In This Issue
Halloween Scares
Julia Vaz 4
Look Within
Ayoola Fadhunsi 2
Ellie Jurmann 5
Bedtime Stories
Horror Movies for
The Art of Reopening Madeline Canfield 7
You Have Time Laura David 6
postCover by John Gendron
OCT 29
VOL 28 —
ISSUE 6
FEATURE
Look Within the misrepresentation of Africa in the media By Ayoola Fadahunsi Illustrated by Joanne Han
When you hear the word “Africa,” what is the first image that pops into your mind? Many think of mighty animals in the wild, soaring through the safari, roaring in the pride lands, pounding on the earth with tons of skin and bones. Others often picture rheumy-eyed children, whose little bony bodies wander through a village in search of food, shelter, and clothing.
Be honest, what did you think about when you read the word “Africa”? Did you think back to the first time you watched The Lion King? Or of the unicef advertisements advocating for starving children in Africa, urging people to donate to the cause?
Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Has anyone else felt the stretch and snap of time this semester? As though a rubber band is pulling the days tight, the evenings long, the weekends blurred. On and on until suddenly, somehow, it’s the end of October. I ask my friends whether they sense it, this rippling passage of time, and some of them do. One blames the unpredictable weather, another the lingering haze of the year(s) that Covid swallowed whole. Whatever the reason, looking at the calendar is always a shock. Needless to say, I was not ready for it to already be Halloweekend. All the signs are there: The air is characteristically chill, the leaves are gently changing, and Hocus Pocus 2 is filming just around the corner. And yet, I still haven’t figured out a costume. So many festivities to hypothetically attend but I didn’t even realize it stopped being September. This week, our writers are thinking about time as well. In Arts & Culture, one writer reflects on
2 post–
If your subconscious or conscious mind immediately went to these common stereotypes, don’t feel bad—this is the Africa you have seen in the media your entire life. The Western representation of Africa does not seek to dive into the exquisite continent, but looks only to superficial stereotypes—Africa is either promoted for its diverse animals or is used to guilt people into donating to a humanitarian organization. In Western media, that is all there is to it, a surface-level depiction of a continent with great depth and purpose. T.S. Eliot once stated, “We shall not cease from taking the time to create for the sake of creation, while another celebrates the reopening of Brown’s arts scene. One writer in Narrative looks back on her fears about relationships, and the other crafts a seasonally-appropriate love letter to horror movies. In Feature, our writer discusses Western media’s misrepresentation of Africa. And rounding out the mix, our Lifestyle piece provides answers to the question on everyone’s minds: What does your favorite Halloweekend activity say about you? Well, readers, whether you’re a diehard horror movie fan or you’ve only just remembered Halloween exists, our issue has comfort to offer–or perhaps simple distraction. Whatever you need this cold fall weekend, I hope you can find it in post-’s pages.
exploration, and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” As a Nigerian-American, I confess that I have had an upper hand in knowing the continent’s truths. My first-hand experiences living in Africa contrasted the narrative painted by the Western media. And when did my comprehension begin? It all started with a trip across the Atlantic Ocean. When I was at the young age of three, my mother packed our bags and we moved to Nigeria. For the four years I lived there, I learned about my
to "Trick or "Treat" 1. Treat or Trick? 2. Fork it over! 3. *Gestures at candy* ...or else. 4. Trick or Trick ,/.,./,,,.(malicious) 5. Treat or Treat (delightful) 6. *puppy-dog eyes* Please? 7. Tick or Teat 8. Tit or Teat
