lost life. I didn’t believe, as a man, that dance was a genuine consideration for me as a career. It wasn’t serious enough, wasn’t manly enough, wasn’t secure enough. It just wasn’t enough. Though I had my reasons for quitting, it left a bit of a hole in my chest and it continued to call back to me. One day, I met the Dancing With the Stars hosts when I went to see a live dance show. I told them I used to dance and they asked me why I had quit. I told them and they gave me some words of encouragement: “I know it’s hard to keep going, just focus. If it’s what you want, go after it.” When I began thinking about college majors and careers, I listened to them, took a chance, and moved back into it. I slowly started taking classes again and fell back in love. When I’m not dancing, I feel empty. As much as I want-
ed to move on to something more “manly,” dancing is what I love. It gives me purpose and it’s a huge part of who I am. Mentally I am way happier when I dance, and I’m so glad I gained the courage to get back into it, despite the risk.
Three
In high school, I started losing my love for sports. I never fully lost it but my passion for it started slipping away. I had an awful coach and he played a big part in taking away what I enjoyed about it. The pressure and competition were overwhelming and it honestly just wasn’t fun anymore. My coach sucked; he was an asshole. Because of this, I didn’t play my senior year.
That same year, I found a soccer league that was just for fun, and that was a better fit. I became a “buddy” for Top Soccer which was a team for players with disabilities. I found some real purpose there and was able to guide some of the kids to find the passion that I lost. Watching them play soccer and being a part of them finding their place was everything. The time I spent with them was a big reminder of the fun that sports can provide for people, especially the fun that it had once provided for me. It’s not about winning and losing, it’s not about the pressure, it’s about doing what brought me joy.
We do what we can to find out who we are. Sometimes it’s good to reflect on how lucky those of us are who can explore who we want to be freely and without judgment or risks. You will often lose parts of yourself, but know that it’s okay to find them again and reclaim them when the time is right and when you’re ready.
A Drag Queen?
By Paige Shepherd
If you search for drag in the Encyclopedia Britannica, the first (and only) relevant term that appears is “drag queen,” defined as “a man who dresses in women’s clothes and performs in front of an audience.” Last updated at the beginning of October 2024, this entry makes zero mention of women or nonbinary people who perform in drag or use it as a form of gender and self-expression. However, this phenomenon isn’t present only in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Both today and in the past, women and gender non-conforming people have often been excluded from drag spaces and performances. And the performances they do as queens, kings, or whatever they choose are often overlooked in favor of more “traditional” queens.
Drag has been around as a form of self-expression for centuries. From men playing female roles in Shakespeare, to performances at religious festivals, drag has appeared in cultures all over the world in a variety of forms. But even these early versions of drag were primarily performed by men. While it did offer the chance to cross gender boundaries, that opportunity was not typically extended to women. With the modern expansion of queer spaces, particularly with the rise of ballroom culture in the 1980s, the voices of trans women began to be uplifted, but queer women as a whole were still strikingly absent.
After ballroom culture grew, drag grew as an art form in underground clubs and bars. And slowly, drag culture became enjoyed by more and more people globally. However, drag going mainstream is still a relatively new occurrence. Until the early 2000s, drag certainly was not the type of entertainment that a large majority of people in the U.S. were frequently seeking. But with the rise of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” more and more people have been engaging with drag. From an increase in the number of live drag shows around the country, to TV shows like “Pose,” and musicals like “Kinky Boots,” drag has been appearing in a variety of forms for wider audiences. I even took my grandmother, who is in her 60s, to Kinky Boots and she loved it – even though it was her first time seeing a drag queen in person! Simply being exposed to the drag community, even with people like my grandmother who might have been previously apprehensive, makes all the difference. Because at its root, drag is about joy—for everyone.
However, with the rise of drag in the mainstream, particularly on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” comes conflict. Drag spaces were supposed to be queer spaces that welcomed anyone - but those who were being exhibited in mainstream drag were largely white, thin, gay men. While it may have been a massive step forward for queer identity and acceptance, it has left out very significant parts of the queer community. In the words of Marsha P. Johnson, a famous queer rights activist, there is “no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.” For cisgender and transgender women, being marginalized and excluded from drag spaces is disappointing and in opposition to what drag is all about; celebrating and uplifting who you really are. It leaves one to wonder if this marginalization could be connected to the historical marginalization of queer women throughout the decades.
Queer people being marginalized, and marginalization within the queer community itself, is nothing new. Lesbians were excluded from the Women’s Rights Movement in the 1970s, and
queer people of color were often forgotten in queer spaces. In the media, representation for trans people is few and far between, and often the representation that is present is not positive. Growing up as a queer woman myself, for so long I had no idea women even could be queer because of the lack of representation! When I was a kid in the 2010s, debates were raging about the kind of content that was “acceptable” for children to see. And growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, I certainly did not know any out queer people. The only representation I ever saw of queer women was in the later seasons of “Glee” (which because of their content were not available to me until middle school). So, without ever seeing a queer woman on screen or in person, how was I supposed to know that it was even an option?
without ever seeing a queer woman on screen or in person, how was I supposed to know that it was even an option?
Drag, at its core, is about expressing, loving, accepting yourself. I decided to go straight to the source: my friends in the queer community who identify as female or gender nonconforming that do drag. I wanted to know why they do it. What kind of adversity have they faced? What is it about drag that makes you keep coming back? Gracie Rosenberg, a junior at Emerson, shared her experience in drag spaces as someone who uses she/they pronouns and is more feminine-presenting. They tend to perform less feminine drag, under the name “Bitch McConnell.” While they love performing, she said it’s not really about that. “It’s about confidence - being unafraid to put my real self out there. I hit a point where I realized that we made up rules about how people are supposed to exist. I can take on all these things the world hasn’t let me be.” Rory Higgs, a trans woman who uses she/her pronouns and performs more glitzy, glamorous drag, says that “drag is the physical manifestation of my self-love”. I wanted to know more about drag and gender, and Rory had an incredibly interesting perspective. “All elements that fall under drag relate to the experience of being human… it’s mistaken because it’s not about gender, it’s an art form.”
While neither Gracie nor Rory have experienced direct transgressions due to their gender identities in drag, they both say it really depends on the space you’re in. Gracie, who has primarily only done drag at events at Emerson says that here, on a very queer campus, “it’s really a non-thing how you present. When I’m in drag people think I’m hot and amazing and people are seeing me the way I see myself.” For Rory, however, the answer to the question of judgment seems like more of a “not yet.” “Most people here don’t know that I’m trans, and if anything I get treated better because I was prettier.” Five
years ago though, this might not have been the case. In drag spaces where five years ago cis women, nonbinary people, and trans women either weren’t represented or were not out, judgment might have come as a result. But recently, with the appearances of trans women on shows like “Drag Race,” RuPaul’s backtracking on previous statements about trans women in drag, and the introduction of drag kings on “Dragula,” things have started to get better. Rory and Gracie mentioned that language changes within the drag community have been making headway. Queens are encouraged to no longer use the word “fishy,” a drag term that refers to looking feminine but is really a disparaging term about women. Similarly, “Drag Race” changed its classic quote “Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win” to “Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win.” But, says Rory, while trans queens are starting to get booked in drag spaces, drag kings and nonbinary people still aren’t.
Drag is not about gender. It’s not about what you look like, or what other people say you should be. It’s about the freedom to be who you are on the inside, with no apologies. Drag is about connection, self-love, humanity, play, and belonging. Existing in a society with a history of centuries worth of gender rules isn’t easy. But drag is a way to break boundaries, to crush all those expectations that it feels that the world has set. Rory brought something very cool to my attention during her interview; the origin of the word drag itself is actually a misconception. “It’s not that Shakespearean actors dressed roughly as a girl (d.r.a.g.), it stems from a performer wearing an outrageously exaggerated gown dragging on the floor. It’s not gender confined… it’s about the person wearing that garment.” It’s about the art. And art is about everyone.
ALonely Closet
By Lily Suckow Ziemer
“Do you have a shirt I can borrow?”
“Yeah, but it’ll probably be too big on you.”
It’s a conversation I’ve had a million times. Often it results in them turning to someone else to ask, but sometimes my warnings won’t stave them off. I remember a particular time an old friend asked to borrow a PJ shirt. It was an oversized firefighters t-shirt I’d thrifted, and I liked the way it made me feel a little smaller than I was. I handed it over with a million, “it’s gonna be really big”s. She emerged from the bathroom a minute later, laughing. It was one of those smiles you can’t hide— not that she tried. Playing with the fabric that seemed to reach her knees and match her wingspan, she looked up at me like I’d made the funniest joke she’d ever heard.
Me and her are not friends anymore, but that image, that feeling, still haunts me. I begrudgingly lent a shirt to my friend for a date last year. Trying it on, she kept complimenting me, asking why I didn’t wear it more. I knew that even if I told her, she wouldn’t understand the sensation of a crop top so tight the hem rolls up your stomach and gets caught at your underbust. I looked at her in the shirt I’d pulled and stretched and worn so many times, and thought about how much better it looked on her. It was perfect, hanging right above the belly button, room to spare where the fabric touched her upper arms. It’s in moments like this that I remember my size most of all, when my body is held up to another’s in the form of fabric.
I’ve always known I’m bigger. Since preschool I remember the sensation of my clothes fitting a little differently against my skin than my friends’. At the time it wasn’t a huge problem, but it grew quickly.
It was second grade when I mistakenly convinced myself and a friend that a particular Friday was a non-uniform day. My school would occasionally have these days on Fridays. I misunderstood the dates and dragged my friend down with me. We were both deposited on campus by the bus, a couple Justice shirts in a sea of polos and plaid. In a large closet I’d never seen before, the high school gym teacher held jumpers up in front of us as a form of measurement. But none of the jumpers or white collared shirts required to be worn by second graders would fit me. They just didn’t have my size. So I was given a similarly colored skirt that was supposed to be reserved for third and fourth graders, and a long, pee-yellow button up that they
sold at uniform sales but no one ever bought. We returned to the classroom, only now my friend was dressed like everyone else and I alone stood out. I joked with my classmates, confidently telling them I was a third grader. It worked but it didn’t distract me from the truth. All day, that starchy shirt rubbed up against me, a reminder that I was different.
