In This Issue 4
Olivia Cohen
3
Liza Kolbasov
JOYCE GAO
2
A Life Well Lived
Stitched in Ink
Happy Little Sounds of ASMR 6
MALENA COLON
JOSEPH SUDDLESON 5
Optimism, Hedonism, and Hair
Kill the Hero ethan pan
Spring Forward 7
postCover by John Gendron
MAR 18
VOL 29
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ISSUE 5
FEATURE
Happy Little Sounds of ASMR finding community in strange sensations, objects, and sounds By JOYCE GAO Illustrated by JOHN GENDRON
As a child, I loved having my friends explain math to me. It was never really about the content, but rather about how the pen traced geometric shapes and scribbled equations, how my friend would look up from time to time to ask if I understood. I liked to focus on the tip of the pen leaving a trace of ink, the light dent it created as it passed by, and the sound of it skillfully scraping against the paper—that sound, especially that sound. It sent hundreds of little shivers down my back in a deeply relaxing way. None of the math registered in my head, but I discovered an understanding of something else: a weird but pleasant sensation that people were just starting to put into words.
Turns out, while I was still asking friends in elementary school to teach me math, people on the internet were starting to discuss similar strange, pleasant sensations under a post titled “WEIRD SENSATION FEEL GOOD”. Many said they feel a tingly sensation that travels from the back of their head and down the spine when they hear or see certain things, like whispering, paper crinkling, or hair brushing. The discussion soon led to short videos on YouTube, like the now-iconic whispering videos by WhisperingLife ASMR and SoothingWhisper. From their voices—exuding calmness in spite of the rasping of the microphone—the phenomenon of ASMR was born.
I formally discovered ASMR from a short video on Instagram: a strange clip of a pair of slender hands gently tapping on a wooden surface. Slowly, one finger dropped after another, each polished fingernail landing on the wood to create a firm, slightly muffled sound. In the mesmerizing rhythm of tapping, the same relaxing feeling ran down my spine as the ones I had felt watching a friend explain math. Under the video, a short blurb explained that this is ASMR, short for “autonomous sensory meridian response.” One video led to another, Instagram led to YouTube, and soon I was watching videos of ASMRtists—which I learned to be the official name for
Letter from the Editor
“Oops”es
Dear Readers, Maybe it's finally becoming something close to spring? Brown has removed the mask mandate and now, for better or for worse, I know what people’s faces look like! I also know that I’ve started putting together my Spring 2022 playlist, which is always a sign of something. Earlier this week people were eating outside on the green. Crocuses and snowdrops are out. I have left my house without a coat on more than one occasion. And each morning I am woken up by birds, a slightly different kind of ASMR than the kind that our Feature writer has gotten into. Just like the seasons, we here at post- are transforming. The editors are switching out their wardrobes for something lighter while in Narrative one writer is giving their skin a new look with their first tattoo. Another writer is mourning their faithful family car. Out with the old and in with the new. But maybe everything here fits too well into a narrative of changing seasons. In A&C, a writer argues that we fit our lives too firmly into narratives. We need to break free from the mold. Another writer argues that the narratives of the ‘80s can teach us something.
Instead of breaking free, we need to learn from our fathers’ stories. And if all of this is too contradictory and puzzling, try this week’s Lifestyle: a crossword. So if any of these pieces strike your fantasy, maybe take your laptop outside and read it in the newly fresh, newly warm air. Out with the old, in with the new. Out with the cold, in with the blue.
