t s o p BER
EM SEPT
ME U L O 17- V
E1
SSU 18 - I
s i h in t
. . . e issu
, s e r u t r e v o , s s g p i n t i n s ’ e l p ope o e p d l o d n a
2
upfront
Editor-in-Chief Yidi Wu Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Abby Muller Managing Editor of Features Monica Chin Managing Editor of Lifestyle Cissy Yu Managing Editor of Online Amy Andrews Arts & Culture Editors Liz Studlick Mollie Forman Features Editors Lauren Sukin Nate Shames Lifestyle Editor Corinne Sejourne Copy Chiefs Lena Bohman Alicia Devos Serif Sheriffs Ellen Taylor Logan Dreher Her Grey Eminence Clara Beyer Head Illustratrix Katie Cafaro Staff Writers Kalie Boyne Kevin Carty Katherine Cusumano Eleanor Duke Rebecca Forman Joseph Frankel Devika Girish Emilio Leanza Caity Mylchreest Tanya Singh Bryan Smith Andrew Smyth Staff Illustrators Yoo Jin Shin Alice Cao Emily Reif Beverly Johnson Michelle Ng Peter Herrara Mary O’Connor Emma Margulies Jason Hu Jenice Kim Cover Jenice Kim
contents 3 upfront
saved from the slump Tusher Bhargava
4 features
an inconvenient choice Sophia Gluskin-Braun
5 lifestyle
advice from brown The Editors autumn essentials Loren Dowd
6 arts & culture
diamonds are a boy’s best friend Ryan Walsh lights up Abby Muller
7 arts & culture songs of our summer Hannah Maier-Katkin
8 lifestyle
top ten overheard at brown obvious/curious Abby Muller
editor’s note Dear readers, A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. I do not claim to be the most fanatic fan of Dune, but this particular beginning struck me as a good one. I think of it again as Brown begins another fall semester. I don’t mean to suggest that we should scurry around nudging every last detail into place, ensuring the cosmic balance of the year to come. Not everything has to be just-so if that’s not your cup of tea. And our best-laid plans, should we make them, won’t steer us onto one shining path. (I would make a case that it is best they don’t.) Expect opportunities, expect downfalls, and expect chaos (case in point: our first production night!). Rather, this quote suggests to me that the beginning is a time to recalibrate. We are much more likely to change how we think of ourselves when things end in our lives. It is hard not to conclude something about ourselves when relationships and jobs and semesters come to a close, as well as easy to tell ourselves that the mistakes are past us now, along with that chapter of our lives. But endings and beginnings are both and truly only demarcations between the past and ourselves. History does not change and we should not abandon it, but we are free to draw the lines that separate ourselves from the past. September may just be an ordinary month for you—it will come around again, as it has in the past. It’s prompted me to think of my past two years at Brown and the year to come, the disappointments that I’ll lay away and the joys that’ll remain constant. I wish you all the best,
Yidi
we’re taking this week off...
keep an eye out for some upcoming nudity!
upfront
3
saved from the slump escaping the fated sophomore slump
TUSHAR BHARGAVA contributing writer The alarm sounded from the other end of the room. I burrowed deeper into the blankets, hoping to mute the noise. The discordant ringing grew louder. I tried to bend the pillow to cover my ears, but the sound still found its way through. After a minute of resisting, I gave in. Abandoning my dream—in which I was sitting atop a mountain of chocolate chip cookies — I threw aside the blanket, walked to my desk, and shut off the alarm. Yawning, I checked my email. Three unread messages. I tapped on the first and started reading: “Dear Tushar: Thank you for your interest in our software engineering internship. We regret to inform you …” I grimaced and swiped the message away. It was the fifth rejection email of the week. Picking up my towel and thinking dark thoughts, I headed for the shower. As the water poured down my head, unwanted worries continued to bombard me. I felt underprepared for an upcoming midterm, my CS project was due in the morning, I had yet to start the problem set for my insipid math class, and all my friends suddenly seemed busy. Emerging from the shower, I was struck by an overwhelming urge to return to bed, crawl under the covers, rest my head on the pillow, and not move until the snow had gone. *** The “sophomore slump” is perhaps the best known colloquialism when it comes to discussing our brief college span. It is an umbrella term meant to capture a wide range of negative feelings and a general sense of weariness. However, given the broad nature of the phrase, it is important to narrow the scope of its usage, and for the purposes of this article, we’ll define the slump as a feeling of apathy or underperformance in academic and other spheres of life, relative to a student’s first year at college. The slump, however, is not synonymous with the more serious topics of depression or mental illness, and we will restrict our discussion to the above definition. The