LUCID (Spring 2021)

CARY ACADEMY SPRING 2021

7

LUCID

Editors

Creative Directors

Vibhav Nandagiri Ritvik Nalamothu

Jaya Winemiller Linda Trinh Leah Bezuayehu Neha Sharma

Magazine Design Ritvik Nalamothu

Faculty Consultant

Photography

Cayce Lee

Ritvik Nalamothu

Articles

Models

Lance Lindsey Linda Trinh Kate Denny Angelina Chen Rexy Brundige Jaya Winemiller Ekartha Sharma Arul Gundam Brandon Yi Katelyn Hu Ritvik Nalamothu Aditya Surana Vibhav Nandagiri

Vibhav Nandagiri Kate Denny Jaya Winemiller Evan Flynn Hannah-Claire Ward Emily Zhen Jordan Cuffee Armita Jamshidi Sarah George Chloe Griffin Alexander Lim Kathryn Chao Brandon Yi

LUCID Lucid is awareness, brightness, clarity. It represents the triumph of the conscious and

tangible over the confusion, the muddled messaging brought on by our environments.

For an artist, achieving this lucid state is akin to being born for the first time, to understand our purpose with an unperturbed conviction. It is as close to unbridled creativity as we dare attempt.

This past year provided the iNKBLOT team with a remarkable opportunity to enter and maintain the lucid state. Detached from the traditional bounds of the societal humdrum, we were able to uncover passions and tap into intrinsic sources of inspiration to produce. Our world was created on our terms. In spite of the numbing isolation, or perhaps even because of it, we were able to manufacture dreamscapes where our ideas flourished without bounds.

For our seventh issue, we sought to tap into the lucid dreamscapes constructed by our artists. Each piece serves as its own microcosm for the passions of a member of the Cary Academy community that has jointly experienced one of the worst tragedies of our modern age. These pages are a testament to our unquenchable creative spirit in

spite of catastrophe, in spite of uncertainty and the convoluted mesh of our reality.

Lucid is defiance, discovery, creation. This is iNKBLOT.

CONTENTS FASHION 8 / Painted Clothing // Lance Lindsey 24 / Fast & Furious [Fashion Edition] // Linda Trinh 54 / Process // Kate Denny

PHOTOGRAPHY 6 / Disposable Seduction: Why Gen Z Craves Film // Angelina Chen

38 / Double Take // Rexy Brundige

CULTURE 12 / La La Land Through a Lens // Jaya Winemiller 20 / The SUV Switch // Ritvik Nalamothu 28 / Endlings & the Language Crisis // Ekartha Sharma (edited by Arul Gundam) 50 / Hovering Transportation: Wishful Thinking? Or Next Big Innovation? // Brandon Yi

MUSIC 15 / FIFA: The Art of the Soundtrack // Vibhav Nandagiri 34 / “have u heard?” Interview // Aditya Surana (’19), Vibhav Nandagiri, Ritvik Nalamothu

46 / Mitski: Be the Cowboy Album Review // Katelyn Hu

DEDICATED TO ROBIN FOLLET Mr. Follet, To say you have guided us through this past year is an understatement. As a teacher, a leader, a friend, you have taught us the necessary lessons to tackle problems well beyond the confines of school. Furthermore, you have reminded us on a weekly basis that such change need not occur at the expense of our wit or our creativity. In many ways, your leadership emulates what every artist and wordsmith who contributed to this magazine strives for – adaptability, relevance, presence.

We may only be aware of a small portion of the things you do to for this school, but in spite of this limited scope of reference, your impact on us shines brightly. The mere fact that we were able to carry on the legacy of iNKBLOT during this school year is a testament to your hard work. For this opportunity, this privilege, we cannot thank you enough.

The iNKBLOT Editorial Team

6

Disposable Seduction Why Gen Z Craves Film Squint. Click. Whirr.

By Angelina Chen

Despite cellphone cameras evolving to be clearer than most people's actual vision, Gen Z seems inexplicably obsessed with arcane mediums of photography. Exhibit A: Polaroid cameras. Clunky, expensive, and inefficient devices that harm the environment too. But for a while, every influencer and upper middle-class teenager touted one around like a badge of aesthetic honor. As someone guilty of possessing a Polaroid myself, I can say that its attractiveness lies in the immediate delivery of a tangible result: a developed image, printed right into your greedy little fingers. If you look deeper, you could say that Polaroids pander to our generation's (or if you're feeling really bold, our capitalistic nation's) materialistic inclinations. We want that glossy little image, edged in recognizable white frame, to have and to show off in clear phone cases and on bedroom walls. A digital image simply doesn't satiate that desire.

So what about disposable cameras? Those little green Fuji devices that take only 27 pictures you can't even see until you pay good money to have them developed? Why not just print digital pictures yourself? Disposables have swept through our nation's youth like some kind of mindwarping, logic-dispelling plague—a description that could aptly apply to many adolescent trends (or the concept of love, if you're feeling poetic). I am not a disposable camera hater. In fact, I have been put under the disposable spell, and am trying to reconcile its seduction. To me, these cameras provide a temporality that feels often times lost in a digital age. The limited film ascribes a significance to the photos that they would not otherwise possess with the wanton and infinite chances of a digital camera.

'Life has no meaning without death,' said some nihilistic philosopher.

And it's apparent that such a cardinal truth emerges in different forms with each generation, always in the medium of art or expression. I can't speak for everyone, especially wealthy influencers like David Dobrik, who buy disposable cameras in bulk and leave them laying around everywhere. Practices like that seem to defeat the inherent purpose of the camera. But either way, I think we like them for the restrictions they impose upon us, much like how it's easier to write when given a prompt than when faced with a blank page.

