post- 04/08/2022

In This Issue Catherine Kasparyan

3

Danielle Emerson

Ellyse Givens

2

At CVS On Thayer St.

When Can I Read Your Writing?

Bicoastal Being 3

MadEline Canfield

In the Beginning 5

Adi Thatai 6

Naruto and The Hero's Journey Olivia Cohen 8

The Ultimate Spring Music Compilation

postCover by Connie Liu

APRIL 8

VOL 29

— ISSUE 7

FEATURE

Bicoastal Being on human mobility, home, and attachment

By Ellyse Givens Illustrated by John Gendron I saw this TikTok that said the trip from college back

I inhabit, respond to, and draw from a different external

looks older than the last time I saw her. My dad is wearing

to your hometown is like a “portal between two different

world. At home in San Diego, I’m a daughter, a neighbor, a

a new lavender golf shirt he bought at a club in South

worlds.” To me, flying from Brown back home to San Diego,

sister, a little girl who somehow grew up before onlookers

Carolina, apparently. This world lived on; my home lived

the plane feels like a portal between two different lives. I

had a chance to blink. I’m a homebody. I make oatmeal in

on despite the loss of what I thought was its integral body.

peer over the sleeping bodies of my fellow passengers out

specific ceramic bowls; I sleep within the same duvet set

Yet I quickly integrate myself back into its fluctuations—

the window and see the faint outline of the coast slowly

that I have for the last five years; I watch The Bachelor on

What did I miss? Did we plant a garden? The dogs look so

materialize from the fogginess of the clouds. We sink

Mondays. I’m the girl behind the front desk of the local

much bigger! It’s as if I was asleep for three months, and

further, and suddenly I can see the city lights—the tiny

yoga studio, the ‘runner’ who stops every five minutes

am looking at the news for the first time.

cars scurrying about like insects, the miniature houses

to take pictures of the coast. I look through my portal’s

Although this world I left behind is anything but

arranged in perfectly rectangular patterns, their yellow

window, at the tiny Lego town—the setting within which

stagnant, so many of its pieces still feel the same. Those

lights fading and reigniting. When I was a little girl, this

this distinct version of myself is very much alive. Her

ceramic bowls somehow still hold the comfort of mid-

was my favorite part of the flight, moments before you

memories, emotions, and experiences remain entrenched

pandemic oatmeal; my bed is as I left it, its fabric still

land—when the world looks like a tiny Lego town.

within its infrastructure.

holding on to the excitement for college, the sadness over

Within this town of palm trees and diamond-hued

I emerge from the portal and hug my mom tighter

lost friendships, or the post-volleyball game exhaustion

water, I live a different life than I do at Brown. I’m not a

than I have in a long time. And I am quickly reminded of the

that rushed through my body as I sat atop its quilted

different person—I remain situated in my same body—yet

abundance that I leave behind while at Brown. My sister

warmth. I re-immerse myself in a world that is ever-

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about time.

Time as an enemy (There’s never enough of it!

Except when there’s too much!), time as a metaphor, time as a substance. The day-to-day passage of time feels like a slow leak: oil escaping into the engine, sizzling on hot metal. Check engine light flashing.

Hours sliding away before you can grab them.

On a more macro scale, there is nothing slow about time. The other day I wrote the date as 4/3/2020 without thinking and had to have a five minute meltdown about it. 2022… seems a little farfetched, don’t ya think? The future just keeps on rushing, taking, crashing, arriving and arriving and arriving.

Here at post-, our writers have taken some of their swirling, spinning time to share their thoughts about a whole range of topics. In Feature, our writer frames the airplane as a portal between home and

school, separated on opposite coasts. One Narrative writer grapples with writing about her father, while the other thinks back on memories triggered by the scent of different shampoos. In A&C, one of our writers considers several first books written by different authors. Our second A&C writer sends a letter to himself reflecting on a piece he wrote for post- last spring, providing an update on the role Naruto has played in his continued love for the fantasy genre. Finally, our Lifestyle writer offers a spring soundtrack: four wonderful playlists to guide the vibe.

Well, readers, it looks like the future has arrived once again. Every damn minute! I hope you take a moment to escape the passage of time and rest within the pages of post-.

Avoiding eye contact with the clock,

Kyoko Leaman Editor-in-Chief

2

post–

Rhymes 1. April showers bring May flowers 2. Hot pot / 火锅 3. Snug as a bug in a rug 4. Slant 5. Itty bitty titty committee 6. Shonda 7. FIVE SIX PICK UP STICKS 8. “'Cause I be the baddie B, Barbie tings, banging body B / Everybody be on my D, yo, I gotta be in reality / Suck a D if you doubted me” 9. Amelia Bedelia 10. Hoes before bros

FEATURE changing and alive, yet simultaneously unable to let go of the lives it has taken on before.

time there is now always finite.

***

It does seem logical that more mobile individuals

I’m back at Brown now, and there’s a part of me that

I feel inextricably attached to this place, my body

tend to have weaker place attachment—that the more one

still mourns the West Coast, that wasn’t ready to slip out

tethered to both its past and present despite my distance

moves, the more futile it seems to attach oneself to every

of my San Diego skin and back into my (pale) Providence

from it. These intense feelings of attachment to my home,

new place, and thus the weaker their place attachment

one. The attachment beckoning me back West seems to

the way in which I mourn the person I am and have been

becomes. And some evidence does point to this assumption.

consume me during certain moments. Yet during others,

within this place, aren’t just a side effect of homesickness.

