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MEDICI MANAGEMENT DISPUTES HEAD BAKER’S PURPORTED FIRING

OCTOBER 7, 2020 SECOND WEEK VOL. 133, ISSUE 3

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Divvy Bikes: a Safe COVID Activity

Sanders at IOP: “You Can’t Sit Out This Election.”

Alexandra Nisenoff

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New COVID Dashboard & Caseload Update After First Week, Move-In Brinda R ao

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VIEWPOINTS: Vote for the Tax Amendment in November PAGE 4

Miles Burton

NEWS: Faculty Coalition to Strike Over Anti-Racism Demands PAGE 2

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SPORTS: Varsity Soccer During COVID-19

ARTS: Among Us Capitalizes on Tension and Disaster and Offers a Metaphor for 2020

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Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/chicagomaroon and follow @chicagomaroon on Instagram and Twitter to get the latest updates on campus news.

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Medici Management Denies Rumor of Head Baker’s Firing

By KATE MABUS Deputy News Editor On September 17, rumors began to spread around Hyde Park that Medici on 57th, a dining mainstay for students and Hyde Park locals, had fired its longtime head baker Gracie Gamero, leading some community members and UChicago students to call for a boycott of the restaurant.

After fliers posted around Hyde Park called for a boycott of Medici, claims about the circumstances of Gamero’s employment circulated on social media.

One post to the UChicago Mutual Aid Facebook group claimed that “the new general manager fired Gracie, their pastry chef of 35 years, without any reason as far as I can tell, and without giving her any kind of retirement/severance.” The post further alleged that the manager “had the gall to call her and ask her for her recipes for the pastries without offering her any compensation for them.”

The owner and general manager of Medici both told The Maroon that Gamero was not fired, but she was furloughed due to concerns for her health

while COVID-19 cases in the area remain high.

Kirsten Esterly, who retired as general manager of the Medici in August, said that Gamero did not support the boycott in a post to the closed Hyde Park Classics Facebook group. “While I’m very disappointed in the manner Gracie left the Medici, I can say that she was planning on retiring in the near future and that she has asked that I post this on her behalf since she is not on Facebook,” Esterly said.

Despite multiple attempts, The Maroon could not reach Esterly for comment.

Medici owner Kathy Morsbach told The Maroon in an email that Gamero “was furloughed because of concerns about her health which make her a highrisk for COVID-19. It was for this reason that my management staff and I felt that it was safer for her to be home until the incidence of COVID in the community declined.”

Morsbach also responded to rumors that the Medici had been sold following the hiring of new management after Esterly retired. “The ownership of the

restaurant remains with the Morsbach family, as it has for over 50 years,” Morsbach said.

“Since the decision was made, we have maintained constant and open communication with Gracie and her

family to monitor the evolution of pandemic circumstances and her return to work,” Medici general manager Pablo Manriquez said in an email.

The Maroon was unable to reach Gamero for comment.

The Medici on 57th, adyant kanakamedala

Faculty Stage Diversity Strike, Cite Inadequate Anti-Racism

By AVI WALDMAN News Reporter On August 6, a coalition of faculty affiliated with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC) published a letter calling for a diversity strike in protest of what they say are the University’s failures to meaningfully address systemic racism on campus.

The letter lays out a set grievances in response to how, according to the authors, the University reproduces “racist structures and social systems.” It lists the failure to hire a permanent faculty director for the CSRPC, a budget cut of more than $50,000 for the coming year, and the University’s continued support of the University of Chicago Police Department as key issues that motivated its set of demands, and which convinced the authors of the urgent need to hold the University accountable for its role in perpetuating racial injustice.

Faculty demands include hiring independence and an annual budget of at least $2 million for the CSRPC; the creation of a Department of Critical Race Studies and of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Council made up of faculty, staff, and students; the eventual defunding of UCPD; and the establishment of a reparations committee. Until their listed demands are met, all faculty signing onto the letter will refuse to participate in University-led diversity and inclusion initiatives or allow the University to capitalize on their work for publicity.

In the month since CSRPC faculty released their open letter announcing the diversity strike, representatives of the group have met with provost Ka Yee Lee twice but have not received any concessions to their demands.

In a statement sent to The Maroon on August 5, University spokesperson Gerald McSwiggan promised that the Office of the Provost would engage seriously with the let-

ter’s demands.

“The faculty letter reflects a great deal of thought and dialogue, and will require serious engagement by the Office of the Provost and faculty throughout the University,” McSwiggan said. “The University is committed to further collaboration and action to achieve common goals, including ensuring that the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, and related efforts of University faculty, have the support needed to ‘become an even more vital part of the University of Chicago community.’”

History professor Adam Green told The Maroon in a statement that August’s #MoreThanDiversity letter was written after years of private meetings with administration, committee reports, and campus surveys failed to produce any concrete efforts to address the University’s relationship to systemic racism. Spurred by the nationwide protests against police violence and their own experiences, faculty of color and

their allies decided a more public stand was necessary.

“By saying that we are withholding our effort from University operations related to diversity and inclusion, we are spotlighting our charge that the University’s own policies are proven to be incapable of meeting its stated aims—certainly its most recent resolution to oppose racism in all its forms,” Green wrote.

“We are challenging University of Chicago’s diversity and inclusion policy because we believe that is necessary in order to realize the more reliable condition of racial equity and justice.”

