post- 4/21/2023

One year, my mother committed herself to scrapbooking my oma’s life. For weeks, she scoured the depths of old boxes and dusty albums, until she’d found records of every pivotal moment of my oma that she could. Sepia, water-stained photos adorned the pages, accompanied by careful captions, dates.

When presented with the gift, my oma pointed at her own wedding photo—at herself, in that charming white gown—and asked who the lovely woman was.

In some ways, I envied it. We age our entire lives, grow bigger, wiser, stronger—and then, inevitably, we return to infantility. Returning, finally, to that peace known only in

Letter from the Editor

Dear Readers,

We’ve really made it to the best part of the semester. Free ice cream and lemonade? Don’t mind if I do. Wanna play tennis outside on Friday? Absolutely. Delete recurring event → This and following events? Yes please. Though, I have to admit, a part of me is starting to get a little nostalgic. Just last night, the tennis team had our final event of the semester. All these spring shows and the senior medleys fire up the waterworks at least a couple times per weekend. Today, post- ghost Kyoko is popping into the office, Aditi is pondering her final piece for post-, and Alice is finishing up her thesis, so she can graduate—maybe… she should just stay. Out with the old, and in with the new? I’d rather not.

It seems like our writers are also just trying to savor

Remembrance

what have I forgotten to remember?

By audrey wijono

illustrated by Lucid Clairvoyant Insta: @l.u.cid

youth.

Often, I crave that innocence, but the trade-off is too much to bear.

*

During one dementia-fueled haze, my great-grandmother started speaking to us in Dutch.

It had been well over seventy years since the Dutch occupation. Indonesian had been her everyday language for decades. But as my oma inched past 90, the Dutch words rolled off her tongue. Foreign, but ingrained.

Unable to engage, my family simply let the episode pass.

whatever they can before they go onwards. Our Feature writer reflects on memory, forgetting, and coming to terms with a process of remembrance and loss. In Narrative, one writer channels her inner water as a way to learn flexibility, flow, and surrendering herself, while the other takes her time to seek wonder in the smallest details of the world around her. In Arts & Culture, one writer experiences all the overwhelming emotions of growing up through Chappell Roan’s songs, and the other finds beauty in normality, and questions the fakebeauty of corecore. And in Lifestyle, an ode to spring with the crossword, and a call to remember the racist undertones of the old money style.

Take your time with the pieces this week, and take your time with the loved ones in your life. It’s been a bit of a slow, sluggish little week, and an especially slow

Modern medicine is one of life’s greatest blessings. I have no doubt that, without it, natural selection would have weeded my family out long, long ago. Knobby knees, the worst spines, a myriad of cancers—but, of everything that runs in my family, whatever brought on my oma’s dementia is certainly the worst.

Aging is cruel enough in good health. To love, be loved, to lose. To grieve yourself before you are even gone. Crueler, though, is to lose yourself, and not even realize.

In her last days, my oma did not know how to love; she had forgotten everything she needed to know to be able to. Names, feelings, words. Still, we stroked her hair, washed her back,

day, but I think that’s exactly what we all need in order to not rush past the finish line; heck, even the weather machine realizes it jumped the gun a little with its little teaser of summer. I, for one, am in no rush to put a bow on this semester, so I’ll be spending the next week enjoying my top tens, crosswords, and post- pals while we’re all still here.

Basking in the memory of it all,

Joe Maffa A&C Managing Editor

and watched her fall apart before us, whispering gibberish, speaking in tongues. We loved her so dearly—and she could not know it or return it, seeing us only as strangers.

I don’t think her dementia was ever explained to me. Would it have hurt less if it was? If I understood why she had forgotten me, after all the love she’d shown me?

I grieved her with every breath she took. *

I cannot bear the thought of forgetting. The fear consumes me, pounding at the forefront of my mind, throbbing at my fingertips for something to be done.

I cannot help but return to writing, not because I enjoy it, but because I cannot exist without it. I scrawl the dates in, underline the hours. I journal obsessively; my writings trap the ephemeral in an uneasy dance with time, willing fluid moments still.

I study history, fueled by this same fear. A history major promises neither riches nor recognition. But I return nonetheless, unable to leave it behind. I fear, without it, my people’s realities and truths will cease to exist. That, one day, my culture and world as I know it will simply be lost.

I was not told, in my childhood, the stories of my country’s past. My family avoided the topic in the same way my teachers did—but I heard whispers.

Did you know?

My dad was saying…

Hushed voices. The naive, childhood gossip in the backs of classrooms, describing a flight from repression; the fear of death, of crossing invisible lines. Of power, abuse, and atrocities committed in the supposed defense of a freedom we still do not know.

So much of our history has been silenced, its events existing only in the fragile minds of a few. The government, the elite—they prefer it this way. A history that remains only in memory will be forgotten. Sins, fading with time.

I want to jot it down, this truth; the memories of my people, before they are gone. Recording it all is an impossible task. But still I try, fervently, exhaustively.

