post- 02/15/24

In This Issue

4

sarah frank

cat gao

2

All the Purple I Could Need

Flowers on V-Day Indigo Mudbhary

6

Alaire Kanes

ellie jurmann 5

Gray Area

A New Nervous System

N+1 Reasons I Love You 7

sean toomey 8

Outfit Prompts and You will hassett 9

Losing Game

postCover by Sol Heo

FEB 15

VOL 33

— ISSUE 2

FEATURE

flowers on v-day…

unpacking the traditions behind giving flowers on Valentine’s Day by cat gao Illustrated by emilie guan “Hey, I got you something!”

them to a glass jar of memories. This way, I make sure

in Islam, roses are called the “Flower of Heaven,”

Is seemingly what we all want to hear on

that I’ll never forget how I felt at the very moment of

symbolizing the Prophet Muhammed. In Islamic

Valentine's Day. The delicate crinkling of brown

receiving them, no matter how many years may have

mysticism and mythology, the rose represents

paper wrapping, the unmistakable, intoxicatingly

passed.

“divine beauty.” In Christianity, the rose is frequently

sweet scent—fresh and delectable—of a bouquet of

Although the flowers I’ve received in the past have

associated with the Virgin Mary, representing her

red flowers, from that special person, just for you. For

rarely been roses, I understand that there appears to

beauty and grace. Mary is sometimes referred to as

me, receiving flowers is something I will never forget

be something particularly meaningful about roses—

the “Mystical Rose,” as in the Litany of Loreto.

or grow tired of. It’s strange how flowers—natural

especially within the context of Valentine’s Day.

In Greek mythology, the creation of red roses

objects, so simple and so abundant—can instill

You hear the knock on your door, and you fling it

was attributed to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The

feelings of appreciation and warmth. Although the

open, heart pounding with anticipation. And there they

story goes that Aphrodite had a mortal lover called

flowers themselves will eventually die, they symbolize

are. Your lover, with a bouquet full of deep red roses,

Adonis (who was also the lover of Persephone…).

something that can’t ever wither: love and care. To

just for you.

Adonis was attacked and wounded by a wild boar on

this day, I press and dry every flower I’ve received

Roses are timeless. Symbolizing love, beauty,

a hunting trip and bled to death in Aphrodite’s arms.

in between pages of a book so that they retain their

and passion, they’ve been cherished for centuries

When Aphrodite’s tears mixed with Adonis’ blood,

original shape and color. In the future, I plan to frame

across civilizations and cultures. Roses are important

the concoction produced a beautiful red rose bush

these dried flowers and hang them on my wall or add

objects in many religions and ideologies. For example,

upon hitting the ground. As such, roses are symbolic

Dear Readers,

In Feature, the writer rejects the idea that love is only for the

plans, readers (a trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardener

young, advocating giving flowers as gifts at all ages, at all

Museum or a romantic dinner at Olive Garden, perhaps)

As campus curls in on itself, with people retreat-

times. In Narrative, one writer fights back against the idea

remember that we don’t have to think of these as indul-

that you shouldn’t text your ex, revisiting a piece she wrote

gences that we must wait around for a year to do again, but

for post- in 2021, a love letter to math, while our other writer

as normal ways we deserve to spend our time. Read our

finds solace in the midst of anxiety, using color and love to

sweet Valentine’s week edition of post-, but read it again next

ground herself. Our Arts & Culture writers are firmly push-

week. Do a heart shaped crossword for Valentine’s Day, but

ing back against notions of femininity, writing into existence

do one the week before too. Subvert the notion that joy and

an ode to feminine care and a wrenching testimony to the

love must be prescribed and constrained. I’ll work on this

movie Bottoms and sexual assault on college campuses.

too, upping my weekly sweet treat allowance and celebrat-

Finally, a Lifestyle classic: a guide to putting together outfits

ing my favorite things and people every week, not just this

using prompts, and a heart shaped crossword puzzle, the

one. Luckily, new Bachelor episodes come out weekly.

Letter from the Editor ing indoors to escape the snow, I can’t help but reflect on what creatures of habit we are—how dependent we are on weather, on seasons, on holidays to dictate what we do and how we spend our time. We wait for Valentine’s Day to make heart shaped crosswords, to write about our love of math. I waited for a snow day, classes canceled, post- moved to Zoom, to do the things I had been wanting to do for ages—bake banana bread, sleep in late and watch The Bachelor—when really these are things that we could have and that we could do every day. Part of me loves order, routine, everything in its place (flowers in spring and sun in summer and apples in fall) but a bigger part of me, perhaps, thinks we should celebrate and enjoy everything all the time.