Several of the campaign’s demands, primarily defunding UCPD and determining reparations for South Side communities harmed by University policies, call on the University to work with groups such as the student-led #CareNotCops and grassroots community organizations in Hyde Park CONTINUED ON PG. 3

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Diversity Strikers Urge Greater Focus on Diversity & Inclusion CONTINUED FROM PG. 2

and beyond. Others, such as the demand for a Department of Critical Race Studies and greater budget allocations for the CSRPC, echo those made by student organizing groups such as UChicago United, one of the parent organizations of #CareNotCops, and its #EthnicStudiesNow campaign. Students working on those campaigns say that #MoreThanDiversity marks a shift within the faculty toward a bolder organizing strategy.

Third-year organizer Victoria Bonilla, who has worked on #EthnicStudiesNow since her first year, said that in the past it had been difficult to get CSRPC faculty to agree to publicly support their demands for an ethnic studies department.

“We’re definitely grateful that our faculty allies have finally reached a point where they feel comfortable publicly releasing this and somewhat supporting our demands,” Bonilla said. “But we still feel as if they have yet to completely sign on to what we’ve been

saying this whole time.”

Now that faculty have established open lines of communication with student organizers, Bonilla said she hoped that faculty support would extend beyond the demands laid out in the #MoreThanDiversity letter. Third-year #CareNotCops organizer Roma Linares added that while they were encouraged by the letter’s explicit support for defunding UCPD, they wanted to see faculty continue to organize in support of other goals put forward by students: for example,

softening the disciplinary consequences threatened against students who engage in protests.

“I would like to see a continued relationship with the faculty past the point that they get what they’ve been asking for and what really affects them and their spheres,” Linares said. “What we’ve been wanting this whole time is their support because faculty have more power than students with the University, and more sway, so I think we would just like them to take a bit more of a risk for us.”

Bernie Sanders Backs Biden at IOP Talk

By BRAD SUBRAMANIAM Deputy News Editor U.S. Senator and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (A.B. ’64) condemned President Donald Trump, criticized the Democratic Party, and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden at an Institute of Politics webinar hosted by former senior advisor and IOP Executive Director David Axelrod last Friday.

Sanders began by stating his support for 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, Biden, and added that while he disagreed with Biden on certain policy issues, the costs of a continued Trump presidency outweighed his differences with Biden.

“I consider Donald Trump to be the most dangerous president in the history of this country… If you believe in democracy, if you believe in science, if you believe in civil rights and racial justice, if you believe in the need to combat climate change by transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, if

you happen to believe that healthcare is a human right and all of our people should have it, you know what, you can’t sit out this election,” Sanders said.

Sanders added that although Biden holds more conservative policy views than he does, Democratic victories in Congressional races could push Biden to implement more progressive policies.

“After Biden is inaugurated, let’s get to work to make sure that Biden becomes the most progressive president in modern American history. We can do that if we have a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House,” Sanders said.

Sanders characterized Trump’s political success as a result of the Democratic Party’s failure to protect the interests of working-class Americans.

“The Democratic Party has to not only start speaking to but start fighting for the working class, but you can’t do that if you’re beholden to big-money interests,” Sanders said.

Sanders criticized the Electoral College system, which he argued overrepresents some states and unfairly diminishes the needs of larger and more populous states.

He pointed to the results of the 2016 presidential election, in which Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million, but lost key electoral votes in swing states.

“There are states voting Republicans and states voting Democrat, who cares about those states? I am deeply worried about Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. We’re listening to the needs of those kinds of states, but that’s not fair to the other 35 states in this country,” Sanders said.

Sanders also described the need for minimizing disinformation campaigns prevalent on social media, which he said harmed meaningful debate.

“We need to do our best through social media and the media in general to create fact-based debates. We can disagree on certain issues, but we should not disagree on the

facts,” Sanders said.

Sanders also implored listeners to consider those with opposing politics earnestly.

“Treat people who disagree with you with respect. They’re not deplorable; they’re human beings. Once you get to that, you begin to find that there’s a lot more that people have in common than the media tells us,” Sanders said.

Sanders ended by discussing issues of social justice reform and voiced his disagreement with individuals proposing to defund police departments.

“The idea of defunding the police does not make sense to me. What makes sense to me is to understand that police are called upon today to do so many things that are not necessarily police work… Police officers do not necessarily receive the training to deal with issues of mental illness, homelessness, and the issues of young people in the way that they should. I think we’re talking about redefining policing in America, but that doesn’t mean defunding,” Sanders said.

New Data Science Major to Seek Approval This Year

By LUKIAN KLING News Contributor UChicago professors are designing a new data science major to be implemented in the College in the near future.

Mike Franklin, Liew Family Chair of Computer Science, and Dan Nicolae, chair of the statistics department, said this proposal comes as a result of the burgeoning field of data science “seeing tremendous interest

from students.”

Students are currently able to study data science as a 600-unit minor in the College.

The minor was unveiled for the 2019–20 school year.

The major will incorporate elements of computer science and statistics into its framework while also drawing from other sources to be wholly unique, according to Franklin and Nicolae. Some new courses have already been developed for the major,

such as Introduction to Data Science I and II, and Ethics, Fairness, Responsibility, and Privacy in Data Science.

The major will involve more than simply teaching students to code and analyze data, according to Franklin and Nicolae. Data science “involves a process that begins with question formulation, experimental design, etc., and continues through result communications (e.g., data visualization) and the curation of data sets, predictive models,

and analyses,” Franklin and Nicolae jointly wrote in an email.

The email stated, “Throughout this process, there are issues of data ethics, societal impact, policy and regulation, and responsible data collection, use, and organization.

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“...UChicago has an opportunity to be a real leader in helping to define the field.”

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students develop the foundational skills and insights that will allow them to contribute to many fields and to continue to grow their expertise as technology and Data Science continue to evolve and expand.”