8

Painted Clothing It’s hard to imagine that anyone wasn’t bored at one point or another during this pandemic. Being stuck inside our houses and separated from our friends forced us to come up with hobbies to quench the monotony of quarantine life. Painting on clothing was one pastime which spread across the stale America. Whether it be simple designs or detailed characters and landscapes, there was no limit to the creativity.

- Lance Lindsey

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12

La La Land Through a Lens

By Jaya Winemiller

In a world where people are taught to romanticize successful relationships and love, romantic comedies frequently draw the adulation of the public. Rom-coms, after all, are the picture of consistency – the couple ends up together and gets to live their “happy ever after”. While those watching a rom-com expect this happy ending, they nonetheless continue watching because of an internalized obsession with the idea of romanticism.

In 2017, a controversial film premiered that defied the rules of a conventional rom-com. Damien Chazelle’s, La La Land, depicts an aspiring musician, Sebastian, and a struggling actress, Mia, aiming to survive in Hollywood, or in “La La Land”. The film follows their relationship, and as their romance surges, their love for each other hinders the dreams for which they originally strived. The fairytale couple go their separate ways to focus on themselves giving the ending a bittersweet taste. Winning 18 awards with over 30 nominations, La La Land won over the hearts of the public, despite its more realistic take on the traditional Hollywood fairytale. So, why is La La Land so highly rated? If society tends to romanticize a thriving

couple, why, then, are they so attracted to the nature of this film. The answer is simple: when people watch La La Land, they’re reminded to relish life. Though Mia and Sebastian ultimately don’t end up together, they were lucky to have found each other. Their relationship revealed the people who they were truly meant to be in life, as individuals.

13 La La Land won over the hearts of the public, despite its more realistic take on the traditional Hollywood fairytale.

Though Mia and Sebastian ultimately don’t end up together, they were lucky to have found each other. Their relationship revealed the people who they were truly meant to be in life, as individuals. When the two meet, Sebastian inspires Mia to produce a storyline that resembles her, so she arranges a onewoman show. His support led to her eventually landing a role in a Paris-based film, which kickstarted her acting career. Comparably, Mia encourages Sebastian to open up the jazz club he’s always dreamed of having, and he ends up naming it “Seb’s” – a name suggested by Mia.

Though Mia and Sebastian didn’t get their happy ending together, they each got their own happy ending.

As romantics, we may see their relationship as a failure, but in reality, there are many things successful about it. Though Mia and Sebastian didn’t get their happy ending together, they each got their own happy ending. They found a unique brand of love directed at themselves and wrapped within their careers.

At that point, being with each other was a matter of little importance. Even with the plot twist in this controversial rom-com, rather than concentrating on the downsides to their relationship, Mia and Sebastian looked to the light and focused on the good aspects that came out of it. This message or lesson should be carried over into our lives; when our world experiences its own “plot twist”, we shouldn’t hold onto it, but rather we should move on and grow past it. We ought to live life through the lens of La La Land.

15

By Vibhav Nandagiri

16 Video games are, at their core, sensory experiences.

In the midst of striking, hyper-realistic visuals and enthralling storylines, it can be easy to overlook one of the simpler elements of the modern video game: the humble soundtrack. With the democratization of playlist creation through Spotify and Apple Music, curating a soundtrack lacks a certain grandeur amid the Herculean task of programming an entire alternate reality. When executed properly, however, a soundtrack can create a sense of cohesion around a game’s ethos, not to mention an undeniable air of finesse through sound. Few games are able to achieve this feat; of the ones that do, EA Sports’ soccer franchise, FIFA, sets itself apart.

FIFA 15 came out when I was in the sixth grade. I remember bringing the disc home and inserted it into the game system, the characteristic whir and glissando as the game loaded. I soon found myself spending hours gleefully dribbling past defenders and steering cash-strapped soccer clubs away from the precipice of failure. I’ve since gone onto own five of the next six iterations of the franchise leading up to the most recent release – FIFA 21. That amounts to 6 distinct soundtracks, 394 total songs, and countless hours unconsciously absorbing the rhythms and melodies that have come to not only define my gaming experience, but also my taste in music.

At first, it seemed a little silly to admit that a video game had influenced my listening patterns to such a profound extent. It’s a surprise that likely originated from the ingrained perception of video games as robotic and detached from society. Contrary to these perceptions, however, the FIFA soundtracks’ distinct conglomerate of independent, up-and-coming artists grounds it in a unique parallel reality; while the amateur gamer rises the ranks of the virtual footballing hierarchy, they’re doing so alongside a group of hardworking, obscure-bydesign artists, each of whom are attempting to cement themselves as the tastemakers of the future.

Each artist on the soundtrack pitches their own

unique prediction of what music could be, creating a diverse yet undeniably futuristic vision of the music industry.

The FIFA soundtracks’ distinct conglomerate of independent, up-and-coming artists grounds it in a unique parallel reality.

As a case study of this phenomenon, let’s take a closer look at the FIFA 17 soundtrack. In a span of ten minutes, one can traverse from Jack Garratt’s vulnerable ballad “Surprise Yourself” to the vile pop-rock of Bastille’s “Send Them Off!”, before ending with the high-BPM number “Sto bene cosi”

by Italian rapper Rocco Hunt. Through it all, the curators of this soundtrack express a clear willingness to incorporate and showcase even the most experimental pieces into the game’s audial framework. Take for example the song “Satisfied” by artist and producer SOULS, who converted historical field recordings of the early 20th century in America into a high-energy explosion of brass and percussion. Or “Explotar”, a collaborative effort between electronica DJs Mexican Institute of Sound and Toy Selectah, which features a linguistically diverse set of vocalists weaving an urban tapestry through English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Jack Garratt, 21 year-old English singer-songwriter This variation of language highlights another key component of the FIFA soundtrack experience – the inclusion of a global assortment of music. As boasted by FIFA 21’s creators, the soundtrack features music from artists based out of 23 different nations. From Afrobeats to Reggaeton, Korean dance to French hip-hop, the inclusion of such geographic diversity illustrates the vibrancy of music outside of the Anglosphere. Above all else, it reinforces the idea that music is one of the few universal modes of communication. Who needs a dictionary when you have harmony, key changes, and heart-thumping bass?