next question is whether the slump actually exists. Hesitant to rely merely on my own experience, I conducted a short survey among my fellow 2017 students, presenting them with the same definition as a guideline and asking them whether they had felt the fateful sophomore slump. While the number of respondents was not large enough to draw any broad conclusions, and selection bias was, of course, a concern, the survey results seem to be enough to anecdotally confirm that the slump phenomenon does indeed exist. Ninety percent of the survey’s takers stated that they had experienced the sophomore slump, while approximately 80 percent claimed they knew of a friend who was slumping. With the freshly-uncorked effervescence that comes from realizing you’re not alone, I set out to sleuth for the causes of this malady. First, I sent all the original respondents a more detailed follow-up survey. Next, I arranged for a few in-person interviews. While I expected every student’s story to be unique, I also hoped to identify broad patterns that could
reveal a path out of the slump. My first interview was with Orlando Rodriguez ‘17 and Ally Nguyen ‘17, organizers of the Class Board’s Sophomore Slump events. Orlando and Ally were slumping in the Fall semester, but achieved a complete volte-face in the spring. In fact, when I met them they were positively exuberant and brimming with energy. After a brief discussion about the weather (it was raining) and the state of our classes (somewhat perilous), our conversation meandered to the causes of the slump. “I think Brown loses a lot of its enchantment [in sophomore year],” Orlando said. “Yeah,” Ally agreed, “Freshmen year you’re excited about everything, but sophomore year is this awkward phase. You’re not old enough to have all these experiences that juniors and seniors have access too … like getting internships, or non-requirement classes that are actually interesting. And everything becomes kind of blasé. Where can I fit in now? What can keep me excited now?” “And the fact that you have to declare at the end of the year is a looming pressure,” Orlando added. I nodded; these sentiments had been echoed in the follow-up survey responses that were slowly trickling in. Several respondents had noted that their courses were dreary and uninteresting, often concentration requirements. Dissatisfaction with one’s social circle was also a recurring theme: “There was a diffusion of [my] original group of friends. [They had] new responsibilities or commitments,” one respondent wrote. The murkiness of the future was an equally common concern and cause. Another respondent replied: “It started when I tried to find a job for the summer. It also started when I had to choose a concentration.” Moreover, the winter weather and being cooped up indoors scarcely helped anyone’s mood. It is important to emphasize that these causes often work in tandem, conjuring a makeshift prison that is absolutely stifling. As one survey noted: “[The slump is] the want to explore many new classes but the leash that your concentration ties around your neck. It’s the want to socialize but the need to finish a project by Friday midnight.” Ally seemed to agree. “You’re locked in terms of both classes and your social circle … people are less willing to make friends.” The sense of dwindling possibilities, then, is perhaps the root cause of this malaise. In German there is a word for these premonitions (the Germans have a word for everything)—torschlusspanik, or the fear of closing doors. And in your second year, with the deadline to declare rushing up, with the freshmen heyday of unabashed hellos to strangers receding in the past, and with half of your time at Brown nearly exhausted, the doors are shutting faster than ever. *** As I climbed the last of the four flights of stairs, trying hard not to berate myself for yesterday’s botched midterm, I noticed my
roommate’s bright blue T-shirt hanging from the door knob. (He had earlier, in keeping with the custom, used his sock as signage. But the odor was so pungent, the appearance so grimy that I had been forced to advocate a different signal. The shirt was far too obvious for my liking but what the heck, anything was better than that malodorous footwear.) I swore. Resting against the wall, I weighed my options. It was too late and too cold to go to the Rock. The prospect of sitting in the dank Caswell basement didn’t appeal to me either. Drawing upon my last reserves of strength, I knocked twice. “Give us a moment.” My roommate’s voice emerged from the door, muffled. I sat down to wait in the hallway. After 10 minutes, the lock turned and the door swung open. I walked in, gave a small wave to the entangled couple, dropped my backpack to the floor, and collapsed on my bed. Trying hard to ignore the hushed whispering and to forget the midterm, I stared at the ceiling. Just then, my phone buzzed; I had gotten a few replies to the messages I had sent out earlier. I went through the