Needless to say, I never made that mistake again. But growing was inevitable, and I started to mourn the loss of the girls’ sections at stores, having to accompany my mom to the adult aisles to find clothes that fit. Even in high school I shamefully bowed my head into a Brandy Melville, embarrassed to explain to my friends that I couldn’t do anything but pocket the free stickers on the counter. I felt too big to even maneuver the cramped store, and imagined the employees’ eyes drilling into me with questions of “why are you here?”
By the time I was fully grown I felt as though I was living in a body unlike any of my family members. In high school, I was at the age where my parents’ clothes weren’t overly mature and my brother’s graphic t-shirts gathering dust could have been styled ironically. But when I tried on my favorite of my mom’s dresses, or a loose shirt emblazoned with a pun, they didn’t fit. I gave up on my mom’s clothes quickly when I heard the strain of fabric as I tried to fit my arms in. I’d raid my brother’s clothes over the years but all of them clung to my body rather than loosely hanging like they did on him. The only shared clothes that fit me were the ones kept downstairs, my dad’s from before he lost weight. I’d unearth sweaters from the 80s and slip them on to find a perfect fit.
It didn’t stop the embarrassment though. I look on in envy when I hear someone noting their oversized shirt is from a dad or brother. I mourn the bonding moment that could’ve been wearing a dress of my mom’s to homecoming. I’ve always loved going through family members’ unused things. Photo albums, jewelry, toys; I’d sit alone in the basement putting my fingerprints on each one. But no matter what, I just can’t make the clothing work.
What I have had to learn is to build a closet of my own. Each piece has been carefully selected, and says something about me as an individual. It’s lonely sometimes to only live in my own closet, but in a way, I’m proud. I made my way to this collection of pieces I love from my will alone. It’d be easy to give up, but I’ll always keep pushing myself past my insecurities.
By Arshia Nair
Like many children, I played imaginary games. Some days, I would be leading a battle or fighting a sorcerer. Other days I would simply play house or pretend to be a cashier at a store. Through my imagination, I would create worlds where I was someone different, something more. I don’t remember every game I played, but I remember I would change my name every time. And my hair, my eyes, and my skin. One minute I was a little brown-skinned girl with a curly bob, and eyes so dark they were almost black. In the next, I was a fair, beautiful brunette with piercing blue eyes. I became something different, something more. I used to envy the girl
I was in these other worlds because she had everything. She had smooth, straight hair and all the right clothes. She spoke with an American accent and she ate lunchables. She had a pleasing name and, most importantly, she had skin that fit just right. She was perfect.
I started playing these imaginary games around the age of four. I keep trying to determine the age I stopped playing them, but now I’m not sure I ever did. The game changed as I grew. In third grade, the boy I had a crush pointed out how brown my skin was. In sixth grade, I
X X X X Through the Looking Glass
started throwing away my lunches after one of the girls I sat with pointed out how smelly my food was. I kept throwing my lunch away until the end of middle school. In ninth grade, a boy on the bus told me that I had a thicker mustache than he did. That year I waxed my upper lip for the first time. My freshman year of college, my boyfriend made jokes about my facial hair and made razor sounds while pretending to shave my face. I had been threading my eyebrows and shaving my legs for years, but that wasn’t enough, so I started dermaplaning my face. In all of these moments, I felt as though my identity and my femininity were being stripped from me.
Every brown girl I have spoken to has had similar experiences to mine. So I decided, in my most formative years, that every bad thing I had been told about being a brown girl must be true. I was never loud about my culture, I tried not to speak in Hindi around white people, and I tried hard not to slip into my Indian accent. With the exception of my looks, nothing about the way I presented myself to the world was Desi. I started looking down upon other brown girls who didn’t ‘maintain’ themselves the way I conditioned myself to. It wasn’t until very recently that I became aware of these thoughts and behaviors, they were so subconscious.
I have spent most of my life shying away from wearing my cultural attire outside my home, and instead, I idolized Western wear. I used to dream of a white, Western wedding dress instead of a traditional Indian, red, embroidered saree. I’ve noticed the differences between the way brown women are treated while wearing cultural clothing versus Western attire. Sometimes, the difference is subtle and it comes in the form of weary glances, but most of the time people will comment on how exotic or ethnic you look. From a young age, I knew that wearing my cultural
clothing meant sticking out like a sore thumb.
I’ve come to realize that these expectations exist because brown and black women often feel the pressure of representing their entire race when facing society. If my curls weren’t maintained well one day or I had visible facial hair, I felt as though I was confirming the narrative around brown women. Wearing a lengha or saree in public made me feel like all eyes were on me. One wrong move and suddenly it’s “all brown girls smell bad, are ugly, etc.” In general, society allows white women to have their imperfections, without it serving as a reflection on the entire lot of them. We are not given such graciousness. Our flaws are not only picked at, but are weaponized against all brown and black women.
It wasn’t until I began college that I truly stepped out of the shell I was confined in and sought out a community. I never realized how important it was to me to surround myself with people who look like me until I no longer lived in an all Desi household. While there aren’t very many of us, and all the brown people I’ve met here are from different backgrounds, we all share and exist in the same space together. Starting a life of my own and having the ability to decide who I want to build relationships with has given me the chance to start letting go of those expectations and learn to live despite them. It is incredibly difficult to undo societal expectations on your own. In all likelihood, I will spend the rest of my life identifying and breaking down the thoughts and expectations of my subconscious, but now I know I am not alone, and that makes it all a bit less daunting.
City
PhotograPher
models
stylIst
desIgn
. KerIa alana
. IsaIah Flynn marco Perez gonzalez azucena sotelo nyla anderson
. emIly hamnett
molly dehaven & lauren mallett
Make Boston Sapphic Again
By
Mars Early
If you live in Boston, you know what a gay city it is. But despite its abundant queer presence, there are seemingly very few spaces for us here—especially us sapphics. As a lesbian, I often find myself grasping at even the slightest morsel of representation in media or the tiniest crumb of room in queer spaces. It can feel quite lonely and ostracizing as a sapphic person when the few spaces queer people are permitted to enter are so often male-dominated.
Dani’s Queer Bar, however, is here to change that. In early September, Dani’s Queer Bar, a specifically lesbian bar, opened up in Back Bay, at 909 Boylston Street, across from the Prudential Center. It is the first of its kind to exist in Boston for over two decades. The bar aims to be a home and a safe space for the queer community in Boston, especially the lesbian, sapphic, trans and non-binary communities that exist here.
The opening of Dani’s made big headlines, being covered by NBC and even garnering a shoutout from Michael Che on the SNL “Weekend Update”. It is clear not only to queers in Boston how significant Dani’s opening is, but to the whole of the United States. The bar joins a slew of other lesbian bars that have opened up across the U.S. since the height of the pandemic, an event that has been coined by NBC News as the “lesbian bar renaissance.”
Despite lesbians fronting the acronym LGBTQ, the lesbian and sapphic community is consistently an afterthought.
It’s strange to think that we’re in a “renaissance,” that cities (including Boston) across the U.S. are just now getting their first lesbian bar after decades; that in 2024, this is as much progress as we’ve made. Lesbian bars in the U.S. back in the 80s existed in the hundreds, but as of 2024 there are only around 32 in the entire country. What happened to them? Many lesbian bar closures in the past several years can be attributed to the impact of Covid, but the numbers had been dwindling long before that. Personally, I think it is because people just don’t care whether queer women have space. Most people don’t tend to care or think about queer women in any capacity.
Despite lesbians fronting the acronym LGBTQ, the lesbian and sapphic community is consistently an afterthought. The acronym was GLBT until the ‘80s, when people began recognizing the leadership and strength of lesbians in the queer community and moved the letter to the front to reflect their contributions. Lesbians played a major role in the AIDS epidemic, taking care of gay men affected by the crisis when the government and major healthcare failed them. That was the turning point for the queer community in the ‘80s, when hundreds of lesbian bars opened up. It’s all been downhill from there.
Nowadays, it’s like picking at scraps to feed our hunger to be seen. Everything is so male-centric. The majority of popular queer media today (Heartstopper; Red, White, and Royal Blue; Call Me By Your Name; etc.) focuses on MLM (men loving men) stories. The media that does portray sapphic stories garners minimal reach or, in the case of TV shows, gets canceled after only one or two seasons. One of my favorite sapphic TV shows, Everything Sucks!, which premiered on Netflix in 2018, was canceled after one
season despite being a wonderfully authentic portrayal of the struggles of adolescence and teenage relationships (which, of course, included a sapphic one). It’s true that it was canceled due to low-audience engagement, but therein lies the problem: viewers watched the first episode, saw the main character was a lesbian, and decided it wasn’t a story worth watching. Our stories and lives never seem to be deemed quite important enough to share. Usually, the next step to take if your stories aren’t being told in mainstream media is to seek out fanfiction, but even on Archive of Our Own, one of the most popular fanfic sites, there are almost double the amount of stories with the ‘M/M’(male/male) tag than stories with ‘F/F’ (female/female.)
It is essential for lesbians and sapphics to have their own spaces because we have distinct struggles from queer men, and often our struggles stem from queer men. Gay bars, for example, although sounding good in theory, frequently end up being hostile environments for queer women because of the casual misogyny that so many gay men tend to express toward lesbians. There are so few safe spaces and places of support out there for us that having something like Dani’s Queer Bar is highly impactful on our community. We are people whose lives are valuable, whose stories are important to the generations of queer people that will come after, and who deserve to have space to celebrate our love and pride safely.
I still have a couple more years to go before it’s legal for me to hit up Dani’s Queer Bar, but I cannot wait to be a part of something so revolutionary. And I hope that, once I’m twenty-one, there will be plenty of other options alongside Dani’s.
Urban Heartbreak: Rats, Resilience, and the City
By Abigail Lincks
The first time I met him in person, I couldn’t look away.
Under a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses, he had these dark brown eyes that appeared black in the night. And such thin legs with uber-muscled calves. His face was always scraggly, half-shaven like it was the first time he had ever picked up a razor.
And he was so quiet, until he wasn’t. When
you’d get him going about his ex-girlfriend or his ex-friends or his ex-family, he’d never stop. The only thing that would shut his mind up was a good smoke—then, he was silent.
And I’d listen to him—high or not—in silence. In the beginning.
