LIBERTAS
CLOSURE v ol . 25, n o. 7
SATREBIL Editorial Staff EDITORS IN CHIEF Raven Hudson Maddy Page
ART EDITORS
WRITING EDITORS
Ben Caldwell
Jayleen Jaime
Emilie Hoke
Emelyn Schaeffer
Quinn Massengill
Thomas Waddill
Isaac Scharbach
Katie Walsh
Dear Readers, It’s the end of the school year, which means that it’s time for term papers, thesis defenses, exams, frolics, and dwindling meal swipes. With seniors graduating and WebTree results still up in the air, it can be difficult for students to achieve that ever-elusive concept of closure. (Un)fortunately, though, the end of the semester is inevitable. Thus, for the final issue of this year’s volume of Libertas, we asked the student body what they have to say about closure. Although not all of the pieces here may end in a feeling of closure, we–the staff of Libertas–would argue that the process of writing in itself is an act of resolution. Or, at least, it’s working towards resolution. In “Letting Her Go,” the reader attains a sense of closure as the protagonist does, quite literally using art as a way to resolve internal problems. Meanwhile, in “Dancing with Darkness,” we gain closure in the end by returning to the beginning. Still, in works like “Lovers,” the process of closure seems both cyclical and never-ending, yet there remains the possibility that, by acknowledging this cycle, it might eventually be broken. Regardless, we wish you all the best of luck at the end of the year. To Thomas and Quinn, thank you for your wit, wisdom, and devotion to the magazine. And to the rest of the seniors, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Sincerely, Raven Hudson & Maddy Page
Libertas belongs to the students of Davidson College. Contact the editors at libertas@davidson.edu.
LIBERTAS May 2019
ART
WRITING 4
Sister Jayleen Jaime
5 5 6 7
Dancing with Darkness Stuart Till
8 10 12 13 14 15
4 5 6 7 8 10 12
Untitled Anonymous The Male Gays Ross Hickman Beaverhead Fred Lovers Anonymous Letting Her Go Emelyn Schaeffer Spring Runoff Fred
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Arienna Quinn Massengill
Mechanical Olivia Conley Untitled Landin Eldridge Untitled Liam Stiefel Untitled Landin Eldridge Veil, Part I Olivia Conley Sirens Helen Sturm My wife’s roommate’s boyfriend is my president Landin Eldridge The strands do not bristle in the breeze Quinn Massengill
Review: If Beale Street Could Talk Susannah Cate Review: Aliño’s Pizzeria Lee Bertus
Cover: Jon by Thomas Waddill
special thanks to... Faculty Advisors: Zoran Kuzmanovich, Paul Miller (emeritus), Scott Denham (emeritus), Ann Fox (emeritus) Previous Editors: Alyssa Glover, Samantha Gowing, Meg Mendenhall, Michael DeSimone, Jordan Luebkemann, Will Reese, Emily Romeyn, Vincent Weir, Mike Scarbo, Vic Brand, Ann Culp, Erin Smith, Scott Geiger, James Everett, Catherine Walker, Elizabeth Burkhead, Chris Cantanese, Kate Wiseman, Lila Allen, Jessica Malordy, Nina Hawley, Kate Kelly, Zoe Balaconis, Rebecca Hawk, and Hannah Wright Founder: Zac Lacy
Sister
by Jayleen Jaime Do you remember that time you got stung by a bee Its exoskeleton crushed underneath your knee All I heard was the crunch and your cries You became a siren You were always crying I came into the room and saw your contorted face You learn pain from faces I asked you to stop Stop crying Please stop crying You became too much I couldn’t handle the hurt you brought to my ears And I didn’t know the source of your tears until I lifted your knee Excavating the bug’s pulped body Why were you crying huh You killed the goddamn thing Why were you crying? I forgot we didn’t have the words for our pain Sometimes I think we still don’t We didn’t have fuck or shit or goddamn So you cried I grieved the creature you grieved yourself You still cry When I’m not there When I can’t look where your body is hurt When I can’t tell you to stop When I go back home I ask Sister do you remember that time you got stung by a bee You always say yes And I am sorry for all the times I asked you to stop crying
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Mechanical by Olivia Conley