texts. All of them seemed genuine, but apparently no one had time to meet over the weekend. Some cited papers, others prior social commitments, but the end result was another uneventful weekend for me. I, however, had one last person to ask, my erstwhile partner-in-crime. I turned to my roommate. “Hey, do you want to hang out this weekend? We could go for a play in the Downspace.” He surfaced from under the sheets like a seal breaking the surface of water, “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” I repeated the invitation. “No, I’m afraid not. Me and her already have plans.” “Oh, OK. No worries,” I said, tossing my phone aside. When I lay back, I noticed the cracks in the ceiling, and as I shut my eyes I hoped to God that it wasn’t a metaphor. *** Often the causes and effects of the sophomore slump are closely intertwined. For instance, dreary classes lead to students slacking off, which in turn leads to poor grades, further eroding a student’s interest in the class. Similarly, the weakening of old friendships
can cause students to retreat into their shells. One survey-taker mentioned that their slump had “led to a lot of nights spent in, instead of going out.” Naturally, this only further deteriorates one’s social situation, as it’s hard to meet new people. “These kind of feelings feed on each other,” Dean of the College Mau Mandel affirmed. Having examined the complex nature of this malady, we now come to the most important question of all: How can one fight the sophomore slump? By sifting through the survey and interview responses, aggregating advice from former slumpers and re-examining my own experience, I have devised a blueprint that will (hopefully) help students reverse the curse. One of the root causes of the slump is a paucity of time: to think, reflect, socialize, and relax. Therefore, the very first step of my stratagem asks you to quit something. Maybe this means leaving the multiple clubs you joined for now-murky reasons or the extremely hard class you are taking for “pragmatic” reasons. Whatever it is, be ruthless. Remove the big, unnecessary time-sinks from your schedule. “Do what you want, do what you feel, and if you’re not feeling what you’re doing, change it,” Orlando said, encapsulating his own lessons from the year. (He intends to pare down his extracurriculars even more next semester.) Seriously, if you aren’t deeply interested in a club, class, or even a concentration, then quit it. Extrinsic motivation can only do so much; you need intrinsic motivation to fuel long days and nights. If, even after quitting your most time-consuming commitments, your schedule is packed, embark on a mission to drastically improve your study techniques (start with understanding the single biggest culprit of time shortage—pseudo-work). With your newfound free time, plan exactly two structured activities. (You know you did the previous step wrong if you don’t have a decent chunk of extra time. If you’re reluctant to give up some clubs which you feel committed to, consider taking a brief hiatus and trying the less-busy-but-more involved lifestyle as an experiment.) One of these should be journaling. This might seem clichéd, even awfully reminiscent of an inferior class of literature. However, it is the single most effective method to clarify one’s thoughts. This is not trivial, and it deserves emphasis. Several
4
features
of the former-slumpers commented on the importance of describing their emotions. “Never invalidate your feelings,” Ally warned, who herself is a big fan of keeping a diary. Journaling can often make you aware of the nature of your slump, and it can even help you start to ruminate on the bigger questions of happiness and what you want your future to look like. For the second activity, follow Dean Mandel’s refreshingly simple suggestion: “Do something you’re good at,” and find a related course or club to join. Now this might seem like contrarian advice — I was harrying you to quit things just a few paragraphs before — but if you truly pick something you enjoy, then this activity won’t be a chore, and it will help you de-stress. In addition, this strategy will help you expand your social group. Dean Mandel noted that people often feel more
trapped than they are, and that college is the easiest time to change one’s social circle: “Don’t set out to make a friend, that’s a big step. Instead say I’m going to try something new. That’s a small step and with all the social outlets on campus it is easy to do.” And what should you do with the remaining time? Revel in it. Spend time with your friends, go to impromptu events, dwell in your coursework, read interesting books outside of class. Your happiness will skyrocket. Trust me. To return to the metaphor of the closing doors, the combination of time for interesting events and growing skills in one particular endeavour will introduce you to more people and unlock all sorts of new possibilities. In other words, open the very doors you feared were closing.
