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upfront
Editor-in-Chief Yidi Wu Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Abby Muller Managing Editor of Features Monica Chin Managing Editor of Lifestyle Cissy Yu Managing Editor of Online Amy Andrews Arts & Culture Editors Liz Studlick Mollie Forman Features Editors Lauren Sukin Halley McArn Lifestyle Editor Claire Sapan Corinne Sejourne Creative Director Grace Yoon Copy Chiefs Lena Bohman Alicia DeVos Serif Sheriffs Logan Dreher Kate Webb Head Illustratrix Katie Cafaro
contents 3 upfront to freeze a moment Monica Chin
4 features the suspended season Kimberly Meilun
5 lifestyle how to lose weight in 10 easy steps Anna Hundert ola/bonjour/nihao/ciao Chantal Marauta
6 arts & culture dada knows best Ryan Walsh the superhero bubble Spencer Roth-Rose
7 arts & culture the little book of mindfulness Claribel Wu
8 lifestyle top ten overheard at brown the g-word Loren Dowd
editor’s note Dear Readers, I dislike pretentious editor’s notes. The line between thought-provoking and innovative and deliberately obscure is a thin one. Of course, some people pull off deliberately obscure. And when I start spending more time on my editor’s notes, I may decide to venture a bit more off the deep end. In the meantime, I’ll stick to simple, homely topics. This week, I want to talk about our boxedwine ritual. The Brown Daily Herald supplies us with a generous two pizzas from Nice Slice every Wednesday night, but we ourselves shell out money for our liquor. Sometimes we get fancy and pay for a box of Woodchuck cider (variety pack), but our staple has been a box of wine for as long as I’ve been a part of Post-. Our current box is the Vella White Zinfandel (with flavors of strawberries and watermelon). Abby got it because she wanted a sweet wine that wasn’t white, and because we have gotten it before. And if we have gotten it before, that’s the start of a tradition!
Best,
Yidi
Staff Writers Sara Al-Salem Tushar Bhargava Katherine Chavez Loren Dowd Rebecca Forman Joseph Frankel Devika Girish Gabrielle Hick Lucia Iglesias Anne-Marie Kommers Joshua Lu Ameer Malik Aubrey McDonough 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 Margulies Jason Hu Jenice Kim Cover Peter Herrara
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, Corinne Sejourne ‘16, Lena Bohman ‘18, Alicia DeVos ‘18, Logan Dreher ‘19, Ellen Taylor ‘16, Kate Webb ‘19, Katie Cafaro ‘17 (Please send us a photo at post.magazine.bdh@gmail.com)
upfront
3
to freeze a moment on various loves
MONICA CHIN managing editor of features twenty He’s a friend, and nothing more. We cohabitate a shabby dorm room. We eat greasy Chinese takeout and watch television until 3 or 4 a.m., when we get ready for bed while goading each other for not having done any homework. In the morning, we insult each other from across the room until one of us gets up the energy to haul themself out into the world. Our love is the love of siblings, low-stakes and low-maintenance. It’s 2:30 a.m. on a Saturday, and we’re sitting on the couch listening to a Dan Harmon podcast. He laughs at a funny part, and I shove his shoulder, and he punches my thigh, and we squabble for a bit, and then rewind the podcast to hear the part we missed. Dan Harmon is interviewing a 20-something woman who is unhappy with the way her life has gone. Here’s an exercise for you, he says. I want you to close your eyes and picture your 10-year-old self in your childhood bedroom. I want you to visualize yourself, as an adult, walking into that room. What would you say to your 10-year-old self? The podcast ends shortly thereafter, and we close the computer and get ready for bed. We say a crass goodnight and turn off the lights. In the darkness, Dan Harmon’s words come back to me. My 10-year-old self, sitting on her bed. What would I say to her? The thing about my 10-year-old self is that she’s convinced that nobody will ever love her. She’s never had a friend in the world. I feel myself beginning to cry. I attempt to muffle the sniffles at first, but it’s clearly a lost cause.
You okay? asks his voice, emanating hesitantly from the darkness. I hear him roll out of bed, feel a sudden warmth as he sits lightly next to me. What’s wrong? he whispers, running a hand across my back. Our relationship isn’t one where I tell him things like how lonely my 10-yearold self was. Instead, I wrap my arms around him and hold him, praying that maybe it will be enough to keep him from leaving me. nineteen My first time was with a man whose name I don’t remember. My friend is taking an impromptu trip to Boston to see his high school sweetheart, who he is no longer dating, but still has sex with on a regular basis. You could come with me, and I could try to find someone for you to hook up with, he ventures. I say sure, and he sends some texts. He gets me laid in 25 minutes. Two hours later, I’m naked on the floor of a closet in the basement of a fraternity, and a slender body is pressed against mine. Oh God, an unfamiliar voice was shouting. Oh yes. Oh, fuck, yes. This is very hot and very loud, I remember thinking. He eventually cums, which I know from the sudden cessation of the yelling, and a heavy sigh of contentment indicating that the world is going according to plan. We say a brief goodbye, and he deposits me on the sidewalk. It’s 1:30 a.m., and I have no idea where I am. I silently scour every corner of my body for an emotion to feel, and find nothing. I pick a direction and walk.