Swimming aimlessly through time,
Kyoko Leaman A&C Section Editor
9. Bic or Beet 10. Fit or Feet (...pics?)
FEATURE
culture and heritage. Bright-colored Ankara clothing flooded my senses at parties, never-ending forests called to me on long journeys to Ilesha, and messy translations from English to Yoruba were my only form of communication. I learned about the pride that Nigerians possess and the many tribes (Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani) that are deeply connected to their history, both the good and the bad. The entire nation gave me an understanding of my ancestors and all that they did to claim back the land that they loved so much. When I came back to the United States, the way my peers perceived Africa felt foreign to me. Not only was I perplexed by their jarring viewpoint, but I was hurt to know that they saw me as inferior to them because of my accent and the misconceptions they had heard about Africa. I remember a classmate asking me if I lived with lions in the wild. As a seven-year-old with a wild imagination, my initial reaction was I wish I lived with lions; that would be amazing. But soon, I recognized the hidden meaning of the question: that I wasn’t seen as an individual, but as a symbol of a continent with “emaciated children,” “wild animals,” and “underdeveloped nations.” As the years progressed, I began to understand the complexity of the misrepresentation of Africa. I remember the first time I heard the “Nigerian Prince” stereotype. I was nine years old, and two years into my continued life in the United States. And while silently and curiously listening to a conversation between my mother and her American friend, I learned that apparently, a Nigerian prince emails people for money? I was genuinely confused by her story because I knew that Nigeria didn’t have any princes. In fact, I learned in grade school that Nigeria was a federal republic with a president. I wondered why my mother’s friend did not take the time to look up Nigeria’s government before giving away thousands of dollars for the promise of “love.” In 2014, when I was 10 years old, my family of avid football fans (excluding myself ) gathered for
our annual World Cup viewing. During this World Cup, Delta Airlines posted a tweet congratulating the United States for defeating Ghana in the World Cup. The United States was represented by the Statue of Liberty, and Ghana by a giraffe. In the tweet, America was shown in its glory, while Ghana was represented by a poorly-researched stereotype. Ghana is filled with rainforests that are home to many jungle animals. Giraffes don’t live in rainforests, the same way that polar bears don’t wander the streets of Los Angeles. Delta Airlines failed to take the time to understand the nation. My parents and siblings laughed it off and made it into a joke, but it didn’t feel like a joke to me. I was angered by the disrespect at 10, but now, I understand my family’s reaction. My family members, older than I was, had experienced all forms of African stereotyping to the extent that all they could do was laugh. They had become desensitized to the occurrence because it was like any other day to them. Western media’s portrayal, or lack thereof, of African narratives contributes to the problem. Most media platforms limit the resources for reporting on Africa and spread representatives across differ-ent sectors of the continent, greatly reducing the level of credibility of the information that they report. For example, in 2019, cnn's only African media correspondent was Eleni Giokos. She single-handedly reviewed all news across Africa. In comparison, there are over 1000 correspondents in the northern hemisphere. In addition to Eleni Giokos, there were a dozen people that were in charge of acquiring accurate information on a continent with over 54 countries. It is impossible for 12 people to cover the second largest continent in the world. Misrepresentation of Africa has many causes, ranging from a lack of interest to the lack of acceptance. For centuries, African countries suffered through colonialism that caused widespread death, fractured tribes, and divided Africans as a whole. Before the colonization of Nigeria and Cameroon, the bordering nations were almost one and the same. People from this region were in the same tribe
“Good writing is really biting analysis of people’s flaws.” “No, good writing is alliteration.”
and spoke the same language. But when Nigeria was colonized by the British, and Cameroon was colonized, first by the Germans and then by the French post-wwi, newly created borders divided the two countries. Ten years of colonization passed, then a hundred, and now the two countries speak different languages, wear different clothes, plant different crops, and view each other differently, as the enemy. This is the impact of colonization: ruination. After Western nations left Africa, they lost interest in the continent and its countries. The West lost interest in the societal welfare of Africa, but economically, they continue to exploit various countries. A quote from Byrant McGill states, “Acceptance is the road to all change.” The older I get, the more I realize that Western media will not accept Africa, and thus will not change the way it views Africa by itself. It is up to me and other Africans to change the narrative. At 17, part of my senior project to combat misconceptions about Africa was teaching third graders to create their own Ankara notebooks. While crafting, I told them a story about how writing something down gives it power. I talked about how West African tribes, when tormented by colonization, wrote down their history, customs, and traditions as an act of rebellion against those who wanted to “civilize” them. I was overjoyed to speak my truth about Africa then, and now I hope to continue to shed light on what the Western hemisphere perceives as the “third world.” From the architectural masterpiece that is Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to the hub of African entertainment and television rooted in Lagos, Nigeria, and the history of African domination through Cairo, Egypt, I aim to reclaim the narrative, and I hope that you will listen to the story I'll tell. Let’s play one final game of word association… africa. Which version did you picture?
I’m in love with defying stereotypes, to the point that I worry I lose myself. I refuse to date East Asian men or white men for fear of becoming a trope. The tired image of the East Asian woman who only dates within her race or, arguably worse, the East Asian woman who falls for white supremacy. This extends to platonic relationships, too. Fall semester, I’m invited to join a study group for a college math class, and, when I join the Zoom, every student on the call is East Asian. We compare answers for half an hour. After that first call, I never joined again. I’m not sure if I’m more embarrassed to be seen in a group of solely East Asian people or if I’m more embarrassed by the shame I feel when surrounded by my own heritage.
“Instead of real crying once a week, I fake cry five times a day.”
—Ingrid
redenvelopestories.net Our identity is where our best stories come from. Stories from the Asian community at Brown University covering relationships, self-acceptance, career paths, food, politics, and more, read in three minutes or less.
October 29, 2021 3
NARRATIVE
of times before I was brave enough to face him. He was disarmingly red, fidgeting with his hands. I hated that he had to see fear in my eyes as he prepared to open up to me. “I really like you.” He paused, and I felt nauseous. “I think you are amazing. Do you think there is any chance we could be a thing?” He had given me too much to hold. I was flattered and panicked, feeling the weight on my response grow by the second as my mind played an opposite game: “It is so nice that he told you in person instead of text, but you shouldn’t date someone just because they did the bare minimum. But remember that art project you did together when you couldn’t fold the fabric because you were crying-laughing? But if you date him you wouldn’t be able to spend every Saturday watching Gilmore Girls. He wouldn’t complain about your quirks, though, he would like them. But do you
Halloween Scares
encounters with the ghost of love by Julia vaz Illustrated by Elliana Reynolds
even truly like him?” I was running out of time. The demon was almost done possessing me. that was normal until they left, and then I was alone with no idea how to talk to people, thinking that, just like my group, no one wanted to bring more friends to their tables.
