Post- 10/19/17

OCT 19 – VOL 20 – ISSUE 6

In this issue...

Saints, Sickness, and Smoking

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Editor’s Note

FEATURES The English Major

Dear Readers,

3

– Kathy Luo

Feeling Alive

4

– Andrew Liu

5 LIFESTYLE Calligraphic Characters

But we have some stories to keep your heart warm!

One of our writers reclaims her pride in being an English major, while another realizes his first sickness at Brown is actually a boon. Another briefly escapes midterm season for a few magical hours by watching The Florida Project and remembering what it is like to be a child.

And maybe thinking of Florida can help all of us enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

5

– Leon Lei

Providence Is Not A Playground

We just published our Fall Guide last week, but it feels like winter is already here, with its sneaky chill snaking across my exposed feet and hands.

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Remembering summer,

Saanya

editor - in - chief

– Sydney Lo

7 ARTS & CULTURE We’re All in Moonee’s World

7

– Zander Kim

Casually Cool – Josh Wartel & Joshua Lu

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This Time Last Year...

Hot Post- Time Machine “Brace yourself: I have never seen a Disney movie.”

— Monica Chin, An Assortment of Disney Movies According to Someone Who Has Never Seen Them 10.22.2015 “Afterall, college is the last time you’ll be surrounded by hundreds of people who, like you, are at prime mating age.”

— Alexandra Walsh, Single or Ready to Mingle?

10.20.2016

Post- Staff Editor-in-Chief Saanya Jain

Layout Chief Livia Mucciolo

Managing Editor, Features Jennifer Osborne

Creative Director Grace Yoon

Managing Editor, Lifestyle Annabelle Woodward Managing Editor, Arts & Culture Joshua Lu

Head of Media Claribel Wu Features Editors Anita Sheih Kathy Luo

Head Illustrator Doris Liou

Lifestyle Editors Amanda Ngo Marly Toledano Divya Santhanam

Copy Chief Alicia DeVos

Arts & Culture Editors Celina Sun

Josh Wartel Copy Editor Zander Kim Layout Assistants Eojin Choi Julia Kim Gabriela Gil Media Assistant Samantha Haigood Staff Writers Andrew Liu Anna Harvey Catherine Turner Chantal Marauta Claire Kim-Narita Daniella Balarezo

Daniera Rivera Eliza Cain Emma Lopez Jack Brook Karya Sezener Natalie Andrews Sonya Bui Sydney Lo Veronica Espaillat Staff Illustrators Caroline Hu Erica Lewis Harim Choi Kira Widjaja Nayeon (Michelle) Woo Cover Illustrator Seo Jung Shin

The English Major What Happens to a Dream Deferred?

I

have few memories of what life was like during preschool. Of course, there are some that are more distinct than others—for example, peeing my pants during the Pledge of Allegiance, or openly asking my teacher why she was so fat (unfortunately for her, I had no filter in preschool). But there is one memory that stands out more than the rest. Even more than peeing my pants, even more than my teacher’s shocked, reddening face, I remember days I spent in the corner of the classroom, by the shelves, reading books.

I think that’s how my love for English began. Reading wasn’t a scholarly interest, a means to a career, or a concentration requirement—it was just fun. Writing, its close cousin, soon followed. So from preschool to middle school, college prep to AP, and eventually, graduation to move-in, love and passion were the sole reasons I continued to study English. As an added bonus, people seemed to like it when I wrote: My friends gushed about my short stories, teachers happily recommended me books, and my essays were often well received. I came to believe English would be a part of my future. Of course, I wasn’t sure what kind of role it would play—something to do with the government, maybe, I answered stuffily when people asked. Or working with the media. I didn’t want to seem like I had nothing pragmatic in mind. But in fact, that’s exactly where I was: trying to think of ways I could get paid for a simple love of reading and writing.

This was the mindset I had when I arrived at Brown. But after only a few days of settling in, I discovered something relatively absent from my high school experience: a seemingly insurmountable wall between those who majored in the humanities and those who majored in STEM. All my life, I had never given any validity to those labels.

