post- 03/11/2022

In This Issue 5

Kaitlan Bui

4

marin warshay

alex choi

2

Something Like the Opposite of Loneliness

Our Bodies' Voices

From Hobby to Side Hustle selina liu

8

olivia cohen

6

Elliana Reynolds

dorrit corwin 6

Rattytouille

A Love Letter

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Reverberating Rainbows 8

postCover by Jake Ruggiero

MARCH 11

VOL 29 —

ISSUE 4

FEATURE

From Hobby to Side Hustle reclaiming hobbies for myself

By Alex Choi Illustrated by Connie liu “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night Growing up, my father had a common saying.

Thus, he drew a clear divide between work and leisure;

work, but regardless I was set on making my work more

“Work before you play,” he would tell me at everywaking

work was boring and monotonous and kept me away

enjoyable. I had the perfect plan: if I could somehow

moment: when I was caught lounging on the couch

from the joy of playing basketball in the driveway or

do all the activities I usually enjoy doing, but pass it off

watching TV, sitting at the dining table eating a snack,

scoring a personal best in Wii Sports bowling.

as work, my life would be solved! I utilized my interest

or just doing the normal, trivial activities a pent-up,

As time passed, I would come to the realization

in writing and spent many sleepless nights drafting

boisterous kid does. The idea behind this statement

that my father’s mantra was outdated and crude. Life

articles for a mental health blog. I drew on my tablet

was that leisure cannot be enjoyed until work has

is not meant to be segmented into binary parts where

in my spare time and decided to pick up a position as

been addressed, that pleasure is only possible as an

amusement is mutually exclusive with my work. Maybe

a graphic artist. I even took my practice of meditation

auxiliary reward for intense labor and discipline (this

it was the guidance counselors telling me to follow my

and founded a club in my high school to teach lessons

very message was taught to him by his own forefathers).

passions, or simply getting fed up with the monotony of

about mindfulness. Work was the new play for me, and

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, I’ve been bouncing between two playlists as of late, one designed to light my brain on fire and the other intended to dump cold water on it. Appropriately, they’re called “INTRAVENOUS CAFFEINE INJECTION” and “ice bath”. This is just the latest installment in a years-long effort to control my own mind with carefully curated Spotify playlists, and not to brag, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Flipping the lights on and off inside my head, possibly turning on a disco ball, moving around the furniture.

One of our A&C writers is also thinking about the transportive energy of music in this issue, describing the energy of a Remi Wolf concert, while the other applies the novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation to her recovery from a breakup. In Feature, our writer considers how the push to turn hobbies into side-hustles leads to burnout. One Nar-

2

post–

rative writer looks towards endings but away from loneliness and the other thinks about the idea of “hangriness” in relation to hypoglycemia. And in our Lifestyle section, our writer sends out a love letter to Perkins while the other provides a cheat sheet to Ratty DIY recipes.

So go forth into our lovely brink-of-spring issue and let our writers DJ a vibe for you, as I’ve been doing so intentionally lately. If you want to share a brainwave with me for a moment, turn up “Up Granville” by Peach Pit to cool your brain down or Rina Sawayama’s cover of “Enter Sandman” to light it back up. Or simply share a brainwave with our writers as you peruse this week’s issue of post-.

Pressing shuffle on another playlist,

Kyoko Leaman Editor-in-Chief

Holes 1. By Louis Sachar 2. Georgia’s O’Keeffe 3. Taurus? Torus?

4. Man 5. That sinkhole that opened in New York and plummeted a man into a pit of rats 6. Gopher 7. Nostrils 8. 1E1740.7-2942 (Great Annihilator), a Milky Way microquasar 9. Donut 10. Great Blue

FEATURE it felt easy to work because at the end of the day these

aren’t necessarily wrong; if anything, they’re actually

time could be valued, forged, and spent on something

were my hobbies and interests. Like many students at

supported by the scientific community. Oft-studied

productive?

Brown, I was the epitome of an overachiever, the prime

psychological concepts like Maslow's hierarchy of needs

But leisure doesn’t have to come at the expense of

example of what society deems a golden student. And I

or the hedonic treadmill emphasize that money, power,

success. As hard as it may be to stop myself from drafting

was having fun while doing it, without the slightest hint

and fame aren’t the keys to happiness. As a result, the

one last email before bed, it's actually been a relief to

of fatigue or burnout! I felt on top of the world.

modernized vision of success for many of us isn’t some

understand that I’m statistically fighting an uphill battle

I’m here to tell you there’s another side to this coin.

outdated money-grabbing tycoon or monopoly man,

and not alleviating my workload. Study after study

***

but someone who loves every second of their job and

reveals that an ample amount of leisure is the recipe

I didn’t notice any of the red flags until I reached

can’t believe they are being paid to do something they

for peak efficiency. The reading for that class you enjoy

Brown. Maybe it was pandemic fatigue, the return from

find overwhelmingly joyful. In this framework, success

or browsing your LinkedIn home page doesn’t count

over a year off, or potentially the expanded horizons of

just happens to be a byproduct; by prioritizing work full

as leisure. Leisure is the disregard of responsibility

freedom. But just as easily as work felt like play, play

of wonder, our lives will naturally and necessarily be

and the acceptance of present enjoyment, the time we

started to feel like work. Every minute that I wasn’t

positive and meaningful.