“Thanks. Really. You are amazing, I just don’t think I am ready to date yet. Does that make any sense?” And just like that my brain went from utter chaos to complete emptiness. I don’t even particularly
But N reached out, tearing down my barriers with
remember saying those words, and they must have
We were standing in a circle next to the concrete
her warm and motherly personality. So, when she
left my body in an adrenaline rush, the survival inst-
bleachers listening to M’s Marvel theories. By the
asked me what was going on between me and F, I didn't
inct that kicks in at the last minute. He placed his
time I saw the alarm in his eyes, it was already too late.
change the subject.
hands in his pockets and looked up to the sky. I
My glasses flew off my face and a mix of surprised gasps and nervous laughs erupted around me. Someone yelled sorry! from across the court. “Every time!” I jokingly complained, trying to get my bearings in a world of indistinguishable blobs
“Honestly? Nothing. I just know he likes me.” She squeezes her eyes shut between little bursts of laughter.
wasn’t breathing. “Yeah. I understand.” We stayed in silence for a while, listening to the
“Well, we all know that, but I thought you guys had hooked up at the party last night.”
cars on the street below. I didn’t want to take it back. I was sure I had done the right thing. Yet I felt horr-
I furrowed my brows. If it were anyone else I
ible: frightened and bone-tired. I knew it didn’t have
“Here,” said M, handing me my somehow-
would move away from the subject, but N was never
to do with F, that it could be any boy standing in front
intact glasses and pulling me into a side hug. “Are
judgmental or distant. So when I asked “Who told
of me and I would feel the same. Because I was scared.
you alright?”
you that?” there was nothing accusatory about
I was scared of losing myself to love somebody else.
floating in the red and blue fog of school uniforms.
He proceeded to examine me like a real-life
my tone.
Relationships are made of compromises, and I
Baymax, making sure I wasn’t just pretending to be
“No one. We just saw you two going to a more
was afraid I might compromise and compromise until
okay to avoid attention. I laughed as he spun me
private place together and assumed.” She took a sip
I ran out of things to give. I was scared of pain and
around to make sure I didn’t have a target on my back
from a blue water bottle. “I was just curious, not a
heartbreak, of ignoring red flags for the sake of making
and rolled my eyes when he concluded that maybe
big deal.”
someone I like happy. I didn’t feel strong enough to
only athletic people can see it. It was part of our bit:
The party came back to my mind in flashes. The
set boundaries, didn’t trust myself to carve a way out
him the class clown, me the annoyed participant in
taste of soda, the wind on the balcony and precarious
for myself if needed. I was scared because relation-
his performances. He once told me sarcasm was my
neon lights, but also the rapid succession of intense
ships can go really well and—from what I have read—
love language. I think he was right.
feelings: from unbothered happiness, to unsettling
be magical and fulfilling, but they can also be the
anxiety and heartwarming melancholy.
subject of horror movies and sneak up on you at
Just then, F came over. “Are you okay?” he asked, sounding genuinely
“No, we just talked. That’s how I know he likes
Halloween parties. Vulnerability felt like a weakness,
concerned. “The boys think they are Neymar or
me,” I began and proceeded to relate my version of
like giving people weapons to point at you when you
something.”
the previous night as P.E. class faded from our minds.
don’t seem endearing anymore. It was such a deep-
***
rooted fear that I refused to admit how much I craved
I was blushing. I knew why he had bothered to cross the entire court to explain the situation. So did
It was a Halloween party, or the Brazilian version
to feel loved. I created an entire reputation based on
M, and so did all of my other friends who were close
of one. There would be no trick-or-treating, but it was
the fact that for me, relationships and attraction would
by, looking at me with mischievous grins.
an excuse for us to put on costumes. I was dressed as
forever come second. As early as six years-old, watch-
“I’m fine.” I assured him, looking up into the
Winnie the Pooh—mustard shorts, a red top, and the
ing High School Musical 3 in the cinema, the other girls
blinding halo of sun around his face, trying to sound
tip of my nose colored with black eyeliner. The big-
screamed at a perfect, sweaty Troy Bolton, and I stared
casual. “Promise.”
gest hits of that year had already been played, I’d
at my popcorn, pretending to be unbothered while
had three cups of soda (I was feeling wild), and I was
all I wanted to do was scream too.
He smiled, lingering only long enough for chaos to ensue: “The hair looks nice, by the way.” M doubles over in laughter, inspiring a cacophony of the established “I just witnessed flirtation” noises
walking around trying to find more pizza when F asked if we could talk. I felt my insides shake, as if I had jump-started my anxiety.
