post- 04/05/19

In This Issue

Heritage Speaker

Naomi Kim 3

Working Out Working Out

Sydney Lo 2 Siena Capone 4

The Language of a Place Griffin Plaag 5

Lonely Arts Club Band Nicole Fegan 5

Haunted Caretaker

postCover by Lauren Marin

APR 5

VOL 23 —

ISSUE 21

FEATURE

Working Out Working Out Navigating Fitness in University

By Sydney Lo Illustrated by Sabrina Arezo content warning: Mentions of over-exercise, eating disorders, body insecurity

I

t's 7:55 a.m. on a Saturday, and I’m sliding weights onto a barbell in the corner of Studio 1 of the Nelson, fidgeting with the metal clamps that keep them in place. Fitness Instructor Kay Rutherford tests the sound system while other students and community members chat and grab multicolored weights from the side of the room. “Good morning, Saturday BodyPumpers,” Kay greets us, smiling widely. “This Is What You Came For” by Calvin Harris ft. Rihanna fades in. I stand and stifle a yawn, smiling at a few of the regulars. “Pick up your bars.” I follow her command and shrug my shoulders back, checking my form in one of the mirrors. Let’s get going.

I began going to Saturday morning BodyPump classes during the first week of my freshman year and I’ve missed only a handful of classes in the three years since. My mom had attended BodyPump classes back home in Minnesota for years, but I had never gone with

her. It was only after I traveled more than a thousand miles away from home that I finally decided to try it.

The class is taught all over the world and focuses on “light to moderate weights with lots of repetition,” according to its official website. I only used five-pound weights during my first class, but the next day I was so sore I could barely move.

I began to exercise regularly on my own the summer before college. Stressed about my impending move across the country, I needed an outlet. I knew that physical activity had improved my mood in the past, and studies like “The association between exercise participation and well-being” in the journal Preventive Medicines had found that regular exercise correlates significantly with increased happiness and lower stress levels. Coincidentally, I’d also begun to watch action TV shows like Arrow and Continuum, which both kept me entertained on the treadmill and

motivated me to steel myself for the dangers of “bigcity living” (Providence, at the time, was incredibly daunting to this Midwestern small-town woman).

Moreover, exercise was one of my first moves to independence; I was entirely in charge of when I exercised and what I did. Every little physical change, like being able to do another bicep curl or jog for 20 minutes straight, was a personal milestone, and I was determined not to lose my progress to the bustle of college. So the moment I learned of the Nelson’s group fitness pass during orientation, I signed up, attending my first BodyPump class a few days later. I had a great albeit exhausting time, and left inspired by the friendly instructor and my fellow participants.

Along with BodyPump, I began attending cardio kickboxing, barre, and yoga classes. I ran on the treadmills on the second floor of the Nelson and lifted weights on the days I didn’t take classes. Despite

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Hope you all had a lovely spring break and used this time to refresh for the (rapidly approaching) end of the semester!

School is officially in full swing again, if you haven't noticed. Mornings spent sleeping in have turned into all-nighters at the SciLi. Binge-watching has transformed from leisurely catching up on your favorite sitcoms to desperately consuming lecture capture.

While you’re probably not thrilled about this return to the daily drudgery of school, don’t despair. The weather is getting warmer, and Spring Weekend is just around the corner. In the meantime, post- is here to welcome you back to campus. Flip through the pages of our latest issue, and let us guide you through the stressful few weeks before reading period.

2 post–

Our feature piece will inspire your newest fitness routine and help you release those stress-reducing endorphins. Narrative will encourage you to take some time out of this busy season to reflect on the power of language and its ability to shape one’s sense of belonging. Feeling the need to escape? One A&C piece endorses taking a nighttime stroll, while the other provides ambient music suggestions to transport you into the world of horror movies (still an escape from the real horror movie that is your workload postspring break).

Keep your spirits high—we’re in the final stretch. Remember, post- will be here beside you through it all.

Warmly,

Jasmine

Narrative Section Editor

Beach Captions You Wish You Wrote Where my beaches at?

Wanderlust *heart eyes* About last night…

Tans fade, but memories last forever Good times with better people (Coco)nuts for this place Felt cute, might delete this later Salt in the air, sand in my hair All you need is a good dose of vitamin SEA 10. i am burnt 1.