This week, our writers are pushing boundaries as well.

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second of the semester.

I’m still torn—I love having the excuse to celebrate, to treat snow days like a vacation or to spend Valentine’s Day being whisked away, but I can’t help wishing that we didn’t need an excuse to celebrate. As you make your Valentine’s

XOXO,

Klara Davidson-Schmich, Feature Managing Editor

NARRATIVE of Aphrodite’s power as the goddess of love and of her

should this act of love—romantic, platonic, familial,

people. Although this is a form of ageism, usually

tragic romance with her mortal lover.

and everything in-between—dwindle with age? The

held by young people and administered towards

study even found that despite older people being less

older people, it can also influence how older people

Today, roses have continued to maintain their command,

popularity—especially

likely to have received a bouquet of flowers in the

perceive themselves and each other. This is a form of

whenever Valentine’s Day rolls around. “Give Me

notoriety,

past year, they still acknowledged that a bouquet is a

social conditioning that acts cyclically, making older

Flowers:

“wonderful mood booster.”

people not only feel less confident and comfortable

Measuring

and Social

Media

Advertising

Strategies for Floral Products,” a study by Benjamin Campbell, Julie Campbell, and Jessica Holt, tested different

marketing

schemes

on

So, why do these demonstrations of romantic love and attraction decrease with age?

pursuing romantic relationships, but moreover think it is “past their time” to fall in love. They instead

participants,

Well, on Valentine’s Day in 2023, the Institute

associate falling in love with something only younger

examining which kinds of advertised flowers were

of Population Ageing held a discussion over whether

people are capable of—which, of course, is not true in

remembered more frequently. One of the study’s

falling in love and experiencing romance was

the slightest.

main conclusions after data analysis was that roses

predominantly experienced by younger populations.

In fact, this is the lens through which Zhang

were the most memorable kind of flower, with Holt

Two scientists—Haoyu Suo and Pianpian Zhao—

rebutted both Zhao and Suo’s arguments. Zhang put

commenting, “I was surprised that the advertisement

responded affirmatively, arguing that romance was

forth that the psychological elements of falling in love

featuring animated roses did better than one

predominantly experienced by younger populations.

and experiencing romance are not bound by age, or by

featuring tulips or a generic bunch of flowers.” While

Dr. Yanyan Zhang argued the contrary, explaining that

other demographics, such as race or gender. Instead,

the act of flower-giving is often tied to romantic

experiencing romance and falling in love is timeless,

falling in love is influenced—for all ages—by the same

gestures, as they typically are on Valentine’s Day,

but that its occurrences are influenced by external

four factors: similarity, propinquity (closeness),

we give flowers in almost any significant, formative

pressures and factors.

desirable characteristics, and reciprocal liking. These

events and experiences. Take weddings and birthdays,

After opening the debate, Zhao listed several

four factors are equally understood and important for

for example. Or, on the flip side, funerals. We gift

examples that outline why and how society typically

people of all ages, and the mental and psychological

people flowers for everyday experiences, too—take

views romance and love as characteristic of younger

pathways of falling in love are constant throughout

school recitals or random surprises for a romantic

generations.

popular

time. Further evidence by Charles and Carstensen,

partner after a long day at work. Flowers are generally

culture, for example—media, literature, movies, TV

who co-wrote the paper “Social and Emotional Aging,”

understood as a gesture of appreciation. While for

shows, music, etc. Much of modern literature and

offers that mental, emotional, and social abilities are

some, receiving flowers indicates a generic token

TV shows feature youthful protagonists falling in

not bound by age and, therefore, the capacity to fall in

of gratitude, for others, it is deeply intimate and

love. Take popular dystopian novels and other young

love is not weakened by aging. The research findings

personal. This explains their popularity and relevance

adult books—for example, Katniss’ love-triangle with

indicated that older individuals, like their younger

on Valentine’s Day, which is a celebration of love. It

Peeta and Gale, and the many romantic storylines

counterparts, possess a fundamental desire and

seems that overnight, all the flowers in the Trader

in franchises such as Harry Potter and the Percy

necessity for love from others, along with the chance

Joe’s welcome area have magically been dyed red

Jackson series. This trope is one as old as time. Take

to express romantic affection.

and the aisles of CVS have transformed into shelves

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or A Midsummer

So I declare that you, yes you, reading this article,

of symbols and images of bears holding hearts and

Night’s Dream. The romance in these franchises and

should buy a bunch of beautiful red roses for your

bouquets of roses. The popularity of this age-old

works is almost always restricted to young characters,

significant other, or crush, or friend, this upcoming

category of gift giving seems to have skyrocketed,

other than the fleeting mention of a main character’s

Valentine’s Day. No, it’s not too late. (There are flowers

perhaps perpetuated by the rise of social media and the

married parents. This leaves older people, and their

in the CVS on Thayer Street, so you really have no

spread of photos and videos of individuals displaying

romantic interests and pursuits, neglected and

excuse). Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter

their partner’s grand, or small, romantic gestures.