Foolishly.

I hope my efforts will be enough.

*

Academics gather knowledge obsessively, for what are they without it? Botanists, archaeologists, anthropologists, historians. In search of some higher knowledge, they seek out ‘foreign’ lands, searching for something to bring home. With just the rudiments of local languages, the white man has pressed native communities for all they are worth: Resources. Geography. Know-how.

We’ve been raised to value these findings, to respect science, history and the arts. Intelligence, they tell us, lies here; in the language of the white man. But the foundation of our knowledge systems is inherently linked to a culture and history of exploitation. To the white man, we were not fellow humans, full of emotion and breath, but a mere trophy on their walls; something to conquer, not love.

Academia does not serve the interests of those it depicts. The colonial archival urge did not exist to honor our cultures, but to document us as ‘others’; to identify points for exploitation. Even today, indigenous history around the world is controlled, primarily, by those with power. The systems in place have ensured it.

In a field where my people have been silenced for so long, I want to be their voice. If knowledge is power, then do we not deserve to wield it for ourselves? To fight back against these narratives?

I often dwell on what it means to preserve the present; to archive the past. I cannot bear losing the stories of my people. I return, always, to this urge of mine to document, this fear of loss and forgetting. But how can I do this, knowing all the wrong that has come before me? Is what I am doing any different at all? Am I not just a pawn, a cog in these very same institutions, upholding the colonial ideals as the ravaging white men before me?

I can only hope that my ancestors will forgive me. *

“Without forgetting, nothing would work.” Oliver Hardt of McGill University said this of memory. The sentiment is both poetic and biological. Life is a cycle of remembrance and loss. To make room for more, something must go.

Forgetting is hard in the same way that loss is hard, and we are powerless to stop them both. To capture the human experience in its entirety is futile—and god, have I tried. I have hashed through every medium, every possible method I can. And with each one, I fail.

No piece of mine will ever replicate the sound of a loved one’s voice. A video might—but never in the way I heard it first. I will never collect the bite of a first snow, the callouses on an old friend’s hands. I cannot tell you what it feels like to be struck, to strike, to feel the sting of a tired, weary palm.

I will never know the aches of another, in the same way you will never know mine. And, even then, I will forget. I will forget the folds of my oma’s skin, the crinkles of her smile, the fear in her eyes. I will forget what it meant to sit by her, to hold her hand, to shut my eyes, willing it all to last.

Only the present is guaranteed, and the knowledge of an end only makes me cherish it more.

*

By the time my oma passed away, there was nothing left to grieve. For years, she’d been a shell of the woman she was in her youth, feisty sparks long snubbed by life, loss. I had grieved her all my life, and now it was done.

It should not have hurt to see her go. She did her time, and she did it well, and life had dealt enough suffering to her that to die was not a condemnation, but an offering of peace. A chance, finally, at solace.

But still, I wept, overcome with a sense of finality I’d come to dread.

My oma left with knowledge we will never recover; with the history of my people, of my family, of herself.

But I remember her, and I will make that enough.

Things that Happened 10 Years Ago

In Pursuit of Awe

a list of wonderful things

by Mack Ford

Illustrated by Lena He INSTA: @liquidbutterflies

To wonder is to admire the inexplicable, to notice a rare delight; it is to allow one’s curiosity to take a meander and prod at something surprising. Lately, I have begun to collect small moments of wonder. I pluck them from this soft world as if I was born to do it—to look and listen and be filled with light.

On the corner of the street I love is a tree, beside which is a small tuft of grass. It sprouted from a sliver in the concrete, and now it overflows from that small patch of dirt. It is insistent on its own existence. It’s a prideful little bush, shockingly green even when most other plants have gone gray with cold. Some days a snail can be found in the small mossy patch, sheltered by the weeds. I have named him Terrace, and I am quite fond of him.

It is a practice that must be learned, to notice things which are awe-inspiring. Some come naturally, the sorts of wonders which our minds are primed to soak up like a great ocean sponge.

As in, someone places a baby in my arms. She is warm and heavier than she looks. She is blinking up at me with those enormous eyes. When the initial nerves subside, and it is clear that the child is not going to leap from my arms or burst into tears, my mind wraps around the baby or the idea of the baby with a startling awe. I begin to rock her back and forth, watching spittle bubble at the edges of her lips as they flex in and out like she is considering telling me a delightful secret, or perhaps she is searching for a pacifier. And I rock her back and forth as her eyes close and I cannot help but wonder just how many times someone rocked me to sleep like this.

As in, when I look up at a building that seems much taller than anything man-made has a right to be, my mind begins to wonder at my own infinitesimal smallness in the face of all those busy windows. I am overcome by the realization of all those lives that take place behind each buzzing window, with the sudden tsunami of understanding that I am behind one.