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some struggles in the first few weeks, my fitness began to improve exponentially. I increased my weights, stretched farther, and ran for longer distances.

More than that, I found a community of students and instructors who were equally excited to see my progress. It was a welcome break from the pressure of academics and extracurriculars, a place where I was defined by nothing but my enthusiasm. It was also just plain fun. By the end of my first year, Studio 1 was my second home, and with a little push from an instructor, I decided it could also be a workplace. I obtained my certification in group fitness instruction from the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America over the summer and began teaching my own cardio kickboxing classes during my sophomore fall, adding strength and conditioning classes in the spring. Currently, I teach three classes a week on Wednesday and Friday evenings, while also attending other instructors’ classes on the days I don’t teach.

My exercise routine has brought countless benefits­—improved sleep (take that, dorm party across the hall) and increased confidence, to name a couple. I share these benefits with many other students. A study of 14,804 undergraduate students conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health found that students who exercised for at least 20 minutes three times a week reported better moods and lower stress, and that socializing mediated some part of these benefits.

Charlene Gamaldo, medical director of the John Hopkins Center for Sleep, asserts that “exercise does, in fact, help you fall asleep more quickly and improves sleep quality.” A study from North Carolina State University even found that students who exercised regularly had higher GPAs and graduation rates. Of course, none of this means that exercise is a cure-all, or that I waltz around campus stress-free, but I know that college would be a lot harder for me without it. More than that, exercise has allowed me to connect with others, to learn about myself, and to grow.

However, it’s important to note that exercise can also present an opportunity for dangerous, toxic mindsets to kick in. During my sophomore year, exercise became more than a fun, empowering activity; it became an obsession. Deep down, there was another reason I had wanted to exercise regularly: to look fit and to be more fit than those around me.

Despite playing two varsity sports in high school, I had lagged behind most of my peers in all things physical, from strength to cardio endurance. As the chubbier member of my family and friends, I received regular, unsolicited advice on dieting, training, hiding my double chin. Exercising and getting fit in college slowly moved beyond health; it became my vengeance, as well as an attempt to permanently rid myself of my insecurities. When academic classes got harder and a family tragedy struck, exercise became the only thing I wasn’t insecure about. I began exercising more than two-and-a-half hours a day. This alone wouldn’t have been terrible—I currently exercise around an hour and 45 minutes a day, and I know many athletes work out for much longer. However, I also started intensely reducing my diet, rigorously counting my calories, and planning my meals. At my worst, I ate fewer than 1200 calories a day, compared to the 2000 calories recommended for a sedentary woman between 19 and 20 by the USDA (2400 for an active woman). In my head, I had to appear “fit”—but by fit, I really meant

unhealthily toned and skinny.

In a way, I did appear “fit.” Indeed, peers said I’d never looked better. When I visited a family friend one weekend, she complimented me on how thin and healthy I appeared. A stranger said she wished she had my “naturally slimmer” figure, unaware of how much excessive effort had been put into it. But to me, “imperfections” remained no matter how many crunches or push-ups I did, like my round arms or the slight bulge of my stomach. I was frustrated that even with my diet and exercise I couldn’t make myself look how I wanted. I was miserable, always counting down to the next time I told myself I could eat or look up diet recipes and nutrition information on the internet.

My issues with body image and over-exercise are not uncommon among women. Several studies (such as a 2000 study in South Australia) have found that, at a point, self-esteem actually decreases with increased exercise for women. This could be explained in part by the findings that working out for weight control and appearance, rather than health or mental improvement, is associated with decreased body satisfaction; and women are statistically more likely to exercise for weight control and appearance compared to men. This motivation has been attributed to Tomi-Ann Roberts and Barbara Fredrickson's Objectification Theory, which argues that women in Western cultures are constantly subjected to bodily objectification, causing them to unconsciously value themselves based on their appearance. This often leads to unhealthy self-surveillance via exercise and diet, as well as body shame. A 2005 study in the journal of Psychology of Sports and Exercise even found that exercising in a fitness center environment, rather than at home, heightens this body dissatisfaction.

On a personal level, I knew my behavior was risky and unhealthy from the start. I had seen the PSAs and studies on eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

I’d looked over articles on the dangers of dieting and uselessness of calorie counting. I’d gotten a certification in promoting healthy relationships with physical activity and eating, for crying out loud. But I didn’t look like the women featured in those warnings.

