Post- 4/13/17 by Post- Magazine

APRIL 13 – VOL 19 – ISSUE 21

In this issue...

Staplers, Salad, and Sci-Fi

Editor’s Note

FEATURES A New Age

SciLi Staplers Suck

5 LIFESTYLE Salad Bra

Fading

Streetwalker

This week, it was finally warm enough for me to leave my house without immediately regretting the decision. I actually spent my twenty minute commute enjoying the wind, the temperature, and the day, rather than hating myself and how much my hands hurt from the cold/ rain. In a few weeks, it’ll probably be hot, and I’ll probably be back to complaining, back to hating every minute I spend outside. The commute will start to suck again. It seems, from everything I’ve been hearing on the news, like it will be hotter this year than it was last year. Soon, I’ll be back to spending my outside time waiting for that time to be over. I’m certainly an extreme example when it comes to weather tolerance (or lack thereof), but I think there’s something to be said generally for this small, precious period of two to three weeks where the weather is just perfect, where I can walk outside without grabbing a jacket on the way out, and without sunscreen or bug spray or sweat. It’s an in-between period when living in the moment is important and okay. As I approach graduation and the working world, and approach the period of extreme heat that is the bane of my existence, I’m grateful for this short spring world. I hope you all enjoy it too. Best,

Monica editor in chief

Post- Board Editor in Chief Monica Chin Managing Editor, Arts & Culture Joshua Lu

Managing Editor, Features Saanya Jain

Arts & Culture Editors Taylor Michael Josh Wartel

Features Editors Claribel Wu Kathy Luo

Managing Editor, Lifestyle Annabelle Woodward

Copy Chief Alicia DeVos

Lifestyle Editors Jennifer Osborne Celina Sun Creative Director Grace Yoon Art Director Katie Cafaro

Assistant Copy Editors Zander Kim Alexandra Walsh Layout Chief Livia Mucciolo Layout Assistants Yamini Mandava Elizabeth Toledano Cover Clarisse Angkasa

7 ARTS & CULTURE Trouble in the Galaxy

I’ll Never Be Mulan

The Language of Resistance

A New Age

An Exploration of Love and The Last Five Years

Zachary Barnes s taff writer

Soco Fernandez Garcia illus tr ator

Watching season two of Love on Netflix, I found myself in a familiar position. I loved what I was watching, even as I spotted its flaws. I would roll my eyes at one scene, but melt into a mushy puddle come the next, helpless in the face of Gus and Mickey’s mercilessly endearing, constantly tormented relationship. A series of jokes would earn only pity-chuckles, but just as I got restless, Gus and his friends would gather to sing their made-up theme song to The Cider House Rules and send me into a cackling frenzy. And, in the most tangible signal of viewer approval, I would eagerly click “next episode” as the credits rolled. Love’s story revolves around the relationship of Gus and Mickey, two aimless 30-somethings living in L.A. Gus (Paul Rust) is a straight-laced, nervous Midwestern boy desperate to be liked, whereas Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) swaggers through life with a cigarette in her mouth and a bottle in her hand, wearing her cynicism like a badge. It’s an age-old opposites attract romantic paradigm. After finishing Love, I felt as though I owed myself some self-reflection. Why had I enjoyed it so much? The story was nothing new, and its storytelling was unfocused—it devoted an entire interminable episode to a not especially revelatory experience on shrooms, for God’s sake. Its perspective was not exactly unique, either—sad white people in L.A.! But I couldn’t stop watching. I thought of another work of art that occupies a similar place in my heart: The Last Five Years (2002), a musical by Jason Robert Brown later adapted into a film starring Anna Kendrick. It tells the story of a romantic relationship between Cathy, an aspiring actress, and Jamie, a wildly successful young novelist. It has an intricate chronology wherein, through alternating songs, Cathy tells her story from the end of the relationship to the beginning, while Jamie tells his from the beginning to the end. The Last Five Years and Love have a lot in common. They’re flawed works of art. They’re romantic. They pepper their romance with comedy, favoring a slightly neurotic brand of humor, like Woody Allen but with less despair. They’re about straight white people. They’re firmly attached to the pop-culture and entertainment firmament. And, maybe most importantly, they depict a kind of life I’d like to lead. In a word, they’re fantasy. The prospect that this may be the reason I love them so much is a bit embarrassing. Am I really just another lonely white boy living vicariously through television and cast albums? Dear god, say it isn’t so. In my defense, though, both works make moves toward realism that suggest something more complex than a Sleepless in