DANCING WITH DARKNESS by Stuart Till The morning rush; I scramble and throw on an acceptable outfit. The heaviness of sleep still weighing my conscience down. I walk across radiant cobblestone paths that reflect a warm orange haze. I pass by nameless figures, all locked inside by melodies. Last night’s cry just beginning to evaporate off my cheek, The remains of my shredded heart. The sun shines down, yet I still feel bound by darkness. This is the point, right? Achieve success even if it breaks you, Drowning in a drunken sorrow. It’s evening now; the stars undress for their show. The sound of a single bass note floats up the hill as I prepare to descend. They pass me, masked by the scent of alcohol. He smiles, she waves, as they partake in a game nobody can win; So many people, yet I stand isolated. The tears return, darkness’ breath cools my neck. We dance, darkness and I, to the beat of 2000s pop; he is my only companion. His hands press against me; His lips brush my forehead. At least darkness is consistent. I return home, alone again. Still feeling his hand holding me, as if I am hanging from the ceiling. The tears begin to flow, extinguishing my cigarette. His voice booms, but I’m numb to his onslaughts. At last I force him out, he shall greet me in the morning. The morning rush; I scramble to throw on an acceptable outfit.
UNTITLED by Anonymous one day i found the piece of you that you had hidden from me it was on a balcony i’d never seen before buried in a planter full of dead things it felt like my head hitting glass and your scream in my throat i want to put that piece of you back on that balcony but instead we hold it between us on your dirty couch and sell each other poison in the shape of love songs
art by Landin Eldridge
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PHOTOGRAPHY by Liam Stiefel
THE
MALE GAYS by Ross Hickman
Bedroom sits in yellow dusk. Both closets I loved. Father’s cologne, Mother’s perfume, on my neck and nape. My own closet now. I slept with him, every night, in that closet. Eyes hard, brown, ribbon-sleek, red. We saw Julie Andrews and then Dick Van Dyke croon. He led me to the bedroom. Scent and sweet, closest in closet. Too much cologne, too much perfume, house on fire.
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Thank God no body was home. Fire burns, pine falls. Nameless branches ashen in the night.
Beaverhead by Fred
I watch the bouncing baby deer: one year removed from Mother, Hop the wire wall for the pasture on the other side
Where the Beaverhead traverses through the cottonwoods, Against the arid hillsides cached with rattlesnakes.
The parched baby deer gambols to the river Bends over to take a drink— No Trespassing the last thing it sees before a bullet bores its skull. a man in a suit, gun slung off his shoulder grabs his kill and walks off to his mansion in hills. Maybe, a rattlesnake will bite him.
Art
by Landin
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VEIL PT. 1 BY OLIVIA CONLEY
LOVERS Anonymous
Warning: This work contains graphic references to self-harm and substance abuse In a way, I think we all want to be lovers. We live and die and, reborn through love, we live again. There is an intangible craving of an undying, cyclical romanticism paired with an expected stimulation each time. As a byproduct of existing in this space, we do things to feel. Something in order to feel anything. Anything in order to feel something. Addiction, normalized. Wash, rinse, repeat. My brothers and I would watch cable television together growing up and there were always these pharmaceutical advertisements with what seemed like a myriad of dangerous and exciting and disgusting side effects: may cause nausea, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, and in some cases, even death. No one ever discusses the side effects of advertising penis pills with a couple holding hands in cliff-side bathtubs. Delightfully unrealistic. I don’t self-identify as a nihilist, but I am not a believer in a hands-on
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God. He had me certain once, that there was an explanation for every moment of pain and victory. Each moment was a step to the palace of heaven. There is more to life than being burnt into ash and fading into the wind. There is more to existence than decaying beneath the footsteps of sinners. What wishful thinking. What a formal, communal way to justify injustice. Let us break bread together. Eat the body. Drink the blood. Take, consume this flesh so that it may too be within you, wrestling with your sins and your guilt and your self-destruction. Drink the elixir of excuses, chew and swallow the dry bread of (self ) righteousness. Redeem yourself. Drinking the blood never worked to ameliorate the pain, but the wine did. A nineteen-year-old with an affection for bedside wine seemed romantic enough for me. So, I tried on my new habit as I would put on a pair of my grandfather’s gold-rimmed glasses. How different, but comfortable. A new vice, a temporary one. Hemingway did it. To create something beautiful, you must be intimate with pain. Know the curves of its body and the taste of its tongue and the way it grips you and pulls you closer in the night, making you feel special. It knows you like things a little rough, so fall deeply for pain. What better way than to control the thing destroying you.