“If you ever feel ready, though, can I be the first in line?” His voice pulled me out from the haunted base-
that never seem to change. I stared at my white Conv-
I followed him to the balcony like the character
ment into sunlight. I laughed despite the little tears
erse, staging an Oscar-worthy performance of “bored
that decides going alone to a cabin in the woods is a
that I didn’t let him see, and said yes. We both knew
teenage girl” to convince everybody—but mostly
good idea. The possibility of what was about to happen,
that it wasn’t a promise, but we had found our way out
myself—that it was just an ordinary interaction. “Look
the question I would have to answer, the vulnera-
of the woods; and while we didn’t reach the clearing
how dirty they are!” I said to no one in particular.
bility I would witness: that was my horror movie.
holding hands, that moment had bound us together
N called me over to sit beside her in the bleach-
It was strange, observing the party from the
ers, saving me from any more pathetic acting attempts.
outside; only hearing the strongest beats of a song
She was lying down, using a backpack as a pillow.
and the loudest voices. A persistent breeze kept
Right then, P came over carrying a napkin and a
N was a newer friend. All of them were. Before
brushing against my legs and even though I was cold,
pizza slice. “I knew you were dying for one of these,”
entering high school, I was part of a very close-knit
my hands were sweating. It felt like being trapped
she says, and took me back inside.
group of girl friends who had all decided to change
inside a snow globe, suffocating on the inevitability of
schools. It would have been fine if our friendship
coldness. I think I asked if he thought it was going to
hadn’t been so much like a secret society. I assumed
rain the next day and he had to call my name a couple
4 post–
instead of causing us to drift apart. No other sentence has ever made me feel so grateful.
*** I told N all of it, including my internal monologues. I didn’t hold back.
NARRATIVE
“That was really cute,” she said finally, a supportive grin on her lips. I nodded. N sat closer to me. She didn’t go for the therapist route of trying to get to the bottom of my feelings. She just told me I shouldn’t feel pressured to do anything I wasn’t ready for yet, validating my fears instead of saying I should just rip off the bandaid. We sat like that for a while, me resting my head on her shoulder as she drew circles with her thumb on my hand. The sky turned purple and she asked what Gilmore Girls was about. Soon, P.E. class was over. M came running over to see if we wanted to walk home together. “Maybe you should start hearing a helmet to P.E.,” M started again, and as we talked, I felt strangely at ease in my skin. A lot has changed since then. The difference between 16 and 19 seems like a small pond until you reach the other shore and realise you have swum an ocean. Some fears are still here, but most of them have been transformed into healthy apprehensions. I don’t regret spending some time in high school away from the dating scene. When my girl friends transferred schools, I was paralysed by the fear that I didn’t know who to be in their absence. We are still the best of friends, but I needed some distance—maybe all of us did—to figure out who I really am. I know I was scared of relationships long before I met my girl friends, but after a tempest of change and self-doubt, I didn’t trust myself to make decisions, to open up and face the possibility of getting hurt. It took many conversations on the bleachers for me to feel confident in my ability to navigate the world—alone or accompanied—and see relationships in a different light. Now, having a boy confess that he likes me at a Halloween party is not so scary. In fact, it sounds really nice, just like walking home with my friends, allowing myself to be loved and vulnerable without the fear of losing myself in the process. Except if we come across any pigeons. Pigeons are really scary.
Horror Movies for Bedtime Stories if you think demon clowns are scary, try spending a day in my brain by Ellie Jurmann Illustrated by Monika Hedman The stairs creak as she slowly descends. It’s pitch black, with the exception of the slight glow from the wax candle she grips. She feels a sudden gust of wind in the windowless cellar. Her candle blows out. Silence. ... Cue the laughter of a little girl. ... Or the eerily slow-tempoed song of a music box, the hair-pulling hysteria in the infinite nothingness between each note. ... Or a pruney, lifelessly pale hand—bloodblackened fingertips and all—abruptly grasping the cellar woman’s throat. And so goes the classic jump scare. Whether the impetus be a monster, a psycho killer, or a demonic spirit in search of a new host, I always find that there is something so cozy about this Hollywoodproduced fear. I know, I know: who in her right mind curls up under the covers, sipping some Celestial Sleepytime tea (non-spons., just really great tea), and then willingly chooses to watch The Conjuring, of all things, as her calming nighttime media?! Maybe this
does mean that I am not totally sane. Or maybe— similar to how the characters in The Ring who watch the haunted videotape are thus subjected to impending doom—I, in watching one horror movie too many, have inadvertently surrendered my soul to some force of evil that is to blame for the “cozy” way these movies make me feel. But, since I would rather not believe my soul is as damned and black as Hell, I will continue to relish in the comfort of cheap thrillers. As much as I love horror movies, it is impossible to deny how similar their plots can be to one another. They tend to go something like this: life seems happy and good upon arriving in a new location; things begin to seem a bit out of the ordinary; someone rather proud or unbelievably naïve ignores all glaring red flags and endangers everyone; someone or something malicious wreaks total havoc; until finally, someone comes up with some elaborate ploy to contain the element of evil that currently roams free. Of course, plentiful gore and jump scares are dispersed throughout the film. One of my friends likes to call horror movies “predictably unpleasant,” and he goes so far as to cover his ears during the absolute silence before a jump scare. When I asked him why he does this, he replied that jump scares are unimpressive and overused. Meaning, you know when a jump scare is coming, approximately, though the expected can still startle—and that is not to say that triggering human reflexes alone is any measure of cleverness on the filmmakers’ part. With that being said, I live for the suspense before the not-quite-human face pops out of seemingly nowhere in a dark room, with dramatic music that cuts in simultaneously. Not scared, not anxious, but at ease—excited to watch the events of the movie unfold in their predictable manner. Actually, I find that the fears evoked in horror movies, involving the paranormal and torture by the hands of some person or devil, are easier to understand than my real-world fears that I confront on a daily basis. Being the analyst that I am, I tend to look for patterns everywhere, and I never stop trying to figure everything out. The quintessence of my existence is drifting off into thought mid-Tuesday morning lecture about whether the emergence of life as we know it has any inherent or particular meaning, or if it is just the product of randomness. Horror movies, on the other hand, are easy to figure out, and all fear factors within them are calculable. I know when to fear, what to fear, and what those fears feel like, as I have experienced them before. Perhaps this makes me a bit of a control freak. Or,
