BINGHAMTON REVIEW
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Amanda
Contributors
Claudia
From the Editor
Dear Readers,
Hello, folks and sexual beings. This is your captain, Aiden. I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is ready for the highly anticipated return of the Sex Issue sponsored by BlackRock. We have, as always, cooked up an excellent Sex Issue for all you deviants to enjoy. We have everything from stroking guys to hot vampires. We also have our highly scientific sex and sexual behavior survey conducted by the University’s biology department. I hope you enjoy this issue as much as the 3rd floor of the library. Ciao!
Sincerely,
Aiden Miller
Our Mission
Binghamton Review is a non-partisan, student-run news magazine founded in 1987 at Binghamton University. A true liberal arts education expands a student’s horizons and opens one’s mind to a vast array of divergent perspectives. The mark of true maturity is being able to engage with these perspectives rationally while maintaining one’s own convictions. In that spirit, we seek to promote the free and open exchange of ideas and offer alternative viewpoints not normally found on campus. We stand against dogma in all of its forms, both on campus and beyond. We believe in the tenents of free expression and believe all sudents should have a voice on campus to convey their thoughts. Finally, we understand that mutual respect is a necessary component of any prosperous society. We strive to inform, engage with, and perhaps even amuse our readers in carrying out this mission.
Views expressed by writers do not necessarily represent the views of the publication as a whole.
Advice Column
I offered to give you all life advice. These were your questions.
Is the budget for the sex toy prizes going to increase this Sexapalooza?
Praying for it, I need a new furry butt plug the other one got … dirty.
Can we go to Costa Rica?
If daddy university pays.
AITA? I (M34) was texting my girlfriend (F19) about including Baxter (NB69) in my relationship and now she’s angry. What the fuck did I do? I’m like the perfect boyfriend.
YTA. Baxter is a disgusting and vile creature, and you should be ashamed for even mentioning his name. I mean their name.
My intro to ethics professor asked me out for VDay. What should I do?
Bang him, get proof, and blackmail him for an A. Bing bong, that’s how you get a degree.
I got Valentine’s Day coupons but they went into the wrong hands.
You mean the wrong feet? Mmm, feet.
What the hell is going on with the website?
I don’t know but we keep hearing it’s getting better. Maybe send some vitamin A and if you’re a really, really good little boy it’ll be back soon.
Why don’t they call them webmasters anymore?
Once the sex swings got introduced it got weird and those guys had to go.
Does anyone actually know what Sexapalooza is? Be honest here—I don’t judge.
SA money laundering scheme
Are the coupons on the back cover stackable? More importantly, is it linear or compounded?
Uh yeah it’s .7 times .7. Whatever that is.
What e-board member can I use them on?
Written by our Staff
Copy Desk Chief Midas Leung.
Is there a Bing Review Jam?
Yeah, it’s mixed berry.
I keep swiping right but nothing’s happening. Why can’t I match Harvey? Is he ghosting me again?
He only matches with real freaks, maybe work on that rice score first.
Does Harvey have a private island? Like the Epson one???
We are withholding the information until we hear his opinion on returning our office.
Why am I ugly?
Your personality spreads. You may have noticed some wrinkles on the head area, and that’s because what comes out of your mouth has spread to what’s closest first. I’d start with eating some hydrargyros and hoping for the best.
What are some good exercises for losing weight?
The blood ritual at Pike, did wonders for me.
How can I improve at sex?
I heard Sexapalooza will give you a full demonstration. Or a vibrator. Both improvements.
What was the worst tragedy of 2025 so far?
The Goonicide. Rest in power, king.
Why is Harvey leaving us?
OnlyFans is more profitable in this economy.
Man or bear?
Both, my bedroom is nondiscriminatory.
Who’s winning the Super Bowl?
Mahomo and Co.
Need life advice? Email manager@binghamtonreview.com for more wacky, quirky, and zany responses.
We Need to Start Stroking Guys
By Aiden Miller
When reading the news, stroking guys has been a hot-button topic lately. Some say it’s far too much, with a few even calling it the most evil and nefarious thing ever conceived. However, many others, including myself, say stroking guys for their bad manners until they eject is not enough. If stroking a guy for bad etiquette is a sin, call me the devil!
Now I know some of you perverts and sexual deviants out there think I’m talking about jorkin’ it. AND YOU’RE WRONG. YOU’RE A SICKO! I’m obviously talking about the slow-play epidemic plaguing professional golf. If you watched the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am on Sunday, you were probably moaning and growing about one Tom Kim, an international superstar and slow-play extraordinaire. Despite never winning a major, the most significant award he’s won is a spot in everyone’s hearts as the slowest and most hated player on the PGA Tour. Sunday’s final round at Pebble Beach put that on full display when Kim slashed his second shot on the par-5 sixth hole out of bounds into the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. In total, Kim spent one minute and five seconds over his ball, well over the allotted forty seconds outlined by the USGA, one of the central governing bodies in professional golf.
