Post- Sept. 15, 2016

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upfront

contents

editor's note

upfront features 3 • ch-ch-changes

Post- editors 4 • tying the knot

Randi Richardson

lifestyle 5 • your shopping period horoscope Anna Hundert 8 • calling it like it is Sarah Cooke

arts & culture 6 • harry potter & the seven genres Spencer Roth-Rose 6 • her so-called life

Joshua Wartel 7 • viewer discretion is revised Ameer Malik 7 • dungeons and disk drives Chantal Marauta

staff

Editor-in-Chief Yidi Wu Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Ryan Walsh Managing Editor of Features Monica Chin Managing Editor of Lifestyle Rebecca Ellis Arts & Culture Editors Joshua Lu Anne-Marie Kommers

Dear Readers,

Aaaaaand we are back! We are your (favorite) (weekly) (Brown Daily Herald) magazine! If we’re getting that specific, I fervently hope we are your favorite magazine in this niche category. In all seriousness, we are back with new writers, new editors, and the same odd Post- high-brow lowbrow wack-job serious mix.

For those of you who are new to Brown, I wish you the best of luck in your first semester. I am not your mother and I do not welcome any such comparisons, but I will use my bully pulpit to give you several pieces of advice: (1) Get your flu shot. (2) Do not take classes at 8 or 9 am if you do not intend to attend those classes. (3) Safe sex. (4) Stretch yourself. (Unrelated to sex.)

Look for us in print every Thursday in print in the Brown Daily Herald. Look for us online at post.browndailyherald.com. Look for us in person at the Brown Daily Herald headquarters every Wednesday starting at 7pm. Drop by, say hi, have some pizza! We’ll be here all year.

Best,

Yidi

we’re back!

Please email alicia_devos@brown.edu.

Features Editors Saanya Jain Claribel Wu

Serif Sheriffs Logan Dreher Kate Webb

Lifestyle Editors Rebecca Ellis Claire Sapan Alicia DeVos

Head Illustratrix Katie Cafaro

Creative Director Grace Yoon Copy Chiefs Alicia DeVos

Staff Writers Sara Al-Salem Daniella Balarezo Tushar Bhargava Kalie Boyne Pia Ceres Katherine Chavez Rebecca Forman

Joseph Frankel Devika Girish Lucia Iglesias Ameer Malik Aubrey McDonough Caitlin Meuser Emma Murray Spencer Roth-Rose Chantal Marauta Ameer Malik Joshua Wartel Celina Sun Anany Shah Annabelle Woodward Alex Walsh

Jennifer Osborne Staff Illustrators Alice Cao Peter Herrara Jason Hu Beverly Johnson Jenice Kim Emma Margulies Michelle Ng Mary O’Connor Yoo Jin Shin

Cover Katie Cafaro

features

3

ch-ch-changes death comes for us all

POST- EDITORS illustrator DORIS LOU relationship of two years ended.

I emerged from the heated grips of August, newly single, newly nineteen and, evidently, with newly cut hair.

--CW During the few weeks I was home during the summer, my mother tasked me with cleaning out my room. In stereotypical college student fashion, I waited until 11 p.m. the night before my train to attempt this endeavor. The attempt was largely unsuccessful. As I rooted through my piles of clothes, books, stuffed animals, souvenirs, and old gifts, waves of nostalgia brought me to my knees. These things have served no purpose in my life for the past decade, but the prospect of throwing them away opened holes I’d never known could exist before. There’s a weird, deep sadness that only seems to exist in that room, at weird hours of the night.

I live now in a cold apartment with no stuffed animals or books. I lived in a different cold apartment over the summer, on the seventh floor of a tall building in a big city. Before that, a small dorm room overlooking the Main Green. Before that, a loft in Copenhagen. Before that, a broom closet in China. Each time I pack and unpack, that weird nostalgia sinks deeper, the knowledge that I have to choose which parts of my life I’ll next be leaving behind. I suppose this is what your early twenties are, shifting from life to life, filtering out the necessary memories until all you have left is your future.

It was exciting at first. But after almost four years, I’m glad it’s coming to a close.

Change is tough for all of us, no matter how much we prepare. This week, Brown students new and old adjust to new lives, and Post- editors bring you our thoughts on transitions, of all shapes and sizes. Best of luck with these hectic weeks, and keep an eye out every Thursday for your weekly dose of Post-!--Monica Chin, Features Managing Editor I am temperamentally skeptical of the concept of personal transformation. I do think active attempts at selfimprovement are valuable. I also believe that it’s (generally) good to set aside time to reflect on personal changes and label them as transitions, if only to yourself.

(It seems very psychologically effective.

For example, think of how effective New Year’s is for getting people to set goals).

However, I’m the kind of person who naturally defaults to thinking that I’ve always been exactly the way I am, no matter the number of changes I’ve actually made. I’ve learned how to speak in front of hundreds of people—and also how to speak to just one. I’ve learned how to deal with a moose collision (after several trips to Maine). I’ve learned how to cook (and how to cook reasonably healthy meals). But I still feel that I’m much the same person as I’ve always been.

