post- 11/22/19

In This Issue

Anything But

KAITLAN BUI 3

Three Good Things

GAYA GUPTA 2 DANIELLE EMERSON 4

At the Pocket-Size

DAVID KLEINMAN 5

The Value of Addams Family Values GRIFFIN PLAAG 6

Music Roulette

postCover by Iris Xie

NOV 22

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VOL 24 —

ISSUE 11

FEATURE

Three Good Things

Making To-Do Lists Something to be Grateful For

BY GAYA GUPTA ILLUSTRATED BY RÉMY POISSON

M

y to-do lists piece together my past. Above reminders to turn in my math homework on time, nagging notes to go to the gym and clean my room, and the boxed due dates for essays and projects is my list of “three good things”—three things I’m grateful for on that particular day. I write all of these lists in a small black Muji notebook, and when I flip through its pages, the top of each list is a snapshot into the past months, reminding me of the little things

that kept the days from blurring together.

In high school, my three things often revolved around my beloved car, my friends, and the Driftwood Deli sandwiches that we would race off to get during lunch. When I was a junior and overwhelmed by my parents’ impending divorce, the lists included more and more phone calls and FaceTimes with my sister.

During my senior spring, I recognized how grateful I was for the teachers who understood that we were

checked out and let us revel in the trivialities of the last weeks of high school.

Recently, I’ve been grateful for the kittens and bunnies who appeared on Wriston Quad when it was raining and cold and miserable, for the friend who put me to bed with a glass of water and Advil in preparation for the next morning’s headache, for the classmates whom I spend an ungodly number of hours with in Barus and Holley until we finish our engineering

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, We’ve made it! Well, sort of. There are still finals, but ignorance is bliss so, for all intents and purposes, congratulations for making it to Thanksgiving! Whether you’ve been chilling these past weeks or have just come out of midterm hell week like I have, you deserve this break. Between the depressing weather, the 4 a.m. cram sessions, and the never ending cycle of sickness that seems to pervade this campus, it’s rightly time to hit the pause button on school. So I hope you take this break to relax (or at least try to), spend time with friends and family, and take the opportunity to read that book or start that hobby you said you would do at the beginning of the school year when you had the false impression of having your life together.

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect, to be grateful for the people and things in your life that bring you genuine happiness and that keep you going. It can be hard to slow down in the face of a million tasks, but I challenge you to find moments of gratitude in the charming chaos of the holiday. Whether you are heading home, staying on campus, or taking a trip, I wish you moments of joy and

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Thank You Gifts

laughter. Most importantly, show yourself gratitude with a two-day hibernation, non-dining hall food, and a good ol’ Netflix binge.

This week’s issue reflects various meanings and forms of gratitude. Our Feature describes a student’s daily habit of writing down what she is thankful for and the powerful effect it has had on her mental health. Narrative showcases a nuanced reflection of changing sibling relationships and an insightful piece about feeling grateful for the pocketsized aspects of life. Finally, Arts & Culture entertains one writer's ever-evolving relationship with the Addams family through each holiday season as well as another writer’s thoughts on the music he listens to while driving to his family’s Thanksgiving.

I hope you find the Thanksgiving spirit while reading this issue. Lastly, I want to express our appreciation of your readership here at post-!

With gratitude,

Caitlin McCartney Lifestyle Section Editor

1.

A knuckle sandwich?

2.

An Andrews breakfast burrito (so they get to skip the line!)

3.

Friends who know how to buy good gifts

4.

An override code to a capped class

5.

An A on their final paper

6.

A tea cozy

7.

Spare serotonin

8.

A million dollars

9.

Crocs

10.

The latest issue of post- ;)

problem sets. On my own for the first time, practicing gratefulness has forced me to consider the minute interactions that alleviate the burdens each day brings.

My practice began when I took part in the “Thankfulness Challenge” sponsored by Sources of Strength, a national mental health resource program with a big presence at my high school. My English teacher handed out strips of paper a few inches wide called “Thankfulness Posters” on which we were asked to record three things we were thankful for every day for the next 21 days. So, before learning new vocab words or analyzing Othello, we’d spend 30 seconds writing down what we were grateful for and another 30 seconds reflecting on one item on our list, taking care to recognize exactly what it was we felt grateful for.

