Post- Feb. 18, 2016

t s o p UARY R B E F

E LUM O V 18-

E 14

SSU 18 - I

s i h in t

. . . e issu

p u s , s r e l i o sp p u o s and

, n o i s pres

2

upfront

Editor-in-Chief Yidi Wu Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Abby Muller Managing Editor of Features Monica Chin

contents 3 upfront

the weirdest band of today’s alt scene Aubrey Mcdonough

4 features

Managing Editor of Lifestyle Cissy Yu

roses and thorns anonymous

Managing Editor of Online Amy Andrews

5 lifestyle

Arts & Culture Editors Liz Studlick Mollie Forman Features Editors Lauren Sukin Halley McArn Lifestyle Editor Corinne Sejourne Creative Director Grace Yoon Copy Chiefs Lena Bohman Alicia DeVos Serif Sheriffs Logan Dreher Kate Webb Head Illustratrix Katie Cafaro

warming up winter Loren Dowd the suppression game Abby Muller

6 arts & culture

spoiler alert Amy Andrews with Abby Muller, Liz Studlick, and Ryan Walsh

7 arts & culture midnight in milan Chantal Marauta

8 lifestyle

top ten overheard at brown the house Lauren Sukin

editor’s note Dear readers, Valentine’s day came and went, and here at Post- we remained impervious. We wrote our impenetrable short stories, we had our round-tables, and time went on. My view is that Valentine’s Day, for the average person, tends to turn out neutral, if they’re lucky. Unless you happen to be in a deeply committed relationship in which both people enjoy being sappy together, Valentine’s Day is weathered and endured rather than anticipated and savored: You either ignore Valentine’s Day altogether or do your best to pretend that you’re successfully ignoring Valentine’s Day altogether.

You may be thinking: It makes no sense for the average person to be lucky—wouldn’t a person who is lucky no longer be average? It makes no sense for an average person to have an especially bad Valentine’s Day either—wouldn’t the average person have an average Valentine’s Day? That’s correct, reader: I was unclear about the scope of the word “average.” But more important, you’re no longer thinking about Valentine’s Day. Let’s all continue to do that, like we did in this week’s issue.

Best,

Yidi

Staff Writers Sara Al-Salem Tushar Bharjava Kalie Boyne Katherine Chavez Loren Dowd Rebecca Forman Joseph Frankel Devika Girish Gabrielle Hick Lucia Iglesias Anne-Marie Kommers Joshua Lu Caitlin Meuser Emma Murray Spencer Roth-Rose Jacyln Torres Ryan Walsh Claribel Wu Staff Illustrators Yoo Jin Shin Alice Cao Emily Reif Beverly Johnson Michelle Ng Peter Herrara Mary O’Connor Emma Marguiles Jason Hu Jenice Kim Cover Jenice Kim

From right to left: Yidi Wu ‘17, Abby Muller ‘16, Monica Chin ‘17, Cissy Yu ‘17, Amy Andrews ‘16, Liz Studlick ‘16, Mollie Forman ‘16, Lauren Sukin ‘16, Halley McArn ‘19, Corinne Sejourne ‘16, Lena Bohman ‘18, Alicia Devos ‘18, Grace Yoon ‘17.5, Logan Dreher ‘19, Ellen Taylor ‘17, Kate Webb ‘19, Katie Cafaro ‘17 (Pleaseeeee send us a photo at post.magazine.bdh@gmail.com)

upfront

3

the weirdest band of today’s alt scene (pun intended) AUBREY MCDONOUGH staff writer In December, on a rainy night in Glasgow, Scotland, clouds of fog billow across a black stage. Four men appear as dark, unmoving silhouettes. They launch into their first song of the night, a fourminute-long instrumental piece. There are no special effects other than the fog swirling around their ankles, and they don’t attempt to engage the audience.

It’s all kind of bizarre, kind of odd. But this is Alt-J, and that’s exactly what they are: not performers so much as artists.

This is “Intro” from their latest album, an introduction meant to be played first, no matter how peculiar it may seem as an opening song in a large concert hall.

So that’s what they do.

By the time I went to that concert, I was an avid fan. I’d given up trying to understand their music and learned to just appreciate it. When I first heard them, a couple years earlier, I was struck by my utter inability to understand the lyrics. I was listening to “Breezeblocks.”

What? What is this guy saying? I thought.

Maybe he was speaking a different language. Or rapping, or rather, whisperrapping. As it turns out, he was speaking English (though mumbling might be a better word), the words blurring together with an electronic keyboard in the background.

I’m just going to say it. Alt-J is weird.

Their name, for instance, comes from the Mac keyboard shortcut for the delta sign, a character which indicates the concept of change. Stylistically speaking, they’re predominantly indie rock with strong elements of electronic and folk. Their music is at once upbeat and melodic, with searing overtones that cover up an unbearable sadness.

“These are not songs that make for easy radio singles,” their American label (Canvasback Music) warned them during the creation of their second album, “This Is All Yours.” According to an article published by “Under the Radar,” Alt-J responded by writing “Left Hand Free,” which would become one of the most popular songs from that album, in 20 minutes.

The year is 2007, the place, University of Leeds. Three art geeks and their English major friend bond over Radiohead’s “In Rainbows.” A band is born.

Of course, there’s more to it, but that’s the general progression of events.

Joe Newman (guitar/lead vocals) shows Gwil Sainsbury (guitar/bass) some of his songs, and they begin recording on GarageBand. They bring in some likeminded artists, Gus Unger-Hamilton (keyboard/vocals) and Thom Greene (drums). Newman met Sainsbury and Green through art class and first met Unger-Hamilton (the lone English major) while they were doing laundry. Still, the pieces fell into place, and they sat down for their first band practice.

