In This Issue
Washing Dishes at Four AM
lisa kolbasov 4
On Loon Time
isaac eng 2
kaitlan bui 5
This is When You Call the Person You're Thinking About
Quarantine Wrapped lily seltz 7
Live Forever! joseph suddleson 6 Caitlin Mccartney 8
Running in PVD
postCover by Monika Hedman
NOV 5
VOL 28 —
ISSUE 7
FEATURE
On Loon Time or thinking through climate disaster By isaac eng Illustrated by josh gendron “From where the loon calls, an outlet. A phantom river
total. There are no crickets, not this far north. It’s windless.
breath until its yodel falls into vast looping echoes, painting
lost in fog and bulrushes. Finally, a break in the rushes, an
No distant hum of planes or drum of wheels on the highway
textures and distances on the black canvas before me.
almost imperceptible current swirls past a great boulder, a
can be heard. I lie down on the coarse granite outcropping
Echolocating with the song, the world that had disappeared
black finger of water points into the mist.” (Paddle Whispers,
that serves as the loading pier for our two old vinyl canoes.
the hour before reconstitutes itself.
Douglas Wood)
In the pure dark, I get the feeling that I’m being swathed in a
I watch as the sun tucks itself into a small pocket of pines and steam off to the west, until it looks like a little
freshly laundered quilt, smelling of pine and the sweet musk of lake water.
*** I’m from Minnesota. For my entire life, I’ve gone north at least twice a year with my family and friends to
lightbulb held in a thin hand. I sit for thirty minutes or so
Then, from out of the empty space in front of me, a
the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA),
until it has completely disappeared. It’s a new moon tonight
loon’s warbling moan builds from a throaty chuckle into
a 1.1-million-acre expanse of lake land that straddles the
and there’s cloud cover coming in. Soon, the night is so black
mournful song. It resonates into the stillness where the
Minnesota-Canada border. The watershed, feeding into
I can’t see further than my feet—no city lights leak into the
gradient world dissolves. Waveless, windless, starless
nearly 1,100 individual lakes in the BWCA, is vast and
sky to cut the soupy darkness. The silence is even more
night. The loon shatters that dark-nothing, adding more
encompasses much of northeastern Minnesota.
Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, The light snapped off on Halloween and we woke up to the startling and weirdly perky cold of proper autumn. I’m convinced that this is the reason why, when I poked my head out of the window while brushing my teeth, the sunrise was rippling out from the trees like some insane golden sandbar. What I mean is it must have been a sign, because I believe in those things. As it happened, that sunrise led to a particularly giggly and buoyant day, make of it what you will. Oh and on this trend of environmental-studies-stereotype sentimentality, my new motto for fall is to let yourself embrace your inner rabbit by which I mean let me finish sometimes classes have become ugh and you miss your fairylike glow of sweat while “studying” on the Green, and when you finally go to sleep you can’t feel your toes. That’s when it’s time to
imagine you’re burrowing into a cozy little den with your loved ones––need I convince more? An appreciation for nature and fall is with us this issue. The Feature sings the beauty of a protected Minnesota natural area and connection with the loons there. In Narrative, one writer paints us a bluesy portrait of November, and the other untangles their relationship to cleaning and gender (with a mouse analogy involved). One A&C writer gets into the nostalgic, autumnal spirit while exploring how Ray Bradbury changed their worldview. The other similarly reflects on past times: quarantine, through past playlists. And Lifestyle helps us truly leap into the season with a guide to running in Providence. Hoping that the cold snap and bright skies rejuvenate your sleepy neurons, but also that you remember to let yourself be that rabbit when you need to. Either way, post- has your back.
