finding aid on things shelved
by Alissa Simon Illustrated by Lily Engblom-Stryker
In Alumnae Hall, above the strange, tooempty passages and old couches, there is a small suite of rooms that you will almost certainly miss unless you are looking for it. It’s one of those tucked-away corners of campus where computers feel out of place and you can still clearly visualize women in saddle shoes walking from class to class.
Here, brighter than the yellow fluorescents, sit rows and rows and rows of white boxes. Inside them, white folders and, inside those, white papers. The Pembroke Center Archives are dedicated to preserving the writings and teachings of feminist theorists, as well as women throughout Brown’s history and Rhode Island activists.
Since my sophomore year, I have come here nearly every week to process new collections. In the office, I page through the papers of academics who studied marriage, pornography, affect, queer life — often before formal departments for such disciplines had even been created. These collections come to me disjointed, a rainbow of homemade files and journals nearly glued shut with age.
I handle syllabi tattooed with coffee rings, brittle-edged newspaper clippings, printed emails, and written letters. I shuck pages free of their paper clips, flicker them through my fingers. I make decisions that startle and unnerve me — which photocopies to keep and which to recycle. I decide that this set of documents is about animism in poetry and that one is correspondence related to
Letter from the Editor
Dear readers,
I thought the long weekend, with its deliciously free Monday and Tuesday, would be the perfect chance to scratch a few things off my Providence checklist. A running to-do list of restaurants to try, coffee shops to visit—it’s something I’ve kept since my freshman year. Every time I cross something off though, my radius seems to expand—new cafes and restaurants suddenly feel within reach thanks to the MBTA’s $10 weekend pass or a friend’s car. Since entering my senior year though, it’s felt more like a bucket list than a to-do list—the last winter to try Ceremony’s seasonal specials, sneaking in a last few trips to Champa for steaming khao soi takeout. This weekend, admittedly, I did make it to Oberlin, trying their brunch for the first time, which has been on my
queer film studies. By the time I am done, the collection will be imagined anew, set in clean folders, dated and coded along the top, each number in alignment with the finding aid published on the archive’s website.
The work itself is not glamorous. Oftentimes, my forearm spasms with cramps and I am always anxious that the oils of my fingers will seep into the paper, ruining it. But I love it. I love reading on the job, lingering over a research paper in between folders and squinting at the notes scrawled in the margins. My favorite documents are handwritten — sometimes loose sheets, sometimes bound in plain cardboard. Entire lectures charted in swooping script. Hasty diagrams — of bodies, poetry, theory on yellow legal pads or stenographer’s notebooks. People do not write in pen like this, so beautifully, these days.
You’re so brilliant. I’ve thought this many times, feeling a rush of fondness for whichever academic I am working with this week — Wendy Brown, Susan Friedman, Hortense Spillers. These women radiate from the page, their theories and frustrations made vivid enough to climb or chew. Sometimes, settling all those white boxes against each other on their shelves, I wonder if I am the first to see their lives like this — a chronology of scrawled note to printed paper. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to imagine mine in the same way.
list for ages. At the same time, I didn’t seem to make it to Big Feeling, Providence’s newest local ice cream store, despite having all the time in the world. Next time , I promise myself.
Our writers this week are running around all over the place as well. In Feature, Alissa searches for meaning here in Providence, flicking through the Pembroke Center Archives. In A&C, Lynn traipses through the northeast by train, while Ana shows her best friend from high school around Providence. Johan takes loyal A&C readers into the world of neoperreo, a new subgenre of reguetón, and Indigo takes us even deeper into cyberspace, exploring how edits help us escape fascism. In Lifestyle, Elsa makes a pit stop in Detroit on a circuitous journey to LA, while Daphne looks for joy closer to home all over
We all make our own archives, constantly. The archivist I work with reminds my Gender Studies seminar of this as we roam our fingers over typed poetry and activist pamphlets from the 1970s. All the time, she remarks, we lumber through our spaces, collecting birthday cards, receipts, shopping lists — not to mention the documents we imbue with even more purpose: birth certificates, job applications, love letters. I touch the yellowed corner of some woman’s handwritten poem from the 1920s as she speaks. The idea charms me. I imagine a large white dog, shaggy with loose-leaf fur, bounding at my heels. I imagine a room that follows me to every house, every apartment I will ever live in. When I open the door, there are my things. Every book I have annotated, every piece of pottery I have thrifted, carefully filed away. There is every paper I’ve written on James Baldwin, fifteenth century Italian marriage law, fullcost environmental pricing, abortion bans in El Salvador, abstract expressionism. I want to print out every stage of my drafts, see how much paper they make — how many words exactly came out of those long nights at the Rock with sleep pulling painfully under my eyes?
There’s no easy way of knowing; most of us will never make something for its own sake, never teach it to others. This careful work that I am paid by the hour for, work
campus. We end our tour in Europe, with a delightful themed crossword by Lily!
Though I didn’t quite make it to Big Feeling this weekend, I know I’ll just save the trip for a rainy day: maybe as a treat for turning in a thesis chapter, or to celebrate one of the first, ever-so-elusive, warm and sunny days. As a second-semester senior, it’s nice to know there are things left to do in Providence, things to look forward to. It’s even nicer to know there is still a little time left to do them.
Planning my next outing,
Klara Davidson-Schmich Feature Managing Ed
measured by cubic feet and finding aids, is reserved for a select few. For most of us, mapping our lives in trails of documents is a hard thing made harder when we have no idea where that trail is leading.