perhaps it means that I watch horror movies in order to feel brave and deflect my fears about my own life that I cannot seem to put to rest. While I may spend nearly all of my waking hours wondering what my purpose in life is, what really matters to me, and who I am at my truest core, I enjoy having a twohour break to become absorbed in pseudo-fears, a controlled chaos so removed from our reality that there is little room for earth-shattering, mental breakdown-inducing revelations. When I sit and watch Insidious, I cannot help but smile at the Wish.com version of Darth Maul whom I am supposed to tremble at the sight of. No part of me can remotely relate to the experience of evil spirits possessing my body or anything to the likes of it, so I am more than happy to lean into whatever scares within the film are thrown my way. After all, this sort of a scare is, as my friend put it, a matter of reflexes and often a strictly physical response, rather than one much more emotional and existential in nature. It may seem as though I only enjoy relatively outlandish and supernatural horror movies, since those are the least relatable to my life, but I can still enjoy horror movies that are more real worldoriented, even if they send shivers down my spine. The movie Sinister, for example, contains some typical tropes involving evil spirits and curses, but it also contains much darker images of children murdering their families in the most horrific ways. I do tend to be somewhat of an optimist, and I would like to believe that such nightmarish events could never occur in real life. But once I remove the ridiculous Mr. Boogie from these gruesome scenes, I am left horrified as I watch some of humanity’s most awful capabilities being executed by children on the big screen. There is a loss of innocence in this sort of content; and while it may be incredibly physically and emotionally painful to watch, these feelings of true shock and horror are a well-needed segue between my real life fears and the completely nonsensical ones that I am accustomed to seeing in horror movies. No matter which horror film I choose, no matter what sort of demons and evils are involved, I know that I will have a near-cathartic experience watching it. And unlike with all other movie genres, horror movies allow me to simultaneously be on the edge of my seat and nice and comfy under my covers. I am then transported to the fantastical world of faraway fears—or what I really mean is a world far, far away from my fears. In the silence at the center of a horror movie’s storm, between every scream, I find myself at peace, sipping on my herbal tea as I patiently watch the rest of the story unfold. October 29, 2021 5
ARTS & CULTURE
You Have Time on creating just to create
by Laura David Illustrated by Solveig Asplund When I was a kid, I tried everything: ballet, taekwondo, baseball, soccer, painting (catastrophically). When I was 10, I told my mom that I wanted to “find my thing” while strapped into the back seat of her SUV on the way home from school. It bothered me more than anything that I wasn’t “the best” at something. No medals hung on my bedposts; no certificates lined my walls. Even then, I’d been conditioned to believe that this lack of visible success meant that I was not only doing something wrong but that there was something wrong with me. Thus began a vicious cycle. Every milestone of my life had to be marked by some observable, quantifiable achievement. My four years of high school were spent obsessing over every painstaking percentage point, every letter on a resume, and giving up on friends, food, health, and sleep to get into college. While I might have been unhappy, man did my method work. So, I pushed the impending burnout to the back of my brain, sat down, and just did what I thought I had to do. I mistook selfdestruction for prudent self-preservation and called it success. My break from this trend came when I quit competitive volleyball in my junior year of high school. I think, in retrospect, that was the first time I had enough awareness to know things were on the verge of coming undone. After an abysmal showing at my volleyball team’s national tournament, I threw my Mizuno sneakers into the back of my cupboard and swore never to lace them up again. Instead of spending every free moment on the court, I spent those moments with myself. I looked around and thought about doing the things that I wanted to do for a change. First up on that list? Music. Prior to quitting volleyball, I had barely attempted to write a song. Despite the fact that I’d grown up with a musician parent and had been singing my whole life, I never really considered myself a 6 post–
musician. The label felt too big for me to fill, almost as if claiming it as my own would swallow me whole, expose me as a fraud, and spit me right back out. After, however, I began to spend an increasing number of hours locked in my room, trying to put into words everything that so much as popped into my mind for an instant—fitting them together like Lego bricks, spending hours tinkering until it felt just right. I was glued to my computer, watching YouTube aficionados teach me about music theory, new chord voicings, and production. I was laserfocused on absorbing as much information as I could, taking that time to forget about the stresses of 17-year-old life. Better still was that, up until I finally released one of my projects halfway through junior year, nobody even knew I was writing these songs. I liked the idea of having my own little secret with myself: humming my melodies quietly so that my family couldn’t hear through the crack under my door, snapping my journal shut anytime anyone got within ten feet of its elusive pages. Writing, producing, recording—it felt like part of me. It felt right. And, sure, while eventually taking that first step removed the curtain I’d been creating behind, the musical part of my life essentially remained untouched by the outside world. Writing felt pure, separate from pressure, and easy. For a while, that’s how it stayed. Songwriting was my own bubble, a corner of my brain nobody had access to, let alone really knew about. But pretty soon, that corner became smaller, losing real estate to SAT prep and exam season. Instead of writing verses, I wrote Common App essays, so singleminded in my pursuit that I barely stopped to think about the fact that I hadn’t so much as touched my guitar in months. And then, in an instant, it all ended. Everyone was sent home from school one March afternoon to complete uncertainty. Senior spring turned into summer turned into fall, friends packed up for college as I sat in my childhood bedroom, and the promise of reprieve always felt just out of reach. While doing nothing may have felt nice at first, eventually the unnatural lack of productivity weighed on me and ate away at my conscience.