The challenge began second semester of my junior year when I felt weary and exhausted by AP classes and SAT subject tests as well as the college application process looming on the horizon. A stressed-out mess, I didn’t think much of the exercise besides the fact that it provided a brief mental reprieve from everything else racing around in my head. In the beginning, I defaulted to appreciating practical things that were the easiest to recognize, like having food in the fridge, clean running water in the era of the Flint water crisis, and the educational opportunities afforded to me courtesy of my public high school. But soon enough, the science behind the gratefulness practice started to kick in. Writing three unique items became a motivating challenge, and I found joy in recognizing the overlooked bright spots of my days.

At first, I was skeptical of trendy mindfulness practices like the Thankfulness Challenge that promise to increase your happiness (as if happiness can be aggregated), but the research is convincing: Practicing gratitude every day can help rewire our brains to focus on the positive instead of ruminating on the negative.

For instance, a 2016 study published in Psychotherapy Research found that college students seeking mental health support who wrote “gratitude letters” in conjunction with receiving psychotherapy reported significantly better mental health after just four weeks, even more so after 12, than those who received only psychotherapy.

This makes intuitive sense: When we write about the things that made us happy, we feel happier. Yet, in analyzing students’ gratitude letters, the researchers found that mental health improvement wasn’t predicted by the number of positive words or emotions—it was about the lack of negativity. Students with fewer negative emotions or words in their letters were more likely to experience improved mental health. This is comforting to me, that my happiness doesn’t have to rely on exuding positivity; it’s more about shifting my focus away from toxic emotions, holding myself back from jumping into a tempting pit of negativity and self-pity.

Aside from improving quality of life, gratitude has been associated with increased life expectancy. A study in 2001 analyzed letters written by young Catholic nuns about to begin their clerical roles. Researchers ranked the letters—reflections on their lives and futures— according to positive emotional content. Sixty years later, 90 percent of the nuns whose letters were ranked highly lived past 85, compared to only 34 percent of those who wrote the lower-ranking letters. In general, people who consider themselves thankful for the people around them get better quality sleep, as indicated in a

2009 study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research.

If that weren’t enough, gratitude can even help us find love, both platonic and romantic. Expressing gratitude strengthens our relationships; it is associated with greater motivation to work through issues and increased relational confidence. The effects of expressing gratitude ripple through social circles, improving “prosocial” behaviors that benefit every group member.

Everyone wants to be appreciated, and a study published in the Personality and Individual Differences Journal shows that expressing gratitude is linked to increased relationship quality, providing opportunities for both members of the relationship to grow closer.

I’ve found this latter phenomenon to be especially true. Sometimes I feel embarrassed by my gratitude lists when friends rifle through my notebooks, because I worry it might seem to them like some sappy, trite exercise. I worry, irrationally, that they’ll see their names and cringe, that they’ll think I care more about them than they do about me. But that is never the case. I am met with genuine smiles, hugs, and gratitude in return. The research checks out. People love to be appreciated, to feel noticed.

After the 21 days of my first thankfulness challenge were over, I read over my flimsy thankfulness journal, and the past three weeks came to life from the few words scribbled on each line. I recalled the day both my chemistry teacher and I arrived late to class, so I wasn’t marked tardy; the day “Animal” by Neon Trees played on the radio and I belted out all the lyrics while I drove to school; the time I dipped out of class to call a friend in college, and my physics teacher, instead of berating me for skipping class, asked to say hi and talk to my friend (her former student). Memories that would have otherwise been forgotten were captured on those weathered pages.

My daily planner replaced my thankfulness journal, and I continued to capture vignettes of my last two years of high school through my lists of three good things. At this point, I have filled many of those Muji notebooks, a few of which I’ve brought to college.

Flipping through them reminds me of important dates: Thursday, March 28, 2019—thankful for getting into Brown!!!

Tuesday, April 9, 2019—thankful for my amazing ADOCH host and her music recs and my visit to Brown being so gooooood.