Seattle redux. But, if I’m being honest, I’ll admit: They’re rife with fantasy. It’s just a new kind, for a new age. This new fantasy has emerged over the course of the last few decades. Annie Hall (1977) is the most obvious precursor. Since then, it has wormed its way into various artistic projects, finding especially fertile ground in indie films, until finally reaching the levels of saturation we see today. The Last Five Years came out in 2002, before the current deluge, but Love, along with many other contemporary shows, from Transparent to Girls, has similar traits. They don’t have the extravagant and rosy storylines often conjured up by Hollywood. The characters and the things that happen to them feel scaled to real life, not the grandiose visions of old-timey studio execs. The fantasy that inhabits these works, then, is not defined by events and characters. Instead, their fantasy lies chiefly in their contexts. Wealth, fame, and success shimmer around the edges of their characters’ lives, promising that even when things go awry, the rest of the world will be there to comfort them. Take, for example, the world that surrounds Gus, the affable but deceptively manipulative dork in Love. He works as an on-set tutor for a child star. It’s not exactly glamorous. It also kind of is. After all, he works on a TV set. He meets quasi-celebrities. It seems as though he gets paid well, since his apartment is astoundingly large. He even gets a “Story By” credit on an episode of the TV show that his tutee stars in. It’s easy to see how for Hollywood professionals, like co-creator and comedy tycoon Judd Apatow, making Gus an unimportant background figure on a TV set would feel like a cold splash of reality. Compared to Apatow’s, Gus’s professional life is dismal. But for the average person, a story credit on a TV episode doesn’t seem like such a modest achievement. It’s certainly closer to celebrity than most people will ever get. There’s nothing modest about the success that comes to Jamie, the leading man in The Last Five Years. While in his early 20s, he writes a novel that gets published by Random House to great acclaim. He sings about it to obnoxious effect in “Moving Too Fast.” As a counterpoint, his girlfriend, Cathy, struggles to find success as a musical theatre actress. She also sings the first song in the show, “Still Hurting,” where we learn that the relationship is over: “Jamie is over and Jamie is gone / Jamie’s decided it’s time to move on.” This sense of tragedy, along with Cathy’s frustrated dreams, tempers the exuberance that comes from Jamie’s achievements. Like Gus’s job as an onset tutor, it suggests an attempt toward modesty on the part of the writer. And also like Gus, it’s only modest in a certain light. Cathy may be a struggling actress, but she doesn’t have to hold down a day job, or live in a typically cramped New York apartment, because

her boyfriend is a successful novelist. Not being a waitress and having a reasonably-sized home may not sound like the stuff of Hollywood fantasy, but when combined with the exciting prospect of living in New York and working to become an actress, it’s hard to deny that Cathy’s situation has a certain appeal. The elements of realism in these works only makes them more intoxicating. While listening to The Last Five Years or watching Love, we don’t feel like we’re suckers for more heart-warming, happily-ever-after Hollywood schlock. The characters mumble! They have weird sex! They hurt each other! They struggle with insecurity! In other words, they ride the emotional rollercoaster that is the human experience as awkwardly and painfully as anyone. This strain of realism deludes us, or at least deluded me, into thinking that we’re not watching fantasy. For me, the ruse was up the moment I interrogated my love for these shows. As I tried to defend them critically, I found myself faltering. I love The Last Five Years, but I can’t deny that it has significant problems. Jason Robert Brown’s lyrics are full of confused, maladroit metaphors and drearily prosaic language. For example, I’ve never been able to take seriously the lyric “I open myself / I open myself one stitch at a time.” It evokes some kind of unpleasant, self-inflicted medical procedure, like Matt Damon stapling himself in The Martian, and yet it’s set to pretty and uplifting music, intended as an earnest emotional affirmation for Cathy. Maybe I’m being picky here, but I find the lyric laughable. Aside from issues of craft, the problems of The Last Five Years include a fear of suburban provincialism that smacks of condescension and mildly regressive gender dynamics. Like last year’s La La Land, The Last Five Years grants the man a greater artistic seriousness. In “A Part of That,” Cathy sings with amazement at just how magical, awesome, and inscrutable Jamie is as an artist and how she takes satisfaction in somehow being part of it. It’s hard not to hear this as an exercise in vanity on Jason Robert

Brown’s part. (Hint: Jason Robert Brown is Jamie.) All of these thoughts occasionally pop into my head when I listen to it. But do I stop listening? Of course not. The same goes for Love. I saw its problems, but I kept watching. I watched it despite the fact that the constant seesawing of Gus and Mickey’s relationship got a bit old. I watched it despite its comedic unevenness. I watched it despite its uncreative approach to addiction, selling AA as the be-all and end-all of treating alcoholism. The reasons why, I think, are twofold. One is that, despite their flaws, these two works are genuinely enjoyable. In Love, Paul Rust and Gillian Jacobs turn in appealing performances, and their relationship is funny and sweet, even if it’s not always profoundly rendered. And though plenty of its jokes miss, many of them land with a walloping punch. In The Last Five Years, something is on display that is often missing from many modern musicals: a distinctive voice. Sure, the voice often says stupid things, but it’s unmistakably Jason Robert Brown’s. His music and lyrics have an infectious and unique style that, at their best, can be funny, smart, and deeply felt. The other reason comes back to fantasy. Their worlds are alluring. While my problems with these works are largely intellectual, my attraction to them is emotional. My heart pulls me where my mind tells me not to go. My inner critic has won the argument— Love is no great TV show, and The Last Five Years is no great musical—but I don’t care. Living in their worlds is a tremendous pleasure, and I’m not about to deny myself that based on some lofty ideal of critical integrity. So I won’t try to stop the problematization matrix from whirring inside my brain. I won’t try to defend the artistic merits of works that don’t have all that much to begin with. I’ve accepted the reasons I watch or listen to them, and it’s not because they’re brilliant or challenging. I can, and will, go elsewhere for that. But these works have their own purpose. They’re fun. They’re fantasy. And for now, that’s good enough for me.