They started out making music in student halls, the limitations of which probably contributed to their distinct-

ly different sound. Their songs seemed maybe a little bit under-produced, a little rough around the edges, yet they were held together by scientific precision and a thematic unity that governed their composition. Rolling Stone describes listening to their music from this time as an experience that “featured jarring shifts in direction and tempo, sampled dead poets, and had oblique lyrics that referenced Maurice Sendak, prescription drugs, and ‘Alien.’” It’s hard to describe in words the stylistic oddities of AltJ, other than to say that the band not only sounds different, but also feels different. I’m trying to find a word other than “different,” but it’s not that they’re worse or better than everything else out there–it’s just that they’re not the same.

It’s refreshing.

After a few years of recording in their dorm, they released a four-track demo EP in 2011. In 2012, they released their first album, “An Awesome Wave.” (The name comes from a line in “American Psycho.”) It won the British Mercury Prize for the best album from the UK or Ireland, which in the UK and Ireland is a pretty big deal. And before they knew it, the four university boys were thrust forward into stardom.

One of my favorite hobbies is Googling Alt-J’s song lyrics, exclaiming “Oh! That’s what he’s saying,” and nevertheless feeling like I’ve gained no insight as to what the song is actually about. To really get it, you have to understand the most obscure of references. And even then, the lyrics don’t make a whole lot of sense.

To show you what I mean, this line is from “Every Other Freckle”: “Turn you inside out / and lick you like a crisp packet.” Obviously, there’s some kind of snack-food sexual metaphor going on here. You have to remember that they’re British, so they’re talking about potato chips.

Which doesn’t really help in the way of comprehension.

From “Bloodflood, Pt. II”: “Little did I know then / that the Mandela boys soon become Mandela men.”

This turns out to be a reference to the local gang from Joe Newman’s hometown of Southampton, England, who used to terrorize him.

Okay, fair enough, although there’s no way anyone not from Southampton could know about

this without the Internet.

From “Hunger of the Pine”: “Une immense espérance a traversé la terre / une immense espérance a traversé ma peur.” This translates to: “A great hope has crossed the earth, a great hope has crossed my fear.” It’s a quote from a 19th century French poet named Alfred de Musset, whom I had never heard of before. (In my defense, I am pretty undereducated in the realm of French poetry.)

Also featured in this song is a vocal sample from none other than Miley Cyrus.

That’s exactly what I mean about Alt-J being so different, because no one else could put Miley Cyrus next to French poetry and make it work.

From “Taro”: “Do not spray into eyes / I have sprayed you into my eyes.”

The whole song is apparently about Robert Capa, a war photographer who died during the First Indochina War. This lyric is about how close Capa feels to his late wife, Gerda Taro, as he lays dying after stepping on a landmine. At least, that’s what Lyric Genius tells me.

And we can’t forget “Breezeblocks.”

To this day, I still do not understand it.

When you first listen, all you can make out is the chorus, which seems to be talking about a guy who’s sad that his girlfriend is leaving him. Then, when you Google the lyrics, you uncover the more sinister reality of an abusive relationship, or something even creepier, which is initially hidden by the upbeat vibe of the song. What you thought was “I love you so” morphs into, “I’ll eat you whole.” And then, when you watch the music video, you’re just like: “What?”

(It’s really cool, by the way. Just don’t expect to understand it.) I will say that, after living in Britain for three months, the term “breezeblocks” actually means cinder blocks. So that puts the whole

song into a bit of perspective.

Okay, you get the point. The point being, there’s almost no use in close analysis of Alt-J’s music, because unless you possess encyclopedic knowledge of arcane English lit and/or feel like Googling every other lyric, it’s basically impossible. Newman’s own description of his writing process is as poetic and bizarre as many of his lyrics, as explained to the “Daily Telegraph”: “I can read a book, and find the most moving part is just a sentence. It’s like looking at a masterpiece through a straw, and then finding a tiny composition within the whole that you like more than the picture itself. That’s how I feel with music.” He recognizes the difficulty his fans have in understanding his work, adding: “Some people think my lyrics are gibberish, but that doesn’t bother me.”

Alt-J’s success is a classic underdog story about proving wrong the disbelievers, the wizened skeptics who thought they knew better than to put faith in an art-student band formed out of college.

However, for Alt-J, it was by no means a smooth ride to the top. Early in their career, a harsh review from “Pitchfork” threatened to bring a halt to their momentum. “Pitchfork” is highly influential in the indie music world, so when they called “An Awesome Wave” “overstuffed and messy,” and Newman’s singing “halfway between Macy Gray and a goose gibbering,” it was, needless to say, not good for their prospects.

And then there was the departure of Sainsbury in late 2012, just after the band had begun to enjoy widespread popularity. It became clear during their first international tour to the States that Sainsbury didn’t like the touring lifestyle. Other members describe him as

4

features

becoming reclusive: He stopped giving interviews and started spending most of his time in his room. When he eventually announced he was leaving the band, the rest of the members were panicked and angry that he would quit so soon after they had made it big. Now, they can recognize that it was a good thing that he left. His decision reminded them that despite their fame, they remain in control of both themselves and their music.

This allowed them to quickly overcome the setback and go on to create “This Is

All Yours,” which has been largely successful.

Alt-J is best described as offbeat, both music-wise and personality-wise.

They’re very laid-back, easygoing guys who’d much rather prefer to get high and watch Netflix than go out. They Tweet selfies from their fans’ phones. They’re the sort of people who will have their manager come onstage in the middle of a performance to bring Gus a glass of red wine, and Gus will then drain the glass while doing a keyboard piece that only

requires one hand.

They’re so accessible as people that you start to expect that same level of accessibility form their music. Which, to a certain extent, is true. The songs are very catchy and have attracted a lot of followers from varying demographics (my mom likes them, and as a general principle we don’t like the same music). But at the same time, if you try to understand their music, you’re sorely disappointed.

It’s just a whole other level of different.

You like them so much that you want to

understand their work, but I don’t really think you can. That’s what’s frustrating about them, but also I think that’s the point. That’s the allure of it.