I meet my roommate later, at the residence of the woman he’s just fucked. As I wait in the doorway for him to gather his things, she glares at me like I’ve just interrupted her wedding. He kisses her goodbye, and her face lights up the air around them, and I feel the first emotion I’ve felt all night—a deep, desperate sadness from the center of the universe. eighteen I fell in love my freshman year. He was tall and handsome, blessed with a youthful sort of hubris that is very good at sweeping 18-year-old women off their feet. Our relationship was every kind of dysfunctional. It’s 2:30 a.m., and I’m sitting in my room with the lights off and staring at the wall, because we had another fight a few hours earlier. I don’t remember now what it was about. It could have been a number of things—we had more fights than I care to remember. I bristle as I hear my door open and close, and inhale sharply as he stands over my bed, looking down at me with that soft glow that only a face like his can have. I’m sorry, he whispers. It hangs in the air. I know we will fight again, and I know I will cry and the tears will rampage like a rapid through every vein in my body and empty me of all emotions but longing for him. I’m sorry too. A few minutes later we are lying in bed, and I can feel every breath he takes. His chest slides gently in and out of the cavities of mine. With each breath I can feel his wrinkled feet, and his skin that smells like a warm beach in California, and his mouth that tastes vaguely of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and I love him. I love every molecule of him. I love him the way I love sunsets in the summer, and guitar songs punctuated by laughter when we’ve stopped caring about the chords, and poems that make my heart flutter and my skin prickle with every metaphor. I love him the way I love crinkled bedsheets and warm pillows and soft silence. His leg brushes against mine, and his eyelashes flutter and tickle the tip of my chin, and we both laugh softly. I run my index finger along his spine, absentmindedly, like a traveler meandering his way through a countryside in the spring. That tickles, he whispers, and I draw back. Sorry. It’s fine. I know that he will leave. I know this because everyone leaves, because all I have been taught in the years that have formed me is that people will leave, and it will hurt, and I will claw at my chest to try to pull out the memory of him and it will never, ever work. But in the darkest hours of the morning, I am counting his heartbeats, and we are the only ones in the world. And I want to stay here with him. I want to stay here because he plays the piano the same way he talks, deliberately, beautifully, weaving complex patterns with every syllable, because he laughs at the same parts of movies that I do and nobody else does and because at this moment in the grand expanse
of everything, I can hold him forever. I can hold him as the sun explodes and the universe collapses in on itself and I can roll closer to his side of the pillow as Ragnarok rages around us and he is the only thing I can see. We are lying in bed, and in my last few seconds of consciousness I try as hard as I can to freeze this moment in my mind. I love him so much. seventeen My first kiss hurt. I’m cutting a bagel with a dull kitchen knife when I feel scraggly, bare arms press gently against mine. Cold, clammy palms grasp both of my wrists. I stop cutting the bagel and freeze. I become acutely aware of the radio outside the kitchen, which is playing, of all things, an Elton John classic. Can you feel the love tonight? I can hear it musing through the walls. The peace the evening brings? His shadow is cold. Want to go somewhere? he whispers gutturally, as if going somewhere were his deepest and most primordial desire. My body is frozen, while my emotions quiver like a tiny child in a corner. No, I stammer. He leans in and kisses me anyway. I focus hard on the taste of his mouth—Mentos gum, with an undertone of cigarettes. We will kiss again, several days later, a real kiss with tongue and touching and a park bench in the rain and everything that’s supposed to accompany a teenage romance. One day he will leave, after a screaming match that left my voice in shreds and bruises down both of my arms. I spend the rest of that night sitting at my desk, staring blankly out the window, that same song echoing through my head. Can you feel the love tonight? You needn’t look too far. twenty-one I don’t think I can love the way I used to anymore. My love is no longer raw. It doesn’t consume everything I do—it is no longer an addiction, an obsession. It is polite, and it knocks before entering. Maybe through all the ups and downs and tosses and turns, something inside me has died. Or maybe I’ve grown up. My current love is a new kind of love. He’s a four-hour drive away, and I don’t have a car, but we make it work. Like me he’s still learning how to love; like me, he is still figuring out what it means to feel deeply for another. At the intersection of two roads full of bumps and twists and turns, we are learning together. Sometimes, if I haven’t seen him for a week or two, I try to remember his face. I know he has oval glasses and tousled curly hair. I remember his deep, smoothly lilting voice, and his nose that slants slightly to the left. But sometimes, someone asks me if he has freckles, are his eyes green or brown, and as I struggle to remember I can feel the miles between us pressing on me from all sides. This love is a growing and healing love. I end up scanning his Facebook pictures to solidify his face in my mind, he
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features
plays a game of chess, he gives a speech from a podium, I Skype him to let myself soak in his voice. Let me soak you in, I tell him, let me listen to you breathe. Let me keep watching for the green dot next to your name so maybe one day I can watch your hair grow. For now, here is everything I have. ten My loves are collages of blurry photographs with jagged edges and coffee cup stains; they breathe in coughs and rasps. I still do not know what it means to love the way they do in movies, with smiles and laughs—I have been drawn kicking and screaming into love, and buried in it head to foot. There is so much about it I will never understand. But there are some things I now
know to be true. Most of all I have learned to love myself. What I know of love is that it is more important to love oneself than it is to love anyone else in the world and I would never let my 10-year-old self forget that. I would tell her that neither of us will ever know why things are the way they are, any more than physicists know why the planets and stars are in their places. I would tell her that she will never quite understand why people stop loving, no matter how many therapists she will pay to explain it to her. She will never stop losing them, the people she loves with every atom of her being. But she will find people who love her moles and zits and nooks and crannies and everything she holds within. Wait, I would
say. Aren’t you excited to prove them all wrong? Aren’t you excited to love, love deeply, love beautifully? I would hold her for hours, until every ounce of salt water was flushed from her body, and I know there would be a lot. I would hold her until the sun came up and the world looked a thousand times brighter. Before I left, I would make her a promise. I would promise to keep loving her until the day she dies. I would make this promise in dozens, hundreds, thousands of ways, however many it would take for her to believe me. For example: I would tell her that I love her more than I’ve ever loved and will ever love anyone else in the world. She is beautiful in the way she believes in the truth, the way she holds it like an