According to Franklin and Nicolae, the creation of the new major will include an effort to recruit new data science faculty to the University of Chicago. “This year we will welcome our first two new Assistant Professors as part of a Data Science hiring

initiative and will be recruiting additional tenure-track faculty. These faculty will be hired into existing departments but will join a group focused on defining and delivering Data Science programs. We will also recruit Data Science Instructional Professors to teach and mentor the students in the undergraduate programs,” the professors said.

Though they do not have an exact date ready for the major’s offering, Franklin and Nicolae say their current plan is to “obtain the approval for the major this academic

year.”

Furthermore, they stated that the major’s planning process is still ongoing, and much remains to be ironed out. “We plan to create new classes on foundational issues in Data Science and on applications to different domains of knowledge, but we also have questions that remain to be resolved, such as whether or not there will be some sort of a capstone project and if so, how that would work,” Franklin and Nicolae wrote.

Data science is a growing discipline that

has seen much interest in recent years. Peer schools that recently developed majors in data science include Yale in 2017 and the University of Michigan in 2015.

“Unlike Computer Science and Statistics, which have been taught at universities for decades, Data Science education is still quite new and so there is much work to be done in terms of defining a curriculum,” Franklin and Nicolae wrote. “It is still early enough that UChicago has an opportunity to be a real leader in helping to define the field.”

9 Positive COVID-19 Tests Headline UChicago’s First Week of Re-Opening Updates

By MATTHEW LEE & MILES BURTON News Editor, Editor-in-Chief Out of 4,979 tests administered by the University of Chicago as part of its on-campus housing move-in program between September 20 and October 1, nine have returned positive for COVID-19, according to an update email sent to university members Friday afternoon. In sum, 14 university affiliates have tested positive for COVID-19 between Septem-

ber 20 and October 1. Six of the confirmed cases were students living off campus.

The email also noted “a small cluster of COVID-19 cases this week involving students at the Harris School of Public Policy,” connected to off-campus interactions.

Administrators have undertaken some disciplinary action for violations of COVID safety guidelines. After the first week of the quarter, “two students were removed from on-campus housing for the rest of Autumn Quarter for vio-

lations of University and City of Chicago public health requirements, and other students who have been in large groups outdoors while violating public health requirements have received final warnings.” Dean of Students in the University Michele Rasmussen also sent students an email discussing safe socialization practices Friday afternoon.

The UChicago Accident/Incident Reporting System (UCAIR) has received “211 reports concerning COVID-19 issues” since September 20, per the email.

“The most common problems reported were failure to observe six feet of social distancing, and failure to wear face coverings appropriately.” UCAIR has also received complaints about students gathering off-campus.

In an email to The Maroon, University spokesperson Jeremy Manier said additional functions will be added to the University’s new COVID-19 dashboard over the coming week, including the ability to sort data by time frame. Presently, the dashboard is a static image.

VIEWPOINTS Vote for the Graduated Tax Amendment This November We have to stop relying on the philanthropy of billionaires and, instead, democratically solve societal issues; a graduated tax is the first step.

By ISAAC WINK Chiara Cordelli, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, gives a scathing critique of ultra-wealthy philanthropists in Anand Giridharadas’s book Winners Take All:

“When it comes to effecting change in a way that makes them feel good—when it comes to building a business, lobbying for certain things, effectively helping some people through philanthropy, then they are agents. They powerfully and inten-

tionally can exercise change…. When it comes to paying more taxes, when it comes to trying to advocate for more just institutions…then they’re paralyzed.”

I believe Cordelli is half-right. It’s true that economic elites are enthusias-

tic in their quest to solve public problems through the private sector. But when presented with public solutions, they are not paralyzed; rather, they work vigorously against them.

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“Government is not always as responsive or presentative as it should be, but it will always be more responsive and more representative than any billionaire philanthropist.”

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For evidence of this dynamic, look no farther than the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, named for the Citadel CEO who donated $125 million to the department in 2017. Griffin, one of the richest individuals in Illinois, regularly makes gargantuan contributions to admirable causes, yet there is one institution he hopes stays starved: the Illinois state government.

An impoverished government not only means less money for public services; it also means more policy influence for philanthropic billionaires who can pick and choose what problems get addressed by cutting seven-figure checks. If we want to shift control of public policy

back into the hands of the public, we need the rich to pay more in taxes. On November 3, our state has the chance to make that happen by voting for the graduated income tax amendment.

Illinois is locked by its constitution into a flat income tax, meaning that all income must be taxed at the same percentage, currently 4.95 percent. A flat income tax is a sweet deal for billionaires, because their tax rate will always be capped by the amount of pain that politicians are willing to put on the state’s poorest residents. As of 2018, Illinois had a lower tax rate for its highest earners than 34 of the 43 states that levy an income tax.

This November, Illinois voters will weigh in on a constitutional amendment that would

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permit the state to use a graduated income tax. Under this system—used by 32 states and the federal government—income is bracketed and then taxed at different percentages. For instance, under the rates passed by the General Assembly to go into effect if the amendment is approved, the first $10,000 a person makes would be taxed at 4.75 percent, their income between $10,001 and $100,000 would be taxed at 4.9 percent, and so on.

While the tax rate would decrease or stay the same for all taxpayers making less than $250,000, it would increase substantially for billionaires like Kenneth Griffin. That in part explains why he’s given tens of millions to a committee fighting to oppose the amendment’s passage.

Griffin regularly gives away hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why is he so scared of paying more in taxes? Probably because he knows that what’s on the ballot this November is not just a policy change; it’s a referendum on two visions for addressing society’s problems.