I still had fat all over my body, and I still ate semiregularly. I thought I was approaching a dangerous lifestyle, not already living one.

This stemmed from the popular idea that being fit or unfit is absolutely linked to weight and physical appearance—that is, if your BMI says you’re overweight, you’re unfit—even more so if you look it. However, as reducing obesity has become a national prerogative, many medical professionals and researchers have deemed that this idea is remarkably flawed. According to an article in the Huffington Post, studies have determined “that anywhere from onethird to three-quarters of people classified as obese are metabolically healthy.” Moreover, genetics have a lot to do with predisposing people’s bodies to allocate fat in certain limbs or to burn calories more or less efficiently.

In particular, there are also a lot of myths about ideal female anatomy that are nearly impossible to achieve.

For example, a woman cannot just “get rid” of cellulite; it exists due to the way that female bodies circulate blood through the body, and is actually theorized to help women survive longer in starvation conditions by storing fat more efficiently. It’s also difficult for women to get a flat stomach (without naturally being born with

one), because women are predisposed to store fat in their abdomens to protect their reproductive organs.

I finally stopped my obsessive behaviors after my parents came to visit over Thanksgiving break and my dad told me I looked sick. When classes started back up, I decided to listen to my body, go a little easier during workouts, and make time for rest. I stopped restricting my intake and ate what I wanted when I was hungry.

I stopped trying to “fix” the parts of my body that had never needed fixing in the first place. I focused on the things that had made me love exercise in the first place: reducing stress, feeling healthy, and making friends.

Over a year later, exercise and teaching fitness classes are just good old-fashioned passions, a happy escape from schoolwork that brightens my day. However, the process of unlearning my restrictive behaviors has been a slow one. It took months to stop skipping lunches, to stop feeling like I had to exercise, to stop comparing my habits with those of others. Even today, I have to constantly fight the urge not to revert, to not feel shamed by eating or defined by how fit or unfit I am. I also have to deal with the residual physical effects of my excessive level of exertion, including knee issues and injuries I didn't let heal properly. Nonetheless, I try to use my expertise to advise others on how to address fitness in university (for example, please don’t exercise just to get rid of something you don’t like on your body and try to find activities that make you feel empowered instead—if jogging isn’t your thing, don’t do it). And I try to use my experiences to connect with those who have had similar struggles.

It's 5:15 p.m. on a Friday, and I’m standing in front of my cardio kickboxing class, wearing my favorite gray work shirt and a microphone headset. The Spotify playlist I created blasts “Elevate” from the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack.

I smile and hope to bring all that’s good about fitness into this class. I shrug my shoulders back and announce, “Alright, let’s get going.”

Heritage Speaker Trying to Articulate My Korean-ness

by Naomi Kim Illustrated by Hanna Rashidi Before preschool, I didn’t know any English. I could only parrot the things adults said to me. Bye-bye, sweetheart. See you later. I could say yes and no without knowing what I was agreeing or disagreeing with. All I understood and spoke was Korean.

Then I started preschool—a Korean-only toddler thrown into an English-only environment. My mother told me that the first few times I went, I would come home and lay still and quiet on the floor, worn out from the overwhelming experience. * Once, my mother asked me what language I dreamed in, Korean or English.

I dream in English. I have no memory of ever dreaming in Korean, although when I was a child and didn’t know any English at all, I must have. Every dream that blossomed in the night must have been in Korean.

“What are they? Ear buds? Air buds? Air pods? Juul pods?”

“I’m going to send out an aggressive email… It’s going to have a lot of hearts and GIFs.” april 5, 2019 3

NARRATIVE

But not so long ago, I did have a dream involving Korean. I was taking an exam, and the text—just a simple children’s story—was in Korean. I stared at the passage, stumbling through the words, seeing shapes instead of letters. I swallowed hard, my heart rate soaring. My eyes jumped from one word to the next and the minutes evaporated into nothing and isn’t this just an easy story?

Come on, please, you can do this, oh God oh God oh God. * English is the language I speak and read and write—effortlessly, easily. I never have to think before words well up in my mind and spill forth from my lips.

I never have to force myself to concentrate so that the marks on signposts and pages transform into words.