heirloom and wears it like a locket. For example: I would tell her she will love the last person she loves harder and faster and stronger than anyone has ever been loved before, but listen to me closely, I would say, you will never love him as much as I love you. I want you to take my voice and record it on your phone and never stop listening to it, never stop living it, even as you cross the stage in a high school cap and gown, even as you move into and out of the university of your dreams, even as every step of the way the ones you try to love drum into your head that you will never, ever be good enough, never stop loving me back. Illustration by Jenice Kim
the suspended season a tribute to winter KIMBERLY MEILUN staff writer We are on the brink of spring; the promise of snow days and snow-ins are past, fulfilled promises. Our mittens, hats, and scarves progressively retreat toward the back of our closets, developing embryonic dust bunnies. We unveil our shorts and tanks from the recesses of our drawers, exposing their fibers to our overhead, fluorescent lights. As we rejoice about the return of lost daylight hours, I lament winter’s passing. * I was born on February 3 in the midst of a snowstorm. I came home from the hospital bundled in pink blankets that restricted my mobility and suffocated my infantile arms. My brown eyes poked out of the soft cloth that enveloped my body. As a snowstorm baby, I have an appreciation for winter. I saw snowflakes and snowdrifts
before I saw sun and grass. I saw white before I saw green, and I will always be a baby of a white winterland. Growing up in a suburban, marine town in Rhode Island, I colored in the snow with food dye before I put crayons to stark white paper. I saw the ocean remain relentless in the cold, refusing to stop moving though the snowed-in town stood at a standstill. * Though winter becomes less inviting as we grow older—the shoveling, the defrosting of our car windshields before driving to work in the early morning, the windy, whipped walk from place to place—winter gives more than it takes from us. Winter reminds us to let others into our homes and into our lives. We hold doors, gateways to spaces erupting with warm air, open to
those behind us. * Winter drives us into our homes to reconnect with our family. Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year, and Valentine’s Day are holidays rooted in tradition and community. These holidays anchor us in time and in place. They are points of return that remind us who and what truly matters. Winter is about warmth. The process of gathering around warmth or in warmth reconnects us. On Christmas Eve in my Unitarian Universalist church, each member of the congregation holds a candle and we collectively sing “Silent Night.” We see everyone’s light, as we feel another person’s warmth when we huddle and cuddle and gather and hold fast against the wind, our
hands clenched and locked with the hands of those beside us. Simultaneously, winter permits us to slow down and be alone. We brace the stampede of storm-shoppers and raid the grocery stores for Entenmann’s donuts and hot chocolate, preparing to hibernate for a night, a day, or a season. We submerge ourselves in our bedding, watch an oldie, a goodie, or a comedy, and spend time with ourselves. Winter gives us a free pass to recharge. * Under a snowdrift of blankets, curled up against the cavities of each other’s bodies, two people rediscover one another. Millions of snowflakes hit the pane, unaware that a sheet of transparent glass will intercept their descent. The snowflakes strike the window like a baby’s cough hits your hand. Within the snowy atmosphere that surrounds the house that supports the room, we create a hot air pocket with our breath and fill the void between our lips with warm words. * In the darkness of winter, we make our own lights. We sprinkle lights into our bushes, light private candles, and put electric candles in our windows so no one gets lost in the storm. Like lighthouses, our lights call us back home and back to one another. We remember that we are sources of light and we do not need permission to shine our light. The light can last for eight days when it was supposed to last for one. * Our sweaters, puffy jackets, fluffy socks, pom-pom hats, and encapsulated, wool hands are barriers that protect us when we feel like we need protection. Under layers of winter clothing skin, I hide my unshowered body and I feel hugged when there is no one to hug me. Winter clothing gives us womb-like resiliency. We are untouchable and impenetrable under the safety of our bulky sweaters that create a mobile home, like a turtle shell, around our bodies. * Part of the sacredness of winter is its transiency. We gradually shed our winter skin and feel the relief that accompanies the natural molting of seasons. We open our windows and feel the hybrid winter and spring, old and new, air. In this suspension of atmosphere, of season, of time, we are equal parts retrospective, hopeful, and anticipatory. Coldness nurtured and prepared us for warmth; it reminded us what true warmness is. Illustration by Emily Reif
lifestyle
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how to lose weight in 10 easy steps meditations on measurement
ANNA HUNDERT contributing writer 00. This is apparently how counting starts. I don’t make the rules. Maybe the “double zero” jean size was invented because negative numbers on tags might tell women that we can or should take up negative space in the universe, which is to say that instead of displacing air with our bodies, we can or should create more empty space with our presence. 0. This is how I might measure my body: The space that I occupy in the universe is really just a certain volume, you see. When I walk into a room, my body displaces a number of cubic centimeters of air, and that air goes elsewhere because my body is there, my body is here. This is my place in the universe, and we cannot manage to achieve negative sizes. I am not sure if this idea troubles me, but it occurs to me every time I see the 00 and 0 at the top of a stack of jeans, the idea of occupying a negative amount of space in the universe. Women have always had a complicated relationship with our own empty spaces. 2. In second grade science class we each had to step onto a scale, record our weights, and then step onto a different scale that showed us what our weight would be on Mars. I knew that this second scale probably just did a quick calculation, but when I looked down at that generously small number, I felt a little smaller, a little lighter, and a little more beautiful. It is logistically difficult to skip meals as a second grader, but certainly possible. 4. After fourth grade, I graduated to a school where we were granted much more
freedom during lunchtime. You didn’t even have to be in the cafeteria. You could sit in the library for the whole 25 minutes, and nobody would notice. Which is to say that I could sit in the library for the whole 25 minutes, and nobody would notice. There is a certain comfort in using the second person to write about such things. But this is my story, not yours. 6. In sixth grade “swim gym”—which was the affectionate term for the two weeks when gym class took place at the pool but not necessarily in the pool—we all had to line up on the benches in our swimsuits and have our weights measured and recorded by the gym teacher. I cannot remember the reason he gave to justify this ritual, but I can remember sitting on those benches and looking down at my thighs and noticing how they flattened out more widely on the bench than the other girls’ thighs and hating the gym teacher and hating myself. 8. If you weigh yourself after you’ve just eaten a meal, you’ll regret it. Either skip the weighing or skip the meal. Some people say that skipping a meal must take incredible willpower, but for some people it takes much more willpower to avoid eye contact with the nutrition facts on a box of crackers. This is not about nutrition. You will learn that counting calories does not start at double zero. 10. There is something magical about women because once we grow to a certain size, once we occupy a certain amount of space, it is as if we aren’t there at all. There are numbers