Supporting the graduated income tax means strengthening the tools of democracy to respond to those problems. If people think the state should provide a particular service, they can convince their representatives to support it or vote in new representatives who will.

However, the services many people believe the government should provide, such as free or subsidized healthcare, affordable housing, and expanded social services, cost money. They are only possible to implement when everyone pays their fair share. At this moment, though, the flat income tax requirement is stymying the success of public solutions in Illinois.

Opposing the graduated income tax means supporting Kenneth Griffin’s vision of problem-solving: private philanthropy by donors who are unaccountable to democratic institutions. Under this system, the list of problems that need solving and their respective solutions is set by the small group of wealthy individuals who can afford to fund them on a community-wide scale. Griffin has no problem, for instance, donating $1 million to Chicago Public Schools to help deliver meals to students while schools are closed. But this model depends on the continued benevolence of billionaires. What if, instead of accepting his charity, the city decided to create a sustainable revenue source for its meal delivery program by placing a tax on hedge funds like Citadel? I suspect Griffin would fight it tooth and nail.

Consider how these opposing visions tackle the problem of affordable college. An approach centered on private philanthropy calls on the winners of capitalism to donate to funds like the Odyssey Scholarship program to support the education of low-income students. Donors get praised for their generosity, and the university gets praised for its commitment to lowering barriers. But when both of these groups view low-income students as pawns to enhance their prestige, the students themselves may suffer for it.

A public-oriented approach might involve working through the legislative process to offer grants to college students that would provide affordable access to a wide range of schools. Grants could be given to all students who fall below a certain income threshold, not just the relatively small group who attend a highly selective private university. Perhaps the state would pay for this

policy by raising taxes on billionaires, who would inevitably complain that their increased taxes would make it harder for them to make charitable contributions. Personally, I think I can stomach a world with fewer dining halls named for megadonors if it means more money for public services.

Obviously, a graduated income tax would not solve all the state’s problems, including the massive amount of money that permeates our political system.

It’s an uncomfortable contradiction that this amendment is being championed by our billionaire governor, J.B. Pritzker, who has personally given $56.5 million to support its passage. But I want to live in a world without ultra-wealthy donors who sink millions of dollars into politics, so in the meantime I can begrudgingly accept the support of a billionaire who spends absurd amounts of money to create that world.

Democracy in Illinois is far from perfect, and political corruption remains a serious issue.

But we should keep in mind another lesson from Cordelli: “The government is us.” Government is not always as responsive or representative as it should be, but it will always be more responsive and more representative than any billionaire philanthropist.

If you want to live in a state where addressing our communities’ most pressing needs depends on Kenneth Griffin’s personal generosity, vote no on the graduated income tax amendment. But if you want to live in a state where the public, not billionaires, decides how resources are distributed, then vote yes.

Isaac Wink graduated from the College in 2019.

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ARTS Red Is Lowkey Sus: A Political Reflection on Among Us

By ALINA KIM Arts Editor 2020, despite its travesties, won in the gaming world. When Animal Crossing: New Horizons dropped earlier this year, Nintendo Switch consoles sold out everywhere in America. The Honeybee Inn dance in Final Fantasy VII: Remake went viral as we re-fell in love with Cloud Strife’s narrative. One of 2020’s most anticipated releases, The Last of Us Part II, infuriated some lifelong fans with its vengeance-denying resolution and inspired others with a lesson about the futility of violence. Now, indie game Among Us has entered the chat, bringing gamers from around the world together in chaotic gameplay as impostors kill innocent crew members while denying their murderous intent.

Straight out of a science fiction movie, Among Us’s gameplay is violent, yet simple: Five to 10 crew members are trapped on a spacecraft, fighting to keep the vehicle up and running by completing minigame tasks with a very limited visual scope. One to three impostors sabotage the crew by tinkering with the spacecraft’s mechanisms and, occasionally, murder an innocent crew member or two. The minigame tasks are unique to each of the game’s three maps: The Skeld, Polus, and Mira HQ. When a player discovers a dead body (a halved avatar with flesh and bone exposed), they report the death, calling a meeting in which all remaining players discuss who the impostors might be. Often, they compare alibis: “I was scanning in Medbay”; “I was taking forever to calibrate in the electrical room”; “You think my ass can fit in the vent?” In other, more intense discussions, accusations come flying: “I saw fake tasks!”; “Guys, if I’m wrong about them, vote me out next”; “But I saw them kill.” Breaching anarchic destruction, the gameplay frequently dissolves into furiously-typed deductions and empty promises to partner up to ensure temporary survival.

After discussion, players vote out one player at a time (or skip, sparing all from

death), and discover if they killed a fellow crew member or succeeded in finding the impostor. The game ends when there is an equal number of impostors and crew members (resulting in the impostors’ victory), all the impostors are discovered, or all tasks are completed.

Panic ensues with the game’s additional mechanics: The impostor can sneak into the air vents to teleport between rooms and assassinate a player.

Everyone aboard can access the security cameras to spy on other players.

An emergency meeting can be called, should someone see a suspicious action from one avatar…or if the impostor wishes to throw suspicion elsewhere.

In sum, Among Us is a game of manipulation, deceit, and paranoia. You lie to your friends about your whereabouts, desperately coerce people into believing your task list, or descend into feigned madness as the impostors falsely accuse your innocent avatar of murder. It is best played with friends who believe your real, out-of-game life aspirations, thus allowing you to either exploit their trust or, at the very least, startle them with your brutal ability to cleave a body in half and deny the blood on your hands.