1. L-oop holes 2. Oops, I Did It Again 3. “Oops… I ran into you and dropped all my books haha!” *tucks hair behind ear* 4. Boobps 5. Alley oop 6. And i -oop 7. Froot l-oops
Kissing spring on the mouth (with tongue),
Emma Schneider A&C Managing Editor
8. The bigger the h-oops… 9. “Boop-oop-a-doop” - Betty Boop 10. Gr-oop projects
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FEATURE ASMR content creators —whispering into microphones, brushing hair, tapping on all sorts of objects, playing with foam and slime, and interacting with the camera as a reliable caretaker. I read stories of strangers who felt a similar pleasurable feeling, called “tingles,” in their childhood. These anecdotes included things like having their hair braided, listening to their family doctor scribble on a notepad, watching Bob Ross in The Joy of Painting, or listening to the crinkles of unraveling old parchment. I learned that although “autonomous sensory meridian response” sounds scientific, little research has been done on this sensation. So far, researchers have confirmed that ASMR does elicit a relaxing physiological response in people who claim to experience it, but the why and how is still up to debate. No one truly understands these euphoric sensations, but maybe its mystery added to its attraction, bringing people from around the world into this strange, unique community. Over a few years’ time, ASMR videos attracted many viewers who went down a similar rabbit hole as I did. The videos became more creative and elaborately planned, and more niche subdivisions, like horror ASMR, began to emerge. More recently, the concept of ASMR has been brought to a new height of popularity by W Magazine’s series of celebrity ASMR videos, famously featuring Cardi B “okurring” softly into a microphone and playing with a bead maze. Out of all these new forms of ASMR, I am still obsessed with the videos that focus on “triggers,” objects that make certain sounds or visuals that trigger that euphoric, tingly feeling. In these videos, ASMRtists explore the sounds of each object—tapping, scratching, bringing it closer, cupping it to create an echo, layering it with other sounds. Watching these videos, you end up spending a lot of time with the weirdest array of things, from colorful stress balls to miniature Christmas trees, sequin pillows to kinetic sand, blocks of ice, packing peanuts, coasters shaped like toast…basically, anything you can imagine. Every aspect of the object is explored: The body of a glass bottle creates one sound, the punt at the bottom creates another, and a whole new one emer-ges if you tilt the bottle toward the microphone and tap at its bottom. With any object in hand, the ASMRtist searches for unique sounds at every nook and cranny, picking out the precious details that are overlooked in the “normal” interactions with these objects. fastASMR, an account run by a teacher from Germany, has a legendary perfume bottle that has captivated me since I first listened to it. It is an inconspicuous little thing—a rectangular, textured glass body with a padlock-shaped design at the nozzle. The perfume itself has long expired, but on fast ASMR’s channel, the glass bottle gained a completely new life as a trigger. People love the sound of tapping on the textured glass overlaid by the sound of
perfume rocking in the bottle. It became known as the perfume bottle, with viewers commenting that their mood is instantly lifted the moment they see it. I, for one, think of the perfume bottle as my favorite item in all ASMR videos. I find myself going back to videos of it from time to time, with the urge and happiness of digging into a dusty drawer for a memento from a cherished past. I don’t know when it was produced, what brand designed it, or even what it used to smell like; I only know that nails clinking on the ridges of its surface can create a symphony of crisp, scattered sounds, and that is somehow the only important thing I need to know. My attachment to this specific perfume bottle is not unique; most people in the ASMR community have their own favorite objects and triggers that hold a special place in their hearts. Since the format of ASMR necessitates hours dedicated to experimenting with the sounds of different objects, it is hard to not become extremely familiar with a few especially captivating ones. This relationship grows every time you listen to these objects, as you take in the details of their shapes, textures, and sounds, their movements in the ASMRtists’ hands, their colors under certain lights. This kind of experience builds a comforting familiarity to the object, like how you grow familiar with a tote bag that belongs to a close family member. For years, you watch them scramble for the bag while running late, listen to the keys clattering faintly inside the bag as you run errands together, and greet them at the doorway with the bag hanging loosely under their arms. Before you notice it, everything about the bag—the fabric, the graphic print, the sound of it brushing against their body with keys clattering inside—seems to take in a piece of your love for that person as well. At home, my family used an old ice cream pint container to store soap near the bathroom sink. When I think of that white and blue container decorated with a vanilla flower, I think of rushing to wash my hands before a family dinner, and how, when I leave the bathroom, I’m greeted by windows turned opaque by cooking steam and an apartment filled with the smell of a homemade meal. Like the ice cream container, the thought of that small perfume bottle also brings me back to the times I plugged in my earbuds and played fastASMR videos, whether I was taking a breath between Zoom classes, procrastinating in the library, or in the middle of sleepless nights. Your history with the object breathes life into it, even if it is just intangible pixels on the screen. For me, the meaning of ASMR exceeds tingles and relaxation. There is something deeply lovely in how these objects are carefully handled, displayed, and brought to the center of attention. There is something even more lovely in how these tiny sounds bring people together through a shared sense of appreciation for the beauty and uniqueness of the most commonplace, unassuming objects. You can trust
that we will continue to appreciate these objects in increasingly varied ways and that, even after decades, the thought of a strange ASMR trigger will still bring a tender happiness into our hearts.