in this list above 10, but you cannot see them because they are invisible. 8. Recovering from an eating disorder is a combination of gaining and losing control. It is more of a practice of restraint than indulgence, which sounds counterintuitive, but trust me. Try to smile politely at those people who comment on how good you look, but do not thank them. 6. Recovery will remind you every day that you are not fully recovered. Sometimes occupying the right amount of space in conversations is a lot more difficult than occupying the right amount of physical space. This comparison is troubling, but you try to see your social anxiety as separate from your eating disorder. It is not. 4. You will begin to wonder whether you are the same person you were before, because of course there is less person here now, fewer units of person, fewer cubic centimeters of You are there to displace the air from a room. You will imagine the new empty spaces around your thighs and waist, spaces where there once was body and now there is nothing. 2. It is difficult for me to write about recovery in the first person, but I am trying. I know very little about losing weight, but I know even less about what it really means to call myself beautiful or to actually believe it. I will leave that to the experts. Writing in the
first person seems less real, and I cannot give you a good reason for that. Maybe it’s because there is no jean size “one”—you go straight from two to zero, straight from second person to no person at all. There is no first person. 0. I try to appreciate zeros for their beautifully rounded edges instead of defining them by the empty spaces they carry. This helps. 00. I have come to appreciate roundness in many forms, and I have come to love the round parts of my body more than I once did, the way my round waist curves forward and gives way to my round belly, my round breasts, and those mounds of flesh that hang down from the tops of my arms when I spread them out to fly. Everything still jiggles when I shake, even after all that I have lost. Illustration by Emma Marguiles
ola/bonjour/nihao/ciao we hail from another planet
CHANTEL MARAUTA staff writer A week before the campus eateries officially open and the majority of the incoming freshman population swarms Brown’s campus for orientation, a smaller group of just under 300 students walks onto this same unnaturally quiet site. They hail from over 60 different countries and speak a myriad of languages—in fact, most are bi- and even tri-lingual. They form groups with their fellow international students, bonding while overeating American pizza and complaining about the lines at the Ratty (the only cafeteria open before official freshman orientation). Making new friends with people who come from completely different cultures isn’t out of the norm for kids who grew up hopping between international schools, and strangely enough, this new, slightly scary country begins to feel a little bit like home. Until the arrival of the rest of the freshman population. As an international student, I have befriended many local students who have been baffled by my rather American accent and mixed features. I’m a Eurasian and don’t quite look Caucasian or Oriental, so people find it incredibly amusing to guess which country I’m from. “Are you Latina? From Brazil, maybe?” “Oh, are you of Native American descent?” “You must be Mexican!” When I inevitably tell them my life story (Italian-Filipino, grew up in Dubai, etc.), I am greeted with the ever-classic “Wow, your English is amazing!” It is okay that international students get asked all these questions—our life stories are interesting, and it’s nice to get a fresh perspective on a travel-
filled lifestyle we take for granted. At the same time, though, it can be hard for us international students to relate to our new friends from across the pond. While it takes some people a couple of hours on a car, train, or low-budget airline to get home, we have to plan our lengthy plane journeys home months in advance, often paying hefty fees for tickets. Furthermore, it’s hard to remain in constant contact with our families and friends back home, as time differences mean that when we’re wide awake and ready to talk after a long day at school, they’re either halfway through a work day or snoring in their slumber. Instead of being able to gradually let go of the incredible, fast-paced lives we left behind, that cord is completely cut as soon as we jump off the plane and step onto U.S. ground. Hello, New World. Unless international kids are from partly American families, or American families that traveled abroad for business, the first thing that hits them is the culture shock. The different kind of humor, the sarcasm, the over-friendliness (and sass) of employees at supermarkets and restaurants, and the smiles from strangers on the street. Not to mention the completely different dating scene—who knew that “We should get coffee sometime” was code for “Would you like to go on a date with me?” Back home, getting an espresso at a bar was part of our daily routine, and going with another person after classes or work was completely standard. So please, don’t assume that I want you just because I agreed to go pick up a beverage with you, thank you very much. And do not even get me started on the confusing
world that is online dating. (What is the Tinder? The Bumble? I’m so confused!) One of the most difficult things to get used to when communicating with Americans is the inches, ounces, degrees Fahrenheit ordeal. A current international freshman, Tina Wang, lamented: “Americans complain that it’s ‘so cold’ outside because it’s 30 degrees. Honey, if it were 30 degrees outside, I’d be wearing flip flops and shorts!” Similarly, when it’s -5 degrees Celsius, we international kids claim that the glacial temperature is “in the negatives,” which shocks and confuses Americans because -5 degrees Celsius is 23 degrees Fahrenheit. Consequently, we are greeted with “No, it can’t possibly be in the negatives!” and sometimes even an “Oh, stop exaggerating!” complete with an eye roll. In addition to measurements, there’s the complicated coin system that drives many of us insane. These little cultural differences easily pop up in conversation, and any miniscule slip up (“Which one is the dime? The nickel?”) results in a sympathetic look or a conversation about where exactly it is we’re from. After numerous conversations like these, I wonder whether “an international” is all I am to people in this new country. An ambiguous-looking foreigner with an American accent who can’t name the states in the Midwest and who doesn’t think that a five-hour flight is long at all. It annoyed me that even after almost five months of being here, I was still being introduced to people as the “international friend” and getting quizzed about whether I rode a camel to school in Dubai or whether my house flooded in the 2013 Ty-
phoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Would it ever stop? A current international junior chuckled at my question, and told me that as time goes by, international students feel less and less like fish out of water. Accents tend to progressively sound less foreign, and even if they don’t, internationals get used to communicating with American units—inches, ounces, and Fahrenheit become part of our vocabulary. Though we’re far from home, we live the fantasies of many of our compatriots by attending an elite American university and getting the full “college experience.” We get to live the “American Dream,” but we also have the privilege of knowing a whole other culture and lifestyle that has inevitably made us who we are. So even though the first few months on campus bring up repetitive conversations filled with well-intentioned ignorance, it gets better. After all, we do have a lot in common with our fellow students—we’re all young, possibly lost, and trying to figure out our lives. All of us (with the exception of those who went to boarding school) moved away from home for the first time, and the shock of building our own tight daily schedules was universally experienced. The chaos of lecture classes, the foreign-sounding building names, and the inevitably long cafeteria lines were all something we had to get used to, and even after a semester and a quarter, our journey as newbies is far from over. But the world is our oyster, is it not? Illustration by Mithra Krishnan