According to Scannell and Gifford, some research has

I feel alive and integrated once again within this second

It turns out that they are a social and psychological

suggested that people who move more frequently do have

place to which I have become attached. The Colonial-

phenomenon. “Place attachment” is defined by the

weaker ties to specific places.

style brick sidewalks still elicit a certain giddiness in my

University of Washington as a personal identification with

However, I almost feel as if I, a mobile body, have

gait. The winter twigs now bear tiny cherry blossoms, and

a location or landscape on an emotional level, a “person-

abnormally strong place attachment—as if the severance

I smile, just as I did standing under their orange autumn

place bond that evolves from specifiable conditions of place

of constantly coming and going somehow tethers me more

leaves just months ago. I guess my heart now lives in two

and characteristics of people.” Many researchers think of

tightly to each place. Every time I exit a world, I do, in a

places, just as earnestly in one as it does in the other. So, I

place attachment as a specific emotional bond to a setting,

way, feel more attached to it—I engage so deeply with its

fetch my Cheerios and pineapple from the V-Dub. I adjust

oftentimes associated with positive feelings, including

abundance that every time it seems more difficult to leave.

my scarf, inhale faintly, and step out into this world I have

love, happiness, or pride. But a place attachment can also

Accordingly, it turns out that mobility doesn’t always

created and embraced as my own.

be characterized by more negative or ambivalent feelings

have to undermine place attachment. Rather, my body’s

toward the place in question, in cases where it represents

constant movement can actually render it capable of

more painful or complex memories.

stronger place attachment than it ever could achieve while

“Place identity,” then, refers to the incorporation

sedentary. In their 2019 research published in the Journal

of place into one’s larger concept of self. In the words of

of Environmental Psychology, Andrés Di Masso et al. argue

Royal Roads University’s Leila Scannell and University

that mobilities, instead of negating the importance of place

of Victoria’s Robert Gifford, “who we are can also include

in human life, actually “shift our understanding of place

where we are.” In this way, it makes sense that I seem to be

and habitual ways we relate to and bond with places.”

able to draw distinct lines between who I am in California

It makes some sense. After all, the more we move,

and who I am in Providence. I am still myself at Brown—

the more we appreciate certain aspects of one place,

but I am no longer a daughter, a neighbor, and a sister

because we experience their absence in others. In Sweden,

that grew up; I am a 19-year-old living alone for the first

frequent travelers were found to have had just as strong

time. Nobody here knew me as a child—all they know is

of an attachment to local communities within which they

my body’s present version. I am not dependent, but rather

lived for short periods of time as less frequent travelers.

live and breathe remembering the fact that nobody is

Frequent travelers, in fact, were found to be more involved

really here to protect me. In this world, I weirdly go to the

in community and local issues than non-frequent travelers.

MacMillan lecture hall at 9 p.m. to be alone, I eat pineapple

In this way, “‘roots’ and ‘routes’ are not always at odds.” By

with Cheerios, I check in on my friends, and I love wearing

leaving home, I am not severing ties, but rather allowing

scarves. I drink, dance, and love fearlessly, continually

myself to reflect upon and more deeply appreciate a place

resisting the chronic shyness of my youth. Where my body

to which I will always be inextricably attached.

lives has forced me to redefine exactly who I want it to be.

Historically, social research has often given a kind

I have created multiple place identities: skins I slip into

of moral privilege to sedentary populations. In other

upon arrival at each location.

words, we have ascribed a certain ‘incivility’ to the hunter-

Yet I am somewhat disillusioned by the fact that, as

gatherers of our past, who were constantly on the move.

humans, we work so tirelessly to forge these distinct place

This hierarchical thinking helps to explain the confusion

attachments and place identities—just to leave that place

and disillusionment that can come when moving today—

eventually. Now, I straddle both coasts, so deeply attached

the belief that someone who moves all the time should

to two very different places and the varying identities I

find just ‘one place’ to remain, as I, myself, have sometimes

inhabit. Every time I grace either world, Brown or San

considered. Yet this assumption overlooks humans’

Diego, I do so knowing my time there is temporary, that

long-standing ability to have multiple homes, to develop

I have to leave eventually. I go west for break and go back

stronger place attachment the more and more mobile

to Brown when classes start again. I am a body constantly

our bodies become. Maybe we were meant to morph and

on the move, simultaneously pulled toward two opposite

change depending on the specific land atop which we stand.

coasts. Every time I am in one place, I wish for the other.

Maybe our hearts were meant to live in multiple different

Yet neither one is really “home” anymore—because any

places, all at the same time.

When Can I Read Your Writing? slow healing, slow hauntings

by Danielle Emerson Illustrated by Connie Liu ig: the_con_artist He hasn’t moved from the kitchen table.

Yesterday’s hard-boiled eggs and toast sit untouched on his paper plate, no doubt cold. Everything but his left hand remains still. He’s been rewriting the same word, over and over. In harsh, repeated lines, I can read clay. I’m surprised the pen hasn’t given out yet.

But the paper is ripped. And instead of moving to a new section, he continues writing into the wood of the table.

The rest of him isn’t frozen; if anything, he’s burning. Yesterday, I tried shaking him awake, reaching for his forearms the moment he went silent but immediately recoiled. A thick, red line licked its way up the inside of my wrist. It left a mark, but I know now not to touch him. …

My father never got to read my writing. Which is kind of funny, because I write about him a lot––not all good things, so honestly, maybe it’s for the best that he never got to read it.