As in, there is a particular kind of singing which captivates; it is the sound of ringing choral music that fills up even the most cavernous of cathedral ceilings. It inspires a rush of reverent wonder in my mind at this sound, for it is powerful and sharper than any twoedged sword. It pierces. The rumbling vibrato, aligned with the pounding of my heart, is able to discern the very tenor of my soul.

“I just get the aesthetic, not so much the science.”

“I wish I could be that cool person that winks at people.”

1. Lorde released Pure Heroine

2. Birth of Vine

3. Alice met Taylor Swift

4. What Does The Fox Say

5. The Red Wedding

6. Sam Nevins’ Bar Mitzvah (Mazel Tov!)

7. “I got my ticket for the long way round”

8. Dumb Ways to Die

9. Grand Theft Auto V

10. Mustaches Everything

Then, there are the wonders which are somewhat coy. These marvels walk around on tip-toe, dashing right and left, and dodging just out of our sight. They like to be pursued, prodded at, caught, which takes time, of course.

There is the sight of a bubble floating through a busy town square, up and up and iridescent with those soapswirl patterns of color. It inspires the desire to leap after it like a child and pop it on my tongue.

There are leaves which flutter on the tips of branches, teasing my eyes upward, only to fall into stillness when I dare to glance up at them. They wink at me, shimmying in the wind in a desperate attempt to upstage the just-blooming flowers, which dance a more demure waltz beside them.

There is the gentle rock of a hammock as I look up toward rays of light which peek through the trees, lacing their way down onto my face. Under my back, the swinging feels like a boat, or a bassinet.

The practice of noticing leads to this feeling: being enveloped by beauty and awe. I think it is truly a wonder that we can see all of these spectacles and not wonder more. After all, if a wonder is defined as something remarkable, how could we not be compelled to remark on it?

Call out to the clouds sweeping by like a hazy cup of tea, to the butterflies which move so quickly you trip over yourself so as not to let them out of your sight, to the snowflakes and love notes and girls with ribbons in their hair. Cherish the line of ducks paddling in perfect synchronization, beads of water sliding down their backs; the song which lines up with the rhythm of your breath; the realization that someone has washed the dishes so you are spared the task; large expanses of open sky; multi-colored Christmas lights; the late afternoon light on water, the kind that sparkles so violently it nearly blinds you.

The trick is, of course, the more intentionally and often you notice these wonders, the more quickly they reveal themselves to you. You are paying attention to

them now, and who doesn’t love a bit of attention? Thus, you become a human magnet for the wonders, and they begin to draw themselves to you.

I hear the sound of wind chimes, airy as a handful of tossed pixie dust glittering up.

I am expertly twirled by one hand, propelled by a giggling inertia that lasts long after both feet are securely back on the ground.

I see concentric rectangles on the wall reflected off the gaudy head of a disco ball.

I feel a hug from my grandmother, delicate and peppermint and enveloping.

I let sand slip through my fingers, imagining it was once the window of a bedroom of a young girl.

I take a breath of crisp air in the morning, like sipping cold water through a straw.

I hear De Falla’s La Vida Breve on the harp.

I am looking down from a great height.

I am beginning to regard existence as something unruly and curious, to be chased, and wondered at, and wandered after.

I search out those things that are found in delightfully unexpected places; moss under a concrete bus-station bench; a rubber duck on the floor of the subway; a sticker which reads ‘You’re Number One!’ on the black banister of the park fence; a sparrow hopping about at gate C9 at Boston Logan International airport; a book titled The Modern Guide to Casseroles in the philosophy section of the library; a single cherry blossom in mid-February; a bumblebee on the counter of my bathroom sink.

I feel those cobblestone streets and bubblegum sky while the smell of squeezed lemon greets me as I walk into the house—which signals either lemonade, meringue pie, or clean countertops; I grin at the houses with outlandish colors or improbable architectural designs; I taste Earl Grey tea and press my forehead against the deep grooves in redwood tree bark and feel the ground underneath my feet, pushing me upward.

A River Flowing Endlessly

running over pebbles, stones, boulders

by Ellie Barksdale Illustrated by Sol Heo

1. The tiny European car parked outside the window of Babu’s cafe in Zürich has a few droplets of water on the rear windshield. The people come and go around me, on and off like the intermittent rain. They move, and I sit. A few of them are coming into the cafe, maybe even to sit by the window with me. Regardless, they’re on the move. Me? I have nowhere to be. I could stay here all day if they’d let me. I’m merely existing, completely untethered to anybody or anything in this city. It’s exhilarating and terrifying. And lonely. It’s the perfect amount of rain for forming those disconcertingly large rain droplets that stick to the empty tables and chairs outside but never coalesce.

2. I wonder how many people think that water is blue. I wonder why I can’t not think that water is blue, despite the fact that I know it absorbs color from elsewhere. Do we all do that? Start with a blank slate, colorless, and construct an identity from there?

3. My electric kettle has a blue light on the bottom to convince me that the rolling boil it produces is neon blue as opposed to the unappealing colorlessness reflected by the outer surface of the gray machine.