This isn’t the first time slow play has been an issue in this young PGA Tour season. During the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, the final round on Saturday finished in an abysmal five hours and thirty-one minutes, well over the average round time of about four hours. Dottie Pepper, former LPGA Tour player on TV analyst for CBS, in a rare show of honesty, lambasted the Tour and its players for the lack of respect they show “for [their] fellow competitors, for the fans, for the broadcast, for all of it.”
Yet again, the slow play discussion has come to the forefront of professional golf. Much of the slow-play criticism this time around seems to be shrouded in genuine concern, not the usual nitpicking we see from golf purists on Twitter. Although young, the Tour’s 2025 season viewership numbers will have you shouting “Mayday, mayday.” The Desert Classic in January saw a fifty-seven percent drop in ratings on Golf Channel. The Desert Classic’s dropoff reflects a broader trend across all PGA Tour-sanctioned tournaments this year. And despite a thrilling finish this week at Pebble with fan favorite McIlroy taking the trophy, the Tour is again set up to see a steep dip in TV ratings. Despite a dip in viewership, many working for the Tour like to ignore the Tour’s rampant slow play problem. However, there’s another new key factor playing a role in the persistence of this year’s slow-play discussion: TGL. In short, TGL is a new simulator golf league developed by superstars Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. Its primary objective is to compete with rivals LIV Golf while bringing golf to primetime television to “grow the game.” One of the key aspects of the new golf league is its forty-second shot clock. The shot clock adds strategy and pressure for the players while offering the fans and viewers a fun and exciting experience. TGL’s shot clock would never be implemented in a PGA tour tournament. Still, it has been cited as
a prime example of professional golfers being able to play fast while maintaining their high skill level.
So, where does the problem lie? The problem lies in the PGA Tour’s inability to accurately enforce the rules of golf, including the Tour’s lackluster enforcement methods. In a recent podcast with No Laying Up, senior PGA Tour rules official Gary Young stated that it’s a common misconception to think the Tour is lax in enforcing its slow-play policy. Behind the scenes, the Tour uses Shotlink technology and video replay to
Even if they were penalized, the Tour’s strategy of fining players is insufficient. With the recent foreign investments and increased purse sizes in professional golf, a mere ten-thousand-dollar slow-play fine is pocket change for these pros.
time and implement slow-play rules. When the Shotlink camera system detects someone going over the allotted forty seconds, the Tour asses the player a monetary fine. However, the Tour’s use of Shotlink technology is also problematic because operator error is common, and the cost of implementing this technology would be in the millions.
Furthermore, Shotlink cannot determine many of the human factors that affect the pace of play. Was a player taking relief? Was the golfer waiting for another player? What were the weather and playing conditions like? All of these questions factor into correctly timing a player on the golf course. A much simpler solution would be to implement the same standards found within state golf associations: Having officials with timers follow each group. Simple, easy to understand, and highly cost-effective. After watching Sunday’s broadcast, it is clear the Tour’s policies are just not good enough.
Players, especially the upper-echelon slow players like Tom Kim and Patrick Cantlay, get a free pass. Despite being some of the slowest on tour, the top players seem never to suffer a penalty for their disruptive slow-play. Even if they were penalized, the Tour’s strategy of fining players is insufficient. With the recent foreign investments and increased purse sizes in professional golf, a mere ten-thousand-dollar slow-play fine is pocket change for these pros. The only real solution is to start stroking guys. Stroking guys for slow players moves them down the leaderboard, decreasing the prize money they can earn and preventing them from winning coveted PGA Tour-sanctioned tournaments. This is a win-win because it affects players golfing for the money or the prestige. The greatest aspect of stroking guys for slow play is the high potential that the player ejects, resulting in them hurling expletives at TV cameramen or fans close by. I’m looking at you, Zach Johnson.
It’s a stroke or be stroked world, and I want to be the one stroking guys.
Most Films Have Porn
By Victor Ostling
As the modern world, in accordance with its very nature, increasingly permeates with the obscene, the vulgar, and ultimately, the purely material, its grasp on most aspects of life extends to the world of cinema and even to small, barely read university publications. As the Binghamton Review’s self-appointed film critic (I have a total of three brilliant and unread reviews) and most disliked attendee of its meetings, I have taken it upon myself, in line with this issue’s sophisticated and subtle theme of Eros, to convince you, dear reader (aka Binghamton Review writer), of the many pornographic elements in contemporary “films.”
There is no higher theme, no metaphysical beauty, or any other pretentious goal. You see the bad guys get mutilated, a large explosion, or the hero transactionally score with the smoking damsel, and, at the end of the day, you see it all because it’s fun.