We’d walk for hours in the dark, hand in hand, throughout the city. The streets became a hazy kaleidoscope of fast food, drunken shouts, and interestingly enough—rats.
They were everywhere and nowhere. In passing, we would hear them rustling through the trash tucked in some small crevice of an alleyway. Or the Common. There, they would squish their bodies in the grated trash bins, desperate for scraps. We’d sit and watch and smoke. Sometimes, on lucky nights, I’d spot them chasing each other—playing.
I began to see rats in pairs. One dutifully following the other. Oddly enough, I saw us in them. Like the little rodents, we scuttled aimlessly around each other. Me, after him. And him, after something I could never understand.
In the heart of winter, under the pale glow of the moon, I discovered an underground tunnel system dug by the claws of rats and mice. From little holes in the dirt, their heads would pop out, waiting for me to leave them alone. I imagined dozens of them hidden below, scraping past each other. Maybe their cramped quarters would become too much. Maybe, in desperation or accident, their tails would become entwined in passing, forming a rare rat king—which is a collection of rats bound together, typically by their tails.
Without outside intervention, the rats die.
By month three with him, I knew it wouldn’t last. And I needed to escape. We had become too ugly. But, like the rats, the harder I pulled away, the more entrapped I became. Overwhelming loneliness and insecurity tightened the knot of my heart (their tail), until it snapped. No amount of fear could keep him and me entwined.
After the break-up, I realized I had only ever seen him in the dark—walking along the streets of the city, sitting across from me at dinner, under the sheets of my bed. And when—after morning arrived, again and again, and evenings spent with him disappeared altogether— the city had become someplace foreign.
I was lost. The only places I knew how to get to from memory, apart from school, were the ones we frequented together. Those, at least, were familiar. I knew Jaho had gross tea. I knew the Thinking Cup had good macaroons. I knew Jibei Chuan had the best chicken fried rice.
His perception of the city began to plague my own. The subway wasn’t worth it and walking everywhere was better. Back Bay was the best place to explore at night—after midnight, big ships arrived at the Harbor to deliver goods. MF Doom and Ice Cube were who to listen to when high. His hometown, Springfield, was complete shit, marred by gang violence and drugs. And inevitably, menial things, like that I wasn’t the best at kissing. That I wasn’t the best at sex. That I was too clingy. That I was delusional. That I was a dick. That he could never see himself loving me. I knew nothing. He knew nothing.
From then on, I avoided going out at night. But from my bedroom, I could still hear the sirens wailing like clockwork, the drunken shouts; I could envision the fantasy of a scuttle of rats across pavement. The ice skating rink atop Frog Pond, temporarily stationed during Boston’s winter months, the one he had always promised to take me to, would be deserted. Another plan our relationship didn’t last long enough to experience. Suddenly, he became a figure with a forgotten face, marred by shadows and half-memories, but present and demanding all the same.
Despite all these fantasies, I finally strolled through the Common for myself and nothing really was different. The same group of people could be found smoking behind the Earl of Sandwich, bongs set up like trophies on those rickety iron tables. Our bench was still there, just not with us on it. He was probably high somewhere, walking around the city until he became exhausted enough to sleep. Hoping to never hear from me again, the person who’s treated him the best out of any partner.
We haven’t spoken since. And the city still stands. More importantly, the night is still there. I’ve had time to reintroduce myself to the city as someone who was not so long ago brand new to it. To meet people who I don’t feel I have to convince to be my friend. There’s so much more to see. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the idea of him, though. Maybe he’ll be walking on the other side of the street from me ten years from now. But this time, he’ll only be a stranger.
Green is Good: The Disparity of Tree Coverage by Wealth
By Erin Norton & Annie Douma
Mere steps away from the Boston Common and the Boston Public Gardens, with their weeping willows and majestic oaks, the issue of trees and access to green space feels worlds away from Emerson College. However, the issue of access to green space in Boston is a real concern that gets at the heart of inequity in city living. Over the past decade, citizens and government officials alike have become more aware of the discrepancies in green space distribution between communities, often following a pattern of less access in neighborhoods with higher percentages of low-income or BIPOC residents. Despite this relatively recent revelation, this pattern was not accidental; historic acts such as redlining, disinvestment, and “white flight”—the phenomenon of middle-class white people moving out of urban areas to newly constructed suburbia post-World War II—have intentionally left urban, lowincome communities in a tree-deficit.
However, it goes beyond the aesthetics of weeping willows, shaking oaks, and rustling ginkos. Limited access to greenery and natural spaces is associated with increased risks to physical and mental well-being and decreased protection from the negative effects of climate change. Studies from 2013 to 2021 acknowledge the positive effects of parks and urban green spaces on physical and psychological health, as well as the impacts of dense plant coverage on environmental factors like air quality and the urban heat island effect.
Parks in urban areas serve as a “third space,” providing a place with little to no financial barrier to access for people to gather and interact outside of the two primary places Americans spend time: home and work. The lockdowns from COVID-19 through 2020 to 2022 caused many Americans to lose these “third spaces” and spurred an increase in discussion around the “loneliness epidemic” in the public health sphere. Accessible and well-utilized green space draws people outside and encourages social interaction. In turn, this social connection helps reduce the prevalence of isolation, generates social capital, and can contribute to increased personal resilience and well-being (Lee et al., 2015). This increased engagement has even been shown to have a positive correlation with reducing crime in neighborhoods (Conniff, n.d.).
Furthermore, the phrase “touch some grass” isn’t just TikTok brain rot jargon— in fact, it’s the opposite. Spending time in nature has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, even reducing blood pressure and improving cardiovascular health (Lee et al., 2015; LeMoult, 2023). This may also be due in part to the utilization of public green spaces as places for residents to exercise (Lee et al., 2015). The fact that public parks are a free resource is especially important in promoting exercise in low-income communities where memberships to private gyms or other exclusive recreational facilities
can reduce surface land temperatures by 10-20ºC (Mcdonald et al., 2021). With the addition of trees, there’s a potential opportunity for more sunexposed neighborhoods to cool down even outside of the shady reach of the leaves. Through the process of transpiration, in which the leaves of any plant release water into the air, the atmosphere experiences a cooling effect. In turn, this creates an opportunity for air conditioning to be used less, ultimately reducing energy consumption and air pollution. How has tree inequality gotten this bad, specifically in low-income or BIPOC residents of urban environments? There are a few factors that most definitely have played a part. Redlining is a form of discrimination that denies financial services to BIPOC individuals. It is also a form of segregation. Starting in 1920s urban U.S. areas, government homeownership programs deliberately color-coded maps that detailed residential areas based on their racial make-up, with red indicating the lowest areas. People in these areas were deemed “high risk” by the government and banks, making it nearly impossible for residents to secure loans to buy homes. Moving into the future, these areas became deeply underfunded and remain in a state of neglect. Urban decay is a process that occurs in areas that remain underdeveloped and underfunded. Many of these neighborhoods do not get the love and attention that inner cities receive. Therefore, they have less infrastructure and very little green space. The decline of urban areas that are not at the epicenter of their cities also causes white flight, a phenomenon where white people leave urban areas to go live in suburban neighborhoods.
Classism is also to blame. As a response
to the growth of homelessness, many city governments have implemented hostile architecture, an urban design strategy that actively discriminates against the unhoused population. Hostile architecture is not only to blame for slanted seats, benches with short and inconveniently placed separators, and heavily grated sidewalks, but it’s also to blame for the lack of female trees that produce edible fruit. Botanical sexism is prevalent in urban areas because city governments deliberately want to keep free fruit from flowering female trees an impossibility. Instead, they plant male trees, which statistically produce more pollen and worsen allergies and asthma. Those who do not have the financial ability to become homeowners also suffer greatly from tree inequity. Generational wealth, property-wise or fiscally, is a privilege. Many essential and blue-collar workers are forced to live in neglected neighborhoods for their jobs. They do not have the luxury of owning a home somewhere else.
To this day, Boston has a huge segregation issue. Ever since FDR’s House Ownership Loan Corporation (HOLC) was established, causing redlining to be a commonly used practice, many areas just outside of Boston were marked as high risk (Ofulue, 2021). Despite its highly effective public transportation and school systems, Roxbury and surrounding areas were deemed to be high risk simply because it was an area in which many BIPOC people resided (Ofulue, 2021). On the other hand, areas such as Newton were deemed green, no risk, simply because there was not a single BIPOC resident (Ofulue, 2021). Even today, these themes, even though they remain unspoken, sneak into our unconscious bias. These building blocks for infrastructure, which were created nearly a century ago, seep into
Bibliography:
Alston, P. (2023, April 28). Why one man says “speaking” for the trees can address inequity in Boston. GBH; National Public Radio. https://www.wgbh.org/ news/local/2023-04-28/why-one-man-says-speaking-for-the-trees-can-ad dress-inequity-in-boston
City of Boston Parks and Recreation. (2020, October 2). City of Boston Tree Cano py Assessment released. Boston.gov; City of Boston. https://www.boston.gov/ news/city-boston-tree-canopy-assessment-released
Conniff, R. (n.d.). Trees Shed Bad Rap As Accessories to Crime | EnvY : The Journal of the Yale School of Foresty and Environmental Studies. Resources.environ ment.yale.edu; Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Retrieved October 27, 2024, from https://resources.environment.yale.edu/envy/stories/ trees-shed-bad-wrap-as-accessories-to-crime#gsc.tab=0
How Segregation Creates Communities of Color in MA . (n.d.). Population Health Information Tool; Massachusetts Department of Public Health. https://www. mass.gov/info-details/how-segregation-creates-communities-of-color-in-ma
Jennings, V., Rigolon, A., & Osborne Jelks, N. (2023, September 8). When Green Spac es Displace Residents, Our Cities’ Health Suffers. Nextcity.org. https://nextci ty.org/urbanist-news/when-green-spaces-displace-residents-our-citieshealth-suffers
Lee, A., Jordan, H., & Horsley, J. (2015). Value of urban green spaces in promoting healthy living and wellbeing: Prospects for planning. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 8(8), 131–137. https://doi.org/10.2147/rmhp.s61654
LeMoult, C. (2023, August 10). The idea of “tree equity” is taking root. GBH; National Public Radio. https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2023-08-10/the-idea-of-tree equity-is-taking-root
Mass Audubon. (2022). Nature in the City: Boston Tree Alliance. Mass Audubon. https://www.massaudubon.org/our-work/equitable-access-to-nature/naturein-the-city/boston-tree-alliance
Mcdonald , R., Biswas, T., Housman, I., Boucher, T., Balk, D., Nowak, D., Spotswood, E., Stanley, C., & Leyk, S. (2021). The tree cover and temperature disparity in US urbanized areas: Quantifying the association with income across 5,723 communities. https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2021/nrs_2021_mcdon ald_001.pdf
Ofulue, C. (2021, November 4). Redlining in Boston: How the Architects of the Past Have Shaped Boston’s Future. The Boston Political Review. https://www. bostonpoliticalreview.org/post/redlining-in-boston-how-the-architects-ofthe-past-have-shaped-boston-s-future
Rigolon, A., Browning, M. H. E. M., McAnirlin, O., & Yoon, H. (Violet). (2021). Green space and health equity: A systematic review on the potential of green space to reduce health disparities. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(5), 2563. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph18052563
World Health Organization. (2024b, May 28). Heat and health. World Health Organi zation. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-changeheat-and-health
Reclaiming Concert Culture
By Rowan Wasserman
Ilove concerts—crazy, I know. Concerts are cool as hell. The lighting, the sound design, the live production? It’s so awesome, I can’t get enough of it. I’m a guy who goes to every concert I can afford, which is great for my social life, and terrible for my bank account. In the last three concerts I attended, I’ve had a lot to think about in terms of how concert culture has evolved for the worse in many subgenres—maybe I’m crazy, but give me a minute on my soapbox.