The timing of Among Us’s popularity is no coincidence: developed by a three-person team at InnerSloth in 2018, the game caught the attention of zero gamers until Twitch streamer Sodapoppin displayed it earlier this summer. Now with over 86 million downloads, the violent nature of the gameplay appeals to the cynicism and impatience of the frustrated and socially distanced in quarantine. At its release, Animal Crossing: New Horizons offered an opportunity to build an eternally peaceful world that transcends the death and violence ravaging our own reality. It was solace in the face of pestilence. On the contrary, Among Us’s Impostor character grounds us in the chaos we are living through, embodying the backstabbing tendencies of real-world political leaders who swear they are working hard to keep all of us alive while reaping personal reward at the expense of

What were you doing in electrical? An awkward question if you are Yellow.

Courtesy of innersloth countless dead innocents. Meanwhile, the crew members live with the ironic belief that they have authority over the spacecraft, which is throttling toward an unknown location and on the brink of breakdown. After all, it is within their abilities, and only their own abilities, to fix the wires, dump the trash, and fill up the fuel tanks to sustain the condition of the spacecraft. It is a beautiful, optimistic illusion: As long as the majority of us work together to save our habitat in time, the impostor can’t stop us.

However, power actually rests with the impostors, who keep the crew members wary of each vent, sabotage, and ultimately, avatar. The Impostor figure controls the failing state of the ship— and hence the crew members—who must desperately run to every leaking oxygen tank or reactor on the brink of meltdown or face total death. The crew members live in fear and anticipation of the impostor’s next move, awaiting the inevitable death of the next avatar or

praying their democratic, yet blind, vote brings justice to the murdered. Each crew member, besides temporary alliances, feels ill-equipped and isolated: The only person they can trust is their own self. And the impostors relish in an unspoken power they possess: the scary ability to turn the crew members against each other, despite their collective innocence in the face of mismanaged power.

Among Us is a game I log on to after burning my eyes out in back-to-back Zoom meetings, which I suppose is the greatest ironic parallel of all: My avatar in Among Us is merely fixing wires and buying beverages as the world burns around her. I’m a student studying undergraduate-level politics as the presidential election threatens to shake the very infrastructure of the nation I’ve always known. Eerily, the narrative of the game reflects the bleakness of our own political reality—and whether we’re aware of it or not, as the crew members, CONTINUED ON PG. 7

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“[The] Impostor character grounds us in the chaos....”

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we project the frustrations that the pandemic has encouraged and inflicted upon the general public. We facepalm in frustration when the Impostor wins because the guilty have emerged victorious from an unjust bloodbath, and our blame-shifting has brought our demise.

We find catharsis when the crew members win not simply because of a game well played, but because Among Us has created an imaginary scenario in which we serve justice despite a flawed system that has kept a majority of us unaware of the violence committed. Additionally, when we are impostors, we come to realize how easy it is to cheat the system and place blame on an unaware player.

All it takes is manipulative persuasion, scapegoating and, above all, extra added powers not bestowed upon the common crew member.

The setting of the game is an exhausting, disintegrating environment rigged

against the crew members. Perhaps the most infuriating part comes not as a crew member, but as a murdered ghost, flying around the spacecraft to complete your tasks. You watch crew members discuss things at the meeting table, unable to scream at them who the true impostors are, as they vote out another innocent player. The tension this deception capitalizes on reaches its most infuriating, posthumous peak when the penultimate crew member is thrown out of the airlock, leaving the impostors victorious. Death is no release from the chaos of the spacecraft: In fact, it is another kind of isolation that forces you to watch faith between your crew members disintegrate. It’s torturous, and for lack of a better phrase, a metaphor for 2020 at best.

This isn’t to suck the fun out of Among Us—I’ve pulled all-nighters playing this for a reason. Seeing the self-destructive capabilities of the crew

members is highly entertaining, and every wrong vote is a giddy guarantee that the impostor lives to see another murder spree. The best games I’ve played are a showdown between the last three avatars standing, a gamble of paranoid guessing with a sliver of hope that crew members might win, an exhilarating climax I, and many others, chase every game. With a fantastic player in the impostor role, we can recreate a fun, chaotic gameplay of bad faith actors, trolls, and a community of casual gamers.

After the game ends, regardless of outcome, we return to the lobby to congratulate a successful impostor, share each other’s socials, and join Discord calls to babble about how stupid our logic was when Red was “lowkey sus” but no one acted on it. Among Us capitalizes on tension and disaster but offers a time to unravel with newfound peers. Sure, I might be salty at my friend who voted incorrectly when we depended on her, but

the bitterness dissolves instantly after a “gg.” That’s the final framework that appeals to Among Us gamers: yes, the avatars exist within a murder mystery-like nightmare, but at the end of the day, we find ourselves coming back to this game because it’s like we’re at home, catching up with old friends when the world has returned to its normal state.

Among Us developers promised updates to the game: friends lists, a new map, and more colors. I’m excited to say that I will eagerly await these updates.

Until then, I will be messing with my “Swipe Admin Card” task in The Skeld to the sound of annoying, diegetic beeps. 9/10, InnerSloth.

Among Us is available for purchase on Steam ($4.99), and free in the App Store and Google Play for mobile. I encourage you to actually legally purchase or download this game: support indie gaming companies.

“Tenet” Feels Like We’re Only Going Backwards

By NEEL LAHIRI Arts Contributor “Time travel?”

“Not exactly.”