But there’s one thing I cannot ever express, even in English. The one language I’m fluent in fails me utterly when I try to talk of being Korean, of being Korean American. It seems unfair, how little I can say, how much the words fail me, how none of them seem right at all—and this is the only language I have at my disposal. How much, then, will I never be able to articulate, even to myself? * Many nights, I stand in the stairwell in flipflops and socks, talking to my mother. I find myself using less and less Korean as the weeks go by. I start sentences and trail off, realizing that something in the structure sounds wrong. I break off in the middle of words, tripping over pronunciations. I patch the many holes in my Korean with English—or is it that I’m just inserting some Korean words and phrases into English sentences? I can’t manage to get through a whole conversation in Korean without relying on English to fill in the blanks, and some conversations—the ones where I talk about serious things, important things— have me saying everything, every word, in English.

My mother reassures me every time I vent my frustrations. She tells me this is only natural, this imperfect, fading Korean, for someone who’s grown up in America—particularly in a part of America where there are hardly any Asians at all. She tells me what I speak is enough because, after all, I can still communicate with my grandparents. But I can’t help looking at the other Korean Americans I see every day, all around me at Brown, so many of them fluent and bilingual, and wondering with a bitter ache what that must be like. To be able to say everything they want to say. To have this definitive marker, this confirmation, of Korean-ness. Me, what do I have? I did not grow up with Korean church or Korean grocery stores or Korean communities or Korean traditional holidays.

(Maybe this is why, after all this time, after all the confused thoughts, I still have no way to write or speak of a Korean-ness, a Korean American-ness.)

All I have, it seems, is the language, and I have so precious little of it.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of inheritance I’ll pass along to generations after me. What kind of broken Korean will my children speak? Will they speak it at all? Will I simply give up trying to talk to them in a 4 post–

language I myself don’t fully grasp? I imagine gathering up the bits and pieces of Korean I have and holding them in my hands, the words cracked and sharp-edged rocks—or maybe just eroding sediment and bleeding colors. A sorry kind of gift, a meager inheritance. But even worse, what if one day, all I have left are the scars from holding on too tightly or just the fading stains of crumbled earth? * Once, I asked my mother what Koreans could be proud of, aching to know what I could hold on to and value amidst my growing awareness of all the ugly parts of the society: the narrow beauty standard, the sexism and racism, the intense academic competition, the grueling work culture. My mother said to me, Hangul, and I turned away, tears suddenly springing from my eyes. Hangul, the alphabet developed by a king, that which Koreans could be proud of, the thing which eluded me. I could barely, barely, read Hangul, and writing it was nearly impossible. * If I can learn to speak and read and write Korean fluently, I tell myself, then the tension, the frustration, will sigh and melt away. Surely there is a Korean-ness somewhere inside of me, waiting to be awoken by the right words, the magic words.

But nothing is as easy as that. Maybe there will always be something I cannot fully articulate, in either language, in any language, and maybe I will have to rest in the restlessness and find certainty in my uncertainty.

Maybe that’s all I can ask for.

The Language of a Place Finding Fluency at Brown

By Siena Capone Illustrated by Brenda Rodriguez During my first few months at Brown, I discovered a lot of things that I wished people had told me before.

I worked hard to not let these nondisclosures feel like little betrayals, redacted knowledge nesting behind the starry-eyed smiles of neighborhood parents, relatives, and others who clasped their hands and joyfully informed me: “You’re going to LOVE it!”

And I do love it. Now. I think I would’ve been more willing to love it sooner if I had known about the entire pile of asterisks sitting in the bottom drawer of that sentiment. You will be homesick, and that’s okay!

Orientation will be about as socially helpful as a trip to the dog park is for a goldfish!

But the number one thing I wish I had known was how often in college you have no freaking idea where you’re going. And Google Maps cannot save you. Google Maps laughs at your pain as it hands you 20-minute route after 20-minute route to places that, if you were familiar with the campus, you could probably reach in fewer than 10 minutes.

I’ve spoken with first-years many times now

about those precarious first weeks of walking in one direction, realizing you’re going the wrong way, and wheeling around to pass everyone you saw on the way there. You pass a guy in an orange hat as you make your way to an English seminar with a spring in your step—only to realize the class is in the exact opposite direction. You pivot, briskly passing the same guy and pretending not to notice, wondering what it's like to inhabit the part of society that knows where it’s going, that isn’t ruled by the looming automated voice of the Maps woman.