There is a feeling that something is coming to a close — the end of a series. I want to make the most of what’s left . My friends and I have exchanged that refrain too often over the last few weeks. Don’t take it for granted.
I’ve been feeling hunger pangs these days, the kinds I felt when my second grade teacher saw my stories and smiled with all of her teeth. Brilliant . Her praise lit something wolfish inside me. I did not hesitate to write things down back then. There was not a thought that was not worthy of record in heavy-handed Ticonderoga graphite. Intelligence, like beauty, was the beacon of my childhood. It was promised, possible if I could only catch myself the right light. I scrambled over myself in pursuit of it, collecting graded quizzes in my desk drawers.
Suddenly, I am staring into the dregs of my college education and that way of living in my mind feels more precarious than it ever has.
Do you want to go into academia? My advisor asks, offhanded at the end of a meeting. It’s a fair question, if an unexpected one. I imagine myself prolific, hours spent in symposiums and faculty dinners and libraries. I imagine my everyday archive — my journal, my school notes, my emails — neatly catalogued and made purposeful by some research assistant for public use. I give him a noncommittal answer. What have I been telling people recently? Law school. And after — what then?
I am afraid I’m leading myself somewhere without record. That the things I am learning now, the animated gesture of my professor’s hands, the sparks of recognition I find in a text, will slip away, slough off of my mind like water. I’m afraid that the girl who wrote everything down will become too hard to hold into my head. I worry that I’ll stumble over her, snuff her out. But most times the thought of dimming in this way isn’t so painful, and I’m afraid of that, too. ***
Of course, I am not entirely without evidence of myself.
In my childhood room, my desk drawers are still filled with those graded papers, my abandoned notebooks, doodles of flowers and women because I never learned to draw anything else. Like Anne Fausto-Sterling and Barbara Johnson I have also saved my printed emails, letters penned to me at summer camp, holiday cards.
In my Providence files: Trader Joe’s receipts, tea bag tags, scales of purple gel polish that I pull from my nails in one smooth peel. Our apartment bible — half guestbook, half cookbook, with our friends’ names scrawled in the front and our favorite recipes printed, carefully, with a Muji pen in the back. My journal, a cautious practice of stopping and starting, handfuls of sweet memories jotted minutes before falling into a bone-tired sleep.
Then, there are the archives that have snowballed beneath me since middle school. Thousands (could it be millions?) of text messages:
[2021] Long, vivid blue apologies to my mother when we were each too stubborn to talk to the other. I know.
[2023] A nonsense message from someone I miss terribly, pulling peals of laughter from my throat like scarves while my sister asks again and again and again, what’s so funny?
[n.d.] Dozens of photographs: of clothes in a dressing room when I needed a second opinion, of books I know my friend will adore, of flowers found in the early cries of spring. Look at this!
If they were somehow made material, they would fill boxes and boxes that I could drag with me from one home to the next, feeling the lovely ache of them, an anchor. ***
It’s not a passive thing, to be documented. Anyone lucky enough to have their own collection in the Pembroke Archives has a say in what gets included. The archivists remind me of this. It makes it all the more extraordinary that such intimate things, such privacies, are allowed inside.
While titling folders, I’ve read over countless letters between academics and their families. Fond sendoff messages, happy birthdays, condolences. In her archive, the literary scholar Heather Love includes her own medical records, charting the history of a stroke that would go on to impact her
ability to see and write. There is a jolt, when reading her diagnoses, what scholar Marika Cifor calls the “liveliness” of the body pulled so suddenly to the surface of the archive.
Could I ever let myself be read like that?
I already know the answer.
A memory: In second grade, I threw a Goldfish across the classroom carpet. I don’t know why I did it; what I remember is that my teacher — the one who called me brilliant — was not five words into reprimanding me before I burst into tears. The memory is not so defined, but the Goldfish incident was printed — a clipped sentence in an otherwise glowing midyear report card. I threw it away, as if destroying the paper would have erased the disappointment from my teacher’s face, my salty cheeks.
There are other artifacts — clear if I want them to be: notes from therapy appointments and doctors’ offices, words I wish I could scrub from my parents’ minds. There are texts I fantasize about unsending, poems that rot, unfinished, in my computer. There are ugly truths that would stop me short, choke me up if I rest on them.
That unease is bottomless, sometimes. It hollows me out, fills me again. I’m searching for a stable way to read these parts of myself, casting and catching memories, filing through what I can.
Sometimes, after the archivists have left for the day, I stay late in the office, letting myself page through my work — which is, of course, not my work — swallowing paragraphs about marriage law and biopolitics to digest on my walk home.
I’ve been clumsy recently, smearing signs of myself everywhere. A scholar looking for Linda Williams’ papers will read the series titles I marked, maybe noting the place where the script is slurred as my hand grew heavy with afternoon exhaustion. Someone will see the crease in Christina Simmons’ papers from a file folded wrong. I am leaving soon and they will find someone else to do this job.
When I leave, I will sweep the paperclips into the trash bin, line the pencils up at the edge of the table. I will close the door before the sun has set and all the white boxes are swallowed up into the blue night.
“Is it supposed to look like this?” “Like no, but is it a crime if it does?”
“It looks crazy with the bisexual lighting in the background.”
providence in 20!
northeastern traveling by Lynn Nguyen
Illustrated by Rokia Whitehouse Instagram: @saturnkt4
Soft, hazy flashes of warm oranges and yellows paint the window, leaving speckled imprints in my memory that recede with the ever-changing images of infinite leaves. Humming reverberates from where I gently rest my head against the wall—an illusion that I am hearing the spirit of atoms themselves. Time is astray, though I only go forward. The train is an other space that, somehow, suspends me in the landscapes of the railroad.