The three shows I attended most recently were: K.Flay in Spokane, Washington, The Front Bottoms, and Novo Amor, the latter of which were both in Boston. The experiences were great, awful, and redemptive—in that exact order. K.Flay is an alt-rock/indie pop artist from Illinois. If her name sounds familiar, it’s because her single “High Enough” was popular on TikTok around 2022. It’s a banger, I won’t lie.
I attended her concert in Spokane, Washington, a simple ten minute drive from my brother’s home. The ticket was free from a dear friend, and we had a great time there. The vibes in the audience were safe, kind, and need I say it again, SAFE. The influx of bracelet trading at concerts has given a whole new way to connect with the community in these sorts of events, and it’s a really good way to feel safer and more accepted in a space. My friend and I both received bracelets from some kind strangers in the audience, and we kept them on the whole night. The show itself was also amazing, but arguably the best part was how Kristine (K.Flay) was adamant about keeping us in the crowd safe. She didn’t encourage moshing, she reminded us to drink water and keep from passing out—she did a great job at something not necessarily required of her.
Then there’s the Front Bottoms. Wow, a different experience. Going from indie rock to Midwest emo is going to be a very different crowd, and honestly, I didn’t prepare myself adequately for that difference. By the first chorus of the opener, moshing had begun. I’ll let y’all know now, I don’t take kindly to getting shoved around: I throw elbows back, alright? And I was indeed doing that. Despite my best efforts, there was a point in the concert where I felt genuinely afraid for my safety, and more so for the safety of the smaller feminine individuals around me. I wound up grouping up with two strangers—a girl and her boyfriend—all of us clinging to each other to keep stable, and to keep her from getting hurt. Then I hit up Novo Amor. Very different vibes. Honestly, the only bad thing about this show was the group of drunk women talking too loud during the quiet parts of songs—and good for them, have your fun. But other than that? It was an incredible show. The crowd was safe and respectful of each other, which was explicitly condoned and emphasized by the band.
In comparing these concerts, I’ve had to think a lot about specifically Novo Amor vs Front Bottoms. They’re two of my favorite artists, and I was equally excited to see them both live. I also saw them both here in Boston, one at the House of Blues and the other at the Royale Nightclub. These experiences really couldn’t have been more different. Where I left Novo Amor from a Nightclub feeling hyped up and grinning wide, I left the Front Bottoms feeling anxious and unhappy. The ride back to campus on the T, I don’t even want to know what I looked like. The shower I took when I finally got back was… life-changing.
I can’t stop thinking about this. What happened to concerts, man? Do y’all even know about the Riot Grrrl movement? Do you???
Riot Grrrl, for the uninitiated, is a punk scene movement from my own home of Washington State. It’s all about women being able to express themselves in ways that were frowned upon—typically in punk music—but men were free to express their rage and disillusionment. But women faced intense criticism for the same expressions. Within Riot Grrrl, various female forward groups gained popularity and added new faces to the conversation of the punk scene. Riot Grrrl, and the Girls-to-the-Front movement were pivotal in making concerts safer for women and people who are disadvantaged in a moshpit-type scenario. Many people who experienced this first hand can attest to the differences these groups made.
Bikini Kill—again a Washington State native—is a band that was one of the major proponents of the girls-to-the-front movement. Their headman Kathleen Hanna was (and continues to be) incredibly vocal about the discrimination towards women in the punk scene. As she once said, “I would much rather be the obnoxious feminist girl than be complicit in my own dehumanization.” And yeah, that’s where I’m at. I’m going to keep throwing elbows, and looking after girls in mosh pits wherever I’m able, and y’all should be too. To open up concert culture to women and other disadvantaged groups, we need to return to the vibes pioneered by the Riot Grrrl movement. We just need to look after one another.
Do y’all even know about the Riot Grrrl movement?
Wellness
By Callan Whitley
The Damned IKEA Wardrobe
The first of the harvest month is a notorious, pesky little holiday in Boston, Massachusetts. It’s best known for the collectively absurd idea of having every new resident of the city move in on the exact same day, at the exact same time, and, seemingly, the exact same stretch of sidewalk.
On September 1st, my dad and I arrived at Logan Airport from our tiny town in North Carolina. (I am telling you this now because almost everything about my father boils down to him being from a tiny town in North Carolina). He had an industrial suitcase and roundtrip ticket with him that would take him home the next day for a work event. We had a little over twelve hours to move me into my very first apartment.
Our first stop of the day was the IKEA in Stoughton, Massachusetts. This is an important hallmark of the holiday, you see. The odds that you will not encounter furniture from IKEA’s warehouse are severely stacked against you, whether in a Facebook Marketplace treasure hunt or, god forbid, a trip to the amusement park of Swedish meatballs itself.
As we walked through the swarm of last-minute
shoppers, my dad did the thing he always does when he knows I’m being held hostage by his credit card: give me as much unsolicited advice as he can. He hit some of his all-time favorite topics—the proper way to cook a perfect sweet potato, how to say no to roommate peer pressure about drugs, and the best brand of peanut butter that won’t ever get juicy.
“You need about 10% of the things you actually think you do,” he said as he sideswiped my attempt to load an ergonomic pillow into the cart.
This is another thing to know about my father—he is a very vocal and very annoyingly minimalist. His favorite pastime is to rant about how much stuff there is in our house, how much stuff we do not need, and how much stuff there is to give away. For most of my childhood, I swear he’d sneak into my room in the dead of night like the Grinch to fill a trash bag of items for Goodwill before the sun was up. It was the only way to explain how essential things were constantly disappearing from my life—like my Hannah Montana blanket and every sock I’ve ever owned.
“This is going to be a good year,” he said, debating which 99-cent dish brush to buy.
“Everything is going to be so much better.” I smiled at him. I tried to believe it.
Turning the key in the door to my new apartment for the first time felt monumental. Nothing could’ve ruined it, not even the immediate encounter with my new roommate and her almost-naked boyfriend who made my dad run into the wall. It was mine and I was an adult and it was all very exciting.
We unloaded the IKEA bed frame and wardrobe from the car. In an unexpected turn, my dad had agreed to a sidequest to pick up a reading chair in the middle of Nowhere, Massachusetts, from a sketchy lady off of Facebook Marketplace.
(We met at her house, I Venmoed her $65, and she produced an armchair covered in dog hair. The whole affair was all very September 1st).
By the time we got to the damned IKEA wardrobe, it was already 10:00 p.m.
Overgrowth (S.I.B.O.). Things got very bad very fast. Junior year was spent under the fluorescence of hospital lights. My body began to eat itself from the inside out. No medicine worked, no treatment stuck. Food is a trigger point for S.I.B.O., so it became the enemy. In the months that followed the diagnosis, I started to receive dangerously low blood pressure readings at appointments. I developed an extreme iron deficiency. Classes were attended through gritted teeth.
I’ve taken several deep breaths, and it is the end of the world. And have you ever noticed how heartache is even worse through the static of a telephone call?
I couldn’t see his face, but the strain of his voice cut me like a knife. I wanted so desperately to get better, for myself, but also him.
We had just spent a full day expediting the move-in process. No fumes were left. My dad had a flight to catch at four in the morning. But nothing was fitting together. We had to start over entirely at least three times.
“Dad, please, I can do it by myself tomorrow. You have such an early flight,” I said.
“No, I’m going to get this thing built for you,” he insisted.
And I knew why, of course. I knew why he couldn’t bring himself to leave me with a halffinished wardrobe.
It had been a hard year.
They called it Small Intestinal Bacterial
I had always been a (cautiously) optimistic person, but I think S.I.B.O. stole that from me. That’s what happens when you get sick— things are stolen from you. There had always been certain anchors to who I was—reading cheesy romance novels, drinking too-sugary hot chocolate, writing, playing soccer. But I couldn’t do any of those things after I got S.I.B.O. Nothing felt right. I didn’t feel right.
As sick as I was, it’s possible my dad was even sicker with worry. I began to call him a lot. He would tell me things like, It is okay, take some deep breaths, and, It is not the end of the world, to which I’d reply, It is not okay, I’ve taken several deep breaths, and, It is the end of the world. And have you ever noticed how heartache is even worse through the static of a telephone call? I couldn’t see his face, but the strain in his voice cut me like a knife every time. I wanted so desperately to get better, for myself, but also for him.
We found one treatment that was different than the others. The June before I moved into the apartment, I underwent the most intense treatment program for eradicating S.I.B.O. there was. And I won’t say that things are
completely better, because I am beginning to understand that that will probably never be the truth. But the symptoms became much more manageable, and the idea of living on my own didn’t seem so impossible anymore.