It didn’t seem necessary: My teachers and peers simply called me “smart” or “a good student.” My love for English was a trait, not a defining characteristic. I assumed that a school with a very publicly advertised open curriculum would only encourage that mindset.

But suddenly, loving English seemed to hold a lot more weight than it used to. I realized that I was nearing an age where hobbies were supposed to start translating into real, practical careers, but being a generally good student all my life, no one seemed to have thought it necessary to teach me how to do so. In many ways, I felt abandoned. To my alarm, without the encouragement of friends who liked my stories, and teachers who believed in me without question, I had little ability to believe in myself. And for the first time,

I began to feel a strange distaste for something I loved.

A few months into college, English was no longer a hobby. It was 80 pages of reading per class, per day, long essays about things that often didn’t interest me, and worst of all, loneliness from writing in isolation, especially while seeing other freshmen study for a bio midterm in solidarity. Even worse, in this new college world that I was getting used to, being an English concentrator made me feel something I had never felt about my academics before: shame.

My friends (and their parents) seemed embarrassed when I told them about my intended concentration. Soon enough, that embarrassment rubbed off onto me.

I remember the first of many times I would feel it. I was finishing my first midterm cycle, churning out more pages and quotes in a two-week period than I had in my entire life. As I printed out my last paper, exhausted but satisfied, I bumped into someone I had met the first week of school. She asked me what I was working on. I racked my brain for the least boring way to explain it and decided on, “a paper on the symbols of love and tragedy in Shakespeare.”

I will never forget her response, which I would hear some iteration of again and again in the months to follow: “Oh. You must’ve had fun with that!”

I wouldn’t have used to word “fun” to describe my anxious cramming and page flipping, but at that moment, I didn’t have the will to object anymore. I realized that the paper that I had spent

“For the first time, I began to feel a strange distaste for something I loved.” hours on was not a midterm to her: it was child’s play.

There is a select group of majors associated with high-paying jobs, and English is not one of them. This concept is tacitly understood by most members of society growing up, but college may be one of the first spheres in which it is allowed to visibly manifest. From the 130 million dollar renovation of Barus and Holley to the casual way a freshman is encouraged to “just try” CS15, we are surrounded by subtle signs of what is profitable and what is not. I did not, and still don’t, fault any person who studies for a lucrative future. Financial strain was an unignorable presence in my teenage years, and I strongly believe that wanting a stable living is not a

crime. But this belief, combined with my interests, only laid more turmoil upon me: I began to feel true guilt and fear of being unable to support my family if I chose to study English. For a long time, I thought I was taking some kind of high road, rejecting the cliche of “selling out” for the sake of my dream. But as my family took on more loans, and Brown’s tuition kept rising, I considered that maybe by concentrating in English, I wasn’t noble, principled, or even honest to my interests—I was just selfish.

Eventually, this insecurity transformed into defiance: I wanted to prove that studying English could be part of a productive and meaningful college life.

I intentionally chose more tedious essay topics, committed to numerous extracurriculars and leadership positions, and pulled many completely unnecessary late nights in a show of bravado and confidence. But even then, it wasn’t enough—as a single person, I had no power to change the general understanding of what studying the humanities meant. In the end, the only thing I did was burn out.

Impostor symptom is a pandemic in elite institutions, and it may be overrepresented in majors that are not deemed “worthy” of respect. For a long time, I put all the blame on others. I despised the dismissal of humanities courses, the career fairs that never fit my interests, the awkward conversations with my parents, who began to fiercely push back. For many, the pressure is undeniable. There are huge incentives coming from the outside to change, to mold, to alter course, and though humanities concentrators may never know the pain of cramming for three STEM midterms at once, I guarantee that they are intimately acquainted with this existential ache. Many, by the halfway point of college, choose to end it. And I have no condemnation for that, either, because it was also part of my experience.

By the beginning of my sophomore year, the pressures to abandon English were mounting. Perhaps the biggest

factor that enticed me to change was my newfound interest in law, which gave much more validation to my studies, at least in the eyes of others. Interestingly, after pushing myself so hard in so many other ways, respect seemed to come to me without my making any real change about myself. To this day, I find the sudden shift laughable, but a part of me also wonders if I’m secretly relieved to have found a new avenue to financial viability.