*** I stuck the sheet of paper to my desk, the Scotch tape making a pleasant crinkling sound. “What are you doing?” my roommate asked, looking up from his phone. “I’m setting myself a writing schedule. I’ve decided to write everyday.” “Do you have the time?” he asked. “I quit ______ (an inconsequential extracurricular), and S/NCed that math class I was telling you about. So yeah.” “Oh, cool.” My phone vibrated, and I saw it was a text from one of my friends from Fiction II — with my newfound time, I could hang out after class and had begun talking to some of the other students. Another notification. This time it was an email, from the editors at Post-, saying they had liked my writing samples and asking whether I would consider writing an
article for the magazine. (The article, appropriately enough, is this very one.) As I sat down to write my journal for the day, I reflected on how quickly things were changing. (An important point of clarification: never start your daily logs with “dear diary;” it simply isn’t done.) With my past diary entries, I had noticed a lot of monotonous patterns (routine can often cause the slump. The plan outlined in the article aims to break the rut) and had taken simple steps to rail against them. It seemed to be working. I stared out of my window, which overlooks Lincoln Field. I could make out small muted green patches dotting the not-sopristine snow. I smiled, and—as Brown alum Sarah Kay said in her song, “Providence”—I thought spring could be here any day. Illustration by Yoo Jin Shin
an inconvenient choice the trials and triumphs of a vegan lifestyle SOPHIA GLUSKIN-BRAUN contributing writer
I became vegan two years ago for two pretty simple reasons. One is the animal suffering in the meat industry. Animals that are killed for meat are overwhelmingly often kept in awful living conditions where they live in overcrowded confinement. I also felt that I could easily eat foods that are still healthy and delicious without needing to rely on killing animals to sustain me. The second reason is the fact that raising animals for meat has a negative impact on the environment, resulting in more greenhouse gas emissions than eating vegan foods. (Let’s say you eat a cow. This cow needs to eat plants. After it is killed, you can eat the cow. When you eat the cow, you are only able to extract about 10% of the energy that went into the cow. If you just ate the food that the cow had eaten, you would be saving energy). Often, when people find out that I am vegan, they seem amazed that it is possible, usually noting that they could never do it. In my experience, though, being vegan does not significantly affect my own life. I do have to remember to take dietary supplements. I think slightly more about my protein consumption than I did before I became vegan, and I have gotten really good at quickly skimming through ingredients lists. But being vegan in college, where my choice of food in the dining hall or at an eatery is com-
pletely up to me, is actually quite easy. I still eat delicious food with my friends who aren’t vegan, and we don’t have to compromise where to eat because every eatery and dining hall at Brown has good vegan options. The harder part of being vegan arises when I am not on the meal plan or cooking for myself. Since I became vegan, whenever I arrive at my grandparents’ house after a long flight, my grandma takes me around the kitchen to show me all of the vegan food she painstakingly goes out of her way to buy for me before I come. In these moments, it is clear that the food that I choose to eat is an inconvenience in her life and even adds unnecessary stress because she wants to make sure that I will be well fed when I am at her house. This inconvenience that I pose to her extends to other situations as well. Over spring break, I was at a protest in Florida rallying to get Wendy’s and other big companies to agree to the Fair Food Program, which would result in tomato farmworkers being paid better wages and getting better working conditions. Some of the organizers had provided lunch for the students attending. However, they did not have anything vegan. One of the organizers went to get me a lunch, but by the time that the organizer had returned, I had already had to leave with the other students. The organizer,
who was already busy with setting up for the event, had to spend time that could have been used to do much more important tasks running around trying to accommodate me. If I could have done it again, I would have eaten the lunch already provided. There have also been times when I have broke veganism because of the effect it would have on the people around me. I started tutoring a high school student in Providence who recently moved here from Nepal as a refugee. When I would come to his house for our tutoring sessions, his aunt and uncle would make tea for me. Though the tea that they gave me had milk in it, I made the decision to drink it regardless. I felt that it would have been extremely rude to refuse the drink that they made for me after they welcomed me, a stranger, into their home. Pre-vegan Sophia would have thought that being vegan was very clearly the right thing to do no matter what. It turns out though that, like most things in life, it really is not that simple. In this case, it stems from the fact that my choices are not only