—YW --

I was born in D.C., then lived in Abidjan, Seoul, New York, Seoul again, then back in New York, and finally arrived in Providence. Yet, all this time, living under my parents’ roof and as the youngest member of the family, I always remained a child despite the frequent changes surrounding me. Even in college, I couldn’t equate my being a student with being an adult, especially considering my living situation—on campus and on meal plan. I blush to say this, but as the years went by, I held on more dearly to my childhood, fearing living in my very own place and being completely self-sufficient in terms of food, et cetera.

Finally, I spent a summer in San Francisco for the first time, subletting for myself, learning to do grocery shopping and cooking with no guidance (besides hoarding and memorizing as many Pinterest recipes as possible). It seems so little, but something about having my own place, having more control over my nutrition, and realizing how manageable it is, sparked a mental switch.

There was no better precursor to my senior year than this summer. Living offcampus and being off meal plan for the full year, I certainly feel different from the girl I was even up until end of last semester.

— GY --

Deep breaths, you can do it. Go through with it. These thoughts ran through my head, as one hand gripped my heavilyabused bleached hair and another held a simple pair of scissors. I’d wanted to have short hair since the beginning of freshman year. It was now the end of sophomore summer, and I was, at last, ready. The ends of my hair were dry and sad, bearing a tragic resemblance to a bundle of wilted hay. I remember pursing my lips as I inched the scissors closer. With soft violence, I shredded through my substantial ponytail, then proceeded to grab a section of my hair and cut bangs. I looked into the mirror, and barely recognized myself. I blinked twice, and felt a torrential wave of panic.

Shit-- what did I do? How can I go into public like this?? I haven’t had this haircut since I was two years old, perpetually dressed in corduroy overalls.

After fifteen minutes of frantic pacing, I reached a cool point of acceptance and slipped into an increasingly growing... satisfaction? I ruffled my hair a bit, and luxuriated in the lightness of that feeling.

As all things go, this was about more than just long hair, self-image and split ends. This was a summer dedicated to bravery, accountability and letting go.

Three weeks before this moment, at 11 PM on my birthday, my long-distance

--MC In 2011, Mariah Carey spent countless hours on the Home Shopping Network peddling her then-new collection of clothing, jewelry, and fragrances to an eager audience of millions of Middle Americans and probably Eminem. One item on display during one of her twohour live sales pitches was a pair of Mariah Carey Cropped Cargo Pants, a versatile statement trouser priced at $79.90 with $7.22 shipping and handling. She ushered in the pants as representative of a “summer transitional moment,” a moment I feel we are now tragically in the midst of. We don’t usually think of September as part of summer, but the first half seems ever determined to make it Hot in Herre at all costs. At the same time, academic and public buildings are still keeping it real cool to wipe out Zika or something, which renders the go-to tank and shorts out of the question. So, on the cusp of this pit-stained, swampassed Summertime Sadness, I find myself longing for those $79.90 Mariah Carey Cropped Cargo Pants, the perfect transitional slacks with storage space for all your heart could possibly desire — a scentless Lady speed-stick, one of those sexy S’well bottles, maybe even an ice cube to hold on your risk just like your weird cousin always tells you to do.

--RW

4 features

tying the knot a first-year’s guide to shopping period

RANDI RICHARDSON contributing writer illustrator STEPHANIE ZHOU

Freshman Friends, this semester will end in earning our first college credit (AP scores and previous college classes aside)! An established college G.P.A is nothing to sneeze at, especially because grades are cumulative. But how do we get there? Shopping season is in full swing as students take to the classrooms for the first time in the fall semester. Classes officially started Wednesday, September 7th, 2016 and won’t be wrapped up until December 12th.

What? Did I hear 15 weeks of commitment? This can be scary for some students, so what should you do before tying the academic knot with your fall semester classes?

Shop til ya’ drop!

Shopping classes is a great way to know what the class is like, how the professor teaches, and the major assignments involved. It’s also a good idea to seek advice from students who previously took the course so you know exactly what’s in store.

Shopping is defined so many different ways. For instance, some students are attending nine classes right now, while some students are reading course

descriptions online, still others are just kind of winging it. There’s no right or wrong way to do shopping, so try different things. Read the reviews, ask questions, do the readings, and check out anything that might strike your fancy.

What’s the worst that could happen?

However, not everyone makes use of the full shopping period; opinions on it vary from person to person.

It’s easy to dislike shopping period because you have to keep up with all of the work for the classes you’re shopping. If you’re shopping seven courses, then ideally you’d want to complete the required work in all of the classes, which can be very stressful and time consuming. It ends up being a waste of time for the class that you end up dropping—all that good, hard work for nothing— or a mental-marathon in catching up on work in a class you want to take but that you discovered a week into the semester.

At this point, most students should have an idea of what classes they want to take. If you’re still undecided, meet with your advisors, prospective professors, or other students to help speed up your decision-making process.

This first semester sets the tone for the

rest of the school year—the rest of your academic career, really. It’s so easy to get consumed by activities on campus, but you chose Brown for a reason.

Organizations, Frats/Sororities, parties and everything else are all nice, but none of them scream “DEGREE” through their speakers. Classes, sections, labs, and academic meetings talk the language of a college kid who is planning for graduation the first day of freshman year.

Of course, we’re all about our books— or else we wouldn’t be here—but it’s so easy to get distracted on a college campus.