Like most people, you likely hear the word “pornographic” and think of, well, what we’re all thinking of– especially since you’ve just skimmed some six articles of pure decadence and degeneracy. But I use this word simply to describe that common tendency of filmmakers today that orients their work towards a primarily material purpose–and this often takes the form of obscene content, but not always. I use the word in this way because, in my mind (and you should just agree with me), what differentiates a porn film from the ones you watch at Regal (ideally) is that the former’s ultimate purpose is to give the audience sensory pleasure from what it portrays on camera. Now, you might object and say that the term “sensory pleasure” in the above definition of “porn”– taken from the Oxford Dictionary of My Ass™ –should at least specify that this sensory pleasure is erotic in nature. But film critics, in their infinite genius, use words like this to say something like “pornographic violence” as a critique. When, say, a grindhouse film is called pornographically violent, it is derogatorily described as such because the film treats the audience the way a porno does, in the sense that the content of both is merely shown for pleasure and pleasure alone. There is no higher theme, no metaphysical beauty, or any other pretentious goal. You see the bad guys get mutilated, a large explosion, or the hero transactionally score with the smoking damsel, and, at the end of the day, you see it all because it’s fun. Now, I understand that everything done for the goal of pure pleasure should not be equated with something as shocking or vulgar as porn, but the point to be made here is that if the purpose of a movie is ultimately just sensory pleasure, its value suffers from that greatly.
Assuming that by “film” we mean “film with a narrative” and not unedited footage of a plastic bag in the wind, many–probably most–films don’t attempt to show their narrative with the ultimate goal of stimulating the senses. It’s usually the case that since the purpose of a film is its story, and the purpose of that story is communicating its theme, it would be contrary to this unstated
purpose and subsequently damaging to the art’s value if its material aspects are pronounced to the degree that they become a distraction from the story. By “material aspects,” I mean things like the editing, camerawork, lighting, music, special effects and etcetera–basically the means by which you are showing this story. It’s not hard to consider a case where a film’s fun, memorability, excitement, shock value, and “coolness” become a distraction from the story it’s trying to tell. The thing is, you can absolutely have a damaging deficiency of these elements. For example, a low-budget film can have sophisticated writing and acting, but if it’s filmed on an iPhone, the content you are trying to convey will have much less of an effect, and you will fail to communicate the theme or metaphysical idea in a sufficiently compelling way–in a way much more profound than simply writing it down on a postit note.
Every line of dialogue, camera angle, movement, or position of a character, costume, and set piece in a given scene is an opportunity for the filmmaker to subtly show the film’s theme and do it in a way that is entertaining to the audience. Directors like Kubrick and the Coen Brothers do this masterfully by making every moment utterly entertaining while also hiding in that entertainment layers of deep, profound themes. Sometimes you can have an excess or deficiency of this entertainment, and the former results in a film having gratuitous–meaning unnecessary–content. It’s not that these films are purely pornographic, but more that they suffer from content made with a similar ethos or purpose, and their work should be labeled as such.
Many films suffer from gratuitousness in the form of realism. Their creators tend to misunderstand that the purpose of art is to represent reality, not to just show it. People sometimes expect a great degree of this from a film, yet don’t criticize a lack of realism when they watch a stage-play. Gratuitousness can also be seen when, after watching too many Scorcese or Tarantino pictures, directors like Paul Thomas Anderson make entire scenes glorified music videos (I’m thinking specifically of Licorice Pizza). Whatever the case may be, you will notice that the lack of restraint from cutting-edge technology that did not exist in earlier eras of cinema makes many of your favorite films a little too similar to porn when they could be so much better.
It’s hard to give examples of movies that suffer from this since, in my opinion, there’s so many. Just about every modern film is overly gratuitous in its presentation to varying extents. However, I think the epitome of this hypersensual, obscene, and materialistic attitude towards cinema is Damien Chazelle’s 2022 shit-show, Babylon. There is nothing subtle, aesthetically pleasing, or “deep” in Babylon. The only thing it has to show for itself is its forceful energy and filthy content. To describe everything wrong with it would require a six-page article, so I’ll just recommend that you watch it and see if what I’m saying is true. All I ask is that instead of paying for the film, you pirate it.
I will end by saying this simple phrase: Most of your favorite movies are not only bad, they’re porn. Have a happy Valentine’s Day.
Should North America’s Predators be Reintroduced?
After two centuries of extensive deforestation for livestock pastures, fur trapping, and overhunting, European settlers had pushed North America’s fauna to near extinction. Fortunately, conservationists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries began to push for the preservation of America’s nature. Such conservationists included 26th President Theodore Roosevelt, who was an avid hunter. Land protection was primarily for hunting grounds and game to be left for American sportsmen to enjoy. With our changing view of conservation around the 1960s-1970’s, the species of America finally got true protection under laws like the Endangered Species Act of 1973, allowing many of their numbers to stabilize. Now in the 21st century, with a new understanding of environmentalism, the question is whether we should reintroduce these animals to their native habitat.
This is a movement informally known as “rewilding.” Predators get the most attention (and controversy) surrounding rewilding due to their ability to manage prey populations. Territory in the remote Pacific Northwest, the Colorado Rockies, parts of Arizona, California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, New York’s Adirondacks, and the forests of rural New England all are areas of wilderness with potential for predator reintroduction. But the most successful predator rewilding project in American conservation history has been the gray wolf’s return to Yellowstone National Park.