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arts & culture
dada knows best
art’s most daring movement
RYAN WALSH staff writer On February 2, 1916, now just more than a century ago, a curious announcement bubbled up in the Zurich press. It read: “The Cabaret Voltaire. Under this name a group of young artists and writers has formed with the object of becoming a center for artistic entertainment. In principle, the Cabaret will be run by artists, permanent guests, who, following their daily reunions, will give musical or literary performances. Young Zurich artists, of all tendencies, are invited to join us with suggestions and proposals.” It was there, at the Cabaret Voltaire, within the confines of a quaint Zurich café and at the invitation of German poet and playwright Hugo Ball, that a colorful harem of Cubists, Surrealists, and Fauvists swarmed and set up camp. Hungry for thrilling and at times terrifying new modes of expression, they were attempting to redirect the trajectory of art, to launch the movement that today we call modern art. Among the faithful who made the pilgrimage to this holy site were anarchist André Breton and wacky painter-sculptor-competitive-chess-player, Marcel Duchamp—the guy famous for his 1917 urinal exhibit. There was Guillaume Apollinaire, too, poet-extraordinaire and staunch defender of Cubism with his live-wire painterly Italian friends, Filippo Marinetti and Umberto Boccioni. And then there were the Germans. There are nightmarish surrealist Max Ernst and Paul Klee, a colleague of Wassily Kandinsky and a Bauhaus School disciple whose “Notebooks” covering modern art are often compared to Da Vinci’s “Treatise on Painting” with regard to their impact on contemporary art. And of course there is Hugo Ball, the poster of that curious Zurich notice and also Catholic philosopher/sociologist-turned-rebel. You know, all those naughty freaks of the early 20th century who ran around the continent killing off “proper art” and replacing it with junk and nonsense. They were painters, poets, and sculptors. Dancers, too. Musicians, photographers, actors, playwrights. Professors and students. All turned up together in neutral Switzerland during the first years of the Great War, yearning to inject modernity into art at a time when the rest of the world seemed ready to rip itself apart. Though of different professed creeds, the rebellious crew eventually coalesced to form a distinct group and movement that came to be called Dada, a French term meaning “hobbyhorse” that Ball apparently selected at random from a FrenchGerman dictionary. These Dadaists wished to push art to the very limits of perception, evolving (or perhaps devolving) ever more profoundly towards the abstract and the conceptual.
Their aim was revolution. And like the great revolutionaries of history past, these artists proliferated their ideas with fiery manifestos. In July 1916, Ball read his enigmatic Dada Manifesto aloud to cabaret-goers, which, apart from spewing apparently senseless collections of onomatopoeia, preaches: “How does one become famous? By saying dada.” Elsewhere, sections of Marinetti’s Futurist tracts were reproduced in the 1916 issue of the Cabaret’s print journal. Bound between freakish photomontages and experimental poetry, Marinetti’s charged treatise on “The Destruction of Syntax” outlined some of the aims and demands of the new vision for language—a semantic system he considered now defunct and which he wished to replace with “pictorial dynamism,” “antigraceful music,” and an “art of noises.” For, at this crowded Zurich nightclub, art was alive. It was a living process or experiment. Art had to be ahead of its time, not behind it. It had to be avant-garde, anti-art. It had to appeal not only to the eye, but to all of the senses. In fact, for art to be true art, it had to distort the senses, intercept them, “derange” them even, as Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud put it. Purity of art lay not in skill or material, but in the mind and in the idea. So it was that the Cabaret clan resolved to create pure art, art that need not be able to be touched, heard, or seen, hence Ball’s garbled mutterings during his manifesto reading. Although considered vanguards and visionaries among themselves, to the rest of the world they were deviants. Miscreants. Sloppy rebels and hacks, according to established artists. Buyers dismissed them as troublemaking toddlers not fit for galleries or auctions. Critics wrote them off, portraying them as scammers pulling off a global hoax. Faking art. They were no-good, wackjob wannabes posing as enlightened masters and misunderstood messiahs. As the 1910s progressed and as Dada invaded America via the 1913 Armory Show, the group became even more boisterous. They started to think of art no longer as aesthetic in nature, but rather strategic. They aimed not to please their public, but to divide it. To yank the minds of their audience by whatever means necessary. They thrived off negative criticism, sprouting like hydra heads with every cutting comment and review, and lucky for them they were certainly never short on criticism. Hardly a day went past across the West without angry letters-to-theeditor about Dada appearing in Le Figaro, The Times, or the Chicago Tribune. Even President Theodore Roosevelt took to the press, writing in a
letter to Outlook magazine in 1913, stating that he did not “in the least accept the view that these men take.” Duchamp suffered particularly harsh criticism with some condemning his “Nude Descending a Staircase” as “an explosion in a shingle factory,” an “orderly heap of broken violins,” and an “academic painting of an artichoke.” Despite the incessant and worldwide invective hurled at it, Duchamp’s infamous fractured painting of a female figure climbing down steps now hangs shoulder-to-shoulder with Renaissance masterpieces as one of the most prized pieces in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection. Today, I believe, is no different. Art critics have not learned from their mistakes. They continue picking apart modern art not realizing that the works are ticking time bombs, set to detonate decades or perhaps even centuries after their creation. And we are the same. “You call this art?” we say, grumbling over the price of museum admission. “My kid could paint this,” says a dad thumbing through e-mails on a Blackberry. “I just can’t appreciate modern art,” says your grandma. “Where’s Rembrandt? Vermeer? Van Gogh?” “I have to see the Mona Lisa.” Now, I am by no means saying that these famous paintings and movements are boring. Quite the opposite, actually. “The Night Watch” is stunning, the “Mona Lisa” unparalleled. I can understand the rapturous love of Van Gogh’s hypnotic landscapes, and who is not transfixed by the “Girl with the Pearl Earring”? These masterpieces are impressive and everlasting symbols that have endured centuries and inspired legions. I am not here to disgrace or disown them. However, when we sit down to consider our own time—the new, the now—why do so many still expect the work of the old masters? Still today, when presented with a Rothko or a Matisse, many respond with unthinking skepticism. Just bulging boxes and formless blobs. Modern art, we scoff, nothing like the “Mona Lisa,” nothing like David’s “Napoléon Crossing the Alps.” New art is bad because new art is different. We think the fakers are playing a trick on us, passing off trash as treasure. Apollinaire decries this supposed hoax as “so extraordinary as to be miraculous.” A Cubist coup? A Surrealist siege? An Impressionist insurrection? A collective assault from artists across all corners of the globe conspiring to con the public? Well, maybe. However, I tend to think Apol-