Stitched in Ink
making peace with having a body by Liza Kolbasov Illustrated by CONNIE LIU A tea bag in black ink winds its way up my upper arm, lavender and carnations blooming inside of it. The winter chill means it’s mostly hidden from the world. Sometimes I forget it exists. But in the back of my mind, I know it’s there: an amulet I carry with me, a reminder that I exist in the world and care for it deeply. Sometimes, I’ll run my hand absentmindedly over my upper arm through the sleeve and imagine its warmth burning through the fabric. I have always found the concept of my body difficult to comprehend. It feels so strange that I exist in a form that can be perceived, one that I can’t completely control. Once in a while, I look in the mirror and barely recognize the person looking back at me. Who are they, really, hiding behind those soft-brown eyes and shaky hands? In moments like these, I tend to have a hard time taking care of myself. I float around the edges of my body, slipping in and out of it with detached neutrality. It bumps into corners, lets go of dishes I’m trying to hold onto. It? Me? I’m not really sure. I’ve always felt that my first tattoo had to be something deeply meaningful, the most thoughtthrough concept possible, one I’ve dreamed of for years. Perhaps a tea bag doesn’t fully meet those criteria. To me, though, it feels like a sign of comfort. I’ve always loved making tea for other people— a tiny, miniscule way I hope to show people I care when I don’t have the words. My little teabag is a tangible thing I can hold onto in this world, a reminder to keep showing love and tenderness. Maybe it’s cliche, but I love it anyway. In recent years, I’ve become attached to the idea of tattoos as ways of holding on to past versions of myself. I find the idea of permanence terrifying and comforting at the same time. On the one hand, I feel deeply antagonistic towards past versions of myself—the naive middle schooler with two long braids pretending to be a book character and correcting other people’s grammar, the stressed-out high schooler who placed academics above all else, or the college student from yesterday who slipped up talking in class and said something dumb. And yet, there’s something meaningful about carrying relics of these people with me everywhere. Perhaps, in 40 years, I will decide that I hate tea, but I will
“I mean… EVERYONE is just trying to have an orgy” "Cone of shame. Cone of secrets!"
March 18, 2022
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NARRATIVE know that the art on my body meant a great deal to the 20-year-old who inhabited my physical form. It feels like a way of reaching forward in time, to some future Liza I can’t imagine existing, and holding their hand, just for a moment. Reminding them that they do, in fact, have a hand that can be held. Or perhaps they are the one reminding me of that. This tea bag ties me, somehow, to my physical form. When I don’t feel like taking care of myself, I still want to take care of it. I want the art to stay crisp and fresh, so I must keep it moisturized. When I run my hands over it, I feel a strange amount of tenderness, which I have almost certainly never felt towards myself. Learning to live with myself as I am, shell and filling, may be a work in progress, but I can’t neglect the art someone else has entrusted me with. This tea bag is a part of me, its ink has mixed with my blood, but it’s also somehow a separate being, one that requires my attention. The work of tattoo artists fascinates me: art is so often portrayed as something removed from the social, a sacred work to be engaged in solitude. Yet to tattoo someone is not only to work with an unpredictable medium, creating gorgeous art on a canvas that shifts and reacts to your touch, but to work with another human, with their emotions and unpredictabilities. To care for your work, then, is to care for a person. It is a strange sensation, too, to be that person. To be, for once in my small and insignificant life, a place for something permanent to rest. I walked into my appointment flooded with anxiety: afraid of needles, afraid of making the wrong choice, and afraid of having to entrust my arm to a person I’d never met. But perhaps that trust—that I’m making the right choice, that I won’t regret it in 20 years, that I can feel safe with the dull buzz of the tattoo gun as its needle scrapes against my skin—is what makes this choice meaningful for me as someone for whom trust is often difficult. There’s always a chance that I will regret it, that I’ve made the mistake. It’s a leap of faith. Slowly, I want my body to become a memory book, a patchwork quilt of meaning over time, each tattoo a step closer to shaping my physical form into something I can feel I belong in. My mind is flooded with ideas for new patches. A vintage key from an antique market that ties me to my friends from high school, my first chosen family. A window looking out onto a cloudy sky, in reference to an essay by Jonny Sun. A fig from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (although I have a sneaking suspicion that’s a teenage-angstinduced choice I’d regret). A constellation shaped
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like a teacup, which a few friends and I claimed for ourselves out of the vast night sky. Hands reaching for each other. Inky patch after inky patch stitching me to myself, imperfect and messy and covered with memories.
