post- 10/16/2020

In This Issue

Shiprock Fair Memories

Danielle Emerson 4

Bend and Snap

Olivia Howe 2 Elliana Reynolds 4

One Face, Two Face, Three Lauren Toneatto

Missing Museums 5

Robin Hwang 6

Believe in the Fireflies

postCover by Sable Bellew

OCT 16

VOL 26 —

ISSUE 5

FEATURE

Bend and Snap

finding, losing, and spinning back into dance

By Olivia Howe Illustrated by Claire Lin

M

y first memory of creating myself was when I came home from watching ballet for the first time, marched into my living room, closed my eyes, and poured my body into the shapes I had just witnessed in Swan Lake. I was three years old and sure I could feel my body joining my soul.

A few weeks later, I attended my first ballet class and began to dance the fine line between selfexpression and being wrong.

Over the years, ballet was the best friend I saw every week. When I was in class, I was intensely present, molding my limbs into each plié and arabesque. But our relationship was cracking at the edges. While I dreamed myself among the glorious swans of the Moscow Ballet, in class I watched the other girls miraculously pirouette, land, and press into a high relevé. I just wobbled, more detached from my body than I had ever been. The more complex sequences our teachers

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, If life were a Skee-Ball game, I am straight up chucking those wooden balls right over the rings right now, and I don’t even care! If I miss the 100-point hole?

Whatever. If I overshoot and break some innocent bystander’s nose? What about it? I have not one single care in the world. Oh no, Amanda is back this week and she’s losing it in the editor’s note. Bear with me, concerned reader, there is a point to all of this.

For those who are enrolled this semester, we’re in and out of virtual classes, trying to ignore our professor’s pets during Zoom office hours, and juggling our joys and jitters through midterms madness. For those who aren’t, you’ve dived head-first into the lawless land that is the “real world” (What’s real? It’s a simulation, homie.). How about a collective sigh? A universal acknowledgement that we’re just tired? We’re headed into the last few months of the year, and this shit has been so hard. Proud of folks for getting here and staying afloat however they can. But if you’re in a tight spot

“Just First-Year Things”

right now and looking for a sign to maybe drop the ball for the sake of your health and happiness, here it is.

Drop that...Skee-Ball. (Not a good bridge? Oh, sorry, but I don’t care!)

Taking quite a turn from my laments, our writers this week are endearingly hopeful and nostalgic.

In Feature, our writer finds healing and self-discovery in ballet. In Narrative, one writer shares her memories of the Northern Navajo Nation Fair, and another writer ruminates on her facial memory and how it has helped her navigate Brown. And in Arts & Culture, one writer adapts to new ways of interacting with museums during the pandemic, and another finds solace in the zombie horror video game The Last of Us. So, I guess, post- is multi-dimensional this week.

Some of us are flailing. Some of us are flourishing.

Whether or not we’re bringing our A game to this little thing called life, post- is always doing its best to connect with you. If nothing else in my life succeeds this week, let this be the one light that stays true.

Take Care,

Amanda Ngo Editor-in-Chief

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demanded, the more my legs fumbled and my mind blanked from self-doubt.

Eventually, I let myself let go. It was easier to not try at all, to be an obvious failure, than to always wonder how I measured up. Then came the day when the teachers lined us up and tapped the girls who they had decided were ready for pointe, the ritual that split ballet into amateurs and protegées. Staying back by my own design felt even worse than giving myself the chance to fail: I quit ballet on the spot.

1. Hordes of first-years looking for Keeney 2. “Did you know there are tunnels under Andrews?”

3. People in your contacts whom you’ll never speak to again 4. “Did you know there’s a bar in one of the dorms?”

5. Lost children in the Ratty 6. “Could I have a spicy chicken sandwich with cheese?”

7. Lanyard-wearers everywhere 8. Couple who met during the first week and will break up after making out publicly in the Ratty once 9. “Did you know there’s a man in one of the bears?”

10. Going to Metcalf the dorm, not Metcalf Research Buildin

NARRATIVE Yet five years later, I found myself standing awkwardly in my childhood studio again, toes pinched in new shoes and shoulders slumping to hide the cumbersome body adolescence had given me. Eventually, I made myself look up from the floor: another teenager and three middle-aged adults, all of us glancing downward. I traced tiny rond de jambes on the floor to remind myself why I was there—my mind had never been able to let go of ballet, and neither had my body.

Our teacher brushed into the room: Clara balanced her height with the delicate purpose of a tulip. I lifted my spine, pressed back my shoulders.