With this new label, “pre-law,” it was much easier to find reasons why I didn’t have to be an English concentrator anymore. There were endless ways to explain why another concentration would prepare me better for the law, why this English class could be replaced with that one in Political Science, why I would be happier in another field. I made up reasons to avoid the thing I used to love. But even in my anxiety, stress, and hatred for English, I couldn’t make the break.

I am a junior now. Concentration declarations were last April. I remember logging onto my ASK account, and for probably the hundredth time, someone asked me what my concentration was.

Why do you want to become an English major, it prompted. Why did you make this choice?

I thought of all the blatant disregard for my work. I thought of the friends I would never take classes with, our education divided by a simple choice of concentration. I thought of my parents, still calculating tuition to the dollar and now pressuring me to go to Wall Street instead. Then I thought back to the bookshelves in the corner of my preschool classroom.

And like I always have, and maybe always will, I began to write.

Kathy Luo

sec tion editor

Kira Widjaja

staff illustr ator

Feeling Alive

I

’ve had enough sore throats in my life that I’m now able to distinguish between those that come from allergies or simply being rundown and those that are serious. Yet, no matter how closely I am acquainted with them, to this day nothing makes my mood dive south more than waking up with a sore throat and chills.

Now, with the weather changing and fall making its discreet arrival, I’m sure many at Brown are waking up to the same nightmarish introduction to flu season. For first years like me, this month will mark our first time falling ill in college.

A few weeks ago, I woke up to my throat feeling like it had experienced death-by- sandpaper. The beginning of any illness has always been the same for me. In the midst of a crescendo to full-on misery, I drowned in destructive thoughts about how taking care of myself would have prevented this monstrosity that reminds me of its presence every time I swallow. Even worse, I was sick right in the middle of midterm season, and the days filled with fatigue, spikes of nervousness, and feverish episodes. My parents suggested I come home for Saturday, as I live only 50 minutes away in Massachusetts. Not ready to swallow my pride, or really anything at all, I reassured my parents that everything was okay, that I’d have to deal with this experience sooner or later. Nevertheless, my body craved to be in fetal position, and my homesickness only amplified. I capitulated and agreed to come home.

There are special moments that words cannot emulate, when in a wash of warmth, the joy of living becomes crystal clear. In such moments, we promise ourselves that no matter what evils befall us in the future, we will try

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Seeing through Sickness to find our way back to this feeling, this undeniable sense that it’s going to be okay. The sight of my family again, even after only weeks apart, gave me this magical feeling. Everything I saw was utterly familiar, but with a childlike novelty attached to it, imbued with a warmth that was at once new and nostalgic. I had forgotten how crisp the air a bit farther north in Massachusetts could be. My parents’ cooking is basic, but I preferred it at that moment to anything I could have found in a dining hall. Showering and sleeping in my home for just that one night felt like enough rest for a week. For the first time in my life, I was treated like a celebrity in my own home, and the jovial atmosphere almost matched that of a holiday. One would think that the Scrooge-like mood my cold put me in would distort and sour the experience, but somehow the run-down state of my body made my mind all the more perceptive and appreciative of the present moment.

When we are physically healthy, life can seem like a lulling, sedate marathon forward. Being sick drives the status quo of life to an even lower bar, but perhaps this is absolutely essential to having a healthy outlook on life. We go from feeding ourselves angst and doubt about what we are lacking, at times taking our thoughts to the most painfully abstract places, to only yearning for the simple things we had in the first place.

As the cold dies off and we start to get back more and more pieces of ourselves, every improving day is bliss. We feel rejuvenated, even more so than if we hadn’t been sick in the first place, filled with a new reserve of carefree gratitude for all the small things we could do before, even like being able to study rather than having to stay locked away in bed.

“We are not naturally wired to count our joys every day, instead predisposed to worry about threats, no matter how nonexistent.”