the superhero bubble marvel’s prophecies of doom SPENCER ROTH-ROSE staff writer Marvel has a machine. Three of the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time were produced by Marvel. Every Marvel film except one (2008’s forgettable “The Incredible Hulk”) has grossed over half a billion dollars worldwide. They’ve even bred continuity, forming a franchise of films known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that are linked by characters and story arcs in a way previously only seen in TV shows or comic books themselves. And the
bottom line? People go to see these movies. The reasons are clear. The movies themselves are almost always quite good and remarkably consistent in tone. The studio has crafted a brand of popcorn movie with equal parts action, special effects, and humor, in which the heroes launch projectiles at the enemy with the same skill as they launch witty barbs at each other. The films feature some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, whom Marvel wooed with the
linaire is right here. Regardless, what I am saying is that, at the very least, I agree with the Dada notion that new art should be of the now. Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” was alive once, but now she is dead. She was art for as long as her public did not recognize her likeness. But now, she is buried at the Louvre, that bustling mass grave where millions pay their respects to the faithful departed with souvenir raids and selfies. We can honor her, remember her, love her even, but we must realize that she is gone. And that’s how it should be, for today’s Mona Lisa, the portrait our forbears will crowd around centuries from now, should not look like the old Mona Lisa. Today is a different day, governed by new masters, and our Mona Lisa should take on our own likeness, whatever form that may take. Those new masters are here among us. Right now. There’s Jeff Koons, American sculptor famous for his metallic spheres and balloon animals. Ai Weiwei with his tragic pottery experiments and political Lego statements. Marina Abramovitch and Tilda Swinton are always doing something interesting at the MoMA. It is hard to say where Jayden and Willow Smith might fit into all this, but it is undeniable that performers like Madonna and Lady Gaga, masters of the “art of fame,” have revolutionized the way we view and consume pop culture. And with the 2015 release of Kim Kardashian’s widely popular book of selfies, “Selfish,” we are forced to confront the fact that the way modern (wo)man interacts with art is constantly in flux. Because you see, there is a reason why Pablo Picasso, at first ridiculed, sits pretty in the Met alongside Botticelli and Velázquez. There is a reason why he serves as the possible inspiration for Kanye West’s newest art-minded album, “The Life of Pablo.” There’s a reason why your kid could paint like Picasso and why “screw-ups” and “screw-balls” like him end up becoming famous. There is a reason we reject art before we love art. Because artists know what they are doing, and we, quite frankly, do not. Not yet. Illustration by Soco Fernndez-Garcia
arts & culture promise of highly visible roles throughout the ensuing decade. Crisp special effects and an emphasis on visuals have made them equally successful overseas, especially in the growing market of China. And never underestimate the power of fanboys—Marvel has excelled in converting its target audience’s love of comic book culture into ticket sales. But for all the enjoyable product the studio puts out, the party’s got to end. There is a superhero bubble. I believe this model cannot exist forever, or at least not keep raking in the unprecedented wads of cash it has been. Its audience, despite what box office numbers will tell you, is becoming jaded to a type of constant escalation perfected and perpetuated by Marvel. This is due to a few reasons. First, since Marvel’s films all take place in the MCU, there is endless overlap between movies. This is narratively and logistically unsustainable, with even Joss Whedon, the man credited with Marvel’s success, calling the films more “juggling act” than storytelling. Every Avengers movie is, in essence, a crossover event. We’ve seen characters from one movie team up with characters from another to find the villains from a third, setting up an eventual climactic battle with the
Big Bad from six movies in the future. Every film is simply setting up the next one. (And with release dates planned until at least 2019, this dynamic could keep expanding upon itself indefinitely.) But it won’t. I believe audiences will no longer fall for the trick of sitting through a whole movie just for the Easter egg at the very end. Marvel actively encourages this kind of speculation, this fascination with what’s about to come. During just about every credit reel, they’ve included bonus teaser footage hinting at the next movie: not just a highlight reel of action or a funny line or two, but rather a taste of something larger. When Nick Fury mentioned the “Avengers Initiative” during the credits of the first MCU film (2008’s “Iron Man”), he was referencing a movie that would come four years later and include characters from three other movies that would be released in the interim. Secondly, while the pool of ideas from which to draw is virtually limitless, due to the sheer number of superheroes that have ever been thought up, the appeal and name recognition of the lesser superheroes is much lower than the heavyweights. All of the big guns have their own movies already. This saturation has resulted in more and more obscure superheroes
being handed their own feature films. (Maybe I’m underestimating the amount of people who’d pay to see Benedict Cumberbatch in spandex, but c’mon, was anyone clamoring for a Doctor Strange movie?) Another side effect of this is that “superteams” such as the Avengers and DC’s MCUimitation “Justice League” (2017) are becoming the new normal. The returns on a single superhero are diminishing. So the question remains: How many superheroes can you cram into one movie? Joe Russo, the co-director of the next Avengers movie, has said it could feature as many as 67 characters. They’re already feeling the heat—apparently, no one’s excited by a superhero movie anymore. Marvel is acting as if audiences demand that a superhero convention, a superhero Oscars, take place before their eyes in order for them to cough up $10. Third, Marvel has been cultivating a fascination with end times. It makes sense, really. Stakes need to be raised constantly. There’s only so many times you can watch a city or a country in danger before wondering, well, gee, what would happen if it was the entire world at risk, or an entire galaxy? If these trends are any indication, it seems that Marvel believes that its audience is growing desensitized to anything with
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less at stake than the fate of the entire universe. Just look at the next entries in two of their most successful franchises-within-a-franchise: “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Avengers: Infinity War.” The next subtitle might as well be “Apocalypse.” Oh wait. This May will see the release of the next installment of non-MCU Marvel property X-Men, the delightfully subtle “X-Men: Apocalypse.” Where can it go from here? What could possibly be more high-stakes than the literal end of the world? Eventually we’re going to have to see Thanos, the super-evil bad guy who’s been causing all the drama so far—but after the Avengers defeat him, then what? How can they possibly keep up the same tension, the same fanboy thirst that has driven them to the apex of Hollywood? Marvel has gone so far and committed itself so fully to this model of cash-grabbing that I have a hard time seeing it continuing indefinitely. As Stephen Spielberg said in 2013, “cycles” such as superhero movies have a “finite time in popular culture.” The only question is when the bubble will pop. Illustration by Michlle Ng