underrepresented. Zhao also points to the marketing

why you give someone flowers, it’s the act itself—of

On the topic of buying flowers for other people,

strategies of large companies and chains. Marketing

giving someone you appreciate flowers—that matters

new research has shown that younger people (Gen Z,

feats for romantic products often target younger

indefinitely. It might make someone’s life just a little

Gen X, and millennials) are more likely to buy flower

populations. This spans from the marketing of dating

bit more colorful, just a little bit more enjoyable, and,

bouquets than older people. The study by Campbell

apps to the marketing in Target aisles. It is true that

of course, just a little bit sweeter.

et al. also found that not only were younger people

most dating apps are created with younger populations

more likely to buy flower bouquets, but that they were

in mind. Although on these apps you can choose the

also more likely to buy additional non-flower items

demographic (including age) of potential romances

to go along with their bouquets. We see this all the

you match with, the vast majority of those using these

time. On Valentine’s Day, for example, it is common

apps in the first place are still younger than 50.

These

examples

included

that someone will surprise their date with not only

Following Zhao’s initial list, Suo continued,

a bouquet of beautiful roses, but also a box of heart-

describing other reasons why romance and falling

shaped chocolates, a card, or perhaps a piece of jewelry.

in love is generally thought of as youthful. Suo

Moreover, the study found that older people were less

argued that the stereotyping of adults plays a part

likely to have received a bouquet of flowers in the past

in this perception, explaining that “society often

year, giving further evidence for the argument that

holds negative views about aging.” Older people are

the act of flower-giving, in general, is more common

perceived as less attractive, less desirable, and less

among younger populations than it is older. But why

likely to initiate romantic relationships than younger

Snows

1. Day! 2. “Snow Angel” by Renée Rapp 3. Angel (regular) 4. Cone 5. Dandruff 6. Coke (aine) 7. Duck 8. Coriolanus 9. White & the Seven Dwarfs 10. The kind that glows white on the mountain tonight… not a footprint to be seen… a kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I’m the queen

“Why is it always the sexiest animals that are the most invasive?”

“Orange powder is among the greatest food groups.”

February 15, 2024

3

NARRATIVE

all the purple i could need

by Sarah Frank Illustrated by Junyue Ma When I’m nervous, my therapist tells me to try to find each color of the rainbow. To find them in my environment, and to find them in order. She says the rainbow will appear in the amount of time it takes to calm myself down. To breathe. To see all the colors again in full, in combination. In beauty rather than terror; in clarity rather than the dizziness of panic. And if by the end of the rainbow, I am not yet calm, I know to do it again.

I can feel it in my body, the anxiety, as though someone has flicked a switch and my brain is short-circuiting. I feel a rush of heat through me, enveloping my body. I know the feeling of panic all too well. It greets me like an old friend.

Look for the colors.

Red My bedroom is dark. There is no red. I read somewhere that everything is black and white in the dark, even if you know there to be color. My red bow, for example, looks black to me right now but feels red. It feels red because I know it is, from seeing it in daylight. Maybe that should count for red. Is that enough? To know it’s red even though my eyes might disagree? No. Not enough. Not if I can find better.

I reach for the window shade and softly pull the string to lift it up. The smokestacks downtown glow sequentially, little red dots lining up above the horizon. Every night a different pattern— tonight,

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the second one, then the third, then the first. I watch it for a while, moving my eyes to where the red will be before it gets there.

Breathe…

2, 3, 1.

Breathe…

2, 3, 1.

Orange Below the smokestacks, a small orange light on the side of the parking garage is glowing. If there was anything underneath it, I know there’d be an odd orange glow cast over it, but outside it’s deserted. It’s somewhere around 3:00 a.m., the loneliest time in the world. At 2:00, there are still people awake, perhaps working late on an assignment or stumbling home from a party. At 4:00, some of the city starts to rise. The early shift wakes up. But at 3:00, there is nothing and no one around. It is dark and empty.

Yellow I wish the sun was around. I could count the sun for yellow and move on—it’s reliable, a constant. I know there’s yellow because I know there’s a sun. The sun is still out there somewhere, rising and shining over Europe and Asia, but is knowing it’s there enough to count? Even though I cannot see it?

And what of the moonlight, since it is sunlight redirected?

Breathe.

I resolve to count the moonlight for yellow.