Illustration by Emily Reif

roses and thorns

remembering valentine’s day

ANONYMOUS

Let me begin with the absolute worst of clichés: I hate Valentine’s Day. Freshman year, I thought my boyfriend (we’ll call him Max) was really cool. It turns out that he wasn’t (sorry), but the sort of unadulterated adoration that led to this conclusion was emblematic of the stage of infatuation we were at when Valentine’s Day rolled around. We had been together officially a scant three months, but he had just told me he loved me a few weeks earlier, and we were in the golden phase of our relationship where we had the same amount of clothing in each other’s dorms as our own.

Max wasn’t a romantic, per se, but he definitely played the guitar and had bought me flowers before. I staunchly believe that flowers are an important part of romance. But I guess that’s the Southern belle in me—repressed as she is—speaking. For the record, though, I’ll note that I am distinctly bored by musicians, and odds are good that he’s the last one I’ll ever date. But at the time, I bought into it all and I swooned when he wrote me a song and strummed a few chords.

So in retrospect it is not unsurprising that I had expected that this would be the year my Valentine’s luck would turn. Max told me he had arranged a surprise for the evening, and indeed he had: Knowing that Italian food is my favorite, he made reservations at a place on Federal Hill. The only problem was that Max forgot. At 8:00 p.m., nearly half an hour after our reservation was supposed to begin, he showed up at my dorm to reveal the surprise.

Now, this might be difficult for underclassmen to imagine, but in February of 2013, neither Uber nor Lyft had yet come to Providence. For those of you who have ever used a real taxi service in Rhode Island, first of all, I’m sorry, and also, you likely know how shockingly unreliable they can be.

As it turns out, Max had not thought about how we would make it to the reservation that we were now late for. After calling several taxi services and hearing from all of them that they were booked for the night—it was Valentine’s Day, after all—we turned to trusty RIPTA. But after 15 minutes at the bus stop,

the bus still had not come. We called the restaurant, hoping they would save the reservation long enough for us to take a lovely through-the-iceand-slush stroll, but they declined the favor. (It was Valentine’s Day, after all, and college students aren’t the exactly the optimum customers for anywhere fancy.)

When I had asked an upperclassman friend a few weeks before where I ought to go for Valentine’s Day, her only advice had been: Don’t get dinner on Thayer Street. And yet, here we were, facing the inevitable dinner on Thayer Street.

We went to Andreas. Afterwards, I went home to finish some readings. But at least we spent the rest of the night together, annoying my roommate in the process. (Sorry.) At least that year my mom sent me a teddy bear holding a little pink heart. It’s still on my bed.

Max is not.

In retrospect, I should have known to keep my expectations low. In my repertoire of other Valentine’s Days was a long series of unfortunate events. (Although I think my first boyfriend, during middle school, had done okay. I think we got each other candy.)

During my freshman year of high school Valentine’s Day was almost great—until it wasn’t. I went to a show with my crush (he was a theater kid, another category of individual whom I am unlikely to date again). During intermission, he asked me out, and afterwards we went back to his house. But mid–make out, his maid walked in on us, then threatened to tell his parents, who had apparently explicitly told him not to engage in any funny business while they were out. He was scared. I went home.

We’ll skip ahead now. But if you know me, ask my about my sophomore year of high school sometime. It’s quite the story.

But now, back to college. Since my freshman year, my Valentine’s Days haven’t particularly improved. Sophomore year I was single and sad about it—though to be fair, it was my fault, as I had broken up with Max in January.

With almost all of my other friends in relationships, and some telling me I was a fool for giving Max up, I did little but sit in my room, watching TV and feeling sorry for myself.

Last year, I was also single, and also kind of sad about it. But nevertheless, I vowed to have a good time with friends, in no small part with the goal of finally breaking my streak. And I mostly did— but hanging over my head was the fact that a few days earlier, an ex of mine had engaged me in a several-hour-long, late-night conversation about why we should get back together. I took the side of “We absolutely, definitely, should not.” The end of our relationship had gone very poorly, and the brief reassessment had not gone any better. When the holiday rolled around, it was hard not to dwell on what had gone wrong.

So this year, I took the holiday in a different direction. I decided I wouldn’t try to make something out of nothing.

Or rather, as I told some friends, only

my thesis would be my Valentine this year. And indeed, I pretty much spent all day with it.

As it turns out, that was a good decision. I ended up baking cupcakes with friends and frosting them in pink and red and hearts, and a friend even bought me a rose in my favorite color.

But perhaps it was not trying that made all the difference. It wasn’t the Valentine’s Day that I had hoped for when I was with Max, but it turned out to be a better Valentine’s Day than I had.

Maybe the holiday isn’t so bad, after all.

Illustration by Clarisse Angkasa

lifestyle

warming up winter

5

creative foods for surviving the cold weather

LOREN DOWD staff writer Providence is as unpredictable as an excited toddler when it comes to weather. We went from 60-degree weather to six inches of snow all in the first two weeks of classes, and who knows what’s in store next? As excited as I get each time snowflakes flutter from the sky and the world turns a glistening white for a few tranquil hours, New England winters chill me through my layers. But winter is also the perfect time to make a big pot of soup or cozy up in a coffee shop, because a supply of warm thoughts and comforting foods makes the season survivable, sometimes even enjoyable.

I turn to food in any and every situation, whether it be for stress relief or celebration.

When the weather has me bundled up into a human marshmallow, and it takes me twice as long to slush and slip my way to class, I seek out my favorite hot foods on College Hill to cope. What’s better than coming out of the snow or freezing rain and sitting down to a steaming cup of soup or dish of spiced curry?

A hot drink is my first go-to, and it’s probably yours as well, part of your routine order

each time you walk into a coffee shop. But extra snowy days and sleepy mornings call for a change of pace. Fall might be over, but that doesn’t mean your time to enjoy apple cider has passed. Blue State offers chaider all winter—a combination of chai and cider with subtle spices and a fruity kick. If you’re as excited as I am about the cinnamon and clove of chai teas and lattes, there’s a wide selection of choices at Tealuxe. A fun selection during winter months is their pumpkin chai tea, another great combination that’s unusual enough to break you out of your habits.