00:00
My first train was the T. The night before my trip, my dreams wandered and left me with intense wonder in the morning. Faint memories of the Polar Express and Hogwarts Express danced around in my mind.
10:43
My friend and I arrived at the Providence Station one hour before our train, confused by the excess of numbers on the online timetable. I needed time to take in my surroundings: the timid clock tower, the sleek yet unnerving dome, the curious circle of benches. The station cafe’s emptiness sprouted disappointment in me, as though I was missing out on an opportunity. Yet, the vibrant convenience store reeled me in, even tricking me into paying for a “gourmet” snack.
11:37
Although I pulled out a book while waiting, I reread the same sentences in vain; I squinted at the train schedule every few minutes. Suddenly, a track number appeared. I scrambled to shove my belongings in my bags, put on my jacket, and orient myself toward the right track. With a backpack and heavy duffel bag, I rushed down the stairs with my friend racing behind. The cold breeze met us. The tracks as a liminal space between the inside and outside amplified my curiosity as the long, seemingly endless train whooshed before me. It was not quite as enamoring as the steam locomotive I was fantasizing about, but was nonetheless thrilling.
The train came to a full stop, its doors sliding open as an invitation in. As I hurried to an entrance, I slowed my step to concentrate on the gap between the platform and train car. I ensured I did not slip in between the sliver of a gap and down into the unknowing darkness of the tracks. There was a little jump, and into the train I went.
It was a humble interior, with smooth oak walls, lived-in seats that looked of vintage leather, and wide windows with rounded corners. My friend and I squeezed ourselves into a seat, stacking our hefty bags atop each other and occupying the remaining space. At that moment of waning, everything rested but my blaring heart.
11:46
The train jutted forward and into motion, while I steadied my gaze out the window and at the moving cement bricks of the tunnel. I patiently waited until the edge of the tunnel, the sharp line where the walls ended—blurring with the bright sky and distant buildings. Now that I finally settled down, I let my thoughts wander with a somber kind of music, one that made me intimately immersed in reflection. Along the ride, from time to time, I watched my location on my phone glide through the map. In between these pauses, I lost myself in the views through the window.
00:00
Taking the train was not a transitional process to reach new experiences. The train was an experience in itself. Five days after my first train, a bigger opportunity arose: the Amtrak, the quintessential American train.
7:25
Boarding a train with a more vintage outer appearance, I stumbled into the car and found an interior vastly unlike the one I first encountered. There were rows upon rows of singular seats, whose sleek designs displayed untouched leather surfaces. Narrow lights shone on each chair amidst the dimness, the seeming vastness. Dark blue filled the seats, the carpet, the signs, the doors. The Amtrak was reminiscent of a plane cabin, a formal and rigid space. Unchanged, though, were the wide windows with rounded corners. I could still absorb myself in the ride.
The Amtrak had a swiftness too. New passengers rushed down the aisle to find an open seat, and newcomers like me wishfully looked for whole rows to ourselves. As I sought out a seat, I nearly tumbled when the train immediately started and thrust itself into full speed. My hands gripped others’ seats until I mustered the courage to ask a stranger if anyone was sitting beside them when my hands became too moist to hold onto anything. After hurling my duffel bag onto the overhead rack, I swung
myself into a seat and shoved my backpack underneath the seat in front of me. This seat surprised me—its back side had a mini-table I could unlatch and a netted pocket with brochures, uncannily like a plane. In search of familiarity, I unfastened the table and rubbed my hands across its smooth surface, pulling and pushing the table to see how much it could move.
7:30
“Tickets! Tickets!”
As the conductor neared me, I hastened to find my ticket somewhere in my email. Once I felt their presence tower over me, I quickly made a final tap and pointed my phone toward the conductor.
“Zoom into the QR code.” I heeded. After a scan, a hole was punched into a physical ticket. My ticket, hovering over my head…
7:45
“Kingston in 10 minutes!”
8:24
“New London! New London!”
8:47
“Old Saybrook in 15!”
This voice stayed with me throughout the ride, emerging every so often while I stared into the novel scenery losing its sunset glow.
8:58
“New Haven in 10 minutes!” Someone rose from their seat and gathered their luggage, then made their way to the end of the car.
I jumped up, and without thought, snatched my duffel bag and yanked my backpack. The weight of these bags pained my shoulders, though I stood upright, taking cues from my model traveler.
9:08
The Amtrak immediately halted and nearly threw me off my feet, even with bags grounding me. At once, everything stood still for a quiet second. The sliding doors opened, welcoming me to the outside. My small jump landed me on the platform, feeling renewed.
24:00
Mobility: This is one of the many charms that adorn the Northeast. Walking and biking. Subways and trains. Everything is readily within reach. Perhaps this mobility amounts to nothing when one takes to a car. But sometimes, I want to forsake control. When I let go, I float about savoring the moments, unbounded to the world.
I create experiences each time at Providence Station. I board trains teeming with curiosity, prepared to encounter the rush and the new, but eventually sink into a comforting limbo: catching the cheapest train in the middle of the night or, during the comedown of the day, finding the ride a mellow escape from the tiring normal. With a friend, or strangers. To a modest hub of vibrancy that does not try to be greater than itself, that of South Station or Grand Central, a vast center that shows you are only a single speckle in an endless and unstoppable crowd, yet you flow with this dynamism.