Green Grass. Easy enough. There’s grass everywhere.

Right outside my window, there’s a patch of grass, dying, but grass nonetheless. Does it really look green, though, in the dark? Can it feel green even

if it doesn’t look green? Is it even green at all without the light to bounce off of it?

Blue My heart rate is slowing a little, but I know to finish the rainbow. My room is full of blue things, because blue is the color of peace and persistence and patience and, to me, everything good. Perhaps it is the color of everything.

I have any number of things to pick from: my stuffed dinosaur, my tapestry, my throw blanket.

There’s my blue pens and posters and pictures; dried flowers stand in a blue vase. My hats and hairbrush, my pillow and sheets. I spot my cardigan and below it, the blue numbers on my clock. It’s all blue, everywhere.

Maggie Nelson says of the color: “That this blue exists makes my life a remarkable one, just to have seen it.”

And shortly after: “There was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world.”

That’s true love, I think to myself. Loving beauty and then, in the next breath, being willing to sacrifice it in the name of something else.

That’s how I feel about him.

Him. Indigo?

And suddenly, I don’t even need to continue.

I have all the indigo or violet or whatever color comes next that I could need. Calm greets me like an old friend arriving late to a party. My heart rate slows. I feel my body relax into the bed.

Him. And all at once, I am fine again, and unequivocally content.

ARTS & CULTURE

n+1 reasons i love you a love letter to math

by ellie jurmann Illustrated by Junyue Ma Dearest Mathematics, So much has changed since I last wrote to you.

While 18 years with you had convinced me that my feelings toward you could never change, the last three years have proven otherwise. I am so proud of where we are today and all that we have overcome. Our brief breakup during the summer of 2021, when I left you in order to “find myself,” was the hardest yet most rewarding thing I have ever done. In all honesty, Math, I needed to hate you for a summer in order to love you for the rest of my life.

I shared our love story with the public on Valentine’s Day of 2021. Just a few months later, we faced incredible hardship in private. I went from loving you wholeheartedly to thinking I would never love you again. While attempting to learn multivariable calculus in my 100-degree dorm room in the middle of a Covid-19 summer semester, I was physically, mentally, and emotionally fatigued. Trying to understand you while I was too overheated to function, I broke down. At the time, I thought that I had reached my limit in mathematical understanding—that this was the end for us. I could not distinguish between my ability to function as a human being and my ability to do math. In the past, no matter how chaotic, tumultuous, and dysfunctional my life may have been, math was my constant. I could always do math, even if I doubted every other ability I had. As I once put it: This [math] problem-solving process was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever encountered: The numbers, regardless of how arbitrary they were, gave me a sense of order that was integral to unraveling my world of disarray. I found magic

and harmony and balance in you, a welcome juxtaposition to my disorderly state. It reminded me of the true goal of math: To reveal the greatest, most universal truths of life through depictions of our worldly experiences.

This time was different, though. Because if I could not do math in the social, emotional, and climatic desert of my dorm room, then I must not be able to do math anymore. After all, poor learning conditions never stopped me from learning math in the past. I was failing. I felt stupid and brokenhearted. I never imagined you being the hardest part of my day.

So I left. I knew that if our love story was supposed to go on, I would find you again.

And I did. I found you a few months later in the fall when I gave Multivariable Calculus another go after dropping the class the first time around. I was so nervous to give you another chance: “What if you, Math, are not the love of my life, and our time together is truly over? Then what do I do? Who am I supposed to be?” These questions kept me up at night. Nevertheless, slowly but surely, I made my way back to you. I remembered why I first fell in love with you, how I would call you “my art form, my muse, and my best chance at understanding how the world works.” I leaned into your beauty and removed the pressures of “What are we?” to focus on getting to know you again. In doing so, I learned and fell for multivariable calculus. I was able to get out of my head enough to see you the way I used to—as a gift and as an art, rather than as some people’s most unbearable form of torture.

I grew to love you again as I made sense of your hyperbolas and spherical coordinates. This time, though, I understood better why most individuals do not view you the same way I do. Math, as much as I love you, you have not been portrayed in the best light. Some say you are unnecessarily confusing, unlearnable, that you are a cruel tool used to make us feel stupid. I beg to differ, as I find your marvelous complexity to be a beautiful language worth learning, in the same way as Latin or Sanskrit or French.

Even so, those summer months had me agreeing with the masses about who you are for a little while.

It is not your fault that you have this reputation,

but the history of your past lovers tells the tale of gatekeeping, elitism, and inaccessibility. You were made to be a tool to better understand the truths of the universe, but not everyone learned how to love you, or even that they could, in the ways that I did.