Perhaps we learn the most about life from our suffering, which illuminates the things in our lives that are easily lost and, even more importantly, the things that remain solid and true no matter what. We are not naturally wired to count our joys every day, instead predisposed to worry about threats, no matter how nonexistent, to our current and future situations. Illness and suffering force us to count our blessings.

We can apply the same principles I learned from my cold to our everyday lives here. We cannot forget about the things we don’t see because they are always there. At home it is family, but here it is each other and the community.

Those who make fun of Health Services for being slow or inefficient make the same terrible mistake that I did when the sore throat first hit. I live right across from Andrews House, where appointments can quite literally be scheduled for the hour between classes, never pushed to over two weeks later, and a doctor can grant the same peace of mind that family is too far away to give. I’m grateful to those at Health Services who can provide any form of respite to a sick student trying to find their footing and who are considerate enough to send an email concerning whooping cough after only one case.

Among the hundreds of clubs and mutual friends at Brown that we are involved with, each is a shoulder to lean on. We often don’t realize how much care others have for us until we need it most. Even the customary “how’s it going” check-in when passing someone on the street is so much more than a banal greeting, an invitation to share whatever is comfortable and ask for whatever is needed. Being met by such a greeting at the end of a long, feverish day reminded me of how many branches of

happiness and people I still had beyond my family, and I remember smiling and replying, ”pretty well” instead of divulging into some rant, because it was actually the truth. Perhaps it’s these simple reassurances that are the most poignant.

There is one last thing I notice at the end of every illness, and I find it the most insidious of all: We forget too quickly. I’m only a week back from fully recovering and already find my mind is agitated by the smallest of things, such as the TA hours I should go to but never get to, the softened apples at lunch, how a driver did not yield to me, and so on. I’m back to questioning everything from my competency to a decision of grabbing a cookie at the Ratty. I can no longer summon that appreciation for the status quo I had felt so strongly during my time of sickness. Just weeks earlier, I would have paid good money to have the energy to get out of bed, yet now it’s back to being a banal routine.

Andrews House is still right across from my dorm, and yet I have to force myself to recall how grateful I should be to have it.

I don’t know how to prevent myself from forgetting. But I promise you, no matter how far circumstances dip, we are always in better hands than we think; if there is anything that my first sickness in college taught me, it is that life is an untapped reservoir of warmth and hope if we frame it right. Take care of yourself. Take care of others. Take care of what matters.

Andrew Liu

staff writer

Clarissa Liu

staff illustr ator

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Calligraphic Characters

The Tiny Notebook Person Tends to be shy and reserved, but is known for their creativity and artistic vision. Their writing is neat and easy to read, but can sometimes be so small that it strains the eyes of some readers. This is surprising, as many writers of this type wear glasses themselves.

Notes, figures, ideas, sketches, even inspirational quotes—all of these make their way onto the pages of the Tiny Notebook Person’s notebook.

Each sheet is presentable and aesthetically pleasing, and could pass off as its own standalone design document. The Tiny Notebook Person is known for having long-lasting friendships and relationships. They can always be counted on for deep and meaningful midnight chats.

The Sharpie Scribbler Writes with whatever device they can get their hands on. Tip of a crayon?

No problem. Expo marker? Now that’s just easy! The Sharpie Scribbler does not particularly care for legibility—after all, their writing will probably not be read by anyone other than themselves, if even. While they are wary of bleed-through in their pages, they make no effort to avoid it. They have learned to shrug off all qualms in their writing and simply accept the consequences of their actions.

Therefore, while both cardboard and toilet paper may ultimately get the job done for the Sharpie Scribbler, the former may be preferable because of its enhanced durability.

Sharpie Scribblers are fun to be

A Listicle

around, but they are not known for giving the best advice or making the best decisions. With them, you’re always in for an adventurous night.

The Typographic Zombie Words appear on the page in an orderly and systematic manner. Every letter is perfectly aligned, as if the sheet were copied straight from a typewriter. The writer just mindlessly transcribes, and transcribes, and transcribes…

Typographic Zombies have forgotten the importance of basic courtesy in their daily social interactions, choosing only to nod or grunt whenever possible. They will speak only when provoked.