The same train changes. But every time, I get to hear “Providence in 20!” I always return in time, anew.
my favorite visitor
you make growing up seem a little less scary
by Ana Vissicchio
Illustrated by Cayden Garrett
Instagram: @garrartt
“Freshly 21!”
I’m giddy at the wine store checkout. Grinning, I walk out not only as the new owner of two bottles of wine (buy one, get one half off), but also as a member of Campus Fine Wines’ rewards program. My best friend from high school is waiting for me outside, visiting just for the weekend. With her 21st only a few days away, we’re celebrating over board games, libations, and winding trips down memory lane.
I met Isabel in the first few weeks of high school. She loves pastels, and I love browns and greys; she’s bubbly, and I’m deadpan; she’s a minimalist, and my life is overfilled with trinkets and tchotchkes. I missed her sweet smile and long-winded but wonderful stories. Between bundled walks down Wickenden and anticlimactic tours of the libraries and Jo’s, we reminisce on high school—the friends who’ve come and gone, the teachers we still giggle about, and the way everything felt so big back then. Isabel dreams—she’s always looking ahead, delighted about what’s to come. I tend to linger in the past, turning over memories like well-worn stones, too afraid of letting go, of time moving too fast, of things changing before I’m ready.
But when I’m with Isabel, those fears feel a little smaller. She reminds me that looking ahead doesn’t mean forgetting, just as I remind her that remembering doesn’t mean staying still. As we walk without a destination and talk about nothing in particular, I realize how much I’ve missed the way we both pull each other back into the present.
Nevertheless, the shadow of high school, fuzzy memories of a time almost three years ago, still persists in the corners of my mind— from how I write essay outlines to how I still
manage to be at least five minutes late to all my classes. The weight of my memories undulates; sometimes, the worries of my past mistakes and naivete creep in, making me hesitate when I want to try something new. But with Isabel next to me, the past doesn’t feel like something to fear—it just feels like another part of the story. I feel so old, so mature as I walk out of the wine shop, but upon seeing Isabel’s smiling face, I jump right back into giggling at the stupidest things with her on our way home, trying not to slip on ice as we clutch onto each other’s puffers.
Although I just turned 21, which is supposed to be one of those ages where you feel old, there have been many moments where I still feel exasperatingly little. I had no idea what kind of wine to buy in that store, my first W-2 is sitting on my desk collecting dust, and I’m still slightly embarrassed when I admit to other upperclassmen that I’m still in the dorms and on a meal plan. I guess I thought that at 21, everything falls into place. I assumed I’d be comforted by the automatic maturity that accompanies the on-paper status of being an “adult,” but instead, I’m much too caught up in the messiness of figuring it all out—of decisions that feel too big, mistakes that feel too inevitable, and questions that feel too endless.
There’s a quote in one of my favorite books, Everything I Know About Love , that encapsulates this feeling of growing up and mildly freaking out: “You are realizing the mundanity of life. You are moving out of the realm of fantasy of ‘when I grow up’ and adjusting to the reality that you’re there; it’s happening, and it’s not what you thought it’d be.” The things I’ve looked forward to throughout the last few years of high school and the first few of college are now daunting: getting a job, figuring out where to live, knowing who I want to be. While I know so many other college students my age feel the same, I often feel alone, like everyone else has got it figured out but me.
But it’s happening—I’m growing up, in the same way I’ve always been growing and will continue to grow. I’ll continue to try my hardest to stick with the people who ground me, and Isabel is one of them.
Today, we mulled over how we met almost seven years ago. Over those seven years, maturity and change have snuck up on us in quiet, almost ridiculous ways. Like the funny feelings of fear and excitement that ensued after we learned to drive, got into college, or applied for our first internships. I had Isabel by my side through all these milestones, and she had me. We’ve juggled everything together, balancing the demands of the student council, prom planning, and pep rallies with college applications, all while surviving on far too little sleep and far too much coffee.
However, in these conversations, we often forget the more mundane moments of our past. The times I remember only by the smallest of moments, like how a brief flicker of light hits my wall in a certain way, reminding me of the times I would wake up early to catch the sunrise with my dad. Or how the specific smell of chocolate chip cookies in the oven brings back the bake sales we’d host over our lunch breaks to raise money for prom. Nostalgia works in weird ways, and I’ve found that when I look back at my “big” moments, they don’t seem so big compared to the “little” ones I often took for granted.
In the comfort of my cozy, messy dorm, I take in the surreal feeling that one of the people who defined my teenage years has now met my new friends, seen my new trinkets, and peeked into my new life. It feels unfamiliar but serendipitous, a strange yet wonderful intersection of the past and the present. These tiny, seemingly trivial moments—touring the dining hall, laughing about our bad high school outfits and haircuts, watching Isabel curl her hair while she sits on my dusty dorm floor— remind me that the most essential parts of life aren’t milestones, but the people who help you move through them. The unease of my past and my memories—filled with feelings of being too young and naive, not good enough, and confusingly lost—begin to feel less sticky. I’m starting to feel like I’ll be okay if I sit back and let go a little. I’m unsure if it’s the comfort of Isabel or the new ID in my pocket or even the tax form on my desk. Maybe it’s a combination of all three.
College life, I guess, isn’t all that different from high school, or even the years that came before—it’s still a constant juggling act of meeting expectations, keeping up with responsibilities, and trying to stay sane during the whole process. I’m starting to realize that balance depends on the people who support you. It meant so much to have Isabel meet the friends who now lift me up the way she always has, bridging the past and present in a way that feels weird and nostalgic, yet completely natural.