I made it my mission from that fall semester onwards to work hard to show others that you are theirs to love, too. Since then, we have had so much fun together learning about commutative rings, bipartite graphs, and homotopy theory. We have worked together to encourage students who may feel like I did that summer, showing them they can get along with and even befriend you better than they ever thought possible. As I have learned, the root of the hatred you receive is not that people think you are neither uninteresting nor useless (even though some folks would agree with those statements).

In reality, most people who hate you have not had the opportunity to get to know you in the right environment—one where they can see you as fun and creative rather than as someone whose facts and algorithms they must memorize.

Nowadays, loving you takes the form of showing the real you to students for whom doors will open if they can learn to understand you. Math, you and I have had ample alone time together, and I will continue to cherish and make time for you. But having seen you from the eyes of “non-math people,” I understand them and you better. I understand how you may come across as abrasive or harsh or pretentious at times. I understand your complexities and the secrets that you hold, and that your art requires precision, commitment, and appreciation of nuance and details. With proper devotion to you, anyone can learn all the secrets you bear. The number of people who love you does not make you— or your love—any less valuable. Some things are just too good to keep secret. The corollary of all of this, Math, is that teaching others to love you causes my love for you to grow exponentially. If we show all students how to love you and how to make meaning of your magic, then there is no limit to what we can achieve.

Love, Ms. Ellie February 15, 2024

5

ARTS & CULTURE

a new nervous system

literature, feminine care, and the (non) existent soul

by Alaire Kanes Illustrated by Kaitlyn Stanton In September of 2023, I published my one (and only) Substack post: “To Care or Not To Care?” The plan was to embark on a journey to “redefine, reconfigure, and reshape how I perceive care” over the course of the semester— the motivation for this first post being both a heart-wrenching breakup (see all my other postarticles for more juicy tidbits!) and a general feeling of malaise. Though it might seem like I quickly gave up on that journey, my Substack withered and dry, the idea of care has been at the top of my mind since.

I read Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric for a class last semester in the middle of finding out that the same ex had a new, cuter girlfriend. I subsequently entered a—in no way related!—depressive slump. Even though the book is a rather intense read, it made me want to care again. Rankine’s ability to make words out of what I had thought were unexplainable feelings made me feel less alone and, in a way, born again. Rankine’s astute perceptiveness reminded me that people are out there noticing, learning, co-witnessing, and caring, despite structures of oppression, capitalism, and violence threatening to bog us down.

In the experience of picking up a book, caring for the book’s words and characters and physical pages, and even writing and publishing the text, care is being mutually exchanged. Care is beyond gender, but in my lived reality, care has proved to be a rich, embodied, feminine experience. My worldview and sense of self have been deeply shaped by moments of care I've shared specifically with the women and femme people in my life.

The act of caring, and the feeling of receiving care, resonates deep in my chest. And when 6

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I read a piece of moving literature, the same feeling occurs. I hesitate to get spiritual, but this unexplainable feeling is located within me in an impossible-to-place third space: a space some might call a soul.

— When I imagine the experience of caring, I imagine it as a keyhole to two universes: to one’s external world and to one’s interiority. Similarly, reading a text can act as an opening to learn both about the universal and the deeply personal.

Literature grants the reader permission to come home, wherever home may be. In devouring stories that explore the inner lives of characters, our own abilities to care outside of the realm of literature expand instrumentally. Sure, the act of caring should be accessible without having to crack open a book first (duh). But I think that if we situate literature in the same affectual space as the experience of caring, something magical might happen. We might find the existence of something that looks like joy, or liberation—or a soul.

The simultaneous experiences of the interior becoming public and the exterior entering the realm of introspection form a binary-defying space. This entirely different plane of existence, a valence beyond and within myself, is something I feel I only have access to in acute moments of both self-realization and engaged external community. In moments that feel so tragic or so wonderful that they must be beyond humanity, yet in fact are moments distinctly reflective of what makes us human in the first place.

These are moments in which I scream: I am here, and I am alive. This cosmic feeling is best manifested for me in small, passing moments.

In a sweet, simple gesture. In my roommate bringing their partner a cup of herbal tea

every night when they get home. In my mother instinctively knowing that I need a hug, without me asking, even when I don’t have the energy to stretch my arms a mere two feet and hug her back. In finishing a book, tears streaking down my cheeks, knowing I will be fundamentally and irrevocably changed by the letters on the pages of a text that I have read. From White’s The Trumpet Of The Swan, to Zusak’s The Book Thief, to Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, to Morrison’s Beloved, to Behar’s The Vulnerable Observer, literature has molded me throughout my life. I imagine myself as ready to absorb and emit feelings, thoughts, knowledge, and, of course, practices of care. I gleefully accept and relish in the care I am given, and exchange—not as a transaction, but as a labor of love—care to the beloved people, communities, and world around me.