4. Meditation tells us to imagine a river flowing endlessly. Close your eyes, imagine this river

running over pebbles, stones, boulders, again and again and again. These obstructions are intrusive thoughts, preventing you from experiencing the freedom of the constant meandering of the river. While it’s moving along forever—its permanence is terrifying for some—we should take comfort in the fact that the river’s movement tells us that whatever’s contained in those rocks between us and peaceful surrender is something fleeting. So I close my eyes: breathe in for four counts, hold for four counts, breathe out for four counts, and hold again for four counts. And I try to be the endless river that I can visualize so clearly. And I try not to dwell on the stones turning into rocks turning into boulders.

5. Back in Zürich, I somehow find myself surrounded by empty fish tanks. Shouldn't there be water here, too?

6. I jump in the water to wake my body up. “To reset your amygdala,” my friend puts it—which could be pseudoscience for all I know. Either way, I need it. I need the shock, the reminder that I’m here. At night, the water is formidable, the rolling boil replaced by a dark emptiness. For a moment, my body freezes. It’s December, late at night, and the warmth of the summer has long been forgotten by these waves.

7. When the water stopped running we’d take a bath in the Layou River. Soon it became more than a necessity born out of the pure terror of standing in a shower, shampoo in your hair, and hearing the faucet start to cough—it became a ritual. I remember throwing rocks into the shallow water, watching them travel as they sank, stumbling a bit along the way. We brought a speaker to listen to Raveena, and only once did we lose a travel-sized shampoo bottle to the rapids. Washing away the dirt that coated our bodies, we floated in the sun and forgot that there could be anything else.

8. Now the water is completely black, all the more frightening in the dark. I’ve seen water of every color: the murky greenish brown of

the Mississippi River in St. Louis, the blinding turquoise of Zanzibar, the navy blue of Gloucester Beach, and the “true” blue of Lake Arrowhead. But this water isn’t welcoming. Instead, it’s unpredictable, violent, reveals nothing of its interior. This water is the darkest black I know, all the more intimidating because of that which it obscures. I need to convince myself that the stars above me are the only things separating this water from those greenish, turquoise, navy, and true blues.

9. Is it only loneliness, or boredom, or lack of cell service abroad, that allows me to take a closer look at my surroundings, myself?

10. Sometimes I feel like the rocks from the meditation exercise. Like the rocks, trying to be the river. Everything flowing around, gliding past me. The water grazes past me, gets me a bit wet, but, at least for the near future, leaves me relatively unchanged. If anything, my cultural and linguistic cluelessness leaves me feeling like a roadblock (riverblock) to the people who strike me as belonging to this place. But maybe they’re all just too tall and too blonde.

11. Standing in the Zürich Kunsthaus art museum, I notice that the French painter André Derain painted his water differently. Short, severe brush strokes characterize his depiction of the Boats in the Port of Collioure. The imprints more closely together in the sky, the sand, and the boats than in the ocean. To create a sense of movement and the reflection of the sky above, Derain left a blank canvas between the harsh blue of the waters. The water in the painting is defined by both presence and absence.

12. Writing about water is like writing “one long sentence”—it just goes on and on and on and on and on without needing to rest or catch its breath from the constant movement, which might be due to the fact that, despite its endless adaptation, water’s particular particles are not concerned with where they’re going—they seem content to explore their various forms

with minimal interruption: the realms of vast bodies like lakes and oceans, of puddles, of sewer systems, of clouds, of their sometimes seemingly endless confinement in various containers, of falling and rising, rising to the sky and falling to the Earth, which seems to me like a strikingly adventurous lifestyle, and I wonder how much of this is welcome; do they yearn for a life of permanence?

Chappell Roan–Ear-Candy For The Soul

music for dreamers, lovers, and feelers

by Alaire Kanes Illustrated by Lulu Cavicchi

I’m on the car ride home with my best friends. We’re piled in, with five in the middle seat and two curled up in the trunk. Don’t tell my mom! The sun roof is open, the windows are down, and the velvety summer air is funneling through our hair, blonde and brown and black waves weaving into each other. I can feel Isla’s hair fluttering on my ears, and her arms are squeezed next to mine. In that moment, I’m reminded of the many levels of connection she and I are making—physical, emotional, and something that feels almost spiritual. We’re driving down windy roads, and we’re practically levitating, we’re so full of glee. This is the kind of moment I will remember forever. It’s inexplicable, really. The depth of friendship created by young women in their early 20s is a force to be reckoned with.

Ella makes a left turn, onto the street we’ve driven down a million times, and the song changes. A beautiful piano scale begins to play, and seconds later, I hear the voice of teenage girlhood in Chappell Roan’s rich, haunting cadence.

“I know you wanted me to stay, but I can’t ignore the crazy visions of me in L.A.”

It’s as if time stops. We all freeze. No one’s singing, or laughing anymore.

“Who is this? What song is this?” someone whispers.

“Chappelle Roan, ‘Pink Pony Club,’” Ella whispers back. “I just found the song this morning on Spotify.”