The walk of shame runs deep, and it runs on nonfluency. My first month, I endlessly tried to interact with others in a language full of nuances I didn’t quite understand. College felt like a hamster ball, both a barrier and something that spun erratically out of control, a constantly turning sphere of activities I should be joining and people I wasn’t meeting. It was nauseating, on the soul level. * It’s about 10 p.m. some night in September and a wink of light comes from my phone: a message from my dad. He’s at home in Michigan, probably working or looking at tropical fish forums (long story).

Ciao bellissima, come va?

Okay, not hard to respond to. My thumbs momentarily hover over the keyboard before replying.

Così così. E tu?

Learning Italian was a disjointed road I had wandered off and swerved back onto throughout my life. My dad, born to two Italian immigrants, had persistently attempted (and been refuted by childish impatience when I was little) to make me learn the language: from him, from tutors, from the everthreatening Duolingo owl.

At Brown, I took comfort in learning Italian. In a new place where every day felt farther and farther from home, studying Italian brought me closer to a piece of myself and my history.

Texting in Italian wasn’t always easy. Sometimes I’d forget whether the e that means and or the e that means is has an accent (the latter, in case you were curious). I often returned begrudgingly to the mocking arms of Google Translate to figure out how to say lost my key and ID today or changing my concentration to “lost cause.”

But my dad has always been patient. The fact that he tries at all is proof that he believes in me—proof that one day, we’ll find ourselves at the center of lofty cathedrals in Florence, and the language will dance out of us. No matter how long it took me, or how many mistakes I made, only two things mattered: that I listened, and that I tried again.

A knock on my door. I pad over and peek out; it’s my hallmate.

My old anxiety is at the door beside him. Just be yourself... But who is “myself ”? Why am I (or anyone, for that matter) expected to know and quantify myself at the age of 18? Just say you’re tired. You have work to do. You— I realized, then, that this was why I felt like I didn’t speak “the language” of this place. Because I had

ARTS&CULTURE "The colored shoes, the empty trains"

reduced it to just that—one language. A language that I could hardly hear over my own rigid expectations of what life here should be.

I had tuned out every effort of this place to communicate with me: the bass of the party next door, the din of the V-Dub, the smiles of people who I had dismissed as “not here to stay” before I even waited to see if they did.

We’re all here, trying to learn the language of this place—regardless of whether we are first-years or seniors. Trying to tie ourselves to some notion of home with giant (sometimes blue) bear statues and ugly libraries and ridiculously good muffins. This place speaks to us; we may never hear, or let ourselves hear, but it keeps trying. In the months that would follow, it spoke to me through people I can’t imagine not knowing now.

I had to start adding accents to e's, even if it meant mixing up and with is sometimes. The importance was in trying, even if I didn’t know whether I’d be right every time. It didn’t matter if I walked the wrong way by a long shot. Because the sidewalk wasn’t going anywhere. I could always, always turn around.

No matter how long it takes me, or how many mistakes I make, only two things matter: that I listen, and that I try again.

My phone lights up.

Un abbraccio grande grande.

Even if I hadn’t known what the words meant, I would’ve felt it anyway. My dad's great big hug, conveyed in a small gray bubble.

I open the door.

Lonely Arts Club Band Cultural Picks for Late Night

By Griffin Plaag Illustrated by Gaby Trevino

And then there’s the profoundly unsettling stuff, the art that exposes the dark underbelly of urban life.

Check out the photography of Nan Goldin, and try looking at the fellow lonely souls wandering the gumchoked streets the same way you used to. It won’t work, I promise. Walk the residential areas under the dappled light of the neighborhood trees and listen to Cat Power’s Moon Pix and imagine feeling happy again (the secret: you won’t be able to). Pull up a Basic Channel EP, and let the cold metalloid of the throbbing bass remind you just how much concrete and steel which is still sitting on a shelf in my room, grimy and

and glass there is all around you, all separating people

unassuming, full of the mad scribbling of an artist).