go for it? Numbers are important but you are not supposed to be good at them because you have a ponytail and that means you have to cross your legs and when a boy pulls on that ponytail it is because he likes you. Social cues. Evolution is a theory so like maybe Adam and Eve happened but also monkeys exist but so does church, so sit yourself in that tension and bathe in it. You’re not too old to take baths, are you? Other things I learned in high school: nucleotides exist within the nucleus, suicide is real—kids don’t live forever, you will fail a lot, dating a pretty boy is a pretty shitty plan, prom means nothing, and vape cartridges are not the same thing as flash drives. Things I learned in college: I never have to take another science class again so fuck the mitochondria, suicide is real, you will romanticize your failure, fucking pretty boys is a fucking shitty plan, nobody cares if you wear the same pants for two consecutive days, lesbian sex is real, and a hookup in your roommate’s bed is probably not the best idea. Plan B is expensive and Plan A is women. Cereal is not a sufficient meal, especially before a seminar. The body is a temple, my wasteland. Fit to be cut up and pieced back together.
It put me out of my numbness and put me to sleep and put me in a different body and so I put in on my lips and I drank. Baptism. How poetic, my sorrow. How legitimate, my pain. How misunderstood, a decaying adolescent.
Despite his four-hour erection, he’s just not that into you. Bodies are uncomfortable to me: others, the thought of one inside another, my own. We praise the Virgin Mother in the same breath that we shame the virgin. We delight in His body by telling her to cover hers.
Blood and wine flowed together. Another side effect of life? There was some sharpness to it, which I had a distinct affinity for. Not only did it fit within my emotionally frustrated academic aesthetic, but it felt real. And at the same time, it didn’t. It still doesn’t. The small ridges on my flesh, scars on my upper thighs. I miss the mountain ridges, so I carve my own.
I always said his eyes were like oceans and I was drowning, but it never occurred to me that there are deep problems with praising that which is unchangeable. He was my could-have-been and tried-again and there was something so beautiful about loving something so far away, something so unreachable. The other one, I loved his mind. How driven, how brilliant. How he wanted a world I would never fit within. Both had a soft comfort in the way about them: the curve of an arm I fit in, the midnight air we shared and swallowed, the times they laughed about my shitty driving, when I fell asleep next to them. To be loved by someone I could not love back. I wanted a finite comfort, and I got it.
We would always laugh at those commercials. The ones for penis pills, talking about four-hour-long erections. Call if you have a problem. So three-and-a-half hours is a good time, but four is worrisome. How unsexy but how adult. How to know the edge of the razor and the curve of the bottle and the dry swallow of seven doctor-mandated prescription drugs and the touch of a man I probably shouldn’t have touched but to not know repercussions of my actions. Lying in the middle of the street. That needle driving the midnight ink beneath the epidermis. The piercing needles pushing through my flesh so frequently that I stopped bleeding. Building up a pain tolerance that started with living. How we mature. How we become adults. Blood is also about tradition, the things we pass down to our children and our children’s children. My great-grandfather yelled, so my grandmother yelled. My grandmother yelled so my mother hid. My mother yelled once and then cried because she yelled and because she cried, I cried and now I am loud because generations of yelling leads to deafness. It is almost as if we get to press a mute button on things as children and once we reach that adult stage where four-hour-erections are real and drinking is socially understood self-harm, then the mute button is torn out from the remote and you begin to hear voices. They begin as whispers, like my mother talking about hiding from her mother. The emotional and verbal abuse she bottled up for so long that she couldn’t drink anymore. She avoids drinking because she does not want to feel. Maybe it skips a generation.