Chocolate is also a definite cure-all for cold weather and gray sky blues. If the spiciness of chai isn’t your thing, or you don’t need the caffeine kick of coffee, hot chocolate is the way to go. That’s especially true this month, as The Shop rounds out their Hot Cocoa Fest, which offers weekly flavor variations of the classic winter drink. With options like peppermint patty, dulce de leche, and raspberry, it’s an adventurous choice for recovering after a long week.

Wintertime comfort can also be found in a big bowl of soup and a piece of buttered toast.

It’s a meal that reminds me of my first and only White Christmas, at an inn in Vermont with my family. The warm beef and vegetable soup with multigrain toast we ate on our first night was a welcoming antidote to the snow piled up outside the snug living room. Stews and soups with a bit of kick are perfect when it feels like five degrees out thanks to wind chill. Blue State often has soup-of-the-day specials, ranging from hearty options like Three Bean Chili to Chicken Tortilla, which come with thick slices of toasted bread. If you’re still on meal plan,

the Turkey Chili or Chicken Noodle at the Blue Room are two of my favorites for staying warm.

Having grown up in a multicultural state with plenty of ramen, curries, and rice bowls to quell the rainy days of Hawai‘i winter, I often turn to these options in Providence as well.

With some exploration, you can find flavorful dishes to end a week of dodging falling chunks of snow and navigating slippery staircases. Just a few blocks past the south end of campus is Noodles 102, which offers a variety of Asian soups to satisfy a craving for coziness. Miso soup was a staple of my childhood sick days, and, if you’ve never tried it, I would definitely suggest a trip to this noodle house to try the simple but comforting broth. If you’re in the mood for ramen, the relatively new Ken’s Ramen is only a quick walk into downtown. Probably best saved for those snow-free but freezing cold days, these bowls of traditional Japanese noodles come piled with corn, kikurage mushrooms, bean sprouts, and a choice of pork belly or chicken. And of course, we can’t forget about the big bowls of pho they serve up at Andrews for lunch.

Your mind might not immediately think of rice in the depths of winter, but when it’s steaming, slightly crispy, and piled with spicy meat and veggies, it’s hard to pass up. Bibimbap is a Korean rice dish often made in a sizzling stone pot. It adds great texture to the rice and keeps the dish hot as you eat, making it perfect for those days when you wish winter was over already. I’ll admit that it took me two years to try the bibimbap options on College Hill, but now I’m completely sold: Den Den,

Soban, and Mama Kim’s all make solid versions. I especially love the subtle spices of the gochujang, or red chili sauce, combined with the flavorful browned meat and cooked-butcrunchy veggies.

That’s plenty of creative options for chasing away the woes of winter with a hot meal from around campus, but getting in the kitchen yourself can be a fun way to spend a snow day too. If you have a big pot and blender, butternut squash soup is tasty and satisfying as a make-ahead meal or weekend treat. It doesn’t even need to have cream or milk if you’re dairyfree. My favorite recipe uses coconut milk to get a creamy flavor.

When every sidewalk is frozen, treat yourself by finishing off a cozy winter meal—or any meal, really—with a quick mug cake. It’s like your own personal lava cake if you find the right recipe. I know that when I’m inside with a steaming bowl or mug of comfort, the cold really doesn’t bother me anyway.

Illustration by Ruth Han

the suppression game ABBY MULLER managing editor of a&c Sometime last year, a YouTuber named Ingrid Nilsen posted a video called “Something I Want You To Know (Coming Out).” I’m not much of a YouTube person, so I didn’t know anything about Ingrid going in, except that she’s a vlogger with a large audience (the “you” to whom she was coming out). At this point, though, anything with queer women in it catches my eye, so I clicked on the link. It’s a very personal twenty minutes. And, startlingly, joyously, painfully, very familiar.

I don’t have a lot of queer friends, which means I don’t have a lot of people to discuss this part of my identity with. I’ve always been annoyed that large parts of the queer Internet so often imply that queer people always find each other. Popular posts are all things like, “In middle school your friend group is all straight, and then four years later it’s the same kids but all of them are super gay except for this one very straight girl named Susan.” Pretty much all of my friends are Susan, and I spent all of high school pretending very hard that I was also Susan.

Those posts do make me think of this period around eighth or ninth grade, though. It was not long after I’d first realized I wasn’t straight, by which I mean I’d first started playing what I like to call the Suppression Game. Here are the rules: You look at a girl in one of your classes, think, “Hey, she’s really pretty,” immediately follow this thought with, “Oh, fuck,” and then come up with increasingly elaborate ways to tell yourself that this (and every crush you disallow yourself) is meaningless for four years. You get both better

reflections on the closet and worse at this game with practice: The more you build up your skill set, the more tired you get of using it. When I was about 17, I promised myself that if I still thought I wasn’t straight when I turned 22, I would admit it to myself. The number one skill in the toolbox is comfort with ridiculous levels of cognitive dissonance. Although all of this is now years in the past, I am still very good at lying to myself.

Anyway, a few months after that moment in eighth grade, a couple of my close friends from extracurriculars came out to me, and I heard through the grapevine that a few old best friends from elementary school were also out, and for that one very brief moment it seemed like everyone I knew was, in fact, gay. Which was totally fine with me, except that I was worried about what it said about me if all my past close friends were queer.

Nonsensical? Extremely. But it threatened my ability to play the Suppression Game effectively.

In eighth grade, birthday party invitations were done over email, and they had to be colorful and cute. That spring when I emailed out mine, it was done in this cheerful rainbow theme, and in the corner I wrote in very small text: “yes I’m aware rainbow=gay. but before rainbow meant gay it just meant pretty combination of colors. okay? okay.” This is pretty high on the list of things from my past that I now find beyond mortifying—I actually cringed going back into my email to find it—but it also makes me kind of sad.

So with all this in mind watching Ingrid’s video, I did the thing you should never do: I scrolled

down and read the comments. And it wasn’t the splashes of homophobic vitriol that bothered me, because I was expecting that. It was the “Why should we care?” posts. “Okay. So she’s gay. Why is this supposed to be a big deal? Fuck labels, it’s 2015.”