Ella makes a right, and we’re by the beach now. There is so much love flowing through this vehicle. The darkness is so thick, but the moon is so bright that I can see the magnitude of life’s possibilities in front of me and all of a sudden Roan is belting “God, what have you done! / You’re a pink pony girl, / and you dance at the club/ Oh mama.”

The synth pulses. The electric guitar wails, glorious. Roan sings, and we sit, in silence, as the wind passes through the windows and the houses in our small suburban town pass by in a blur. I’m in the middle seat, feeling the allure of the sirenesque voice I hear. Amber’s hand is out the window, floating in the warm breeze. Isla is basking in the sheer sonic beauty blasting through the car speakers. We’re afraid to break the magic spell Roan has cast on us, but finally, and regretfully, the song ends.

“Who the hell is Chappel Roan?”

“Why have I not heard of her?”

“That was incredible.”

Play it again.

And so, we do another loop around the block. Roan’s song starts all over again, and I’m instantly giddy once more.

What is it about Chappell Roan that makes her music so emblematic of adolescence, of young adulthood? Roan, a 25 year old queer woman from Missouri, creates music for dreamers, lovers, and most of all, feelers . Her music conveys a depth of emotion that some might say is mature beyond her years. It seems to me, however, that only a 25 year old woman could write both a song like “Casual,”—a pulsing, heartbreaking ballad—and a song like “Femininominon,” a cheeky wink at camp culture and a perfect example of self-referential pop.

As a college student, and as a young woman

who has been through her fair share of longing, of heartbreak, and of many, many identity crises, Roan’s music feels like a secret we are in on together, one only accessible to those who care to listen and learn and grow. I listened to “Casual” this summer while stuck in the liminal space of a situationship, to “California” when I was so homesick fall semester I thought I would burst, and to “Pink Pony Club” every time I have doubted myself or my dreams for life postcollege. An introduction to Chappel Roan, in my opinion, should start with “Pink Pony Club”—but it shouldn’t stop there. Each one of Roan’s songs has healed a part of my yearning, aching 21-yearold heart in a different way. From her new single, “Kaleidoscope,” to my all time favorite, “Naked in Manhattan,” Roan’s music is the bright pink, camp-ified, sequined chicken soup for the soul.

The magic in Roan’s music lies in her shameless identification as a pop artist: a pop artist for queer people, for people of marginalized genders, and for anyone—regardless of their identity—who has ever wanted to dance through a broken heart. Growing up supporting the music of artists like One Direction, Taylor Swift, and Troye Sivan, for example, I was always made to feel embarrassed for liking the same music every other young girl liked, too. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that liking the same music as young girls is a matter of pride, not something to be ashamed of. Roan validates the emotional depth of teenage girlhood, of what it means to grow up, while also legitimizing the wisdom of her young fan base. In describing her music as “dark pop with ballad undertones,” and in addressing the positionality of her audience as tastemakers, as shapers of music, culture, and trends, Chapplle is giving a much deserved kudos to the demographic of teenage girls. Her music proudly sees her fans for who they are.

Roan embraces her identity as a pop icon, citing some of her inspirations as The Bratz and Hannah Montana, and in the process, she has developed a wildly devoted fan base. From neon pink cowboy hats to bedazzled jumpsuits, Roan’s do-it-yourself costuming has helped to build an intimate, fully pop world. Her do-it-yourself attitude doesn’t stop there; when Roan’s label

dropped her in 2020, she decided to make music on her own terms as an independent artist. By partnering with producer Dan Nigro—collaborator of Caroline Polachek, Conan Gray, and Carly Rae Jepsen—Roan has garnered over 700,000 monthly listeners on Spotify without even having a full album out.

Roan opens up a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be experiencing young adulthood in this exact moment—and for anyone who is experiencing it with her, her music provides solace and a sense of deep connection. Roan’s embodied experience of youth is both hyper-individual and collective, a lyrical skill that makes her music wildly relatable; she turns the individual into the universal. In “Casual,” Roan opens up about onesided feelings in a situationship, singing “It's hard being casual, when my favorite bra lives in your dresser,” and “I try to be the chill girl that holds her tongue and gives you space, I try to be the chill girl but honestly, I'm not.” Hearing this song for the first time at Roan’s summer 2022 New York City concert was wildly serendipitous; I happened to be in the middle of a non-committal relationship that seemed more than casual to me. I felt like Roan was singing directly to my soul when she lamented, “I thought you thought of me better, someone you couldn't lose.” She sang, “We're not together, so now when we kiss, I have anger issues.” “Casual,” officially released months later in October 2022, was well worth the wait; it would soon become my most-listened to song of the year on Spotify.