I have never smoked cigarettes, but I think I understand those who do. There is something about an addiction that is comfortable and something about toxicity that is reassuring. We love that which hurts. I breathed in his body and held it for a moment. A smoky intoxication that I always knew he was. Breath him out. He is gone, finite, but the craving stays. The lust itself is not physical but internal and psychological. An addiction to addictions. More about my body than theirs. Breaking it apart so I can distance myself from it: disassociation through destruction. A figure for shaming, a catalyst for sin, a body to be touched. A temple for their worship. Flesh for consumption. Four-hour erections. I kneel. I pray.
There are certain things they teach you in public school. Sex is bad because they mean STDs which mean death which is bad, but someone giving a blowjob in a middle school locker room is interesting so maybe
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LETTING HER GO by Emelyn Schaeffer was time to start dinner. He closed up his paints and went to the sink with his brushes to wash them. “After you left, I never wanted to see your face again,” Sebastian huffed a laugh, “but here I am painting you anyway.” He peered up at the clouds, trying to name the shapes he saw. I don’t know what you want me to tell you. You know I couldn’t stay in that house. I wasn’t meant for suburbia. “Yeah, I know,” Sebastian replied as he turned out the light.
•••
“How is your painting going?” Sebastian’s dad asked, clearing his throat and focusing his eyes on his dinner. His former bulk and height was hidden beneath a sweater that Sebastian didn’t understand with the nearly summer weather. “I’m doing pretty well selling to locals, and that little gallery by the Italian restaurant wants to have some of my work in it. The curator said we should add the paintings right before the summer folks get bored so they might come in and buy something.” Sebastian glanced at his dad, trying to gauge his approval. “Oh yeah? That’s good, I’m glad to hear it.” Some quick head bobbing. “What about your love life? Seeing anyone special?” A pause. “Your mother would want me to ask.” “No, I’m not really seeing anyone.” Sebastian poked at some chicken. “A piece I’m working on right now is keeping me pretty busy. There also just aren’t many options up here.” Sebastian’s dad nodded and tucked back into his pasta salad. Sebastian allowed the scrape of their forks against their plates to fill the silence.
•••
“You wore your hair up a lot, didn’t you? I can’t imagine what these curls of ours must have been like when long.” Yes, I only wore it down for special occasions. Your dad liked my hair down, liked to run his fingers through it.
SIRENS by Helen Sturm The clouds rolled in around two o’clock, obscuring the tip of the mountain. Sebastian stared at them blankly as he contemplated his next brush stroke. He sighed and turned back to the portrait in front of him. “I remember that you have hazel eyes, but I don’t remember what the exact colors are.” There’s a clay brown on the inside, like the dirt you used to get on your knees when you played in the yard. The green in the middle is an olive tone. Remember when you wanted to join the army? Like your dad. His mom’s voice was fond. You told me the ring of blue on the outside reminded you of our trips to the ocean. Just you and me. “Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Mom, but how do they meld together? Where does the light hit? Which bits are darker? Telling me the basic colors isn’t much help.” This is your portrait, pumpkin. Your view of me. Do your best. Sebastian set to work with his limited memory and the occasional instructions of the portrait. By the time he was done, the afternoon rain was lightening up and his stomach was telling him it
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“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to paint it down, because that’s how I also liked to see you. I remember helping you put your necklace on before you went out to dinner and having to move the curls aside.” Sebastian squinted at his work, “I don’t remember what you smelled like, but I know it was good.” The portrait laughed. I didn’t wear perfume much, but your dad got me a bottle for an anniversary. It made him feel special to be able to provide trinkets like that for me. Sebastian hummed, focusing on getting the curls right. The studio was quiet for a while save for the pitter-patter of the afternoon rainstorm outside. What exactly are you planning on doing with me once you finish? “I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far.” Sebastian considered for a moment. “I suppose hang you up somewhere. It’d feel weird to sell a portrait of my mom. At the moment I just want to feel like your hair is right.” You’re doing a pretty good job. Maybe a bit shinier? I took great pride in keeping my hair healthy, even if hardly anyone actually saw it. “Yes, ma’am.” The front door creaked open and Sebastian’s dad shuffled in with the groceries. “They didn’t have the specific bacon you asked for, so I hope you don’t mind that I picked up another. Should be pretty much the same. I stuck to all that organic and health stuff you like.”