Scuffing leaves like a ten-year-old,
Olivia Howe
Editor-in-Chief9
2 post–
DayQuil Chasers 1. OGP, if they’d ever refill it 2. None if ur strong enough 3. THICC MILK aka the time the V-Dub milk dispenser was full of cream instead of milk 4. Emergen-C on the rocks 5. Room temp orange juice. This is college, after all. 6. Coffee milk, a Rhode Island classic! 7. TeQuil(a) 8. Rain water 9. V8 (deconstructed Bloody Mary) 10. NyQuil
FEATURE Minnesota’s lakes and rivers have always been
clear, unpolluted lakes so that they can spot pike and muskie
growth, freedom, and plenty unleashed by industry.” This
paradoxical historical entities. In the 18th and 19th
fry deep in the water and dive to catch them. They survive
“march of progress” became a way of defining humanity as a
centuries, they were simultaneously the primary mode of
on a knife’s edge of balanced water turbidity and pH, which
category above or separate from nature. Humans controlled
transportation and exchange in the region and the hard
is constantly being put at risk of dramatic change by mining,
their destiny in the natural world by creating wealth and
borders between states and Indigenous nations. They
logging, and damming corporations who want to access the
aspiring toward perfect economic systems that hinged on
were sacred, life-giving sites which furnished plentiful fish
material wealth in the region. It’s therefore impossible to
the commodification of nature to “make things of cultural
and edible flora like wild rice and cranberries, sustaining
ignore the warning contained in the loon’s cry—in the threat
value.” There’s a certain way in which natural places which
Indigenous peoples and settlers alike. But they were also
of its absence—a silence which tells of acidified waters that
remain largely untouched by human hands, like the BWCA,
sites of death and extraction—battles were fought between
ruin fishes’ gills, dissolve eggshells, and leach toxic heavy
are therefore an escape from this kind of industrial time, a
colonial Americans and Indigenous tribes over waterway
metals from the rock. The song tells of a future where loons
transportation to a different type of time-place or a different
access, and on those won by the Americans, lumber and iron
may not be able to survive, and the BWCA, as I and many
dimension where things don’t move in linear patterns,
flowed like industrial lifeblood to the sputtering, smoking
others have known it, may lose one of its most defining
where temporality is more complex and layered. In those
hearts of Minneapolis and Chicago.
features. Imagining this end makes me feel tired and
moments, when I’ve been listening to loons warble in the
Since the early 19th century, mining and logging
disinclined to keep doing my part. I feel the same lethargy
deep woods, my only way of understanding the world in front
companies have decimated much of the landscape west
that many others do when faced by specific symptoms of
of me was mediated by their song. For just a few minutes, my
of Two Harbors, MN, polluting the water and clearing old-
climate change—why do anything at all, when it’s up to
understanding of the world, of time itself, was aligned with
growth pine forests, of which only the “Lost 40” (acres,
companies and government bureaucrats over which I have
those small creatures.
that is) in north-central MN remain. Since the BWCA was
no control?
***
designated as a National Wilderness Area in the ‘60s, the
Donna Haraway, a radical feminist environmental
Loons will most likely become extinct in the BWCA
number of resources that have been extracted from the
thinker and author of Staying with the Trouble, which
within our lifetimes. The demand for the resources
region has sharply declined. But this is only true within the
discusses the importance of decentering human progress
contained there continues to grow, and frankly I don’t see
borders designated by the Wilderness Act. Outside of that
narratives when thinking about the environmental crisis,
those demands being ignored for much longer. Northern
border, but still within the watershed, mining and logging
reminds us of the danger of this sort of premature surrender.
Minnesotan communities cry for the approval of logging
corporations are constantly seeking approval for permits
By constantly shifting our focus forward and fixating on an
and mining contracts that would provide them with some of
that would prove catastrophic to the delicate ecosystem of
abstract idea of an “end” of natural beauty in the future, we
the only well-paying jobs in the region. In my eyes, there is
the entire BWCA. Most recently, the Biden administration,
distract ourselves from the immediate need to save that
little hope to keep the BWCA pristine, and that’s not the fault
through the Forest Service and Bureau of Land
environment today. What loon song offered me in those
of people who want to get a good job and feed themselves
Management, ordered a potential halt to mining upstream
numerous moments sitting and watching a pitch-dark night
and their families, even if it’s at the expense of parts of a
of the BWCA that could last nearly 20 years. Chilean mining
descend on a Minnesotan lake was a reminder to think
wilderness that I’ve come to love deeply. What I propose is
giant Antofagasta, which had originally been granted the
beyond ways of imagining time and progress that dealt in
that natural beauty, which for me is synonymous with loon
go-ahead by the Trump administration, has since brought
strict beginnings and ends, and to instead think of our species
song, can provide an anti-capitalist way of understanding
the case to federal court, already looking to overturn the
as simply one of many “moral critters entwined in myriad
time that may help a person interested in environmental
administration’s decision.
unfinished configurations of places, times, [and] matters.”
activism overcome the lethargy created by imagined climate
The battle for the BWCA is ongoing, and sometimes I
Brown
professor
and
environmental
historian
disaster. Because I’ve already begun to mourn the common
struggle to keep up my spirits, just as many do when they
Bathsheba Demuth has noted in her research that the
loon doesn’t mean I should stop enjoying its song now, or
think about the impending climate disaster across the globe.