These are the moments that make me freeze and beg, “don't let me be lonely.” These are the moments that make me chant, that make me sing a hymn in celebration: “Don't let me be lonely!”

Because care is liberation. And literature is liberation. Liberation from larger structures of oppression and material violence, as well as from epidemics of loneliness that ravage our country.

Equally as important, care and literature can provide joy. I smile when I read on the train, in the Blue Room, or even in the bathroom, where my gasps or grins are for me and me only.

— I feel an overwhelming gratitude for the care I’ve been lucky enough to receive and give; the care that is continuously transforming me, my life, my love. Rankine’s work, and other beloved books, transmit a signal in my brain that says: Stop. Look inward. What makes you care, care to read, care to think, care to care? What texts make you look inward and say my life—your life—is worth caring about, worth fighting for, worthy? All of that is what reading does for me.

And it does that through the transmission, the emotional network, that is care.

Don't Let Me Be Lonely suggests that care can be a salve to personal, community-based, and collective loneliness. Within literature and care is the space for unknown discovery, a space for answers that come in the form of, of course, even more questions. These questions challenge ideas of positionality and privilege, which I would say is a form of self-care and community care: To be reflective. To forge new realities. To imagine new dimensions of being, new possibilities for the way material lived experiences can be. And texts, being a “uniquely portable magic,” inscribe an author’s care into something that can be carried and shared and cared for. Literature has forged in my mind, heart, and body a new nervous system based on networks and transmissions of (gendered) care, empathy, and co-witnessing.

This piece—and my discarded idea for a Substack series—is an ode to the soulfulness, the liveliness, and the care of the women and the literature around me. The place in my body from which both care and literature exude from, ricochet on, exist, is somewhere high up in my chest. Somewhere near my heart—in something that feels like a soul. A soul that maybe I was born with, or exposed to through reading. Or maybe I was given the opportunity to engage with this “soul” through the care of the women in my life—creating an infinite, new sort of nervous system. A caring, beautiful, sometimes depressed, sometimes lonely nervous system. Perhaps a soul.

NARRATIVE

gray area on feeling futile

by Olivia Cohen Illustrated by emilie guan TW: sexual assault In the movie Bottoms (2023), main characters PJ and Josie start a fight club so that the girls in their high school can learn to protect themselves. More accurately, they start the club in hopes that their crushes, Brittany and Isabel, will join and fall in love with them. However, a mere plot summary doesn’t do justice to the absurdity of Bottoms, a movie that ends with the girls violently slaughtering their high school’s rival football team but, like, in a fun and camp way.

I love Bottoms—it’s raunchy, moving, and so viscerally 2023 that I know I’ll be watching it when I’m old one day, preferably in a rocking chair. My daydreams about old ladyhood aside, the main reason I love the film is one scene in particular.

The scene takes place during a meeting where PJ is trying to build some community. PJ—being the awkward, tone-deaf, suspendered mess she is— thinks asking everyone if they’ve been raped is an appropriate way to build sisterhood: PJ Okay, so who’s been raped? Raise your hand.

No one raises their hand.

PJ (CONT’D) Gray area stuff counts too.

Everyone raises their hand.

When I saw this scene, I felt truly represented— like the screenwriters had planned it just for me.

While I’m not saying that PJ is the undisputed voice of our generation (we’d be doomed if she was), for me, this scene hits harder than the punches thrown in an all-girls fight club.

On Halloweekend, I dressed up as Amy Dunne from Gone Girl (2014), a female villain who is unapologetically, unabashedly evil, a choice which, just like Bottoms, felt remarkably 2023. As I shivered in a white dress on Wriston, pouring a gallon of fake blood I ordered online over my head, I felt feminine in a way that rejected respectability. Not feminine in

the way I feel feminine when people don’t take me seriously or when I get catcalled on Thayer—it was femininity in the freezing cold, on my own terms.

In keeping with the delightfully 2023 quality of the moment, I filmed a TikTok doing the “cool girl” monologue. As I played the video on my cracked phone screen, I felt sexy—I loved the way the fake blood clung to my shoulders and felt there was something deeply erotic about how scary I looked. My friends complimented me and said I was sooooooo cool girl. As we headed out for the night, friends yelling to not forget IDs and taking lastminute photos, I felt deeply, incandescently myself.