Roan also isn’t afraid to reference larger issues, like religious trauma or queer marginalization, in her work and in her online presence; throughout her recent Naked in North America tour, she has brought on local drag queens to open each of her shows, and she takes a firm progressive stance on political issues. To the untrained ear, Roan’s music might seem surface-level or absurdist. To anyone with a liking for pop, for introspection, and of course, for fun , however, Roan’s intelligence, wit, and irreverence is hard to ignore. In her song “Casual,” for example, Roan makes self-hatred, well, kind of sexy. Roan’s heartfelt belt in “Pink Pony Club” has brought me to tears more than I’d care to admit. Roan’s chorus in “Feminimonon,” (“Make it hot like Papa John,”) elicits first a chuckle or two, a visceral “hell yeah!”, and ultimately, a full-body dance party.

To call Roan’s music cinematic would be an understatement—it’s easy to imagine any one of her songs playing in the background of a coming-of-age scene. Heathers? Someone Great? Fleabag? Carrie ? In reality, a movie of any genre could benefit from Roan’s ability to pull emotions straight out of her listener’s body like in an exorcism. “I thank my wicked dreams, a year from Tennessee, oh, Santa Monica, you’ve been too good to me. Won’t make my mama proud, it’s gonna cause a scene, she sees her baby girl, I know she’s gonna scream” (“Pink Pony Club”). Roan addresses the bittersweet nature of growing up and growing apart from one’s family or hometown—Roan appeals to relatable emotional responses while also including highly specific yet easily imaginable experiences. I listen to “Pink Pony Club,” and I’m immediately transported back to my freshman year of college at UCLA, 3,000 miles away from my family and all I’d ever known. I’m reminded of all the decisions I’ve made, and will make, that my parents don’t approve of. And mostly, Roan’s lyrics remind me of the hope, anticipation, and community that were ultimately waiting for me on the other side of fear.

Romanticization and Its Consequences

corecore, matcha lattes, and the salt circle around reality

by Eleanor Dushin

Illustrated by Emily Saxl

I sat in my dorm’s communal kitchen painting my friend’s nails. It was mid-first semester and the heat hadn’t turned on yet, so it was uncomfortable to wear anything less than a sweatshirt. Every time I finished a nail, my friend would lift his hand close to his eyes to examine the quality of my application, then, once satisfied, continue scrolling on TikTok with his fingers fanned out in fear of smearing nail polish across the screen. Between his fingers I caught glimpses of random clips and the words “#fyp #corecore #nichetok.” Piano music and the ambient sounds of Beach House and Aphex Twin reverberated through the tiled walls.

Over the last five years, adding -core to words has gained popularity to denote a certain style or aesthetic. Cottagecore, fairycore, glitchcore, and a bottomless pit of other -cores provide niche descriptions of clothing, music, and Pinterest photos. Out of the fire of -cores rose a phoenix: corecore. Characterized by rapid-moving videos and images, often repeatedly slapped on top of each other, corecore began as a response to diluted internet memes—a counterculture that at least differentiated itself from mindless content and at most raised support for political movements. Corecore videos with clips of the Arctic and pollution formed moving collages of environmentalist messages. By compiling media from a variety of sources, corecore creators like Mason Noel and High Enquiries on TikTok visualized the issues happening in the world, garnering support through concrete evidence and individualistic medleys. However, with the growth of corecore and its expansion outside of a political or philosophical sphere, corecore lost its ethos.

Over time, corecore came to be comprised almost completely of abrupt transitions between meaningless clips, Ryan Gosling in Drive, Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049, and Ryan Gosling in La La Land (sensing a pattern?) backed by emotional music and dialogue without context. Corecore became an aesthetic rooted in aesthetics.

Corecore grew in popularity because it evokes emotion. With no time to dwell on one clip before you’re shown the next, corecore creators rely on immediate visceral reactions for virality. Thus, they must appeal to strong human emotions: love, joy, and most notably, sorrow, which, with depression rates rising, is an easy way to appeal to young audiences. In a study of depression rates between 2015 and 2020 published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, depression prevalence rates have increased by 4.2% and 6.9% for those aged 12–17 and 18–25 years, respectively. Another study in the Journal of Adolescent Medicine comparing undergraduate students in 2011 and 2018 found that rates of severe depression, suicide ideation, self-harm, and suicide attempts dramatically increased in this period. Intense sorrow is almost a given in a generation that only grows sadder, but an aesthetic defined by nothing but its aestheticism naturally finds its M.O. in glamorization. Portraying sorrow as it comes is boring. No one wants to see

the rawness of unbrushed teeth and moldy cups— they want to see it filtered and dressed up. Thus, corecore edits find easy success in depicting sorrow, and more importantly, by romanticizing it.

There’s no shortage of wallowing online, especially among young people. Recommendations begin with “[insert X product] for sad girls,” with Lana Del Rey playing in the background. Young boys comment “real” and “he just like me fr” on videos of Donnie Darko and Tyler Durden. Creators depict pain as something beautiful, whether through photo dumps of smudged mascara and lipstick stains or Hans Zimmer soundtracks. Not only do they find the beauty in life while suffering, but they depict suffering itself as beautiful. To romanticize sorrow, however, is to perform. It is to split the mind in two: the agent and the viewer. It is to reduce life to a sight. In a culture that values aesthetics and with an algorithm that actively rewards it, it’s easy to wade in sorrow. Melancholy becomes more than a feeling or a state of mind—it becomes a state of being.