Industrial Revolution, along with things we would normally
that, if it finally becomes extinct, I should give up hope even
I feel a particular, poignant fear when I’m missing home and
associate with it, like the construction of vast amounts
then. The loon’s warbling tune will continue to reverberate
loon song floats through my head. It serves as a reminder of
of industrial infrastructure, also created a new sense of
in my heart forever, a reminder that I should keep fighting,
the delicate beauty of Minnesota’s North Woods, and how
understanding time and humanity’s relationship to the
that a wilderness that’s a little dirtied, or a little different
that beauty is on the verge of being destroyed.
natural world. Beginning in the 19th century, the conversion
from my perfect memory of it, is still one that will always be
Like caged canaries in coal mines, loons will be the
of natural landscapes into commodities such as lumber,
worth fighting for.
first to go. They’re a keystone species in boreal freshwater
coal, and oil enabled economists to “write new theories
ecosystems because they help maintain a balance between
of time … in which objective laws moved human history”
predatory and non-predatory fish populations. They require
from barren subsistence “onward to the possibilities for
“I’m demystifying the penis one inch at a time” “Death is just an ironic nap”
Why had I thought it wouldn’t matter—the fact that I had grown up in the near-absence of other Asian Americans? In my small town, I was used to my otherness, but tonight, in college, at this Asian American student gathering… is a new kind of otherness, and it is worse. Everyone here seems to share something I don’t. A certain ease, a certain kind of experience. I don’t feel Asian enough. Korean enough. I am all wrong in the one place I thought I would be right. So I slip out the door. Unnoticed, unmissed. September is cool against my skin as I walk back to my dorm through the dark, alone. When I step into the circles of light cast by the streetlamps, I see my discomfort, my confusion, nakedly exposed for a brief moment. Then I pass again into the shadows.
—Naomi
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.
November 5, 2021 3
NARRATIVE
Washing Dishes at Four A.M. on falling in love with domesticity by Lisa kolbasov Illustrated by songah lee ig: @cinnamoren I’ve never been a neat person. Living at home, my mother would nag me incessantly about the pile of dirty clothes ruling over my chair, the trail of notebooks I would leave around the house, the army of mugs assembled on my desk, half-filled with forgotten tea. We’d constantly feud about the disorder I allowed to creep into my life—and the lives of those around me—while cleaning fell through the cracks of my to-do list. It’s not that I didn’t try to stay on top of the mess. I’ve always wanted to see myself as someone neat and organized—I believe it suits my personality better than messiness. But, to tell the truth, I’ve always unintentionally allowed myself to slip into disarray. When wrestling with homework, laundry and dishes suddenly become all-powerful monsters; my mind shrinks away, unable to even play with the idea of picking up a sword (or a sponge). This year, however, has been different. I’ve suddenly found myself tumbling headfirst into the habit I’ve looked towards longingly, but never been able to form—cleaning. Doing dishes, wiping down tables and countertops, tidying up in common spaces; these tasks have seamlessly built themselves into my morning and night routines. Suddenly, my brain has deemed tidying, something I’ve never been able to tackle, essential. Part of this stems from my desire to make things nice for other people. It is infinitely easier for me to convince myself to tidy public spaces. I feel a little like a rebellious mouse in a Disney movie, filled with adventurous thrill as I scuttle around late at night or early in the morning, creating a comfortable space for others to wander into when they’ve awakened. When I don’t quite know how to care for others, I turn to caring for the space they inhabit, hoping that some of the warmth will transfer and warm them also. But that paints the act of my cleaning as far more selfless than it truly is. In reality, this may simply be
4 post–
my way of tricking my brain into allowing me to do something nice for myself. I am not a neat person by nature, but in an unfortunately ironic twist, I also can’t tolerate living with mess. My perpetually overcrowded brain needs my external world to be at least a little cleaner than my internal one, or else I risk losing myself in the clutter. Dragging other people into the issue is just a way of justifying the waste of time, as I allow myself to steal away to straighten the couch cushions and sweep the floor. Either way, I have come to relish these half-hour chunks of so-called productive procrastination. Chores are an acceptable break—one I need not feel guilty for. They are an excuse to take time for myself, to pause, to take a breath. Yet there is something vaguely shameful about admitting to loving domesticity—somewhere deep inside me, the child who scorned pop songs and makeup and the color pink turns up her nose in misplaced not-like-other-girls disdain. I fear that I am allowing the gender-based expectations of what my role in a house must be, drilled into me from childhood, to subtly rule my life. By admitting that I enjoy these quotidian tasks—cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, running errands—I am, this voice in my head insists, somehow a bad feminist. Or, perhaps, what this voice really wants is for me to stop wasting time on tasks that cannot be neatly packaged and marketed to the world. What is the purpose, it screams, of taking the time to fold your laundry or wash your dishes, when there are readings to be done, essays to be written? And, often, I give in, especially when it comes to my private or semi-private spaces. My dorm room is currently sporting its very own dirty laundry chair monster, and my clean, decidedly dry laundry has been sitting on the drying rack for several days too long. As much as I long to battle it, and restore at least my little