A Life Well Lived saying goodbye to my first car by Olivia Cohen Illustrated by ooviya sathiyamoorthy If you were to go through my search history right now, you would find the following question, posed on a Tuesday night at 8:36 p.m.: How do you write a good eulogy? According to my research, an effective eulogy should highlight the experiences of your loved one’s life that matter the most. You should commemorate their personality traits, repeat their most memorable stories, and honor their accomplishments. You should try to capture their “ripple”: how they effected change in their community. TJ—Thomas Jefferson, formally—was my family’s 2004 silver BMW station wagon. He was my dad’s greatest love, and the car in which my brother and I learned to drive. But everyone who knew him, regardless of the intimacy of their relationship, agrees that he was a bit dysfunctional. There’s no use sugarcoating it; I think he would’ve wanted us to be honest. Take the gear shift, for example. When we pushed the shifter forward to park him, the entire knob and the panel keeping it in place would pop out of its socket. My brother always made a show of slamming the shift back into place with a smack of his closed fist, like he was playing Whack-a-Mole. TJ was also a hypochondriac. Every time I put the key in the ignition, a dazzling array of emergency lights would flash red and yellow. My brother and I quickly learned which of them signaled true emergencies and which ones were just manifestations of TJ’s oversensitivity. (Red? Bad. Orange and flashing? Just a cry for attention.) He had plenty of physical quirks that set him apart from other beat-up, well-loved family vehicles. His volume control lost its plastic knob years ago, leaving only a protruding metal stick that you had to twist with your fingernails in order to turn the music up or down. Given that TJ had no AUX capacity, he only ever played Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours or Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange (the two CDs we had). Along with a reliable soundtrack, TJ had a reliable scent: the tangy fusion of two “20 questions” categories
(animal and mineral) from when, in 2010, my dog Jupiter ate an entire roll of zinc tablets on a road trip and vomited them up in the back seat. And of course, TJ was nothing if not a collection of memorable stories. In particular, he was known for encountering near-death experiences and somehow, miraculously, surviving. One year, we drove him up to Wyoming to visit my grandfather during a record-breaking February blizzard. My grandfather’s ranch was eight miles down a dirt road from the nearest town: TJ made it seven before he became lodged in a deep bank. As night quickly fell, his tractionless tires spun desperately against the snow. My brother and I pushed against his back bumper while my mom put her foot on the gas, but he refused to budge. We eventually abandoned TJ and traipsed the last mile toward my grandfather’s house, our weak phone flashlights swinging back and forth. We returned the next day, bundled in parkas and snow boots, to find TJ right where we left him, battered but still in high spirits. After a few hours of shoveling, little TJ was up and over the bank, over the snow-packed cattle guard, and on his way toward the house. Then, a few years ago, my dad rear-ended somebody with such momentum that TJ was totaled. The insurance company ruled him irreparable. We were given a consolation check, which we were supposed to use to lay ol’ Thomas Jefferson to rest and find ourselves a newer, more reliable vehicle. But—call him what you will—TJ wasn’t a quitter. Instead, we redirected the money from the insurance company toward healing his wounds and replacing his dandercrusted steering wheel. Before you could say “misplaced investment,” TJ was back on the road again. Most recently, my boyfriend and I took TJ downtown to receive our second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The city of Denver offered free vaccination in our baseball stadium, and hundreds of cars were lined up outside, stalling, waiting for their turns to receive shots through their rolleddown windows. We were slowly rolling forward in line, chatting and listening to Rumours when we suddenly heard a deafening bang, and a cloud of thick gray steam washed over the windshield. I prayed that the steam was coming from the car in front of me, but I knew, given TJ’s past transgressions, that I was engaging in wishful thinking. I turned off the engine, and my boyfriend and I stepped outside of the car to find steam pouring out from under TJ’s front hood. Other people got out of their cars too, craning their necks to identify the source of the excitement. As it often did, TJ’s misfortune—and, by extension, my own—led to some powerful community building. Within minutes, several passersby had gathered around his trunk, ready to push TJ through the rest of the line. I scrambled into the driver’s seat to put him in neutral and steer him through the tent at the entrance of the stadium, where a nurse reached through the window and administered our vaccines while the car was rolling. Soon we were through the line, leaving a surge of hot steam in our wake. That day, just like today, we reflected on TJ’s life as we waited for the tow truck to flatbed him out of the stadium. Like so many times before, we thought we were witnessing TJ's last few seconds of life, and we talked about him as if he were already gone, with a healthy mixture of fondness and frustration. Little did we know that another year would go by before we would say our final goodbye. At 4 p.m. on February 21, TJ was found unresponsive in an overnight parking lot under Grand Central Station in New York City. The garage attendant told us that he was discovered lying in a puddle of his own coolant. The mechanic told us that the hose