the little book of mindfulness a guide to redefining what it means to live
CLARIBEL WU staff writer What, you might ask, is mindfulness? My friend gave me “The Little Book of Mindfulness,” by Dr. Patrizia Collard, as a Christmas gift. This petite book introduces the concept of living mindfully in a simple, relatable way. Collard gives readers various mental and physical exercises that only take about five or ten minutes to do, accompanied by the soothing artistic illustrations of Abi Read. It can be difficult to find time for yourself in the midst of midterm season. I’m so used to maximizing every minute of the day that I feel obligated to spend my free time productively too. I mention productivity in the context of occupying my mind or my hands, like when I go on my phone and scroll through Facebook or feed my virtual cats on Neko Atsume. This need for busyness is a symptom of living in a quick-paced society that values industriousness over anything else. Mindfulness has been cited as a form of legitimate therapy, recommended by the Department of Health and the National Institute of Clinical Excellence. It can be used to treat anxiety, stress, burnout, trauma, chronic pain, some forms of cancer, psoriasis, eating disorders, addiction, and OCD. Aside from these ailments, an individual already at peace with their life can still benefit enormously from meditating and living presently. A big part of mindfulness is slowing down, savoring and indulging in the wonders of life. This must be done without judgment. In a way, it is a return to an idyllic childhood, a place where time and guilt took less precedence in our life. For each section of the book, I’ll include a brief overview of a few exercises, along with the philosophy behind them. As you read along, feel free to practice them yourself. The first section is titled ‘Being in the Now,’ and Collard describes this as experiencing life rather than just getting through it. Below is one of the exercises in this section.
“Tune In” (5 minutes): Sit down, close or soft-focus your eyes, and notice the sounds around you without labelling them. If your mind wanders, gently return your awareness to the simple act of listening. Collard introduces this exercise with the goal of creating an anchor of awareness that can remind us to stay present rather than enter into a state of worrying or panic. By listening neutrally, we utilize our right (feeling) brain rather than our left (thinking) brain. Our stress and unhappiness often stems from over-thinking certain things in our life. Just like an overheated computer, our minds need a break, an opportunity to r e c h a r g e and recalibrate. The second section, ‘Accept and Respond,’ emphasizes the importance of engaging the mind and the body as a way of returning to a sense of equanimity. It seems easier to push our resentments deep down to a place where they are temporarily out of sight. This is like pushing a piece of wood underwater—for a while, it disappears, but eventually it has to surface again. This potentially helpful visualization exercise emphasizes firstly the acceptance of a problematic emotion, such as anger, and secondly a mindful response. This methodology allows for a confrontation and conversation with your own demons in a healthy and apparent way. “Talk to Anger and Let It Go” (10+ minutes): Find a place of comfort and relax your facial muscles. Mentally visualize your anger, and move toward it. Speak to it and understand it by saying things like, “Let me experience you. I am an observer, and a listener. I will not react as I would have in the past.” Focus on your breathing and ‘dance’ with your anger. Observe the presence of that discomfort and recognize that it is transient. Continue, until you feel the right moment has arrived. Mindfulness emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and acceptance of what we find out about ourselves. I love that Collard includes this exercise, because it shows that
this philosophy does not provide an unrealistic or naively-optimistic outlook on life. Mindfulness guides our interpretation and response to different and often difficult experiences in a healthier way. Section 3, ‘Making Your Mind Up,’ touches upon the topic of busyness that I mentioned earlier. Collard states, “when we procrastinate and distract ourselves with ‘busyness,’ we avoid engaging with the real thing—our lives.” Isn’t it interesting to think of life as our actual occupation, rather than all the other things we often prioritize instead? Like any job, living is not always easy. It is hard, undoubtedly, and it is unjustly hard on many. Mindfulness is not a trend that belongs exclusively to the privileged, like so many other up-and-coming lifestyle fads. Mindfulness is a universal and nondiscriminatory tool that can be applied in so many forms, because each person differs in experience and therefore differs in their definition of ‘living in the present.’ “Check Your Breathing” (5 minutes): Breath is the energy of life. A good indication of your emotional state is the measure of your breathing. If you are stressed or agitated, you may encounter shallow or labored breathing. Explore your breathing patterns, and be mindful of the air that enters and escapes your body. Let your breath spread to every part of your body, through your fingers and toes. Then, check in with yourself again, and see if you are at a place of contentment and peace. The other sections explore even more ways to reconnect with the true essence of existence, but these few exercises are a good way to ease into the practice of mindfulness. It is something that is personal to each individual. Once again, remember to try to be present without judgment, especially toward yourself. Life really is a strange thing, when you think about it. Think back to your younger self, about how you saw the world with all that childish curiosity. Or, maybe you didn’t
have the opportunity to have that idyllic childhood. Maybe your childhood was characterized by emotional trauma that affects you even now, and the concept of living presently is something you never had the luxury of experiencing. Those most separated from this ability to surrender to the sensations and joys of life are the ones most in need of mindfulness. You, as you are in this very moment, have the ability to either return again to or discover for the first time the purity of those fascinations. Five to ten minutes of your day could be all it takes to renew your outlook on life and truly live once again. Don’t forget why you are here, and what is important. It will take a while to deconstruct the aversion to idleness that so many of us have developed, but it is so valuable to be able to just exist, and to appreciate that. When you eat, do you think about what processes brought your food to your plate? Do you truly savour the textures, the smells? When you see a building, do you ever wonder about the creativity that produced it, the hard work that built it? Life is all around us, yet it is so easy to live mindlessly rather than mindfully. “The Little Book of Mindfulness” is an effective and digestible introduction to the topic, but there is no rubric to mindfulness. It is ultimately up to you. Illustration by Clarisse Angkasa
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lifestyle
I’ve never had a good eggplant in my life. I’m a professor. I’m not big time anything. A big time consumer of psychological assistance, maybe. I may not be able to produce brilliance in a short period of time, but at least I can produce copious amounts of mediocrity. I had a moment in high school where I was like “look at all these drowning men!” Did you guys know the word bed looked like a bed? It’s a party when there’s outdoor meat, right? My mom thought people were wishing her happy birthday by saying “Happy 420” until she was 40.