17 When I set off on writing this article, I promised myself to not turn it into the ramblings of a niche music fan. To that end, I challenged myself to do something I had never done in years of listening to indie music: consider other people’s preferences.

Why would anyone care about a video game soundtrack? Digging deeper, I encountered another question rooted at the very foundation of our popular culture.

Why do music and sport go together?

Aside from a small group of doubly talented athlete -musicians, the connection might appear to be nothing more than a byproduct of modern consumerism. There is no question that today’s athlete transcends their respective playing field and seeps into the broader cultural landscape. One needn’t look further than the slew of celebrity athlete endorsements cultivated by popular brands (Beats by Dre is an exemplar) to see the potential upside in the intersection between athletic panache and musical innovation. While this thesis offers a certain comfort in the ever-present rebukes of capitalism, it lacks the nuance needed to paint a more complete picture.

There is no question that today’s athlete transcends their respective playing field and seeps into the broader cultural landscape.

Hip-hop, football, soul, tennis, pop, cricket, electronica, basketball, folk, track-and-field; irrespective of genre, music and athletics paint a picture of the human condition. We look to these professionals and what they produce – whether it’s a platinumselling album or a sublime counterattack – with adulation because the pictures they paint are as close to perfection as we dare to achieve. Not perfection in terms of the subject which they portray, but perfection in terms of the approach – the exertion, the production, the connection to our most basic emotions. The pictures they paint are beauty.

It’s up to the rest of us – viewers, listeners, gamers – to decide how we want to harness this beauty.

Soundtracks are, in many ways, the ultimate conduit for this perfection to reach the lay consumer: you, me, and millions of gamers logging onto thousands of servers at this very instant. Soundtrack

curation then becomes a delicate balancing act of emotion and technical brilliance, of international accolades and gut feelings. It’s an exercise in inspiration, of being able to invite listeners, both new and seasoned, into uncovering passions they never knew they possessed.

Not perfection in terms of the subject which they portray, but perfection in terms of the approach.

I drive quite a bit these days. When I first started driving, each journey brought a sort of paralyzing indecision of selecting an album, an artist, or a playlist to listen to. Caught between familiarity and discovery, I would spend many minutes scrolling, car standing still on my driveway, looking for the perfect complement for the upcoming ride. Lately, however, the frantic search has lessened, for I have found comfort in a familiar companion. As I set my phone down, the tunes to a nostalgic adolescence travel through the speakers.

The steering wheel becomes my controller, the front windshield my screen. I embark on a true journey for the senses.

20

the

SUV

The last Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, is memorable for a number of reasons, most notably for his public overthrow in February of 1979 during the Iranian Revolution. During his rule and fueled by oil profits, The Shah maintained a significant share in a little-known car company that went by the name of Mercedes. The story goes that he used his influence as a significant shareholder to “suggest” they build a 4x4 SUV. Partnering with Austrian military vehicle manufacturer SteyrDaimler-Puch, Mercedes unveiled the Gelandewagen, more commonly known as the G-Wagon.

While utilitarianism was the crux of its creation, over the years, Mercedes began adding creature comforts to better appeal to a civilian audience. As the market appeal of the car increase, a cult following developed around its boxy exterior, off-roading superiority, and all-around air of exclusivity. Gravel paths were replaced by red carpets as the G-wagon went from militaries and outdoor enthusiasts to the car of choice for the rich and famous the world across.

Much to the chagrin of the off-road purists, the decidedly concrete Rodeo Drive and Palm Beach soon became the natural habitat of the G-wagon.

It’s a familiar tale that has been replicated en masse by the crossovers and SUVs of today: the abandonment of utilitarian roots in favor of the perception as mass-market daily drivers.

With their inherent advantages of greater ground clearance, never-ending seating, and room for any-

By Ritvik Nalamothu thing you could possibly want, to say that SUVs have captured the American spirit would be a gross understatement. 2015 marked the first year when SUVs outsold sedans, and they haven’t looked back since. In 2019, SUVs comprised 47.4% of all US sales with sedans at just 22.1%. Car manufacturers have taken notice of these changing consumer preferences and have quickly adapted their lineups over the past few years. European manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz and Audi have adapted their best-selling hatchbacks from the European market into crossovers, Ford shocked the automotive world in 2018 when it announced that it would stop selling sedans altogether in the United States.

Brands are changing their models, reallocating investments, and deviating from their decades-long heritage to capture this lucrative market.

In 2019, SUVs comprised 47.4% of all US sales with sedans at just 22.1%.

It’s no wonder Americans are obsessed. SUVs offer the most desired aspects of automobiles in excess.

Take their sheer size, for example. While maintaining the same spatial footprint as their sedan counterparts, SUVs squeeze in considerably more internal volume. Offering 7 seats and the storage capacity for a large IKEA table, SUVs offer the versatility to efficiently transport anything anyone could possibly need. Their ground clearance makes curbs

21 and speeds bumps immaterial and trips to the mountains, trails, and national parks far easier.