After the last wolf pack in the area was exterminated in 1926, gray wolves from Canada and Montana were introduced by humans from 1995 to 1997. The effects of the gray wolf had a positive ripple effect for biodiversity. The wolves have checked coyote populations, benefiting smaller animals. The carcasses from their kills fed scavenging animals. Deer and elk populations were kept under control, allowing aspen and willow trees to finally grow back. Beavers returned to construct dams with the new trees, improving aquatic life and creating more wetlands for otters, frogs, birds, moose, and fish to enjoy. A more biodiverse park has helped attract visitors. Four million people, on average, visit Yellowstone annually, translating to money for the local economy. Median income maps show that areas of the state closest to Yellowstone are some of the wealthiest.
Another successful case was the recovery of the Louisiana black bear, a subspecies of the American black bear. Their numbers fell to dangerously low levels in the early 1990s. The state of Louisiana and federal partners then created plans to convert unproductive farmlands into restored woodland habitats. Roughly 750K acres of habitat were restored, and the bear’s population rebounded. Black bears are omnivorous, so they will encounter less farmer conflict. But the fact that space was restored for them demonstrates the lengths gone to ensure this animal’s safety and security. Despite all these benefits, the downsides of predator reintroduction pose questions that fu-
By Nicholas Aparicio
ture rewilding projects must address.
Predators do not keep to one spot, so there have been reports of carnivores attacking livestock. Skeptical of the Yellowstone rewilding project, rancher Joe Thomas found a calf on his property torn to shreds only two years after the gray wolf’s reintroduction. Washington rancher Kathy McKay stated she had lost roughly 40 animals to predation from gray wolves in an interview with CBS from August 2024. Grizzly bear reintroduction is being pursued in six ecosystems in the country, according to a 2021 US Fish and Wildlife report. One such area is the North Cascades of Washington state. As of 2024, the federal government is set on reintroducing the bears in waves, much to the chagrin of the farmers in the region. Secretary of the Okanogan County Cattlemen’s Association decried the move to NBC News: “We’re busy dealing with wolves. We don’t need to be thinking about bears.” She also upholds the belief that the bears will wander out of their designated areas into towns and rural settlements. Ranchers hold legitimate fears for their well-being and concerns of conflict with the carnivores. Resentment also builds within these rural communities that feel like the federal government is haphazardly intervening in their lives, prioritizing wild animals over citizens. However, humans forget to factor in the will of nature to survive anywhere it possibly can. For instance, cougars are slowly increasing their range, and an analysis published in Ecological Modelling shows that they will soon reestablish populations in the Midwest. Gray wolves from Oregon started to recolonize Northern California in 2011; analogous to this are separate populations of gray wolves from Canada being spotted in rural New England. Animals will follow their instinct to move where there is food, often in areas close to people. Successful predator reintroductions have great benefits to nature and people alike when space and time are made to properly release these creatures. But we will have to reckon with the potential cost of uncontrollable animals. Going forward, conservationists, government officials, and farmers will have to ask themselves which side of the coin is more important: should we continue to reintroduce species to their habitat, not intervene at all, or start to manage predator populations?
Sex and Sexual Behavior Survey
Results
From Our Immaculate Respondents
Responses: Sloppy?, House MD, food stuff, forcing other people to read my shitty writing, Feet and armpits, Cows, Nirchi’s Pizza, Diddy Stuff, Soaking, Not on Wednesdays, Omegaverse but all the men have no rights not just the omegas., I like to eat my partners and regurgitate them, Armpits. Hair., Turtle shell full of pudding my beloved, Mmph, Women explaining complex topics
By Claudia de Lioncourt
Vampires Are Inherently and Historically Hot
As the saying goes, you are what you eat. The monster is no different—it is defined by what it consumes. The variation in media amongst the same monsters is considerable, and yet there is the constant of food. A witch will eat children. A zombie will always want brains. And a vampire will always, always need blood. The film they exist in can change just about everything else, and they will still be a vampire. No person in the world would hear the gap between Dracula’s rules and Twilight’s and not still call the latter the “sexy vampire book.”
it taste kinda weird? What if something drank that? What if it was hot? What if I’m aroused by the thing as it drinks from me?’ The etymology of “vampire” is debatable, but the definition itself has remained consistent. Even Merriam-Webster itself defines a vampire as sucking blood and preying on others.
Last year, I watched 162 movies. I mostly say that as a flex, as a significant number were not vampire movies, to be honest. But I fear this does give you an idea of how much of my time is spent potentially consuming vampire media. Additionally, as a child, I had an interest in vampires. Who knew where it grew from, but I recall on one of my first forays into unsupervised internet use typing ‘vampire’ into YouTube. I had only recently learned it wasn’t UTube and wasn’t solely a place to watch Taylor Swift music videos. I was met with a video that I think about to this day. A girl, around my own age at the time, sitting at a table talking about how to become a vampire. A TV plays in the background, suggesting someone else, maybe a parent, is nearby hearing what she says. She recites a spell, warns not to say it if you’re not sure about becoming a vampire, and then suggests collecting some blood for when the cravings start. She shows a vial of red liquid. She claims it’s her own blood, collected over time for the moment she needs it. She then drinks some of it. All of this means that it is fair to say that, on all accounts that matter, I am an expert on vampires.