NARRATIVE
under the coolant reservoir somehow detached, that he was undrivable. The receptionist on the phone told us the repair estimate was $415.41. My dad told us to say goodbye to TJ forever. His death was a rather anticlimactic affair, and when the ordeal was over, I had the chance to reflect for the last time on what TJ has meant to me. I could lie and say that he was a perfect car, but he wasn’t. He was a huge pain in the ass. I could lie and say that I wish he could have stayed around a bit longer, but that’s not true, either—it was time for him to move on to his next chapter (albeit as a collection of spare parts). But I will say that TJ had the remarkable ability to bring people together. When I recall my memories of TJ, they are all filled with kind people: two women who helped me push him out of a parking spot at the local SuperTarget, a young man who got out of his car in a busy intersection to help us get TJ to the side of the road when he got stuck at a green light. So when I think about his “ripple”—how he effected change in his community—I think about how TJ called upon the compassion of strangers. He brought out the best in people, and he will be missed dearly.
The End of the Story
how our predilection for narratives can ruin our lives by Joseph Suddleson Illustrated by elliana reynolds How can a person be so obsessed with themselves, so narcissistic, as to believe that they alone can positively change the world. What drives people to act without regard for others, to act according to no moral boundaries to save their own destructive brand of egotism? What drives individuals to feel worthless, lesser than, depressed and aimless in the confusing tumult of contemporary life? These are complicated questions and I don’t propose a simple answer—those who offer simple or easy answers to complicated or difficult questions should, after all, never be trusted. While in a sense, the grand questions posed represent polar opposite states of being—egomaniacal
narcissism on one hand and a depressive lack of self-worth on the other—I don’t find them entirely unrelated. I’m sure we’ve all known or will know people prone to selfishness or depression over the course of our lives; they are not unique to any time or place. Nor are these states of being mutually exclusive; one can feel one way or the other at different points in time. So while I cannot proffer a definitive answer to any of these questions, I can say with confidence that a possible explanation for this recurring phenomenon is the way in which we tell stories about others and about ourselves. Part of the problem is our obsession with stories, with the narrativization of reality. To safeguard our own happiness and utility, it’s time we kill the idea of the story once and for all—before it’s too late, before we destroy ourselves. As far as narrative templates go, there’s no template older and more successful than the so-called “hero’s journey.” From rags to riches; from a nobody to a somebody; from unremarkable to exceptional; people fall in love with these characters and their stories time and time and time again. We’re biologically programmed to connect with stories of ordinary individuals doing extraordinary things; these stories make us feel good. In today’s media landscape, one need look no further than the dominance of the superhero film genre. People crave stories with clearly defined good and evil, heroes and villains, main characters and supporting roles. *** The idea of the “genius,” or intellectual superhero, is a relatively modern one born out of the Romanticism of the 18th and 19th centuries. Though it may not appear this way, the notion that certain individuals are endowed with natural abilities that far exceed the norm is a constructed one. People (tellingly, most often men) like Ludwig van Beethoven, Isaac Newton, Immanuel Kant, or Steve Jobs come to mind immediately; artists and thinkers of unique, unprecedented talent and ability whose creations changed the course of all human history. But the story of the genius is just that: a story. Any telling or retelling of events in the form of a coherent narrative will smooth over the details and exclude aspects that are inconvenient or inconsistent. This great but misguided construct—that occasionally a genius is born who alone will redefine