corner of the world to order, sometimes, the voice wins. I simply just don’t have time. Most probably, I am overthinking this. There is really nothing subversive or subservient about wanting to keep things neat and clean. Chores are simply chores, tasks we must all check off in order to keep up with the sometimes-tedious obligations of keeping our physical forms alive. Yes, I need to go grocery shopping, cook dinner, then consume it. Yes, there are dishes to be done, laundry to be folded. There is nothing at all special about these everyday tasks, these ordinary obligations. Yet the fact remains that I’ve come to love them anyway. The soft tranquility of the night in the silent kitchen as I scrub at a mug at four in the morning, allowing myself to fade out of my mind for just a moment and exist purely in the menial task at hand: soap on the sponge, scrub the dish, rinse, feel the hot water envelop my hands, watch a soap bubble drift through the air, set the mug down on the drying rack, softly, with kindness. The crisp autumn air biting my cheeks as I walk briskly to the grocery store, my 20-minute excursion cast in a different light by the excuse of a destination, music playing through my headphones as red leaves rustle overhead. The cinnamony-sweet scent of disinfectant that fills the air after wiping down a countertop. Once I turn in my last midterm, I’ve planned a treat for myself. I am going to set aside a few hours to fully reset my space: do my laundry, water my plants, tidy up my table, and generally set in order everything I’ve been neglecting in the past few weeks. I crave the calm I find in soap bubbles drifting toward the ceiling and freshly-washed laundry, and I genuinely can’t wait for the moment I get to access it.
NARRATIVE
This is When You Call the Person You're Thinking About on love and lonliness in november by kaitlan bui Illustrated by maddy cherr ig: @maschenn Okay, so maybe it’s that time of year. Maybe it’s that time of year when I begin feeling sorry for myself, just a little. I begin to wonder why I’m studying, or writing, or living here at all—not necessarily in a depressed way, but also, if I’m being honest, maybe in a depressed way. Maybe it’s the midterms, but I find myself evaluating my “progress” not just academically, but also emotionally, spiritually, physically. And most of the time, that progress doesn’t match the hopes I unknowingly harbored. In the same way I blame the East Coast weather for my moodiness, maybe I can blame it for the way I look at my pale, misshapen body in the mirror. I know I’ve loved it before, but for some reason, the imperfections become unmistakable in November. In other words, maybe it’s that time of year when everything begins hitting at once: weary bones, small heart-tugs for home, stormy weather that calls for stormier, sleep-deprived nights. The strangers I walk past seem to echo a similar dispirit, their postures slightly droopier, the bags under their eyes a little darker than before. It’s that time of year I begin to ask myself if the people I love on this campus love me back—if they are as clingy as I am, as attached as I am to our small meals and to our arbitrary, affectionate banter. The Northeast cold seems to embed in me a lukewarm longing—to be held, to be loved even more fully than when the days were bright. And the thing is, I don’t think I’m alone in my yearning. I think these edges of winter make us all want someone who will hold our darkest secrets with gentle hands.
It’s especially during this time of year, then, that the world is ours. Because it is now, in these moments of concentrated vulnerability and earnest longing, that we can experience the fullness of ordinary love. We are just one ERC coffee muffin, one carefully-chosen emoji, one hug away from each other. The miracle of this season is that a chill always makes way for grateful warmth. So despite the gloom of the past week, we can cling onto each other, attempting, however imperfectly, to love. We walk downtown to munch on warm pretzel bread, spectate bar trivia, and apologize to each other. We meander into bookstores and share home-cooked meals. We text each other late into the night about love poems we found on Instagram. And also the TikToks. We gather around a ketchup-stained table at Jo’s, and we bicker and steal others’ fries, and afterwards, we ask if everyone got home safely. “Our personas are melting away,” my friend mused during our midnight dinner. “I feel like I’m seeing the good parts of people now.” Maybe, I thought to myself, that’s another way of saying that we’re learning to love each other even better. If there is ever a month that joy, melancholy, and time collapsed together, it must be November. In November, we are lonely yet loved. In November, we feel the pangs of homesickness yet excitedly wander the night-lit streets downtown. In November, we are weary but marked by that trademark twinge of hope—college kids surrounded by other college kids who just want to find love.