from each other, from the land, from themselves. And

Without wasting any time, she roped me into jumping

can you really listen to Echo & the Bunnymen’s “The

the wrought iron fence around the massive concrete

Killing Moon” without feeling as though you’ve just

statue of Roger Williams. Narrowly escaping death,

murdered someone under the light of a full moon? I

we took a seat to its right, the wind rising up from the

think not. But even these disquieting experiences can

glittering lights of the city and brushing our cheeks

be a comfort; independent and alone in the world for

with the slight chill exclusive to early September.

the first time in our lives, this art allows us college

She fired up the speaker, I pressed play on the list of

students to engage with our surroundings. It’s an

music I’d thrown together, and we settled in next to

avenue of expression for all that isolation; it is, in

each other with the tentative closeness of strangers

friendless times, a companion, a place to turn.

to listen to “The Downtown Lights” by the Blue Nile—a neon-washed, late-’80s, sophisti-pop song

"I’m tired of crying on the stairs"

I was familiar with but had never fully appreciated

But for all of you, you fellow lonely souls of

until this particular moment. The latticed grid of

Providence (and I know you’re all lonely—has anyone

the city spread out before me, the Seekonk winding

else read the Blueno Bears Admirers pages lately?), I

lazily by under the glimmering blues, the red of

have one central recommendation: Take a night walk this

the Biltmore facade visible on the hairline of the

week, if you feel comfortable. Bring your headphones.

darkening horizon, the distant cupolas of Federal

Find a place to camp out—follow in my footsteps and

Hill resplendent and gold. It was at this moment, the

head to Prospect Park, wander the neighborhoods to the

warmth of her shoulder faintly present next to mine,

north, take a seat on the quay down by the Seekonk. Bring

the Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan waxing poetic about

a book or a collection of poetry, if you like. Be nocturnal.

the emptiness of the twilight city, that I fell in love.

Be alive. Stop for a moment and absorb your singularity

Not with her, mind you—with the night.

amid a collection of blank buildings, under a canopy of mute stars, accompanied by only a few small artistic

"Chimney tops and trumpets"

weapons to stave off the silence of solitude, and be glad

Since that evening, the malign indifference

that you are here. If you make the night your friend, you

shown by the city to its inhabitants hasn’t seemed

can conquer anything—even college. And that’s saying

quite so daunting. Indeed, the network of roads west

something.

of College Hill suddenly beckoned to me, but only past

"The neons and the cigarettes"

sunset. You see, there’s a vast wealth of art designed,

When I arrived at Brown University three years

in part, for lonely people, and a lot of its power is only

ago, I didn’t have friends. I mean, I’d had friends —

activated in the dead of the night. Which is not to say

past tense—but here, immured in the red brick walls

it’s all suited for the same mood; wandering the city

of a main green, under the skyline of an alien city, I felt

after watching David Lynch’s masterpiece Mulholland

completely and utterly alone. Sure, there were plenty

Drive is bound to evoke a sense of profound horror

of orientation events designed to get me to go out and

when one contemplates the glittering highrises, but

actually meet people, but, cynically, I eschewed those

the same walk set to DJ Shadow’s “plunderphonics”

functions on the pretext that they were superficial

magnum opus Endtroducing..... is more likely to make

and vapid. Which...was probably true, but it didn’t

the shadowy figures of workers on the wharf seem

make the decision to hang back in my room any less

entrancing and beautiful (seriously though, if you

ill-advised.

haven’t listened to “Midnight in a Perfect World” at

"The downtown lights..."

Haunted Caretaker

The Shining, Ambient Music, and Forgetting

By Nicole Fegan illustrated by Ashley Hernandez

night on a city street once in your life, you’ve been "Rented shoes and rented cars"

doing it wrong). All of it, though, belongs to the hours

In those first few months of social flailing,

after dusk when the shadows have deepened and the

I only did one thing right. A girl in my hall had

lights have blinked out on the storefronts.

posted a collection of music recommendations on a whiteboard outside her room. A complete sucker

"The golden lights, the loving prayers"

for people with moderately artsy music taste, I slid a

Not all night-wanderer art is necessarily subdued

note under her door hoping it’d net me what all those

and isolating. Throw on “Drive Slow” from Kanye

orientation gatherings couldn’t: a friend. Somehow,

West’s Late Registration and cruise the streets in your

this uncharacteristic embrace of carpe diem actually

beater of a car. Trust me, it’ll make you feel supremely

paid off. A reply letter turned up with instruction to

alive. Pick up a copy of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney

meet at Prospect Park and bring a playlist with me,

Island of the Mind, and read it under a streetlight as

and, only a few days into my college experience, I

the taxis drive by, their passengers silhouetted in the

found myself ambling along the sidewalk under the

grimy windows. Tell me you don’t love this country

velvet sky to meet up with someone whose face I’d

just a little bit more after doing that. Hell, I wandered

never seen—all because she was cool enough to tell

out of an art gallery the other week after looking at

people to listen to Belle & Sebastian.