My dad died around this time last year, in perhaps one of the worst ways possible. I’m not going to get into it, but you can trust me—you don’t want to die that way. In a lot of my short stories, the father figure disappears, or dies, or was never there to

“What do you mean active service? Oh, acts of service?”

“They’re like, ‘Do you like green eggs and ham?’

And I’m like, ‘No, I’m kosher.’”

“It’s giving goo goo, it’s giving ga ga. It’s giving doo doo, it’s giving dada… ISM!”

Arpil 8, 2022

3

NARRATIVE

begin with. Because of this, a strange part of me felt his death––the cause, the time, the place––was inevitable, that deep down I expected it to happen. Honestly, the whole thing still haunts me. So many things about him still haunt me. And maybe that’s why I keep writing about him. …

Ben looks past me, peeking into the room. I follow his gaze and gesture for him to follow me. We step inside together. The floor creaks with our combined weight, mixing in the air. Dad’s still there.

Dad’s still still.

Still.

For a moment, we didn't say anything. We just watch. The sound of our dad’s scribbling growing louder and louder.

Ben breaks the glass first: “Should we call someone?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Give it another day. He’s just grieving.”

Ben hums in response. We don’t say it, but we can both feel the heat. It pecks at our cheeks, brushing our arms. If we got any closer, no doubt we’d burn. …

It’s interesting to think about how, while alive and dead, my father’s still here. Buried deep in my bone marrow, in the pieces of skin I tear from my fingernails, in the soreness of my jaw from clenching too hard. He’s there in the nights I can’t sleep and toss and turn and lay staring at the white ceiling. He’s there in the shadows I spot in my peripheral vision, the figure always watching me from the corner.

But he’s also there in the green thermos he gifted me junior year of high school; in the black journal he gave to my aunt to give to me—the last, but also first birthday gift he gave me that wasn't a knife, or a switchblade, or some kind of weapon. Honestly, it’s kind of ridiculous how many knives I have from him, how many my younger siblings also have.

My father’s also there while I’m working at Andrews as a Brown Dining student worker. He worked a lot in kitchens. I think we’d be able to have a nice conversation about our kitchen experiences, something we could shit-talk and maybe laugh about.

Very rarely could we laugh about anything together.

My dad was a sarcastic man. He’d always say, “Where’d you get that sarcasm from?” And, if he were sober and in a good mood, I’d shrug and say, “Well, I learned from the best.”

He’s there when I feel the sudden urge to text him, short and quick. A small update: school’s going alright (lie), I’ve been busy with assignments (a half-lie), I’ll try to call you later (a complete lie), and I hope you get 4

post–

some sleep (the truth). I used to update him because, one, he got angry if I didn't and two, because I felt bad when I didn't contact him. But honestly, I ended up feeling bad regardless. …

There’s something distant in his eyes, a little glazed over, a little lost in gray. Give it another minute, maybe he’ll tell me to leave, maybe he’ll tell me to start dinner.

Or maybe he’ll just sit there. Again. All through the night, hands clasped beneath his chin, breath shallow.

Ben sits with him when he’s not at work. Sometimes I walk by, allowing myself to listen. Dad doesn’t seem to say anything, but that doesn’t stop Ben from talking.

I don’t like going in the room. The burn on my right forearm starts itching whenever I get too close. Ben doesn’t know I touched him; he was at the diner when it happened. I hid the mark, its blisters concealed under long sleeves. But the heat itself, like a roaring fireplace, reminds him to keep his distance. …

My father used to joke about me writing about our family. “You should write about us,” he’d only say this when he was drunk, “about me.”

I think my father took some strange pleasure in knowing we weren’t a ‘normal family.’ That alcoholism, domestic abuse, mental illness, and lowincome struggles existed in our two bedroom house on the Navajo reservation. He’d make jokes about how all the great writers, all the “great artists,” were alcoholics or came from “troubled” and “messed up” backgrounds; that I had “great” material to create from––to spin off of and write about.

And in some ways, he was right. I write about him and the things that happened to us. I write a lot about growing up. And I write a lot about how growing up the way I did affects me now. I don’t know if he’d be proud or if he’d get angry. And I’ll never find out.

There’s a nice finality to not knowing. …

When we get back, our father is gone. We search every floor of the house, checking each room twice. I dig through closets, crawl under beds, and worm my way between shelves in the basement. Ben drives into town, searching along the highway. He drives two towns over, sometimes three. But the answer is always the same. No one knows, no one’s seen anything. I wait at the house, in case he comes back. I’d like to think he’d come back, if not for us, then at least for the clay figurines he left behind. The ones he made with his mother. He wouldn’t just abandon them. …

During 2020 Covid summer, I’d call him every

now and then––or rather, he’d call me. If it was early enough that I could trust he was sober, or if I was feeling particularly brave, I’d answer. I remember he’d ask me what I was writing about. I never had the courage to tell him what I was actually writing about, so I’d give him a general response: “Just some short stories.” Take a light breath, keep my voice even so I don’t sound suspicious, “I’m not sure how to describe them.”

He’d grunt and say okay, followed by some variation of, “but you gotta show them to me someday.”

I’d agree just to agree. Because he’d have it no other way, and, despite being over 2000 miles from home, I was still afraid he’d hurt me.

All of this sort of comes down to that single, irrational, and stupid-ass crushing thought: I’m still afraid.

And what’s my solution? Motherfucking writing about it.

I used to write about things under a pseudonym.