Anyone familiar with Christopher Nolan’s work will be aware of his infatuation with time—its mechanics, its philosophy, and above all, how it shapes the human experience. In Memento, he played with notions of memory and time, and experimented with narrative nonlinearity in the process. In Inception, he played with perceptions of time at different levels of consciousness. In Interstellar, he played with the physics of time while also exploring the more human side of relativity. Even in Dunkirk, he introduced an unconventional temporal element into his conventional war narrative, winding together three stories that take place over the course of a week, a day, and an hour.

It is therefore surprising that it has taken 11 features for Nolan to experiment with going backwards in time—not narratively, which of course he did with Memento, but physically. The plot ele-

ment that propels Tenet, Nolan’s latest work, is “inversion”: reversing the entropy of matter. Whereas time travel science fiction typically involves jumping across time, from point to point, Tenet instead involves reversing its very flow.

What if we could not merely leap backwards in time, but live it in reverse?

What ensues from this premise is a devastatingly complex espionage thriller, filled with suave, charismatic operatives and wicked, accented villains with nothing less than the fate of the world, of course, hanging in the balance. Tenet revolves around an undercover operation to stop an apocalyptic event arising from the discovery of inversion. The film’s lead (John David Washington), known only as the Protagonist, is tasked with getting to the bottom of the nefarious activities of Anglo-Russian oligarch Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh), who is thought to be somehow facilitating this temporal Armageddon. Assisting the Protagonist in his covert operations are the smooth-talking heist choreographer-cum-physicist Neil (Robert Pattinson) and Sator’s estranged wife Kat

(Elizabeth Debicki). The how, the what, and the why of the temporal apocalypse are mysteries that are to be solved by the viewer as the story progresses.

I have seen this film twice. The aforementioned how, what, and why were spectacularly obscure the first time around, and became clearer (though certainly not crystal) the second. To a greater extent than any of Nolan’s past work, Tenet requires and benefits exponentially from multiple viewings.

Whether a viewer will find this a feature or a bug will depend on them—and will certainly correlate with their thoughts on Nolan’s previous work. The film’s labyrinthine narrative, which needs to be parsed out and pieced together independently by the viewer, will infuriate hardened Nolan skeptics (of which there are legions) and delight his ardent fans (of which there are legions). Few filmmakers can boast a more polarizing œuvre, and Tenet is no exception. It is, for lack of a better word, his Nolan-iest film to date, doubling down on all of the cinematic elements that his critics abhor and his disciples fetishize.

This includes Nolan’s penchant for overwhelming barrages of sound. If you thought that the swelling horns from Hans Zimmer’s Inception soundtrack were excessive, steel yourself; Ludwig Göransson’s soundtrack is far more ear-shattering. This would not be a problem in and of itself if the thundering electronic beats did not repeatedly overwhelm the film’s diegetic sound.

There are swathes of Nolan’s signature explanatory exposition that I missed altogether on my first viewing because it was simply too damn loud to hear.

Tenet is completely unimpeachable, however, regarding its breathtaking visual construction. The film’s mammoth $205 million budget comes through in the sheer opulence emanating from every corner of the screen, as the characters, decked out in the most spectacularly tailored of suits, prance across the globe from London to Mumbai to Oslo to the Vietnamese coast. It is littered with stunning action sequences, from an initial heart-pounding raid of a Ukrainian concert hall to a heist that CONTINUED ON PG. 8

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involves crashing a plane into a hangar— for which, being slavishly committed to doing everything without excessive aid from CGI, Nolan opted to use a real Boeing 747.

Indeed, it is through the film’s visual elements that Nolan makes best use of his temporal premise. It is no exaggeration to state that some of the action is completely unlike anything that has ever been previously put on screens.

Explosions and gunfire are one thing; reverse explosions and reverse gunfire are quite another. Even the most incurious of viewers will be forced to at times stop and mutter to themselves, “How on earth did he do that?”

Nolan’s visual inventiveness, however, does not compensate for, and may indeed emphasize, his inability to fully explore his temporal premise. Invert-

ing the flow of time has myriad philosophical implications pertaining to the nature of free will and cause and effect.

While grazing these ideas from time to time, Tenet brushes them aside for the most part in favor of more—more plot, more action, more sound, more exposition. The magic of his previous films, most notably Inception, has stemmed from the combination of maximalism and depth; Tenet forsakes the latter for the former.

Almost more frustrating than the thematic shortcomings is the underuse of the prodigious acting talent on display. Commanding the screen with polished swagger, Washington possesses a charisma akin to that of his father Denzel. Pattinson, after spending years honing his talent in indie films such as Good Time, High Life, and The Lighthouse, is simultaneously playful and mysteri-

ous, excelling in his return to big-budget cinema. The real standout is the scene-stealing Debicki, who is characteristically resplendent and powerfully conveys the legacy of a psychologically and physically abusive relationship with her husband. Yet all three of these actors are constrained by Nolan’s screenplay, which reduces each character to a mere cog in the engine of the narrative, providing the actors with limited space to deepen and develop their performances despite their very best efforts.

These are not new criticisms of the acclaimed writer-director. Overwhelming sound design, a confusing narrative, lack of thematic depth, and underuse of actors peppered the critical responses to both Inception and Interstellar, his most high-concept films prior to this one. A charitable interpretation of this criticism is that these shortcomings are the

cost of ambition, the price that must be paid to see these wildly inventive stories be given the kind of budgets that Nolan commands. But the difference between Tenet and his previous ambitious work is the lack of soul. Both Inception and Interstellar leveraged their premises to force their protagonists to face an internal reckoning with past trauma.