the wind ran its fingers through my hair and over my arms and through my legs and between my parted lips and i have never known that God could hold me this completely, could tell me, in one astounding breath that i am loved. that i am healed and will be healed, And if God tells us love through the wind, perhaps we tell each other love through coffee muffins and ketchup stains. “This is when you call the person you’re thinking about,” my friend said during a lull in our impromptu karaoke session. She was only filling in the awkward silence, I think—and I hadn’t even been paying attention to the song because I was scrambling to finish my homework. Still, I couldn’t help but hear her words. There was such poetry in them. They spoke so beautifully to the dual magic and melancholy of November. Because it’s true. Just as the last autumn leaves slip from their branches, just as we begin to pull out our winter coats and knitted beanies, we open our hearts to deeper love. And on a late Friday night, during the most mediocre, most meaningful karaoke session, when a box of Insomnia Cookies is dangerously seated in front of you and you feel a slight hollow in your heart: this when you call the person you’re thinking about. This is exactly when you do it.
November 5, 2021 5
ARTS & CULTURE
Live Forever!
ray bradbury, mindfulness, and creativity by Joseph Suddleson Illustrated by Meera Singh The day after Ray Bradbury’s death at age 91, writer Neil Gaiman remembered him in an article for The Guardian: “A young man from Waukegan, Illinois, who went to Los Angeles, educated himself in libraries, and wrote until he got good, then transcended genre and became a genre of one; often emulated, absolutely inimitable.” Yes, many will remember Ray Bradbury as the writer who brought man to Mars in The Martian Chronicles, or as the confector of the not-so-virtualreality nursery in his short story The Veldt. But the best writers—writers like Ray Bradbury—leave us with something beyond clever plots; they alter our experience of the world. I remember realizing something was wrong when I couldn’t remember having a dream in months. A couple of years back—when I was spiritually and creatively bankrupt—I decided to start carrying around a pocket-sized notebook with a brown leather cover. In it I would write down anything that I noticed and felt was worth recording: quotes, observations, internal dialogues, lines from movies, narratives, memories, definitions, names of inspiring individuals, etc. The point was to set no limits, to not constrain my mind and attention in any way; I needed to retrain my mind to become aware of myself and my environment—to reignite my creative spark. Unwittingly, I was stumbling my way into mindfulness practice. I’m in Professor Eric Loucks’ course PHP 1880 Meditation, Mindfulness, and Health this semester. Early on, Professor Loucks introduced the pioneering work of meditation and mindfulness proponent Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of the MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction program. Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as the act of “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” Over the course of this semester I’ve begun to incorporate mindfulness practices into my daily routine and also recognize the mindful habits I’d picked up subconsciously over time. In both the deliberate and the accidental, this turn towards mindfulness has changed my own understanding of myself for the better. If you’ve read any of my other writing you know that I think a lot about the ends of things. In a talk given here at Brown on April 3, 2019, Dr. Kabat-Zinn described a mindfulness practice for waking up in the morning: “The invitation is to die,” he said earnestly. “Die now and get it over with. Die to the past, die to the future, and therefore show up—wake up—to this moment.” Think of the chorus’s cry in the finale of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony: “Sterben werd’ ich, um zu leben!”—I shall die in order to live! Have you ever smelled the musky rot of a pile of fallen autumn leaves, or heard the low hum of air-conditioning units across the city in the muggy summer months growling like some ancient, primeval beast calling to its kind, or noticed how little specks of stone embalmed in the asphalt shimmer with the reflected light of a full moon like stars penetrating the deep earth beneath our feet? I’m sure you have; these are the kinds of casual observations anyone with sense and senses can notice anytime they step outside, anytime they walk down the street, anytime they soak up the rays of the warming sun and breathe in the atmosphere. “Cut one sense away,” says Charles Halloway in Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way 6 post–