can take to cherish the reasons we work so hard in the

progressing in my career or school began to feel like a

Yet it’s this very train of thought that led me down

first place. While there is no complete escape from the

waste of time. I felt like I was never off the clock, unable

the rabbit hole of dissatisfaction. I’ve begun to wonder

constant onslaught of work, that doesn’t mean we have

to enjoy my time when I wasn’t being productive. Even

how this mindset could be counterproductive and make

to neglect the important parts of life like family, friends,

when I did have “free time” for my hobbies, I was usually

me feel dejected rather than rejuvenated. Was there

and the hobbies that define our character. It’s that last

burdened by the existential dread of satisfying standards

merit to my father’s saying? Is the split between work

part I have now fully come to understand. Just because

and quotas set around them. The poetry I wanted to

and play meant to be rigid? For example, the whole

you like art doesn’t mean you have to turn it into a

read? Now consumed on a strict calendar as a literary

concept of “work from home” and “flexibility” is lauded

business; being good at cooking isn’t necessarily a call to

magazine editor. The website I wanted to code? It had to

as one of the shining bright spots the pandemic has

be a Michelin star chef. It’s enough to enjoy an activity

be polished and presentable on my resume. Everything

afforded us. The dreamy image of showing up to a Zoom

and leave it at that. The word “hobby” originates back

felt like work, and there was no escape.

call in your pajama bottoms and working your own hours

to 1830s England, with the word “hobbyist” defined as

The slightest things would throw me off—when I

is implanted in many people’s brains as the epitome of

“one devoted to some pursuit for the delight of it.” That’s

saw someone enjoying anything remotely productive, a

convenience. Conversely, the unintended consequence

what I’m embracing now; I’ve chosen to do things for the

growing sense of envy and fear pulsated within me. I had

of this is that the home is now the workspace. There is

sake of doing them and take back control of my hobbies

taken all the fun activities I used to enjoy and corrupted

no divide between labor and leisure: your computer

for the sake of myself.

them into quantifiable products. At a certain point, I

is plopped down in the same place where you relax,

All these years later, I am willing to admit that my

began wondering more and more, “What am I doing this

a constant reminder of emails and notifications of

father was right, that what I thought was a conservative

for?” I saw life as nothing but endless work; I could no

responsibility. The mere thought of work pollutes our

and outdated saying was actually spoken out of experience.

longer comprehend why I subjected myself to a life of

minds to make it seem like we’re never finished, leaving

Almost cyclically, I see now that it was much less a

constant stress and anxiety over arbitrary numbers and

us with little sense of accomplishment. The illusion of

reprimand but a mantra of the peace he has cultivated

letters. Where was the joy and motivation? I had ceased

flexibility is one of our generation’s biggest myths.

for himself. It was his expression of love, a way of passing

to see any light at the end of the tunnel or feel any sense of self-satisfaction.

To clarify, work can still be beautiful and fulfilling,

down to his eldest son the wisdom that has brought him

ultimately making the world a better place while leaving

fulfillment and kept his family and all the other important

Maybe the cruelest part of being anxious is that

your imprint on the world. Yet I think people put too

parts of his life sacred. “Work before you play” isn’t crude

it itself isn’t productive, either—it is both the fire that

much pressure on their work to give them a purpose,

or boorish, but a lesson that I have learned the hard

consumes you and the fuel it burns on. I want to solve

to be the defining aspect of their existence. Even now,

way. Preserving what I love, shielding it from the harsh

my anxiety by solving my external problems before

with every word I write in this article I want it to

reality of the world’s cult of productivity, and keeping my

internally digesting them, yet my anxiety inhibits that

make someone feel something, to drastically alter and

hobbies to myself—all of these unspoken lessons were

ability in the first place. It only builds and builds in an

configure their worldview and make a difference in their

taught to me in that four-word phrase. Though it took me

infinite paradox until the final tipping point, where I

lives. But that puts too much pressure on work. We praise

some time to realize it, I am forever grateful and hope to

stomp it all out and am left in ashes.

the workaholic who is pulling all-nighters while juggling

continue to pass it along.

I don’t think I’m some odd case in a world of

a million extracurriculars on the side, yet sometimes

perfect productivity; in fact, I'm less of an exception

fail to recognize the overlooked minority of people

and closer to the rule. The mantra “do what you love”

taking time to employ steady mental health habits. Our

is regularly mistranslated into “take what you love

lives are measured, extrapolated, and quantified by

and treat it as work.” Highly successful entrepreneurs

standards we can’t even fathom. In the hustle culture

like Steve Jobs have preached how their love for work

that has overwhelmed our society, pastimes are now an

enabled their greatest achievements. And their claims

oxymoron: why would we want to pass time when our

“I have a theory: The earth is a diamond. At the top of it, the Netherlands.”