Monday, June 3, 2019—grateful for graduation and Gunn High School and everything that happened over the past four years.

Sunday, September 1, 2019—grateful for Excellence at Brown (pre-orientation) and no longer feeling lost on campus, haha.

Friday, October 4, 2019—grateful for Shake Shack and going to the BDW with Jonah to build whatever I want.

And these lists will continue. I want them to; including gratitude at the beginning of all my to-do lists is essential to the lists themselves. And, when I occasionally choose to omit the list in order to save space for my tasks on a particularly busy day, I immediately feel a bit guilty. I’ve grown immensely in the way I handle negativity and unhappiness in the past couple of years, and the lists have certainly aided in that. Thanksgiving is no longer the only time I give thanks—every day, when I open my notebook to plan my work, I find my three good things.

Anything But A Story of Siblinghood

BY KAITLAN BUI ILLUSTRATED BY ELLA HARRIS

We were anything but two peas in a pod. First of all, we didn’t like the same things; second of all, we didn’t like each other—at least, that’s how we acted. We would “accidentally” step on each other’s shoes, hide each other’s teddy bears, and maliciously embarrass each other in public (I told our friends that he wet his bed every night, and he told them that I made him smell my farts). Kaitlan and Thomas, Thomas and Kaitlan, the brother-and-sister duo that always wound up staring at the wall, arms crossed, impatiently waiting for our timeouts to end.

It’s your fault we’re in time-out.

No, it’s yours! Dumbo!

I hate you.

I’d peek around the corner of the wall separating us, leaning just enough to the side to reveal one frowning eyebrow above one glaring eyeball. He’d glower back at me. It was a very dramatic display of fury, but it lapsed as quickly as it flared up; we’d simply get bored. Either I’d lean right or he’d lean left, smiling tentatively and whispering “...sorry...” Then we’d play silent games, quickly hushing each other when our dad emerged from his office suspicious that we were not properly in time-out. He’s coming! Straight backs, arms over chests, noses to the wall. Another three minutes of strained silence.

Do you think we should say sorry to Dad now?

Yeah. Let’s tiptoe over.

Okay. I’ll talk. You be quiet.

Okay.

And we would go, hand in hand, Kaitlan and Thomas, sister and brother, to redeem ourselves from punishment. *** We saw much less of each other once I entered high school. He was three years younger than me, into baseball and KFC and that sort of thing. I was into K-dramas and volleyball and journaling. Whenever he bounced into my room on an inflatable rainbow hopper ball, I’d plug in my earphones and repeat: Stop bothering me. I need to do my homework. Go away.

We used to be anything but accommodating to each other, but after additional rebuking from my parents, he listened. He stopped. He went to his own room and played his own games while I immersed myself in biology, Spanish, YA novels. The house was quieter. I didn’t give myself time to glare at him from my side of the wall, and in the same way, I was never moved to say “sorry.” *** By the time Thomas was a freshman, I was a senior reflecting on my high school experiences and looking forward to moving away for college. The clock was ticking towards my departure, and I realized that my brother and I would never be in the same house again— at least not in the permanent way of our childhood.

So, I became the kid bouncing into his room on an inflatable ball, childishly asking him to watch a Disney movie or to go to the park with me.

But he only parroted my annoyed response from three years earlier: Stop bothering me. I need to do my homework. Go away. Hurtful words, I recognized,

“I can’t come out tonight. I just lengthened my skin care routine.”

“Sleep is an anti-capitalist act.”

november 22, 2019 3

NARRATIVE by liked to joke that I was “homeless” and throw coins at me—yes, I repeat, throw coins.) But, god, I felt so much warmer. Soon, long socks became a staple of my winters.

Even now, there’s nothing more satisfying than rolling up a pair of my long socks, the kind that hug my legs and reach all the way to my knees. Ankle socks could never compare: They can’t be trusted to protect me against the biting cold of below-32-degree weather. Thank you, long socks—especially the foxface-patterned pair I’m wearing today. You’ve shielded my legs for years, and in the chill of Providence winter, your work continues.

now that I was on the receiving end of them. But I understood—we might not have been two peas in a pod, but we were still siblings. That’s why I wanted to spend time with him. And that’s why, in that moment, I saw my brother as a reflection of myself.