I “Thanks, Dad, I’m sure it will be fine. Let me know if you want my help putting everything away.”
Green is easy to find, and it goes well with my eyes, but I’ve always preferred purple.
“I’ll be alright, just so long as you don’t have anything in a strange place.”
“Why purple?”
“I don’t think so. Just split between fridge and pantry, as Mom did.”
It’s so regal, and yet so calming. Lots of different shades, too, which is nice because then I can be happy with anything that’s in the family of purple.
Sebastian turned back to his painting, trying to get the front curl just right, and didn’t hear his dad come into the studio.
Sebastian moved to the purple paint. “Oh, yeah? How can I even be sure of this? You’re not really you.”
“Speaking of your mom.”
I don’t know. Purple just feels like it’s my favorite color. Maybe I was wearing it the day I left.
Not exactly the response I was expecting. Sebastian glanced at his dad and then refocused on the hair. “Yeah, I haven’t been able to get her out of my head recently. Maybe this will let me finally let her go, like my therapist is always saying I need to.” “Time sure does move slowly up here in the mountains. I think I need a cup of coffee; you want one?” He was already heading for the door. “Sure, I could use a cup. I’ll join you in a minute. I just gotta get her hair falling right.” Sebastian’s dad waved over his shoulder, grumbling something incoherent. He’s still mad, isn’t he? “Of course he’s still mad, you didn’t give us any explanation. No note or anything.” Would an explanation now make you feel better? “Probably not, because I know it won’t really be from you.”
•••
“Are you still staying through next week?” Sebastian blinked sleepily above his steaming coffee at his dad. “Yeah,” his dad replied, clearing his throat, “I hope you don’t mind. It gets awfully lonely down there without you around anymore.” “No, it’s fine. I was wondering if you’d like to work in the garden while you’re here. I need some help weeding and trimming.” “All that time on a farm as a boy, and I still can’t escape plant-life,” he chuckled. “Yeah, I can do that.” Sebastian nodded, turning his attention back to his fried eggs.
“Yeah, maybe.” Who knows, maybe you’ll see me again sometime. Maybe I’ll be in purple. “I doubt it.” Seeing me again? Or me being in purple when you do? “Seeing you again. If I haven’t seen you by now, it doesn’t seem very likely.” Sebastian refocused on the neckline, his eyebrows furrowed with concentration and frustration in equal parts. Are you going to pay any attention to me today? The portrait’s voice was filled with annoyance. “What do you mean? I’m paying attention to you right now!” Not really. You’re half-heartedly responding to my statements, and you haven’t asked me any questions about myself or told me any of your memories all day. “I want to get you finished. I have other things I need to work on for the gallery.” So I’m just supposed to sit here and not do anything? Sebastian was baffled. “What would you do? You’re a painting on an easel.” There was a long stretch of silence. You still could have the respect to ask me about my favorite color.
•••
The day Sebastian’s dad went back home was bright and sunny. They had a big breakfast with lots of coffee before packing up the car.