The Mega-Mathlete Aside from using their entire notebook for mathematical scratch-work, the Mega-Mathlete abuses symbols and shorthand notation even in text messages and everyday writing. Why write ‘for all’ when you can just write.

One thing can be described as than another, and a part of something is just an of the whole. 2b ¬2b, i.e. the ?.

Writers of this kind are highly practical and logical. As a friend, they can be stoic but are known to give great advice. Many theoretical and applied mathematics concentrators fall into this category.

The Cautious Conformist Lives in constant fear of overstepping their bounds. Each stroke feels like a violation of the thin sheet in front of them, so their writing is usually very

delicate. The Cautious Conformist sharpens their pencil every few minutes, or replaces their pen well before it starts to dry out. They avoid the margins and lines of a sheet of paper at all costs.

As a friend, they can be insecure and require extra attention and guidance.

The Naïve Narcissist Hasn’t changed their handwriting since kindergarten. Only eats at the Ivy Room. The Naïve Narcissist thinks they are really, really cool, but in truth they just need to grow up.

Where are all those economics concentrators at?

The 21st Century Normie Hasn’t written anything down in so long that they’ve forgotten what it

even feels like to do so. Doesn’t own a notebook, and while in class they take notes strictly on their laptop.

Sometimes the laptop is used for other things as well. When left with no other choice, they are the first to unashamedly ask the person sitting next to them for a pen or pencil.

Unsurprisingly, they study computer science. The drop-outs go to neuroscience, or something like that.

Leon Lei

staff writer

Katie McLoughlin illustr ator

Harim Choi

staff illustr ator

Providence is Not a Playground

T

he bus driver jerks his arms right, guiding stubborn tires through the right turn from Memorial Boulevard on to Fulton Street. For a moment, everyone sways, fingers gently tightening against the metal rails. The half-hidden silhouettes of the Public Health Building and the Congdon Street Baptist Church slide behind us, quickly consumed by the towering buildings of downtown. “Now approaching Kennedy Plaza.”

A few strangers begin shuffling their bags, carefully inching toward the exits. A toddler, chewing on some goldfish, tries to reach the doors first before his mother yanks him back to her. Through the windows we watch clumps of people wait beneath bus stop shelters and against the unlit streetlights. Tired eyes stare through the windows, seeing and not seeing us, or maybe they are simply looking at an ad for the College of Rhode Island. They surge forward as our bus stills in front of Stop D.

“Still, the initial recognition of the university logo makes it something more, connects it to my laptop stickers and T-shirt labels and part of who I am.

And I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that.”

The momentary chaos of a bus stop exchange fills the vehicle. I clutch my backpack tight against my chest, hunch my shoulders, try to make myself smaller. A hundred headphones, handbags, grocery bags, jostle through the aisle. Someone laughs, someone scolds another over the phone. At the front, a woman pays the bus fare in quarters, and a man’s pass is denied. My gaze fixes on the ad spread over the wall between the passengers and driver.

“SMOKERS NEEDED,” in cold, red font. A request I’ve seen before. This

time, the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies wants participants for an upcoming study, offering some significant but oddly specific monetary compensation. I wonder how many people have taken them up on the opportunity. Beneath the study’s description the Brown University crest adorns the poster like a seal of approval.

The bus heaves to a start, barreling through Fulton and onto Eddy.

Cars edge nervously to the sides to accommodate the white and blue beast, narrow streets already clogged with exhaust and engine noises. I check the time on my phone, calculate when we’ll get to Public Street, and return to the ad.

Some iteration of the poster has decorated almost every RIPTA ride I’ve been on, asking for drug addicts or alcoholics or some combination of both. They’re mostly a casual part of the periphery with all the other ads, or something to read to pass the time. If I’m with a friend we can discuss what we’d do with the money if we participated in the study. Still, the initial recognition of the university logo makes it something more, connects it to my laptop stickers and T-shirt labels and part of who I am.

And I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that.