So there we were, at the beginning of my senior year of college, putting
together the pieces of my new life.
At 1 a.m., I took a break as my dad’s compliant (but mostly unhelpful) assistant to unpack the gigantic suitcase he had been lugging around all day.
And my heart swelled. Because my dad is such a phony.
For all of his minimalist nonsense, my dad had packed the luggage to the brim with the unnecessary things he pretended to despise—dusty Halloween decorations, a nightlight, socks, and even my tenyear-old piggy bank. The highlight was a brand new Baby Yoda stuffed animal (you know how dads find that one thing you like when you’re young and latch onto it for dear life? Well, enter Baby Yoda).
And that’s when I realized how much bigger this was than building a wardrobe— well, that, and when I watched him perform what I can only describe as a sort of curled, serpentine yoga position to insert one of those wooden dowels IKEA is so obsessed with into the back of the armoire. He was so red-faced and so full of determination and his body was so arranged in a way no man of his age should ever be that it all made me want to lie down on the hardwood and cry.
I had been sick for so long, and my dad had been worried for so long. The past year had been hell and, now that we were finally on the other side of it, my dad was literally bending over backward to make sure I would have a better one. He sacrificed his distaste for clutter to fill my room with the things that would remind me of home. My dad was determined to put together this new space for me, a haven where my body could heal.
At that moment, I was determined to believe him. I promised myself that no matter what happened, no matter what lay ahead, I would wear my dad’s optimism like a hand-me-down. I would wrap his love around my shoulders like a heavy coat.
We finished building the wardrobe around one in the morning. Before he left, I clung to him and his sweatdrenched shirt in a way I hadn’t since I was a little kid. It felt a little like that, too. Like I was seven years old again, wiping my snotty nose into his shoulder after he rescued me from the top of the Chick-fil-A playground’s tube slide. It was one of those heroic, silly little dad moments that stick with you well into your years. He’s full of those.
Ode to Lesbian Longing
Igrew up going to Catholic school which meant a lot of things. Days spent in churches surrounded by stained glass, choirs singing hymns, and kneeling in pews praying to a god I wasn’t sure I believed in. It meant praying three times during the school day: once in the morning, once before recess, and once at the end of the school day. My first day at this school felt like being at a concert for a band I didn’t know. Standing awkwardly in the audience as everyone else around me knew the lyrics to the songs except me. My classmates around me started reciting a prayer in perfect harmony. Saying the right words at the right time. Once the prayer ended, everyone moved their hands to their forehead, then their heart, then their left and right shoulders. I would later learn that the prayer they recited was “Our Father.” That the hand movements
By Annalisa Hansford
were symbolizing the sign of the cross. I would also learn that being queer wasn’t a possibility for me. Not at Catholic school.
Although my parents weren’t Catholic, the values of Catholic school seeped into my life at home. Once, I was singing the lyrics to Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” around my house. I wasn’t thinking about the meaning behind the words I was singing. It was just a song I heard on the radio with a catchy melody. Yet my mother scolded me for singing it. I was embarrassed. At some point, I would realize what the song was about. Either by Googling the lyrics myself or learning from a friend. I taught myself that queer desire was shameful, something to hide. So that’s what I did. When I had crushes on girls, I convinced myself I just wanted to be really good friends with them. I distanced
myself from them, regardless, so I didn’t have to confront my feelings. When Sasha Pieterse’s character in Pretty Little Liars appeared on screen, I shielded my eyes from my television. If I looked at her for too long, I’d have to look within myself. To confront my own desire. And that was the last thing I wanted to do.
As I’ve grown older, my shame surrounding lesbianism has turned into adoration. Queer media has helped me reclaim the term “lesbian” for myself. A year ago, the film Bottoms made me fall in love with lesbianism and everything it encapsulates: authenticity, honesty, and vulnerability. The movie is about lesbians starting a fight club at their high school so they can hook up with cheerleaders. I gravitated toward the heartthrob of the film, Hazel Callahan. She’s a masculine presenting lesbian who is unapologetically herself. After watching the film, I cut my hair to look just like her’s.
After getting the “Ruby Cruz” haircut, I felt more like myself. I slowly started incorporating her character’s style into the way I dress. I started putting energy and effort into my appearance which made me feel good about myself.
On the weekends, I searched Boston for markets and vendors selling jewelry. I found a silver chain that looked like the one she wore in the film. I adorned my fingers with rings. At one market, I found a silver ring with a turquoise stone in the middle that matched the turquoise nail polish I painted my fingers with. I stopped wearing the same t-shirts I had been wearing since high school that no longer felt like me. I invested in sweater vests, baggy button-ups, and oversized sweaters from
thrift stores in Boston. I finally felt more like myself. I was slowly rebuilding my relationship with the term “lesbian.” I was realizing the ways in which lesbianism made me feel comfortable in my own skin. In my identity.
I have a playlist on my Spotify called “queer desire” that I created a few months after watching Bottoms. It contains songs like “Amelie” by Gracie Abrams, “Kissing in Swimming Pools” by Holly Humberston, and “We’ll Never Have Sex” by Leith Ross. Even
if the songs aren’t queer in nature or written by queer artists, every song on the playlist encapsulates desire so intense it’s reminiscent of queer yearing. I find myself revisiting this playlist every few months when I have a new crush. It reminds me how beautiful lesbian longing is. How revolutionary it is.
This summer, I listened to Clairo’s new album Charm on repeat. It’s an album that makes me want to dance under a summer moon and write letters to the people I love. She sings
of longing, desire, and wanting so delicately. Without shame. In her song “Nomad,” one of my favorite lyrics is I’m touch-starved and shameless. I adore the way in which it sounds like a line from a confessional poem. The way Clairo sings so unabashedly about her longing makes me feel less alone. As if she’s giving me permission to revel in my queer yearning that the younger version of myself was so afraid of.
Sometimes I think about the past versions of myself. My childhood self that spent Friday
mornings at Mass, feeling suffocated by a religion I didn’t believe in. The version of myself that existed freshman year of college. How back then, I was full of social anxiety, brimming with insecurities, surrounded by people who made me feel self-conscious. I had a haircut I didn’t like, wore clothes that didn’t feel like me. I look back on those versions of myself now while wearing a navy green messenger bag, a dark brown leather jacket, and my flesh-colored binder peeking out from under my gray plaid button-up. I have finally become the version of myself I always wanted to be. I feel the most authentic in my entire life, in my truest state, and I owe it all to lesbianism. From the lesbians past and present who taught me it’s a lovely thing to be myself.
Self-Love, One Bad Hair Cut at a Time
By Emma Siebold
Ibrushed a knot out of my hair today.
This probably won’t strike many as a big deal. Most people with long hair have had to deal with a tangle or knot at some point. But despite my now shoulder-length hair, I can’t recall the last time I had to fight with it. I almost cried tears of joy.
My hair and I have an on-again, off-again relationship. Growing up, I had the longest hair of my friends and classmates, and that became a defining factor of who I was and what I looked like. I had well over two feet of hair when I decided to donate to Locks of Love in fourth grade, and even after cutting the required 13 inches, my hair fell past my shoulders.
My virgin locks got highlights for the first time when I got to high school, and my
soccer teammates said I looked like Rapunzel when I was on the field. Hair became both an identifier and a security blanket; I used it to hide other physical insecurities I had like my acne and forehead. But then came the quarantine identity crisis; six months in lockdown led to a flurry of regrettable hair decisions, and none of them stuck. It went from waist length back to my shoulders, golden blonde to caramel to dark brown to blue, even cut from layers to curtain bangs.
The big chop came during junior year of high school. While the other choices I had made up until this point felt temporary, this would be long term. I cut my hair chin length, with curtain bangs and layers of white highlights against my natural brown. It looked good for a few months. I felt confident. No longer having long hair forced me to accept and
accentuate other parts of my appearance, like fashion. While it may seem shallow, having really short hair made me feel unique.
But one day during senior year, I found myself standing in front of my mirror clutching a pair of scissors. It started with a few snips, an illadvised venture of trimming my curtain bangs. But then I kept cutting. And cutting. I cut layers and bangs in places where layers and bangs didn’t belong. Length and style meant nothing to me. My once-cute wolf cut quickly became an erratic pixie and the obvious result of a child who shouldn’t be trusted with scissors.
I went on like that for weeks, aggressively cutting my hair each night, before I finally took a step back and realized the damage I’d done. There was no purpose to it, no end goal, just a strange satisfaction from the lack of control. The confidence that I felt when I first cut my hair was long gone, as was my sense of identity. I started changing my hair because I wanted it to reflect the changes and new beginnings in my life; I had recently started receiving help for my mental health and anxiety. The new hair was supposed to be reminiscent of a fresh start, but somehow I had gotten lost on that journey, and I felt like my hair was now a reflection of how utterly confused and upset I felt.
to stop the madness, I had to relinquish that control, and I was filled with shame from what my hair looked like and anxiety from not being able to do anything about it.
Letting my hair grow out into awkward, choppy layers was harder. Because I had long hair for most of my life, I never had to deal with that strange in-between phase, where you can kind of braid your hair (even if it comes undone in five minutes) and fashion a ponytail that’s so short it feels pointless. Now, brushing knots out of my hair is a chore that I welcome. I don’t know how to braid, but I try anyway just because there were months that any sort of hairstyle was impossible. I find joy in brushing my hair after the years that I never needed to.
physical appearance is just an extension of our identities, not the entire vessel
I always felt like my physical appearance had to correspond directly to how I felt. Instead of acknowledging my frenzied emotional state and taking care of myself, I got carried away with trying to prove I was unique. Instead of starting college with confidence, I came to Boston hating everything about my appearance. Social media is no help—it feels like everyone on TikTok and Instagram preys off of insecurities and tries to sell you things to change yourself.
Putting down the scissors was the first step. I had been told by a couple of my friends that my hair wasn’t looking too good, and instead of blindly chopping it one night, I forced myself to look in the mirror and take in what I was doing. At this point, I realized that the only way I could control the length of my hair was to keep cutting it. In order
It’s been a challenge to accept my insecurities, but I’ve learned to acknowledge and coexist with them. I am actively pushing against the train of thought that I need to first fit some quota before loving myself, whether that’s how “fit” I am, the length of my hair or the clarity of my skin. Maintaining a kind inner monologue and rebuilding a solid relationship with ourselves is necessary to navigate this life, and physical appearance is just an extension of our identities, not the entire vessel.