Whatever I was feeling, whatever was happening at home, whatever I wanted to say but wrote instead.

I never used first person point-of-view, and I never used my actual name. This was my first dabble into fiction writing, which was also strangely my first dabble into self-narrative. It just made sense at the time. I don’t know whether I wrote like that to protect myself from outside readers––my dad, my mom, my school teachers; or to distance myself from my traumatic experiences. Perhaps it was both. …

I place the clay figurines along the windowsill.

Their forms cast small shadows, coated in sunlight.

They’re our new lookouts, calling our dad home. We moved the table our father sat at for three days into the basement. Sometimes I go down there and trace his handwriting, following the engraving with my forefinger. The jagged lines suggest pain and grief. The depth of the engraving suggests frustration, maybe even anger.

We don’t know how he felt leading up to his disappearance, but something tells me he found at least a fourth-of-a-cup of peace. Maybe it’s the fact that my forearm has healed, blisters gone, only the smooth finesse of a scar left behind. …

I don’t write like that anymore. But sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to write about anything else, not distinctly father- or trauma-related. I’d be lying if I said my short stories, that are works of fiction, don’t also carry pieces of my past. And I’d also be lying if I said I knew how to write––how to exist in my day-to-day––without those pieces.

Me writing about these things, and sharing them, is the healing process. There’s something comforting in knowing another person, whether I know them or not, will read these words and understand me a bit better. Or perhaps they’ll read these words and not care, because honestly, why should I expect them to? These are just things, emotions, thoughts, glimpses, memories, feelings, images, tastes, smells, conversations, experiences that I need to write about. And they won’t leave me alone until they’re out. I can always breathe better afterwards.

To this day, only two of my family members have read my writing––my two older cousins. But they were pretty mellow, a previous post- piece about my sky blue Nintendo DSi and the fiction snippets in this piece. Honestly, I don’t look forward to sharing my writing. I’m not sure how it will go, if it’ll be invalidated or brushed off. But I’ll always be haunted by the things I feel compelled to write about, and at least I’m growing more comfortable with sharing those thoughts.

NARRATIVE

At CVS On Thayer St.

a trip down shampoo lane

by Catherine Kasparyan Illustrated by Lucia Tian I stand in the haircare aisle for six minutes.

There are other customers near me, so I press myself to one side, sheepishly smiling at them as they squeeze past me in the narrow aisle.

They really should’ve designed the aisles better: They’re not quite large enough for two people to walk by each other without one twisting their body sideways in order to make it through.

The interruptions and awkward shuffling distract me from the task at hand. I look across the shelves again and then back down to my phone.

And then back to the shelves. And back down to my phone again. At this point, I’m just hoping for a sign from God that will let me know which shampoo and conditioner to buy. Until then, I’m trapped here in my indecision.

The tab I currently have open on my phone is a Glamour article on the best shampoos for wavy hair in 2021. There are six other tabs open that all have similar titles, all on different sites. I don’t want my decision to be biased, and I’m not sure how much I can trust this Glamour writer. As I scroll through, quickly scanning the list and then looking up to see if this CVS has that particular shampoo in stock, I chastise myself for forgetting, once again, to do this before I got to the store.

For me, there is a delicate art to buying shampoo and conditioner, a balancing act I often fail at. My standard ratio is one bottle of shampoo to two bottles of conditioner: I use just enough shampoo to clean my hair, and follow that with more than double the amount of conditioner needed to detangle it. I have used this practice since elementary school, when I would make myself cry as I tried to brush the snarls out of my hair. But despite this self-knowledge, I still regularly find myself running out of conditioner.

I’m aware that some might find it odd to think this much about your hair products, but hair matters. Not just superficially, as in how your hair affects the way you look, but also in how it makes you feel, how it identifies you. I’m also sure that some people aren’t aware that the scent of your shampoo and conditioner lingers. It loiters in the unsettled air you leave behind, on the blankets you sleep under, on the shirt you rest your head against.

When you use the same shampoo or conditioner for long enough, it becomes linked to who you are.

I can never stick with the same shampoo and conditioner for very long. I think it’s because I always end up wondering if I could be using something better. My hair agrees. Whenever I switch shampoo and conditioner, I swear that for the first few days, my hair looks better than it ever has before. Every bottle has its own set of promises, its own reasons why it’s the perfect product for you, and of course, its own smell. My dad once told me that there’s a nerve that goes straight from your nose to the memory center of your brain. That makes sense to me. So when I inevitably reach the bottom of a bottle and find myself at CVS or Walgreens or RiteAid, I often decide, as I stare at the lines of bottles begging me to take them home, that it’s time for a change. Then the analysis It can feel somewhat surreal to stand in the store and look down the shampoo and conditioner aisle. The colors and the words start to blur together after a few minutes. It’s like staring out at a crowd at a party; when you blink the world back into focus, there are a lot of faces you don’t recognize, some that you do, but only a few you’ve had any intimate experiences with. The familiarity of those few bottles and colors and names you do know can feel like a safety net. It’s not someone you’re planning on going home with, but someone you can occupy yourself with for a little bit. Shoot the shit. Maybe even reminisce.

Today, nothing new is grabbing my attention, so I look back.

Garnier Fructis - Sleek and Shine The bottle is bright green and joyous.

Suddenly, I’m six years old again. I’m in my cousins’ bathroom. There’s white light pouring in and the shower curtain shrieks against the metal rod as I pull it open. I scan the space and up there, in the corner, are my new shampoo and conditioner for the weekend, courtesy of my cousin Margot. When I pop open the cap, the whole room starts to smell like too-sweet fruit and citrus and summer. I’m convinced the shampoo is magic.