That night, I got, as PJ from Bottoms would put it, gray area-ed. I woke up with fake blood on my wall, some scrapes on my body, and a feeling that something was deeply off as I pieced together what had happened. Because I helped a friend try to get justice for their assault during high school, I immediately decided that seeking help would be futile. So I got out of bed and did my best to move on, focusing extra hard on classes to dull the scratching feeling I got in my head whenever I thought of Halloweekend. I barely told anyone about it, as if keeping it to myself would make it less real. But then, as I was clearing my plate in the Ratty, I saw the gray area-er.

I felt like I was in the deep end of a pool, my legs reaching for the bottom only to kick and find nothing there. It was like my body forgot it was a body—I stopped breathing, I couldn’t hear the sound of the people around me, and it became hard to see, almost as if I was holding Saran wrap over my head. I put a finger to my cheek, realized it was wet, went to class, and tried to forget about it.

That scene from Bottoms feels representative of my experience because I struggle to call it rape or assault, even when my entire body reacts to just a brief glimpse of this person. What would it take for me to upgrade it from gray area to assault? Would I need to spontaneously combust in order to be like, oh, maybe this is serious? When I told friends about it and they told me I was assaulted, I felt like they were talking about something that had happened to someone else. But that is what happened, isn’t it?

Many of my friends at Brown have had similar experiences. They joke about people trying to finger them on the dance floor without asking, about guys

getting too close at parties, about hookups they wanted to end but just went through with. Their retellings always end with a dismissal of the moment as weird—not consensual but not assault. Just like the girls in Bottoms, many of us would raise our hands for the gray area, but not the r-word or the a-word.

In my experience, rape culture is as much a part of Brown as Bruno the bear, and every rapist here will likely go on to become a doctor, a professor, a lawyer, or something like that. That’s what bothers me most: My gray area-er’s life will go on as normal when he eventually graduates from here. He probably can’t name three fun facts about me; meanwhile, I’m writing this piece in Wayland, in the dorm I will always partially think of as where it happened.

In Bottoms, rape culture pervades every locker, textbook, and hallway of the girls’ high school. That’s why I love the movie’s absurdity—murdering an evil football team feels almost sane in comparison to our normalized rape culture. And even if PJ asking “Okay, so who’s been raped?” is a bit abrupt, maybe there’s something to sitting in a circle of people who have been through something similar and knowing you’re not alone.

I recently saw him by Gourmet-to-Go, that absurd little grocery store deep in the bowels of the campus center. He didn’t recognize me, even though we made eye contact. Again, the feeling of my body not being a body overwhelmed me. He was leaving the campus center, and I found myself following him out of it. He headed toward Page-Rob, so I went in and sat on one of the benches by the front. Through the sliding glass doors, I watched him talk to a friend outside. They chatted animatedly, him gesturing wildly.

If I was sitting in that circle in Bottoms when PJ says, “Gray area stuff counts too,” I would have raised my hand because of him. The fact that he can see me, make eye contact with me, then go about his day disappoints me. I almost wished I could go up to him and shake him by the shoulders and scream, “My name is Indigo! I’m fucking delightful!”

But we don’t live in the absurd Bottoms universe where I’d do something like that. So instead, I leave Page-Rob and go to class. At that point, what else is there to do? Maybe that’s the point of movies like Bottoms—we can watch someone else do the things we secretly wish we could but never get to.

February 15, 2024

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LIFEST YLE

outfit prompts and you a guide to intentionality

by Sean Toomey Illustrated byEmily Saxl Oftentimes I find myself struggling with intentionality in my outfits, merely throwing the basic array of my favorites together into an acceptable pattern as I gather enough energy to get to breakfast. It’s a difficult pill for me to swallow.

I have never been a capsule wardrobe person; my goal has never been to be able to “get dressed in the dark,” as all the “problem-solver” fashion experts claim to be able to teach. I love clothes too much to limit myself to a minimalist, interworking system.

I love the way they feel, their colors, their patterns, their age and construction, and—perhaps more than anything—I like having a lot of them. So how do I still end up wearing the same things in the same ways?

Well for one, getting up in the morning is hard.

I know, sometimes it’s easier to just throw on the shirt that you know fits and goes with everything.

Especially when the other option is to break out the pink gingham that’s been staring at you from the dresser drawer for a week. I’ve been wearing tweed suits quite a bit lately, just to save me the trouble of matching. Sadly, I can’t dress like Dean Acheson all the time, but what I can do is devise a system of inspiration to give those morning outfits a little more spice: Outfit prompts!

Outfit prompts are a pretty simple concept: you take a prompt—think of those things you see attached to a very bad short story on Reddit—and

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attempt to translate the image or scenario into your outfit. This can range from rather simple constructions based around a color or a broad theme (The Man with the Yellow Hat from Curious George) to the extremely specific manifestations of one’s own inner fantasy grafted onto the outside world (The King in Yellow). Perhaps you want to revel in the world of a movie you watched the previous night.