I turned again to music, but this time, less out of love, curiosity, and a genuine desire to create, and more out of a fear that I needed to do something with myself. Writing felt like the only thing available to me that I could possibly try to excel at from my bedroom, and all the nervous energy I had pent up from living through a pandemic was channelled into my artistic pursuits. That kid in the backseat of her mom’s car was back, a constant devil on my shoulder reminding me I was always one step behind the mark. I had to find my thing, and at the moment music was looking like the only option I had left. So, instead of writing to write, I started to write to try and achieve commercial success. I became obsessed with the idea of “making it,” ferociously reading through artist biographies to try and figure out where I too could find the keys to the castle. Making matters worse, every headline I read on my deep-dive seemed to laud the newest sixteen-yearold prodigy, the music industry’s fetishization of youth on full display. Arriving on College Hill didn’t help my case either. What should have been an inspiring introduction to peer creators and creatives was perverted by my anxious brain into an exhibition of all the ways I wasn’t measuring up. I resigned myself to the resolution that I wouldn’t release again and convinced myself that, at nineteen, my life was over before it had begun, that I’d arrived at the platform just as the train was pulling out of the station. But, in September, that all changed when I got asked to play my first live show in over a year. At the time, saying yes seemed inconsequential. It was only a 20 minute set, one that I figured would be sparsely populated with six of my friends. After a bit of coaxing, I agreed to play the gig, with no other rationale but “why the hell not”? In the process of my preparation, I was brought back to the world of creating on my own terms, in my own way. Making music felt fun for the first time in a long time. As I obsessively ran through my set in my bedroom, a sonic bubble enveloped me like a safety blanket, and for a few minutes every day, everything made sense. On show day, I thought I might shit my pants. I
ARTS & CULTURE was painfully aware of how long my arms were, awkward as I bent them around my guitar at soundcheck, trying to convince them to play the notes I’d been training them to play for weeks. I spent rehearsal counting the bricks on the Alumni Garden, examining the stitches on my weathered Reeboks. I think I might have actually even blacked out a little bit during the first song, my voice trembling like a little kid, but I couldn’t have cared less. It sounds like some motivational cliché, but playing that night, I felt like I was finally coming back to myself, filling in a shell that had been hollow for so long. I remembered that art—and creation—doesn’t have to be a race to the finish line, it doesn’t even have to be a hobble to the starting block. It doesn’t have to be only about success. It can just be. If it makes you happy, then you’re doing it right. Between a pandemic, ecological collapse, political turmoil, and the ever-looming threat of sleeping through your 9 a.m., creating for any reason other than that just isn’t worth it. Not everything needs to be a means to an end, least of all your art. You have time. You’re doing it right. It’s ok.