“I’m not down bad for him, I’m down bad for the vibe.”

“Did you guys ever read that book about holes?” “...You mean Holes?”

March 11, 2022

3

NARRATIVE

Our Bodies' Voices

how we've lost the ability to know what we want by marin warshay Illustrated by josh gendron

My mom shook me awake. Taking a nap outside my

The term “hangry” has been incorporated into

bedroom door had seemed like a good idea to me at the time until my mom said she hadn’t been able to wake me up for several minutes. Because I wasn’t just napping—I had passed out. She plopped me down on the couch and force-fed me a cookie until I was able to hold myself up.

I still don’t know how she knew I needed to eat, since nothing like this had ever happened before.

About a week later, I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia: the sudden but frequent drop of blood sugar to an abnormally low level, causing tiredness, shakiness, anxiousness, and yes, loss of consciousness if it has been too long since I last ate. I like to tell people it’s the medical term for hangriness, my Hulk alter-ego that impulsively rips up the floorboards in a fit of rage. It’s like seeing a Peep catch on fire—something sweet becoming dangerous. The feelings come out of nowhere, and they only intensify until I eat something.

When I graduated high school and the pre-college jitters began to set in, I learned how to control my symptoms for the sake of being able to stay energized for my new stage of life. I soon realized that this came at the cost of my intuition for when my body needs food— something that is unfortunately common among people with hypoglycemia. While initially I thought this was harmless, it quickly turned into a game of: How long can I push through these symptoms of my body screaming for food? How good can I get at hiding my hunger when no one else is hungry? When will I admit that I might need more food than my friends or the stranger sitting next to me at the dining hall? And that it’s okay if I do?

everyday language. It’s a perfect blend of two words— hungry and angry—to convey the feeling of being overhungry.

Over. Hungry.

Hungry to the point where food is an urgent need.

Your brain is yearning for sustenance and can’t function until it gets it, hence the outward manifestation of angriness, merely a mix of nerves, irritability, and your brain being starved.

Intuition is an intangible sensation—a “gut feeling.”

Maybe the jump you get in your stomach when you’re with someone and it feels like nothing but right—or nothing but wrong. The tingle in your arms when you taste the banana muffins your friend baked for you when you were sick or the wrinkling motion in your nose when you smell the fishy waft of your mom’s cooking when you’re simply not in the mood. The difference between wanting to stay in and yearning to go out. The gap between yes and no. There may be no logic, no reason behind your want, other than that you feel it.

But what happens when the gap becomes smaller?

And your choices become grayer? The intuition weakens. Why does that happen?

When I experience a hypoglycemic episode, I shut down. I am silent. My mind goes blank, the lights go out. I’ve lost my hangriness, and only when I begin to honor my hunger cues do they return. But while I’m aware of this on some level, I still can’t bring myself to listen to my body when it calls. I often fantasize about the day when I will eat when my stomach is grumbling, and the disarray of

4

post–

disordered thoughts in my head will be something of the past.

I don’t have the space to talk about what losing intuitive hunger means for the epidemic of eating disorders and general disordered eating at Brown, the average college campus, and around the world— environments where busyness and productivity take precedence over nourishment. These issues are immensely important to discuss, but for the sake of this piece, I would like to more broadly highlight the collective loss of intuition among all peoples, speaking through the lens of my own experience with hypoglycemia and losing intuitive hunger.

Last week, my friend referred me to a podcast episode of the Ezra Klein Show: “This Conversation Will Change the Way You Think About Thinking.” The main message of this particular 50-minute episode was that humans have lost the ability to know what is best for our minds and our bodies. The signals between the two have become skewed by the rules and rationale that the rush of daily commercial life forces us to bear.

The essence of the podcast resonated with how I make decisions about food. Once I stopped being able to instinctively listen to the needs of my body, I didn’t try to ask because I didn’t care, and I never fulfilled my stomach’s order anyways. Once I considered committing to reviving my intuition, the constant questions became “What do I really want?” or “What am I actually craving?” and “How does that truly make me feel?”

These questions feel so minute on one hand, because it’s my body, shouldn’t I know? On the other hand, they also feel difficult to answer, because how should I know what the right choice is? It’s exhausting.

This piece is not about the victory I experienced from gaining my intuition back. It is not a simple task— there are contradictions pelting my body from all angles like painful shooting stars that sting upon contact with my permeable skin. When I lost my intuition, I was unaware that I had had it before, losing my chance to be grateful for something so invisible but so powerful and crucial to my happiness. Now aware of the concept of taking care of my body and my mind (and knowing that there are trade-offs to consider in a moment), I realize that intuition was never hard to find, it was hard to hear.

It was hard to validate. It is hard to validate.

Sometimes I find comfort in the fact that I’m not alone in this endeavor, both because I have had the privilege to seek help and because I have managed to overcome the distorted belief that humans can achieve happiness alone. While it is gut-wrenchingly unnerving, I believe that lucidity is to come; I know from my own and others’ experiences that no matter how comforting and safe the insularity of disordered thinking may feel, and how utterly frightening breaking from its parachute is, freedom is worth striving for. I remind myself of this every day.