René Magritte’s L’Empire des Lumieres and felt as though I’d never really seen light before; suddenly,

"The crowded streets, the empty bars"

the interplay of the stars and the headlights and the

When I got to Prospect Park she was waiting

“open” signs in the windows of Chinese restaurants

there with a Bluetooth speaker and a small black notebook of poetry that she gave to me to keep (and

all seemed a part of a beautiful dance.

The first time I ever watched The Shining, it was well past midnight. I was wedged in between my best friends on a couch in a New Hampshire cabin, the stars alight outside. This was last December—during a brief weekend respite amid finals week, when I could concern myself with nothing but the sound of ping-pong balls hitting the table and the solace of cigarette smoke on the porch. Our first evening there, we foolishly threw on Kubrick’s famous horror movie on the small, old-fashioned, box-style television.

I was a newbie to the world of horror movies, so I expected a vapid story—an excuse for jump scares and gore. Instead, I encountered the harrowing tale of Jack Torrance—a man fighting his alcoholismridden past, hoping to move on and make life better for his family. A caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel is supposed to be his fresh start, but the hotel doesn’t work like that—it taps into the ghosts you are trying to forget and swallows you whole if you aren’t strong enough to fend it off. I found myself clinging to every scene, wanting to inhabit the walls of the Overlook april 5, 2019 5

ARTS&CULTURE so I could hear what the spirits whispered at night. I wanted to enter the ballroom and sit at the bar with Jack as the nighttime danced around us. The eerie universe of the film called to me like the hotel itself, begging me to spend a night there, leave something of myself behind, and come back again soon. I spent most of winter break thinking about it, wondering what the Overlook would dig up about me if it ever had the chance.

One night back on campus the following January, hoping to fill the empty space of my room as I did a philosophy reading, I decided to play an album that I’d been meaning to listen to for months—An Empty Bliss Beyond This World by The Caretaker, a.k.a. ambient musician Leyland Kirby. Though I’d later learn that Kirby chose this name as a reference to Jack Torrance’s job at the Overlook, my selection at the time was pure coincidence (with ambient artists having names like A Winged Victory for the Sullen and Ricky Eat Acid, there’s simply no time to dissect every name you encounter). So understand that when I found myself transported back to the Overlook within the first few moments of the album, I was completely unprepared. Once again, I was dancing with ghosts at the edge of the universe as the snow outside laughed coldly on. This was not music I would be able to blindly absorb while reading some Noam Chomsky.

This was music for letting the deepest side of myself take hold—the part that daydreams about being the last person left alive on Earth as music somehow rises from the rubble.

Since 1999, Kirby has been making hauntingly evocative ambient music that attempts to mirror the aesthetic of The Shining’s famous ballroom scene.

And I’m not being speculative; his first album is literally named Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom. The music of his early projects is composed primarily of samples from 1930s ballroom jazz music, manipulated to sound staticy and far away. It is unsettling and captivating, and though it almost verges on artistic thievery (the music is not even his own, but borrowed for his personal aesthetic project), it is so damn effective that I don’t care if it’s not wholly original.

I discovered something else upon listening to this album and exploring The Caretaker further: I had arrived just as he was nearing the end of his story.

In 2016, Kirby announced on his Bandcamp page that he was embarking on a six-album journey called Everywhere at the End of Time, to be released in stages over the next few years, tracking the progression of dementia—not in himself, but in the fictionalized Caretaker alter-ego. What had begun for Kirby as a fixation with the ghosts of the Overlook turned into an expression of what the hotel embodies—who we are, what we leave behind, and what we have left. Kirby was

going to become The Caretaker, fully and completely, until there was nothing left of himself to give. Stages 1-5 had already been released, and Stage 6 was slated to come out in March. I had arrived just in time to watch The Caretaker die. But Kirby was going to be kinder than the hotel: The Overlook brought Jack Torrance’s demons back from the dead and consumed him whole, never allowing him to escape. Kirby was going to show us The Caretaker’s memories, and then let him slowly forget, and forget, and forget.