Vampires have a long history, which some may call proof, or humanity’s love of easy fantasies. ‘Isn’t blood crazy? Doesn’t
Aside from diet, there are the other constants. Sunlight always must be addressed, and so must healing. Others have become more of an inside joke as stories have grown more modern. Garlic, for example, is a cliché. And so are crosses. Both are mocked relentlessly for being powerless next to the all-powerful capital-V Vampire. How could some wood repel death risen? Even a stake through the heart is made silly. These modern vampires are made different. Count Orlok may have died in a moment of passion by not reaching his coffin, and the Theatre de Vampire coven may not have escaped the fire and beheadings, but in My Babysitter’s a Vampire? They simply wear sunglasses because the sun’s a nuisance, not a danger. Twilight? Well … glitter bomb. It’s like these ones are invincible. At times it seems that 2000s vampires could not be killed, period.
Twilight is a fascinating study in general, though. They don’t need to heal because they are talked about as if they’re actually made of stone. There’s no cuts to watch heal themselves or bruises that disappear mysteriously. They just want to play baseball and suck on a bear, I guess. Perhaps more teen/kid-centered media cleaned up the vampire too much and made it no longer scary. Maybe killing the monster is also part of the fear factor. Maybe, possibly, they’re so clean that they’re relatable, and it would be tragic for them to die even more so than their human counterparts.
There’s a chance you find my calling upon children’s media pointless. Who counts My Babysitter’s a Vampire as vampire lore? I do. First, consider how many kids saw this as their introduction to vampire stories. And secondly, as an adult, it’s fascinating how far scary can come around to a joke. Count Orlok is a freak trying to steal a wife. He looks as though he’s deteriorating and speaks like he snacks on gravel. In contrast, season 2 of My Babysitter’s a Vampire shows a child vampire hundreds of years old, but she’s simply not fearsome. She looks like a child, talks like an adult, but is treated as no different from the others. There is real horror there, and yet a child may giggle at the tiny vampire’s power over the others who look far more mature. The mind and behaviors of an adult are forever stuck in the body and chemical system of a child. Reality would shudder at it, but here we don’t. Interview with the Vampire addresses the same thing more seriously. Claudia is cursed and the story from her perspective is a tragedy. A grown woman in the body of a little girl. Forever the appetite of a growing child. The intelligence of an adult trapped in all the unfortunate realities of a child, and a 19th/20th century girl at that.
It’s a nightmare and the audience cannot help but feel for her. As we may feel desire for Edward Cullen, we feel pity for Claudia.
Crouching, licking, and sucking (if you’re Count Orlok, dry humping), it’s pure id, and it wants to bang.
In a way, compassion for the vampire is compassion for greed. Their existence and desires are only food, life, and blood. They cannot stand the day, when they’ll have to face what they’ve done. Living off of animals is seen as compassion, something that is seen as rapacious in real life amongst the more environmentally-aware circles. In Twilight, Carlisle is praised for his ability to withstand his desires. He is a martyr for even trying to kill himself with hunger (again, something they cannot be killed by). Edward’s musings on dying if he lost Bella are supposed to be romantic. And yet, the reader is supposed to want them to continue to live. Empathy for the reformed monster with a conscience. But Interview with the Vampire vehemently disagrees. The vampire is indeed made to kill—the two can agree on that—but resisting one’s own nature is also cruel. The vampire is already in perdition, so why try and be good while there? The struggle is biblical. The struggle is sex on a page.
Fanfiction thrives on enemies to lovers, the raw power of desire winning. A single search on Archive of Our Own tells me there are over 170,000 works with the “enemies to lovers” tag. Conflicting between knowing what you should do, and what you
want to do, is where fanfiction tells us passion is born. This, and possibly casting choices, is what makes these “good” vampires so arousing. Count Orlok may only have it going on for the true monster lovers, but find a middle schooler who doesn’t see the appeal of Twilight from one angle or another, and I will show you a liar denying their ever-important fanfiction phase.
If vampires live only for their base desires, they live only for sex as well. What’s more animal than it? When animal nature takes over it has its own constants, entirely separate from fiction. Food, sex, survival. The vampire returns to these instincts, and its closeness to the human allows for that cross-species desire to thrive. We are pulled to them as well. How can we not be when the animal drawing us in is as yummy as Peter Facinelli? Crouching, licking, and sucking (if you’re Count Orlok, dry humping), it’s pure id, and it wants to bang. Anne Rice is rolling in her grave at Louis and Lestat’s floating passion and both they and I couldn’t care less. The monsterfuckers have a point—wanting somebody, or something, this much is inherently sexual. To desire somebody’s life so much as to drink it from them—does that not arouse you? Is Count Orlok really the freak, or are we for pretending we don’t crave something similar?
Happy Valentine’s Day. Let your freak flag fly and don’t let the normies shame you for wanting to get it on with Spike. Buffy did too; it’s not your fault.