Life is a continuous state of confusion and combative messaging that we are force-fed. It feels funny that intuition must be relearned and practiced every day. But having experienced gaining some of it back, I can say the search is completely worth it. To feel your own thoughts without judgment and to grant your body what it is asking for, whether in the form of choosing one food over another, exercise or rest, company or solitude, following one’s intuition brings clarity that is otherwise stripped by the fog I hope to leave behind.

NARRATIVE

Something Like the Opposite of Loneliness a note on endings

by Kaitlyn bui Illustrated by jake ruggerio But first, I wish I knew where to begin. It is midnight again, and I am sitting at my computer, hoping this keyboard-clacking will somehow transfigure into the wisdom I need for tomorrow.

The people I walked past today, avoiding puddles just like me, were hoping for wisdom too. I could simply be projecting, but that’s what I think. As sunlight signals spring and spring signals the end to another school year, maybe we are all asking ourselves where we’ll go from here. Seniors, freshmen, parents awaiting graduation, all asking: Who will hold us still? Are we as alone as we might feel?

Yes. No. I don’t know. I’ll confess—I was pretty alone when I first stumbled upon Marina Keegan’s essay, “The Opposite of Loneliness.” I had caught a bad strain of Covid and was forced into a 10day quarantine, complete with body aches and a NyQuil dependency. Needless to say, I was really, really sad. And lonely. I didn’t remember what sunlight felt like. My brain spiraled a lot—to dark, uncertain places. I reflected on death and solitude, and when my floormate sent me “The Opposite of Loneliness,” I cried. Or at least I wanted to cry.

Marina Keegan, who wrote the now-famous essay, graduated from Yale in 2012. She discussed this beautiful phenomenon that was “not quite love… not quite community” but rather “an abundance of people, who are in this together.”

That abundance Marina described was the irreplaceable, incredible college experience. It was what she called “the opposite of loneliness,” and what made her lament the end of her time at Yale. But five days after she graduated, Marina died. It was May 26, 2012.

Strangely enough, I had muddled through that same year while pondering death. That is, as much as a 12-year-old could ponder death—my grandma had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and I spent most of my days either sampling hospital food or moseying around her house with my cousins. In our childishness, in our need for play, my cousins and I skirted the horror of my grandma’s looming end. I remember discovering new card games more

than I remember my grandmother’s diagnoses. But I also remember learning, for the first time, what it felt like to cry tears for someone else. Warm and heavy was the feeling. One year after Marina died, my grandma died too. It was May 15, 2013.

This year, May 29, 2022, I will be graduating from Brown with the rest of my class. It will be 10 years since Marina’s graduation, as well as her death. It will be nine years since my grandma’s passing. I will step onto the stage, tuck my diploma under my arm, and wave goodbye to the other 20-something-year-olds who guided me into precarious adulthood. I will wave goodbye to the friends I fear will forget me, and then I’ll board my last flight back home as an undergraduate.

When I think about these things, I am terrified; I am hopeful. Where will we go from here? Who will hold me still? Am I as alone as I might feel?

Perhaps even then, I will not be able to answer.

Perhaps even when I am no longer 20-something, even when I must approach death with a brave face, I will not be able to answer. But that, too, is a lesson I’ve learned during these four short years: With age, there will only be more questions. Maybe having more questions just means you’re growing older “right.” (It’s not that the answers will elude us, or that answers don’t exist; it’s knowing that all the “right” answers matter less and less.)

In quarantine, and especially after reading “The Opposite of Loneliness,” I spent a lot of time thinking about women who have died or almost died, women who might have been me: Marina Keegan (2012); my grandmother (2013); my friend from high school, who shares my name (2016); my mom, who nearly died on the boat departure from Vietnam in 1979; the daughter of my dad’s friend, who would have graduated from college this year too (2015); the victims of the Atlanta shooting (2021); Julia Li, Christina Yuna Lee, Michelle Alyssa Go (2022). I think of those in Ukraine this year, and those in other wartorn countries in other years. I think of them, and I wonder how death hasn’t touched me yet. I wonder what would have

happened if my dark quarantine thoughts had swept me deeper—as so often happens to college students, especially during these isolated Covid times. What if I died tomorrow? What if I died five days after graduation? Yet again, yet again, Covid has put death, and therefore life, into perspective for me.

I think this is why my friend often compares senior year to terminal illness. Even as the flowers bloom, we approach the terrifying end of things.

We realize how much more there is to live; we don’t quite want to let it all go yet. But every Tuesday and Thursday, my class on Buddhism and Japanese literature reminds me that we must.

In Japanese, the term mono no aware refers to the bittersweet realization of an ending: Cherry blossoms will fall, and even the deepest of loves will cease with death. Mono no aware implies that there is beauty in impermanence—or, perhaps, that beauty only exists through impermanence.