I have new friends and new interests and new fears. Still, ends always ring the bell for new beginnings, and as the wine bottles clink on our slushy walk back to my dorm, I feel more and more excited and less and less scared—not only for the weekend ahead of me, but for everything that awaits me in the future. Good and bad, freeing and scary— everything, all at once.
in defense of reguetón from pretentious music fans
exploring the neoperreo scene through a playlist deep dive
by Johan Beltre
Illustrated by Ella Dayton-Yaeger
Instagram: @artbyelladayton
“It’s just the same pattern over and over again” is a phrase I have heard one too many times when talking about reguetón with music fans.
In clubs, raves, the deep corners of music Twitter (I refuse to call it X, sorry Elon!), and many underground spaces, I have encountered a surprising, resounding hatred for the genre. Witnessing how people can hate the music that soundtracked your birthdays, family gatherings, and pretty much your entire life, is a strange feeling. I am not saying that everyone needs to enjoy every genre that exists, because that’s impossible. However, entirely shutting a genre down seems like a closed-minded and reductionist way of listening to music. This is why I deeply relate to country fans. Many of them were raised in communities where country music is embedded within the local culture. I grew up listening to Wisin & Yandel, Ivy Queen, and other reguetón icons. Therefore, I feel it is my duty to defend the genre’s cultural and social appeal while still critiquing the many flaws that come with it.
A lot of the critiques of reguetón are that it’s a highly commercial and repetitive genre. The “Despacito” formula that many reguetón
artists choose to follow to dominate the charts can get tired very quickly. However, many people bringing up this point are Anglophones who have only been exposed to the genre’s biggest hits. It’s like saying that all pop sounds like Taylor Swift just because you’re only familiar with her music. Many variations of reguetón go beyond the typical structure of a hit song if you listen closely enough. Reguetón can be melancholic, hardhitting, slow, or fast. While this might feel unnecessary to say, it is the truth. A lot of people’s idea of reguetón hyperfixates on the songs that are on the radio. They are not aware that reguetón is also a crucial component of many alternative spaces like the world of neoperreo.
Neoperreo is a fairly new subgenre of reguetón that emerged in the digital age as a reintroduction of the genre in the underground scene. Mainly dominated by female artists, neoperreo is a space for women and gender-nonconforming people to freely discuss their sexuality. It is a liberation from old school reguetón, which was deeply rooted in misogyny and the objectification of women as a commodity for commercialization. A lot of neoperreo songs
are characterized by electronic-focused production, often featuring harsh sounds and eclectic and provocative lyrics.
As a way to expand your knowledge of neoperreo and reguetón, I have curated a playlist that you can find here. It features a blend of classics from the genre and more left-field options to create the perfect vibe for any function. Through this, I’ve become more appreciative of the art of playlisting. To the girlies that have a playlist for every event that happens in their lives: Know that I see you and I admire you. It is a challenge to gather a collection of songs that reflect a certain aesthetic or mood. I did my best with this one.
I also understand that not everyone has the time to listen to a lot of music at once. Therefore, I have gathered a list of five essential tracks that you can check out if you are interested in neoperreo and alternative reguetón.
“KLK” - Arca featuring Rosalía
When I think of neoperreo, this song immediately comes to mind. The dystopian and futuristic nature of Arca’s production, paired with Rosalía’s angelic voice, makes for a disorienting yet thrilling experience. The track is an empowering club anthem that morphs into experimental madness through glitches and transitions, making it sometimes difficult to follow. However, when you finally figure the song out, it is gratifying. Arca’s adlibs are reminiscent of Latin DJs and MCs, phonetics designed to hype up the crowds during parties. She knows how to command the listener through her intensity while still letting Rosalía shine through. While this might be a little challenging for the casual listener, Arca anchors the track in the traditional rhythm pattern of reguetón,
making it still accessible.
“Tu Sicaria” - Ms. Nina featuring Beauty Brain
Ms. Nina is a foundational pillar of neoperreo, and “Tu Sicaria” is one of the tracks that started it all. The song was an international hit that redefined how women could refer to themselves in mainstream reguetón. Nina’s provocative lyrics, the many gunshots, and the hooky melody inspired by Dembow make for a perfect banger for the club. While the song is on the shorter side, it packs a punch that you do not want to miss.
“Latina” - Isabella Lovestory
Isabella Lovestory is one of the most promising artists to come out of the neoperreo scene. Her futuristic production, inspired by genres like hyperpop and deconstructed club, is a breath of fresh air for the world of reguetón. In “Latina,” she is feeling her oats as she sings about her Latina identity and her confidence as a woman. While keeping the energy up, she critiques how many people tokenize Latinidad without actually taking part in the culture. It is a transgressive ode to owning your heritage without shame.
“Baddie” - Tomasa del Real featuring NIXIE
Known as one of the neoperreo pioneers, Tomasa del Real coined the term “neoperreo” to describe her perfect blend of raunchy and hard-hitting music. The Chilean artist focuses on blending the DIY digital aesthetics of the internet era with lyrical influences from the biggest artists of reguetón, like Ivy Queen. An example of this is her song “Baddie,” where she delivers a cheeky vocal performance over police sirens and a dark bass. Throughout three minutes, she reclaims her own pleasure, reversing the notions of reguetón that usually focus on men’s pleasures. She knows she is a “baddie,” and you should know it too.