my own. Choices make changes in other people’s lives, too. My choice to become vegan did not happen in a vacuum, and the people around me sometimes have to make accommodations. But seeing how much this choice has an effect on the people around me reminds me that it also has effects that I can’t see. Most people who buy meat, tomatoes from Florida, or clothing made in sweatshops do not see the living conditions of animal livestock or the working conditions of farmers or garment factory workers. Not everyone can choose what they buy because of different levels of access, both geographically and economically, but many people, including myself, regularly make purchasing decisions that are unsustainable. These choices seem almost trivial, but they do matter. In the end, I think veganism can be a case-bycase choice. Illustration by Peter Herrera
lifestyle
5
advice from brown:
what is the best piece of advice you received in your younger days? the editors
“When I first went to grad school, I had studied History in undergrad and I was studying AmCiv in grad school. At that time I found myself studying a lot of women’s history. I told my professor, ‘Nobody told me I was going to be a women’s historian.’ And she told me, ‘There are some things you just have to learn for yourself.’ So my advice would be—do the work, do whatever, study what interests you. And put a label on it later on. What you do will teach you what you need to become.” -Kate Monteiro, Historian “I heard this in like, 10th grade, so it’s a long time ago. And kind of cheesy, but, how does it go—it’s important to do well, but it’s more important to do good. For me that’s been a good lens to look at the world with, and I like the grammatical irony. The idea is, that you can do well, but for what sake?” -Manuel Contreras, ‘16 “The concept of ‘fake it till you make it.’ Not that you should pretend to know what you don’t know, but that you should be confident in what you do know. That’s how I’ve muddled through in the beginning whenever I’ve started a new job. And, be kind. That’s more important. Be kind to everyone.” -Amy Tarbox, Career Counselor
“In my 20s, I was a freelance writer at the Providence Journal, and my editor said to me, ‘You have to learn how to use a computer’. So at nights she would take me to our computers—these enormous IBM machines, really primitive technology—and she trained me on her own time, knowing that as a young journalist, I really needed to have the newest tech skills. I’m really grateful that she did that. And even now, I love creating online courses. For my generation, it was computers, and for your generation, I think it’s coding. Learning to code will be crucial for you guys. I think some people are shy of learning new technology, but having tech skills is, I think, essential. It lets you be in the middle of your own moment in time.” -Elizabeth Taylor, Professor of English “Somebody once told me this: ‘You don’t owe anyone anything’. I think it’s about the concept of self-care. That no matter what else happens, you should come first.” -Duncan Gallagher, ‘18 “I started doing police work when I was 23. My first day on the job, my supervisor told me, “Tell the truth, even if you messed up. Because I’m your supervisor, and it’s my job to have your back.” In police work, you have to make a lot of on-the-spot decisions, and you
sometimes don’t follow policy and procedure. It’s fine to make mistakes. But if you make a mistake and lie, that’s much worse. I’ve never made a mistake bad enough to lie about, but ever since I became a supervisor, I’ve been telling my guys that line. I think it really helps build trust and rapport.” -Officer Kelly Mitchell, Campus Police Officer
I consider myself pretty Orthodox in my beliefs in God and Jesus, and I still hold those beliefs as absolute. But I’ve recognized that people come from different backgrounds and angles, and that some of my Christian beliefs aren’t necessarily core things. So I’ve learned to separate my true Christian beliefs from the peripheral things that matter less.” -John Michaelson, Religious Advisor
“Jump, and the net will follow. An older friend of mine told me that in college, and it’s come in handy many times. I’ve followed that advice when I’ve been forced to make professional choices that involve risk, and I’ve always been happy with the outcome.” -Dan Bisaccio, Professor of Education
“In my twenties, I had this time where I was unsure what I wanted to do, and looking back at my life I thought I’d made the wrong decision. And I remember my uncle telling me, “Don’t look at regrets as regrets, because everything you’ve done has affected your life in some way. Look at it as a lifestyle change.’” -James Rathbun, Retail Manager
“Stay in school. When I graduated high school I wanted to take a year off, but my parents were adamant that I go to college. So I went to college, got my degree, went into business and retired at forty-nine. Staying in school was the best thing I ever did. I do work parttime now, because I love it! Before this I was retired for a few years, unemployed, getting really tired of playing golf.” -Cooper, Security Officer “Not one piece of advice, but something I’ve learned over time is: To stay whole to my core values, but hold the other things loosely.