the bounds of human experience—only expanded into the 20th century. Consider the pioneering modern architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965). Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, the Swiss architect and designer was responsible for the creation of some of modern architecture’s most lauded and influential works in the so-called “international style”—think unornamented white surfaces, simple geometric shapes, ribbon windows, and the mantra that “form follows function.” For notable examples, look to his Villa Savoye or his concept house at the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart. Le Corbusier did not simply see himself as the designer of buildings; he believed that the architect could and should reorchestrate the built environment to maximize its utility, efficiency, and beauty in the ever complicated modern world. Le Corbusier saw himself as one 20th-century inheritor of the mantle of Romantic genius, a uniquely gifted individual whose duty it was to drive positive change on a global scale. With this in mind, look now to Le Corbusier’s “Plan Voisin,” his proposed redevelopment plan for the city of Paris in the mid-1920s. The grand design of this architectural mastermind was to bulldoze most of the historic center of Paris, erect a uniformly spaced array of identical skyscrapers, and connect the entire sector with a grid of elevated highways and pedestrian walkways. I don’t believe it’s controversial to conclude that this plan, if executed, would have been a complete catastrophe for the city of Paris. Le Corbusier naively imagined that he alone, the architect and genius, could reorganize and improve the lives of the diverse millions who call Paris home. *** This month, the architect, designer, and educator Carlo Ratti came to campus to give a lecture to Professor Dietrich Neumann’s Contemporary Architecture class. Based at MIT where he leads the school’s Senseable City Lab, Ratti spearheads a theory of design that embraces the complexities and ambiguities of contemporary, 21st-century life. Eschewing the “starchitect” model of the rogue male artist with an implacable vision à la Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, Ratti made clear in his presentation that collaboration across disciplines and organizations is the design of the future. People sharing knowledge, data, points of view: this is the definition of success in today’s mercurial atmosphere of rapid innovation. But what does this have to do with stories? Carlo Ratti is a lavishly educated, highly trained, and extraordinarily gifted designer; with no large amount of ego and ambition, he could easily set off on his own practice to reshape the world in his own image. The standard narrative in modern western society for a talented young man like Ratti dictates that he should exercise his abilities and generate the greatest possible effect. He is not just able to change the world, he is responsible for doing so. Popular stories are often teleological, that is, they’re oriented towards some driving purpose, some meaningful end. A nuanced psychological and emotional response to everyday circumstance, the very essence of living, becomes inaccessible when we orient ourselves towards some imagined end. Overly romanticizing our lives, our purpose, damages our own wellbeing as much as it can harm the wellbeing of others. When we succeed, we run the risk of taking that success as a visible sign of our preordained “election” to a higher purpose. We can become convinced that we’re destined to do great things and reshape the world order, in whichever ways that can be imagined. Yet when we feel that we’ve failed March 18, 2022
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to live up to those lofty expectations, we can become empty and depressed; “I’m not the person I thought I was destined to be.” Stories train us to simplify the chaos of reality into an easily digestible, continuous arc of events. For the sake of clarity, many stories focus on a main character or protagonist around which the plot revolves. Put another way, storytelling invites the convenient categorization of people, places, and events into discrete patterns; reality rejects this. Everyone believes at one time or another that they are “the main character,” but the contradiction is obvious. Our tendency to narrativize our lives is a coping mechanism, a complex byproduct of our capacity for pattern recognition and imagination. Faced with the inexplicable, we create explanations; staring into the dark, shapeless void, we imagine order and form. Life is a collaborative enterprise, or as John Donne wrote, no man is an island. Life is also a mystery, a game where the rules come from on high but the variables are always changing. We narrativize, romanticize, historicize as a way to keep on going, a way to make sense of the things that happen in the past, present, and future. But when did we agree that everything has to make sense? Wouldn’t it be lovely to free ourselves from the burden of a continuous, teleological timeline and just exist for the moment that presents itself? Sometimes I do things that I’m proud of, things that I could imagine some historian years in the future singling out and including in the biography of my grand life—should I warrant such a thing. I’ve also done things I’m not proud of, made mistakes I can’t take back or explain away, wronged people for no good reason. What do we do with these geniuses? We remember that they, too, were people with successes, failures, shortcomings, and limitations. There’s no divine providence dictating the course of the universe and all the creatures within it. I am what I am from one moment to the next before I inevitably die and my atoms scatter across the cosmos like the salt trucks scatter on the roads before a snowstorm. That’s it. Do your best to treat others with dignity and respect; be good to people. Explore the world. Try new things. Fall in love. Experience loss. Do what makes you happy, but also, maybe do what makes you unhappy some of the time. Live your life as only you can while you can; there’s so much good out there for the taking. Just don’t pretend your life’s a story. 6