Beaming, she instructed us into first position. The soles of my feet settled along the rippled floor with ease and purpose as if they’d never been gone, and my self-doubt unfolded and fluttered away. *** During my years of separation from ballet, I had sharpened. I had become a gymnast with total control of her movements in space. I was a student who could hone her attention to her work. And I was now a teenager whose desire to improve was fueled by constant self-criticism.

Each week, I drifted my palm onto the barre, fixed my eyes on Clara, and metamorphosed. Toes grazing the floor. Thighs firing to the sides, collarbone shelving the air.

After class, back home, sweat garlanded my neck, the nerves in my calves buzzed like cello strings, and I practiced the sequences over and over in my room: frappé-beatbeat-frappé-pasdecheval-extend-UPclosefront-closeback.

A year of this until I realized I had outgrown the beginner class. It was time to move to the class of girls who would have been my peers if I hadn’t quit on the turn of my heel years before. *** Ballet is fluidity, and it is discipline. The renowned Russian ballet instructor Agrippina Vaganova transformed ballet in the 20th century by synthesizing French and Italian styles into a balance of iron strength and “the illusion of floating.” But ballet is more than technique: Teachers insist that dancers maintain extreme focus on both their body and mind.

As a child, I was ashamed when a teacher singled me out for failing to watch my toes as I lifted them from floor to sky. Entering my advanced class, internal scolding stung me instead: Why can’t you remember the names of the steps? Why did you stop listening to the directions? As my peers added wrist flourishes and sped up their steps, I realized that what I had really been missing in the years before I quit was my full attention.

The dancer’s inner voice that calls every movement a mistake, as mine did, easily shifts to the dancer’s body itself. In my adult beginner class, we knew only enough about correct form

to stare in bewilderment at our feet and elbows, trying to bend them into shape. Now, I stood in a line of a dozen teenage girls, all of them flat and narrow and using every break to pinch themselves and whisper about how fat they were. I drilled my eyes into space to stop my cheeks from burning, to slam out the wishes for a smaller body, shorter, less conspicuous, easier to float.

My new teacher, Mimi—a former dancer with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company—jolted me away from these inner voices. She didn’t let us waste our time fixating on how our bodies met, or failed to meet, the strict aesthetics of ballet. Instead, she prepared us for the hardest moves, the ones we had told ourselves were beyond reach: the fouetté turns, Italian fouettés, échappé battus. We laughed at our attempts, and we knew we weren’t swans. But in throwing my leg to the side and my arm toward the ceiling, I flung away the weight of self-doubt and found the creativity that my perfectionism had suppressed.

Mimi’s bursts of “Yes!” and “Beautiful!” glowed in the room and in each of us. This style of teaching—encouraging us to trust ourselves as well as her—motivates pushes dancers to engage more,

to see or know. But I needed to be able to breathe every now and again. Even the Greeks realized dance is catharsis, that it can spin the body away from pain and flood out anxiety. More than that, I and other dancers know, movement allows us to communicate things that lack words. When I come up against the most perplexing depths of my emotions, the only way I can deal with them is by flinging, leaping, twirling them out.

At Brown, I didn’t find a space to dance alone my first two years, but I kept a monthly date with Zumba and shook out my stress at parties. I shrugged off the racing in my feet when I listened to music and found other ways to channel my energy. I told my family it was a tradeoff; who said I needed dance anyway? I was at college, finally.

My dream was fulfilled.

Then quarantine sent me home to a life devoid of fitness classes and parties, hunched over black keys and screens. My body ached, and my heart wasn’t doing much better.

I locked myself in the laundry room with my phone and a glass of water. Socks on. Shoulder, elbow, wrist, chin. Tchaikovsky leapt tinnily into the room and I dipped into first position plié.

The soles of my feet settled along the rippled floor with ease and purpose as if they’d never been gone, and my self-doubt unfolded and fluttered away. and to source motivation from within. As I stopped looking at the other girls and fixed my gaze on Mimi, I discovered a new energy sparkling within my physical exhaustion. It was during her class that I decided I was ready to draw back the curtains on my living room stage That weekend, home alone in my junior spring of high school, my feet tingled for Swan Lake, the love that only my parents­—captive audience to the my all-day, tutu-and-slippers dance recitals of my fouryear-old selfwhen I was four—knew I cradled.