“Treat yourself! If you want something and have the ability to get it, then why deny yourself the good thing? Such as ice cream—if you want to get ice cream, you should, because there’s no point in suffering for something as small as ice cream. It’s not super deep, but just in life situations it’s useful. Like if you’re really tired, and you want to watch an episode of Netflix, but you have to study, then you should just watch a little bit of Netflix! That’s my advice.” -Ciara Hayden, ‘18 Illustration by Mary O’Connor
autumn essentials:
apple and pumpkin picking
LOREN DOWD contributing writer You always want what you can’t have, right? Growing up in Hawaii, where it’s summer pretty much all year round, I spent years wishing for autumnal things. Cable-knit sweaters, jumping through fallen leaves, the crisp chill in the air. After three years of New England fall, I feel I’ve had my fair share of experiences: throwing fallen leaves in the air, anticipating the first snow, and of course, eating anything and everything made with pumpkin or apples. Thanksgiving may be the main event, but the lead-up to the end-of-autumn holiday is just as good a time to load up on fall treats. It’s hard to deny the appeal of crunchy apples and warm, cinnamon desserts. And what better way to take advantage of the season than to go and get the fruits and gourds yourself? So don’t put it off—go apple and pumpkin picking as soon as you get a chance. In case you need more persuasion, here are a few reasons why you should join me in a pick-your-own adventure this fall. 1. I will make a confes- sion: I have never been apple picking. But don’t let that invalidate my point. If anything, it’s even more of a reason to go. I regret making it to my senior year at Brown without going. I watched it happen around me, cheesy fall-themed posts going up on Facebook and Instagram, but I was too wrapped up in my own activities to go myself. Self-proclaimed lover of fall that I am, I wasn’t even following through with my own ideologies of the season. Number one goal for
senior year? Go apple picking. 2. Apples deserve more credit than they’re given. It’s no secret that America is obsessed with pumpkin as soon as temperatures start dropping. The release of the Pumpkin Spice Latte is almost as highly anticipated as the next new Apple product (and we’re not talking fruit). The iconic gourd is trendy, the apple is traditional. New England is apple territory, with farms around Rhode Island and Massachusetts growing more varieties than you can count, so why not go the traditional route? 3. For students, pick-your-own is a great way to get off campus and explore the state, while getting piles of apples for a great price. Three years of living in Rhode Island for a good 8 months out of the year, and I feel like I didn’t really see the state until this summer. I’ll bet I’m not alone. In Rhode Island, there is no shortage of farms to choose from, with over 20 farms across the state that offer pickyour-own produce. Closest to Providence are Pippin Orchard in Cranston, Hill Orchards in Johnston, and Jaswell’s Farm in Smithfield. Hill Orchards and Jaswell’s offer hay rides to bring out your inner kid. If you’re looking for more of an adventure, make your way out to the corners of Lil’ Rhody you may not have seen before. There’s Manfredi Farms in Westerly, which has a corn maze in addition to their pumpkin patch, in case those philosophy classes aren’t brain-bending enough. Young Family Farm in Little Compton is holding a festival dedicated to apples in October. And
Confreda Farms boasts a Fall Fest with carnival activities and food, hay rides, and a Corn MAiZE (pun absolutely intended). 4. Connecting with the food you eat is not just a trend, it’s an experience I think everyone should have. Meeting the farmers who grew the food right in front of you shows you who you’re supporting and connects you to your community. Plus, those apples you pick will stay fresh longer than the ones from the grocery store that traveled who knows how many miles to get to you. So sink your boots into the dewy grass of Rhode Island’s farms. It will grow your appreciation for our little state. 5. Though it is not nearly as ubiquitous as the Pumpkin Spice Latte, apple cider is available by the cup, bottle, or gallon at many of these family farms. Fresh pressed cider, warming against the cold air, is the perfect companion to wandering through the orchards. Or, take some home to reheat for those late nights studying. 6. Once you’ve picked bags of Honeycrisps, Macouns, and Galas, and get home to realize you may have brought back a few too many, grab some friends and preheat your oven. Traditional apple pie is great, but rolling a piecrust isn’t exactly dorm-kitchen appropriate unless you’re really ambitious. An easier version is apple crisp, which only needs a few basic ingredients. You can even do it at the Ratty. Though it’s a hit any time of the year— I’ve made apple crisp in the dead of summer despite roommates’ protests over turning the
oven on—it is a classic fall staple that’s hard to resist. A microwave version is also fairly easy if you’re looking for something more simplistic: Microwave sliced apples in some butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, then top with a crunchy granola—this one could even pass as breakfast. What would a season be without the foods we’ve come to know and love? Log onto Pinterest right now and find endless recipes to indulge in. Getting your hands dirty, struggling back to campus on RIPTA, and hitting the kitchen for a few hours with friends is well worth taking some time away from schoolwork. And take it from me—you don’t want to wait until your senior year. And if I still haven’t convinced you yet, then I have two last words: cider doughnuts. Apple Crisp: 6 Tbsp butter ½ cup flour ½ cup oatmeal ¾ cup brown sugar 1 tsp cinnamon 5 apples, peeled and sliced Mix ingredients. Sprinkle mix over sliced apples in a baking dish or pie pan. Bake at 350˚ for half an hour. Illustration by Katie Cafaro
6
arts & culture