But what if beauty existed regardless? What if impermanence simply allows our illiterate hearts to understand the depth of already-existing beauty? Mono no aware might simply point us to the lesson of letting go—and also of loving even old, disappearing things. Like ourselves.

To the warm melody of a strumming guitar, perhaps we are all singing, “I wake up in the middle of the night; it’s like I can feel time moving. How can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22?”

In college, that difference between 18 and 22 feels so big. But now that I am on the other side of the gap, I’m beginning to question the bigness.

The truth is, I probably want to befriend the (cool, intimidating) freshmen more than they want to befriend me. I probably have just as many unanswered questions in my life as they do, maybe even more. I still don’t know where I will be after graduation, or if I’ll ever be back. I’m still worried about losing people. I’m still wondering about love. I’m still chugging along, hoping that life lasts a little longer.

So just as much as I wish I knew where to begin, I wish I knew how to end. How to end these last two months of college. How to reckon with the possibility of other things ending alongside my time at Brown—things like flooded Google Calendars, late-night Jo’s runs, friendships. I wish I knew how to approach such goodbyes with grace, hope, and wisdom.

Am I alone as I might feel? Yes. No. I don’t know. But I’d like to believe that endings do not erase beginnings. I’d like to believe in a world that, despite blustery winters, turns snow into sunlight.

So I’ll just live as if those things are true.

I’ll live believing in something like the opposite of loneliness. And, as Marina did, I hope it extends beyond the college campus so that even my mom, as she reads these words from our cramped upstairs room, can feel it. And you, wherever you might be. I hope you can feel it too.

March 11, 2022

5

ARTS & CULTURE

Reverberating Rainbows remi wolf, live at the boston royale

by Dorrit corwin Illustrated by milo harris @miloh4rris Bouncing vivaciously around the stage in athletic track pants, a purple t-shirt, and pink mini Ugg boots, Remi Wolf is electric and eclectic. And so is her audience: The Boston Royale is packed with flamboyant fans of all ages, many sporting merchandise from her official collection. Some wear neon hats that say, “You like having sex like an animal”—a lyric from “Liquor Store,” the first single off her 2021 album, Juno.

The effervescent energy echoing through the crowd of mostly young teenagers brings me back to the concerts of my adolescence. I know that if Remi Wolf’s career had begun when I was in the eighth or ninth grade, I’d have idolized and obsessed over her the way I once did with countless indie pop artists, from The 1975 and Walk the Moon to Cage the Elephant and BØRNS. I first became acquainted with Remi two summers ago when her first EP, “I’m Allergic To Dogs!,” was released. Immediately, I was hooked on her perfect brand of summer anthems. Each one catchier than the last, their electronic pop melodies and funky lyrics bring me back to carefree beach days when I’d bounce my head walking along the crystal clear coastline. Now, instead, I duck into my coat before her Boston show which is taking place in the wake of a New England snowstorm.

Remi’s albums and EPs are the type that I listen to from start to finish constantly, and, yet, I still manage to discover new favorites every time I put them on repeat. I first obsessed over “Photo ID”— especially the version that features a rap verse by Dominic Fike—but more recently I’ve had “Down the Line” from her EP and “Buzz Me In” from Juno

6

post–

on my heavy rotation.

Tonight I’m here with two friends from Brown— one has released his own music and performs in a band that routinely covers Remi’s “Disco Man,” and the other is hoping to pursue a career in the music business.

We’re jaded and no longer easily impressed—it’s almost as though we’ve outgrown the concert adrenaline of our youth. We watch from the balcony as teens mosh and scream at the top of their lungs below, bringing on a sense of nostalgia that emphasizes the distance between who I am now and who I was when I might have been down there. It’s also a Sunday night, so the three of us are seriously lacking in energy, but Remi’s infectious pep is exactly what we need to channel heading into the week.

Remi is the type of performer whose mesmerizing yet approachable stage presence makes you want to be her best friend. Given that she’s 26, hanging out with her doesn’t feel entirely outside the realm of possibility; I acknowledge that I’m outside of the teenage fandom yet within her pool of Millenial/Gen Z admirers. Her overall spunk and flare chips away at my jadedness through her funky and, at times, nonsensical lyrics and her confident and welcoming performance style.

Every chorus becomes a back-and-forth chant with the crowd. Pitchfork describes her vivacious, saturated aesthetic and musical style as “edging towards hyperpop fluorescence.” To me, the hyperpop label mislabels the raw vocal talent that is featured so cleanly on Remi’s records, since hyperpop typically places more emphasis on production and editing than it does on raw vocals.

Remi’s vocals are equally impressive in their own right.

She’s in her own genre—somewhere at the intersection of indie pop and electronic dance, with an irresistible soulful retro groove sprinkled in between.