I’m sorry for not realizing it before. I’m not mad at you anymore. Want to hear a joke?

Thomas didn’t answer me, but I understood; he had to go through his own phase, and before that phase was over, I was 2,569 miles from home. And I wasn’t staring at a blank wall anymore; a wall of photographs I’d tacked by my dorm room bedside was staring down at me: Thomas giving me bunny ears at graduation, Thomas and me drinking boba, Thomas carrying my backpack in New York City.

Out of everyone, I missed him the most. I didn’t expect that.

Though I’d regularly text him “how are you,” my phone didn’t regularly ding in response.

When it did, the reply would be a skimpy “i’m okay.”

I missed him, but he was running on the all-too-familiar high-school treadmill: English presentations, weekend competitions, math tests, more competitions. So I understood. I wish I didn’t, but I understood.

When Christmastime came that year—when I returned home for the first time since leaving it— I tackled my brother in a full embrace. “You know, I missed you the most,” I told him.

“I missed you too,” he said, with no text pauses or typos in between.

I remember holding his hand the entire car ride home from the airport, an admittedly weird thing to do with one’s 16-year-old sibling. But I have to say, it was so nice—a tangible reminder that no matter what, I have a brother. It was a reconciliation of all those moments of siblinghood I had dismissed as a toddler and then a teenager. It was a kind of homecoming, no pun intended.

The next four weeks were saturated with 1) evaluating his updated K-pop playlist and 2) listening to his broken-record recitation of “funny” YouTube oneliners. Though I would have scorned all these things less than a year before, I told him the songs were some “fine bops.” I think that was mostly the tenderness of my love—not my knee-jerk opinion—speaking, but I can’t be sure. *** They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder, but I’m thankful that it only took a temporary separation for me to appreciate my brother. I was (and am) increasingly grateful for all our unintentionally shared moments and lessons on humbling-yet-easy forgiveness—time-out wall or no. I’m even grateful for the burden of responsibility I bear as the older sibling and the burden of expectation he bears as the younger one. These are the valleys we trek through together, hand-in-hand, as only siblings can do.

It might have taken a while to reach this bittersweet thanksgiving, but this time, things are different.

We’re navigating a new wall of distance, time difference, 4 post–

doubt. I hope Thomas hears me now, because this time, I think I understand.

It’s not your fault we’re so far from each other.

You can do it. You are strong.

I love you.

At the Pocket-Size A Shortlist of the Simple Things I’m Grateful For

BY DANIELLE EMERSON ILLUSTRATED BY CECILIA CAO

long socks Back in high school, I used to stay late after dismissal each day—like, 9 p.m. late. Yes, school rules stated that no student was allowed in the building after 7 p.m. with the exceptions of sports games and parentteacher conferences. But sometimes I’d get lucky and no one would notice me sitting outside the main office.

Other days, I’d convince a teacher to let me stay in their classroom. And occasionally, my friend Mykel and I would manage to hide out in the band room (he was a band kid; I was jealous). Those were the best days.

But on the evenings I got kicked out—a gruff office administrator locking the doors behind me—I’d huddle near the back entrance, book in hand, reading by the lights of the empty parking lot. As winter approached, being outside became more and more difficult. The only indoor locations open late were gas stations, a Family Dollar, and the local Mormon church (none of which seemed likely to let me stay more than 30 minutes). Granted, New Mexico winters aren't as bad as Rhode Island ones, but cold is cold to a girl with socks for gloves. With mismatched pairs covering my arms and two pairs of long socks underneath my jeans, I’ll admit I looked a little ridiculous, especially with my tearing satchel and worn boots. (Teens who passed

hot chocolate warming my hands In high school, I’d wake up early on Saturday mornings to attend my younger siblings’ cross country meets. We’d all pile into our mother’s car before sunrise and drive to the hosting school. Some weekends, it’d be close by (Ojo Amarillo Elementary School), but other times, the drive was longer (Naschitti Elementary School). Once we arrived, it was always freezing, the cold pinching the tip of my nose and stinging the lobes of my ears. But each cross country meet featured a mini concession stand that sold boxes of popcorn, bagged pickles, water bottles, and, if we were lucky, hot chocolate.