Being enrolled in Brown University means being associated with everything it does, its reputation, its image. It means answering “Do you have any course requirements?”, “Do you smoke weed?”, “Do you know Emma Watson?” countless times. It means feeling pride when a Brown staff member wins a Nobel Prize, or excitement when a Brown alum starts a cool company or does good in the world. It also means acknowledging and benefiting from the privilege and history of Brown University, a privilege and history fraught with injustice and some less-esteemed aspects of higher academia.

Specifically, Brown has had a complicated relationship with Providence and the people of Providence. It takes up a huge area of the city, doesn’t pay taxes (although it makes a series of payments to the city to compensate), and uses many Providence resources, from its public transport to its people. It does, however, provide the city with many benefits, including stimulating the economy, bringing in brilliant minds who might make positive changes

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Reflections on RIPTA

and perhaps even stay in Providence indefinitely. As an undergraduate student, however, I can’t help feel a bit like a leech, gleaning experiences from Providence that’ll look good on a resume and then hightailing to New York or San Francisco or some other major metropolitan city upon graduation.

The ad is a reminder that I, as a member of the Brown community, am benefitting from Providence.

Specifically, from people in Providence who might be in vulnerable positions, or might simply want to go about their lives without being incorporated into higher academia.

Although specific to community engagement, the message transcends into many facets of university life. How do we properly interact with Providence for our research, projects, and daily routines in a way that maintains Providence’s autonomy? Moreover, how do our interactions affect Providence in general?

Returning to the RIPTA ads, on one hand they obtain valuable information that could go to help society’s comprehension of addiction, as well as provide resources and monetary

funds to the participants involved.

On the other, the ads emphasize the parasitic relationship Brown can have with Providence to the people of Providence and any person traveling on the RIPTA. Then again, how much of that assumption is just how I perceive the ad to affect them? I glance at other passengers’ thoughtful, distant expressions, similar to my own.

I pull the yellow cord to stop the bus. It settles beside a RIPTA bus stop sign covered in the remnants of stickers and spray paint. Outside the air is still warm with summer, and people walk past me in the bubbles of their own worlds. I begin walking down Public Street, considering Brown University and Providence, feeling the weight of the Brown ID in my pocket.

Sydney Lo

staff writer

Diana Hong illustr ator

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We’re All in Moonee’s World

A

child’s imagination is magical, even in uninspiring places. For six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), that place is in central Florida, near the enchanting Disney World. Living with her unmotivated, single mother Halley (played by first-time actress Bria Vinaite) in a pink and purple tawdry motel ironically named the Magic Castle, Moonee transforms the lower-class streets and open fields in Florida into her magical playground of endless adventures in The Florida Project.

Directed by Sean Baker, the film treads on glorifying the impoverished life.

Baker is previously best known for his equally eccentric and innovative film Tangerine, shot entirely with an iPhone. Like Tangerine, his newest film follows people in unusual circumstances. He balances fantasy and reality with extreme caution, and as a result, ends up with a charming tale that touches on troubling themes, with Moonee’s fantastical and escapist imagination taking center stage.

Accompanied by Scooty (Christopher Rivera), who lives in another room at the Magic Castle, and Jancey (Valeria Cotto), who lives in a similarly cheap motel nearby, Moonee spends her days spitting loogies on parked cars, exploring abandoned buildings, and playing with dead fish, living the life of a child—acting impulsively without thinking of the consequences.

She and her friends live by colorful supermarkets and big knockoff brands with wide shots reminiscent of Wes Anderson’s symmetry. The kids wander everywhere, break windows with bricks, and use their innocence to bum money from strangers to buy ice cream, which makes it taste all the better.

Living Like Children in The Florida Project

Their daily escapades are all led by Moonee, played by the seven-year-old Prince in one of the most pleasant performances of 2017. She’s sassy, foul-mouthed, and reckless, but also confident, transparent, and daring. She makes the best with what she has, which isn’t much, as her mother struggles to pay rent every week— selling perfume with Moonee outside country clubs and soliciting sex during the evenings, drowning out the noises with loud music while Moonee plays in the bathtub.