Tenet had an opportunity to do so in Debicki’s character, but squandered it woefully. All of the action consequently feels somehow bloodless, utterly bereft of stakes. Of course, the world is on the line, but for us mere humans, that is abstract. What is tangible—what makes for investment on the part of the viewer—is the human stakes of a narrative. In focusing on the macro at the expense of the micro, Tenet leaves those human stakes in the dust, and the viewer with them.

Cuties: Addressing Its Controversy

By SEBASTIAN VON STAUFFENBERG Arts Contributor Maïmouna Doucouré’s directorial debut Cuties follows the life of 11-yearold Senegalese immigrant, Amy (Fathia Youssouf), as she finds herself pulled between the demands of her strict religious upbringing and the overtly sexualized Western culture she confronts with her move to Paris. Struggling to fit in, she befriends Angelica (Médina El AidiAzouni), a young girl in a neighboring apartment, who invites her to join their dance troupe Cuties. As the audience follows the events of Amy’s life, we are forced to recognize the ever-growing pressure on young women—or, in this case, a group of prepubescent girls—to capitalize on their sexuality.

By addressing such a controversial topic, Cuties has been fraught with criticism. Its sexually suggestive portrayal of children, most notably its advertising campaign that displayed the cast in a series of revealing outfits, conveyed little context of the film’s main objective as a social critique. Without more information, people could easily be forgiven for

thinking that the project was not driven by more noble motives. On the other hand, it is this same lack of context that sends an important message about the media we have been programmed to consume. Such an in-depth narrative of Amy’s tense relationship with her parents; her responsibility for her siblings; and her intense need for acceptance all play a large part in how we understand her decision to immerse herself into a problematic friend group and her questionable actions thereafter—a luxury that people today are so often not afforded.

As the saying goes, “depiction does not equal endorsement.” In fact, Cuties does the exact opposite of endorsing.

Some of the more controversial scenes— cameras focusing on the crotch area, suggestive dancing, and outright dangerous beauty routines—are jarring in order to question practices we might have been made to normalize. Doucouré, in preparation for this film, tried to make the story more authentic by taking memories from her own life and the accounts of girls she interviewed when writing the script. Even today with TikTok, Gen Z’s social media platform of

choice, we can see similarly troubling value systems at play. Underage users are frequently bombarded with impossible beauty standards and an audience algorithm that teaches young girls to mimic older women with revealing outfits and suggestive dance moves as a way to attain online praise. Charli D’Amelio, the world’s most infamous TikTok user, was only 15 when her dances started gaining worldwide attention. Cuties is simply making us confront and question behavior that is already endemic in much of Western culture.

Note that Cuties does not try to denounce sexuality as a whole, but merely its indoctrination. Through social pressures, young girls have the potential to be inspired to mimic things they may not fully understand—often to untold consequences. This is made clear in the group’s final performance when, mid-routine, Amy’s epiphany about how social pressures have drastically affected her own sense of self sends her instinctually darting into her mother’s arms. She finally embraces her youth.

Doucouré tries to make clear that Amy and her friends are still very much children, despite what their dance rou-

tines might imply. In trying to disinfect Amy’s wound, Angelica licks her fingers to apply washing powder to the cut.

When preparing her brother’s breakfast, Amy counts the individual Cheerios to fill the bowl. She smiles at her friends with a mouth full of gummy bears. To accelerate the growth process, these girls have inevitably had to depart from these innocent moments. A lifestyle that to Amy had initially been seen as a form of liberation has turned out to be even more suffocating.

While Doucouré navigates a very important topic with much more nuance than her critics give her credit, it is not enough to simply identify the problem.

In the film, Amy has to make the decision that her behavior does not fall in line with her own sense of self—a tough decision to make for anyone, let alone a young girl—in order to escape her situation. The film suggests that the onus is on the young girls to question their own behavior, which is, at least for me, a very questionable solution.

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SPORTS Men’s and Women’s Soccer Tackle COVID-19

By GIUSEPPE DI CERA Sports Reporter

The UChicago men’s and women’s soccer teams kicked off their fall season this week as players officially started training together in group settings for the first time in months.

Both programs are coming off incredible seasons in which the men’s team secured their fourth consecutive UAA title and the women’s team reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division III tournament. With these significant achievements, the groups come back determined to make the most of the current opportunity to prepare for next year’s competition. In particular, Ben Brandt, a fourth-year captain on the men’s team, sees this time as “one long preseason for next year. We’re getting ready to come out and show everyone what we can do come 2021.”

Though both teams were stripped of their spring season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, players continued to connect with each other virtually to maintain their group camaraderie throughout the spring and summer. Despite the physical distance, coaches took advantage of this time to send players a variety of workouts to complete on their own, including everything from strength sessions to technical work. With this strongemphasis on individual devel-

Men’s and women’s soccer teams in 2019 courtesy of uchicago athletics

opment, players were able to make detailed training regimens to sharpen their strengths and address their weaknesses in preparation for the fall season.

Throughout the summer, the University’s athletics department played a key role in bringing student-athletes back to campus safely. Initially, players were scheduled to return on September 2 to begin their preseason. However, due to rising cases and positivity rates around the country, the start date for fall sports was pushed back until autumn quarter. Despite this delay in returning to campus, both teams are grateful for the opportunity to simply have a fall season. Anna Kenig-Ziesler, a third-year on the women’s team, notes that this fall is “huge for

our team, especially for our seniors, to have the opportunity to practice together. Even if we’re not competing for anything, we’re all competitive enough to still create an environment that we can get something out of.”