SciLi Staplers Suck Nitpicking My Way Through Campus

I’ll be the first to admit that there are very few things wrong with my life. As I write this, I’m in a safe, quiet space where I feel comfortable and content. I have access to not only higher education, but also a warm bed and french fries. With so many good things in my life, it can seem ungrateful or even immature of me to complain. But once in a while, this perspective leaves me, and I feel a need to bemoan the most banal annoyances in my life. And when I say the most banal of annoyances, I mean the most minute, insignificant things possible. For instance, there is one particular automatic stapler in one particular location on this campus that regularly drives me insane. (Hint: It is located in a library that begins with an “s” and rhymes with “cry lie”.) Every time I insert my pages into this stapler, it violently shanks my essays and problem sets so deeply

in the page that the text on the corners is practically unreadable. Every time this happens, I feel a visceral pain, as if I have just been stapled myself. Why would a designer do this? I ask myself. Do they themselves not use staplers, and are henceforth blind to this farce? I’ve tried every possible angle of placement to get the staple closer to the edge of the page, but it just makes the staple even more lopsided, and I look like a lunatic to everyone waiting behind me. It is an unavoidable, villainous source of entropy in my life. Another persistent demon in my college experience has been the fact that students cannot swipe more than two meal credits an hour. This rule is absolutely inane. I pay over $60,000 a year to allow this institution to sustain my existence while I’m here. That said, if I want to get a gourmet Ratty dinner followed by an order of custom tacos, a Jo’s salad, and three muffins and a smoothie for dessert, I should be able to shell out five meal credits within 45 minutes and have whatever kind of personal palooza I want. Some may insist that this rule simply exists to protect students from ruining their eating habits, or perhaps abusing the dining system. I say, let me eat, you bureaucratic heathens. Even in my most sacred place, my room, an inevitable annoyance lays dormant, waiting to assault me whenever I walk in—the fact that there is barely half a foot of space between my desk and the front door.

The astute among you may be tempted to point out that this is simply my fault for not arranging the furniture more wisely. However, I can assure you, I have already tried every possible permutation of my desk, bed, and drawer to achieve the most optimal placement of all three objects. My cramped dorm is just a fact of life. That being said, I cannot tell you the number of times I have stubbed my toes, tripped over a pair of shoes, or been nearly strangled by my backpack strap caught on my bed frame while simply trying to get to class on time. Half of the time, it feels like a video game. You enter boss-mode when someone has pulled out a chair to sit at the desk, reducing the exit space to mere inches. From there, your only choice is to either a) channel your inner Mario and jump over the whole darned thing, or b) lie on the rug and cry. Finally, though there are great events happening around campus all the time, there are inevitable frustrations in even your attempt to get to them. Just recently, for example, none other than David Cameron was delivering a talk on campus. I heard about this event several weeks in advance and was ecstatic to attend—I couldn’t wait to be able to converse casually about neoliberalism and Brexit in the bougiest way possible over brunch. I registered my ticket far ahead of time, got a confirmation email that I was in, and promptly forgot about the event until a few days prior, when I got a reminder email.

Kathy Luo

sec tion editor

Natasha Sharpe illustr ator

However, the reminder email was vague. I realized only on the day of the event that it provided only the time, but no actual location of any sort. In order to reveal this information, the email said, I had to “register” my ticket online by creating an Eventbrite account. I hate making new accounts on anything, but for the sake of my education, I did. Then, following the external link, I clicked “register.” The screen then proceeded to let me know that I was on the waitlist and would be notified if any spaces opened up after the probably hundreds of people before me. In a further show of its audacity, it still kept the location hidden. I had never felt more blindsided in my life. Imagining the long line of people who were waiting for a ticket just like me, I gave up on the event altogether. In an effort at maturity, I bit a tearful goodbye to my swindled opportunity to hear Mr. Cameron’s talk and tried my best to focus on the good things in my life. Later, some of my friends told me that I should have waited outside the doors, as they let nearly everyone in. And thus is a conclusive list of recent ways in which college life has left me out on a limb.

Salad Bra

An Inquiry into Salads

Traditional Salad Bar This is your average salad bar. It’s fine. The official recommended system is to get a to-go box, add all your ingredients and dressing, then shake it like you’re listening to OutKast in 7th grade. If this sounds like your type of lunch, this is the right salad bar for you. Mediterranean Salad Bar Two words: feta cheese. Feta makes this a salad bar to die for. Romaine, tomato, and cucumber? Eh. Romaine, tomato, cucumber, olives, and feta cheese? Greek salad? Sort of. Authentic in the true-to-the-dininghall-salad-bar sense. And if there’s tahini or tzatziki, you’ve got an inventive dressing! Pita chips go well in salad, by the way. Cobb Salad Bar I don’t know. Between the translucent avocado and sweaty turkey chunks, if you manage to find something you actually want to eat, it’s bound to be coated in a hearty sprinkling of crumbly hard boiled egg. In the morning, when I log onto my most visited website, brown.cafebonappetit. com, (does anyone else have the rest of that autofill on Google Chrome if they type “b”? Asking for a friend…), I chant repeatedly, mildly hoping to see “Italian Antipasto Bar.” Instead, “Cobb Salad Bar” appears, conjuring images of deceptive black bean salad, where half of the black beans are sweet, bloated raisins, and I have to push these thoughts out of my mind. Skip it. Or eat it and complain to your uninterested friends. How could one person think so much about salad? Caesar Salad Bar Pretty nicely done, Caesar Salad Bar, although nothing to write a listicle about. The bite-sized pieces of cold chicken make for even-temperature salads (as opposed to that spinach wilt you get from throwing a piece of