The lights are on, but no one is home
By Rowan Wasserman
My first time hanging out with a group of people I could nearly call “friends” at Emerson College was attending the early premiere of Saltburn through Bright Lights. I sat, surrounded by peers, watching with open mouthed shock. The movie was great, but it’s hardly what I remember most from the experience.
I got to the theater way too early—I’d never entered the Paramount building before, and everything was new and terrifying. I spotted the person who had invited me, taking my seat in relief beside them, before we were joined by the others in our little group. The low rumble of hypercritical film students filled our ears, and I made quiet, nervous, yet eager conversation with the kind strangers I sat with. As the movie played out, we all gasped, and screamed and laughed in unison as a glorious chorus of new experience.
I continued to tell my roommates about how wonderful the experience was, but I conflated my enjoyment of the experience with a love of the movie. The movie was good, don’t get me wrong,
but what I loved so much was finally feeling a part of something. A community—what I had always hoped my college experience would be.
I would go on to attend various film screenings through Bright Lights within my freshman
year here at Emerson. I eagerly looked forward to these events—to walking in, greeting Anna Feder, taking my seat and leaning back as some gorgeous documentary played out on screen. I’m not even a film student, man. Bright Lights was for everyone. The space didn’t feel exclusive, thanks in great part to the way it was managed. You walk in, sit down, watch something amazing, and talk about it. I never was made to feel like I wasn’t smart enough to engage in those conversations - at Bright Lights,
everyone felt equal. We’re all just here to learn, after all. I believe I saw six screenings at Bright Lights over my freshman year, and ending the semester, I had looked forward to attending far more in my sophomore year. Then we got the update: Bright Lights is canceled. Reportedly. it cost too much. BTW the “too much money” in question is less than a single student’s tuition for a year.
As a sophomore, I wasn’t relying on Bright Lights to help me make friends - I’ve got some, I’m alright. That said, I empathize with the pain of the anxious freshmen who are brimming with fear at the constant lack of social engagement. I’m devastated for those freshmen that they do not get to experience that first night at Bright Lights— that first night of belonging.
Not only did I lose my favorite Thursday night activity, but every freshman has lost out on the easiest way to interact with community members. Bright Lights being taken away honestly feels like a slap in the face to upperclassmen, and a punch down at the freshmen. Not all freshmen are going to be as sad and lonely as I was, but we all have our miserable moments, - and Bright Lights was there for me in mine.
It feels ironic to an exceptional extent that Emerson College, known colloquially as a “film school,” has chosen to do away with its best film screening program. I mean, come on.
We’re all broke college students, - none of us want to spend $20 to see a movie at the AMC when we had the option of seeing things in the company of our community, in our own theater. Even if we have the money to see every new film at the theater, we’re now missing out on opportunities that plenty of us had never experienced before. Touring documentaries with post-screening commentary and conversation with the creators was always exciting, and inspiring. For so many of our VMA students, I could always sense how reaffirming it felt for film students to get to personally interact with creators of films like that. I’m a WLP student, and I loved talking to the creators too. It feels incredibly shortsighted to cut those experiences out.
There were plenty of standouts for me at Brightlights. Films like Queendom, - the story of a performance artist and drag queen in
Russia, showing how anti-LGBTQ+ legislation was being combatted, and how it impacted people on an individual level. There were films like King Coal, - the story of the impact of fossil fuels in the Appalachian region, and how coal has become a facet of culture and daily life there. And there were films like Lakota Nation vs. United States, - a recounting of the fight to reclaim the indigenous Lakota and Dakota peoples right to their sacred area, the Black Hills. Brightlights also featured pieces some consider “controversial” like Israelism which has received plenty of criticism from Zionist entities. That piece in particular faced a good deal of censorship attempts—many students believe the showing of this film to be a direct reason for Bright Lights being canceled, though the official narrative makes no mention of it. But we’re Emersonians; we know how to connect the dots.
These movies did exactly what filmmakers endeavor to do: tell our stories, and teach us other people’s stories. I would never have heard about Gena Marvin, the performer from Russia, had it not been for Brightlights bringing her into my consciousness. I can’t help but wonder what stories I’m missing out on now that I can’t attend Bright Lights.
Bright Lights exposed me to thoughts, concepts, court cases, and individuals that I would never have heard of without it. The entire crop of freshmen is, as I write this, missing out on those experiences — and so are the rest of us.
I hope that this community is willing to see the value and the beauty of what has been taken from us, and decides to help. All of us need to talk about this. Bright Lights is Emerson. And without it, everything feels muted.
We all miss it. All of us. This isn’t just a minor tragedy for the VMA students, it’s a major loss for the entire community of Emerson. So, here’s the call to action you’ve been waiting for:
Follow @Bringbackbrightlights on Instagram, and annoy our administration about this. A film school needs a film screening program.
Ink & Self-Esteem
By Liz Gómez
“It’s too small,” she said while pointing at my left wrist.
My pointer finger and thumb were about an inch apart—displaying the size of the tattoo I had planned, for the past year and a half, to have permanently etched into my skin. A design that no amount of water, soap, alcohol, or self-denial could wash away. A design that would cling to my skin as my body is buried six feet below the ground, only leaving once worms, bugs, and bacteria slowly eat away at me. Even then, I could imagine a worm spitting out the ink-filled skin, finding it too bitter.
To say my heart stopped when I heard those three words is an understatement.
“Sorry,” I said, trying to hide how my voice shook, “it’s too small?”
Nina, a tattoo artist at Galway Bay Tattoo, sighed and pointed at my fingers. “If we make the silhouette that small, when it heals, it’ll just become a big, black blob.”
I could only reply with an, “Oh, okay.”
Shaking her head, Nina turned to a computer and began to type away. “You have to go much bigger than that,” she explained, with a surprising amount of patience. “And you can’t make it a silhouette. Like I said, black blob.”
Turning the monitor around, she showed me a Google search: an outlined, shaded drawing of a cardinal perched on a branch.
The complete opposite of what I asked for.
“The smallest this can go is,” Nina paused to convert the measurements to something more American, “three inches by three inches.”
“So,” I said while studying the tiled floor of the shop, “my original design has to be thrown out?” “Yep.”
For most of my life, I’ve hated how I looked and wanted a tattoo.
My self-esteem has been the lowest of the low—where I can’t remember looking in the mirror and liking what I see; whenever someone compliments me, my first thought is, “What’s the point of lying?”
For as long as I can remember, I’ve battled— and lost to—my insecurities.
In first grade, I learned about tattoos by studying the patterns scattered across my uncle’s skin. At family barbecues, I forced him to drag a lawn chair next to mine and hold out his left arm for me to cradle. Underneath the blistering summer sun, I traced the ring of his Celtic Cross tattoo, following the circle as it intersected with the arms and stem of the cross. Brushing my palm over the panel, I convinced myself that I could feel the raised, bumpy, and overlapping lines of the Celtic pattern.
Our bodies being used as a canvas—as a blank page to draw upon and forever hold the stories of our past, our loved ones, and what we find to be so important that we would permanently alter our body to carry it—became an obsession of mine.
In middle and high school, I watched every episode of Ink Masters available on YouTube. I took notes during tutorial videos about which needles work best for different tattoo designs— never use Magnum shader needles for linework or American Traditional tattoos cannot be more than one-third black. Anytime I was at a grocery store, movie theater, volleyball practice, or even church, I’d be on the lookout for tattoos, analyzing their designs and gleaning the personalities of the people who held them (never trust someone who has a lion roaring next to Jesus tattoo on their upper right arm).
No matter how badly I wanted a tattoo, my low self-esteem limited me to what I envisioned. I only deserved a small tattoo.
I didn’t want to further ruin my body, so I could never get a highly visible tattoo. What would others think of me if they saw what I’d done? What would I think of myself?
So, on my twentieth birthday, I listened. I agreed to what I’d always thought and had my first tattoo reflect this: an inch-by-inch semicolon on my right wrist. Barely visible when I look at it in the mirror; I can’t tell you the number of times it’s been mistaken for an oddly shaped mole.
But that’s what I wanted. From my years of envisioning my body as a portable art gallery and from everything I endured, I was only worthy of a small dot and an even smaller comma beneath it.
Nina emailed the image of the cardinal to her co-worker Sean and told me it’d take him “thirty minutes to finish the stencil.” I sat in a nearby café with my friend, doing the best I could not to burst out into tears. Stomach filled with coffee and dread, I returned to Galway Bay Tattoo and found myself holding the stencil of the opposite tattoo I had planned on getting while in Ireland. Originally, I wanted a design like my semicolon tattoo: small and unnoticeable. The cardinal, for my mother, was planned to be an inch-by-inch silhouette situated on the left side of my left wrist. The design I held with shaking hands was intricate. It had feathers, a gleaming eye, and claws clutching a branch. Its tail feathers fanned out beneath its oval body.
“We don’t want that blob, now do we?” Sean said with a kind smile.
I looked up at him and tried my best to smile—I probably looked just as afraid as I felt. “And this will go on my wrist?”
Cocking his head to the side, he politely laughed. “Isn’t that what you asked for?”
This isn’t at all what I asked for, I thought to myself. Yet, at the bottom of my heart, I sensed something strange. Studying the design again, a smile pulling up the corners of my lips, I
realized how much I loved it. I loved how detailed it was—no one could mistake it for a mole. I loved how the bird was perched on a branch, ready to swoop down my forearm and glide toward my heart. I loved its size; my mother deserved more than an inch on my body.
I nodded my head yes.
Sean chuckled and guided me to the back of the shop. Yellow, fluorescent light shone onto my wrist as he shaved and disinfected the area. I kept imagining a wonky blob below my thumb. How it would change from a cardinal representing my mother to a period. To an end.
I wanted the tattoo to be a beginning.
Sean gently—or as gently as a group of sharp, moving needles could be— placed the tattoo machine onto my skin. I wasn’t as uncomfortable as I expected since I thought its size and placement would make it more painful than my previous tattoo.