The elderly ladies running the stand met each customer with a smile. Sometimes they’d strike up a conversation: “Ayóó desk’aaz, eh?” It’s pretty cold, huh?

They were always bundled up, scarves wrapped snugly around their heads. I’d nod, rubbing my hands together.

“Aoo’, it’s freezing.” Hot chocolate cost fifty cents; I’d pull out my red ladybug coin purse and hand over two quarters.

“Na’ shiyázhí.” Here, little one. I’d take the styrofoam cup gingerly, muttering a quick ‘thank you’ before caving in to the warmth. The heat seeped through my gloves, slipped past my fingertips, and rippled down to my toes. Steam, brushing my cheeks, removed the cold sting from my nose. That tiny cup of hot chocolate turned a frigid morning into a gathering around the fireplace—all before I’d even taken my first sip. I held the cup as we walked around the track before the race, sneaking sips and sometimes passing it to my siblings, sharing the warmth of the pocket-sized hearth in my hands. In taste, feel, and smell, hot chocolate provides the best kind of comfort.

Here at Brown, the winter air bites my exposed skin, turning my nose, ears, and cheeks a harsh red.

But as I walk around campus, hot chocolate keeps me warm. Whether it’s an early November meet in New Mexico or a late evening walk in Rhode Island, I send hot chocolate my thanks.

ARTS & CULTURE the collection of photos on my wall I’m looking at them now: photos pasted on the wall above my desk along with notes and inspirational cards. Family smiles back at me, their joy captured and preserved. Late at night, I hear their calls—rousing me from my sleep, a low hum in my ears. Something warm passes through the air, prickling the hairs along my arm. If I focus hard enough, I can make out their voices, their laughter. Sometimes I can smell the dirt, the cooking, the cornfields, the aged carpet. Memories upon memories maintained in snapshots.

A few favorites include a photograph of my brother and me riding a bike along a ditch, him on the handlebars and me peddling; my father, caught smiling mid-blink next to his latest art piece; my shímasaní and two cousins picking corn from our fields; my grandfather, sporting black sunglasses and a white button-up, overlooking the scenic land of New Mexico.

Some of these photos are frayed at the edges or bent at the corners. But these small blemishes do nothing to diminish the love each image carries. When I reach out and touch them, their surfaces are cold and smooth, one-dimensional. But when I just sit and gaze, I’m met with warmth and comfort. A gateway to the past, a taste of what once was. For these tender moments of remembrance—amidst hectic classes, midterms, and extracurriculars—I am grateful. *** Whether it’s long socks, the kind that reach my knees; hot chocolate in my hands, a tiny hearth togo; or the collection of photos on my wall, displayed haphazardly with letters from home, I’ve never felt more grateful for the small things. And there are other joys: surprise FaceTime calls with my siblings, our best talks always unscheduled; working headphones, because one side inevitably breaks; my little sister’s painted portrait of our cat, Nicole, that I stop to admire every now and then; the pomegranates my friend Roslyn and I share, usually around 1 a.m., and so on. There are big aspects of life to be thankful for—family, friends, education, love. But sometimes, we forget that thankfulness also exists in the day-to-day, at the pocket-size.

The Value of Addams Family Values No Plan, No Problem

BY DAVID KLEINMAN ILLUSTRATED BY ANNA SEMIZHONOVA

Ever since I was little, Grandpa has taken every opportunity to give me books. He’s exceptionally good at it, capturing every genre, every age range. One Thanksgiving, however, Grandpa hit the ball out of the park, gifting me a little-known book called Addams and Evil.