Fading

“Grilled Montreal Chicken” straight from the Ratty grill onto your leaves). There’s just no excitement for me about the Caesar Salad Bar. I don’t see those words and get pumped about lunch that day. In fact, Caesar Salad Bar weeks are ones where I am prone to PB&J. However, a Caesar Salad Bar week coupled with the Roots and Shoots Wheatberry Grain Bar, now that’s a salad bra to write home about. The grilled broccoli! (If you caught that I just wrote “bra,” it was on purpose. I think the readers should get at least a sneak peek at the uncountable amount of times I’ve typed salad bra instead of

salad bar while writing these reviews. On another note, I just googled salad bra, and evidently your bras will last years longer if you toss them around in a salad spinner with some gentle detergent like little gems of lettuce. Learn something new every day.) On that note, alternative lettuce varieties are welcome and encouraged by students. Italian Antipasto Bar This is definitively the best salad bar because of mozzarella. Bonus Round Baseball Burrito Bar This one is just a big question mark. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Good? Not that either. You can

end up with… a hard taco shell crisply enveloping a boiled hot dog of little league nostalgia. Smother that in sour cream, pickled jalapeños, and relish? I mean, why not? Points for variety. Also notable, the Caesar Salad Pizza Bar. (See next week’s post “10 Reasons We Love the V-Dub.”)

Pia Mileaf-Patel

contributing writer

Doris Liou

illustr ator

A Bad Firework Show in the Middle of Nowhere

the page that the text on the corners is practically unreadable. Every time this happens, I feel a visceral pain, as if I have just been stapled myself. Why would a designer do this? I ask myself. Do they themselves not use staplers, and are henceforth blind to this farce? I’ve tried every possible angle of placement to get the staple closer to the edge of the page, but it just makes the staple even more lopsided, and I look like a lunatic to everyone waiting behind me. It is an unavoidable, villainous source of entropy in my life. Another persistent demon in my college experience has been the fact that students cannot swipe more than two meal credits an hour. This rule is absolutely inane. I pay over $60,000 a year to allow this institution to sustain my existence while I’m here. That said, if I want to get a gourmet Ratty dinner followed by an order of custom tacos, a Jo’s salad,

and three muffins and a smoothie for dessert, I should be able to shell out five meal credits within 45 minutes and have whatever kind of personal palooza I want. Some may insist that this rule simply exists to protect students from ruining their eating habits, or perhaps abusing the dining system. I say, let me eat, you bureaucratic heathens. Even in my most sacred place, my room, an inevitable annoyance lays dormant, waiting to assault me whenever I walk in—the fact that there is barely half a foot of space between my desk and the front door. The astute among you may be tempted to point out that this is simply my fault for not arranging the furniture more wisely. However, I can assure you, I have already tried every possible permutation of my desk, bed, and drawer to achieve the most optimal placement of all three objects. My cramped dorm is just a

fact of life. That being said, I cannot tell you the number of times I have stubbed my toes, tripped over a pair of shoes, or been nearly strangled by my backpack strap caught on my bed frame while simply trying to get to class on time. Half of the time, it feels like a video game. You enter boss-mode when someone has pulled out a chair to sit at the desk, reducing the exit space to mere inches. From there, your only choice is to either a) channel your inner Mario and jump over the whole darned thing, or b) lie on the rug and cry. Finally, though there are great events happening around campus all the time, there are inevitable frustrations in even your attempt to get to them. Just recently, for example, none other than David Cameron was delivering a talk on campus. I heard about this event several weeks in advance and was ecstatic to attend—I couldn’t wait to be able to converse

Sara Al-Salem

casually about neoliberalism and Brexit in the bougiest way possible over brunch. I registered my ticket far ahead of time, got a confirmation email that I was in, and promptly forgot about the event until a few days prior, when I got a reminder email. However, the reminder email was vague. I realized only on the day of the event that it provided only the time, but no actual location of any sort. In order to reveal this information, the email said, I had to “register” my ticket online by creating an Eventbrite account. I hate making new accounts on anything, but for the sake of my education, I did. Then, following the external link, I clicked “register.” The screen then proceeded to let me know that I was on the waitlist