Kenig-Ziesler says that this competitive environment will also be instrumental to integrating the incoming first-years onto the team. “Our main goal is to create and nurture our team culture, with a big focus on incorporating the first years and emphasizing relationship-building between everyone,” she says. Brandt has set a similar expectation for the men’s team, in which he hopes that the group can build a competitive culture that elevates the team to “Be better than we were last season. That’s important to do every

year—having that growth mindset and just being competitive.”

Through a progressive return to play model which slowly integrates small groups into the larger group setting, both teams will practice five times a week until early November. To simulate a regular season, each team will also play competitive intrasquad games on the weekends. Ultimately, as both groups start back up, they do so in a heavily monitored environment with heightened health and safety precautions. Even with these new protocols, Brandt is very optimistic about the current season. “It’ll be a good opportunity to get better as a team, to get closer as a team, and frankly, to feel like life is a little more normal.”

Divvy Bikes Offer Pandemic-Safe Activity

By CHRISTINA PIROTTA Contributing Writer

I noticed Divvy bikes the moment I stepped onto campus my first year, but I didn’t realize their incredible potential until that first spring quarter. A couple friends and I had gone to the Cubs game and decided it would be fun to bike back to Hyde Park. We got day passes and took our time leisurely biking along the lakefront, past Chicago favorites such as the Lincoln Park Zoo, Navy Pier, Millennium Park, and the Shedd Aquarium.

When I came back to school as a second-year (now living in an off-campus

apartment), I decided I would purchase an annual Divvy membership. UChicago has four Divvy stations on campus and a few more in the surrounding blocks. Since there is a Divvy station right outside my apartment, I wanted to save some time by biking—rather than walking—to the gym, to the libraries, or to my research lab.

When I came back to Chicago this summer, I decided to explore the untapped potential of the Divvy membership. While Divvy bikes aren’t the greatest bikes, they are still good for cross training. With Ratner gym being closed for the summer, being able to Divvy was a nice switch up from always running or

playing soccer. More importantly, Divvy bikes provided the perfect mode of outdoor transportation to explore different parts of Chicago. The lakefront trail has both walking and biking paths and the views are breathtaking. It takes anywhere between 40 minutes to an hour to get to downtown Chicago from Hyde Park and you can choose to keep biking north (I like Montrose Beach!) or you can bike into the city.

Biking has allowed me to explore so many new neighborhoods and parts of Chicago. It’s also such a great way to hang out with friends in a social distanced manner. I love biking downtown and

then exploring the Chicago food scene by enjoying takeout with friends at various locations on the lakefront (a personal favorite is right outside the Shedd Aquarium, which has stunning views of the city).

I wanted to share a few Divvy Tips for first-time riders: 1.

You can either download the Divvy app or rent bikes using the kiosks available at each station.

2. Bring a bag with a water bottle, some hand sanitizer, and—if you have one—a portable phone charger just in case. You can easily store your bag in the front of any Divvy bike, since each bike has a basCONTINUED ON PG. 11

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ket and a bungee cord that you can use to secure your bag.

3. You can use the code bikeUChicago and your UChicago email to get a discounted $75 annual student Divvy membership, which gives you unlimited 45-minute bike rides all year.

4. If you’re biking longer than 2.5 hours or plan on making a lot of stops, try out the $15 day pass which gives you unlimited three-hour rides!

5. If you’re renting a bike ($3 for 30 minutes), as long as your bike ride is under 50 minutes, it’s cheaper than redocking your bike at the 30-minute-mark and paying

fall

By CHRIS JONES Across 1. Terrible tsar 5. Former name for Myanmar 10. Poop 14. California wine valley 15. They might earn touchés 16. The Kite Runner protagonist 17. Undergarment size 18. One celebrating October 11’s National Coming Out Day? 20. Relatively small continent 22. Famous computer scientist Dijkstra 23. Your new off-campus housing?

25. Climate activist Thunberg 28. New building wings 29. [Sizzling water] 31. ___ Miz 32. Coconut Girl Scout cookie 35. Historical warlord 37. Some high-end cameras, for short 38. Crunchy leaves and pumpkins, but they re separated?

41. Jane of bestseller fame 42. Fall asleep, with “out” 43. They smell 44. Econ bro’s ratio, for short 45. Physically scar 46. Caesar’s therefore

48. Northern Sahara land 50. Quarter without many classes?

54. Darker 57. Shipping containers 58. O-mance?

61. Pi ___ Phi (UC sorority) 62. Song sung on stage 63. Gymnast Korbut and one of Chekhov s Three Sisters, for two 64. Café au ___ 65. Pinkish 66. Houses for grouses 67. First responders Down 1. Like everyone, but not me (gram.)

2. Empty spaces 3. A stitch and then ___ 4. Waterloo loser (Alt.) 5. Happened to 6. Put ___ fight 7. Sublease 8. Canasta play 9. Trendy, online-only fashion retailer 10. Spud 11. Rain shields 12. Cristo Redentor city 13. Like the Arctic 19. Some sheepskin boots 21. We Love Our Gay Children org.

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6. Divvy recently released electric bikes (or e-bikes), and in Hyde Park the e-bikes cost the same as a classic Divvy bike. You also can lock up e-bikes at any open bike rack (and not just a Divvy station!). Just don’t try biking downtown, since you’ll start getting charged per minute right 34. Wondrous (Lat.) 36. Solo of Star Wars 37. Like many Razzie winners 39. Ctrl (2017) artist 40. “When ___ rises, think of the consequences” : Confucius

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after you pass Oakwood Beach (around 40th Street).

Divvying is one of my favorite ways to explore the city while getting a little exercise (and sun!) while catching up with friends. I highly recommend that you try out Divvy bikes if you have a chance.

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