Maybe you like a certain aesthetic of an era past but have lacked the stones to pull it off—use a prompt and go for it. My fiancé and I do this all the time, usually taking inspiration from the world around us and turning it into characters. It came in handy in the summer—global warming being so hot it takes a concentrated effort not to go outside wearing a linen sack as an outfit. We imagined worlds of New England summers, Ralph Lauren iconography, and Bostonian living into our styles and fits. Not only does it make getting dressed in the morning a little more fun, but I often find it makes our outfits more in tune with the season. This is extremely vital to me, as I always default to the same color palette of browns and grays when I get dressed for fall, winter, or the middle of July. Outfit prompts can force you out of your comfort zone and allow you to explore the various ins and outs of what makes your fashion yours. To this end, I recommend you adjust your prompts to the specific avenues of style that you would like to explore. Instead of just saying “bread” and seeing what happens when you loaf from bed to clothes you could instead go “the fractals along the cracks and ridges on a fresh loaf of sourdough” and explore how much texture and visual depth can change an outfit. Isn’t that a lot more fun?

Outfit prompts are a great way to add some pizazz back into your morning routine. As for a place to start, try dressing like characters from your

favorite movie, or hone in on a time period, or even a personal interest. Because I’m generous, I’ll be leaving you with some special outfit prompts to get you started. Take these as a point of expansion for the mind to run and develop your own settings and characters. Regardless of your methods, have fun throwing on those weird pieces from the back of your closet and let me know what you come up with.

Sean’s Special Sartorial Setting Suggestions: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Bookstore Grandpa Neapolitan Nobleman in the 1930s ’80s Preppy Guy with Red Pants et al.

Serpico Era Miami Vice All Night Italian Party in the ’80s Parisian Style through the Years Any Character from Sabrina (1995) Lovers on the Run in the 1930s Gay Lovers on the Run in the 1930s Artist Summering on their Rich Friend’s Estate Expat Journalist Ralph Lauren Ad The Glory Days of the French Riviera Mr. Darcy-core Wes Anderson Movie Dashing Aviator ’70s YSL Vibes The Impressionist Landscapes of the French Countryside Abruzzian Estate Secret Witch Living Amongst the People

LIFEST YLE

losing game post- mini crossword by will hassett

1

2

4

3

5

6

7

Down

Across

1 Greek god of love

3 Spasm, stitch, or charley horse 6 Han and Ben 7 Title for Lancelot and Percival

2 Spanish word for love for deep learning and UI/ 3 Conc.

UX students 4 Falshood, fib, or fiction that may precede "I love 5 Abbr. you" at the end of the note

“Light posts kiss the sidewalks with a warm yellow, outlining the curving paths that shepherd students from class to class during the daytime. The campus is so cute, like a quintessential colonial town, that the irritation brewing in my chest is forced to recede.”

— Ellyse Givens, “Into the Woods” 2.17.23

“The clock strikes midnight. We gather on the couch. For once, my mother does not fall asleep. For once, my brother comes down from his room. We turn the TV on, eagerly anticipating another installment of our tenweek-old ritual.”

—Malena Colon, “The Case Against Binging” 2.18.22

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Joe Maffa

Section Editors Emily Tom Ananya Mukerji

FEATURE Managing Editor Klara Davidson-Schmich

LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Tabitha Lynn

Section Editors Addie Marin Elaina Bayard

Section Editors Jack Cobey Daniella Coyle

ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Elijah Puente

HEAD ILLUSTRATORS Stella Tsogtjargal Junyue Ma

Section Editors Christine Tsu Emilie Guan

COPY CHIEF Eleanor Peters

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Katheryne Gonzalez

Copy Editors Indigo Mudhbary AJ Wu Gabi Yuan

SOCIAL MEDIA HEAD EDITORS Kelsey Cooper Tabitha Grandolfo LAYOUT CHIEF Gray Martens Layout Designers Amber Zhao Alexa Gay Romilly Thomson STAFF WRITERS Dorrit Corwin Liza Kolbasov Gabi Yuan Elena Jiang Sofie Zeruto Sarah Kim Samiha Kazi

Aalia Jagwani AJ Wu Olivia Cohen Ellie Jurmann Sean Toomey Sarah Frank Emily Tom Evan Gardner Audrey Wijono Jeanine Kim Sydney Pearson Samira Lakhiani Cat Gao Indigo Mudhbary Will Hassett Ayoola Fadahunsi Joyce Gao Eleanor Dushin Malena Colon Alaire Kanes

Want to be involved?

Email: joseph_maffa@brown.edu!