The opening pizzicato plunked down from my living room speakers and landed at my feet in a soaring waltz I couldn’t help but join. The next two hours were aswirl, gliding through my house, spinning past the kitchen chairs, flicking a breath away from the stack of coffee cups, flinging myself toward the ceiling. Something like rage scooped itself out from my ribs and burst through my elbows. When the strings murmured their famous premonition to the Black Swan’s entrance, I was drawn into a tight bow in the middle of the living room, awaiting my cue to move. *** Entering college, I wondered: Where will I dance? I didn’t want to perform; no one needed

Dance re-rooted my soul like a squeezed flower expanding into a new pot. Not only ballet: wild dashes of modern here, a twist of hip-hop there, a burst of jazz, a maniacal full-body shake that comes from nowhere and lives in everyone. Losing my mind in isolation, I found my body. It isn’t a tool, I learned, designed for a specific purpose. It doesn’t matter what shape it takes in the air or at rest, it doesn’t matter how pointed or long or airy it moves across the floor. I know, when I feel my lungs lift, I am doing something right.

Back on campus during Quiet Period, I didn’t hesitate. Bedroom floor clear, mind heavy, I turned off the lights and lined up the Romantic kings of longing: Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Beethoven.

With a dip of my head and curl of my fingers, I danced for my best friends mountains away, for the unrequited crushes who I wanted to charm like the Nutcracker prince, for the split in my heart that has opened for the sick. When I cut a jagged path across the room—I don’t know the words for what I’m doing, but I am able to say more than my body alone ever could.

“Sorry this is not cohesing...”

“I’m eastern European white, we just really love cabbage.”

October 16, 2020 3

NARRATIVE

Shiprock Fair Memories

stories of the navajo new year

by Danielle Emerson Illustrated by Hee Won Chung Everyone looked forward to the first weekend of October. Shiprock, New Mexico hosts the Northern Navajo Nation Fair in celebration of the Navajo New Year—Ghaají—and the fall harvest. The fair consists of multiple Navajo food stands, livestock shows, an open rodeo, fair rides, an “Indian Market,” where Native/Indigenous artists sell their crafts and artwork, a Miss Northern Navajo and Miss Northern Teen Traditional competition, and multiple traditional dances, followed by winter ceremonies.

Being from Shiprock, I always saw people setting up the rides days before. While shopping at City Market, directly across from the fairgrounds, my brother and I sensed everyone’s building excitement. We all waited eagerly each year for the event, endearingly nicknamed the Shiprock Fair, to be announced.

The Notorious Zipper A Shiprock fair favorite. Prime middle school bet material—I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told, “I’ll give you a dollar if you ride the Zipper.”

Thirteen-year-old Danielle wasn’t much of a risktaker; she liked having solid ground underneath her worn, high-top sneakers. So, being the notorious chicken I was, a dollar was nowhere near enough for me to even consider stepping in line. But other thirteen-year-olds? Oh, they were ready to throw their hands up, practically begging to have the earth pulled out from underneath them. And that’s exactly what the Zipper did. It yanked, swayed, and stuttered.

Rusted metal screeched, while visible gears ground under peeling paint. Riders, aged eleven to thirty-five, spun while climbing heights that peaked near thirty feet. Their thrilled screams sent chills down awaiting riders’ backs. Early 2000s pop music blaring from rectangular speakers completed the ride’s appeal.

Lights flickered and danced, brightening the padded interior of the caged passenger compartments.

To this day, I have yet to ride The Zipper. For the past four years, I’ve always been away from home during the first weekend of October. I haven’t been to the fair since my junior year of high school. I’m not sure if I’m braver now; I’ve had no way to test it.

So my memories of this ride only consist of waiting and watching. Waiting for and watching my cousins, sipping hot chocolate from the ground, shuffling in

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place as the wind bites at my nose. Waiting for and watching my friends, holding up their phones to record a video for their social media. Waiting for and watching my younger siblings, nervously folding my arms and crossing a shaking pair of fingers. A sharp ache in my neck, wide eyes, a tiny smile slipping from the corner of my mouth, and the steady intake-outtake of breath, interrupted by a quick gasp every now and then. It’s not the Shiprock Fair if I’m not watching others spin recklessly through the air. I tend to choose mild rides like Zero Gravity, a spinning spaceship that sticks its riders to the walls, or the Ferris wheel. At its peak, you can see over the stands and into the rodeo corral—my mother was obsessed with taking photos together on it. And who knows, maybe next year–– or the year after, if COVID doesn’t let up––I’ll finally be the one trading the ground beneath my feet for open sky, bright lights, and "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz blasting through the speakers.

The Same Parade Each Year During the fair weekends, my younger brother and I got up early on Saturday morning to place folding chairs along the edge of the highway, a short walk from our house in Shiprock. It was usually still

of them, both on parade day and throughout our daily lives. At eleven, my brother was fairly easy to read.

It’s a faint memory, but I remember walking my grandmother from our house to the parade road. She and my aunt used to sleep at our place the night before.