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Optimism, Hedonism, and Hair live life like an '80s movie by Malena Colon Illustrated by Connie Liu “The eighties were the best time to be alive,” my dad always tells me. He’s a teacher on the cusp of 50 who shoots hoops in his driveway daily like he’s still 17. When we first moved to my hometown, my dad got a mohawk and made a scene. But then the mohawk grew out and the talk died down, and he became known as that driveway basketball man from the house on the corner. Forget Reaganism. And the AIDS crisis. The crack epidemic. The eighties were the best time to be alive. We’ve all heard parents go on these tangents before. “Well, back in my day…,” and so on. I imagine my dad will one day become known as the old man shaking his fist in the air, rambling on and on about his childhood and the glory days. It’s nothing new, I guess. That’s nostalgia for you. And it’s no secret that we live in an era filled with it. But my dad really believes that the 1980s were the best time to be alive. It’s like a religion he practices. For him, those years aren’t just a decade dipped in rainbows and sunshine. The music, the fashion, the vibes—they’re a way of life. And above all else are the movies. He’s definitely a cinephile, and I can tell you firsthand that when you’re raised in the house of a movie buff, family movie night becomes the ultimate form of bonding. (But God forbid your phone lights up. You better pay attention.) He’s shown me many of the greats. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Goodfellas. Taxi Driver. The Graduate. A colorful range of films—some not quite so good, some much more niche than others. But more than anything, my dad loves the movies of his favorite decade. “Tonight we’re going to watch a Christmas movie,” he once told us on some innocent December night in fourth grade or so. “The greatest Christmas movie of all time.” My mom gave him a look. The movie was Die Hard. You know, the one
where action star Bruce Willis takes down a group of German terrorists led by Alan Rickman in order to save his wife and other hostages held in an office building. It became our yearly tradition. Die Hard on Christmas. Of course, my dad also made sure I got the quintessential Star Wars experience, that we saw all the Back to the Future movies, as well as The Terminator, The Goonies, Ghostbusters, The Breakfast Club, The Raiders of the Lost Ark. All of which he considered basic education. Other movies we’ve seen together aren’t quite as well-circulated in the contemporary sphere. Take Brian de Palma’s gut-wrenchingly tragic movie Blow Out, starring John Travolta. Yes, don’t worry, we’ve also seen Grease. Or a young Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader in the fatally sad, youthfully angsty Less than Zero—my dad and I were quite elated to discover a song of the exact same name on The Weeknd’s latest, overtly '80s–themed album. Then there’s John Carpenter's oddball dystopian vision Escape from New York with Kurt Russell, a personal favorite of my dad’s. And lastly, The Night of the Comet, a cult classic imbuing a weird blend of horror and comedy and sci-fi all at once into an apocalyptic, action-packed, feminist banger of a film. That one just screams '80s to me. My dad said you could tell this specific movie was from the '80s––not just for the obvious reasons (you know, the hairstyles, clothing, lingo, clueless parents, and whatnot)—but also for a few key plot points. The government can’t be trusted, consumerism and excess find their way on screen (think: deserted shopping mall), and a lot of real and tragic events take place. Senseless deaths that come from nowhere. Unnecessary violence. A strange extraterrestrial infection that either turns everyone into potential zombie-like creatures or… simply obliterates them to dust. But then it all ends on a strangely hopeful note. The world is a clean slate where the youth begin anew. And, at the end of the day, viewers are reminded of one simple thing: people have to look out for each other. That’s what '80s movies mean. Optimism in the face of death. The persistence of hope. Good will prevail. And no, not in a cheap, Disney-like, let’s-alwayshave-a-happy-ending type of way—but in a way that feels earnest, even at the corniest of moments. Critical without being cynical. This is why my dad is convinced Die Hard so accurately captures the Christmas spirit. And maybe that long list of movie titles means absolutely nothing to you. That would be understandable. But there’s something about the '80s that keeps us coming back. Not just me and my dad, but cinema as a whole. Reboots, revivals, remakes—whatever you like to call them—are running rampant. Many old-school favorites want to prolong their former glory, revamping our childhood experiences to make an easy buck. Nostalgia has become a business. Something about it often feels so painfully inauthentic, so offensively cash-grabby. Especially when it comes to franchises that should have died long ago. It’s been a long time since we got a solid Terminator movie, and was there really any need for more Star Wars movies? Was it a requirement to kill off Han Solo on top of that? We can’t help but feel like some of our holiest memories have been desecrated by Hollywood’s pervasive nostalgia-peddling— the unrelenting urgency to package our wistfulness, mark up the price, and present it with a shiny bow.