When we get home from my cousins’ house, I persuade my mom to let me buy a bottle for myself.

OGX - Coconut Milk The wooden floor of the outdoor shower is slick with some sort of dark mold. The simple white bottle is pretty tame compared to the others around it. I’m scrubbing salt and sand from my body and trying (in vain) to detangle the knots whipped into my hair by the wind. Frustration bubbles up as my fingers get caught, yet again, as I try to comb them through. I’m up in Maine,

spending as much time as I can in or on the water.

I don’t think too much about my coconut-scented shampoo and conditioner besides whether it does a good job in helping me remove strands of seaweed from my hair.

OGX - renewing+ Argan Oil of Morocco A very particular shade of light blue. A staple in my routine for a while. They also make this one in the tiny travel-sized bottles, so I return to it now and again. I pack the squat, curved shampoo and conditioner with gold-ish caps last in my carryon, so I have easy access when I go through TSA. It reminds me of Powell’s Books in Oregon and too-hot beaches in Florida and endless driving in California. It reminds me of my grandparents’ house in Maine and hotel showers and too-soft beds, somewhere familiar and somewhere new.

Pantene - Moisture Renewal Two years ago, my then-boyfriend said something like, “A girl walked past me today, and I swear her shampoo smelled just like the one you used when we first started dating.” I didn’t know how to react. I half-smiled at the screen, tracing patterns onto the soft fabric of my bedspread. He was in Portland, I was in Providence. I wondered whether the next time he visited I should buy that old shampoo, in its unimaginative pearlescent bottle, just to see what his reaction would be.

I thought about it for a while, and then I decided that I did not want to regress.

Garnier Whole Blends - Honey Treasures The bright yellow bottle sends me straight back to my dorm room in Caswell—the room with the tall ceilings and the chipping molding and the windows I left open when it rained. I kept an extra pair of bottles stuffed in the corner of my closet. I always forgot they were there. When we went home for the pandemic, I decided not to buy it again.

A little over six minutes after I enter, I walk out of CVS, the chaos of Thayer St. assaulting my senses. There’s no colorful bottle in my bag, no mile long receipt crinkled up and stuffed in the bottom. I’m leaving empty-handed. I tell myself I’ll be better prepared next time. I’ll research more beforehand. I’ll avoid getting caught up inhaling memories.

When I go back in a couple of days, I’m only inside for four minutes.

In The Beginning a reflection on first novels

by MadEline Canfield Illustrated by Talia Mermin WHITE TEETH I was shocked, or wide-eyed at least, in the way we always are when confronted with great success achieved at ages as young as our own.

“Really? She published White Teeth at 21? Can you imagine writing a book, right now?”

I think the three of us were 19, or just-20, at the time of the conversation. It seemed unfathomable— wildly overwhelming, yet thrilling, to crack open our laptops right now and expound expertly on the vast, systemic implications of our random lives.

To be so young and to articulate such a grand (and lengthy) commentary on immigration, colonialism, temporality, and nationhood; to narrate the interiority of middle-aged adults with the acuity of someone the same age as these characters rather than someone the age of their children; to write sentences that strapped words into roller coaster cars and launched them through loops and death drops Arpil 8, 2022

5

ARTS & CULTURE across the page; to achieve massive acclaim through a story whose setting, character demographics, and thematic interests appear to have emerged from the chapters of Zadie Smith’s young life.

In Smith’s later books, she tackles many of the same themes as in her first one—identity, familial lineage, generational strains, diaspora, colonialism, contemporary urban life, inter-cultural community—yet their stories take on characters and plots that seem tame and focused in comparison.

All her novels and stories and essays dazzle with intellect and profundity, but White Teeth races with the mania of a young and brilliant mind desperate to garner the attention her ideas deserve. It reads like the author’s attempt to unleash all that she has come to understand in her 21 years, all that struggle and memory and wonderful chaos, everything she wishes to say in case she never receives another opportunity to say it. It reads like a beginning, like it has something to prove.

The other two people I was talking to hadn’t read White Teeth yet, but the conversation compelled them to do so, for experimentation’s sake. I did the same, with the first books of other authors. We splayed open these books and read them with a pen in one hand and a set of questions in the other: What does it look like to assert oneself as a writer? How does someone tell a story to embark on a lifetime of telling stories? Where and how and why does someone begin to present their art?

MAN WALKS INTO A ROOM Of the few first novels I paged my way through while my friends read White Teeth, I distinctly remember my surprise at a debut that appeared opposite to Smith’s approach. I had already read nearly every one of Nicole Krauss’s books when I sat down for her earliest one, Man Walks Into a Room.

It was short in page number, small when held in my hands, and altogether unassuming. Nothing like Smith’s hefty and wild bombardment.

A book about a middle-aged professor who’d lost all of his post-pubescent memories, the novel isn’t a re-articulation of experiences in Krauss’s early life or a categorical narrativization of the unending nature of trauma across place and time. Both of these characteristics would eventually sweep through Krauss’s later work, imbuing them with oppressive significance and longevity. Instead, the ideas within Man Walks Into a Room, and the linear, protagonistoriented tactic it takes, clasps Krauss’s talents into a bounded unit.