Excitement and nervousness dulled the feeling of intense scratching; I watched as the exact opposite
of what I wanted, yet exceedingly more beautiful, cardinal took shape. Tears swelled in the corners of my eyes as I saw a tribute to my mother permanently added to my body. Her memory lives on my wrist and will stay with me until those worms, bugs, and bacteria start chewing. And maybe that one worm won’t spit out that ink-filled spot of skin. Maybe it’ll taste the deep, sweet love and respect I held for my mother.
When the tattoo was finished, I felt beautiful. Loved and worthy of love. When my friend complimented the design, I didn’t think she was lying or trying to be polite. Instead, pride in my mother and myself flourished beneath my skin and bloomed into a bright smile that stayed on my face for the next few days.
So, when I got my next, spur-of-the-moment tattoo for my father, I went even bigger. Even more intricate. Even more unapologetic. Because my father, like my mother, deserved more than a lumpy blob on my skin.
I studied the stencil in the full-length mirror in Galway Tattoos. The design, a tiger lily, wrapped around my right ankle; its petals unfurled across my lower calf. Bending down, I hovered my finger over the flower and traced its lines.
“Everything alright?” Patrick, the tattoo artist, asked.
“Yes, this is perfect,” I said, beaming at my reflection, because I deserve to continue looking in the mirror and loving what I see.
PhotograPher . . . . . laIth hIntzman models . . . . . . . . . . IsaIah Flynn, sara Kelley, & nyla anderson maKe uP . . . . . . . . . chloe mcallIster desIgn . . . . . . . . . . ugne KavalIausKaIte
Speaking in Tongues
By Laith Hintzman
“Shou hatha? Laith! Khaif halak ya habibi!”
The voice of Khalto Huda, Mom’s oldest sister, crackles over the WhatsApp call.
“Uh. Hi! Or- Kwayas, alhamdulillah, How are you?”
I reply, and she returns a warm smile.
My Arabic is awful. Not good, at all. And I’m entirely to blame for it.
As a kid, I was given countless opportunities to connect with my culture. I turned away each one: Sunday school, daycare programs, yearly trips to Amman, daily phone calls with family. None could tame my inexplicable aversion to being Arab.
Truthfully, I never knew the root of that aversion. At first, I thought it was the sickness. Each flight to Amman plagued me with such debilitating airsickness that I had to be wheeled in and out of every boarding gate. Even the thought of an airport could send me reeling with nausea. But no, I couldn’t just blame the sickness. I knew there was something more to it—it wasn’t the altitude or the motion that made me sick, it was the thought of my destination.
Then I thought it was the shame. Shame at being different from my peers, fear that I would be judged, mocked, and ridiculed for standing out. Maybe I could blame my social conditioning for how I felt? But no, this wasn’t right either. Schoolchildren are harsh, yes, but I’d rarely
been the target of bullying for my culture. Besides, I had no trouble passing as white. I felt shame, but it wasn’t inflicted upon me.
If I wasn’t being shamed by others but still felt ashamed of who I was, could my discomfort be something internal?
Could it be that I didn’t feel Arab enough; that my aversion was a convoluted manifestation of this?
To date, these are questions I consider. I can’t offer much comfort to other Arab-American or multiracial people who share my identityconfusion; I can’t explain why or for what we feel shame. But I can offer my experiences, with hope that they might provide answers.
“Macarona, ya habibi,” Teta says with a smile.
I’ve only just stepped off of my 12-hour flight. I’m exhausted, but I can’t help but smile back.
My grandmother—my Teta—has been an inspiration to me for as long as I’ve lived. I love her deeply, but I’ve never spoken to her. She was fluent only in Arabic, and I only in English. Because of that, our communication was never standard. It was defined by gestures, expressions, and surrogate speakers. Still, I feel that she knew me better than most others.
My fondest memories of Teta are of her knowing smile: one that could speak a thousand words -”I saved some sweets for you,” “There’s more food if you’re hungry,” and most often, “I
love you.” There was a unique comfort to her smile that words could never compare to. In this way my refusal to connect with my culture was a boon; if we’d shared a language, perhaps her smile wouldn’t mean so much to me. But that was the only advantage of my aversion.My yearly trips to Amman weren’t yearly forever. In fact, it seemed that the more Amman meant to me, the less frequently I’d see it. As a young child, my aversion was at its worst, and I was given the opportunity to shamelessly express that to my loving family each summer break. Then, as an adolescent, it lessened; where before it was brazen, now it was unspoken. At the same time, my annual visits to Amman became biennial. So, while my attitude had shifted, I had half as much time to show it off. That did little to assuage family members who I’d already spent years convincing of my distaste. They still loved me, of course, but it wasn’t clear that I felt the same. By the time I realized I’d have to put in effort to change that, my previous carelessness had come to bear. I could communicate across the language barrier only so far, I could rewrite my character only so much, and this was the ultimate price of my aversion: it was easy to fall into and incredibly difficult to undo.
Once I was a senior in high school, I’d been away from Amman for half a decade. I spent those years considering the consequences of my cultural reluctance, and I was ready to do the work to rectify them. I was finally proud
of who I was. I wouldn’t be in Amman again for a while (COVID-19 precautions and a busy school life made that certain), but for the first time I was excited for my next visit; I was preparing for it. I had been studying an old interview my brother conducted with Teta, a look into her experience as a young mother in 1960s-Jerusalem. I was captivated, and decided to draft my own essay about the impact her story held. I shared it with my mother, who sent it overseas. Little in my life compares to the smile Teta offered when she read the essay I wrote about her. I decided at that moment that the next time I visited my grandmother, I would complete my brother’s interview and write her full story.
Teta passed away January 12, 2024. I didn’t have the chance to see her again.
If there is any lesson I can give to those who are caught between heritage and humility, it is this: the boundaries of your comfort lie very close to the edges of a much more fulfilling life. Get over yourself, get past that aversion, and just live. Do it for your family, and do it for yourself. Tell them you love them; ask them the questions you want to ask. It might mean nothing to you now, but it will mean something to them. And it will mean something to you very soon.
My Arabic is awful. Not good, at all. But that doesn’t mean it can’t get better.
On Coming Back
By Sydney Flaherty
Acar blew up and I am leaving. We are saying goodbye at Martina’s front door and we can all see it — charred metal and ash and smoke. It holds its shape, but is now merely a gray outline of a car, glass from its windows lying shattered on the street. I am holding back tears as I hand out letters, final farewells. It stinks like oil and we are coughing. There are police here too, putting up caution tape. I won’t see any of these people again.
Then I duck under the caution tape and go home.
I don’t talk to Martina anymore. She was one of my closest friends in Italy and now I can’t remember where her house is. Maria Rita is the only one I stay in contact with. My phone regularly displays her texts:
“When will you come back??”
But Maria Rita and Martina got into a fight soon after I left and haven’t spoken in four years. It’s not the same.
I’m back and I’m walking aimlessly, looking for the shape of a car. A not-car, an outline, an iron structure that blew up five years ago. But all the streets are clean and all the cars are intact and unrecognizable.
Maria Rita is my best friend. She translates for me when our teachers talk too fast. We spend every evening together. We walk around the square and talk, shifting from topic to topic, gossiping and nodding our heads. I follow her down alleyways and into restaurants. She knows my favorite gelato place and the boy I have a crush on.
When we say goodbye she tells me
that she knows we’ll be friends forever. We promise to be. We swear on it.
We are. I text her that my train is running late and she stands in front of the station and waits for me. She sees me before I see her. By the time I spot her, she is running at me, and so I run at her. She is so much shorter than I remember; when we hug the top of her head just barely reaches my shoulders.
In her car I map it out: the road from the train station to our school, the light by the bakery that once gave me a free croissant, the theater we saw a show at.
“Do you remember [...]?”
“Yes”
I remember all of it. How could I forget?
In the car on our way to the Rome airport, my host dad is playing “Amor Mio” by Mina because he knows it’s my favorite song. Because he saw me in the countryside, swinging in a hammock, singing along. I wipe my tears before they fall. I am sad because I am leaving and I can never come back. Not to this car. Not to 16 and Italy in 2020, not to my host dad before he found a new haircut. I can never come back to this song without the context and tones of the years in between. Between here and now.I ring the buzzer and my finger fits perfectly, as though my skin remembers touching it after school everyday. As though my skin is not constantly renewing itself. As though the skin I have now was magically the same as the skin I had five years ago.
“You look exactly the same!”
This is the first thing my host mom says to me.
The only people in my house who don’t sleep after lunch are me and my host grandma. We sit at the dining table and read one of my little host sister’s, Silivia’s, books. It’s about a crow with a bad singing voice and I read it aloud again and again until I have it all memorized. Every sentence she stops me.
“‘Gli’ not ‘Glee’”
“Glee”
“Gli”
“Gli”
She was a kindergarten teacher and I think she likes this routine. She asks me to pronounce words for the family at dinner.
When we said goodbye, I didn’t think I’d see her again. My host grandma had a stroke in 2021, but it’s only lasting effect is her walker. I can hear her coming down the hallway. When we hug everything feels the same. She asks if I remember our books.
“Io fassio” I do.
“Io fachio” I do.
“Io faccio” I do.
My host dad works on a farm and when he comes back for dinner, he brings food with him. He’s particular, he brings only the freshest bread with the crispiest crust. He explains the
subtle differences between regular mozzarella and the huge bulbs of buffalo mozzarella he brings me to try. He peels fruits for me and Silvia, skins of apples and peaches and oranges in one snaky line on the table. Sometimes he brings strange, hybrid fruits, which he grows himself. He loves the orangelo — a mix between an orange and a grapefruit. It’s large and he always offers me a slice. “Do you know what this is?” “Yes”
It’s an orangelo. He still grows them. I suddenly feel like crying, even though I am back, even though this is supposed to be a happy thing.
I missed the way my host grandma and I rolled out pasta dough with our fingertips while watching “X Factor Italia.” I missed the Saturday lunches that went on for hours and the cans of tomato sauce I’d bring up from the garage. The focaccia my host mom taught me how to make, kneading it with Silvia, her small fingers leaving tiny dots in the risen dough. My host uncle and host cousins speaking in spirited dialect that I couldn’t understand, my host grandpa translating.
I leave early in the morning so we have one final dinner. We make pizzas in the oven and play a card game I can’t remember now. I speak Italian. It is the image of a family, not a host family. Silvia falls asleep.