There are events every night. And if there’s free food, that’s almost a guarantee that people will show up. Enjoying your four years spent at Brown is obviously a part of the overall college experience, but don’t spread yourself so thinly with so many commitments that you don’t have time to focus on the learning you came here to do.

With the last week of the shopping period winding down, try to compile a plan for studying and completing the homework for your solidified class schedule. It’s easy to do, and it’ll pay off when you’re able to get experience from

shopping a high number of classes.

Brown University is probably nothing like your high school. And honestly, that’s probably for the best; we all matriculated here expecting for the standard to be set at a higher level than the institution we left. Straight A’s in high school doesn’t carry much weight anymore. Don’t try or feel the pressure to be perfect because you were a stud in high school. At the end of the day, undergrads can still graduate without straight As. Relax and breathe. Take shopping period seriously, but remember that it’s okay to be uncertain. It’s okay to not know exactly what you want to do with your time here. It’s okay not to know who you want to be. That’s what shopping period is for: trying on different versions of yourself.

Whatever your strategy is, just know that the last day to add/drop classes free of charge is Tuesday, September 20th at 5pm. At this time, the website will shut down for about an hour. After relaunching, all adds/drops will require an instructor override and a $15 late fee per course. If you’re okay with late fees, then your deadline is October 4th.

Happy Shopping!

lifestyle

5

your shopping period horoscope where all the carts align

ANNA HUNDERT contributing writer illustrator JULIE BENBASSAT

Shopping period got you down? Still waiting for that professor to send you an override? Feeling like everything is arbitrary and hopeless?

The answers to your shopping period woes might be written in the stars. Take a break from refreshing the page for that seminar with zero seats, and consult your Fall 2016 shopping period horoscope: Aries Your negative thoughts are holding you back, Aries. Try to say at least one positive thing out loud each day during these two weeks, such as “I can do this!” or “I am positive that this semester is going to be rough.”

Coping mechanism: Going to the Nelson and pretending you know how to use an elliptical. Then telling everyone who will listen that you worked out earlier and it was “so cathartic.”

Comfort food: Ivy Room smoothies, but you will only crave them when the Ivy Room isn’t open.

Taurus Maybe send a fifth email to that professor, just so they know you really mean business.

Include phrases like “contribute my unique perspectives” and “pretty, pretty please.”

Coping mechanism: Giving mediocre advice to freshmen.

Comfort food: Butter rum muffins from the Blue Room. You were going to just get one, but now that it’s 4 p.m. and you can use credits, you might as well get three. Use that meal plan efficiently, Taurus.

Gemini Share a syllabus, make a friend! Then look at your new friend’s shopping cart and make all their decisions for them, instead of focusing on your own problems.

Coping mechanism: Getting lost in a YouTube spiral of old American Idol audition tapes. Remember that one guy who dressed

up in a full-body chicken suit? Me neither.

Comfort food: Ratty coffee mixed with chocolate soft serve, Oreo pieces, and hazelnut creamer. Don’t worry, we won’t judge.

Cancer Try using this pickup line: “How about instead of Netflix and chill, we go back to my place for some stare-at-our-shopping-cartsand-cry and chill?”

Coping mechanism: Sex. Comfort food: Jo’s mozzarella sticks. If you get one of the sticks that’s actually two sticks stuck together, it’s a good omen that a spot will open up in that filled-up Orgo section you wanted.

Leo Don’t be that person who forgets about the writing requirement. It’s literally our only requirement. You had one job. Think of all those poor kids at Yale with their distribution requirements. Sign up for that WRIT class and stop whining about it.

Also, don’t hook up with that Cancer guy—he’ll give you crabs.

Coping mechanism: Using all your PawPrints at the SciLi color printer making signs with the Admiral Ackbar meme saying “it’s a trap!” so you can put them up around the Brown Bookstore textbook section.

Comfort food: Filling an entire takeout box at the V-Dub with Lucky Charms and then only eating the marshmallow pieces.

Virgo This is your year to start working on those connections, Virgo—strike up a conversation with the professor at the end of that big lecture class, even if they seem to be in a hurry to leave. Be sure to maintain eye contact and only ask questions that were already answered on the syllabus, such as “when are your office hours?” or “do the online discussions count for a grade?”

Coping mechanism: Making “pros and

cons” lists for every class, then lighting the lists on fire.

Comfort food: Andrews’ cookie slices. If you stack two together, it’s really as if you’re only eating one, if you think about it.

Libra Libra, when you find yourself re-considering your entire life path after reading an intimidating syllabus, just remember that you can always take that one class S/NC. Or two classes S/NC. Or three.

Coping mechanism: Googling “successful people who dropped out of Brown.”

Comfort food: Jo’s quesadillas with everything, and extra sour cream. When they ask if you want a half one or a whole one, don’t say “Do I look like a joke to you?” They’re just doing their job. Show some respect and appreciation for the person who’s taking the time to craft your precious quesadilla. It’s shopping period for them too.

Scorpio It isn’t lazy to only consider classes that meet within two blocks of your dorm. It’s just efficient. (But remember, sometimes they change the locations during the second week. You’ve been warned.)

Coping mechanism: Following a tour group of prospective students around campus to remind yourself that at least you’re not still in high school. When it seems like they’re onto you, pretend you’re playing Pokémon Go. Comfort food: Del’s frozen lemonade.