It reads like someone stepping gingerly into the theater and cueing up a preview, while the slides containing the great scenes of her ingenuity remain coiled inside the film box. It reads like someone cautiously, publicly displaying her notable, quiet intelligence, while internally, the vast gyres of her mind spin with wild energy, churning out the perturbing and indelible characters whose soliloquies on collective trauma would build up to an ultimate revelation of her remarkable ambition.

In Man Walks Into a Room, Krauss’s prose is delicate, lively, and beautiful, replete with engaging musings and observations that propel her neat plot.

But in a book about memory and the implications of its loss, she restricts the scope of her contemplations to the individual, holding back from inculcating the weight of memory on collective identity, history, and generations, as she does in her later, award-winning books. For a writer whose career is defined by her explorations of communal and national identity, Krauss wrote a first book defined by a character fixated on selfhood, with little discussion of those massive themes. Whereas Smith from the start 6

post–

launched herself onto a towering platform from which she unveiled her later words, Krauss gently introduced memory as the great mountain of her literary concern, her first work taking the initial steps of a climb whose peak she withheld in order to illustrate the impressive path to its ascent.

As an artist, Krauss practiced restraint. She saved her biggest questions for later.

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES When reflecting on authors like those above, it seems that there are two primary approaches to beginning a life of writing: 1) to say everything that one thinks one has to say, the story a writer must tell before they can tell any other story, establishing the basis of their oeuvre 2) to create a small and precise project, a character study rather than a social or political study, one that preludes the writer’s full preoccupations and capabilities It seems to me, as a reader, that it is a choice between measurement of the self or unleashing of the self. Perhaps these are merely the poles.

I see, in the works of a famous Brown alum whose three novels I read in the correct order and spaced out over multiple years, an in-between approach, one that rearranges the expected order of literary art. Jeffrey Eugenides postponed penning the fictionalization of his familial experience in his hometown, the Great American ImmigrantAssimilation Novel, until his second book. But within the pages of The Virgin Suicides, his eerie, macabre first novel, lie the specters of Eugenides’s boyhood in the outskirts of Detroit, the malaise of upper-middle class suburbanization, and youth alienation, even as the plot circles around depressed teenage girls who diverge entirely from the personal vantage point of the author. Eugenides leaves the grandeur of his whole-scale American commentary on ethnicity, capitalism, and identity for Middlesex (his second novel); yet he prepares that ground from the treehouses and two-story homes of The Virgin Suicides.

In that first book, Eugenides is restrained—he issues no epic family saga or heavy-handed political diatribe but a creative twist on a coming-of-age novel. He dwells primarily in the affective realm of ethereal scenes, passages that seek to lose the reader in the illusion of characters all undergoing their own disillusionment. Yet this character study looks beyond the individual in cultivating an insightful, incipient social commentary about collective American life,

one which then blooms wildly in Eugenides’s later works. Though its lyrical style and tone are largely unparalleled across Eugenides’ career, The Virgin Suicides is, for all intents and purposes, a warmup. And then, his third novel, The Marriage Plot, narrates the love triangle of Brown students, an apolitical story that might conventionally arrive at the very beginning of a writer’s tenure. Maybe Eugenides thought the story too trite or common for an emerging writer to publish, but fine for someone who had already won the Pulitzer. He observes no logical timelines, no platforms or mountains, but his novelistic trajectory is still, by the looks of it, calculated. It is not a desperate call to speech nor a ramp that steadily increases its stakes to ensure increasing success. It is a combination of that desire to plan for a challenging, competitive literary world, and the compulsion to write stories as they come.

The start of writing must be a contest. It is a contest between present and future, between an author’s preparedness and ambition, between a story’s viability and its necessity. For those playing the long game, art—at least written art—is not only an act of expression. It is a deliberation.

Naruto and The Hero’s Journey re: re-finding fantasy

by Adi Thatai Illustrated by Elliana Reynolds Dear Adi, It’s been a year since you wrote Re-Finding Fantasy, that piece about reclaiming your love for speculative fiction after re-reading your favorite fantasy story, Eragon from The Inheritance Cycle.

You have a lot of exciting stuff in front of you. You’re going to be an uncle soon, and baby Lily will be the most adorable. You’re going to split your summer between San Francisco and Providence, and you’re going to visit Stockholm at the end. You’re going to get your ears pierced, get closer to some lovely people, and take some really rewarding classes. I don’t want to make you nervous, but you also have a lot of pain in front of you. Kanval Uncle is in the hospital, Daadi falls and her dementia gets worse, and Papa is struggling with his relationship with his siblings. You’re not in a relationship anymore.

You’re going to lose Baloo in the fall. It’s going

ARTS & CULTURE begins to cry and admits to Naruto that he can never be an unfeeling tool. He tells Naruto, “I’ve lost.” You’re going to cry because Zabuza’s final, spectacular act comes from unrepressed care for Haku.

Naruto’s story is one of unilateral love and compassion that originates within himself. Naruto resists the conventions of the ninja world, refusing to comply with societal conventions that ask him to kill his feelings. Naruto’s “failure,” his belief in

to hurt like hell, and you’re never going to stop missing him. But before he passes, you’re going to carry him to the top of the hill in his favorite dog park one last time, and he’s going to look out over his world with an old sage’s radiant sense of peace.