diamonds are a boy’s best friend a look at cartoon network’s steven universe RYAN WALSH staff writer We owe a great and unpayable debt to cartoons. They hold for us the power to look back: strong and reliable anchors to which we cling, mooring ourselves in the past. Countless Americans must remember with razor clarity the library card song from Arthur: Having fun isn’t hard… When you’ve got a library card! How can we not in an instant feel small again? Such childhood mementos left by cartoons find refuge in the mind, lodging there warmed and welcomed long after their arrival. So then, even if at first meant for the young, perhaps cartoons ultimately serve to keep us young, or at least to remind us of how it felt. Such is certainly the case for Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe, a program with its own fair share of catchy tunes that first aired in late 2013 and has just resumed its sophomore season. The series is a daydreaming gaze backward into the past of its creator, Rebecca Sugar, who retells with a sci-fi spin the tale of her relationship with her little brother, a bond she says has saved her life. Sugar worked on the idea back when she was a writer for Adventure Time, but she stepped down from that role in order to fully commit to her own series. Less hectic and bombastic than Adventure Time, Steven
Universe draws from the depths of the past the sweet charms and bittersweet sadness of being a little kid in a big world. The story unfolds in the fictional town of Beach City, a coastal community modeled on Sugar’s creator’s home state of Maryland. The titular protagonist is based on Sugar’s little brother, also named Steven, who works as a background artist for the show. Unlike his now-adult real-life counterpart, pudgy youngster Steven Universe lives in an ancient beachside temple with three motherly alien warriors: Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. Together, these otherworldly beings form the Crystal Gems, a group of rebel soldiers whose bodies are made of living gemstone and who arrived on Earth thousands of years ago. As the first season unfurls, Steven learns that he too is a Crystal Gem—or half of one, to be precise—who must grapple not only with his strange newfound powers, but also with the humps and hurdles of everyday boyhood. The plot follows this curious team of outer space femme fatales and their hammy hybrid protégé as they fight to protect their adopted home planet from alien attack and destruction. Despite an admittedly weird premise, the show has an unshakeable feel-good appeal.
The main source of warm fuzzies in the show is Steven, a loveable runt adored by most everyone in town: the cool kids, the mailman, even the mayor. Above all though, Steven is loved by his three alien moms who enjoy hanging around with their baby boy as much if not more than going about their actionpacked routine of monster slaying. Sugar has referred to the relationship between the Gems and Steven as a sort of reverse escapism, a setup where fantasy characters become interested in real life and want to participate in it. As an audience, this relationship makes us feel embraced by superheroes who are just as fascinated by us as we are by them. Superheroes aside, the show owes part of its strength and success to its supercharged fandom, an avid group of supporters across all age groups, some of whom draft fan fiction, design cosplay, and create their own “gemsonas”—online personas used by fans to role play as Crystal Gems. And the feeling is mutual from Sugar’s end: she frequently shares updates on Twitter and Tumblr with fans and offers explanations and advice during Reddit AMAs. This intimate interaction between the real world and the imaginary, between fans and their fancies, seems to be neatly in keeping with Sugar’s philosophy of reverse
escapism: a love affair between the beautiful and the banal. Whatever’s happening with Steven Universe, it must be working, seeing as the show topped 2013 as the most watched show on Cartoon Network and continues to garner record views. The program shines bright amidst the many duds because, more so than its prime-time neighbors, Steven Universe is deeply rooted in the real world. If we can forget for a moment these crystalline Power Rangers and their magic weapons, we are left with a story of family, of a remembered past, of a wonderful time when we, little and learning, were important and cared for by the ones we love. All in all, Rebecca Sugar has left little off the table for her interstellar smash hit. Entrancing and adorable (and renewed for a third season!), Steven Universe offers to older viewers a gentle portal to the past, and to the younger perhaps trail markers to revisit in time. Illustration by Bev Johnson
lights up musicals without beginnings ABBY MULLER managing editor of arts & culture One of my favorite musicals, The Drowsy Chaperone, begins with an overture. Only sort of, though. Technically, it begins with a character speaking from a dark stage to a dark audience. He reminisces about an age when shows were sparkly and glamorous, all escapism and bright tunes that transported you away—an age when shows had overtures. “It’s the show’s way of welcoming you,” he says, a “musical appetizer,” and one that—he laments to say—is becoming less and less common. It’s true. Hamilton (a very recent show taking Broadway by storm in terms of attendance and reviews alike) does not have an overture. Neither does In The Heights, another show by the same creator, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2008. Neither, in fact, did the 2015 winner, Fun Home, nor the 2014 winner, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, nor the 2013 winner Kinky Boots, nor the 2012 winner Once… You have to go back to 2005—that’s a solid decade—to find a Best Musical winner with an overture, and that was Monty Python’s Spamalot. I haven’t seen any stagings of the show, let alone the Broadway version, but a forum post I found online suggests that the overture includes