I am glad that we live in a world where this is not a big deal.

I was afraid that coming out (which I ultimately did the fall of my freshman year at Brown) would change everything, that it would shift how people saw me, that it would essentialize me in the eyes of others, that it would make my friends uncomfortable. That it would change everything.

Spoiler alert: It did not. Everyone was great.

Based on actual consequences, it should not have felt like a big deal at all. But it was maybe one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, and that’s why the “Who cares?” comments sting. She cares.

Clearly.

It took me four years from the time I realized I was queer to admit it to myself and then to say it out loud. And even then it was this shaky, scared thing. An “I don’t want this, but I accept it.” It took time to drop that first clause. It took a lot of time. It is firmly, firmly dropped now, but damn if that isn’t a process.

And that’s a reason the video makes me happy, too: Looking back from four years on, I am happy. I was a pretty content kid in high school, but there’s a different dimension now. That’s not to say that coming out makes everything smooth sailing forever. There are still many frustrations,

but all those aside, there is something so wonderful about being out. To not have a part of yourself that you’re afraid of. To be able to feel like your friends know you.

Over winter break, I went to see the movie “Carol.” It’s gotten a lot of critical acclaim, and it deserves the praise; it is beautiful. But from a queer standpoint, there were two ways it really got me. One: It’s just so nice—so nice—to walk into a movie and see yourself on the screen. This is a movie where women loving women is true, and real, and respected, and honest. I am so tired of love stories I relate to being told like dramas, or coming of age stories, or tragedies, or political statements. It is so rare that I get to see myself in just—a love story.

And two: I am terrified that if I lived in Carol’s world—if I had been born six decades earlier—I would never have stopped playing the Suppression Game. I would not have been as brave as the film’s characters. I wouldn’t have known how. I would have gotten so good at lying to myself that I never would have stopped.

I am so glad I am where I am, and that I’m moving forward.

The first thing Ingrid says in her video after, “I’m gay,” is, “It feels so good to say that.” It’s sad, and it’s happy, and it’s scary, and it’s the biggest relief in the world. She’s almost crying, and so am I. Illustration by Soco Fernandez Garcia

6

arts & culture

spoiler alert a conversation AMY ANDREWS WITH ABBY MULLER, LIZ STUDLICK, AND RYAN WALSH This (spoiler-free!) conversation has been edited for clarity and length. For the full conversation, go to post.browndailyherald. com.

Amy Andrews, Online managing editor: To get started, let’s go around and talk about what you think constitutes a spoiler or what your personal definition of a spoiler is.

Abby Muller, Arts and Culture managing editor: I generally think of spoilers as concrete details about where a story is going. Things about the emotional cadence of something, unless they’re about big things that you don’t know are going to happen, I don’t mind, because I don’t generally watch or consume a ton of media. So I tend to be choosier about what I’m going to spend my time with. So if I know I don’t like things that are going to terrify me, and I know that something has that going in, I’m less likely to prioritize it.

Ryan Walsh, staff writer: I think spoilers are wrapped up a lot in shock, and people really prioritize being shocked and having emotional responses to things. That’s why I think people enjoy media a lot for the plot twists and things that are revealed, and people are always chasing that first high. There’s a limited amount of experiences you can have, and so people try to preserve those. I guess that’s more like why people want to avoid spoilers but in general what a spoiler for me would probably be, I think it’s mainly related to revelation. There are probably things you can expect would happen anyway, but anything that’s out of the ordinary or that diverges from the general storyline, that you would want to save for yourself so you can preserve some shock that you’d like to feel, that’s what a spoiler means to me.

Liz Studlick, Arts and Culture editor: For me, it’s anything plot-critical in a work where the plot is kind of the point.

At this point, spoilers are much less important to me because in the things that I’m gravitating towards, the plot isn’t really the point of what I’m reading or watching, it’s more like the experience of getting there. But there are definitely things like “Game of Thrones” where almost every plot detail is a spoiler just because it’s so based on those twists and turns. So absolutely something that has that kind of shock value. But I think in some kind of emotional sense, spoilers are whatever has power over you to “spoil” work. For some people, hearing what other people consider spoilers would not even really matter that much to them. A spoiler is whatever power you give it.

AA: I am probably a little bit more extreme in terms of what I think a spoiler is, so what Abby was saying about any details about a story, I don’t want to know. But one thing I often recognize as a spoiler that I think a lot of people don’t think are spoilers is hearing someone else’s emotional reaction to something.

So if my friend is like, “You should read this book. It was so sad, I cried so much,” that primes me before I even know anything about the book going into it that I am expecting to cry, expecting to have this reaction, and that makes me read the

whole thing totally differently. Sometimes people can tell me how they feel about things, but usually if it’s a piece of media that I haven’t consumed, I don’t want to know anything about it for the longest possible amount of time.

RW: Someone did that exact same thing to me when I first picked up Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go,” and they’re like, “Oh my god, that book is so depressing, my mom cried after she read the end of that on an airplane,” and I was like, “Okay.” There are definitely not-sohappy elements of that story, but I just went into it waiting for a moment that didn’t actually happen to me and then felt as if I had missed something. But why does expectation of something ruin your experience? Why do people want to go into something blind? If the goal is to feel a certain way or feel an organic way or a certain way that is particular to you—is it just trying to chase something that’s completely original? And then if it’s in any way revealed by someone else, it’s not exactly like you 100 percent reading, you’re also getting someone else’s view.

And I wonder why that’s viewed as so bad. * AA: How do you feel about spoilers for things that you’ll never consume, like media that doesn’t appeal to you that much, or if your friends are really into something and you’re like, that’s not for me at all, or something that’s really big in the moment, and again—it’s mostly things that don’t appeal to you, or you don’t have time, or you’re talking about, don’t want to waste your time with things—in that case do you think you’re more willing to either seek out spoilers, or just kind of let them wash over you?