Don’t go to that other knockoff frozen lemonade stand. Where’s your fucking loyalty?

Sagittarius Try to blame your stress on problems other than the soul-crushing task of choosing the classes that will define one eighth of your undergraduate academic life. For example, maybe you’re just dehydrated. Drink some water to fuel those tears.

Coping mechanism: Updating your LinkedIn profile at 3 a.m. Then updating your Tinder profile at 4 a.m.

Comfort food: Andrews’ breakfast burritos.

But stop asking for extra avocado, because it’s never going to happen. And it’s pico, not “tomatoes.”

Capricorn “Wait, you’re saying I can only take five classes?” Take a chill pill, Capricorn. Deep breaths. And when your PLME friend comes to you complaining about their shopping period decisions, do not throw their laptop in their face. That is unkind.

Coping mechanism: Researching options to study abroad in the spring.

Comfort food: Those suspiciously orange waffle fries at the Ratty. They’re so good but seriously, how do they get to be that color?

Aquarius Taking risks will pay off. Step out of your comfort zone during this shopping period and experiment with new disciplines. Or, if that’s too much, maybe try out a new laundry detergent.

Coping mechanism: Signing up for 16 different extracurriculars at the activities fair.

Maybe you can be a pole dancer when you graduate. Or a singing pirate. Sounds like more fun than medical school.

Comfort food: Hummus. Like, just plain hummus eaten with a spoon. You disgust me a little bit, Aquarius, but I respect you and your choices.

Pisces When in doubt, choose the class that has the syllabus with the best formatting.

Coping mechanism: Reading fake horoscopes written by people who don’t know anything about astrology.

Comfort food: V-Dub salad bar. All hope is lost.

6

arts & culture

harry potter & the seven genres how each book fits into a class of its own

SPENCER ROTH-ROSE staff writer illustrator CLARISSE ANGKASA

With Harry Potter and the Cursed Child hitting both bookshelves and London’s Palace Theatre this summer, Pottermania has reached peaks not seen since the release of the final film back in 2011. Luckily for a complete geek like me, who modeled his first pair of glasses in second grade after his favorite boy wizard, all that means is that it’s finally okay to talk about Hogwarts with the general populace again without the general populace slowly backing away.

So what better time to unveil a Harry Potter theory of mine?

Don’t worry, it’s not some wonky fan thing about how Ron is actually a time-traveling Dumbledore (seriously, it’s on the Internet, so it must be true). Rather, mine is about the form of

the novels themselves. I believe that, long before Rowling went “theater kid” and decided to try a new method of storytelling, each book was actually written as an homage to a completely distinct genre of literature.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Fantasy This one might seem obvious, since the whole series is solidly in the realm of fantasy. But none of the other books come close to the sheer worldbuilding in which this one delights. The Spielbergian sense of wonder, as Harry and his new friends explore Hogwarts for the first time, as they meet the weird and hilarious members of their new home, and as they discover the capabilities of their powers, taps into a timeless hunger for the fantastic and the unbelievable.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Mystery Chamber of Secrets is a whodunnit at its heart, and the heroes have to solve the mystery to get to the bottom of it. They grapple with Christie-esque clues, like the rooster feathers mysteriously left at the crime scene, to figure out who’s been petrifying the students of Hogwarts. There’s also enough espionage, secret passageways, and red herrings to keep mystery buffs guessing along with the characters—and it all leads up to the climactic… uh, anagram. But it wasn’t the butler this time: It was the diary. Duh.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Horror A werewolf? A soul-sucking flying ghost wraith? A prison that drives its inmates insane?

A monster that takes the shape of your greatest fear? Prisoner of Azkaban screams horror all the way. Lovecraft and Poe would be proud of this one, even if the literal haunted house called the Shrieking Shack is a little on the nose.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Sports Calling Matt Christopher! Goblet of Fire is Rowling trying her hand at a young adult sports drama, but instead of a high school football player having to choose between the girl he loves and the sport he grew up playing, we get dragons.

This one opens with a lengthy description of the Quidditch World Cup and then spends a bajillion pages on what amounts to an athletic competition, complete with challenges, cheaters, and a constant eye on the scoreboard. (Seriously, why would anyone think the Triwizard Tournament would be a good idea?)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Psychological thriller Major plot points get revealed in dreams in this book. Harry wakes up in cold sweats, not sure what’s real and what’s just his mind (or, rather, Voldemort inside of it) playing tricks on him. Mind reading and mind control are recurring themes in Order of the Phoenix: Snape tries

to teach Harry how to defend himself against magical attacks on his sanity, and Voldemort, after pretty much Incept-ing a fake idea into Harry’s brain, tries to actually possess him later on. Or maybe Harry’s just going crazy the whole time, like the Ministry of Magic’s been telling everyone!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Soap opera Any book that spends this many pages describing teenagers falling in lust and immediately snogging the shit out of each other cannot possibly be any other genre.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Epic quest Finally Rowling gets to let loose here and get her high-fantasy on, and she doesn’t miss the opportunity to pay tribute to the epic fantasy quests of fairy tales and classic masters like Tolkien. It’s a journey to find magical objects (objects which happen to number seven Horcruxes and three Hallows, the two most important digits in mythology), and the book’s nearly episodic form brings to mind the quests of The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, and other enchanted road trips.