Midway through her set, she takes a water break to rest her voice which is sounding a little raspier than usual. After the members of her band introduce themselves to us, they lead the entire room in taking a collective deep breath. Everyone follows—you could hear a pin drop. The band then engages in an amusing bit where the drummer, Conor Malloy, leads the crowd in a series of positive affirmations, while the band

vamps underneath. He shouts remarks like, “Conor’s new glasses are really cool!” and “I know how to do my taxes!” and the audience repeats them. This amusing break from the music unites the crowd—especially those gasping for air in the sea of young fans beneath the balcony—in a playful exercise before Remi springs back onstage to finish her set. The bit serves as a successful interlude that personalizes the performance and revitalizes both Remi and her fans.

She mostly plays tracks off her EP and album, but she incorporates a couple throwback covers as well.

The crowd eats up her renditions of “Electric Feel”

by MGMT, “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley, and “Shawty/ It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy. Remi makes these covers her own by stripping down “Crazy” to vocalization and just a few instruments, and turning up the energy in “Electric Feel” with goofy dancing and jumps that take up the entirety of the stage. After bringing down the house with her own “Photo ID,” the crowd begs her for more. As the house lights dim while she pretends to exit, the crowd is acutely aware that an encore is imminent. Nevertheless, their pleas for her to return make the songs in her encore—“Street You Live On” and “Disco Man”—especially full of life.

There’s something for everyone at this show, which is evident in the diverse crowd she attracts—a rainbow of race, age, and Remi fandom status. This is objectively one of the most entertaining and well-done live shows in my recent memory, even as I’m absent from the cult-following Remi has recently accumulated. It’s comforting to see that despite the stagnant strangeness of Covid, incredible new art is still being created and performed. Remi has resurrected the psychedelic concert atmosphere of my adolescence—one that leaves you vibrating with infectious affection and admiration, despite not being on any drugs. Teenage fandoms are very much still alive, and what better role model than Remi? Her carefree aura reverberates throughout the Royale heavier than the pulsating bass. I can’t wait to see where her hallucinogenic humor takes her next.

ARTS & CULTURE

My Year of Rest and Relaxation how to be an unlikeable woman in the 21st century by elliana reynolds Illustrated by elliana reynolds It’s early November, and I’m bored. I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. A sigh escapes from me, unintentional. I reach for my phone and mindlessly open TikTok, my short attention span appreciating the immediate satisfaction each video gives me. I pause on a video of someone recommending My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, and a sort of excitement fills my stomach. In the past four years of my life, I’ve only had time to read during the slower months of summer, and even then, I’ve read one or two books at most. As a double concentrator in History and Education Studies, I’m constantly tasked with reading academic papers, so I suffer from reading fatigue and find it difficult to read for fun. But on this November day, I’m bored.

Incredibly bored. I’m only taking three classes, and just one of them makes me read academic papers.

I want to read fiction, and I can’t fight back this urge. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is the one. I slide off my bed and slink over to my desk, opening my laptop and typing Z-Library into my browser.

I search for the title and find an available link. I download the book and shrug away guilty thoughts about piracy (I need to know if a book is good before I buy it). With the book now on my laptop, I begin reading, curled in my gray saucer chair, the autumn air floating in through the open window.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation follows the life of an unnamed narrator living in New York City in 2000 and 2001. The narrator, a recent graduate of Columbia, chooses not to pursue a fulltime career after receiving an inheritance from her parents who both died while she was still in school. She has one obvious goal in mind: to sleep for an entire year. Enlisting the help of a shady and unquestioning psychiatrist, the narrator obtains prescription after prescription intended to lull her to sleep. When she runs out of prescription meds, she makes sure to take a shot or two of vodka on

her walk to the pharmacy so that she can minimize her awareness of the world around her. If not at the pharmacy or in her Upper East Side apartment, she’s buying cheap coffee and other goods from the nearby bodega before she takes drugs to fall back asleep again.

The plot of the book might seem uneventful to many readers—who cares about some random rich, white woman attempting to sleep as much as possible? Yet, the narrator’s interactions with those “close” to her—her only friend Reva who she doesn’t like very much, her ex-boyfriend Trevor who wants nothing to do with her, and her aforementioned psychiatrist—illuminate a question that I readily identified with: What does it mean to wrestle with feelings of incredible loneliness that you have both unintentionally and intentionally manifested?

And furthermore, what does it mean to knowingly embrace the identity of an unhinged and unlikeable woman? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is not for everyone, but it is for those of us who are constantly attempting to understand what it means to be alive in a world where you really only ever understand yourself (and even that just barely), and where your unconventional way of being seems unsettling to others.

In November, I was dealing with incredible pain. Having recently left a deeply co-dependent relationship, I didn’t exactly know who I was. I wasn’t too sure what I liked to do for fun. I didn’t know what I should eat. I wasn’t really sure of my favorite color, either. The worst part was my sleep, or lack thereof. When you spend so long sharing a bed with someone every night, the absence of a warm body next to yours makes a huge difference.

Gummy melatonin hardly helped, neither did my recently prescribed medication. Meds might send me into a lull for a few hours, but I would wake up at three a.m. and start to think too much.

I wanted to distract myself from the emptiness and boredom I felt, and the solution to that was sleeping. I needed to recalibrate my life, but I couldn’t do that while awake…again, I think too much. I needed to take refuge in the undisturbed territory of my dream world to better understand myself.