During those early years, while I was still in middle school, she refused to use a wheelchair. So we would walk together. By this point in the day, the sun was rising, slowly climbing. The rays provided a soft heat, poking back the crisp breeze. My grandmother talked about my grandfather on those walks. A veteran, he walked in the parade holding the New Mexico flag on his shoulder next to two other veterans, one carrying the American flag and the other with the Navajo Nation flag. He walked in the parade almost every year while my grandmother watched. When we reached our spot, my grandmother always smiled at my brother, then wrapped herself in one of the blankets.

My father liked to joke that the parade was the same every year. And he was right. The same people talked, the Navajo Nation President and his administration, the same organizations walked, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA), and the same floats were decorated in familiar store-bought balloons and party streamers. But did we care? No.

So we would walk together. By this point in the day, the sun was rising, slowly climbing. The rays provided a soft heat, poking back the crisp breeze. dark. Everyone knew that if you wanted good seats, you had to set up your chairs while the sun still slept.

The air, a sharp cold knife, cut at our exposed noses and cheeks. The thick socks on our hands barely kept our fingers from freezing. Street lights flickered as we lugged blankets and chairs, stopping every now and then to adjust the straps so they fit comfortably on our shoulders. As we reached our destination, others were also setting up: some in trucks, laying blankets across an open tailgate; a few stretching out outdoor canopies, preparing for the midday sun. Doing our best to secure a spot directly across from our housing complex, we started unfolding chairs, stacking blankets, and laying our enormous black umbrella at the foot of our grandmother's seat. Once everything was set up, my brother and I played rock-paperscissors to determine who would stay in the cold and watch our stuff, or return to the warm house to help with other chores. We’d remove our sock-gloves and play for best-of-three. I don’t remember our most recent game, but I do remember winning a majority

I waited patiently and expectantly for the Navajo Nation Band. Their confident sound captivated everyone. I watched from my seat along the street curb, admiring the wind instruments, while two women twirled a pair of batons. My brother looked forward to the local bands: they played a random assortment of songs, some original and some covers.

Even though their floats didn’t usually give out candy, my brother was never disappointed. The parade usually lasted till noon, a couple of police cars and horses trailing the final float, at which point we’d stand, stretch, and pack it all back up. We’d return home, carrying back bags of candy and prizes, in addition to the folding chairs and blankets. By then, my mother and aunt usually had lunch prepared— steamed corn stew and fry bread.

Though there is no Shiprock Fair this year due to COVID-19, many are still using this time to connect with close family members—socially distanced, of course. We spent one evening collecting dried corn stalks from the field and dead branches from an old tree to put together a homemade scarecrow. Granted, later that same day, my cousin’s dog got loose and tore him apart. The scarecrow’s limbs are still scattered across our front yard, a grim reminder to make a new one. Another weekend was spent cooking homemade chicken noodle soup. Close family cut vegetables, prepared broth, and sliced bread. The warmth spread to our stomachs and strengthened our shared laughter around my aunt’s kitchen. I’m currently staying with my older cousins, helping care for chickens, dogs, and nine cats—animals with an assortment of vivid personalities. Though we won’t gather on fairgrounds this year, I’m still grateful to be home—whether we’re making homemade scarecrows or soup. The familiar cold breeze zips through the morning air, and the sun still climbs the sky at a gentle pace. Even now, as I sit outside my shimasaní’s farmland, I’m reminded of those days spent on the fairgrounds, and the nights huddled together in blankets with hot tea during the winter ceremonies.

ARTS & CULTURE

One Face, Two Face, Three on the loneliness of remembering people

By Elliana Reynolds Illustrated by Elliana Reynolds I have always been good at putting faces and names together after meeting someone, even if it was only for a moment. Sometimes, I only have to see their face on Instagram for them to be forever etched into my brain—I have no clue how they sound, how they move, how they laugh: all I know is their name and an unmoving face. But it’s more than just faces and names. I remember their interests, their hobbies, their aspirations, everything. Sometimes it gets to the point where I feel like Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl.

She kept a notebook on a kid who lived across the street from her home, detailing the random events of his life and learning everything about him. Of course, I have never done anything like that, and never will, but when somebody asks me if I know so-and-so and when I give them a specific response (“Ah, X? I saw them walk back to their room three Tuesdays ago at 10:13 a.m. They have a really hairy chest.”), it sure seems like I’m keeping (very specific) tabs on every person I’ve ever come to know.

If anything, I should feel grateful for my skill in remembering individuals. It makes it much easier to navigate new circles of people if I somehow encountered one of them already, in person or online.

However, I often feel a vague sense of loneliness because many times, people don’t remember me.

The numerous re-introductions I’ve gone through where I’ve been forced to pretend I don’t remember the person—a tactic I use so that they don’t paint me as some stalker, or so that I don’t embarrass them for not remembering that we already met—are extremely painful. They make me feel empty, like I’m being forced to mask my disappointment. And it’s been this way since I was a kid.