The journey begins rather simply in Stage 1: The ballroom music that I had grown to love is present in full force, hardly manipulated at all. Stage 1 doesn’t feel like memories—it feels like life is still happening, simply, plainly, right in front of you. Artistically, this rehash of Kirby’s old themes is kind of cheap, but at the back of my mind, I know that this will all come crashing down, and I cling to every note I am able to hear clearly. Stage 2 leaves me speechless; the sampled songs are heart-wrenching, and the audio is the perfect level of hazy and brooding, never letting me get too comfortable. By Stage 3, the ballroom schtick feels almost like a crutch, like Kirby doesn’t know where else to go from here. The music is fuzzy and further away. I know the descent from here on out will be full of a chaos that the music will never recover from, but I am ready.

Stage 4 begins with two tracks, both entitled “Post Awareness Confusions.” The melodies are becoming obscured, replaced by harsh, horrific noise that makes me long for the serenity of the stages I had been so ready to leave. Unlike previous stages, there are not dozens of tracks on Stage 4; instead, four tracks compose an 87-minute-long horror show of an album.

Stage 5 is more of the same, adding to the chaotic crescendo of forgetting who you are and forgetting

“Featuring disturbingly high-resolution penguins and promises of ‘non-stop action!’, it was a blatant bid by Disney to transfer the charms of Club Penguin to a more profitable medium.”

- Joshua Lu, “A Penguin at the End of the World” 4.6.17

“What we had taken for granted—a cup of tea—was transformed into a political prop. The liquid was no longer an infusion of herbs but a crossgrounds, a battlefield, melding the natural and the machine, ambiguously pure and toxic.”

- Tal Frieden, “Cyborgs, Not Goddesses” 3.23.18

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Anita Sheih a FEATURE Managing Editor Sydney Lo Section Editors Kathy Luo Sara Shapiro Staff Writers Sarah Lettes Caroline Ribet ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Julian Towers Section Editors Griffin Plaag Emily Teng Staff Writers Rob Capron Kaela Hines Pia Mileaf-Patel

who you have been and wanting, desperately, to find yourself again. I finish Stage 5 two days before Stage 6 is meant to be released, fully expecting an album of pure sonic terror. All Kirby has revealed is this: "Stage 6 is without description.”

It is now March. Stage 6 is released, and out of the madness emerges an unexpectedly sparse atmosphere, only the faintest remembrance of melody haunting the backgrounds of the hollowed tracks. I turn the lights off and let the music fill the space between my dorm room walls for an hour and a half.

I shut my eyes as any lasting trace of the ballroom fades into obscurity and an hour passes and then a sudden nothing and I gasp—the needle audibly falls off the record, and there is nothing but silent static.

And somehow, there are still seven minutes of the album remaining. As those final minutes play through my laptop speakers, the world outside stops. A faint cough is heard in the background of the track. A soft piano melody is introduced, a hazy and obstructed chorus entering a few moments later. At the end of everything, the ethereal takes over, and the final minute is pure silence—wholly without static. As I listen to The Caretaker die, I experience a melancholy so profound that it feels like soaring.

Leyland Kirby does not know exactly how it feels to die, and neither do I, but I know that when he first encountered the Overlook Hotel he had the same paralyzing realization that I did: We want our ghosts to leave us alone, but we’re afraid of who we are without them. Kirby knew what the Overlook would reveal about him and decided that forgetting and losing everything was the better bliss. The Caretaker may be dead, but as Kirby says: May the ballroom remain eternal.

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Celina Sun Section Editors Liza Edwards-Levin Jasmine Ngai Staff Writers Danielle Emerson Abbie Hui Naomi Kim Anneliese Mair Kahini Mehta

SOCIAL MEDIA Caleigh Aviv Camila Pavon HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Rémy Poisson BUSINESS LIAISON Saanya Jain

CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Jacob Lee Nina Yuchi COPY CHIEF Layout Designers Amanda Ngo Amy Choi Assistant Copy Editors Steve Ju Sonya Bui Nicole Fegan WEB MASTER Mohima Sattar Jeff Demanche

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