RW: I think some people have this experience, they’ve taken literature courses where the professor is like— AA: Oh my god.

RW: They’ll just like, casually say a detail, and then— AA: I hate that.

RW: You’re like, what, and they’re like, oh yeah sorry, I didn’t mean to spoil it.

But then it’s a different context if it’s in an academic context. The official goal of what you’re doing is to be able to write about something in an academic way and not, you know, be able to—I mean, you should be able to have both, in an ideal scenario, you should be able to emotionally enjoy a piece of literature and then also be able to engage critically with it.

But you know, a professor will be like, oh yeah, they die.

AM: I was thinking about that in class today—we’re reading “Beloved” in an English class I’m taking. I’ve been reading ahead, so in discussion today, we were s u p -posed to discuss to page 130, and I was on page 190, and, I wanted to talk about these things that I literally couldn’t remember if they happen past where we were supposed to be discussing. I don’t know if it counts as a spoiler because I can’t remember what has been revealed.

I also don’t want to make a point based on something that no one else has gotten to yet or will have a response to, because that’s just a waste of everyone’s time.

RW: You also hold this power though, over other people.

Because you have the ability to make a really shocking or insightful claim that other people have no ability to… make some claim, because they don’t know that information yet.

AM: That’s true. When I was like 14, my sister and my three cousins and I were on a family trip together over the summer. Everyone had finished Harry Potter except my youngest cousin who was nine or 10, because his mom was still reading him the books. We were told explicitly by our parents that we weren’t allowed to spoil him for the ending. So we took turns coming up with endings for Harry Potter which we told him were real, and trying to see how long we could have him sold on them for. The one we thought was funniest was that at the end Mrs. Weasley stabs Voldemort with a butter knife and that’s how he dies.

RW: I love fake spoilers. I told my friend going into the first Hunger Games movie—it was a bunch of us and him and he’d never read the book and we were like, yeah, you know, Jennifer Lawrence’s character, she just straight up dies five minutes in. And he was like, what? That doesn’t make any sense. There are two other movies. And we were like, that’s how it works.

LS: That’s something I want to happen, I am so into stories that completely subvert—I mean obviously then the power of the spoiler is so huge there, but I always want work that does that kind of thing.

AM: When I was younger, I would check a ton of books out from the library and just read all of them, and I also reread my favorites all the time. And if I was reading one, and had more in the stack to get to and just wasn’t liking it that much—you’re going to hate this.

AA: I am. I can already tell. I’m going to hate whatever you’re about to say.

AM: I haven’t done this since I was like 10. I would open the book to like a random part later in the book and read a couple pages to see if it got better.

AA: Nooooo.

AM: And if I was like, eh, I like where this is going— RW: I have a friend who reads the last page of a book right when she buys it.

AA: That makes my skin crawl.

AM: —I wouldn’t do the last page. I would do later in the book. I didn’t want to know how it ended, just where it was going.

AA: Sometimes when I read books I put my hand over the right page so I can’t accidentally look at it before I get there.

RW: Oh, so you don’t catch like three words at the end of a paragraph.

AA: Yeah. Because I’ve done that. Especially if it’s like the last page of a chapter. And you’re like, oh, blah blah blah died, and I’m like, well, I don’t want to know that yet! I have to read three more paragraphs!

RW: Sometimes you see that one line of dialogue—it’s interesting how typography draws your eye to things and can spoil something. You can literally spoil something for yourself just because you’re optically attracted to something.

AA: My eyes move too fast. They got ahead of me and I can’t—I mean, I guess I can control my eyes, but sometimes they betray me! So I have to use my hand to help me out there.

Let’s quickly touch on a couple other things. This is a fairly common spoiler question, there are these kinds of people and these kinds of people. Do you believe in reading the book before you watch the movie?

RW: I think generally people feel that way, but I’m super pleased with the fact that I saw “Gone Girl” before I read it. A lot of people feel that way because they think the movie is more shocking than the book. It speeds up the pace, it makes it more suspenseful. I don’t think I have a definitive answer, but in that isolated case, I do appreciate the fact that I watched the movie before I read the book.

LS: I think there’s some way in which books are usually better than movies, in terms of they have more detail and they can have a lot more power in some ways or just go into things better, but I really don’t like reading the book before I see the movie for that reason. The movie’s just not gonna live up to that.

AM: I’ll read the book first if I can, like if I’ve seen a trailer and I have time and I’m anticipating going to see the movie, I will read the book first. But I don’t not see a movie just because I haven’t read the book yet. Like if I’m planning on reading the book, then I’ll try to delay seeing the movie. But if someone’s like “Hey, let’s go see this thing,” I’m not gonna not see it.

RW: Also, thinking about it, spoilers must also differ with gender. It’d be probably much harder to spoil Laura Ingalls Wilder for me than it would be for, you know, a 10-year-old girl. That’s really pushed hard in schools and by your peers.

Also, the expectation in middle school where if you would see a boy holding the Twilight series, it was considered embarrassing. So it’d be much easier to avoid spoilers for “Twilight” if you were male than if you were female.

AA: There’s an episode of—I don’t know if you guys watch “Friends”— there’s an episode of “Friends” where Joey and Rachel are each reading books and they trade them, so Joey reads “Little Women” and Rachel reads “The Shining,” and then they get mad at each other because Joey is like, not purposefully, but really obnoxiously spoiling “The Shining” for Rachel, and then she comes back at him with like, the biggest big-spoiler thing that happens in “Little Women,” I don’t know if you guys have all read— anyway, there’s a thing that happens.

arts & culture AM: Mrs. Weasley kills Voldemort.

AA: Yeah! With a butter knife. Yeah, so she just like comes back at him with this thing and he’s so devastated because he, in his extremely macho life, has never heard this spoiler, never would have heard it, and he’s just so devastated that she has to tell him that she made it up.

Even though it’s real, and he’s gonna find out when he gets to that part in the book that it actually was a real spoiler.

But I do think that gender thing is a really interesting question, because there definitely is different media being coded for different groups of people, and then,

the people who talk about certain kinds of media, and who you follow on different media, that’s a really interesting point that I hadn’t thought about.