I’ve already mentioned the Addams Family a fair amount, so allow me to explain. Married couple Morticia and Gomez Addams, their daughter Wednesday, their son Pugsley, and—if you take Addams Family Values as canon—youngest son Pubert live together with Uncle Fester, Grandmama, Frankenstein’s-monster-style butler Lurch, and pet disembodied hand Thing. They’ve been the center of multiple live-action TV series, animated adaptations, books, feature films, and one surprisingly good musical—through it all, the family has exclusively worn black. Parodic inversions of suburban WASPs, they rapture in gloomy days and lament sunny ones—they’ve even been known to pour boiling oil on sieging Christmas carolers. Different adaptations have them recognizing their own oddities to varying degrees; for the most part, though, their terrifying, cobwebby, boarded-up mansion is the only world they know. From their perspective, everyone else is either weird or boring.

Treatise after treatise has been written on the power of the Addams Family as a challenge to oppressive regimes of normalization. In Addams Family Values, Wednesday proclaims an affinity for murder over compulsory heterosexuality. Even when the family is under attack, they often have nothing but respect for the daringness of their attackers. The hat I bought from The Addams Family Musical demands plainly that the reader “Define Normal,” and that’s the core tenet of all things Addams Family.

I’m a fan, but I have to admit I’ve always felt like a bit of a poser. I've never seen the original 1964 live-action series or either of the animated ones; my territory only covers the ’90s movies, the musical, and the fact that I grew up in a family that knows the theme song by heart. I was a hand-me-down Addams Family fan. I didn’t know the deep, ancient lore, like the fact that Wednesday uses a spider as a yo-yo or the multiple rearrangements of the family dynamic. I didn’t—that is, not until one Thanksgiving with my grandpa, when I opened up Addams and Evil.

Before diving in, I thought I knew what I had to know about the Addams Family: the basic gist, the canon, the family structure. That’s where the twist comes in: As I learned that day, there is no original Addams Family. They’re evolved creations; no one ever sat down and specifically created Morticia, Gomez, and the rest. The characters weren’t even given names

until 1964; even then, their last name was just their creator’s. In 1938, they began life as random New Yorker cartoons written and drawn by Charles Addams, eventually compiled into Addams and Evil in 1947.

Though unnamed, all the classic characters are in these single-panel comics. The woman who would become Morticia emulates a socialite by complaining over the phone about how busy her Friday will be: “It’s the thirteenth, you know.” Pugsley and Wednesday return from camp in pet crates. Fester cackles among sobbing theatergoers. The fundamental culture shock of their interaction with the outside world is crucial to each gag—before they had the space and time of dedicated publications, the writers of the Addams Family had to tell visual jokes with minimal dialogue. When Gomez joyfully reels in an out-of-frame but clearly massive sea creature while other beachgoers run screaming, we don’t need words to know who and what he is, how he’s different from us, and why it’s funny. With no history and no original incarnation, who has played, drawn, or directed them most faithfully is beside the point; they became the Addams Family because we made them the Addams Family.

Likewise, on Thanksgiving, my family—and perhaps the greater American family—forms and finds its shape through similarly abstract forces: cultural norms and customs. While the holiday especially is often celebrated without consideration of its origins— and, as Wednesday Addams reminds us, is built on genocide—we probably deserve to have the whole American family ideal burnt to the ground as well.

Surely the Addamses would rejoice in the backfire of tradition.

On the other hand, though, for the Addamses, family always comes first. It can be hard to feel like part of my own family; since my parents split when I was young, the side of the family I’m with has alternated every year, such that it’s difficult to get a sense of my own comprehensive canon. That might be why I end up hanging out with Grandpa, who tends to have as little sense of what’s going on in my parents’ generation as I do. But the Addams Family doesn’t need a canon.

It’s a media property stitched together from one-off jokes and visual gags featuring unnamed characters.

Addams Family Values takes a Halloween-esque family to summer camp and has them put on a Thanksgiving play of all things; nonsense is the name of the game. If the world’s most iconically off-balance family was born from even greater incoherence, surely I can revel in the presence of the people I love without needing a greater continuity as a reason to be there. How’s that for giving thanks?