Their imposing stance and size offer significantly greater safety as well as ease of mind when on the road. Even traditional supercar manufacturers have been unable to resist the temptations of market share, jumping into the space with their own sports and uber luxury offerings. The diversification of market options for SUVs and crossovers are staggering, with the available options quickly entering the realm of pure novelty. The Mini Countryman stretches the absolute limit of how small a crossover can be. The Chevrolet Suburban is an 8-seater monstrosity. The $200,000 650-horsepower Lamborghini Urus quickly became the supercar manufacturer’s best-selling model.

2020 Lamborghini Urus

The rapid proliferation and adoption of SUV’s is mirrored by its adoption in a cultural context. Long gone are the station wagons of the 90s and the minivan of 2000s – the SUV now serves as the symbol and staple of the American nuclear family.

It has become the car of choice in the most quintessential scenes of Americana, representing a fundamental shift in our most cherished ideal: freedom. It’s an ideal squared away in the mental imagery of that shiny red Cadillac Eldorado cruising down Route 66; however, no amount of nostalgia can bring that vision into a frame of relevance today. We need to recalibrate our notions of exploration.

It has become the car of choice in the most quintessential scenes of Americana, representing a fundamental shift in our most cherished ideal: freedom.

In truth, we’ve explored plenty. With all reasonable frontiers conquered, the venturing phase of the human-automotive relationship has long passed us.

What matters to us now ought to be the maximiza-

tion of these already-traversed paths – maximum comfort, maximum power, maximum sharing of the experience. The new adventure lies in pushing the boundary of possibility, not the boundaries of geography. The SUV has come to embody this new version of Americana. It’s a version that traverses the shopping mall, the gravel trail, the downtown streets at a comfortable 60 miles per hour. It’s a version that readily welcomes technological innovation as seen through the speedy adoption of electric technology across several SUV brands. Most of all, it’s a version that goes hand-in-hand with our Information Age.

FAST & FURIOUS

[Fashion Edition]

By Linda Trinh

25 Our generation has been incredibly lucky to grow up with advancing technology. At our fingertips are countless numbers of resources. Through social media, we can communicate and connect with people all over the world. We use social media to share our experiences, to derive inspiration from others, to express ourselves. It’s a platform with nearly infinite uses and an ever-growing number of users. A downside of this ubiquity has been the pervasiveness of materialism, especially within our generation. With influencers constantly showing off their luxurious lifestyle filled with namebrand items, owning certain items has become the expectation in our society.

Not only do we purchase new items to show off, but also to create a temporary rush of adrenaline and happiness for ourselves. This phenomenon is often referred to as “retail therapy”.

have our generation hooked to our phones.

The content on these apps isn’t time-binding and so they’re easily accessible at any time.

Have some free time on your hands? TikTok is here to provide some easy and new entertainment for you! TikTok is an excellent example of trends coming and going in the blink of an eye.

Businesses take advantage of such trends as a means to market their products to the public.

Clothing companies are especially guilty of this form of marketing. They produce clothing to fit into current trends to attract consumers.

The short lifespans of trends leads these companies to produce new clothes at a breakneck pace, leading to the development of “fast fashion”. Our society LOVES fast fashion. Companies like Zara, Shein, and Forever 21 not only make clothes up to date There always seems to be something new for with the current trends, but also ones that are consumers to buy. While trends are meant to painfully affordable. So, what’s the catch? be temporary, it seems as though their While consumers are reaping benefits in both lifespan is ever decreasing. Why is that? If their wallets and on their feeds, those proyou haven’t noticed, our generation has a ducing the clothes are not as fortunate. Most very short attention span. We get bored easily clothing factories are located in developing and are constantly searching for something countries where workers are grossly undernew. Extremely popular social media platpaid and work tirelessly in inhumane forms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube

26 conditions. 1 in 6 people work in the garment industry worldwide, many of whom don’t have any rights or protections. 80% of them are women and only 2% of them earn a living wage. These inequities were publicly revealed in 2013, when a clothing manufacturing complex in Bangladesh collapsed, killing over 1,000 people and injuring over 2,500, most of them low-income garment workers. .

are plenty of eco-friendly companies that pay their workers a living wage and produce clothes in an environmentally friendly way.

The practice is slightly pricier, but if adapted by many people, it can make a significant dent in the fashion industry’s environmental footprint. If money is a limiting factor, thrift stores are viable and fashionable options. All items are donated and sold at incredibly low prices. Third, donate your clothes rather than simply throwing them away. You get rid of them either way, so why not let the clothes go to good use rather than slowly rotting away at a dump.

The purpose of this article isn’t to shame trends or even the desire to enjoy the clothesThe fashion industry also happens to be the buying process. I love trends – they’re somesecond largest polluting industry in the thing new and exciting. When consumed at world, contributing to 10% of global CO2 an extreme rate, however, the negatives begin emissions. On average, it takes 700 gallons of to outweigh the positives at a societal level. water to produce 1 cotton shirt, not to men- Awareness of your actions, no matter how tion the heavy contributions of fast fashion small and seemingly insignificant, is critical to to landfill waste. Americans alone throw away our combined prosperity.

9.5 million tons of clothes annually, most of which could be reused or recycled. It takes about 80 years for clothes to fully decompose in landfills.

Conscious

1 in 6 people work in the garment industry worldwide, many of whom don’t have any rights or protections.

So, what can we do to ameliorate these issues? First, just buy less. Consider the utility and longevity of every purchase. Second, buy from sustainable companies or stores. There

ENDLINGS &

the

LANGUAGE

CRISIS

By Ekartha Sharma (from THE FOLLOW-ON)

29 One of the most dynamic qualities of language is that new words can be created at any time.

Precise terms are derived from information-dense constituent parts, nonsense syllables are strung together by creative story-tellers, and everyday users of language reach for a word they need, fail to find it, and reach a little farther into the vast space of all possible words, plucking out one that fits. Sometimes these are new ways to talk about old and universal phenomena, sometimes they add nuance to pre-existing concepts, and sometimes they describe ideas that had never really needed to be described in the past. Such is the case with the word ‘endling’. It’s a simple word with a deeply tragic significance: an endling is the last surviving member of a species. At the moment of its death, the species it belonged to passes from the face of the earth and never returns.

creatures that look and talk and think and feel in the same way you do have caused a branch of the evolutionary tree to collapse into the single frail creature you see before you.