You’re lucky you get to give him that. It’s a lot to spring on you, but honestly, I’m happy with how you respond. You’re going to find something that helps a lot. I don’t want to spoil everything that happens, but you’re going to find a new favorite fantasy narrative: Naruto. ** I started watching Masashi Kishimoto’s iconic anime Naruto at the beginning of last summer, after years of pestering and prodding from my good friend, Obi. I was hesitant at first; I don’t watch much TV to begin with and had never watched anime. I think after a day of melting in the sweltering heat of my third floor Providence apartment, I just wanted an excuse to laze in the cool relief of a summer night. A couple nights a week, with Naruto up on the projector, with a friend and my then-girlfriend, I kicked up my feet and watched the story unfold. 10 months later, I finally finished the epic tale, but only after its 500 episodes fundamentally altered my understanding of the hero’s journey and myself.

Honestly, I think I was hooked on Naruto by the first sequence. The pilot episode opens with a giant, beautifully drawn nine-tailed demon fox growling while its tawny body bounds about the forest and its many tails dance behind it. The story’s protagonist is Naruto Uzumaki, a rebellious, ramen-obsessed, and exceptionally untalented young ninja from the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

At birth, village leaders seal the demon fox inside of Naruto in order to protect the community from the fox’s wrath. Growing up, Naruto experiences no love—hated and isolated by the villagers who see him as the embodiment of the demon fox. In the pain of his loneliness, Naruto dreams of being the village’s strongest ninja and leader, so that his peers and neighbors will love and respect him. The epic recounts his coming of age as he trains, grows, creates bonds, hones his philosophy, learns to use the power of the fox, and fights to protect his loved ones from danger.

Naruto, even in its animated form, is clearly a printed story. As I watched the anime, I picked up some of the manga volumes and read the narrative concurrently. Unlike any other visual media I've ever seen, the Naruto anime feels like a translation of the print into a new medium. Instead of conflicts and resolutions contained in individual episodes, Naruto episodes each cover a few chapters from

the manga, and the story is organized into long “arcs” with unique themes, challenges, and antagonists. Nearly all the drawings from the manga are included, and the animator’s job is to imagine and interpret the invisible movement between the panels—the job that any comic book reader shares—and turn it into animation. Instead of just being “based on a book,” the anime depicts the imaginative experience of reading the manga.

Combine that with keeping the original Japanese audio and using translated subtitles (as Obi asserts is the only way to truly experience the show), watching Naruto feels like reading a book more than watching a show.

Naruto falls under the category of Shōnen manga—Japanese comics marketed mainly to young teenage male readers between the ages of 12 and 18 (the equivalent for young women is called Shōjo manga). While I appreciate the genre’s investigation of themes like loneliness, empathy, and heroism, Shōnen consistently relegates women to the background, and Naruto is no exception. The story’s women are simple, and their philosophies for existence are exclusively tied to male characters. Women in Naruto are healers, even those with strong fighting abilities.

Not only does this rampant misogyny cause harm in and through the viewers, it also just makes the story worse. Kishimoto—Naruto’s creator— displayed the ability to write fantastic characters time and time again, but never extended the appropriate care to the story’s women. I’m grateful this wasn’t the show to socialize me, and I’m glad I only approached Naruto at an age where I can appreciate the story for what it is and criticize it for its failures. ** You’re not going to expect it, Adi, but what makes Naruto’s story so valuable isn’t necessarily the structure of its world or even its characters, but instead that it offers a completely reimagined vision of the hero’s journey. From the first chapter, Naruto is a failed ninja. Ninja, or shinobi, literally translates to “those who act in stealth,” and Naruto is weird, emotional, and a loud prankster. In the first storyline, still one of your favorites, Naruto and his team battle with Haku and Zabuza, a pair of rogue mercenaries. Zabuza, nicknamed “the Demon of the Hidden Mist,” believes ninja are simply emotionless tools, non-human objects to be used by others. When Haku sacrifices his life for him, Zabuza seems unaffected. Naruto cries, yelling at Zabuza in a tear-jerking monologue, “Don’t you feel anything?” Zabuza, hearing Naruto’s words,

emotions and kindness and his embrace of feeling pain, never changes, and it makes him a beacon of hope in the cruel ninja world. He takes the lonely pain of his childhood and turns it into his dream.

In the coming year, Adi, watching Naruto, you will realize that you love the hero’s journey because of its demand for growth, its call to self-reflection, and its conceptualization of the grind as a way of life. For a while, you have felt like that growth is the only way to be and feel your best. Now, I think that notion is wrong. For Eragon or Luke Skywalker or Aang, unlike Naruto, the character needs to grow because they are insufficient for the heroics that the world demands of them. With their training arcs of tears and pain, chapters where the characters’ bodies alter to gain strength, and episodes of insecurity and self-doubt, I’ve realized that these heroes’ journeys are tales of suppressing feelings of inadequacy, and attaching onto that specific narrative structure isn’t healthy.

Self-improvement and growth will always be central to you, but I think for a long time, you believed that if you changed yourself, if you just tried hard enough, you wouldn’t feel so much pain and you would be enough.

Naruto showed me a different way. Even in the pain he feels for being marked weak because of his unique personality and perspective, Naruto always stays strong in what makes him “a failure.” Halfway through the show, Naruto’s teacher tells him that his relentless pursuit of a seemingly impossible goal is foolish and he should give it up. Naruto looks at his teacher and responds, “If that’s what it means to be wise, I’d rather be a fool.” At every turn in the show, Naruto refuses to give up on his dreams. Naruto’s nindo, his ninja way, is to never go back on his words. In the show, Naruto gains the power to protect his village by recognizing how he wants to mature, always through trusting himself and his capacity to accomplish what he promised himself he could. His motivation for growth never comes from a feeling of inadequacy. Rather, it stems from his dreams and feelings for himself and his loved ones. He may be a failure in the eyes of others, but in his loneliness and suffering, Naruto understood the intrinsic self-worth that nobody can take away from him.