How a Trade War with Canada Would Affect You
The White House recently announced new tariffs against China, Canada, and Mexico. The 25% tariffs on Mexico were temporarily halted after Mexico and the United States reached an agreement that would see Mexico redouble its efforts to prevent fentanyl from crossing its northern border. However, the tariffs on Canada and China remain in place.
The proposed tariff would likely increase the cost of several goods, perhaps most significantly cars and energy. This is part of why the White House proposed a reduced rate on Canadian oil and energy. New York State takes roughly $22.8 billion dollars worth of imports from Canada. Furthermore, Canada is New York’s biggest foreign export market, which means that Canada’s retaliatory tariffs could devastate many businesses in New York. For example, New York imports a significant amount of lumber from Canada. In a state that is already reeling from a crisis of unaffordable housing, the rising price of lumber could lead to less or more expensive housing construction. In regards to energy, New York imports 10% of its energy from Canada. The proposed 10% tariff on Canadian energy has the potential to devastate many parts of Upstate New York, which rely on Canadian gas and hydroelectric power.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul criticized the tariff measures, arguing it would hurt New York businesses. She even went as far as to say that Canada and New York were effectively “one region,” citing how the proximity of Fort Erie, Ontario, to New York’s second-largest city, Buffalo makes the two economic regions codependent. The CEO of New York’s Business Council, Heather Mulligan, claimed that the New York state businesses “[are] deeply concerned about the impacts these tariffs will have on New York’s economy, particularly our manufacturing sector.”
In Binghamton, a group of citizens gathered at the Universalist Unitarian Church in January to discuss tariffs’ possible impacts on New York’s Southern tier. The crowd had largely mixed reactions to the tariffs, with some highlighting possi-
By Gerard Mazzone
ble benefits for businesses in and around Binghamton. For instance, one participant cited how American shoe manufacturer New Balance was able to raise the price of the shoes they manufacture to $100 “and make a much larger profit as a result of the tariffs.” However, in a political environment where voters have routinely listed inflation as a top concern, the higher profitability of a shoe manufacturer is highly unlikely to convince them to accept higher prices for everyday necessities.
Binghamton University has received millions of dollars in federal funding for clean energy research and has spearheaded an effort to achieve carbon neutrality. However, the higher cost of imported natural gas and oil could accelerate the university’s push to decarbonize.
Valentine’s and Mother’s Day could also be impacted by the proposed tariff hikes. Across the country, flower shops and other businesses closely associated with the two holidays have reported that tariffs could force them to increase prices on everything from flowers to chocolate. Jennifer Rukavina-Bidwill, owner of the Paduch flower company in Kentucky, said that “President Trump’s planned tariffs will impact their shop, raising the price of some Mother’s Day purchases.” For students at Binghamton, this means that your holiday shopping could become significantly more expensive.
While there has been much speculation about the effects that tariffs may have on the U.S. economy and consumers, the actual effects are still unclear. Today, the Trump administration announced that they would pause tariffs for a month after a conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, likely sparing consumers of the effects for Valentine’s Day. However, the consequences remain to be seen, as a collapse in negotiations could easily reignite a trade war and lead to higher prices for consumers in a month’s time.
Miscellaneous Movie Reviews
By William T. Manos
Itwas back in October when a friend of mine shared a short clip from Megalopolis in a Discord server I frequent. It took nothing more than a minute or two, but it hooked in all of us who saw it. For a movie featuring such star power, the acting seemed so off, goofy, and so ridiculous that we had to watch it. Fair warning: this article will contain spoilers for Megalopolis, so if you would prefer to live in ignorance of how bad this movie is, leave now. I will also preface this with the fact that the movie is bad. The writing is weird, it feels like a fever dream, and watching it has haunted me to the point where I feel I need to get my thoughts out about it months later.
Megalopolis is a terrible movie. I don’t think I would force it upon my worst enemy. The clip that my friends and I had seen made us think that the movie would be so bad it was funny, but after watching the movie, I realized it was actually so bad that it pained me to watch it. Things always feel off, the dialogue seems weird, the plot is convoluted, and the symbolism is so sporadic that I don’t expect it to literally show someone buried in the sand as a way to establish they are stuck in the past, which left me momentarily thinking we had changed locations to the Sahara. Could the movie have been good? Yes, absolutely. There was great potential for a movie about an artist clashing with the establishment, but the framing of it being a modern retelling of Roman history made it feel jarring to go from characters being named Crassus and Cicero to “Wow Platinum.” Slight spoiler alert, but the main character achieves his goal. I think it could have been a great idea to instead make this a tragedy about how he fails and is continuously rebuffed by zoning laws. Maybe I’m the weird one for wanting a movie about an architect fighting against planning permissions and trying to break through all the red tape, but that would have made a much better movie than whatever this was.