Plus, the final battle and confrontation between good and evil at the end is nothing short of legendary. The series’ neat and unequivocal happy ending, “All was well,” is the finishing touch on a long and richly plotted fairy tale.

her so-called life sonia sotomayor’s memoir sees only one side

JOSHUA WARTEL staff writer illustrator KATIE CAFARO

“What made the difference between two children who began almost as twins?” asks Sonia Sotomayor near the conclusion of My Beloved World.

She is contrasting the diverging paths of her own life and a childhood friend, Nelson. Nelson was smarter, she says, with a father who loved him more than Sotomayor’s father, an alcoholic who died young, ever could.

Yet, Nelson failed unambiguously in adulthood. He developed a heroin addiction and cleaned himself up only to contract H.I.V. via needle contamination in the 1980s. Now he has been gone for many years. Sotomayor reflects that there is “one thing I had that [Nelson] lacked.”

It’s a quality that Sotomayor wishes she could give out like a drug. “Call it what you like: discipline, determination, perseverance, the force of will,” she writes. “I knew it had made all the difference in my life.”

Sotomayor’s memoir, a bestseller when it was released in 2013, is many things at once: It functions as a reflection of her community and cultural heritage, an ode to public service, and an extended tribute to all the mentors, friends, and family that helped her along the way to the Supreme Court. However, like most life stories, My Beloved World is unsettled. In an unstable balance, luck and outside forces pull on that “special quality” Sotomayor says she possesses. How much of Sotomayor’s life is her own?

This is not to discount the achievements of Sotomayor. Just flipping through the pages of My Beloved World, one sees Sotomayor take aim at an ambitious target (“every report card would have at least one more A than last time”) and nail her mark. She set her sights on Princeton and Yale Law School--and graduated at the top of

her class. She made early mistakes working as a prosecutor then changes the structure of her summations and “never lost a case again” (210). Having attended all of primary and secondary school at a Catholic school, Sotomayor credits much of her discipline and perfectionism to the nuns. It shows. In 2009, she was asked to throughout the first pitch at a Yankees game. “I practiced twenty minutes every afternoon for weeks,” she writes.

She may not have much velocity in that right arm, but the result was eminently respectable: “I did send it right down the middle.”

Following in the long tradition of political memoirs, Sotomayor’s writing possesses both bland writing and banal optimism. “Experience has taught me you cannot value dreams according to their odds of coming true,” she writes in the preface. “Their real value is in stirring within us the will to aspire.” Sotomayor explains My Beloved World as a way to make her story accessible, giving marginalized individuals the knowledge that “happy endings are possible.”

I can’t dispute this claim. But is a happy ending probable? Nelson’s story suggests not. Not very many people posses the intelligence or moral character of Sotomayor. The worst sin she seems to admit in three hundred pages is “on more than one occasion I may have broken the speed limit.”

To her immense credit, Sotomayor has devoted her career to making American society more fair and just for all its citizens. There isn’t much more, however, than the outlines of her progressivism in My Beloved World. She plays up her independence of vision and stops decades short of offering her opinions on contemporary Supreme Court issues. The one mention of the Republican Party in the book offsets a rebuke of the GOP’s stance

on social issues with a friendly nod to their fiscal frugality.

So My Beloved World must be read as a fully personal, not political, book that reveals the broader problems with the inspirational genre of memoir. It’s a genre that falls victim to the old maxim, attributed to Winston Churchill, that “history is written by the victors.” Well of course it turns out, personal history is also written by the victors. So much of what Sotomayor writes could be written by almost anyone. The details and family history might change, but the essence would remain the same. So, I read her book increasingly aware of the impossibility of accounting for her good fortune. This is something that Sotomayor herself acknowledges. As a teenager, she asks, rhetorically, “What if my father hadn’t died, if I hadn’t spent my sad summer reading, if my mother’s English had been no better than my aunts’? Would I have made it to Princeton?”

The coincidences grow and grow. Sotomayor stumbles by a conference room and finds herself listening to the district attorney of New York, resulting in a job interview and unorthodox path that pays notable dividends later on. Stricken with diabetes since childhood, Sotomayor almost dies during a wedding in Italy. She passes out at a hotel room in Venice and fails to show up on time for the wedding. Fortunately, a friend notices, treks over to her hotel and finds her in time to call an ambulance. “Each time I found myself in a blood sugar crisis,” she observes, “I couldn’t help but notice some unlikely intervention saved my life.”

These diabetic incidents and near-death experiences suggest that the line between life and death, between her fate and that of Nelson, is

thinner than Sotomayor may like to admit. I reiterate that this is not a criticism of Sotomayor’s life but a criticism of the story of her life that she tells. It’s a story that moves from ignorance to enlightenment, pausing only to measure how far she has come. “There is no experience that can’t avail something useful,” she writes. The other people in the book, almost uniformly praised, from her mother to her former husband, Kevin, come across as stock characters. This draws a stark distinction between Sotomayor the person and Sotomayor the storyteller. The former is, without a doubt, unselfish. But the latter struggles to imagine a story that isn’t hers.