“So, how’s that portrait coming along? It looks like you’re just about done last time I peeked in.”
Sebastian triple-checked that all of the bags were in before turning to his dad. “You’re sure you have everything? No underwear left in a drawer or anything? Or a shirt in my laundry?”
“She’s almost done, I think. I can’t seem to get her jawline quite right, though, where all the shading should be.”
Sebastian’s dad sat in the rocking chair on the porch and watched his son’s flurry. “No, everything is packed.”
“Let me know if you want my help, I suppose. I know her face pretty well.”
“Is there anything else you need before you go? I got you water, and that extra cup of coffee. There’s also a sandwich and chips in your little cooler.”
“Thanks, I might take you up on that.”
••• My favorite color is purple, by the way. “Huh? What did you say?” Sebastian looked up at the eyes of the portrait and then back down at the neckline of the top. The cut was wrong. I said my favorite color is purple. You’ve never asked. “I thought your favorite color was green. You wore it all the time.”
His dad hesitated before asking, “What are you doing with that portrait of your mother?” “I don’t really know. I guess hang it up somewhere in the house. It’s done now.” “Could I have that?” Sebastian’s dad shifted in his chair, staring at the spot above his son’s left eyebrow. “Are you sure? Won’t seeing her everyday cause you a lot of pain?” “Yeah, I’m sure.”
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my wife’s roommate’s boyfriend is my president
by Landin Eldridge
spring runoff by Fred
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I am a spring stream swelled by snowmelt from the mountains who flows down the canyon through the grasslands into the lake
you hear my anger when you stroll by witness my destructive power as I conquer the surrounding terrain from one battle to the next; I am unstoppable.
I am made of thousands upon thousands of infinitesimal snowflakes, from hundreds of hundreds of peaks, ridges, hills, pinnacles inside me is an amalgamation of sticks and stones and trees and scrubs and grasses and ferns and fish and insects and parasites and diatoms and mammals.
But come summer, when I return to you, I will calm.
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And come winter, when I am without you, I will barely make it to the lake.
Arienna In the city of Arienna lives a woman by the same name. Travelers reach the city gates at sunrise and stroll through the streets until they find her—always at work, always alone. Some days she paints men and monsters in the caverns beneath the bridge, others she stacks brick on mortar on brick with her bare hands. Arienna hefts boulders on her head like women who used to bring water from the well. She sculpts skyscrapers. She molds mountains out of mud and shapes creatures from clay in the way the gods did once. Yet, no matter her task, she falls from heaven and rises from hell at the sight of new souls passing through. They startle her each time, for she grieved for those who passed before them as if there would be no more guests of Arienna. She flies to them on joy abrupt, not with wings, but in great bounds, cracking the earth with every footfall. When precisely four feet in front of them, she stops and considers her specimens, and they this magesty. Reaching out, her thin fingers stroke the hairs on their skin; she is handling paper dolls. She speaks in loud whispers that sell her secrets as she guides each guest through her city and herself. Arienna shows them Arienna, and they marvel at her. She walks them through rows of columns carved from butter, past the aluminum bars of the jail cells, and under the tinsel awnings of public pavilions. If the travelers have begun to fade from age, she makes love to them within the water tower folded on its side. If they still carry their youth, she stretch them into pretzels and poses on the yellow lawn. She throws plaster on all their bodies, at every point where appendages collide into the torso: waist and groin and buttocks and throat and axilla. Into these molds, she pours molten iron, generating figures from the fragments. Arienna has a courtyard where she keeps these grotesque forms, and she shows them to the travelers. They always think these metal men must be things that haunt her, the mutated monsters who once lived alongside her. Before the light grows long, the travelers decide that they love Arienna, and so they pour out their pity on her. At sunset, Arienna feeds her guests bruised berries as they recline on cushions filled with coal. They ask her about the houses carved from marble that cannot be entered and the shop windows displaying only clothes cast in bronze too heavy to be worn, and they are really asking, Why are you alone? Each time, though, as she embarks upon her answer, the stirring starts. Arienna is a city and a woman of queer beauty. Travelers find that her hair looks wet, matted together in clumps so that the strands do not bristle in the breeze. But, when they inquire about her isolation at the end of the day, no words come forth loud enough to be heard over the wailing wind that kicks up and unravels her hair. The travelers see it was not wet, only heavy, and the whipping and lashing of her hair strikes the surface of the their skin, slicing them like so many blades. Arienna weeps and her salt stings their flesh until they lift into the air, carried by this force higher and higher until Arienna is a woman and a city all at one point shrinking smaller in your memory.