In middle school, I was incredibly shy. I fell right into the trope of “shy kid, big observer”: I often found myself sitting near a group of friends who weren’t my own during a class with assigned seats, listening in on their conversations without even meaning to. The gossip steadily streamed out of their mouths and into my ears: “Oh, her? Yeah, didn’t you hear! She gave head in the bathroom by the cafeteria.” Just one little snippet of conversation and then BAM! I would now forever know that this

girl gave head in the cafeteria bathroom. And sure enough, if someone brought her up to me, I’d reply in the same blunt manner I always have when asked about a person: “Yeah, I know her. She gave head in the cafeteria bathroom.” But that girl never really knew me, and when finally I talked to her for the first time, I simply greeted her with a smile on my face, never hinting that I knew what she had done.

Meanwhile, she looked at me, not knowing who I was at all—the usual scenario. I wasn’t loud or popular, so what did I expect? Still, I felt lonely after every interaction like this during middle school, and that sense of solitude increased every time I was referred to as “that girl” even after I had told them my name.

This changed a bit in high school. I continued to collect information unintentionally. All I had to do was walk the hallways, and suddenly I knew a dude’s name and who he was dating and what class he was skipping. I would sit in computer tech class, and the girl next to me would gossip with her friend; now I knew that her favorite Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee was caramel swirl. But what changed in high school was that in my classes, I had made myself known.

No longer wanting to be the anonymous “that girl” to others while everyone else became somebody specific to me, I put my heart into participating fully in class. I made it a point to have everyone get to know me, instead of just getting to know them.

I invested in developing personal relationships with my classmates and finding ways to curate our conversations to their interests so that they would enjoy talking to me, so that they would remember my name. I started with just a handful of friends, but my efforts to make myself known meant that I now had a multitude. Remembering so many faces and names and interests no longer resulted in loneliness, but in friendship. In each of my classes, I felt free to talk to people, no longer afraid of being rejected by my peers, or being asked for my name.

Finally, the burden of pretending that I didn’t know my peers, simply because they didn’t know me, was lifted from my shoulders.

Then I came to Brown.

Needless to say, this facial recognition skill has been instrumental in shaping my college experience.

But it also seems like I’ve regressed to my middle school status: I know tons of people, but people don’t know me. Navigating social settings is a breeze now, but it’s accompanied by that heavy thought in my head of they have no clue who I am, just like when I was 12 years old. It happened my first semester. In my history section filled with upperclassmen, I was always a little nervous, always a little sweaty, always secondguessing myself when I spoke because I didn’t know

these people like I knew my high school classmates.

I learned the names of my section peers, but there was always hesitation before one of them elaborated upon any point I made: “Yeah, so to go off of what—off of what she said...” I would shyly smile and look down at my notes, thinking, They don’t remember my name.

Another time, we worked in pairs, and our professor called on us to share our thoughts. When he got to my group, he only called on the guy I was partnered with.

There was a notable pause before the last-minute addition: “Oh, and E—Elliana.”

This happened again and again in my sections, no matter how much I talked. Recently, this guy who I’ve now been in three sections with didn’t even get my name right, and we’re on Zoom. My name is literally right there on the screen. This and every other similar incident annoyed me. I put in as much effort into participating in class as I did during high school, but I wasn’t met with the same results. The loneliness that I thought I had eliminated during high school has been ever present during my time at Brown, and it has only expanded since the dawn of COVID-19 and mask-wearing. Even when faces are obscured by masks, I can still recognize who they are, so it hurts when my attempt to wave is greeted by a stone-cold face looking past me—a sign that they either don’t remember who I am or are confused because of my mask. Either way, I feel like a loner when it happens. By this point, I shouldn’t expect much. I can put in every possible effort to make myself memorable, but that doesn’t mean that the other person will share my ability to remember their name and face and little tidbits about them. Either they aren’t the best at placing names to faces, or they simply don’t care. I can’t fault them for either.

But while my memory is often one-sided, I still love getting to know people. Being an encyclopedia of people I’ve met is incredibly fun. At the end of the day, people will or won't remember me, and while this does often make me feel frustrated and lonely, I don’t mind it too much in comparison to what I do mind: stagnancy. I dislike conformity. Routine bores me. I want a constant stream of dynamic stories from people, especially now with COVID-19 eliminating almost any chance of social interaction with anyone I don’t already know. Hello. Hi. Here’s who I am.

Goodbye. Glad to see you aga—Oh, hi, nice to meet you.

The cycle continues. I brush my hair out of my eyes and smile. Nice to meet you (again).