Streetwalker A bead of sweat trickled down my freckled face, pausing a moment on my nose to sting the tender, burnt skin beneath it before plummeting to the pavement below. Waves of heat radiated from the gum-speckled concrete—the streets of New York City in the summer are prisons for heat, each slab holding sunrays captive. The roasting sidewalk had already penetrated the thin layer of plastic passing for my shoes. But my summer feet were tenacious, seasoned by the coarse sand and sharp shells, so I walked on. A gust of warm, moist air escaped from the subway grate, providing temporary relief from the 85-degree day. A medley of melting garbage and hot dogs wafted by my nose, making my stomach churn as my fellow pedestrians also let out moans of annoyance. I continued on, listening to the clapping of my flip-flops with each step. I smiled as I turned down a side street—this was the freedom I had long been waiting for. The streets of New York were mine; I could finally navigate them alone, free to walk at my own pace, to stop periodically to browse store windows, to buy a coffee without asking. My actions were no longer dictated by the adult accompanying me; I was the adult. As I neared the end of the side street, I was yanked out of my reverie by a piercing whistle: “Hey, baby, come over to my place and I can cool you off.” My eyes darted toward the source of the sound—a tall middle-aged man leaning against the side of a building. I scanned the street searching for the object of his call— in front of me was a mother with two children while behind me was a young man going to the gym. I glanced back at the man in an effort to decipher the meaning of his whistle. As our eyes met, a toothy grin spread over his face as he quickly shut his right eye. Suddenly, everything became

Claire Sapan

staff writer

Soco Fernandez Garcia

illustr ator

staff writer

and would be notified if any spaces opened up after the probably hundreds of people before me. In a further show of its audacity, it still kept the location hidden. I had never felt more blindsided in my life. Imagining the long line of people who were waiting for a ticket just like me, I gave up on the event altogether. In an effort at maturity, I bit a tearful goodbye to my swindled opportunity to hear Mr. Cameron’s talk and tried my best to focus on the good things in my life. Later, some of my friends told me that I should have waited outside the doors, as they let nearly everyone in. And thus is a conclusive list of recent ways in which college life has left me out on a limb.

Jenice Kim illustr ator

I Pretend Not to Hear clear: He was calling to me. The once claustrophobic heat seemed to evaporate as a chill crept up my spine and a shudder shook my muscles. My heart began to beat hurriedly, thumping loudly beneath my ribcage. I quickened my pace; the once slow and steady clapping of my flipflops now replaced by an anxious, hurried rhythm. I looked around for help—the gym-goer behind me seemed unfazed, moving his lips to form a slight, sympathetic smile. As I neared the mother in front of me, she too was unhelpful, completely consumed with her stroller-bound children. I had assumed that both as a mom and a woman she would protect me, but she remained unperturbed. As the fearful adrenaline dissipated, a slew of emotions and questions crowded my thoughts. I was in awe that a man in his mid-40s would hit on a girl who had barely turned 13. I was conflicted. I felt simultaneously flattered and insulted— insulted that a man would say something so degrading to me, but also honored that he had chosen me to say it to. As I walked the remaining blocks to my house, I became increasingly self-conscious of my appearance. I was unusually tall for a girl of my age, and most of my height was in my legs. I shamefully examined my outfit—my white jean shorts were fairly short, and my Abercrombie and Fitch tank top was slim fitting. “Had I provoked this man with my clothing?” I wondered. I thought that perhaps it was my fault— that my abundance of skin had suggested I was looking for attention; if I dressed more conservatively or walked with less confidence, he would see me differently, would treat me with dignity. I wondered if I deserved what he said to me. I was only 13, but part of my childhood ended in that moment. Perhaps that childhood was artificially extended by my time at an allgirls school. We traveled in packs, bodies buried beneath scratchy blue jumpers and sensible shoes. It didn’t matter what shape each girl was; we were similarly disguised in uniforms that dated back

a century. The camouflage went deeper than the surface though: For me, Nightingale treated being female as a fact, not a definition or identity. From a young age, teachers taught us to avoid “feminine qualifiers,” skirt length was measured with a ruler, and we were encouraged to carry ourselves with strength and anonymity—to suppress our femininity. Nightingale taught us self-defense—an alarming and ridiculous class in fourth grade where each girl faced off against a large, padded trainer. Echoes of “do not come any closer” and “NO” were punctuated by kicks to the groin and stomps on the instep. The class was called Prepare, but in truth it only prepared us for true combat, not the more subtle daily indignities that most women living in New York face. Even the physical experience of going to school was sheltered—parents and caregivers ferried their charges back and forth long past childhood, halls were carpeted, doors were held. The lower school staff consisted only of women, many of whom had been there for decades. Even some of the younger teachers were Nightingale graduates themselves, coming full circle. From a young age, our interactions were all with women—they were our supervisors, teachers, friends. One of the few exceptions was an ill-fated P.E. instructor, Mr. Miller. Ironically, he was almost a caricature of the stereotypical man— muscles bulging to unnatural size, buzz cut, booming baritone. One year for the gymnastics show he choreographed, 40 little girls in blouses and bloomers sprinted into the gymnasium to the song “Eye of the Tiger.” After the requisite flips and tumbles, we flexed our pectoral muscles like the Hulk and shouted “I’m huge!” The parents’ laughter was sudden and uncomfortable—Mr. Miller would be gone come spring. Perhaps in its effort to develop independent, thoughtful students not defined by gender, Nightingale might have been more conscious of its women in the context of modern society. A single-sex education still has