With just Megalopolis, this article would not be long enough to print, but luckily for me, I watched other odd movies. One that you may have heard of is Parkour Civilization. For those who are uninformed, it is a “movie” in that it is a twohour-long story told in a collection of shorter videos, and honestly, it wasn’t as bad as Megalopolis. It was refreshingly coherent, though very repetitive since the episodic form led to recaps every five minutes when watching it the whole way through. After Megalopolis, it was nice to hear a simple, easy-to-follow
story. As the story progressed, it became slightly boring and ridiculous, and funny to riff on jokes about it while the friends I was watching it with slowly lost their minds. One of my favorite aspects of it is that it absolutely commits to the bit. It feels so full of itself that I think it has to be in on the joke. It insists upon itself, but so much it almost feels charming. It isn’t catastrophically bad, but not much else about it stands out. Maybe I have to watch the sequel to truly understand the secrets of Parkour Civilization
To quote one of the friends I was watching with, “That was unironically so peak.”
Lastly, and luckily for the readers, I did watch one good movie last semester, one that I would recommend to anyone reading this. Simply put, Hundreds of Beavers is a cinematic
masterpiece. As a weird indie film, I wasn’t expecting much from it, and I went in with the knowledge that it was a blackand-white, mostly silent film from 2022. It blew away my expectations, along with those of my friends whomst I watched with. It is nearly two hours of unabashed slapstick comedy, and it isn’t afraid to commit to the bit. The film takes place in the frigid Midwest winter wilderness, where the protagonist learns trapping to make a living, and features his escapades while this happens. To add to the hilarity, none of the animals are trying to look real, as they all are just people in mascot outfits. This movie absolutely understands the appeal of going all the way in on a concept, and it is wonderful. To quote one of the friends I was watching with, “That was unironically so peak.” I know the other movies have been questionable, but this one I actually enjoyed, not just for watching with friends and seeing them suffer for watching the movie, but because it was actually good.
A lot of the movies I’ve seen in theatres recently have lost their luster, and I feel that it’s kinda sad to see a lack of interesting titles, especially with so many super-big-budget failures. Even though movies haven’t really seemed worth watching, I keep hope that they’ll be good sometime soon. After all, Hundreds of Beavers released 3 years ago. It’s only a matter of time before I get to see Thousands of Beavers
The Art of Locking In
By Angelo DiTocco
Haveyou ever had to do an entire assignment the day it was due? Have you ever been neck-and-neck with an opponent during a sport or video game? Have you ever had a project advisor call you out for slacking because you barely started the presentation due this week? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you probably know what it’s like to be in a state of peak focus and concentration, with every single CPU core in your brain fully utilized for the task at hand, and without a care in the world about anything else. There are many terms you could use to describe this: flow state, in the zone, etc., but one term remains popular among today’s youth: locking in
But what truly causes one to lock in? Can it be done reliably? For a while, I thought it was impossible. It seemed like the state of locking in was a thing that just happened, a rare gemerald of a mindset that took over your brain at odd times. Man, if only I could be that confident all the time, I, and probably many of you, have wished. Well, I’m not quite a Gigachad top 1% alpha male yet, but I think I may have found a way.
One day, I was live on Twitch doing some speedrunning when I started getting frustrated. I was missing the same trick over and over again, even though I’d practiced it countless times. As my confusion and anger began to escalate, one viewer successfully pointed out, “You are in your head.” He then suggested I read The Inner Game of Tennis
This is a book by W. Timothy Gallwey, a tennis player and coach who discovered a more hands-off approach to teaching beginners. But it’s not just about tennis. After finishing the novel, not only did my gameplay improve, but I soon realized its principles could be applied to so much more. “There is never a time or situation that you cannot practice, save perhaps sleep,” Gallwey writes.
You might already be thinking of a specific area or two in your life in which you’d like to achieve this flow state. As I explain the concepts of the Inner Game, I’ll be bringing up a few examples, but I obviously can’t cover all possible bases. As you read, feel free to think about how these strategies can be adapted to your own personal life and hobbies. Without further ado, here is the art of locking in.
The Two Selves
You may find yourself engaged in an internal monologue when trying to perform a task. This can instead be thought of as an interaction between two different entities. There is the conscious “Self 1” which gives commands and feedback, and there is the unconscious “Self 2” which achieves things through deep muscle memory.
The problem arises when Self 1 starts to overthink and take control over the sit-
uation, sabotaging Self 2’s natural ability. As a result, you tense up, make stiff movements, and do worse than you did before. This makes sense—has it ever felt natural to breathe manually? (Sorry.)
As soon as I employed this tactic, my accuracy dropped to 0%. It turns out that thinking, “stand behind the center of the table and throw it straight,” was inferior to just imagining the ball landing in the cup.
Instead, in order to lock in, you’ll have to quiet your Self 1 and allow Self 2 to get the job done. This is done through several techniques, such as reducing judgement, trusting your natural abilities, and directing more of your focus on the task at hand.
Reducing Judgements
We all crave feedback on our work, but it can be that exact feedback that gets in our heads and makes us self-conscious. It should be pretty obvious that criticizing yourself can cause you to try too hard to correct yourself, letting Self 1 take over. However, compliments can even throw you off, as they put more pressure on you to perform well.