Missing Museums reevaluating museum-going in a quarantined age

By Lauren Toneatto Illustrated by Naya Lee Chang As I entered the MoMA on February 15, 2020, I didn’t realize it would be the last time I would be in a museum for the next seven months, a time span that makes me shudder just to recall.

Living 30 minutes outside of New York City and concentrating in art history, to say I took museumgoing for granted would be an understatement.

Aimlessly strolling through installations at the Met was second nature when I was at home, and walking to the RISD Museum between classes in college had become routine. I took every opportunity to surround myself with art, and studied for hours on end in RISD’s Café Pearl.

In these ordinary museum moments, I never thought twice about how many people were in a room with me. Standing far away from the art, maintaining quiet in galleries, and keeping to oneself are assumed etiquette inside a museum. It was only October 16, 2020 5

ARTS&CULTURE time I would read this information in person. I took in the colors of each gallery wall, mentally noting where each work hung and which paintings were neighbors. Most of all, I didn’t take for granted the luxury, and risk, of entering a museum space. I felt safe navigating the Met and following protocols, but I also accepted this museum experience was not as it once was—the days of mindlessly looking at any artwork the moment I pleased were gone, replaced by a situation focused more on the surrounding setting than a work’s subject matter itself.

As of now, I don’t know when the next time I step foot in a traditional gallery space will be.

But I have ways to keep engaging with art in the meantime. Whether it’s through sending a postcard of a painting to my friend, showing my mom an art history meme I found on Instagram, or getting lost in a museum’s online archives, art will always be a model for communication and collective engagement. Cassatt, da Vinci, and Monet—our in-person encounters are at a stand still, but I look forward to seeing you soon. when lines were longer than usual that I took note of other museumgoers––never as a safety issue, but who under normal circumstances wants to look at the Mona Lisa behind plexiglass from eight feet away, surrounded by thousands of strangers?

In February, I visited the MoMA to see the brand new Dorothea Lange photography exhibition. My interest in the exhibit was apparently not unique.

For each of the hundreds of photographs on the wall, there were at least five viewers crowded around to examine the intricate details. When it came to Lange’s infamous Migrant Mother, rows upon rows of viewers lined up to steal a glimpse of the iconic Great Depression image. As I stood shoulder to shoulder with strangers, I became acutely aware of the congested space that I had never noticed before.

Ask any art historian and they’ll tell you about the importance of looking closely and seeing a work of art in person. So what happens when the essential is no longer possible? Well, you pivot.

While I miss the physicality of the museum space more than anything—standing at the same distance as the artist who painted the work, analyzing brush strokes with my own eyes, and seeing how big or small a painting truly is—being at home with added opportunities to browse the internet has inspired me to explore museums I otherwise would not have the physical opportunity to enter. During quarantine, I found myself browsing the online collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. With the ability to hyper-zoom, I immersed myself in Monet’s garden at Vetheuil, zooming in until the work became mere dots and brushstrokes with no indication of a landscape, allowing a closeness never achievable in real life. While zooming in so close, I lost the bigger picture. I had to remind myself that online I was viewing a photograph of a painting through a screen, not the painting itself, an important detail often forgotten with the excitement of having millions of works at your fingertips.

Though the experience of viewing art in person cannot be matched, museums have been forced to be creative in how they engage with audiences no longer within their walls. They have enhanced their websites, expanded online programming, and allowed audiences who may never have entered a physical museum to interact with art on their own terms, from their own homes. For me, this includes scrolling through museum social media pages and looking at the clever ways institutions combine messages with memes. The Getty Museum’s Instagram page does a fantastic job of putting traditional art historical 6 post–

practice into action. They will hide an emoji within a post of a painting, so users must engage closely to find it. Other times, they start a post with a question, introducing users to visual thinking strategies often utilized during in-person tours. By asking their digital audience, “Why did Cezanne paint so many apples? Leave your guesses in the comments,” viewers are encouraged to look closely at the work to try and uncover clues to answer the question, build a dialogue by replying to other commenters, and receive instant gratification by scrolling only a few inches down to access the answer. In doing so, art and interpretation are no longer something viewers must go out of their way to seek out. Instead, the Getty Museum’s posts are something to look forward to, a fun game that engages your senses just by scrolling through your Instagram feed. Given the accessibility and joy of accessing art with the click of a button, I hope that this new norm of virtually “entering” museum collections lasts even as physical museum doors begin to open.