Comes, “cut part of life away. Cut two senses; life halves itself on the instant. We love what we know, we love what we are. Common cause, common cause, common cause of mouth, eye, ear, tongue, hand, nose, flesh, heart, and soul.” In order to build stores of memories, one must be present and mindful at least some of the time. Take nothing for granted; treat everything like a miracle that happens just for you, for the first and last time in that moment. Nobody has walked your path before, nor will anyone ever again in the entire history of the universe. “I believe in the flesh and the appetites,” wrote Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, “seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.” Our bodies are great big valves that let the world pour in and fill our souls—but only for a short while. Creativity. Imagination. Ideas. Stories. Whatever you want to call it, life-affirming energy abounds in the smile of a passing stranger as much as it does in the embrace of a mother or in the momentary glimpse of a still New England pond from the window of a speeding train. William Wordsworth called them “spots of time” in The Prelude, moments from our memories, moments when the awesome wondrousness permeating everything suspends us in symbiotic communion with the natural world, moments that remain lodged in our mind’s eye ready to resurface and sustain us when we sink down low. In a similar way, Ray Bradbury credited the vast trove of his subconscious, the “secret mind” as he called it in an essay, as the wellspring that fed and drove his creativity. “I blundered into creativity as blindly as any child learning to walk and see. I learned to let my senses and my Past tell me all that was somehow true.” His novel Dandelion Wine, set in a fictionalized version of his boyhood town of Waukegan, Illinois, employs the image of gathering dandelions and storing them away to make the titular drink as a recurring metaphor for this process of bottling up memories, recollections, and little joys from life’s proverbial summertime. We’re each taking our final breaths on this spinning rock in the cosmos that itself might be taking its final breaths as a cradle for life. Bradbury often recounted the moment he decided to be a writer. At a carnival when he was no older than 12, little Ray encountered a certain Mr. Electrico who sat in an electric chair in front of the audience each day. All at once, electricity would course through his body and send sparks flying from his limbs, his hair standing on end like you’d experience placing a hand
on that big metal ball, a Van de Graaff generator, at the science museum. “Live forever!” he shouted. And so, energized by the curiosity of that great Shakespearean promise—to achieve immortality through one’s work—Ray Bradbury began to write. Ray wrote every day; he churned out a short story a week at the height of his creative powers. He did this not merely as a consequence of some abstract rule he set for himself, but because he had to in order to not die—in order to live forever. “Not to write,” he wrote, “for many of us, is to die.” Just as the lungs automatically breathe oxygen or the heart continuously beats under the ribs, Ray Bradbury wrote every aspect of his being, his loves and his hates, onto the page because he didn’t have any other option. The key is not to be born with a heightened gift of creative consciousness, but instead to uncover the capacity for awareness latent within each of us with intention and curiosity. I must acknowledge a contradiction; how can you follow Jon Kabat-Zinn’s advice to die to the past and to the future while also modeling your creativity on Ray Bradbury who continuously mined his memories for imaginative material? Balance. There is a time to be present. A time to remember. A time for reveries. A time to pack away moments and a time to unpack them. Ray Bradbury kept a sign above his typewriter that said “DON’T THINK.” Sitting down to write was about opening the floodgates, not about obsessing and turning things over endlessly, intellectualizing an idea to death. “By living well, by observing as you live, by reading well and observing as you read, you have fed Your Most Original Self.” So live forever: because you’ve always lived and always will. Here you are. You, like me, are the universe manifest in a body that is here in this life right now. We are what we are. Why not accept Jon KabatZinn’s invitation to let your past and future self, the versions of you that you think you are, die and awaken to this, your actual body in the present moment? Why not take Ray Bradbury’s advice and “DON’T THINK” when you’re supposed to do? Don’t miss out on the beauties of this brief little interlude of living awareness by projecting your mind forwards and backwards in time, chasing after infinity. You already contain infinity. Between every second is an infinite amount of time. Work on being mindful of this body and this earth you inhabit at this very moment and, in the words of Ray Bradbury, “at last [you] will begin to see [yourself ]. At night, the very phosphorescence of [your] insides will throw shadows long on the wall.”