“ZARI” - Marina Satti
The Greek pop star, Marina Satti, represented Greece in the 2023 edition of the European song festival, Eurovision, with her song “ZARI.” This song is a ferocious fusion of reguetón and traditional Greek music where Satti explores a tumultuous relationship. Satti’s vocals shine through the mix like she is performing for a packed stadium, which makes sense as it was designed with the contest in mind. However, this does not stop the song from exploring the intersection between reference and innovation. I could have also added her maximalist, Frankenstein-like reguetón track “MIXTAPE” to the playlist. However, we would have been partying for well over the recommended bedtime, as it goes a little over 10 minutes. “ZARI” is a wonderful track that offers a unique twist on what neoperreo and alternative reguetón can be.
As neoperreo becomes more of an established subgenre, it is crucial to support the many talented women and gendernonconforming people that are part of it. While this article is just an introduction, I invite you all to learn more about the genre and introduce your fans to the fascinating and futuristic world of neoperreo. Have fun, and never stop dancing!
this edit kills facists
or, why i love iMovie
by Indigo Mudbhary
Illustrated by Julia Park
An American Werewolf in London is not a gay movie. The love story at the center of the movie is decidedly heterosexual, and the two male leads have no sexual or romantic chemistry whatsoever. Yet, if you watched my edit of the movie, set to “Ribs” by Lorde, you’d think it was the gayest, queerest piece of queer media you’d ever seen.
I didn’t intentionally watch An American Werewolf in London. The whole thing happened by accident. One night, my roommate and I decided to watch Stopmotion, an indie horror movie that any A24 snob would love. It was my second watch, her first. After the movie ended, Amazon Prime decided to autoplay An American Werewolf in London. It was a Friday night, we had time on our hands, so we said “fuck it” and kept watching, despite the movie having the longest and most unnecessary opening credits sequence we’d ever seen.
As we watched the movie, we kept remarking on how it wasn’t made for us. “This is the kind of movie a father shows his son,” one of us said; I forget now if it was me or her. Though gender is more complicated than some things being boy and others being girl, we both thought the movie
was very boy and it was funny to be two girls watching this boy film. I joked, “I should edit this to ‘Ribs,’” the joke being that “Ribs” is a girl song, and the overlap between “Ribs” listeners and An American Werewolf in London viewers is probably very minimal.
I did end up making the edit using iMovie. I texted it to various friends, including my roommate. I even showed it to my mom, who asked, “So are they gay in the movie?” No Mom, but they are in your daughter’s edit. And I’m not alone—the vast majority of edits create a queerer world by making characters that are decidedly heterosexual in the original work fall in love with each other. As we inhabit this contemporary political moment where fascist politicians are more concerned about trans kids playing sports than gun violence, I think making the world a queerer place is valuable. These edits don’t just strive for queer representation; they loudly invade heterosexuality and rip it apart entirely. Rather than desperately claw toward an assimilation we’ll never achieve, I think it’s more valuable to disrupt the sanctity of heterosexuality altogether, and edits do that.
I’ve always loved to mess around with other people’s works of fiction. As a middle schooler with no friends, I spent a lot of time on FanFiction.Net. An avid Draco x Hermione (“Dramione”) consumer, it didn’t take long for me to start writing my own fan fiction. I set up my profile, which, if you want to understand who I was then, began: “Howdy. Geez, that sounds weird. I apologize for my awkwardness. But seriously, hello. I have no idea how you got to my profile, but thanks for taking the time
out of your day to read this.” My first story was typical Dramione content: pining, angst, and a chaste kiss on the lips because that was the most scandalous thing my middle school brain could come up with.
None of my FanFiction.Net work is particularly well-written. All of the sex scenes are anatomically incorrect because I hadn’t had sex yet. If people spoke the way that I used to write dialogue, you’d think everyone was AI-generated. But, what no one can deny is that these stories are ridiculously imaginative. Why was I shipping Dean and Seamus from Harry Potter when they have less than three scenes together? Why was I writing Dramione from Ron’s point of view? As I scroll through my profile for this piece, I cringe but also shake my head in disbelief at how I came up with this stuff. This way of writing, weaving stories out of other people’s fiction like Frankenstein making his monster, taught me not just to imagine but also to never accept text as unchangeable. So when I get yet another notification on my phone about the latest executive order making this world a worse place to live in, I do not give into despair, but instead think of what actions we can take to challenge this latest proclamation.
Though I gave up writing fan fiction many years ago, my love of edits—another way to manipulate works of fiction—has remained constant. My first exposure to the medium was through iMovie trailers the summer between fifth and sixth grade. Using the “horror trailer” template one summer afternoon, I made a dark gothic edit of my Elmo plushie and was instantly hooked on the medium. Recent edits include: a thirst trap of a hypothetical high-speed rail line in the U.S., a fan edit of my hard-working premed friend, a time-lapse set to a Deftones song of me and my lover assembling his shelves this summer (ft. a fake explosion at the end), a video of my friends’ storage unit blowing up that nobody fell for, and an iMovie about my attempt to get my boots fixed at a cobbler downtown. Making my friends laugh via edits is one small thing I can do during a time when those who seek to oppress us work to divide us. They want to make us feel so isolated that we become futile. I share an oncampus apartment with an aspiring journalist and climate scientist, respectively, and I hope that the brief laughs my edits provide can sustain them as they fight the good fight, which feels harder every day.