The Art of Reopening
experiencing brown’s arts culture in the flesh by Madeline Canfield Illustrated by Will Nussbaum It began with a flocking to the hideous. The days were getting long, and the sun was getting strong. We were donning jean shorts and flowing skirts, sipping Del’s lemonade while stretching our legs on tie-dyed picnic blankets spread over the grass, when “Large Concretized Monument to the Twentieth Century” appeared in the center of campus. Living on the Main Green that summer, every day I would walk out of the coveted upperclassmen dorm I should not have had access to as a first-year and set up shop at one of the coveted little tables scattered across the green. From this vantage, I was privy to the way students walking along the path would halt at the sight of it, cock their heads quizzically as they stared, give a look of amused confusion to the friend next them trying to decipher that blobbed mess of amorphous metal. Some people would laugh; others would read the description on the plaque and venture some noncommittal interpretation. Everyone continued to think about it as they walked away. Conversations about the Concretized Monument permeated a campus populated with firstyears wide-eyed at the sudden unveiling of the layers of Brown hidden during the Covid-cautious spring. We complained about the rugged eyesore while studying upstairs in Friedman, wondered where the university bought it while standing in line at Andrews, speculated about its tenuous feminist connections while watching movies projected onto Faunce House. We engaged collectively with the inexplicable emergence of this work of art, compelled to revel in an eccentric phenomenon completely unassociated with college during the pandemic. We were attracted to a revived culture of live viewing. *** Whatever we first-years had thought we understood about Brown after the summer’s loosened restrictions was soon overshadowed by the revelation of a near-normal start to sophomore year. A packed lecture hall. Four sides to the Ratty. The
sidewalks on the Main Green teeming with students rushing by. But if anything, it was the unimportance of an unintelligible statue that quickly came into perspective. I became overwhelmed by the novel onslaught of performances dominating my weekends and art installations distracting me as I wandered across campus. Here I was, at this artsy university, sharing a hill with a premier American arts school. Art—I learned—was everywhere. My friends and I began our tenure as groupies of the Brown performance scene, starting with a spontaneous attendance to an a cappella “arch sing” under MoChamp one warm September evening. A few of us arrived late. We didn’t dare cross the arch to join the rest of our friends, wary of accidentally interrupting the magnetic force of those amateur singers bopping around as they blocked the entrance to an uninteresting first-year dorm and a second-tier dining hall. Each group dressed in outfits as rehearsed as their songs, all curated to enhance the tone of their music, pink pastels and bright blue jeans, bow ties and bowler hats, brown vests one minute and showtune tees the next, a line of black boots and black tights and black lace. I am struggling to recall a single song. But I can easily arrange the exact image of how it all looked. My roommate’s typical Friday night social plug performed in the first set; the girl I had met the week before in the Goddard bathroom harmonized her way through the last one. I recognized a student from my seminar, and the following week, while settling before class, I complimented her group’s rousing renditions of songs that the class of 2024 had played on repeat to boost morale amid the misfortune of summer school. “Thank you!” she beamed in a gesture of genuine excitement. “It was my first in-person performance with them. We were all so happy to see how many people showed up.” I agreed—the concert generated an impressive crowd, with students huddled up front to make way for those standing on benches or leaning out dorm windows to catch an electric glimpse of the show. It wasn’t enough
to hear the sounds reverberating across the ubiquitous red brick, which comprised the background of every Brown affair. We wanted to see where the music was coming from. We wanted to watch the notes rise from actual lips because, only by witnessing with our eyes, could we verify an experience so long removed from our lives that we had forgotten how to trust the reality of art felt without being seen. A capella converted my friends and me to that fanatic art of watching. As the events multiplied, we began to spend dinners mapping out our mad dashes across the corners of campus, from Perkins to Alumnae Hall, from the comedy sketch shows to the class talent nights, debating whether to prioritize the improv antics of the friend who routinely enlivened our gatherings with her slate of personal anecdotes, or the trumpet performance of the neighbor from last semester who blasted his instrument at all hours of the night; whether to write the discussion post before or after wrapping myself in a blanket beneath the glow of string lights hanging over the Alumni Garden, as I watched sophomores and juniors cradle microphones between their ringed fingers and croon out the silky melodies they had scrawled on scraps of paper while ensconced in the comfort of a bed they never left last year; whether to text our friend an apology for arriving at his twenty-four hour play after all the seats were filled, or to stage a covert entry through the back door; whether to be on time for class, or to waste five more minutes waxing poetic with an acquaintance about the profound commentary of the smorgasbord of items mashed together on the painting gracing the fourth floor of Page-Robinson; whether to sit through the same a cappella concert for the third time in one month, chiding each other for leaving behind the IDs needed for admission into the performances and forcing the rest of us into the moral quandary of whether to enjoy without them or to stay outside with them in solidarity, suffering some disappointment if we chose the latter because if we lost the opportunity to see the art, we could not believe that the art had happened. But if we didn’t see it and the art didn’t really happen, October 29, 2021 7
LIFESTYLE what was there to mourn having missed? Art presented itself as our casual salvation. We were disoriented outsiders living inside a place no one had displayed to us. We were sophomores preparing for the slump guaranteed by the incessance of three consecutive semesters. So we reveled in the opportunity to overwhelm ourselves with the creativity of a student body unfettered by isolation. Where we had once turned to memes and GroupMe messages as a means of banding together as a distinctive class, we grasped at art to finally integrate ourselves into a previously unknowable place, whose buildings we could theoretically view, but whose interior reality we could only imagine. Unless we could physically see this school happen, Brown remained an illusion. Then, when we made acquaintance with the art that materialized before us, that beckoned us into mysterious basement halls and seated us next to strangers, we lacked any other excuse for meeting, we became adamant about the community of seeing. This is a rite of passage come late. In order to reclaim our lost sense of belonging, we transfix ourselves to the vibrancy of looking, students emerging from the shadows to convince each other, not only of our artistic qualities, but of our actual presence in this place. It’s not just me here anymore. After all this time waiting, I have begun to see this place, and I can confirm that Brown does, finally, exist.