Once the Met welcomed visitors back into their galleries with new Covid guidelines, I cautiously ventured back for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Constantly working in museums at school and during the summer for the past two years, I couldn’t remember the last time I went more than a month without being in a physical gallery space. Entering the Met again this September felt bittersweet. Rather than navigating the New York City subways, I drove into Manhattan, booking a reservation time at home before stepping foot on the premises. Though this made for a smoother, more careful entrance, I missed the normal museumgoing routine I’d practiced since childhood.

For this momentous re-entrance I met a friend from college in the city, a dual reunion after months of separation. As I sped to the American art wing, a path that had become muscle memory––from the Great Hall entrance to the second floor gallery––my friend couldn’t see the smile that spread from ear to ear under my mask as I reunited with my favorite Mary Cassatt work. These circumstances became a moment for dialogue, forcing me to explain my love for this piece rather than merely emoting my excitement as I normally would. Cassatt’s Young Mother Sewing has been my phone lock screen for over a year. It’s practically ingrained in my mind, yet seeing it again in person felt as if I was seeing it for the first time. I stopped to read the artwork’s tombstone over and over, attempting to memorize the descriptive language as I did not know the next

Believe in the Fireflies

a video game review for fall semester 2020

By Robin Hwang ILLUSTRATED BY Solveig Asplund My first day of this semester, I woke up to a nightmare.

A thin layer of ash covered all of the driveways, cars, and California Republic garden flags. My day had started at 6 a.m. Pacific (I had classes at 10 a.m.

Eastern), but even by afternoon, there was only a hint of light coming through the windows. Hellish orange smog shrouded the sky for the entire week.

As hazardous air quality poisoned thousands statewide, I could smell whispers of smoke invading my house.

When the sludge of Zoom classes ended for the day, I jumped into bed, not caring whether it was day or night; I couldn’t tell the difference anyway. I opened my Youtube recents on my phone: “Last of Us Part II Walkthrough.” It was a habit that I adopted in August, when the emails about reopening campus trickled in, when my decision to stay remote became real in my mind. I needed the commentary or I’d be too scared to watch a horror game alone.

The Last of Us and its newly released sequel, Last of Us Part II, are set in a world after a zombie outbreak destroys most of modern society. Both games rely on their fair share of tropes from the genre: jump scares, unrelenting hordes of zombies, and desperate people who become monsters themselves.

But the games also share a paradox. In examining the last, most disturbing trope, The Last of Us rips itself out of the genre’s foundations to question whether we, the players, would be able to live with hope in this terrifying virtual world. The original game’s opening credits reference this question, though it’s disguised as an in-game slogan of a rebel group called “the Fireflies.”

VOICEOVER: Remember when you’re lost in the darkness...look for the light. Believe in the Fireflies.

[CUT TO BLACK] I never imagined that I’d watch an hour of someone sprinting from shrieking zombies or sneaking around death cults before I went to bed.

But when the world outside my bedroom looked as if smoke was strangling its throat, exploring another apocalyptic world was the only form of

ARTS&CULTURE escapism that had any bite left.

As the Last of Us Part II played out on my phone, I felt a sense of familiarity as I watched the main character—a scrappy, awkward, now battlehardened 19-year-old named Ellie—walk through the ruins of Seattle. Ellie and her girlfriend, Dina, walk through the desolate city, stopping at abandoned music stores and boarded-up coffee shops. They find Seattle beautiful. They are amateur archaeologists, exploring a world that collapsed years before they were born. We are the living dead, smiling with our knowledge of modern life.

I could immerse myself in Ellie’s journey through Seattle, because I knew what Ellie felt, trying to find beauty in a decaying city. When I took breaks from watching the game, I would jog to my suburb’s downtown to find the streets deserted, stores boarded up in paranoia, and restaurants left vacant after the pandemic gutted them into bankruptcy. With ash covering the tables and benches and storefronts, our downtown was beautiful in a sickening way. This will probably be the closest thing to snow that the Bay Area sees, I thought.

Part II’s core story begins when Ellie and Dina arrive in post-apocalyptic Seattle. Ellie is seeking vengeance after a militia forced her to watch them brutally kill Joel, Ellie’s adopted father. As this militia, headed by a woman named Abby, retreats to their home base in Seattle, Dina and Ellie follow their trail, exploring the city and fighting them together.

Over the first half of Part II, we notice Ellie is not who she was before Joel’s death. She never had time to get closure. Ellie stops making her dumb jokes that made Joel snort in Part I. She loses any sense of empathy for the militiamen she stumbles across who have already been brutally murdered. And once she finds out they need to leave Seattle and travel back home because Dina is sick, Ellie is reluctant to abandon her quest for vengeance. Robbed of her father figure, she adopts the habits of the violent people and the soulless zombies she hunts.