Clearly, the idea of an endling is an extremely powerful one, exercising an unusually strong hold on our emotions. In fact, I believe that it's too powerful of an idea to be constrained to its original purpose. I propose that we apply the word to other lineages that are dying out, starting with languages.

Cristina Calderón is the world's only remaining native speaker of the Yaghan language.

The biological extinction crisis closely mirrors the linguistic extinction crisis the world is facing at the present moment. Technological change, imperialism, Pinta Island tortoise.

The term was first proposed in the journal Nature in globalization, and exploitation-driven capitalism have given rise to what has been termed a ‘global mono1996. Of course, endlings have existed throughout culture,’ which steamrolls small languages and diathe entirety of evolutionary history, but the human lects and reduces linguistic diversity in much the need to name them is new. In recent centuries, as humans have asserted their presence on the planet, same way that human actions like logging and overextinctions of other species have climbed dramatical- fishing reduce biodiversity. ly above the usual background extinction rates. As we begin to reckon with our rippling impact on natu- Languages can be grouped into lineages and families in a similar fashion to the creation of the phylogenetral systems, endlings provide a strikingly poignant ic trees common in evolutionary biology. Of course, counterpoint to streams of data whose doomsday there are clear differences. Dialects often occur on messages are obscured by their impassive medium. geographic or sociological continuums, so it can be difficult or impossible to divide them into clearly To look at an endling is to feel a peculiar mix of separated languages. Often, whether the vernacular emotions. Sympathy at the plight of an individual, more often than not removed from its home to die spoken by a certain group is called an independent alone in an artificial prison of measurement and ob- language or a dialect of another is decided solely on political grounds; there is no linguistic analogue to servation. Dread, stemming from a visceral proof that existence is fragile, that things disappear without the clear-cut reproductive definition of a species.

While an animal cannot be a member of two species, leaving anything behind, that nothingness waits at many people learn two or more languages in their the edges of our experience. And guilt--guilt that lifetimes. Finally, there is a distinction to be made Example of an endling: Lonesome George, the last

30 between language death and language extinction: a language dies when its last native speaker dies, and becomes extinct when knowledge of it is lost even by second-language speakers.

Despite these caveats, the lens of evolutionary biology is an apt one to apply to languages. There are 129 languages in the world that have no apparent genetic relationship to any other existing language—linguists call them language isolates; we’ll call them endlings.

They are descended from families that have since disappeared, and end up surrounded by languages with which they have nothing in common. If one of these languages dies out, it carries its whole evolutionary class with it.

One of the most storied endlings is the Basque language. 750,000 people speak Basque natively, in a small heart-shaped area that straddles the France -Spain border. Spanish and French belong to the Indo-European language family, as do English and a large range of other languages that extend into Asia and include Russian and Hindi.

Today, Basque is the only non-Indo-European language spoken in western Europe, bearing no traceable genetic relationship to its neighbors or to any other known language on the planet. When the ancestor of the Indo-European languages swept out from southeast Europe around 6,000 years ago, Basque’s ancestors were already situated in western Europe. As the new language family spread, the other languages of Europe began to fade away. Basque is the last remnant of what was there before this great shift.

about its origins. If language evolved only once in human history, then Basque would have to be connected with every other language in the world through some staggeringly complex family tree extending thousands and thousands of years into the past. The specifics of such a relationship would be almost unknowable to humans today, lying hidden beneath countless murky and inscrutable layers of guesswork and uncertainty. However, if language originated several times in several locations throughout history, it is possible that Basque really never shared a common ancestor with English or any other living language. In that case, the death of Basque would mean the end of a many-millennia long experiment in human communication, making it what can perhaps be termed an ultra-endling.

To its speakers, Basque is one of the foundations holding up an entire culture. It is the substrate of their daily lives. It is the language of their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents; learning it was the first great intellectual accomplishment of their young lives. It is a repository of the Basque identity.

Athletic Bilbao is a soccer team based in Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque country. The team only employs players who were either born or trained in the Basque country.

Among endlings, Basque is not unique in any of these characteristics; in fact, the most significant way in which Basque stands out from its peers is probably its relative long-term security. 750,000 native speakers, while a small fraction of the speakership of Basque people. They seem happy. some global ‘steamroller’ languages, is enough that Why is Basque important? To outsiders, it provides a Basque isn’t at risk of disappearing in the next few window into a mysterious past, bearing traces of the years. Other endlings are not so lucky. Most are more like Trumai, a language spoken in a small reserstructures and sounds of its ancestors. Despite the thoroughness with which every facet of the language vation on a tributary of the Amazon in Brazil, which has been examined by linguists, we know very little has about 50 native speakers.

31 To its speakers, Basque is one of the foundations holding up an entire culture. It is the substrate of their daily lives. It is the language of their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents; learning it was the first great intellectual accomplishment of their young lives. It is a repository of the Basque identity.

Among endlings, Basque is not unique in any of these characteristics; in fact, the most significant way in which Basque stands out from its peers is probably its relative long-term security. 750,000 native speakers, while a small fraction of the speakership of some global ‘steamroller’ languages, is enough that Basque isn’t at risk of disappearing in the next few years. Other endlings are not so lucky. Most are more like Trumai, a language spoken in a small reservation on a tributary of the Amazon in Brazil, which has about 50 native speakers.