What gives Sotomayor the right to a 300-page story of her life? It’s her celebrity, her fame, her luck at becoming a Supreme Court Justice. Thus, the fundamental difference between Sotomayor and Nelson is not that between success and failure; it’s that Sotomayor was able, even asked to tell the story of her life, while Nelson could not.

Books like this one are biased not just towards success, but towards who can even tell u s about the world, about success and failure. Although My Beloved World is not a very good book, it illuminates the privilege of storytelling. No wonder Sotomayor concludes the book with a her swearing-in in 2009 and a final sentence that brims with overwhelming graciousness: “In this life, I have been truly blessed.”

arts & culture

7

viewer discretion is revised how violence in pg-13 movies should be handled

AMEER MALIK staff writer illustrator KATIE CAFARO

One of my favorite things about the summer is that I get time to watch movies. I don’t care too much about the sunshine outside; lead me to an auditorium with a projector or give me a couch in front of a TV and I’ll be happy. And although summer is the season for big-budget blockbusters, I try not to watch movies just for pure entertainment. Film is an art form, like literature and theatre, so I try to think critically about what I

experience.

I was disappointed in myself, then, when I was told about a debate featured in the New York Times over violence in PG-13 movies, a topic that had somehow cropped up without my knowledge. The introduction to the debate mentions that there is a “trend of PG-13 movies becoming increasingly violent,” which I hadn’t really noticed. The introduction ends with the question, “Is it irresponsible to portray conflict without its gory consequences?”

The debaters present interesting and important ideas. There’s one point in particular that I want to expand upon. Betsy Bozdech discusses the harmful impact that depictions of violence can have on younger viewers and suggests that movies illustrate the detrimental consequences of violence. I think this suggestion is important for all audiences. In order for a film to portray violence responsibly, it has to convey the weight, the immense impact that violence can have. Violence shouldn’t be treated lightheartedly, and it shouldn’t be normalized. Instead, violence needs to be shown as damaging and as having significant and lasting consequences. This can be done without depicting gore.

One film that handles violence responsibly, for the most part, is “Captain America: Civil War.” Despite the fact that action and violence are common in superhero stories, the film shows that this violence has an impact. Early on, the superhero Wanda Maximoff tries to save civilians by launch-

ing a bomb that is about to detonate into the sky.

When the bomb explodes next to a tall building and kills innocent people, the film’s audience feels horrified and witnesses Wanda’s horror, too. This event isn’t brushed aside. It keeps its magnitude.

The deaths of the innocent people lead to the main conflict of the film: the question of whether or not superheroes need oversight. Also, Wanda doesn’t forget the tragedy. She struggles with guilt and with her doubts about her own powers and capabilities.

The film has several other portrayals of the impact of violence. A mother confronts Tony Stark, one of the heroes, over the death of her son, an innocent civilian caught in the middle of a battle between Stark’s team and a villain. The mother’s pain is evident, and Tony is so affected by the fact that innocent people have died that he supports oversight for superheroes. Later, T’Challa witnesses his father’s death, and this compels him to seek vengeance after he succeeds his father as the hero the Black Panther. He is so hurt and enraged, though, that he hastily pursues someone who has been framed for the murder instead of the real killer, and T’Challa realizes his mistake before he does something he would regret. At the film’s end, the main villain and real killer reveals that he is motivated to ruin the heroes because of the deaths of his family members, who have been killed in the same past conflict that has killed the mother’s young son. The irreversible consequences of violence is a major theme that pushes both

the plot and the actions of the characters. Though there are moments of stylized violence and overthe-top action, the film does show the weight of violence while maintaining a PG-13 rating, without displaying gore.

I can contrast “Captain America” with “300,” an R-rated movie that depicts bloodshed and gore while making violence feel light. “300” is about a battle, but it doesn’t convey the gravity of warfare.

That’s because the violence, even though it is gory, is hyper-stylized. When warriors are killed, their deaths often have no impact because their deaths are entertaining to watch. “300” makes fighting look cool. This clashes with the reality that violence has destructive effects. The film therefore handles violence irresponsibly by presenting it as aesthetically pleasing instead of as horrific and life-destroying.

I think the question of violence in PG-13 movies is too narrow. Instead of focusing on just movies that avoid R ratings, we can look at all movies intended for different age groups and think about how they treat violence. There are multiple ways in which a film can depict violence as having weight, and there are several ways in which it can make violence weightless. It’s our responsibility as active moviegoers to think critically about the films we watch as we eagerly wait for the fall and winter movie seasons.

dungeons and disk drives transforming your desk from drab to fab

CHANTAL MARAUTA staff writer illustrator SOCO FERNANDEZ GARCIA

This summer, I participated in a month-anda-half-long internship with an international law firm. Overall, I had a fantastic experience, and I got to meet a range of interesting people. However, having only finished my first year of college, I wasn’t qualified to do much, and as a result there were times I found myself incredibly bored.

In those moments of idleness, my over-thinking brain began to analyze everything, from how I felt in the moment to whether this job was really for me. If you know me, you know that I am an intense, outgoing person. I’m an actor, a dancer, and a shower-singer; I talk nonstop to anyone about everything; I literally skip down the street; I’m that extremely bright, chirpy, and annoying person who screams “GOOD MORNING” at you while you’re still grumpy at 9 a.m.