Do you think there’s a statue of limitations on spoilers?

AM: I think it depends more on popularity of the media than on time, like if it’s something almost no one has read, no one is gonna spoil you for it. But like, with Harry Potter, I feel like people pretty universally feel like we’re past the statute of limitations. Almost everyone has read Harry Potter and if you haven’t yet—

LS: —then you’re a child.

AM: —why not? Harry Potter is something that was so omnipresent that I feel like the statute of limitations like, collapsed, whereas we’re sitting here avoiding spoiling Little Women, even though that’s something that came out a long time ago, because it has an enduring popularity but not the same kind of overwhelming popularity. Same thing with “Star Wars.” People started spoiling that a couple weeks in.

LS: The classic line is literally like the biggest spoiler of— RW: And you hear toddlers saying

7

that phrase into a fan so they can sound like Darth Vader, and it’s like, you already know the spoiler without even knowing that it’s a spoiler. Some things get ingrained into culture—that was the biggest spoiler of the ‘80s. And now even if you say, like, how everyone used to say “you ruined ‘Star Wars’” because everyone has been taught that since they were a baby.

Illustration by Stephanie Zhou

midnight in milan an appreciative tour of a timeless city CHANTAL MARAUTA staff writer When people think of Milan, they usually think of shopping, the gothic Duomo di Milano cathedral at the city’s center, and then more shopping. Milan is a city famous for its impeccable style and lauded for its timeless beauty that attracts countless tourists every year. In this increasingly commercialized, technology-oriented age, tourists jump from designer store to designer store, reveling in the excitement of the sales season and taking selfie after selfie in front of the colossal marble church structure, or along the cobblestoned streets of Monte Napoleone (Milan’s premier fashion high street). As a person born and (mostly) bred in Milan, I can attest to the fact that shopping and taking pictures to show off how “cultured” and “worldly” we are can be fun to a certain extent. I, too, have been guilty of posting “candid” pictures of myself on the Duomo’s rooftop, with some cliché caption of how much I love and enjoy my city. But this winter break, I wondered: had I really been enjoying my city in its entirety? Or was my obsession with retail and artsy photographs distracting me from appreciating the history and majesty of a city that lived through wars and revolutions?

Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell To Arms” follows the life of American Lieutenant Frederic Henry as he works as an ambulance driver for the Italian army during the First World War. In the story, Henry becomes injured at the Italian front and is taken to a hospital in Milan to recover. As I read the book this winter break, I observed Henry’s awe for the majesty of the city, which became a safe haven for the protagonist amidst the turmoil of the war. Certain events in the book were inspired by Hemingway’s own experience as a soldier at the Italian front. Reading the novel while vacationing in Milan, I realized that an American author who spent a couple of years in and out of Milan at the beginning of the 20th century knew, in some ways, more about my city than I did. Had I ever stopped to admire the city’s architecture in all of its grandeur? The Duomo’s marble walls had survived bombs and catapults throughout the Second World War; the cobblestoned pedestrian streets remained intact despite the city’s increased modernization; and the walls of

traditional trattorie (eateries) on the outskirts of the city held pictures of families from decades ago who cooked homemade meals to welcome soldiers and travelers to their bustling city. Taking a step away from the ever-glamorous yet completely commercial likes of La Rinascente, Milan’s renowned department store, I realized just how much this city had to offer.

I decided to follow Henry’s path in “A Farewell To Arms,” which took me from the Duomo di Milano itself to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, and then onwards past La Scala opera house to ancient housing structures previously inhabited by Milan’s wealthy. Though these are typical tourist spots that I’d been to many times, this time I looked at these places through Henry’s eyes. Pulling my attention away from shops like Prada and Luisa Spagnoli, I turned instead to the glass-vaulted arcades that sheltered the masonry buildings decorated with beautiful yet simple frescoes. Built between 1865 and 1877, the Galleria was a never-before-seen architectural undertaking, and I wondered about how difficult it must have been to construct such a structure without the use of modern-day technologies that we take for granted. At the Galleria’s opening, did an 18-yearold girl in a long petticoat-filled dress stand in my same spot and look up at this structure in awe?

I walked along the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, enjoying the golden glow of the Sun shining through the arcade, until I got to Piazza della Scala, the opera house, on the other side. I imagined getting onto a horse-driven carriage, like Lt. Henry did, and trotting off down the deserted stone streets. The angry, honking cars and throngs of selfie-stick-bearing tourists disappeared, and in their place appeared rickety carriages and people in early 20th century clothing. I drowned out shouts of “Photo! Photo!”

and “Bus Tour!” and as I looked at La Scala I imagined 19th century theatergoers in their grand clothing, looking for an escape from Italy’s political mess and the trials of everyday life. How did they feel when the opera house shut down in 1914 with the onset of the war, and the world seemed to be set ablaze? The battle fronts were very close to home, especially for Northern Italians, and life as they knew it was put on hold so that public industries could go towards the war effort. Nurses and ambulances replaced wealthy women and carriages on the cobblestoned streets, and I wondered just how much death and heartbreak the city’s quiet walls had seen.

Walking into the olden churches, including Santa Maria delle Grazie, I wound my mind back hundreds of years. Instead of following a fast-talking, stress-inducing tour guide with a thick accent, I tried to imagine the Milanese in the 17th and 18th centuries padding quietly along the stone floors in an attempt to find peace in Italy’s hub of industrialization. The cold, cracked walls held secrets of friars, dukes, and nuns from centuries ago, and the fading paint on religious structures and frescoes made me think of all the people who had admired these objects before me, and who

were long cold in their graves. Just the thought of it all made me feel so small, an insignificant speck in the history of a timeless city. It was an intense yet incredible experience to comb through the metropolis and try to pick up the secrets and stories that centuries of Milanese people left behind.