responsibility for helping its students navigate the co-ed world—in education, in daily life, in relationships. I learned a great deal in my time there—I found my voice, learned true empathy, had experiences free of self-consciousness—but was unprepared for expectations that would come with encroaching adulthood. The jumper is long gone, but the shorts remarkably endure. I now have developed my own ways to protect myself—I avert my eyes, listen to music, and pretend that I haven’t heard. I smile when I think of my innocent 13-year old self being astonished by a cat-calling man. However, soon my smile disappears and unease fills my stomach. Unease over the fact that I have accepted the ubiquitousness of this behavior in society, that I have stopped thinking and started accepting. Unease that I pretend not to hear. Now, as I walk along the streets, the construction workers yell out at the women walking in front of me, and I do nothing. I am the equivalent of the mother with two children from five years ago—the one I could not believe stayed silent. But I cannot live poised for confrontation, I cannot travel closed to observation. Some men stare, some do far worse. But I hope I can find some path toward subtle change, without changing myself. I may never “be huge,” but I am female. I should be able to walk the street without being a streetwalker. And that should be okay.

Trouble in the Galaxy

Standing outside the Anaheim Convention Center, I joked with my dad that one’s devotion is really tested by these sorts of things. It was barely 10 a.m., and the Southern California heat drew sweat from our foreheads. The doors to WonderCon (the precursor to the big kahuna, San Diego ComicCon) would not even open until noon. Of course, the first people in line had been here for over an hour. Many of these early arrivals were cosplaying in finely-detailed, handmade costumes: a man in Hamilton-esque coat and tails, a Poison Ivy whose skin gleamed with the DC villain’s signature green hue. Sweat coagulated under their costumes and heavy makeup. Still, as the hours passed, I felt buoyed by the gleeful anticipation of seeing every world I’ve ever loved come alive. This is the promise of fandom: an embrace for the outcasts of the world outside the Con—geeks like me and my dad who, somewhere subliminal in my mind, believe in epic quests and chosen ones. By all appearances, fandom spaces are homes for the marginalized. Except when they are not. Sure, I attended the “diversity” panels on strong female protagonists or characters of color. I was glad to see these self-selecting audiences and panelists made up of geeky women and people of color like me. But outside of those “niche” spaces, the Con was a predominantly hetero-cis white male galaxy, and I was a Filipina American lost in space. “Check out that ass,” a man behind me murmured to his companion. They were standing in line behind me for a comic book artist signing, and a young woman cosplayer had passed by. “That’s a nice ass.” I turned around and scowled at him like, You’ve got some nerve

Navigating the Nerd World as a Woman of Color

to be a chauvinist douchebag out loud. The systematic exclusion of women and people of color in the realms of sci-fi and fantasy is well-documented. Only 14 percent of the 100 top-grossing sci-fi and fantasy films had a female protagonist and 8 percent had a protagonist of color, according to a 2014 report by book publisher Lee & Low Books. The numbers for LGBTQ protagonists and protagonists with a disability are 0 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Later in the day, I attended a workshop on writing high fantasy, led by Eisner Award-winning writer Marv Wolfman. Besides me and the Zelda cosplayer beside me, the auditorium was crowded with white men. During the audience Q&A, a woman rose from her seat to ask a question. “I can’t hear you,” Mr. Wolfman interrupted. “You,” he said, pointing to the man who had asked the previous question. “I could hear you. Speak for her.” If the events earlier in the day hadn’t happened, I might have excused the brusque, gray-haired author with hearing difficulties. Instead, I heard a confirmation of prejudices that I had tried to ignore. Zelda and I exchanged glances. To its credit, the genre has seen amazing breakthroughs lately. The relaunched Black Panther comics, co-authored by Ta-Nahesi Coates and Roxane Gay, and Ms. Marvel, which stars a Pakistani American Muslim teenage superhero, have been nominated for some of the comic book world’s top awards. The last two Star Wars movies featured well-developed heroines, and publishers that specialized in LGBTQ graphic novels held prominent booths on the convention floor.

Black movie critic Angelica Jade Bastien cautions readers and audiences from taking this progress for granted. She speculates that hostility intensifies as a response to the growing presence of critics, creators, and fans of historically marginalized backgrounds in the nerd world. She writes, “Perhaps this reveals the heart of the matter—that white viewers are forced to empathize with characters that don’t look like them in a genre they thought they owned.” For a genre that is dedicated to the search of more vibrant worlds, one that claims to celebrate the outsider narrative, it’s ironic that entire groups are systematically barred from participation. The truth is that no matter how fantastical your fictional worlds are, they aren’t insulated from the racist and misogynistic politics of the real world. And no, painting people’s skin blue or making them aliens isn’t “diversity” if the heroes of those stories are consistently white. Until perspectives from female creators, LGBTQ creators, creators of color, and creators with disabilities can generate their own stories, scifi and fantasy will continue to careen through cold space toward the repressive status quo. The Empire wins. During the Con, I found myself wondering why I’m still so devoted to a genre that has long sought to keep people like me out. I remember my dad who, as a kid in the Philippines, saved his allowance to buy American comic books. When I was nine, he introduced me to Star Wars and bought me my first Wonder Woman collection. Sci-fi and fantasy have been a source of joy and hope for us. Why should this world belong any less to my dad because he is Filipino, or to me because I