So, when I read about the unnamed narrator’s quest for endless sleep, I saw myself in her. And it wasn’t just in her sleep that I saw myself.

I also saw myself in her selfishness and tendency to shut people out. While I didn't identify with her fully (I don't consider myself cruel and selfcentered), I wondered if we shared a number of traits that made us unlikable.

I think that selfishness isn’t discussed enough as a normal and natural human inclination.

This is especially true for women. The common societal narrative is that women should be selfless, kind, loving, and warm. In the 21st century, they also should strive to be their best selves and achieve great success and independence. Unnamed narrator is the opposite. She is selfish and cold; She holds no clear goals and depends upon her parents’ inheritance. This isn’t who I want to be or be seen as, but in my time of hopelessness, the narrator’s qualities comforted me. I used to be scared of displaying any of those “negative” qualities out of fear that it would make people reject me and see me as below them (“How can you be a powerful and strong woman if you don’t treat everyone with kindness and always strive for greater success and independence?”). However, women can’t always be perfect, and neither can I, so seeing such an artistic portrayal of an unlikeable and unhinged woman gave me permission to be imperfect.

Moshfegh doesn’t endorse the narrator’s actions. In fact, she makes it clear through the narrator’s irrational annoyance toward her one and only friend, Reva, that the narrator is not a good person. Yet the poetic language Moshfegh uses to describe the narrator’s sleeping patterns reached me as I struggled to sleep and helped me romanticize my own dysfunction. Not only that, but the narrator’s extreme laziness made my own womanly laziness seem like less of a problem. This can be true for other women who also love to sleep and laze around in bed.

Today, feminism appears in many forms, but one of the more notable forms of relatively new feminism is the urge to be pretty, eat, and sleep. There is no dream job, only the rejection of capitalism. Through this lens, Moshfegh’s narrator helps push forward the message that women don’t have to be independent girl bosses or devoted housewives: we can be selfish and indulgent.

I’m no longer who I was in November. I’m aware of who I am and what I like to do to keep myself busy. But during that muggy fall, My Year of Rest and Relaxation helped me be okay with a version of myself who wasn’t myself. It gave me hope. At the end of the novel, the narrator finds herself. She no longer longs for sleep or solitude.

She longs to be awake. There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is awake. And I was finally awake, too.

March 11, 2022

7

LIFESTYLE

A Love Letter to perkins

by olivia cohen Illustrated by connie liu Maybe I started loving you in the kitchen.

I remember one late Sunday morning in fall: I could smell something cooking, cinnamon-sweet, wafting down my hallway. I looked in to find a group of my friends huddled around the stovetop, French toast a-sizzling in the pan and dinnerparty jazz ("Happy Moods" by Ahmad Jamal) filling the light-soaked room. The smell drew more and more people until the kitchen was filled with friends and mismatched plates and borrowed silverware and merry chatter. We all sat shoulder to shoulder around the too-small dining room table, and, when the last piece of French toast was gone, we sat in a lazy silence as the warmth of our bodies and the sun through the window made us drowsy.

Or did I fall in love with you in the bathroom?

Maybe it was all those bleary-eyed conversations muddled by toothbrushes ("hey, you. . .did you sleep ok?"). Or maybe it was the black Sharpie graffiti on the inside of the bathroom stall ("I don't love you anymore"). Anyone who knows you

8

post–

can bond over your so-called "imperfections": the sinks that never release more than a trickle, the showerhead that spits finicky little jets of cold water, or the abandoned stone ring that has been sitting on the counter unclaimed for weeks.

Though maybe it wasn't the kitchen or the bathroom. Maybe it was the windows. They're huge, stretching nearly from one side of each room to the other. On a warm day, the light starts to filter through in the afternoon, all golden-orange, and casts everything in a soft glow. When it rains, those giant windows are covered in thousands of tiny water droplets, distorting the outside world and casting long, warped, speckled shadows on the floor. On a cold day, you can watch the snow collect on the peaked rooftops of all the quiet houses in the neighborhood, free from the chaos of what’s below.

I guess I don't know precisely what it was. But somehow I let my guard down and you became an implicit part of all my memories, a constant feature of the background. Fall feels like traipsing

through your community garden, searching for any wayward raspberries that haven't yet been picked. Winter feels like venturing out the front door during a blizzard and jumping into the snow drifts built up around the trees, then hurrying back inside to warm up by the heater, leaving wet boots in the hallway. Now spring feels like throwing the windows open in my room, letting in the warm breeze and the sound of birds chirping and little kids in bright jackets playing at the daycare across the street.

If I'm being honest, it wasn't love at first sight.

When I first met you, all sullen and quiet and brutal edges, I even resented you. No, there was nothing remotely beautiful about your construction. You simply were—steadfast and utterly boring to my naive eyes. How ignorant I was to think that your beauty would have been visible from the outside.

Now that I have had the pleasure of your constant company through these last three seasons, now that I know you inside and out, I am deeply and unabashedly in love with you, dear Perkins Hall.