So if you ever visit my wonderful city, why don’t you try a more spiritual form of tourism? Of course, shopping for a day is a must, but Milan has a whole other historical dimension to it that isn’t obvious at an initial, superficial glance. The ghosts of generations of Milanese surround you, eager to show you the place they called home and to tell you their stories—if you’ll listen to them.

Illustration by Mary O’Connor

8

lifestyle

I now pay a roving chess instructor to come to my house and teach my kid how to be more of a dork.

Also, the reality is just that we die.

I’m going to In-N-Out Burger for my anniversary. My wife is not.

Separate anniversaries work well for us.

You guys know Idris Elba? WELL, he’s single! And now he wants to be a folk singer!

“Did you know Kendall Jenner has almost 50 million followers on Instagram?” “My mom follows me on Instagram.

I love you, and I want to stand on top of a very small mountain and shout it out.

“You mean the Battle of Soviet Massachusetts?”

Time to have sex with lonely people! (re: Valentine’s Day)

hot post time machine Does this mean sex is out of the picture? I don’t want to wait much longer! Is there a way to make sure his brain doesn’t get too jostled in bed? bad sex -03/12/2013

topten dangerous things to be aware of 1. tripping down the stairs in front of people 2. broken alarm clocks 3. over-hydrating 4. Uber surges 5. axe murderers 6. sliding on slippery sidewalks slick with snow 7. losing your phone when it’s dead 8. angry bears 9. losing your glasses because how do you find your glassses? we don’t know either 10. the housing lottery

the house

a short story

LARUEN SUKIN features section editor 1.

It was almost dark beyond the walls of the living room, and we were sitting there together: the small plant that was growing bigger inside my veins and you and myself. There were only seventeen people at the New Year’s party, but I couldn’t remember who among them had invited us. The little plant just kept chugging and I held a wine glass between my thumb and my forefinger like a card at the end of a magic trick. The plant sighed. Yeah, we met in college, a girl told me and looked at you. I thought he was brilliant because he could quote just about any philosopher you’ve ever heard of. Ain’t that something, I replied.

Turns out they’re all just tidbits from Calvin and Hobbes. But yeah. We’re really happy together. The plant wrapped its tendrils around my liver, squeezed.

Looks flitted between ex-lovers, one girl tottered on her heels, had to sit on the couch while her wine wore off.

I asked her what her name was. Does it matter? she said. I guess not, I said.

I admired the grandfather clock. I admired the silk painting. I poked at hors d’oeuvres with a toothpick. The plant stayed quiet; it was bedtime; it was sleeping. The nervous host dropped a plate of sweet potatoes on someone’s toes. I helped because I had nothing else to do. I took the remnants of the glass tray back to the kitchen and licked the edges.

Every New Year’s Eve, I have trouble sleeping. I knew I would probably stay up all night. I would probably stay up all year. I’d make pancakes in the morning.

I’d buy myself a good book, a new pair of sunglasses. The clock drifted on, and the plant shivered. It had lost almost all of its leaves. It looked like a shaved poodle. It looked pitiful. I thought about putting it down. I thought about buying it a coat. It sulked, and its roots grasped for something in my lungs to hold on to.

What’s your resolution? you asked

me, when midnight had come and gone.

Your tongue is bleeding, you said, after the obligatory kiss. Did I bite it?

2.

I knew that I could not undo this mistake. I had pulled the flesh already off the bones, checked that it had turned the correct color of pink before I would squeeze lemon over the remnants of its body and wonder whether it had ever had friends, or if it was capable of such a thing, anyway. I had already slid the knife against the grain of its scales, before I tossed the fish in the trashcan and opened up the refrigerator.

The mistake was really that he had sent me only photographs of the house in the first place, since a picture does not accurately represent how rooms can feel like quiet, grumbling giants, and empty bookshelves can wonder whether the inhabitants that swirl around them have ever learned anything at all except how to cook salmon and watch television and leave sticky notes on the front door with messages like “umbrella & thumbtacks” or “Stewarts coming at 7.”

On Mondays we played dominos.

Our daughter wasn’t old enough that we could tell her not to cheat, but her father would rearrange the game back to fairness when she would get up to refill her glass of milk or look out the window or ask again where her goldfish had gone.

Mommy, can fish become ghosts? she said one night. Yes, said her father, that’s why you shouldn’t waste water when you brush your teeth. Otherwise the fish will haunt you. Later, when I tucked her into bed, I whispered that fish couldn’t really become ghosts. Daddy had just been joking. Later, when I tucked myself into bed, I crossed my fingers and hoped that the ghost of the salmon wasn’t haunting my bathtub. If it had been, though, I would have been okay with it.

3.

I have nightmares. One is about an antelope on the dining room table. I draw it furiously, night after night, for

fear it will disappear. One is about the water in my shower turning to oil. I blame it on the salt. Restaurants these days. In one, all the houses are balsa wood. All the townsfolk taste like cardboard; they all own paper pets with ribbons around the necks. In another, F.T. Marinetti steals all my good pairs of socks. Norman Mailer brings all but one back.

When I am not sleeping, I am contemplating writing a novel. It would be about a woman in a cutting room, working with bits of time instead of film. She weaves stories as she likes. In another, a lifeguard drowns with the final thought: Of all the bad habits in the world, my girl had to bite her fingernails. She goes under without a struggle. The third is little more than stock market advice, all of it gathered from overheard conversations in the elevators of hospitals. Anyone is an expert these days.

4.

My mother told me there were only three things to look out for: people who think everybody is important, people who are actually important, and the kind of people who would believe that you are important. Then she gave me a glass of lemonade, and we looked up at the sun together, our lips pursed. The weather sure is nice, I said. Yup, she replied. And that’s just about all you need to know about that.

Nowadays I think her advice was often more self-indulgent than it was helpful, but I sure learned how to cut grass and bake snickerdoodles, paint my lips and the rest of a house, fall in love and get something out of it. Now I possess a small repertoire of potable skills, of which bringing things upon myself is only one. That’s what she said to me, too, when the sun stopped shining and the whole marriage was over. You brought this upon yourself.

Illustration by Ruth Han