hot post time machine
My Ratty experience is somewhere between a kind-hearted romantic comedy and movie where Justin Timberlake gets involved with the wrong crowd and can’t find his way out of a drug ring. food glorious food -09/18/2013
topten best days 1. yesterday (first sunny day!) 2. ice cube’s good day (January 20, 1992) 3. Jim and Pam’s wedding 4. April 20 (#420blazeit) 5. any day before May 29 6. March 26 (Make Up Your Own Holiday Day) 7. payday 8. April 25 (not too hot, not too cold. all you need is a light jacket) 9. judgment day 10. March 24 (National Chocolate Covered Raisins Days)
the g-word stepping into the future then and now LOREN DOWD staff writer “It’s a huge affair: almost three hours long, we sang at least four different songs. Oh, and we had a flash mob,” I said a few weeks ago, explaining my high school graduation to a friend as we trudged up College Hill. She raised her eyebrows. “Really?” I nodded and continued to explain what a huge deal graduations in Hawai‘i are, often involving lots of singing and frenzied lei ceremonies. At my high school, it was even more of a production. Girls all wore the same white tailored mu‘umu‘u—a traditional Hawaiian dress— and heels, every boy wore the same custom suit, and throughout the ceremony we blew up a crazy number of inflatables to throw in the air. My friend’s surprised reaction reminded me that my experience was special and privileged, and that there is a reason pangs of nostalgia hit when I think about that night. Now that high school is distant enough for me to fondly look back on the fun times and forget about the awkward experiences, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about those last moments of high school. I’ve been so focused on the now and the future that the big occasions of the past have faded to journal entries and photos that pop up through Facebook’s “On This Day” feature. Now, once again, I find myself a senior, facing graduating from a place I’ve loved for four years. And discussing that impending doom—the g-word, or whatever you want to call it—with my friend brought me back to that moment four years ago. I had no idea what to expect when I posed with my high school diploma and walked off the stage into the next part of my life, trying to focus on the cheers and clapping from family and friends in the audience. I remember the waterfall of feelings that hit the day after, once the adrenaline that had kept me going through the ceremony, lei-giving, and postgrad party had worn off. It was all over. The community that I’d grown in since middle school was going to disassemble, and I wasn’t ready to let go. “It’s not like your high school friends are going to fall off the face of the Earth as soon as you graduate and go to college,” my friend’s
older sister told me. I knew that, but that wasn’t the big problem. I feared moving on and leaving, because I was never going to get any of it back. “What’s past is past” is a good mantra in some respects, but it was also what hit the hardest upon graduation. I wanted to hold onto the past because I was afraid of forgetting the smiles of my classmates as we held hands and sang “Hawai‘i Aloha” at our last Holokū pageant. I didn’t want to forget the ease of hanging out with my friends at our picnic bench between classes. Having made it three and a half years since that apprehension began, I know that it is possible to move on without completely forgetting and letting go of the important people and places. When I arrived in Providence for my first year, I had already begun to move on, away from the attachment I had to the traditions, comforts, and friends of high school. I’ve only continued to go forward. Now, I can watch the video of my high school class doing a surprise flash mob to “We Are Young” by Fun or look at the photos of my friends and me beaming in our long white gowns, necks piled high with lei, without that aching homesickness I once felt. All the same, it’s hard to know I’m about to move on once again. In the time between that graduation and this upcoming one, I’ve stepped into many new things: my freshman dorm, challenging classes, a different country for a semester, my first off-campus apartment, my first internship, a real job interview. No matter how many times I enter new territory, the uncertainty about what comes next always lingers. I’m a worrier, and I know that uncertainty will be there when I step off the stage in Sayles Hall, receiving my diploma for four years at a place I think of as home. But this time, I’ll have the knowledge that I’ve done it before. So now, on the threshold of the challenges and excitement of “real” adulthood, I have a vague idea of what to expect. Hopefully, that’s enough to get me through the emotional whirlwind of walking through the Van Wickle Gates on May 29. We’re all avoiding saying the g-word; any-
time it comes up within my circle of friends, someone is quick to make a face and change the subject. And I’m sure most seniors—high school or college—have similar feelings about avoiding the concept. We’re like the wizarding community of Harry Potter, afraid to say the name of You-Know-Who and acknowledge his presence. But, as appealing as it is to live in this space of denial about the future, content with enjoying friends, off-campus living, and the emerging spring, I’m going to force myself to think about it, if only for the sake of slowly coming to terms with it. It’s like Dumbledore’s theory about saying “Lord Voldemort”: “Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” If we’re censoring ourselves in terms of graduation, we’ll only build up a greater apprehension about what lies ahead in a few short months. No matter how much preparation I have, how secure my immediate future is, or how surrounded by friends and family I am, nothing will make me fully comfortable with graduating from Brown. I know even my friends who have voiced how ready they are to be done have some anxiety about our release into the “real world”—who wouldn’t? And, by now, I know this is normal. So perhaps I should face the end of May with excitement rather than dread. If there’s anything my past self can teach me, it’s that enjoying these last few months might make the parting a little harder, but it will also make the memories deeper. It’s hard to come to terms with the idea that a few years from now, we’ll all have moved on, but (as cheesy as this sounds) it won’t be as bad as it seems. Illustration by Liz Strudlick