Pictured above is Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who is often considered to be the driving force behind the Hebrew revival.

Other projects aim to revitalize dying languages before it’s too late. For example, the linguist Raquel Guirardello, after spending time among the Trumai people while writing her dissertation about the language, helped create a bilingual educational program in the village schools to help revive the language among younger generations. Such efforts are sometimes successful, sometimes not; often, the efSo what can be done? Is it inevitable that these lan- forts of outsiders and non-natives attempting to preguages will be swallowed up by bigger ones? Change serve a language can be paternalistic and unwelcome. is rooted in the nature of language; even languages like English and Mandarin, spoken by large slices of the world, are constantly changing, with existing dialects drifting apart or converging and new ones sometimes springing into existence. But the unique circumstances of our current language crisis, driven by new technology, threaten to slow down or modify the mechanisms of this change. Even so, we probably don’t need to worry about stagnation of language in general. What we do need to worry about is losing reservoirs of current diversity, driving cultures into The Trumai language is spoken by around 50 people, all belonging the dust and snipping their lineages at the current to the Trumai people, who live along the Upper Xingu River in moment.

One approach to dealing with this crisis is to document these languages in the hope of preserving their substance before they are gone. This process calls to mind the current cryonic fad among the ultra-rich.

While valuable information about the range of human language capabilities is gained from documenting any language, hopes of reviving dead languages are probably misguided. Only one language has ever been fully and successfully revived: Hebrew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was possible due to a rare alignment of political, religious, and social will that is unlikely to reappear for almost any other language.

Brazil.

The best way to ensure that our world maintains its linguistic diversity is to change the conditions that are causing the language crisis. The societal incentives for homogeneous globalization and assimilation must be tempered by recognition of the cultural, spatial, and political sovereignty of all peoples, and an acceptance of the interplay between languages as a useful and necessary asymmetry rather than a barrier to efficiency or profits. Such changes can only come as a result of a fundamental shift in the way we think about the world and about language. As we work towards these goals, thinking of the endlings can help us better appreciate what we stand to lose.

34 Sometimes, we forget what’s going on in our own backyards. A simple concept, but one that served as a source of inspiration for Aditya Surana (’19) and Abhinav Gadudasu. As students at UNC Chapel Hill, Surana and Gadudasu found themselves dropped into a musical nexus within the Triangle and around North Carolina. With so much talent and no dedicated place to showcase it, in 2020, the two launched haveuheard music, a music blog that highlights up-and-coming NC artists. Vibhav Nandagiri and Ritvik Nalamothu, both part of iNKBLOT’s editorial team, caught up with Surana recently to discuss a variety of topics, from his motivations in starting the blog to tips for aspiring artists in the Triangle area. You can find everything from album reviews to custom playlists on their website at www.huheard.com.

What was your inspiration behind starting haveuheard?

I write for UNC’s newspaper, the Daily Tarheel.

Last January, I got the opportunity to write a feature piece on whatever I wanted. I had heard about Weston Estate, a local band, and that’s the first time I met those boys. It was honestly more fun than anything else I had written for the Daily Tarheel…and then, the Weston boys showed me all of the other music that was going on in the Raleigh area and I was like wow – this is really sick.

I also heard about Cole Bennett and what he did with the Lyrical Lemonade blog, and from there I decided to just create a blog and write about all of these new artists and make a website for it. It’s been a lot of fun.

Why the spotlight on local artists?

When me and Abhi – my friend and co-founder of haveuheard – decided to start this website, we thought about a couple of things. First off, whenever Drake drops a new song, there are fifty people talking about it – think Complex. No one was going to listen to me saying what I had to say about

Drake when you have professionals already doing that, so naturally it came down to me asking myself: what can I uniquely provide? Secondly, we recognized all of the good music in the local area – music that needed that spotlight. Like, if I say ‘check out this new artist who’s also your neighbor’, that seems a lot more interesting.

Increasingly, in the past couple of months especially, Abhi and I have been talking to people from the music industry, and they’ve all mentioned how the Triangle area is on everyone’s radar – even all the way out in LA. They know it, it’s a hotspot circled on their map, and we had no idea when we started this project.

What aspects/characteristics have made the 919 area a hotbed for musical innovation?

I think it’s the collaboration, without a doubt.

When I first met the Weston Estate boys, I quickly found out that their entire friend group – like twenty different dudes who are producers, mixers, songwriters – are all making music. As haveuheard has expanded into other areas, such as Charlotte, it’s a completely different game there. It’s almost like a competition, which really contrasts the support system in place in the 919 area. If one guy wins, he’s bringing the whole thirty-person squad with him.

Our area also has people who are just good at what they do, you know?

What other areas like the Triangle are seeing a surge in new artists?

Outside of the Triangle, Charlotte is pretty big – especially since DaBaby popped off last year. We’ve honestly been focused on North Carolina for the past few months, so we haven’t been able to dive into other local scenes as much. I do know of a town right outside of Chicago that’s churning out new artists, but definitely something we have to look into some more. That being said, as we’ve been reporting, Raleigh definitely seems to be a bit of an anomaly in terms of how big the music scene actually is relative to its size. Then again, who knows: there could always be some other town in like South Carolina – Charleston maybe – that’s popping off and we’re just not paying attention.

35 How have the close ties between NC universities shaped how artists collaborate?

All of them in college right now know that college is the best place to grow an artist or do anything.

There’s a lot of artists at NC State, so I think they met each other naturally through State. Jack Werner (’18), for example, went to Cary Academy; he goes to State now and met people through State.

All of them are trying to make themselves or their band the biggest at their college and capitalize on that – because, I mean, if you can get a school like UNC to back you, that’s so many people.

What do you look for in albums when reviewing?