+++

I was a sophomore in high school looking up protein powder on Amazon on my mom’s computer. I woke up early, bathed in dry shampoo, and pretended that the neatness of my notes made up for the heaps of clothing on my floor. My teachers described me as responsible and driven while I wondered how much longer I could contribute to a discussion on a book I didn’t read. I did my algebra homework from three weeks prior by a west-facing window so the sunset would cast a golden light across the page.

What I perceived to be “having my life together” was nothing more than a superficial attempt for order because that was all I had been exposed to. All I saw on the internet were white, cishet, thin women promoting yoga and pilates, matcha lattes and green smoothies, Gigi Hadid’s pasta recipe and air fryers. Overall, it was nothing more than a hyper-capitalist echo chamber that bred consumerism over true remedies. This isn’t readily visible to the public because all viewers see is a video of a conventionally beautiful woman getting ready in a cacophony of creams and beiges with a voiceover that preaches “romanticizing your life.”

Pretending life is a movie will not necessarily make it any better. Feigning wellness and romanticizing sorrow do not genuinely improve

wellbeing. Instead, they yield perfectionism and scrutiny of the self. Life shouldn’t always be beautiful, and actions do not need to have aesthetic value to be valuable at all. Math homework does not need to be done in pretty lighting to be worth doing.

Furthermore, romanticizing life relies on luxury and privilege. The same women who promote wellness culture and romanticizing life post photos of cabinets full of skincare products and their personal trainers. They use consumerism to promote wellness and, by extension, happiness. According to McKinsey, the global wellness market is estimated to be over $1.5 trillion. Behind the promise of an ideal life, companies take advantage of the desire for happiness. They sell skincare and workout sets while insisting that the key to wellness is simple: to glamorize existence. ‘Wellness’ has nothing to do with health and everything to do with an inaccessible appearance of health. Even for those who break away from the cycle of sorrow, wellness that defines itself by aesthetics leaves us far from true happiness.

Achieving that happiness becomes near impossible when we overromanticize life, but one of the most threatening things about romanticization is that it works. I get more work done while I’m sitting at a cute cafe. I feel better about my life when I walk under a magnolia tree as the petals fall to my feet and imagine which angle the shot would look best from. Still, I find myself wondering if it’s better to be productive and maintain a superficial yet satisfying sense of purpose or to live truly. Is an honest life worth living if I don’t feel like the ‘main character?’

Maybe we find happiness when we find truth, when we see the world as it really is in its purest form and love life anyway. Redefining the common notion of beauty to reach beyond what we can see and finding this new version of beauty in hidden pockets of life may provide a sort of healing. By appreciating life as it comes, we can reject consumerism and reclaim happiness. +++

I’m writing this piece in my bed. The room is dark, I have a few more chins than usual, and there is nothing aesthetically “beautiful” about what I’m doing. Nonetheless, I find a certain joy and beauty in it, but it’s nothing I can describe with words or cut into a corecore video. It’s pure and real and honest.

From the days of the broad-shouldered financiers who peddled an English drape to the dependable flannels of the power suit, Ivy League campuses have always been hotbeds of the styles associated with the upper class. Originating in Princeton and Yale (sorry guys—we can’t take credit for this one), high society fashion has managed to sneak its way into every decade since the height of its popularity in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Somehow, we forget all about it just in time for the next Nantucket Red-clad man to start the whole damn cycle over again. Here I will be focusing on the newest iteration of the preppy look—the old money style.

Its legacy originates in the collegiate look of the 1930s, which evolved into the Ivy look of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Ralph Lauren carried the style in the ‘80s into the business casual look of the nineties. Think navy blazers with gold buttons, cricket sweaters, gray flannel trousers, Oxford shirting with button down collars, bass weejun penny loafers, and lots and lots of tweed—all of which are style points that have been consistent in every decade of the style.

Even with this legacy, now is a strange time for prep to reemerge. Prep icons George Fraizer and Charlie Davidson are dead. Ralph Lauren has settled into the established position its predecessor Brooks Brothers occupied, and the irrelevant J. Crew has yet to fully find themselves amid financial troubles and creative change. Even the campus shops, the great outfitters and haberdashers specifically catering to generations of Ivy League students, have all gone away. On the

The Society Man

an analysis of the old money style

by Sean Toomey

Illustrated by Joyce Gao

home front, our own Harvey Ltd. closed in 2004, now occupied by the Subway off of Thayer St. Within this realm of uncertainty, it follows suit that old money style operates as the current iteration of prep. In the hands of Instagram and Tiktok influencers, old money is present in everything from promotional stills of The Talented Mr. Ripley to the eclectic locales of Slim Aarons (linen in a vineyard anyone?). If I had to summarize the resurgence of the style, I would say it’s a wealth-worshiping amalgamation of the excesses and aspirations of Ralph Lauren and that I use it for a haircut photo of young FDR Jr. In other words, nonsense.