Halley’s relationship to Moonee, which is more like one of a big sister than an actual mother, is tough to pin. Director Sean Baker wants the viewer to empathize with Halley’s situation, but at the same

“It’s the little moments— shopping sprees in convenience markets, pancakes, and ice cream, fireworks. and merely skipping that give the film its charm and make it worthwhile .” time, Halley does nothing to gain our sympathies. Halley does nothing to try to get her daughter and herself out of their

situation and into Moonee’s dream life—a home, a stable job, a family—something Moonee wants despite being satisfied with her current lifestyle. Halley is despicable at every turn and fails to change by the film’s end.

On Halley’s case is the motel manager Bobby, played by Willem Dafoe. In one of Dafoe’s most likable roles yet, a far cry from his usual menacing characters, Bobby is loved by all the tenants of the Magic Castle. He’s not the owner, but Bobby enjoys managing his little hectic motel. He lives a somewhat normal life, carrying out routine tasks—fixing laundry machines, moving refrigerators, and listening to tenants’s problems. He watches over Moonee and the other unattended children whose parents work all day. In one of the funnier scenes, Bobby makes conversation with a few storks loitering in the driveway—such is the life of Bobby.

He takes on the responsibility of caring for Moonee and Halley, despite Halley’s continued recklessness. He half-heartedly threatens to kick Halley out of the motel multiple times throughout the film and handles escalating situations, which we know can’t continue for Halley and naive Moonee. Aiding wherever necessary, Bobby is a steady, calming presence, one who can handle himself, help others, and keep the motel from running amok.

Aside from the plot, the cinematography is beautiful, a mix of the filmmaking styles between Wes Anderson’s bold-colored symmetrical shots and Andrea Arnold’s close-up vintage, homemade video techniques. Baker offers his own style, however, often experimenting with the film’s tone and adding his own quirky sense of humor, whether it’s watching

Moonee and her friends devour ice cream cones, a handicapped man roll over a speed bump, or Moonee taking Jancey to a safari (a cow pasture). It’s the little moments—shopping sprees in convenience markets, pancakes and ice creams, fireworks, and merely skipping place to place—that give the film its charm and make it worthwhile.

The film does run a little too long; at an hour and fifty-five minutes, there’s only so many shots Baker can introduce us to before we get the idea—they’re creative, imaginative children. The pacing is occasionally choppy, with Baker spending too much time with some scenes and too little with others. But there are many moments that stick with you. The Florida Project is indulgent and runs wild with it, and is for the most part completely unpredictable, switching tones in the final minutes as Moonee races toward her ambiguous, innocent ending. We’re all in Moonee’s world, and Moonee is in Disney World, even when she’s not.

Release | 1 October, 2017 (US) Genre | Drama Director | Sean Baker Writer | Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch Main Cast | Willem Dafoe, Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Valeria Cotto Rating / Runtime | R / 1h 55m Personal Rating | 8.0/10

Zander Kim copy editor

Caroline Hu

staff illustr ator

Casually Cool

A

nnie Clark, better-known by her stage name, St. Vincent, released her fifth album, MASSEDUCTION, on Friday. The managing editor of A&C, Joshua Lu, and one of the section editors Josh Wartel discuss the new album.

Joshua Lu: So as I was preparing for this discussion, I remembered an old article from The Brown Daily Herald that I copyedited a couple years back (“St. Vincent crushes Lupo’s with intensity in dynamic concert,” 3/11/15). As far as I know this is the first time The BDH or even Brown has discussed St. Vincent, and it’s a pretty interesting read. The writer (Kate Talerico) talks about St. Vincent’s galvanizing energy and compares her to a scuttling crab at one point. It’s the kind of weird indie-rock performance you’d expect from someone like St. Vincent, whose aesthetic and persona at the time was kind of wild and crazy but at the same time was making this excellent, weird, alternative pop.

When we look at MASSEDUCTION though, it’s apparent that she’s changed a lot both visually and sonically.

Josh Wartel: “Beautiful-strange—the curse of music,” as St. Vincent describes it at the end of The BDH piece.

JL: Yeah, definitely, but I think it leans more on strange this time.

JW: I’d agree; the only song she released in the past few years before the first single (“New York”) was a song she recorded for “Girls” called “Teenage Talk,” and it’s much more calming and sensitive in my view than anything on the new album.