Honestly, it’s changed since we started. In the beginning, it was more locally focused. But now, we’re getting bigger people, random people, people not even in NC hitting us up. The whole process is really simple: people will DM us saying “yo check out my music”; Abhi and I will check it out – if we like it, we like it and we talk about it. If we don’t like it, we don’t talk about it. Now we’re trying to branch out and – we’ve had people from Toronto hit us up for example. And we can’t turn stuff like that down since we’re so small that every opportunity is a good opportunity, you know? Overall though, the whole thing we’re selling is our ear and our recommendation, so at the point we start recommending songs that our not good, we end up losing our “brand”.

What are some of your favorite interviews and moments with artists and what made them so?

I think the first big moment was with Abel Maasho. I had been listening to him a lot before I was writing for haveuheard. Once we started doing havuheard – like a month in – he sent me and Abhi a couple of his unreleased tracks. And that

was really cool, like oh sh*t. Obviously, Maasho is a small artist – not many people know of him outside of North Carolina – but someone on my playlist was sending me unreleased music.

The biggest moment definitely was interviewing Curtis Waters. We followed him in January when we were starting the blog. He started teasing “Stunnin’”, and immediately – I have a screenshot of the text I sent to Abhi – I knew we needed to talk to this guy before he dropped this song because this song was gonna blow up and he would never talk to us. We DM’ed him like five times and he finally responded and was like “I’m free like next week”; I was like “nahhhh, what day specifically”. We decided on Tuesday, but then like ten minutes later he came back and said “actually I’m free right now”. Abhi and I just dropped everything. The song obviously blew up and it became like the song of the summer, but Curtis was also such a cool guy, Southeast Asian guy just like us.

Have more and more artists been sending you their unreleased music?

Yeah, I mean if they’re a new artist or we don’t know them, they’ll DM us and say “hey this is our new song, check us out and write about us if you like it”. A lot of these Weston boys though, they’ll send us snippets and ask us what we think and what they can work on. At first, I was essentially saying that everything was good, but now that I know Marco better, I give him suggestions on where to fix and improve things. Although I don’t know anything about the real technical music stuff, 95% of the people who listen to music don’t, and that’s who these artists are trying to appease.

36 What do you see as the future for Triangle artists?

The goal is to make the Triangle a hotspot. It’s kind of what happened with Toronto before Drake really popped off. Toronto was just this city with a bit of a music scene, and now it’s a hotbed for music. With the Triangle, it’ll be a long time, if ever, for it to become a New York or an LA, but to make it a place where you can come and make music and know that major names have come out of this area would be the biggest goal.

everyone. It looks like Marco and Abel and everyone in Weston Estate are best friends – and they are now – but it all started with Abel DMing Marco asking to collaborate. They ended up making Fresh Air. They’re really good at making music, but they’re also just kids; none of them have a big head or whatever. DM them regarding feedback or advice, and they’ll definitely give it to you.

Why the sloth?

When we were making the website, the domain host was called hostgator, and they had a little alligator as a logo. I realized that we needed our own little animal mascot, and my girlfriend had given me this toy sloth for Valentine’s Day, so I told Abhi “yo let’s just make it a sloth”. I didn’t actually tell Abhi the reason behind it until like four months later, and he was pissed when he found out. Plus, sloths are pretty cute and Cole Hoffman (’19) drew it up and it looked really good. There wasn’t much thought to it.

What upcoming artists should we be looking out for?

Damn, definitely Marco Luka is gonna be crazy.

Aside from Curtis, I think Marco is gonna be the one who goes to LA, makes it big, and then comes back here to bring the whole crew with him, if that makes sense. He’s out there working with producers that people have heard of – like the producer for Lil’ Skies and Landon Cube. Jack Werner also has a really cool style and he’s one to watch (Wowjack on Spotify).

Any advice for new artists or producers in the area?

First of all, I’d say do it. Especially now with COVID, you just have so much time. Everyone I’ve talked to, they’ve all taught themselves. Marco Luka was brought onto Weston Estate as their photographer, literally their media manager. As a joke, they asked him to hop on the mic and sing, and look where he is now.

It’s crazy. People look at a guy like Marco and think that they’ll never be as good as him, but he literally started singing three years ago by chance. Second, reach out to everyone, DM

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The following segment details a selection of the collages of Rexy Brundige (’21).

When we first laid eyes on these pieces, it didn’t quite dawn on us that we were even looking at collages. Perhaps that’s a testament to Brundige’s vision, who sought to create a sense of seamless dissonance within his work. Mixtures of concrete and arboreal environments, clever manipulations of angles and reflections, views that, to the untrained eye, appear just a slight bit off. Through all of the photographs, one common theme emerges: the lack of humans. This choice was intentional on the part of Brundige, who sought to explore the visual and emotional reactions of man’s removal from his own creations. The result: desolate, bleak, but boldly innovative. A playground of space and depth that seemingly violates its two-dimensional bounds.

- iNKBLOT Editorial Team

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Album Review:

Be The Cowboy

By Katelyn Hu

If you’ve been on TikTok anytime during quarantine, you’ve probably heard one of Mitski’s songs. Several of the songs out of her 2018 album, Be the Cowboy were

The songs in Be the Cowboy symbolize the good and the bad of relationships and connections. Take “Me and

trending all over the popular app. “Me and my Husband”, My Husband”, one of the most popular songs from the “Nobody”, and “Washing Machine Heart” are but a few

album. Mitski seems to be singing of a married couple’s

of the most popular. Other songs not from this album

happy love – “’but me and my husband / We are doing

include “Strawberry Blond” and “Class of 2013”.

better / It’s always been just him and me / Together’”.