I’m excited for you, Adi. Naruto will show you that growth doesn’t have to be about becoming different, but can instead be a part of a new journey, one that centers empathy and love, and starts with radical self-acceptance. And I think you really need to hear that.

With love and care, Adi <3

Arpil 8, 2022

7

LIFESTYLE

The Ultimate Spring Music Compilation

by Olivia Cohen Illustrated by Connie Liu Of course, with May flowers, April showers bring soaking wet grass that stains the seat of your pants! So, when Rhode Island finally blesses us with a stunning, clear, 70º day and you decide to join the masses of people swarming the Main Green, don't forget to bring a blanket. Also, don't forget a portable speaker so that you can play these dreamy, happy spring anthems while you soak up the sun.

3. . . .may flowers

Last October, post- brought you this playlist roundup to suit all of your fall music needs. But so much has happened since then: a deer has broken and entered into MoChamp lounge, everyone and their lab partner have gotten COVID-19, mask mandates have been lifted, record-breaking blizzards have hit Providence, and you have scrolled through dozens of Instagram photo dumps of spring break trips. It seems only right that you should have an updated music selection to account for these collective life events. So, without further ado, here are four more ten-song playlists to provide a soundtrack for the rest of your semester.

— There are plenty of reasons to start working out this spring. For one, everyone could use some relief from the stress of late midterms (I'm looking at you, STEM classes). Staying active can also strengthen your immune system to fight off the constant cough and runny nose you've had since winter break. Plus, a workout playlist will help you stay motivated in the gym so that you can go into this summer looking like Chris Pratt (post-Parks and Rec). Don't forget to give your other Airpod to your most dedicated gym bro and share a touching romantic moment!

"Under The Sun (with J. Cole & Lute feat.

DaBaby)," Dreamville "One, Two Step (feat. Missy Elliott)," Ciara "Can't Get Enough," J. Cole, Trey Songz "5X," Don Toliver "Can't Decide," Aminé "EYE EYE EYE (feat. Kevin Abstract)," $NOT "Believe What I Say," Kanye West "Casper," Takeoff Even though the weather is getting warmer, the Providence forecast can be stubborn; we are sure to see our fair share of gray, rainy days this spring. So if you find yourself walking down Thayer and a 2009 Ford Focus blasting DaBaby sprays you with brown slush, just turn up this playlist and wallow in your own self-pity.

2. april showers. . .

"Nights," Frank Ocean "Pool," Still Woozy, Remi Wolf "PRIDE.," Kendrick Lamar "Moon," Kanye West "Chamber of Reflection," Mac DeMarco "Yeah (bonus)," Mac Miller "Sandman," A$AP Rocky "Breathe (In the Air)," Pink Floyd "Love Is Only a Feeling," Joey Bada$$ "Where'd All the Time Go," Dr. Dog

1. swole spring "Come On, Let's Go" Tyler, The Creator, Nigo "Con Altura," ROSALÍA, J Balvin, El Guincho

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kyoko Leaman

“I felt the wonder and reverence and fear and veneration as the scope of the universe crashed over me like a wave. I turned to my sister and said the only thing that could begin to describe —Adi Thatai, “The More Loving One”

03.19.21

“A strangely calculated math equation, intent on delivering as much “happiness” as possible: Nintendo DSi + Mario Kart DS + struggling college student = a direct path to instant paradise. But, of course, it’s not that simple.”

—Danielle Emerson, “I Bought a Used Nintendo DSi” 03.13.20

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

"Blue Coupe," Twin Peaks "BEST INTEREST," Tyler, the Creator "Up Granville," Peach Pit "Hot Rod," Dayglow "Real Love Baby," Father John Misty "Sing," Travis "Still Beating," Mac DeMarco "Everybody Wants to Rule The World," Tears For Fears "Lost," Frank Ocean "Loving Is Easy," Rex Orange County Brown wouldn't be Brown without the annual Spring Weekend concert, right? Right? No, really, I'm asking. . .

Even though only a quarter of the undergraduate student body has experienced an in-person Spring Weekend, we all still have high expectations. If you’ve never listened to a song by Tems or Ari Lennox, fear not: Here are ten songs to get you acquainted with this year's performers.

4. spring weekend "In The Party," Flo Milli "Scenic Drive (feat. Ari Lennox & Smino)," Khalid "Mean," $NOT, Flo Milli "Wild Irish Roses," Smino "Beef FloMix," Flo Milli "Essence (feat. Tems)," WizKid "Tú," maye "Pressure," Ari Lennox "Fountains (with Tems)," Drake "SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY," Amaarae, Moliy

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

Want to be involved?

Email: kyoko_leaman@brown.edu!

8

post–

COPY CHIEF Aditi Marshan Copy Editors Katheryne Gonzalez Eleanor Peers Tierra Sherlock SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS Kelsey Cooper Chloe Zhao Tabitha Grandolfo Natalie Chang

CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Briaanna Chiu Jiahua Chen Layout Designers Alice Min Angela Sha Caroline Zhang Gray Martens STAFF WRITERS Dorrit Corwin Lily Seltz Alexandra Herrera Olivia Cohen Ellyse Givens Joyce Gao Zoe Creane Danielle Emerson Kaitlan Bui Julia Vaz Liza Kolbasov Marin Warshay