She is still sleeping when I wake up at 4am, and she is still sleeping when I get to the airport at 8am. I never said goodbye.
The first place I went when I came back was Silvia’s school. My host mom wanted to surprise her so we stood outside the heavy metal doors and sifted through the crowds of eight -year-olds and parents.
She shouted my name in the way she always
pronounced it: like two words, not “Sydney” but “Syda-nee”. She introduced me to all of her friends like this. She held my hand all the way home and she was so much taller. I didn’t need to twist my body like I did before.
When I am not at school or with Maria Rita, I am with Silvia. We watch her favorite movie, one about bees that can talk, over and over. We do a “Beauty and the Beast” puzzle every day for two months. She has Legos and we build houses and ice cream shops.
We speak in our broken Italian together, understanding each other. I hold her hand when we walk to the park. She sings a song about a talking horse and we dance together.
We hold hands and spin together. She speaks English now, too. She made me quiz her with flashcards.
“Come si dice sorella?”
“Sister”
“Sister”
We are driving home from dinner and Silvia and I are in the back seat. It is late and the sky is turning dark blue. Headlights reflect into the car in streaks and bursts. Silvia falls asleep, her breath slow and deep, and she is holding my hand tight.
My host family drives me to the airport, Silvia and I in the back seat. She holds my hand.
“See you!”
I leave all over again, and nothing will ever be the same. Except for the smell of oil and a burnt up car. The slight tug on my fingers, something pulling me back.
Red Lights
By Lucy Latorre
Amsterdam has gained a reputation for its legalization of two of the most popular human vices: weed and prostitution. So when I told people that I was going to Amsterdam to study abroad, they chuckled. A college student in the city of sex and drugs. Go figure. I was going for school, I assured them, so I planned for neither weed nor sex to appear in my day to day life. But, I couldn’t lie… a part of me was intrigued by the more notorious aspects of the city. Or rather, one in particular.
Globally, the Amsterdam sex work scene has long lived under a veil of scandal as early as the 14th century. A huge shipping port, the city constantly welcomed sailors and, because of the thriving market, prostitution became a huge moneymaker. The culture around prostitution in the city shifted back and forth from straight-laced to wide-open, but became officially legal in 2000 as a way to protect the willing workers and weed out the possibly unwilling. With this legalization came permits, interviews, screenings, and income taxes. Soon, prostitution became as serious a career as office work. The main hub of this industry resides in what is referred to as the Red Light District, or “De Wallen.” Filled with bars, clubs, and live shows, sex oozes from every doorstep, enough for a mention of it in a conversation to result in shoulder shimmies and giggles, like going there was akin to eating forbidden fruit.
There’s a transactional appeal to sex that men benefit from more than women. It’s a tried and true fact that the innocent, calming Madonna and the seductive, provocative Whore both somehow lose their respective battles. It proves that no matter their stance on sex, women will always leave the transaction with less than men, whether it be physically, emotionally, or mentally. Women who have control over their bodies and use it as a means to earn money are looked down upon simply because they have control. Their ability to corner the market of men’s desires into something that benefits them makes men realize that women aren’t just their playthings; they can play, too. This disruption of social order is what makes the Red Light District so special, but also what makes it so “shocking.” Seeing women in control is outside of the world’s comfort zone.
About three days into my Amsterdam trip, my class headed to what was by far the most unique activity on our itinerary. The administration had arranged a Q and A with a sex worker who works out of the Red Light District. We climbed up the stairs of a restaurant to a moderately sized event space and took a seat in a large circle of chairs. There was a tangible sense of unsureness in the room, all of us wondering what was to come next. We sat tense and quiet, which was unlike this particular group of students.
She looked much different than I expected. Curvy with long black hair, she wore a cheetah print top and a flowy skirt with a costumey waist cincher. Cool. She took a seat next to the teachers as we stared at her, but she matched our unbreaking eye contact. Her makeup struck me instantly. Bright lipstick, bright blush, bright white teeth. I loosened up. Chester, an administrator who had arranged the interview, introduced her as “Nicki,” an alias that she would be using with us. She was a camgirl, and that was all she did to make a living. No side job, no freelance work, no Etsy shop. Just camming. At no moment did she make it seem like she did her work because she had to. She just did. It wasn’t because it paid the bills, either. She made it clear that she did sex work because she enjoyed sex. She genuinely did what she loved.
The more Nicki told her story, the more she told us about the experiences of sex workers in the Red Light District. The way that she spoke of them was akin to Gladiator-esque heroes. She had seen window workers open doors and tackle harassers, chase people down the street, and throw cell phones into the canals. Despite the city’s safety precautions for the sex workers, they held the power to protect themselves and others.
Inspired by Nicki’s stories, I went to the Red Light District two times: one in the daylight, and one late at night. In the daylight, you can see the beauty of the city. The flowing canals sparkle with faint flashes of red and reflections of neon signs. At night, the lights shine bright against the night sky like beacons of pleasure, enticing and opening They also became a beacon of protection.
Fifty dollars. Fifty dollars for that. Absurd.
I watched a man huff away from the window and stormed past me and my friends, ranting as he walked off into the night. Groups of men looked at him as they went by, stealing glances of us, as well. It seemed the farther we strayed, the more the eyes of men wandered. Their faces seemed to fear the red lights, and I wondered if they knew that once they entered their glow, they were no longer in control. That was too much for them to manage, so they stuck to the shadows and harassed unseen. We ventured back to the main strip for a quick drink, but there was also a sense that this street was our safety net. Contrary to everything I had been told, I felt safer under the red lights than I did in any spot in the entire city.
After our Q and A with Nicki, we were welcomed to a table of Coke and various chips. I had my fair share, thirsty and hungry and tempted by the scents of the restaurant below, but I kept looking back at Nicki. Something inside of me was begging for more. I awkwardly strolled up to her. I told her that from the moment she appeared at the top of the steps, I noticed that she looked like me; I had never seen someone who looked like me be so in tune and confident in their own body. She smiled and revealed a little bit of lipstick on her teeth.
I know what you’d like. Here, write this down.
I opened my notes app.
Search GwenIsAdorable on Instagram. Tell her C- from Amsterdam says hi.
Layers of Womanhood
By Meghan Boucher
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there stood a statue of a girl, not yet a woman. Here, it is good luck to touch her breast; to rub it raw until it shines gold like the sun. With each grasp, a layer of her bronze exterior is erased, but in return, good fortune seeps out, favoring those who dare touch her.
In fair Munich where we lay our scene, the statue of a 13-year-old girl stands alone. An iconic, albeit naive, female character in literary history, Shakespeare’s Juliet Capulet is immortalized by tourists’ groping hands. When I first saw Juliet’s golden chest, I couldn’t help but think about her legacy. Although Juliet herself is made of bronze, her legacy is not so different from the flesh and blood of women across the globe. How many of us have been remembered merely for our sexuality? How many women have lived and died with their bodies belonging to another?
Staring at Juliet, I thought of all the women in my life. My mother, my grandmother, my sister, my best friends. Me. Is our purpose on this Earth merely our anatomy?
I never believed it, but maybe the rest of the world thinks otherwise. Juliet’s golden chest is certainly proof of that. No matter how young we are, how accomplished, no matter how many lives we impact, are we only made to be remembered by how we were touched? Are our golden qualities within not enough?
My mother and her unwavering generosity and kindness.
My grandmother’s endless intelligence and creativity.
My sister, who taught me the importance of self love.
My female friends, who have shown me the warmth of their souls through their humor and acceptance.
I see good fortune in every aspect of my life and I needn’t erode another woman down to find it. Instead I have turned to my fellow women time and time again for their guidance.
The women in my life have shown me a love as passionate as Juliet’s. They made me fall in love with who I was, and as I looked at Juliet, I couldn’t help but think of the irony of it all. All those people who grasped and rubbed and erased and yet what did they strike? Gold.
Juliet came to me at a very pivotal point in my journey from girlhood to womanhood, and with her came the words of another beautiful woman. My grandmother, a published poet amongst her many other creative endeavors, once said to me, “May you always love words and all things good.”
This sentiment struck me deeply. It was in moments where I witnessed the reality that women like Juliet faced that it became challenging to love all things good in the world. What even was good for me out there? Objectification? A lack of respect?
But despite it all, the women in my life have navigated womanhood with such grace and ferocity that by the time my turn came around, I thought I would have the same apparent ease. What I’ve come to realize instead is that life tends to complicate things.
I mourn the moments when my beautiful mother would remark on her aging skin. To me, the lines etched in her face told the story of a lifetime of feeling. The creases in her brow when she was angry and the parentheses that formed around her contagious smile made up the face of the woman who showed me unconditional love. And yet, the world had told her these marks of life were something to be ashamed of.
But the world didn’t stop there. Life never failed to offer up a plethora of criticism and scrutiny. As if becoming a woman wasn’t challenging enough, the world made me feel like an ant under a magnifying glass–small and constantly observed. I felt myself float farther and farther away in a sea of resentment that threatened to swallow me whole. I was enraged when men commented on my body, when my sister cried over the boy who broke her heart, and I remember the sense of helplessness I felt when my friends first began discussing the pros and cons of botox. As I struggled to keep my head
above water, Juliet emerged like a mirage on some distant shore, but instead of relief, the sight of her finally sent me under. There she stood, a 13-year-old girl tarnished by all the bad in the world. Normalized objectification, I started to convince myself, was just a part of being a woman. Juliet was a mere statue, but the proof was right there on her chest.
But no matter how deep I sunk, something kept pulling me to the surface. Like a lifesaver, those words my grandmother had spoken to me saved me from being consumed by the overwhelmingness of being a woman in the world. She made me realize that where the world points a judgemental finger, I have the ability to find the good.
I look back fondly on the happy and innocent vignettes of my girlhood. Sewing with my grandmother, laughing with my sister and mother around the kitchen table, playing in puddles with my girl friends. Layer by layer these moments built me into the woman I am today. And then I think of Juliet and how layer by layer her dignity and girlhood was stripped from her. For an endless series of moments, her body no longer belongs to herself, but rather to momentary enjoyment of others.
And if I could, I’d return every layer rubbed away from her chest and restore her to her bronzed and beautiful state, knowing of that gold that persists underneath.
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