Sitting behind a giant wooden desk facing an archaic desktop computer, I started to feel a little bit caged. I realized that though I loved the work (e.g. bringing justice to a company who’d been cheated by another), I wasn’t a fan of sitting until my derrière went numb. Chances are you too will find yourself behind a desk at some point in your life, so if you’re someone with a giant personality, an active imagination, and an abnormal amount of restless energy like me, you might want to consider ways to keep your desk from becoming your dungeon.

This summer, I found myself taking two approaches to do just this. First, I tried to keep awake by being busy. Second, I found ways to relax and recharge.

Below, you will find some pointers: RUN AROUND AND BOTHER EVERYONE. The moment I found myself sitting, sighing, and nearly crying out of boredom this sum-

mer, I decided to make quick rounds of the office to ask if I could be of service to anyone. If you do this, even if your colleagues end up giving you pretty demeaning tasks, at least they see your face and get to know you, which might lead to them trusting you with bigger, more interesting tasks later on.

BRING A NOTEPAD. This can be either physical or electronic--the important thing is that you have an outlet for creativity. If you like to draw, spend your free time sketching. When sitting down aimlessly, your mind can wander, so instead of letting it get to the frustrating place of “what am I doing with my life,” sketch a scene, character, person, outfit, or whatever else is on your mind. If, like me, you are incapable of drawing, turn to writing instead. Write a thought catalog, diary, article, or story, and put your active imagination to good use. Trust me, even if it’s not “real work,” it looks a lot better than just drumming your fingers on your desk, or scrolling zombie-like through your Instagram feed.

MAKE EXCITING LUNCH PLANS. Conversely, if you have a really busy day wherein you are trapped behind your desk with a 30-page translation due before lunch, make sure that you have something exciting to look forward. For example, if you are in a familiar city, plan lunches with old friends so that can look forward to trading gossip and stories. If you are a nostalgic history buff like me, make a list of non-mainstream historical places you can walk to and explore.

Otherwise, try out different food places because there is nothing more exciting to look forward to than an interesting and flavorful meal.

BRING YOUR HEADPHONES. There will be days when, after hours of sitting, reading, and typing, you will want to tear your hair out. If

you are not in a rush, take five to ten minutes to put down your work and plug in. I’ve found that putting on an inspiring playlist wakes me up and helps me recharge. If you are a dancer, listen to a song that you know the choreography to. You might get a couple of strange looks when you mark moves absentmindedly, but hey, who cares?

And even if you’re not a music person, maybe watching a funny video on BuzzFeed is what you need to energize. Don’t feel guilty for not working when you should be. Just remember that these breaks are not slacking off – they are a way of recharging so that you can be more awake and do a better job.

These are some things I did to make sure that I didn’t waste a moment drowning in dark thoughts or overeating the chocolate chip cookies in the office kitchen. These methods might work for you, and they might not. Not everyone likes creative outlets like music and sketching, but the main purpose of this article is to convince you that there are many simple ways you can make a day more exciting for yourself. The most important thing is that you don’t waste your time and energy being bored, or scrolling through your social media accounts depressing yourself because of the fun-looking pictures of your friends in Santorini or Ibiza.

Whatever you did last summer, you had an opportunity to learn, and you’re here now, so why dwell in your feelings of FOMO? Perhaps now, on idle days, you can get up and try to engage with people in your office.

It will both give off a better impression of you as a worker and make you more excited about your environment. And on days where

work gets too much and you feel like a caged phoenix, step out of your cage for consistent and strictly timed breaks.

Above all, no matter who you are, try to keep your imagination going. If your job means something to you, try to do it your way. If, however, you really can’t stand it, don’t do it to please or impress your parents/partner/cat. Remember that your creativity, your outgoing personality, and your passionate nature are all gifts that will someday take you where you belong.

8 lifestyle topten

things that last longer than (y)our average sexual econcounter

1. 4:33 (John Cage) 2. Kim’s marriage to Kris Humphries (though we think she and Kanye are remarkably good together) 3. the clap 4. regretting your sexual encounter 5. the pho line at Andrews 6. amazon prime drone delivery times 7. the war of 1812 8. a duracellTM AA battery 9. katie ledecky’s 200m free time (1:53.73) 10. 4 minutes - Madonna ft. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland

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hot post time machine

But a frozen lobster, I found out, isn’t a dead one; it’s just a slow one.

me jane you food • 2/16/12

calling it like it is if you see something, say something

SARAH COOKE contributing writer illustrator KATIE CAFARO

CW: street harassment, sexual assault Lately, I’ve been wondering if cunt is shorthand for woman who doesn’t take bullshit. That, or—if we were living in an alternate universe, as the 2016 U.S. presidential election has me wishing we were—it’s an attempt to normalize female genitalia. When kids scream Vagina! with the same glee as Penis! we’ll know that the future has arrived. “You’re using humor as a defense mechanism,” a friend said when I made this joke. Paraphrased, my response was, Well, duh.

The park we were talking in, incidentally, was also where a former congressman, one who was renowned for the quantity (if not quality) of his dick pics, walked by me on his way to the gym.