ARTS & CULTURE
Quarantine Wrapped
reflections on storytelling in the playlist era by Lily Seltz Illustrated by Talia Mermin coronatime!! Sometime toward the end of the first month of quarantine, I decided it was time to make a Covid playlist. I had a lot of playlists on Spotify already, for rainy days, for running. I’d also made a few playlists for periods of time—I had one for the second semester of ninth grade, and for the summer of 2019. I made these “era playlists” in anticipation of a time when the era had passed. You know that feeling, when a song comes on that you loved years ago and in the opening bar—the first chord, the particular shiver in the synth—the air around you shifts. You might get goosebumps, or have the urge to smash something. For a minute or two, your emotional palette is scrubbed clean and replaced with an old one that you thought you’d forgotten. It’s a nostalgia so intense that it’s closer to a form of transport. I called my Covid playlist “coronatime!!”, an already dated name with an ironic cheer. I added a gloomy song by Neko Case, the Gilmore Girls theme, and a couple of folk songs I’d picked out on the guitar in my abundant free time. It felt comforting, a small attempt to capture the essence of this moment. My dad looked over my shoulder. “That might be a long playlist.” coronatime, part 2 (summer) Call it Gen-Z vanity, call it a reasonable response to the chaos of the pandemic/post-factual/pre-apocalyptic age—but I want my life to feel like a movie. My peers and I are helped in this project by the existence of actual movies. Booksmart. Superbad. Lady Bird. Grease. In all of these movies, the characters go to high school. They struggle in different ways and to different degrees. And then they graduate, and they go to prom, and confetti is thrown, and sentimental me gets a little choked up. The appeal is not so much the movie as it is the narrative structure as a whole, which leads you to believe that there will be a happy ending. When there isn’t, at least you get to know that all the hurt was for something.
Maybe the story only helps the reader, the viewer, or the listener, and not the characters themselves. But it teaches a lesson, or it gives a person something to identify with. I was in my bedroom, learning Creedence Clearwater Festival songs on my acoustic guitar. I couldn’t pretend to be in Booksmart anymore: There was no prom, no confetti. I’d have to work hard to reconstruct a narrative framework, to organize and control and valorize an era that I couldn’t measure or predict. In July, when Covid still was not over, I made a new playlist: “part 2!” There was an immense solace in clicking those three little dots next to each new song: “Promises,” “Postcard,” “Friday I’m in Love.” The tracks fell into sequence like lines of dialogue, and the playlists stacked up in my profile, a neat drop-down menu of movie scenes. Here it was, a new validating framework, a movie of my own creation. Last quarter!! One night that August, a friend and I sprinted down the promenade that runs by the Hudson River. The asphalt glistened under the yellow glow of the streetlamps and we were sharing a pair of AirPods and the song hit its climax just as we reached the bend—my friend turned to me and said, “It’s like we’re at the end of a movie right now!” Then we trudged half a mile uphill in the latenight quiet. The next morning I put two slices of cinnamon bread in the toaster and ruminated over my personal statement. A hundred times I’ve had that conviction that the credits have rolled, but life goes on: There’s always a post-credits scene, a sequel, or four. Later, at the end of high school, I’d make a playlist called “Last quarter!!” and a few months later, after move-in, “1st quarter” would follow. My senior year was filled with the sense that the closing of high school was the end of everything I knew. But pieces of my old life remain, big pieces. Songs from my old playlists turn up on my Daily Mixes. The next era playlist begins. in between times When I was packing for college, I decided to listen to all of my era playlists from beginning to end. It was maybe 15 hours of music in all, an eclectic bunch: Some songs made the cut because they were popular at the time, and others are associated with each era purely by virtue of my personal experience. My playlist for the
spring of 2021 has “good 4 u” by Olivia Rodrigo, “Solar Power” by Lorde, and “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals. It also has “Today” by The Smashing Pumpkins, “Nice and Quiet” by Beduoine, and an indie cover of the eighties song “Handle With Care” by the Traveling Wilburys. I folded my jeans and listened closely. Maybe after all of this I’d be able to ascertain an arc that would hold the last few years of my life together, a throughline neat enough to let me tie everything up and stuff it in my college trunk. I couldn’t. A playlist at a time, two, I could handle: tracing anxieties and their resolutions, moments of joy and disappointment, connecting the lyrics and textures to tangible memory. But as the playlists added up, they started to sound like they were just snapshots, individual stars in a constellation. As I’d accumulated more and more experiences, their quantity and their contradictions made them harder to wrangle into something that made sense. 1st “quarter” Maybe a constellation is okay. Maybe a constellation is better. The odd thing about era playlists is that the music never stays confined to that era. Maybe I listened to fun.’s “Carry On” on repeat back in July 2020, but I still listen to it. All the time! The experience of listening to an old era playlist is one of superimposition: my present relationship to a song projected onto the memories of the past. Remembering itself is full of superimposition, and especially the kind of remembering that tries to mold the past into narrative form. I’ve always liked to think that my evolution has followed an unwaveringly upward trajectory, and so that younger versions of myself must have been “worse.” I make my era playlists in part to distance myself from the past, to track my growth: “Ah, I don’t listen to that music anymore! Look how I’ve changed!” But packing up my trunk, I couldn’t muster the anticipated disdain. My teeth were chattering. The air around me had shifted. Music lets you access the emotional reality and acuity of any single moment, all alone. It needs no other context or justification, no title page, no rolling credits. Just a few shivering chords and the rush of memory as it settles into your ears.