am a woman? At WonderCon, I couldn’t help but notice the sci-fi and fantasy genre’s (or more precisely, the industry’s) dependence on the dedication of its fans. On the nerds who are willing to stand in lines for hours in the sun out of their sheer love. On the geeks who stirred the whitewashing controversy that, according to a salty Paramount exec, caused Ghost in the Shell to flop. Young fans of historically marginalized identities are in unique positions to create, to demand, to resist the status quo and use their economic capital to support art that represents the more just and fantastic worlds that they want to see. After her panel, I talked to author C.B. Lee about her novel Not Your Sidekick, whose protagonist is a queer Asian-American superhero. I told her about how much seeing a character like hers meant to me, how refreshing and true her story rang. She encouraged me to write my own book. I said I would. Because somewhere subliminal, I believe that in this vast and uncharted galaxy, there are stories for all of us.

Pia Ceres

staff writer

Michelle Ng

I’ll Never Be Mulan A series of personal dramas befell my friend group this past month. While one friend was going through a breakup, another was figuring out her feelings in a budding relationship, and all the while I was going through a chain of existential crises, which involved continuous exasperated exclamations of “What am I going to do with my life?!” After the cushioned bubble of first year, and the blur that was first semester sophomore year, this semester has shown me that life is anything but easy. Sure, things will “work themselves out” in the end, but the road there is stressful. And after the past couple months’ whirlwind of midterms, internship applications and interviews, and emotional 4 a.m. talks with women who were just as stressed as I am, I realized just how wrong the movies had it. Movies (rom-coms and Disney-Pixar films in particular) encourage us to think of ourselves as the protagonists of our own stories. Most of the time, theyteach us that being young is wild, carefree, and a whole lot of fun. Even if we have no idea where we’re going, we thoroughly enjoy the ride because we know that we’ll always be okay. “Hakuna matata,” because everything little thing is going to be all right, right? Wrong. What the seemingly flawless, cake-faced actors, emotionally two-dimensional cartoons, and rectangular frames don’t show is just how complicated life truly is. No, I won’t know exactly who I am at 18. Unlike Moana, or Merida from Brave, or Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, I won’t know

illustr ator

And That’s Completely Okay

what my calling is, and I won’t know the exact steps I need to take to achieve it. Unlike Bridget Jones, Jenna from 13 Going on 30, or Mulan, heartache hasn’t encouraged any of my friends or me to stand up, work harder, and achieve more. Instead, it’s resulted in midnight tantrums, messed-up digestive systems, and turns taken sitting with each other, comforting one another, and moping through rainy afternoons. So what is life, and why hasn’t it turned out like the movies said it would? When days get dark, where are the large speakers playing emotional Coldplay songs that match my mood? Where is the montage with happy music that shows me, the protagonist, slowly piecing my life back together? And where is the moment when I find complete and utter happiness because I realize that I am enough? My theory is that it’s a work in progress. As the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Yet, growing up with fabulous, feel-good movies that last just over 90 minutes has gotten me used to the idea that life happens at the snap of your fingers. I’ve learned that “following my dreams” is easier said than done. I’ve also learned that singing a song in an open space with wind in my hair isn’t going to give me courage to face (metaphorical) rough seas. As my friends’ problems of the heart have shown me, there will bemany awful people out there posing as good ones, so it’s important to stay guarded. There is no white knight, no one to save you when you’re in distress, and a good kiss doesn’t magically turn your life around. At the end of the day, nothing is ever

truly permanent, so you have to keep working at it in order to continue getting it right. The funny thing is that in movies, girlfriends give each other pep talks to help each other through the blues, and they manage to pull each other out of their funks. But after watching some of the people I love most go through rough patches—and after going through turbulent times myself—I realized that no amount of wise words can alleviate the pain or shitty feeling in one’s gut. Why? Because recovery starts from within and takes a lot longer than a two-minute montage with a Norah Jones song playing in the background. How does life work, then, if Meg Cabot and Walt Disney were actually wrong about the plausibility of the “fairytale”? I have no idea. In my opinion, “happily ever after” isn’t a thing. I used to get frustrated that after a row of “down” days the universe didn’t magically turn around and offer me happiness, but I now know better. Instead of defining my life through cinematic phases, I’ve learned to take each day little by little and live it like its own, independent adventure. Because the one thing that cinema did get right is that as long as you surround yourself with people you love, your days instantly become infinitely better. Sure, you’ll all be in deep shit for various reasons—joblessness, heartache, confusion about life direction—but at least you’ll all be in deep shit together. That’s not to say that you should encourage each others’ shitty situations. Of course, you must keep on working hard to turn things around and find your way. But a friendly face, kind eyes, and

warm hug go a long way in alleviating stress and anxiety. Perhaps it’s a good thing that life isn’t like the movies. I guess it makes it more exciting that way, doesn’t it? Going through the bad times makes the good so much sweeter, even if the bad times sometimes seem unbearably lengthy. So my current approach is to dance through life and take each day as it comes, without expecting or wanting too much from the universe. Life is really scary, and as I approach the end of half of my college career, my stress levels are reaching an all-time high. But even if life isn’t a Disney movie, I’m excited to live today to the fullest and to take in stride whatever tomorrow brings. I’ve decided that, from now on, growing up is going to be one hell of an adventure.