When an event happens, it’s best to only think about what exactly happened and not to assign it any “good” or “bad” value. It’s especially important not to think of it as a reflection of who you are. There is a major difference between being stupid as a person and being stupid at a particular moment.
In the world of academics, it can be quite difficult or even impossible to avoid judgements, as nearly every assignment receives some sort of grade. But it is totally possible to let go of your judgements during any particular moment. The ageold strategy of deciding to come back to a test question as soon as it gives you any trouble does exactly this—it causes you to temporarily forget how confident or hesitant you were with the previous few questions, thus locking in on the question at hand. When studying, you could try to avoid keeping track of exactly how many flashcards or practice problems you get right or wrong. When I was speedrunning, I found that I played a bit better when I hid the timer or didn’t look at it often. And I’m trying my best not to check the word count of this article until after I finish the rough draft. (Holy crap! I accidentally wrote a two-pager!)
Trusting Yourself
As I explained earlier, a common fac-
tor of “tilting” is Self 1 needlessly analyzing the situation and barking commands and feedback at Self 2. Instead, it’s good to show Self 2 the desired outcome and simply let it happen. You don’t think to yourself, “move your right foot forward, then move your left foot forward…” when walking. You just imagine yourself going to a place and then your automatic Self 2 takes you there.
Let’s take a game of pong I played recently. Now, I’m not gonna pretend I’m any good at pong, nor that I found the secret to it. But when my inexperienced ass got to the table, I found out that I was sinking a couple more shots than I thought I would. So surely I would do better if I lined my shots up and tried to be as precise as possible, right? Nope. As soon as I employed this tactic, my accuracy dropped to 0%. It turns out that thinking, “stand behind the center of the table and throw it straight,” was inferior to just imagining the ball landing in the cup. A picture is worth a thousand words after all.
Many of the best videos I’ve made are those in which I had no concern about how many views they’d get. You can’t control my life with numbers.
Learning to Focus
Rather than obsessing over the exact movements and decisions you’re making, it’s generally better to focus on parts of the environment around you, and ideally so much so that you forget to think about anything else. What that environment consists of is obviously going to vary from activity to activity. Tim Gallwey instructed his students to say the words “bounce” and “hit” when the tennis balls bounced off the floor and hit the rackets. In his words, “It’s hard to be saying ‘bounce-hit’ and at the same time overinstructing yourself, trying too hard, or worrying about the score.” Aside from verbalizing your gameplay, paying attention to the movements of objects or any rhythmic elements of your activity can also serve to direct more of your mental energy to the task at hand.
Another thing that can help is background noise, such as music or podcasts. Obviously, this won’t always be applicable unless you want your professor to invalidate your test scores, but it can help if you’re doing something with a lot of downtime. Ideally, you want it to not be too distracting but just engaging enough that during a break in your activity, you can jam out instead of worrying about how close the game is or ruminating on that cringe social mistake you made 5 years ago. This explains the popularity of “Lo-Fi Indie 24/7 Chill Hip Hop Study Beats” and the like, though I personally prefer something more upbeat. Locking… Out?
There’s a common theme among all of these techniques, which is that they all involve tuning out some other thing to become more aware of the present moment. This is not only the key to concentration but an important facet of life as well. The advice “don’t compare yourself to others” is so cliche and way easier said than done, but it’s also 100% true. “[You must learn] how to distinguish the inner requests of Self 2 from the outer demands that have been internalized by Self 1,” writes Gallwey. The ideal player wants to win not to prove he’s better than his opponent but because he loves the game and wants to see himself do
well. Many of the best videos I’ve made are those in which I had no concern about how many views they’d get. You can’t control my life with numbers.
Again, there are many instances in which the only way to win is to live in the moment rather than concerning yourself with the future. And yet, I sit here, with my class in 30 minutes, foolishly wondering whether I’ll be able to execute any “W Rizz” within it. I refer to locking in as an art form for a reason. Just like anything else, it takes time and practice before it becomes a habit. And that’s OK. It’s just another skill in life that we’ll never be perfect at. You can’t check every box 100% of the time, and besides, worrying about how much you worry is rather silly, isn’t it?
Conclusion
The key to locking in is to limit self-conscious involvement from Self 1 so that Self 2 can do its thing. There are many different methods that can be employed to do this, some more practical and procedural and others more abstract. However, they all share the same objective: live in the moment and avoid as many comparisons against others and concerns about the past or future as you reasonably can. Didn’t Thanos see like 14 million futures in that one movie? He must be doing it wrong.
I tried my best to explain them, but there’s a good chance I at least slightly butchered the concepts of The Inner Game. I have seen some success applying these principles (admittedly, mostly in that they have made me a better speedrunner), but again, I’m not nearly a perfect locker-inner. I’m not sponsored or anything, but if you’d like to know more, you should read the full book. It’ll only take a few hours.
I leave you with this meme. Feel free to make it your life’s mantra, as have I:
(In case the meme doesn’t print legibly, here is what it says: “Popcorn get cooked in the same pot, same heat, same oil but they don’t all pop at the same time. Don’t compare yourself to others, your time to pop is coming”)