My friends tell me that these past semesters have been stolen from them. We all had to move out so quickly without time for proper goodbyes, without time to properly mourn the what-might-have-beens of this year. The college experience we looked forward to, the friends we were making, the excitement of having the perfect housing group—all were taken away, only to leave us stranded in bedrooms back home or in lonely dorms. But a part of me refuses to mourn. A part of me refuses to feel anything.

To drown it all out, I go back to watching Part II. By now, it’s the third act, and we find Ellie back near her hometown, living in an idyllic farmhouse with Dina. There are warm sunsets and golden fields

of grain that contrast the grayness of Seattle—and it feels wrong. Although Ellie tries to keep up the image of a happy life for Dina, Ellie’s inability to understand her own loss is paralyzing. She can't stay.

Over the last few months, my parents have tried to convince me that everything will be okay. When I was enraged about the counter-protesters who faced us as my friends and I came back home from my city’s first Black Lives Matter rally, my parents told me that changes and reforms are coming. But by the end of the summer, the solid month of black squares on Instagram and Facebook reverted to bright landscapes and colorful parties. Business as usual. I knew everyone meant well, but I wanted to break out: NO ITS NOT OKAY ITS NOT FUCKING OKAY CANT YOU TELL ITS NOT OKAY— At the end of Part II, Ellie decides to go after Abby one last time. She leaves the farmhouse for California, where Abby was last seen. Ellie rampages through a bandit gang’s fortress filled with imprisoned captives to find Abby, tortured and halfalive. By this point of the game, we’ve seen Abby’s perspective too—how she became remorseful of her past violence, and how she overcame her own loss by protecting a little boy she meets.

By the time I reached this part, I was giving up on this semester. I was behind in all of my classes.

I gave up most of my quarantine projects: getting consistent exercise, reading new books, learning how to play guitar. I had lost hope about my little contributions to the critical examination of policing in my city, as the number of friends available to participate in city meetings dwindled and the commanding voices of the police union only grew.

So I just kept watching.

Ellie almost has her revenge, but right near the

“I’m pretty lame. The highest my pulse rate has been all year was probably when I read that Travis Scott had a new single coming out.”

—Julian Towers, “parent trap” 10.18.19

“Over champagne, we talked about how Providence is such an exciting place to be young—a daring and intellectual and creative world.”

—Rachel Landau, “preview at the manege” 10.11.19

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Amanda Ngo a FEATURE Managing Editor Liza Edwards-Levin Section Editors Alice Bai Ethan Pan ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Olivia Howe Section Editors Maddy McGrath Emma Schneider

end, she sees a quick flashback of Joel, strumming his guitar. She stops.

I still wonder whether there is much hope in doing anything this semester at the social, at the personal, at any and all, levels. I’m just so tired. I don’t see any reason to hope that this semester can be anything more than fending off the hordes of insecurity about what I’m doing with my time, and staring at an open Zoom tab as I lose more contact with friends who I can’t see and a campus that I can’t go to.

Ellie goes back to the farmhouse. There is no one there. Everything has been moved out, but Ellie’s old guitar is still in her room. She tries to play the guitar, as she did in the beginning of the game. Then, she walks away into a new future.

Her story seems tragic, but to me, Ellie’s story is the most realistic hope I found in the past half-year.

Even after losing everything—the material order of the old world, her friends and family, and even her sense of self, Ellie is still able to overcome her despair, and decides to do so.

When Ellie’s story ends and the credits roll, I leave my phone on the bed and pick my guitar off the couch.

As my fingers fumble on the strings, I recall some of my friends tearing up on FaceTime as they vent about difficult situations at home, uncertainty about this semester, losing opportunities they spent hours applying to, loneliness and fear… and how we still end up finishing the call in laughter. There's a face of bravery from each of them that I haven’t seen before.

And I decide that today, I should learn how to play the theme from the original game’s opening— when the voiceover whispers: ...when you’re lost in the darkness...

Believe in the fireflies.

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Jasmine Ngai Section Editors Siena Capone Minako Ogita Christina Vasquez LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Caitlin McCartney Section Editors Kimberly Liu Emily Wang

COPY CHIEF Mohima Sattar Copy Editors Laura David Kyoko Leaman Aditi Marshan Eleanor Peters SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS Tessa Devoe

CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Joanne Han Iris Xie Layout Designers Briaanna Chiu Jiahua Chen WEB MASTER Amy Pu

STAFF WRITERS Kaitlan Bui Siena Capone Editors Eashan Das Julia Gubner Danielle Emerson Kyra Haddad Jordan Hartzell Jolie Rolnick Nicole Kim Chloe Zhao Gus Kmetz HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Elliana Reynolds Gaby Treviño Victoria Yin

Want to be involved?

Email: amanda_ngo@brown.edu!

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