Lately, I’ve been returning to my fan fiction roots and editing other people’s works of fiction. I recently edited The Social Network to Charli XCX’s “Girl, so confusing.” Through my edit, this film that details the rise of Facebook becomes a tender exploration of platonic love and femininity. Suddenly, a movie where girls are only love interests and objects becomes a treatise on femme friendships. In this contemporary anti-choice
climate which thrives on viewing people with uteruses as only good for producing babies, edits provide a valuable way of repurposing media that objectifies femme people. The objectification of femme people in movies and television is not unrelated to these attacks on our bodily autonomy, and editing against that objectification is a meaningful form of resistance (and I promise I’m not just saying that because I really like my own “Girl, so confusing” edit). Anyway, I’m not going to post my edit of The Social Network, but come up to me in person anytime and I’ll show it to you, as long as you can handle the screening taking place on the most fingerprinted, cracked iPhone you’ve ever seen.
Of course, every artist is the product of the art they’ve consumed, and there are edits that have fundamentally changed the course of my life. From one that sets Maurice to Lana del Rey’s “Brooklyn Baby” to another that splices clips from
the show to be a distillation of everything I hate about capitalism, the U.S., and white feminism. And I know that if Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samatha ever met me, they’d hate me right back. Yet, there’s part of me that wants to edit the show to some bhangra and make the whitest show I’ve ever seen South Asian, just because I can. It gives me a form of agency as a viewer predominantly consuming media that is not made for me. Fascists want you to feel as if you have no agency because their regimes thrive on anticipatory obedience— acquiescing before they even take action—so any way you can recuperate that agency is valuable, even if it’s silly and small.
Edits provide a valuable way of seeing. While they are often dismissed because they’re not original works, they repurpose the source material so much that in doing so, a whole new piece of media is produced. I believe edits are a medium in their own right, just as much as writing, painting,
Challengers to “One of Your Girls” by Troye Sivan, these edits have fundamentally changed the way I read the original works. And I’m not the only one— back when TikTok was going to be deleted, one of my friends frantically saved all her favorite edits so that she could have them forever. To those of us who love edits, they are beautiful objects imbued with layers of meaning, like pieces of sea glass or feathers, that we collect and clutch close to our chests.
Being someone who edits also changes the way I consume. For example, I hate Sex and the City. Yet, I can’t stop watching it. I abhor each character as if they were my real-life enemy and find lines from the show so repulsive I genuinely gag upon hearing them in my headphones. I laugh at the moments that are supposed to be tender and find
or singing. With iMovie as your paintbrush and [insert-the-heterosexual-movie-you-wantto-queer-here] as your canvas, you can create anything.
In this current, very fascist moment in the U.S., hate thrives on seeing the world in one way and rendering people into one-dimensional, hateful stereotypes. While I’m not equating making an edit to tangible anti-fascist action, I think any medium or way of seeing that complicates things, that says, “No, actually, here’s how I see it,” is valuable. Moreover, fascists don’t want us to have imaginations, so while my forthcoming Oppenheimer x “Like a G6” edit is nothing revolutionary, it’s a very quiet middle finger at those who would rather I not dream, who would rather I not laugh despite it all.
In the beginning, Delta Airlines created a 10 a.m. flight to Los Angeles. And I arrived early at my gate, enveloped in a net of peace, anticipating a night in my childhood bed back home, and the sun rose over Providence. But then the intercom said, Let there be a $1,500 airline voucher for any travelers willing to transfer to the 5 p.m. to Los Angeles through Detroit, and I awoke.
Too good to be true? Perhaps. This morning would mark only the beginning of my chaotic pilgrimage. Here’s what I wish I had been told:
1. Accept the voucher, but know what you’re getting into. Don’t lose yourself in visions of a restful Christmas vacation—you must first earn it. Your new flight is in nine hours. Text your dad: won’t be landing by midnight, sorry
2. Listen when the charismatic British Canadian rugby player you meet at the gate informs you that no one wins anything by standing patiently in line. Muscle your way to the front for your updated boarding pass.
3. Find creative ways to pass the time while you wait. Stare at the stretches of gray carpet, the seas of hurried bodies. Treat yourself to a $16.50 meatball sandwich, which will inevitably taste like wet cardboard. Find a nook and doomscroll into oblivion as time crawls, turtle-like, past you.
paranoid in detroit a
4. Apologize to the universe for cursing the droning intercom voice that announces each delay. Airport attendants have dreams and families. Attempt to restore your karma.
5. Once finally on board, strike up a conversation with the young, bearded Amazon employee in the neighboring seat. He may give you a small bottle of airplane bourbon and confess his aviophobia to you. Comfort him, but know you’ll be on the tarmac for another three hours and that he’ll be drunk enough by then not to notice he’s airborne anyway.
6. When your phone informs you midair that your connection out of Detroit has already departed, accept the truth: No airport sprint nor desperate plea will get you home today. And don’t say you hate Detroit. It doesn't want you there either.
7. After you land, an agitated agent at a Delta help desk will claim she can’t rebook your flight or help you find a place to sleep. Ignore her. Get a second opinion and an off-thefreeway motel voucher.
8. Don’t talk to irritable strangers at 1 a.m. on the airport shuttle en route to said offthe-freeway motel.
9. Hop across the lily pad stains on the lobby carpet to lighten the mood. On the way to your room, try not to picture bodies in a
retrospective airport guide
bY ELSA EASTWOOD
Illustrated by Allie Abraham
range of consciousness behind each door or an eerie violin solo accompanying you down the hallway. If you must, have a makeshift weapon ready.