Here’s how my Thanksgiving is supposed to go: One subset of the family will host, the others will drive over, and we’ll enjoy a nice midday meal. Here’s how I’m almost certain it will actually go: All drivers will leave the house 30-60 minutes late, causing lunch to be served one to two hours late, this year’s family drama will either simmer awkwardly under the surface or bubble over, and we’ll all go home exhausted and frustrated, promising ourselves next year will be better.

This level of chaos can only be matched by a sequence in a children’s movie from 1993: the Thanksgiving play scene from Addams Family Values.

The play takes place out of season at a summer camp, and young Wednesday Addams is told to perform an astonishingly racist caricature of Pocahontas. Instead, she flips the script and starts a raging fire. Her upbeat yet evil camp counselor clearly deserves to have his offensive play ruined. In his desperation to put out the literal and metaphorical fires ravaging his camp, though, it’s hard not to see echoes of my family’s own attempts to salvage the holiday: Both are spectacles as funny as they are disheartening. Often I’ll hang back and observe with my grandfather, just trying to stay out of the way. november 22, 2019 5

ARTS&CULTURE

Music Roulette

A Thanksgiving Family Ritual (With Help from Spotify)

BY GRIFFIN PLAAG ILLUSTRATED BY MADDY CHERR

Yesterday, someone tried to convince me that Thanksgiving is the worst holiday, and, well...suffice it to say that words were had. (This someone also happened to be my professor. Goodbye, participation grade.) See, I love Thanksgiving. I love that it presages the magical month leading up to Christmas (a disappointment once it arrives, but a pleasure to wait for). I love seeing my weird coterie of distant cousins come crawling out of the woodwork to eat creamed onions and brown sugar sweet potatoes.

I love having a few too many afternoon drinks in my cousin’s bedroom to prepare for the inevitably strained conversation that’ll take place at the dinner table later on. I love fielding the barbed queries from the family’s Breitbart adherents about how “things are going at”—coughs with disgust—“Brown.” I genuinely love observing this weird menagerie: my wealthy, suit-wearing cousin carefully placing gilt name cards (printed on premium ivory cardstock) at the seats of the table, my ex-restaurateur uncle presiding over the kitchen with the mien of a mob boss, my grandfather pouring all of himself (and about five sticks of butter) into a massive vat of mac and cheese.

But my favorite part of Thanksgiving has nothing to do with the always-amusing pretentions toward family unity, or even pecan pie (and that’s saying something because—and hear you me—I fucking love pecan pie). As with most experiences, my favorite part of Thanksgiving is the music. And no, it’s not that my aforementioned mob-boss uncle is bumping the latest Danny Brown while he roasts veggies (if only).

All the music on Thanksgiving happens during the long, gray, cramped car ride from Boston to the Cape with only my immediate family and the game we play on the way down: music roulette.

That kind of makes it sound like we’ve created

a kick-ass master playlist of 11 incredible songs and then thrown in one “Stand” by R.E.M., but the real crux of the activity has more to do with a wheel than a bullet. It’s pretty straightforward, really: The five of us (me, my mom, my stepdad Keith, my brother Noah, and my sister Keira) take turns requesting a song we’d like to hear, and the rest of us are obligated to listen and evaluate. You’re not allowed to skip.

Sometimes, we decide you’re not even allowed to talk while someone else’s song is playing. You’ve simply got to absorb.

There are times when these rules have been almost impossibly annoying (even more annoying than “Stand” by R.E.M.). They have it so that Keith, progressive rock super-nerd (and frequent invoker of “driver’s privilege”) gets to hear a nine-minute song by Porcupine Tree or a lesser-known cut off of Lateralus.

Then there was a dark period from about 2015 to 2018 when all seven-to-ten-year-old Keira wanted to listen to was Taylor Swift—and I actually kind of like Taylor Swift, but there are only so many times you can hear “Out of the Woods” before something snaps.