JL: I’d say that some of the songs on MASSEDUCTION are still calming and sensitive, mostly the ballads like “New York” and also the opening track “Hang On Me,” but they’re undercut by this tangible tension and anxiety over heartbreak.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of these slower tracks on the album; I don’t think Jack Antonoff has quite figured out how to produce a good pop ballad that’s at

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Talking through St. Vincent’s Return the same level of her past ballads like “Severed Crossed Fingers.”

JW: Yes, I was thinking the same thing.

St. Vincent’s ballads have the same dullness as the Antonoff-produced ballad on Lorde’s Melodrama (“Liability”). “New York” succeeds almost in spite of Antonoff because no one has ever drawn out the syllables of the word “motherfucker” quite like Annie Clark.

JL: In general, I’d say that MASSEDUCTION is divided into two halves, with “Los Ageless” being the centerpiece: The first half is more upbeat overall and conveys this maniacal routine of sex and drugs and partying, while the second half has her coming to terms with the impact of her lifestyle and so is appropriately slower and more melancholy.

JW: I mean, “Fear the Future” and “Young Lover” are absolute bangers, so I’m not sure how well this distinction holds up.

JL: Yeah, I guess it’s more of a thematic distinction than a...tempo one.

JW: And “Young Lover” is absolutely the best song on this album. It explodes into the chorus like a beautiful cousin of “Cruel.”

JL: I love how it builds steadily and almost sinisterly—it sounds like she’s stalking her prey or something.

JW: It’s basically a song about suicide that ends with her screaming with the pure pleasure of being alive.

JL: Personally, my favorite song from the album is “Los Ageless,” even if it’s a bit of a basic pick, but I really dig it. I like thinking of it as this centerpiece between the two halves of the album because it’s both about her destructive lifestyle (as she sings in the verses) but also about its effect (as she sings in the chorus) And the chorus is one of the best I’ve heard this year; I like how it’s essentially just one line repeated but with a little more of it revealed each time, but that small amount that’s revealed changes the

meaning of the song each time.

JW: “How can anybody have you and lose you / how can anybody have you and lose and not lose your mind” is not exactly a breath of fresh pop-song air.

JL: I agree, but the way it’s delivered, with each part of the line being slowly unraveled, is really interesting to me.

JW: Another song I thought was a bit of a tired concept was “Pills.” It’s basically her version of Charlie XCX’s “Boys” but without the same swagger.

JL: I can definitely hear that. “Pills” mostly reminded me of the kind of basic satire of Marina and the Diamonds’ Electra Heart, but the second half changes it completely. I used to not like the second half because I just wanted an upbeat track, but it really grew on me; it’s like the withdrawal that comes after the high.

JW: A similar trance to the end of “Los Ageless” right?

JL: Yeah, for sure. Although the outro to “Los Ageless” hasn’t grown on me yet.

Some finals thoughts on the album: JW: Although I could have used either

more sing-along hooks or more personal anecdotes, the multi-layered arrangements of MASSEDUCTION are seductively summed up by a lyric from the title track: “I can’t turn off what turns me on.”

Like she sings on “Smoking Section”: “It’s not the end.” I just hope more people can learn to love St. Vincent!

JL: In comparison to her previous work, MASSEDUCTION is a lot poppier, both in the music and in the accompanying visuals, and I think her particular gritty style gets largely enhanced with this change. It’s a great album that’s equal parts manic and depressive, but I also feel it would have been better with different production in the ballads (or no ballads at all) or a more meaningful criticism of society (or no criticism at all). But even with these flaws, I agree MASSEDUCTION is a turn-on that I can’t turn off.

Josh Wartel

sec tion editor

Joshua Lu

managing editor

Erica Lewis

staff llustr ator

Halloween Costumes 1 The Number One (by standing straight) 2 Your favorite professor 3 President Hillary Clinton 4 A spicy with 5 A well-organized, cheerful, existentially, content college student (spooky) 6 Your costume from last year (eco-friendly) 7 Nothing (efficient) 8 Nothing (lazy) 9 Nothing (cynical) 10 Morning Mail (RIP)

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