Marie Chantal Maurata staff writer

Josh Allen

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The Language of Resistance Language is powerful. Some of this power derives from its destructive consequences. In today’s political landscape, we are clearly witnessing one such harmful capability of language: its ability to conceal the truth and deny reality. “Alternative facts” is a phrase that serves as a smokescreen for what should be called blatant lies. This term possesses a connotation of legitimacy due to the theft of the word “fact.” Other types of jargon and innuendo carry out this kind of deception all the time. Another phrase that has bothered me for a long time is “enhanced interrogation,” which sounds somewhat sophisticated and therefore wears the guise of acceptability, but which in reality is torture. Political systems and militaries often use language to hide the truth. In this way, they can cover up objectionable and immoral acts, and powerful institutions can get away with terrible things. How does one deal with such dishonest manipulations of language? Solmaz Sharif offers one answer to this problem. She masterfully and unflinchingly pushes back against the language of the military in her first collection of poetry, “Look”, by repurposing the words and phrases originally meant to obscure the impact of war on people’s lives. The book begins with the definition of “look” from the Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, which is: “In mine warfare, a period during which a mine circuit is receptive of an influence.” Following this definition is the book’s title poem, which begins with the phrase, “It matters what you call a thing,” and ends with the line, “Let me LOOK at you in a light that takes years to get here.” Throughout the poems in the book, terms from the Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms appear in all capital

In Praise of Solmaz Sharif’s Poetry

letters. Some, like LOOK and SHELTER, are common English words that are taken and given an uncommon definition for military purposes in the dictionary. Other terms, like SIMULTANEOUS ENGAGEMENT and INITIAL ASSESSMENT, are pieces of jargon that blur the real details of the situations, objects, or occurrences they refer to. Both types of terms serve to fog up the truth. Yet, Sharif casts a piercing light through this fog to foreground the human element. She focuses on the human beings who dream and hope and aspire, many of whom have their lives upended or destroyed by war. In certain poems, she recovers the everyday words taken by the Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms and gives back to them their resonant human meanings, as she does in the title poem. In other poems, she takes the jargon of the military and makes the technical-sounding terms invade human scenes, such as a family going to the movies, a couple preparing a meal, and a dinner party. For example, in the poem “Dear Intelligence Journal,” which describes a dinner party, the speaker says, “Extended my LETTER OF OFFER AND ACCEPTANCE / to the DESIRED INTERNAL AUDIENCE.” The first military phrase most likely replaces the word “invitation,” while the second phrase most likely replaces the word “guest.” In lines like these throughout her poems, Sharif reveals how military jargon obscures the truth. Human emotions still radiate from these poems despite the intrusion of the technical words, which serves to show that the human details are what the technobabble often blocks out. Additionally, Sharif also seemingly redefines military jargon in ways that focus on the human pain and suffering,

which the original terms cannot convey. For example, in one poem called “Contaminated Remains,” the speaker says, “DEAD SPACE / fridges full / after the explosion the hospital / places body parts / out back where crowds / attempt to identify those / who do not answer their calls / by an eyeball / a sleeve of a favorite shirt / a stopped wristwatch.” Regardless of the actual definition of DEAD SPACE in the Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, the juxtaposition of that phrase against the heartbreaking, painful, grisly images of people trying to identify their friends and family members from the remains of their bodies shows how insufficient the military term is to convey the human suffering and tragedy of warfare. In that same poem, the speaker says, “DESTRUCTION RADIUS / limited to blast site / and not the brother abroad / who answers his phone / then falls against the counter / or punches a cabinet door.” These lines point out that the practice of measuring destruction by square miles ignores the impact the destruction has on the people whose family members are injured or killed. The fact that Sharif uses the terms from the military dictionary in different ways shows her skilled craftsmanship and gives the entire book deep complexity. Her skill is further evident by the variety of formal techniques used throughout the collection. The poems are quite distinct. One reads as a series of letters from which words and phrases have been omitted, and we as readers can try to fill in the gaps without being completely certain about what details have been lost. Another poem paints a vivid scene as its lines of text form a wave pattern down the page through their different positions from the left margin. Each one of these poems succeeds in hitting the heart and rattling the brain to

think differently about warfare. Some are darkly funny as they convey a sharp critique, such as “Perception Management,” which lists the names of several military operations, including “TOMBSTONE PILEDRIVER,” “SPRING BREAK,” “DIRTY HARRY,” and “MR. ROGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD.” Certain poems are devastatingly heartbreaking, such as “Theater,” in which the speaker is a man who tries to find safety near a mosque during a battle, but who is soon found and killed. Sharif is a brilliant writer, and “Look” is a work of fierce intelligence and deep compassion. The book pushes back against the ways in which the language of war masks or ignores the human toll of conflict. Anyone who is interested in politics, poetry, or masterful writing should pick up this book.

Ameer Malik staff writer

Katie Cafaro art direc tor

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