During the week that followed, it seemed like men everywhere were inspired by him. When I bought apples from a street stand, the man selling them leered at me and said, Sure, baby, the baby glittering in the gold cap of his tooth. I quickly walked away, only to walk past construction workers who waved at my chest. The next day, I was on my way to the subway when a man said to me, Cunt. He didn’t even break his stride.

A few days later, I was in a coffee shop writing when a shadow fell over me. The shadow belonged to a man who wanted to know why I was using two notebooks. I told him they were for my thesis. He pulled his chair next to mine and began talking about the book he was reading. “It’s about grit and resilience,” he explained, before launching into a second explanation about why I needed to focus on the positive, i.e. stop talking about the election.

When I mentioned that a man had recently called me a cunt, he asked me the two questions—What were you wearing? Where were you walking?—that always make me wonder if there is a seminar somewhere called How To Ask Dumb Questions: A Primer! (I was wearing my body that is gendered female, and I was walking in my life, thank you very much.) After assuring me, “Don’t

worry, you’re not a cunt,” Mike told me his name and then asked for my number. “I’m leaving the city,” I said at once. “I have to go back to college.”

Bye Mike.

The first time that a man earnestly told me his opinion about my cunt-ness, I was 16 and walking to a bus stop. A homeless man asked, Lady, can you give me some money? I kept walking. He swore and said, You’re a cunt, you know that right?

Saturday, the day after Mike, it happened again—only this time, the guy’s name was Rich, and he wanted to take me out to dinner even after I told him I’d just gotten out of a bad breakup.

Even better! No pressure, he said. I smiled quickly and told him to have a good day. He took the cue and left.

In Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, Briony, a young girl, stumbles across a love letter addressed to her older sister Celia. The letter writer explains what he would like to do to Celia: cunt is mentioned, but as a site of admiration, of daring and unfettered intimacy. To Briony, however, the word signals a warning about how a body can completely undo another’s. The first time I read Atonement, I was in middle school and didn’t realize that what Briony sees happening between her sister and her lover isn’t rape, but consensual sex.

Like Briony, I was just young enough to think myself less innocent than I actually was.

To one man, I was a cunt because I was alive.

But to the man who’d asked for money, I was a cunt because I didn’t give him what he needed.

I did that because, young as I was, I was already aware that, in the wrong situation, the line between what men need and what men want can evaporate and leave a dangerous desire in its wake.

Because of this, I ignore men who talk to me in public. Every time I do, however, I wonder if it’s actually a choice between charity and self-interest that I’m making, or if I’m telling myself that because I need something to believe in, or if there’s even a choice at all—when of course there’s a choice. I’m just tired of the consequences of mak-

ing the wrong one.

For weeks on end, I dreaded walking to that bus stop. I didn’t know if the man would be there, and if he were, how he would respond. Would he follow through on the threat implicit in cunt and do something? And when he did (my mind polevaulted from hypothetical to actual with Olympic ease), how would I respond? I began clenching my hands in my pockets so that I could spring out fully-loaded fists if necessary. This was the point, I imagine, at which I began looking like I was asking for it—it, in this case, being my paranoia.

Though I have been followed home by men in their cars, though a man has shouted at me, in front of a beloved professor, “You’re a pretty girl but ugly on the inside,” though I have had men tell me, when I was ten, that they wanted to “mate” with me, though and through those things, I am beyond grateful that none of that abuse was physical. I am grateful, and disgusted by that privilege, and disgusted that it is a privilege.

Just ask Leslie Jones, an African-American comedian, whose website was hacked in August and whose stream of harassers speaks to the doublebind of racism and sexism that women of color face daily. Hackers posted nude photos of Jones and compared her to Harambe the gorilla, a degradation that escapes white women who also face online harassment. Jessica Valenti, for instance, ends her latest memoir, Sex Object, a beautiful and all-too-familiar meditation on objectification, with a selection of what men online have sent her: diagnoses of mental illnesses, death threats, rape threats, death threats to her six-year-old daughter, rape threats to her six-year old daughter. On their own, those attacks are heinous. And yet, they aren’t loaded with the racist vitriol that people send Jones and other women of color, women whose crime, in the eyes of their harassers, is to be not-white, female, and doing what men do— namely, have a brain and be vocal about it.

In 2013, the World Health Organization re-

ported that one in three women will experience domestic or sexual violence in their lifetimes.

Within my family and friends, that statistic is a sham. Every month, it seems, I hear from a woman of whom I’m proud and honored to know about previous assaults, while across generations, my female relatives have been abused and abandoned with such frequency that I’m embarrassed that it took me this long to realize that few men are raised with genuine respect and love for women. Just as I’m wondering if it’s possible to be born white in America and not have a shred of inherited racism, so too am I wondering about men and misogyny—and I say this as a white woman whose best friend is her father.

When I tell friends, particularly male ones, that I loved living in New York this summer, they’re surprised. I’m not: the city taught me that finding joy through something, not because or in spite of it, is not only worth seeking, but also occasionally possible. New Yorkers keep New York Safe and DANGER: MEN WORKING were the two signs I saw most frequently in New York, and even though the irony did not escape me, it was not something that I wanted to read too much into. I did and still do, but because I do not want to build my life through fear, I am trying to live otherwise. I am trying.