I’m pretty sure I’ve developed a Pavlovian response to the phrase; a mere mention awakens in me the nausea of being trapped in the back middle seat of an overcrowded Nissan Altima. One time Noah’s choices consisted exclusively of (currently incarcerated) shock-rapper 6ix9ine. If you’re reading this, Noah, I hope you’ve matured; I really don’t think I can handle another four minutes—four!—of “BEBE.” But these moments seem, somehow, like a fair price to pay. I suppose if I were more critical I could point out that getting control of the aux cord and forcing my entire family to listen to Deftones, or Basic Channel, or even Vampire Weekend (take my word for it when I tell you that my stepdad, an avowed metalhead who looks a little bit like a French-Canadian Varg Vikernes, cuts an amusing figure listening to “Horchata”) functions as a bit of a power trip. But I don’t think it’s so. In fact, the two most delightful parts of music roulette for me are decidedly wholesome.

The first bit is that I love showing people music that ends up being impactful to them. Back in 2016,

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Anita Sheih

“She’s responsible for what can authoritatively be called the biggest Christmas bop ever put to wax: ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You.’ This, we are all thankful for.”

- Griffin Plaag, “comeback queen” 11.30.18

FEATURE Managing Editor Sydney Lo Section Editors Sara Shapiro Erin Walden Staff Writer Anna Harvey

“Perhaps the extraordinary nature of literature lies not solely in the dialogue between the writer and the reader, but the way in which a book lives on its own, breathing and touching the lives of those who enter its radius.”

- Divya Santhanam, “a book signing” 11.29.17

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Celina Sun Section Editors Liza Edwards-Levin Michelle Liu Jasmine Ngai

I turned Noah on to the sweet stylings of John Darnielle, frontman of the Mountain Goats. Now, almost every time he sees me, we talk about his most recent discovery in their discography. I’ve taken Mom’s love of Prince and Michael Jackson and leveraged it to develop her appreciation for UGK, Kendrick, and 21 Savage. One time I forced Keith, an avowed critic of any and all post-punk, to listen to “Lucretia My Reflection” by the Sisters of Mercy.

Watching him button-mash that little Spotify heart and add it to his music library was nothing short of life-affirming. And I’ve learned that Keira has a mix on her phone called “Griffin songs,” which melts my frozen heart. More than sharing the music I love with my family, it’s receiving love in return that makes me feel fuzzy all over. Call it the holiday spirit.

The flip side of this is that I love seeing my family members do the same. I love when my hard-rocking stepdad pulls out a classical guitar composition or an Elliott Smith deep cut to share with all of us. I love when Noah, after hours upon hours trawling through the SoundCloud back catalog, finds some obscure hip-hop or house track that he thinks goes hard. I love when Mom—mild-mannered Mom who doesn’t let us swear in the house—shocks us all and starts bumping some Snoop Dogg. And more than anything (sap alert), I love watching my little sister grow up through her evolving music taste, richer and more diverse every year. We’re a long way now from Taylor Swift power hour, and watching her branch out into uncharted musical territory...well, it’s simply awesome.

I’m not sure music roulette would work for every family. If your mother appears exclusively interested in listening to Journey, it might be best to keep your ideas about family music time to yourself. But this year—perhaps my final year living in their immediate proximity—I guess I want to tell my family that I’m thankful for them, for their interests and the time they spend sharing them with me. I’m thankful for having listened to all of that 6ix9i—wait, actually, scratch that.

But all those long hours we’ve spent together in transit, getting to know each other better through our music?

I’m definitely thankful for those.

Staff Writers Kaitlan Bui Siena Capone Danielle Emerson Naomi Kim Anneliese Mair Grace Park ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Julian Towers Section Editors Nicole Fegan Griffin Plaag Staff Writers Rob Capron David Kleinman

LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Kahini Mehta

SOCIAL MEDIA Head Editor Camila Pavon

Section Editor Caitlin McCartney

Editor Paola Solano

Staff Writers Eashan Das Lauren Toneatto

HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Rémy Poisson

COPY Copy Chief Amanda Ngo

LAYOUT Co-Chiefs Amy Choi Nina Yuchi

Copy Editors Maddy McGrath Jennifer Osborne Mohima Sattar

Designers Joanne Han Steve Ju Iris Xie WEB MASTER Jeff Demanche

Want to be involved?

Email: anita_sheih@brown.edu!

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