November 5, 2021 7
LIFESTYLE
Run, Run, Run
a very unofficial guide to running in providence by Caitlin McCartney Illustrated by Thalia Bonas
I fell in love with running over the past year around Providence. It became a source of stressrelief, accomplishment, and arguably most important, endorphins. I’m not saying this happened overnight. There were many long runs at the beginning that were painful, as I acclimated to the hilly geography of the city. However, with consistent practice and a hopeful mentality, running slowly transformed into a magical escape from the struggles of the day. I am still an amateur and my pace is on the scale of snailmail, but I think that this great variation in runners and runs makes running perfect for almost anyone. You can improve at your own pace and on your own terms. Maybe you run ten miles every day or maybe you have not run since eighth grade P.E. class. Either way, hopefully, the recommendations below will inspire you to venture out (or into the Nelson) and just run. Running Apps Sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to run or keep running. Sometimes you don’t know how to
start a run or what your strategy should be. I’ve found running apps to be incredibly helpful. My personal favorite is Nike Run Club, which has guided runs for all distances and types. These guides also provide a source of advice and accountability on the run. Apps are great for tracking distances and speeds, so you can see your progress. In addition, if you plan to run a long-distance race such as a half marathon, there are apps designed for training programs that tell you what to run each day to build up your distance. Or are you motivated by fear instead? There is even an app that simulates running in a zombie apocalypse. Remember, running should not be about the numbers, but rather how it makes you feel; still, having stats to refer to once in a while can be useful. Running Paths Here are a few running routes around College Hill that I recommend: Hope Street to India Point Park: Pretty selfexplanatory. This can give you several miles. Just follow Hope Street down toward India Point Park
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Olivia Howe
“But nothing is better than the feeling of turning the music up high, tuning the rest of the world out, (even if only for three-ish minutes) and letting the music take me back to 2012, when the idea that the world was ending was still merely a conspiracy theory.” —Ellie Jurmann, “The Difficulty of Cultivating Good Taste in Music” 11.6.20
“We all wear clothes (for the most part), and clothes carry meanings about our personal and collective histories, about our place in culture, in politics, and on this planet. We may as well share those stories.”
FEATURE Managing Editor Alice Bai Section Editors Andrew Lu Ethan Pan ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Emma Schneider Section Editors Kyoko Leaman Joe Maffa
and then you can enter the running loop in the park if you desire. This is a great weekend run with beautiful views at the park. Blackstone Boulevard: This is a lovely stretch of pavement and gravel that runs in between two roads. It is lined with trees and grass, so you get a bit of nature along the way. It begins near Wayland Square and goes all the way to Lippitt Memorial Park. It is about three miles round trip and can easily be repeated for longer runs. East Bay Bike Path: If you want a long stretch of land for running and don’t want to do laps, this is the one for you. One way is 14.3 miles and it runs mainly along the water from India Point Park to Independence Park in Bristol. As the name suggests, it is also a great bike route if you’re not in the running mood. Around Campus Loop: If you want to stay close to Brown, you can circumnavigate the campus using the streets. Spanning from Keeney to the Nelson, this can be a fun way to see the campus and challenge yourself with a subtle incline. Just be careful of the janky cobblestone on some sidewalks so that you don’t trip. Nelson treadmill: Okay, so this is not a path, but it is an option for running. This is great when the weather is miserable outside (which happens a lot here) or if you don’t want to think about directions. Also, if you have old person joints like me, this can be a nice break for the knees, since the pavement can be high-impact and damaging. Random but Very Important Notes Providence drivers are insane. Even if you make eye contact with the driver, make sure they are actually stopping before you cross the street. Watch your step. Once fatigue sets in, it becomes difficult to completely pick up your foot. The sidewalks are wonky, with random raised cement and tree branches. You get the point. If you do find yourself midfall, protect the face at all costs. There is a difference between lacking motivation and being in pain. Yes, running can be mentally painful and physically strenuous. However, if you are in actual pain and your body says, “Nope, not today,” listen to it. You will only make things worse if you try to push it.
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
—Anna Harvey, “Feeling Fierce” 11.8.19 Want to be involved? Email: olivia_howe@brown.edu!
8 post–
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