- Quinn Massengill
The strands do not bristle in the breeze LIBERTAS Vol. 26 No. 7
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Review: If Beale Street Could Talk by Susannah Cate
Beneath yellow leaves, a young black couple stride along hand-in-hand, the shifting angle of the overhead camera making their passage mesmerizing; their prolonged silence makes them more so. Anticipation builds as they stop finally and turn to face one another, the suspense reaching a quiet crescendo when the young man asks, “You ready for this?” “Yes. Ain’t nothin’ I’m more ready for,” is the response. They kiss. And we are transported… to glass. Glass walls separating the two that made up a united front only seconds before. So what happened? Well, in short, racism and a broken, rigged justice system happened. This is the story of Tish (Kiki Layne) and Lonny (Stephen James), two lovers who grew up together in Harlem and who have realized their love for one another as the country ushers in the ‘70s. We are shown their love story in retrospect—through flashbacks from Lonny’s old workshop and basement home where they first made love to the street where they shriek for joy after viewing the apartment that is to be their first home together. But in the film’s present, Tish is pregnant with Lonny’s child and Lonny is incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. His arrest was the result of a vengeful white cop,
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who frames him in order to satisfy his own apparent need to feel powerful. Both Tish and Lonny struggle to keep it together, one suffering in confinement and the other one suffering under the idea that the father of her child will be unable to hold the newborn in his arms. With If Beale Street Could Talk, award-winning director of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, resurrects a novel of the same name by James Baldwin. Jenkins uses repetition of the jailhouse scenes to emphasize the divide between Tish and Lonny, lingering on their pained faces and showing them in their moments of tormented reflection. Dialogue is often slow-moving, allowing the audience to become familiar with the profile of a character’s face as he talks. The close-ups are innumerable and the staggered pace of movie is likely to challenge the attention span of the modern viewer. Yet this feels intentional. The purpose of the film appears not to be to show action or a physical fight, but rather to convey the strength of the emotions, fears, and desires of a young couple in love who are faced with the reality of a racially prejudiced system. I believe Jenkins achieves this and more through his unique brand of storytelling and for that reason his film is timeless.
Restaurañt Review
Cast: Maddy Page, Raven Hudson, Quinn Massengill, Emilie Hoke, Isaac Scharbach, Jayleen Jaime, Ben Caldwell, Thomas Waddill
by Lee Bertus 1:09- Raven, Maddy, and the majority of the Libertas staff arrive at Aliño Pizzeria. Thomas takes a seat outside because he “isn’t going to eat.” The rest of the staff walks inside to order pizza from the aggressive man behind the counter.
pizza—driving to the restaurant, joining Libertas, coming to Davidson, the college essays, the intense SAT studying, her birth, generations of ancestors meeting and copulating, the evolution of the species, the very genesis of the universe… She regrets it all.
1:11- Ben arrives (late) at Aliño Pizzeria and, as if in a dream, sees Thomas reclining under an umbrella, taking shelter from the blistering midday sun.
1:31- Ben starts to eat Jayleen’s pizza.
1:12- Raven reaches the front of the line and aggressively asks for water without even mentioning pizza. The aggressive man behind the counter seems confused, but he maintains a defensive stance.