Spring Forward post- mini crossword 2 by ethan pan ACROSS 1 Carla Lalli ___, former Bon Appétit food director and '94 alum 6 Brown ___ Productions, currently producing Sweeney Todd 7 A transition between stories? 8 Neigh sayer 9 Timid
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DOWN 1 Dance violently 2 "No good" leader 3 Brown housing (or browns, for a chef ) 4 Buds that love spuds 5 Snow man in your inbox
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“Biking over the bridge itself was slow and windy and terrible, but we both screamed like banshees as we flew down the hills in Sausalito, wailing past fit cycling moms in Lycra and not realizing how sunburnt our shoulders were getting.” —Julian Towers, “What’s Coming After That?,” 2.1.19
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DOWN 1 MOSH 2 UPTO 3 SEARS 4 IRISH 5 CAREY
—Marin Warshay, “Living Fruitfully” 03.19.21
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kyoko Leaman
“What was meant to be a radish was seen as a beet by all my friends, even after the Instagram story that said ‘rad!’. And so I gladly accepted the compliments I received on my ‘beet’ without correcting people.”
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FEATURE Managing Editor Alice Bai Section Editors Andrew Lu Ethan Pan ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Emma Schneider Section Editors Joe Maffa Sam Nevins
Answer key from post- mini crossword 1: ACROSS 1 MUSIC 6 OPERA 7 STAIR 8 HORSE 9 SHY
Nonetheless, we eat it all up. Consume it voraciously. In many ways, we need it. To reminisce is to escape. There’s nothing like the good old days, after all. The '80s may have had Reagan, AIDS, and the crack epidemic. But today we have Trump, an ongoing deadly pandemic, a global supply chain shortage, mass unemployment to a labor supply shortage all in a span of two years, the climate crisis, war, and now inflation that’s actually nearing the same exact heights as our good old decade, the '80s. So where’s our hope? Is there any promise that good will prevail? Nostalgia is our escape, a temporary reprieve from the horrors of reality, serving as a bandaid over a deep, deep wound. And so we consume, consume, consume. Enter another time, another life. Embraced by the warmth of our childhood and all the things we loved back then, what’s old becomes new again. Mark Twain once said, “There is no such thing as a new idea.” Maybe Hollywood crams nostalgia down our throats because they’re all out of ideas. Remakes leave cinema at a stasis. It’s like what they said in the new Scream reboot movie. You can’t make sequels. You have to make requels. Nonetheless, the allure of movies from the 1980s remains eternal for a reason. They have a certain timelessness to them, a charm that just makes them worth coming back to. Sure, they might be over the top, some of them might even be ridiculous. But '80s movies are always, always earnest. Genuine, true, and hopeful. A little more of what we need to see these days. And while I wouldn't necessarily recommend cutting a mohawk and forever touting the good old days like my dad, I do think they offer a lot to take inspiration from. A philosophy, if you will. So do it: Run up the steps like Rocky Balboa. Take the day off like Ferris Bueller. Dance and sing alone, clothed with nothing except for sunglasses and a shirt like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Break down social barriers, rebel against the administration, and make the most of detention like in The Breakfast Club. Forget being jaded, edgy, or cool. Irony is overrated and cynicism is toxic. Instead, keep up the attitude that good will always triumph over evil. Even against insurmountable odds, or what might feel like a losing battle. Get out there and live your life like an '80s movie.
NARRATIVE Managing Editor Siena Capone Section Editor Danielle Emerson Leyton Ho LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Kimberly Liu Section Editors Tabitha Lynn Sarah Roberts HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Connie Liu
COPY CHIEF Aditi Marshan
CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Briaanna Chiu Jiahua Chen
Copy Editors Katheryne Gonzalez Eleanor Peers Tierra Sherlock SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS Kelsey Cooper Chloe Zhao Tabitha Grandolfo Natalie Chang
Layout Designers Alice Min Angela Sha Caroline Zhang Gray Martens STAFF WRITERS Dorrit Corwin Lily Seltz Alexandra Herrera Olivia Cohen Ellyse Givens Joyce Gao Zoe Creane Danielle Emerson Kaitlan Bui Julia Vaz Liza Kolbasov Marin Warshay
Want to be involved? Email: kyoko_leaman@brown.edu!
March 18, 2022
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