Halloweekend by Elliana Reynolds Illustrated by Anna S ig: @wormwood.tales It’s that time of the year again: Halloweekend— the wonderful weekend where students celebrate the joyous holiday of Halloween. Fortunately for us this year, Halloween actually falls on a weekend, so we’re not stuck debating if Halloweekend should be the weekend before or after Halloween (which usually turns into both weekends and thus more costume ideas you have to come up with). During this weekend, there is a large selection of activities to choose from. Will you go to a big Halloween costume party or will you stay in with your friends and watch scary movies? Read more to find out what your favorite Halloweekend activity says about you! Large Costume Party This is a typical event for many Brown students. There’s a decently sized selection of costume parties every year, so there is some variety in the available types of Halloween party vibe and thus types of partygoer. Usually, though, this person wants to be perceived. The large costume party attracts those that want to put effort and thought into a costume,
just like they would for trick-or-treating but with a more intense social element. This partygoer wants to attract attention, start up a conversation, or dance the night away. Are you going as a lingerie-wearing devil? Are you going as Bob the Builder? Either way, you want to be noticed. Additionally, this person usually wants to let off a lot of steam from midterm season. And what better way to do that than by having your ears blown out by loud music and your eyes overstimulated by colorful lights and moving people?
Small Friend Gathering This intimate gathering most likely includes costumes, but unlike the big costume parties, the “vibrations” here are much calmer, and there’s really no expectation to impress anyone. People who prefer to participate in this type of activity are usually the type of friends who would be described as “weathered.” Their youthful days of big parties and loud noises are in the past. To them, big parties are more of a hassle than fun now. What seems enjoyable is just sitting around with some friends in costumes, casually drinking, and sharing laughter. This type of person is also 75 percent likely to invite you over for a cup of tea and let you pet their cat. Yes, they’re probably the “mom” friend. Watching a Scary Movie If your favorite Halloweekend activity is watching a scary movie, you’re most likely stuck in this limbo between loving a good thrill but also wanting to stay cozy in bed. Sure, haunted houses exist, but why go to one when you could just pull up your computer and watch Halloweentown (and probably get a better scare anyways)? You’re also somebody whose existence is highly dependent upon EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Olivia Howe
“Look! The glamorous shine of crepe silks. Feel! The inviting, soft warmth of velvet. Listen! The muted crinkles of tulle fabric in my fist.” —Chloe Chen, “The Art of Halloween” 10.30.20
“A history: spoken and written, sticky and shrunken, told and untelling—one that is seemingly too diverse and too volatile to be contained.”
—Anneliese Mair, “A Brief History of Sorry” 11.1.19
FEATURE Managing Editor Alice Bai Section Editors Andrew Lu Ethan Pan ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Emma Schneider Section Editors Kyoko Leaman Joe Maffa
nostalgia. The current world you’re in is a tough one, so you would rather be sucked away into Halloween movies from your childhood. Carving a Pumpkin Carving a pumpkin is an activity that takes a lot of manual energy. A lot of strength, if you will. So, if this is your favorite activity, you’re either a certified girl boss, or you're someone with a lot of built-up anger. I mean, c’mon, you’re carving into a pumpkin and pulling out its GUTS. You have to be feeling some type of way for this to be your favorite activity. Alternatively, you’re just a very artistic person, and this happens to be the Halloweekend activity with the most creative edge. Either way, you love getting your hands dirty, putting in the work, and seeing your messy efforts pay off. Trick-or-Treating Your favorite Halloweekend activity is trickor-treating? If so, you are definitely a child. Just kidding! There’s no shame in still trick-or-treating, but if you still do, it is highly possible that you are very child-adjacent in appearance and thus deemed as an acceptable trick-or-treater by adults when you ask them for candy. You are also most likely one of the few lucky young adults who still has a sweet tooth able to survive a bag full of pure sugar! And finally, you have a lot of energy. You willingly brace the steep Providence streets for a few hours just to get a bag full of candy. Really, that’s amazing, and I applaud you. Of course, keep in mind that since there are dozens of other activities, this is not a set definition of who you are. Be yourself and do whatever you want this Halloweekend. Just make sure to stay safe and healthy! NARRATIVE Managing Editor Siena Capone Section Editors Danielle Emerson Leyton Ho
Copy Editors Katheryne Gonzalez Samuel Nevins Eleanor Peters
LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Caitlin McCartney
SOCIAL MEDIA HEAD EDITOR Tessa Devoe
Section Editors Kimberly Liu Emily Wang
Editors Angela Chen Kelsey Cooper Julia Gubner Kyra Haddad Chloe Zhao
HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Joanne Han
Want to be involved? Email: olivia_howe@brown.edu!
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COPY CHIEF Aditi Marshan
CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Jiahua Chen Briaanna Chiu Layout Designers Alice Min Angela Sha STAFF WRITERS Kaitlan Bui Dorrit Corwin Danielle Emerson Jordan Hartzell Alexandra Herrera Ellie Jurmann Nicole Kim Liza Kolbasov Elliana Reynolds Adi Thatai Victoria Yin