10. You’ll hear water running when you enter. The bathtub is full, the faucet stuck. Estimate how long you have before a flood consumes you.
11. Futz with the thermostat to no avail. 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Nice work. You’re sleeping in your clothes.
12. Never rely on a fatigued and hungry mind. There is no skeleton hand on your pillow, no gelatinous tentacles emerging from beneath the bed. That languid, naked woman on the windowsill? A trick of the light. (Deadbolt the door twice.)
13. Sacrifice your vigilance for some shivery sleep. Imagine yourself somewhere more forgiving—the dentist’s office or the DMV waiting room, a 14thcentury barber.
14. Wake up to a 5 a.m. alarm. Brave the snowstorm, the lonely motel muffin, the shuttle back to the airport. Drag your bag the final few yards. And once you’ve collapsed into your seat and let your eyes fall closed, find solace in the Los Angeles skyline appearing against the darkness of your eyelids, the weight of a new $1,500 in your pocket, as the plane wheels roll steadily forward.
1. Snow
I walk outside, still hazy from sleep, and am blinded by the vast stretches of glaring white on the ground. On my way to my 9 a.m. class, I suffer from a couple of mini heart attacks, nearly slipping on a pile of melted snow and then again on some unsalted ice.
Now that the initial excitement of having snow again has died off, I pray that it goes away soon.
But, when I’m walking back to my dorm, a guy stops me and asks if I can take a picture of him. He leads me to an impressive snow sculpture of a frog, and I ask if he made it. He shakes his head and says that he just saw it and liked it.
Someone has made a frog out of snow, and this stranger has found enough amazement in it to want a picture with it. I hand him back his phone, and my heart tugs at his big smile when he thanks me.
As I reach my dorm, passing by the same melted snow and ice that nearly caused my demise, I can’t help but notice how pretty the snow really is, white and glittering and dotted with footprints.
2. Re-meeting someone
I’m rushing to my Chinese one-on-one speaking lesson, periodically glancing down at my phone to check the time. I’d forgotten that they’re starting this week, and now I’m just hoping that I’m not so late that I’m marked absent.
When I get there, I see the TA who also facilitated my one-on-one lesson last semester, and I immediately brighten up. After last semester, I thought I would only see her in passing on campus.
My dread for this lesson quickly dissipates as we talk. As she complains to me about computer science and laughs with me to ease my embarrassment when I stumble over a word, I fall into a comfortable familiarity, even if we only ever see each other during these lessons.
3. My friends’ laughs
I’ve recently noticed that my friends have very distinct laughs.
Every time that we’re together, and I make a joke that they laugh at, I observe each of them, noting the different ways their laughter takes over them: Do their shoulders shake? Do their eyes squint? Do they laugh with their whole body, doubling over, or are they still except for a few tremors?
One friend leans forward, eyes widening as his laughs come out breathless, like he’s surprised by it every time. Another covers her mouth when she laughs, hands cupping her nose and mouth as her eyes squint. My
5 quiet observations
5 moments I discover joy
by Daphne cao
Illustrated by Anna Nichamoff instagram: @mossmilkshake
other friend stays still as he laughs, his face scrunching instead.
I take care to note a new feature of their laughs every time I see it, not for any particular reason. I just love to see the different ways joy passes over their expressions, and I know I could recognize any of these laughs in a room full of hundreds of people.
4. Rain against the window
I return to my dorm after winter break only to find that my roof is leaking. Dirty water has stained some of my belongings and the room has a strange, musty smell. Even worse, after filing a report to Facilities, they let me know that the leak is from the roof of the building and can’t be fixed until the weather warms up, meaning I’ll have to put up with it for at least another few weeks. Every time I see that rain or snow is predicted for the next day, I sigh, knowing that my dorm will suffer from it.
One Saturday night, I’m staying up to write a response paper for my English class when I hear the dreaded sound of rain starting. The intensity of the rain kicks up from a drizzle to a shower in a matter of minutes, and I groan. I was already irritated by my lack of progress on the paper, and the rain has just made it worse.
But, as I continue to work through my essay, the sound of rain evens out, becoming white noise in the background. The steady drops of rain against my window don’t fill me with dread but instead form a calm and
soothing rhythm. I fall asleep to those steady raindrops knocking against my window.
5. Strangers’ joy
It’s another unfortunate day where I’ve had to lock myself in the Rock and cram my assignments. I can hear a group of people at a large table nearby speaking far too loudly for a library, and I turn up the music in my headphones with annoyance. I roll my eyes, thinking about a Sidechat post I saw that complained about how some first years disregard common courtesy in libraries.
But, as I’m packing up and sneaking a glance over at them, they’re all giggling, faces red with laughter. I can remember when I was a first year, and every day felt like that, bursting with unrestrained, new glee. My irritation abates, and I shrug it off. Sure, it’s a bit inconsiderate, but I’ll let them have this moment.
Even when I am irritated, I’ve learned not to let my frustration cloud my vision. With just a small adjustment in perception, I can turn that annoyance into something far more productive.
Joy does not always come easy. Sometimes joy is not something you stumble upon, but something that you have to search for yourself.
Howdy from Holland
by Lily Coffman
by Fiona Mcgill
“When I sit at her kitchen table, I watch my grandmother toss spice and flavor into her dishes with a crease in her brow, yet a secureness in her motion. Her dishes, organic and sacred, never know measurements, timers, special equipment. Just salt, fat, acid, heat, and love.”
— Ana Vissicchio, “From the Kitchen Table” 02.22.24
“After
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