I still can’t get behind the banal style that the "old money types" abide by. It’s the sheer lack of direction that irks me. On one end you get the tennis blazers (outside of the racket club), madras pants, bit loafers, and rugby shirts. On the other end we have the quiet luxury gang, who seem to be base jumping into the bottomless pit of quarterzip-over-gingham-shirt-bros and the carrioned remains of the French Ivy aesthetic. There is an ironic lack of taste for a fashion trend dedicated to the lives of those who claim to possess it to the utmost degree.

Beyond the realm of fashion, it would be remiss to ignore that the outcropping of the aesthetic, built up by social media fancams and aspirational clip shows, is almost exclusively white. Not only is it problematic at best to extol the virtues and styles of the wealthy classes in America—the main line dominated by the wealthy white Protestants who excluded anyone who didn’t fit those descriptors—

the aesthetic has a complete disregard for the Black style icons who mastered and put their own spin on the “Ivy style” during its heyday in the ‘60s. Miles Davis, who George Frazier named “the warlord of the weejuns,” was perhaps the most stylish man in America during his prime and is completely ignored by the proponents of old money style. We can also count giants like John Coltrane, James Baldwin, and Sidney Potier among those who made a style tied to the white wealthy class of America their own. There is minimal mention or reference to any of these icons in mainstream old money media, and little representation available in short clippings of Polo Ralph Lauren ads. The old money style we see today celebrates the rich and powerful aesthetic, without critically analyzing social inequality in America and disregarding nonwhite contributors to the Ivy and preppy style.

For those of you who still desire to adhere to these ideations of wealth and power, here’s what it takes: An assortment of bespoke suits from your tailor, preferably from the old boys on Savile Row: Anderson and Sheppard, H. Huntsman and Sons, Steed, Gieves and Hawkes, etc. Make sure you have an ample quantity for business and for country wear, in addition to commissioning your odd jackets and trousers for sporting clothes as well as overcoats, evening wear, and morning dress for more formal occasions. This should cost you a semester or two of tuition. Lastly, a subscription to your local public library, so you can pick up a history book and begin to think critically about mindlessly supporting the wealthy classes for once! I’ll see you at the racket club, old boy!

Spring Swing

post- mini crossword 10

by AJ Wu

1 2 3

Across

My Chemical Romance genre

aka 24 Hours on University Mound

A specialized nook

Singer Cain of "American Teenager" who is coming for Spring Weekend

What a dancer or a wind might do

“You notice the changing of the seasons, the dissipation of the morning mist and the couple walking hand in hand down the street. You take it all in as if those were versions of yourself.”

—Julia Vaz, “You’ve Got Mail” 4.22.22

“I am thrust into my own indie film, the kind that my mom hates because there’s no obvious happy ending but I love because, mom, it’s just good art.”

—Kaitlan Bui, “By Ourselves, with Each Other”

4.2.21

Down Singer Piaf of "La Vie en rose", who is not coming for Spring Weekend

1 2 3 4 5

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Kimberly Liu

FEATURE

Managing Editor

Alice Bai

Section Editors

Addie Marin

Klara David -

son-Schmich

Lilliana Greyf

ARTS & CULTURE

Managing Editor

Joe Maffa

Section Editors

Elijah Puente

Rachel Metzger

NARRATIVE

Managing Editor

Katheryne Gonzalez

Sweet glutinous rice or name for a cat

The color of fresh oranges and nostalgia

Once again

Section Editors

Sam Nevins

Anaya Mukerji

LIFESTYLE

Managing Editor

Tabitha Lynn

Section Editors

Kate (Jack) Cobey

Daniella Coyle

HEAD ILLUSTRATORS

Connie Liu

Emily Saxl

Ella Buchanan

COPY CHIEF

Aditi Marshan

Copy Editors

Eleanor Peters

Indigo Mudhbary

Emilie Guan

SOCIAL MEDIA

HEAD EDITORS

Kelsey Cooper

Tabitha Grandolfo

Natalie Chang

LAYOUT CHIEF

Alice Min

Gray Martens

Layout Designers

Brianna Cheng

Camilla Watson

STAFF WRITERS

Dorrit Corwin

Lily Seltz

Alexandra Herrera

Liza Kolbasov

Marin Warshay

Aalia Jagwani

AJ Wu

Nélari Figueroa Torres

Daniel Hu

Mack Ford

Olivia Cohen

Ellie Jurmann

Andy Luo

Sean Toomey

Marlena Brown

Sarah Frank

Emily Tom

Ingrid Ren

Evan Gardner

Lauren Cho

Laura Tomayo

Sylvia Atwood

Audrey Wijono

Want to be involved?

Email: mingyue_liu@brown.edu!