LIFESTYLE

Ratty-touille

8 unusual ratty recipes that will change your college dining experience by selina liu Illustrated by connie liu After skipping breakfast as usual, you stride into the Sharpe Refectory for lunch, stand in line with a heavy backpack (because there are inevitably no seats), get ignored by a few passing acquaintances you tried to make eye contact with, retreat to refreshing your Instagram homepage, and finally get your hands on one of those sturdy and warm porcelain plates just to stand in front of some mushy “comfort foods” that seem like anything but. Sound like I’ve put a camera on you? Well, here are eight unusual but accessible Ratty food combinations that might soothe your starving stomach on one of those subpar, but all-too-frequent Ratty days.

1. Animal-style fries A time-saving guilty pleasure straight out of the burger station. Simply chop up some sausages and sprinkle them on top of fries, then garnish with shredded cheese. For the optimal gourmet experience, throw them into the microwave until the cheese starts to melt. Ding! Oozing animal style fries are served in less than five minutes 2. Peanut butter (and occasionally pineapple) bacon burger Try it before you deem it a nasty combination!

The creaminess and nuttiness of peanut butter, the tartness of the pineapple, and the crispiness of bacon all culminate to the finest balance and bring your taste buds to a different level of gustatory pleasure.

Even though pineapple is a rare show at the Rat Factory, a peanut butter burger with any protein available will still be a combination that you simply cannot miss.

3. Pan-seared chicken breast with butternut squash puree The goal of this dish is to more or less curate a fine-dining experience at the Ratty. Lay the chicken breast on top of a layer of butternut squash. Maybe have your friend dress up in black-tie attire and serve it from your right-hand side while elegantly introducing this dish in French for an authentic finedining experience.

4. Thai-style sauce Is the chicken dry again? This sauce might change the game. Mix up some soy sauce (might need to get it from the Ivy Room), peanut butter, and sriracha to bring that Thai flavor when the line for Heng Thai is too long.

5. Dessert Sandwich Don’t let the panini machine go to waste! DIY your own dessert sandwich with anything you like.

My personal favorite is a nice peanut butter banana panini with a spoonful of soft-serve ice cream on the side. The power of that bite of crispy bread and oozing filling will temporarily drive away any anxiety brought on by pressing deadlines and exams. Be careful not to get addicted!

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kyoko Leaman

“My best friend, after witnessing my dad knock on my door and silently hand me bowls of cut apples, oranges, strawberries over the course of seven years, concludes beautifully, ‘Your dad’s love language is preparing fruit for you.’”

—Ingrid Ren, “Father (Sometimes) Knows Best”

FEATURE Managing Editor Alice Bai Section Editors Andrew Lu Ethan Pan ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Emma Schneider

02.26.21

“The next year of my life is starting to coalesce; a picture is forming, in streaks and smudges.”

Section Editors Joe Maffa Sam Nevins

6. The golden toast Tired of the same old peanut butter + jelly combo? Try out butter + sugar from the coffee station! With the soft texture of butter peppered with grainy sugar meets the warm, crispy toast, every bite will be a rediscovery of familiar flavors.

7. The double-circle bagel Another exploration of the collision of textures!

Prepare your cream cheese bagel in the usual fashion and then sprinkle some adorable Cheerios on top.

The extra satisfying crunch will resolve your “bagel or cereal” breakfast dilemma once and for all.

8. The almighty ice cream — two ways (1) Ice cream float This dessert is quite self-explanatory. The trick is to make sure that you fill the entire cup with ice before you put in the soda and ice cream. This prevents the ice cream from sinking down to the bottom and gives you the authentic ice cream truck experience.

(2) Ice cream crumble with a drizzle of olive oil That’s the way they do it in niche restaurants furnished in a minimalistic and industrial style.

Cover the bowl or plate with a thin layer of the cereal of your choice, then top it with a soft-serve ice cream swirled up in finesse, and finish it with a drizzle of olive oil. The slight hint of olive oil will bring out the unexpected refreshing side of the ice cream and makes you want to scrape up the plate.

Bon appétit!

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Siena Capone Section Editors Danielle Emerson Leyton Ho LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Kimberly Liu Section Editors Tabitha Lynn Sarah Roberts HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Connie Liu

— Anna Harvey, “Small Pieces, Big Picture” 02.28.20

Want to be involved?

Email: kyoko_leaman@brown.edu!

COPY CHIEF Aditi Marshan

CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Jiahua Chen Briaanna Chiu

Copy Editors Katheryne Gonzalez Eleanor Peters Tierra Sherlock SOCIAL MEDIA HEAD EDITORS Kelsey Cooper Chloe Zhao Tabitha Grandolfo Natalie Chang

Layout Designers Alice Min Angela Sha Caroline Zhang Gray Martens STAFF WRITERS Dorrit Corwin Lily Seltz Alexandra Herrera Olivia Cohen Joyce Gao Zoe Creane Danielle Emerson Kaitlan Bui Julia Vaz Liza Kolbasov Marin Warshay

March 11, 2022

9