Mitski Miyawaki is a Japanese American woman, and a lot of the songs she writes are targeted towards women of color. Even the title of the album, Be the Cowboy rejects the widespread perception of her as a submissive Asian woman, opting instead for the following hypothetical: what if she was a strong, white cowboy?

Soon after, the line “And I am the idiot with the painted face / In the corner taking up space / But when he walks in, I am loved, I am loved” moves the song in a darker direction. While some choose to interpret these lyrics as one of a happy love song, Mitski clarified in an interview with The Outline that the song is about the stereotypical housewife stuck in a toxic long-term relationship. “There’s

“This album is about not taking responsibility for your mistakes,” she says. “Just f**king up and being like, 'Whatever.' That's what a white guy would do. In cowboy movies, they're destroying a town but they're the hero. I'm

entitled to these things,” Mitski says in a 2018 GQ interview.

something about being the person in the relationship who is dependent on the other person —whether it’s financially or it’s just in terms of identity — and maybe not being happy…”, she says.

48 Mitski brilliantly weaves both raw emotion and humor into her songs. In the same Outline inter-

view, she states that the reasoning for the repetition in “Nobody” ‘s chorus is to imply something is a little “off” about the protagonist. In the chorus, she mourns her loneliness by repeating the word, “Nobody, nobody, nobody / Nobody, nobody / Oh, nobody, nobody, nobody”, saying that nobody wants her. The song proceeds to divve into the idea of feeling alone despite being completely surrounded by people.

Each song showcases a different type of love and connection. Whether it’s the following lyric from “Pink in the Night” – “I could stare at your back all day / I could stare at your back all day” – represent-

ing a love that isn’t returned, or the lyrics from “Washing Machine Heart” – “Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart / Baby, bang it up in-

side” – symbolizing the unequal power dynamics within a damaged relationship.

Be the Cowboy is by far one of Mitski’s most influential albums, being both raw, vulnerable, and damaged, but at the same time strong and powerful.

The songs depict the ongoing external and internal struggles of love; ultimately, however, the message Mitski is conveying is clear: be your own cowboy.

SUPER CONDUCTORS Hovering Transportation: Wishful Thinking? Or the Next Big Innovation?

By Brandon Yi

51 When I first watched Back to the Future, I was fascinated by the fictional depicted future in the movie.

In the movie, they travel to the hyper-futuristic world of 2015, a futuristic world of hoverboards and floating trains, a world full of technology that, as a kid, I could only dream of. As I sit here in 2021, however, and the 2015 in Back to the Future has become nothing more than an internet meme revealing the disappointment associated with predicting the future. Or has it?

at the University of Rochester detailed the creation of a metallic compound that showed super conductivity at room temperature. The team used two diamond tips to apply huge amounts of pressure, equivalent to the pressure at the center of the Earth, to a special metallic compound. Then, while the compound was under extreme pressure, they used a laser to trigger chemical reactions within the compound that changed its state and allowed it to become a superconductor at room temperature.

The answer to alleviate all the disappointment of the 2015 lies in one word, something even Back to the Future couldn’t predict: superconductors.

When specific materials are cooled to extremely low temperatures (around -200 degrees Celsius or lower) they achieve a state of superconductivity.

This state slows the particles inside the material enough to allow electricity to pass through without resistance or any loss of energy.

When exposed to a magnetic field, superconductors interact with their environment in quite a remarkable way. While a magnetic field would pass seamlessly through a neutral object, superconductors repel magnetic fields.

This interaction is known as the Meissner effect, and causes the phenomenon of superconductor levitation.

If you line up a series of magnets in a track, and then place a superconductor at its customary low temperatures, it will levitate at a constant height above the track. The amazing thing about this interaction is that no matter how the superconductor is positioned, whether it is diagonal, straight, or even below the magnets, it will maintain the same levitating distance from the track. Due to its levitating state, it also allows for frictionless travel.

Superconductors open new and fascinating doors into energy preservation and levitating transportation; however, the truth still remains that they must be kept at incredibly cold temperatures. That is, until new research in 2020 from Ranga Dias and his team

Ranga’s team, by discovering a way to create a superconductor at room temperature, they had taken the next huge step into the 2015 we all imagined. Despite a number of skeptics, there is no doubt that superconductors will be the key to bringing us closer to the hover board and floating cars of the future.

PROCESS

Kate

Denny

55 I always held the desire to make clothes. My first attempt at designing occurred when I was eight years old. Things were going great until I stabbed my finger with the needle while using my tiny purple sewing machine. That was the end of that.

For iNKBLOT’s photoshoot, I decided to get serious and call in reinforcements. I knew my grandma could sew, so I went to her house and told her I had an idea for a project we could do together. That afternoon, we went to Joanne’s Fabrics and she brought her sewing machine over to my house. It was quite the antique – made in 1925 and weighing in at about fifty pounds.

The process involved in making my first dress was easily the most memorable. After procuring the sewing machine, I realized that I needed a body form to model my dress. I did what any logical person would do and covered myself in plastic wrap and packing tape to match the dress to my measurements. My grandmother taught me the basics of running the machine and following a pattern, but I taught myself the rest from YouTube (shoutout Threads Sewing for teaching me how to install an invisible zipper). Through countless YouTube tutorials and several rounds of trial and error, my first dress was complete.

For Christmas, I received a real dress form and a sewing machine that belonged to this millennium. With proper equipment in tow, I headed to Joanne’s once again and get some new fabric. In a week or so, the second dress was done.

After one of our photoshoots for iNKBLOT had been postponed, I figured I had plenty of time to make a third dress. Not long after, I got a text saying that the shoot had been scheduled for the following morning. With sheer willpower and a yard and a half of fabric, I designed and created a new dress in one night. Several hours and twenty broken needles later, the third dress was complete. My first collection was ready to be shared.

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