1:37- Most of the pizza is gone. The staff, in an effort to forget the weekend’s debauchery, has simply begun to eat with reckless abandon, convinced that carboloading will cure the hangovers. None of them have actually tasted the pizza with the exception of Jayleen, who is still lost in an existential trance.
1:14- Raven and the aggressive man behind the counter have been squaring off for approximately two minutes. A line has accumulated, but all of the other patrons are too intimidated to take a side. Maddy and Quinn exchange a glance and both whip out their switchblades.
1:46- Thomas situates the leftover pizza into a to-go box as though it were a puzzle. Unable to confront the abstruse trials of his senior spring, he has resorted to burying himself in a more straightforward task, one from which he might someday be free. Ben accepts the responsibility of escorting the leftovers back to campus.
1:15- After three minutes of suspenseful silence, Raven remembers that she’s also supposed to order pizza at the pizzeria. She orders four pies—the Diavola, the Pomodoro, the Belucci, and the Bianca. Everyone in the restaurant heaves a sigh of relief, and the tension dissipates.
1:55- The staff stumbles away from Alino Pizzeria in a carbacious trance and drives back toward campus.
1:24- A genial man arrives with the pizzas and sets them on the table, and the entire staff regrets the previous night’s frolicking. No one wants to eat; they can barely even stand the sight of food, but they know they must suffer for their art. 1:26- The staff, including Thomas, begins to eat in companionable but miserably hungover silence. The sparse conversation is focused entirely on the “ñ” in Aliño Pizza. The three logos on the side of the building all offer conflicting evidence as to whether or not there should actually be an “ñ” in “Aliño.” 1:28- The staff, exasperated, resorts to simply calling the restaurant “Alino,” effectively erasing the legacy of the “ñ.” The restaurant will henceforth be referred to as “Alino” in this review. 1:30- Jayleen realizes that the pizza she has chosen is exceptionally spicy. She thinks back on every event that brought her to this
10:45- After almost ten hours, Emilie send a message to the Libertas GroupMe which says, “We forgot to actually review the Pizza. I have no idea what it tasted like.” Ben grabs the to-go box from his fridge and the entire staff agrees to congregate in the Union to write a hasty review of the leftover pizza. 10:59- The staff huddles tightly around the microwave in the Davis Cafe, wholly unaware of their surroundings, bundled in their wrinkled bedsheets, seeped in various internet hangover cures which have yet to take effect. Inside the microwave, the pizza rotates hypnotically, a microcosmic reflection of Nietzsche’s flat circle. 11:09- Isaac, the only staff member with a refined palette, agrees to review the reheated pizza. He gives the pizza the following scores: Belucci: mushrooms /10 Pomodoro: perfect /10 Bianca: cheesy cheesy /10 Diavola: 1000 ° /10
Above: Libertas staff found unexpectedly happy at Aliño’s Pizzeria. LIBERTAS Vol. 26 No. 7
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LIBERTAS staff picks: favorite literary endings “[B]ecause races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.”– One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez “Take a (second or third or fourth) chance. Remake the world.” – I’ll Give You the Sun, Jandy Nelson “Please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard.” – “Flowers for Algernon,” Daniel Keyes “A Last Note from Your Narrator: I am haunted by humans.” – The Book Thief, Markus Zusak “It was my life—like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.” – Wild, Cheryl Strayed “He bowed low, right down to the ground, in front of the man sitting there motionless, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, of everything that had ever been of value and holy in his life.” – Siddhartha, Herman Hesse “I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.” – Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
last words from graduating senior staff member Thomas Waddill haiku ode to ‘tas goodbye, libertas this is my final issue (of the magazine, at least). libertas, how I have toiled for you in this halcyon haze of colons, hyphens, greengrocer’s apostrophes, vocative commas; all the little things that make you you––every missed usage error a
beauty mark (always one, my bane), showing there is no other like you. shall I compare thee to a hobart park? nay; thou art more lovely, and more regularly published and distributed. goodbye, libertas. in the words of plankton, “I will remember you all in therapy.”