a lot of sound effects and the conductor shooting a renegade trumpet player. Hardly your traditional musical appetizer. The New York Times ran an article in 2006 (“Whatever Happened to the Overture?”) about the disappearance of the overture, and a central conceit was that there has been a shift in the way we view the music aspect of musicals. Listening to an overture while watching an empty stage feels like waiting for something to happen; once, we would have felt that the music itself was something happening. We no longer listen carefully to what instrumental music is expressing; now we rely on words or gimmicks when overtures do occur to set the tonal stage for the show. The shift started, the article explains, when the musical began to draw away from the operetta, leaning more towards storytelling and less towards spectacle, and continued with the advent of the pop opera. Pit orchestras have been moved onto the stage or out of the room. Music grows more modern, and orchestration has been inching more and more towards synthesizers. Even with re- cent shows that are more melodic, the trend has persisted. It is no longer just about the music. We like the cold open, now: being dropped into the audition room
in A Chorus Line, or lights up on Washington Heights and the action in In The Heights. Music is waiting, and shows are meant to start. I should confess here that my favorite shows are not the old ones. The ones that have a hold on my heart mostly don’t have overtures. The thing that grabs me about them is the power of the story being told and the strength of the format as a compelling way to tell it. My grandmother, on the other hand, loves musicals too, but her favorites are all the old ones with their lush sweeping music. She may find them compelling, but their primary lure is in their scope and extravagance. They evoke something older and more romanticized, an aura of escapism. They have overtures. Musicals are all still transporting, of course; this is the point of any good piece of creative storytelling. I would argue, though, that escapism is far less universal as a purpose of modern shows. It and spectacle have waned in tandem. Many musicals, especially the comedic ones, are absolutely still escapist, but they are the ones that still have a firm hold on the spectacular anyway. There are also now shows that present themselves as spectacles but ultimately use their outsize and captivating nature to drive home a
point (see: Pippin). But while these shows chug along, there has also been a huge upswing in shows where the point is ultimately some sort of catharsis. I don’t think that anyone could argue that Fun Home, this year’s Best Musical winner, is really about escaping to another world. Instead, it gives you the sense of elevated understanding and peace that having cried yourself out can give, about a story that isn’t yours. It can shape you. (My favorite shows are often this way. Call me sentimental. That’s fine; I own that. But I believe, deeply and strongly, that there is great value in emotive shows that make us think about what it means to us to be alive.) Here’s another confession: I haven’t seen Fun Home yet. All I have done is listen to the soundtrack. And there is where I think that the point of view which laments the loss of the overture is too jaded. It bemoans ultimately our loss of appreciation for music, sacrificed on the altar of needing to skip to the story. The modern attention span and so on. Honestly, I think that’s sort of silly. It’s one more instance of the past looking at the present and lamenting what has changed: understandable, but relentlessly and onedimensionally downbeat about the differ-
arts & culture
ences. If there is a cohort of fans listening to musical soundtracks at home without a show onstage to entertain them, then the musical aspect of the musical is not dead, not dying. The way we appreciate it has simply changed. It lives in tandem with a story now. Musical cues are still relevant and revealing, and audiences still access them to appreciate the show, only now appreciation is tied in more deeply in with the story. Les Mis would be a much weaker show without recurring musical themes to tie scenes and characters together (for example, the parallel melodies between “Who Am I?” and “Javert’s Suicide”). In The Heights uses varying musical styles including rap and salsa to shape the very world where its action turns, and the styles of the characters’ songs influence the way we see them, their identities, and their relationships.
It’s worth noting that the music of musical theatre can now be appreciated in multiple ways. When the overture was at its peak, so was the record as a method of listening to music. Albums were more holistic, and the sequence of songs was a relatively set thing. Now, with mp3s, I can listen to any single song from a show whenever I’d like to. I do, often—the number of times I listened to “No One Is Alone” after this spring’s commencement week production of Into The Woods is off the charts—but what I really prefer is to listen to shows in sequence. Listening to a soundtrack, tied closely as it is to plot and story, is instantaneous musical theatre. It’s why I listen to Fun Home even though I haven’t seen it yet, and it’s why I’ve listened to The Drowsy Chaperone through in order time after time. It isn’t being there or watching the show, but it’s something close.
There’s another and less-discussed way of experiencing shows now as well, and that’s the bootleg. Broadway still does not put out videos of its productions, but as video devices have gotten smaller and their video/ audio quality have improved, the number of available recordings on the internet has exploded. The popularity of these recordings also attests to the fact that musical theatre fans want to experience shows holistically. People lament the disappearance of the overture as heralding a loss of appreciation for music, but there’s a lot of instrumental music out there. That’s not what we turn to musical theatre for. It exists for the story. It’s still nice to be welcomed to the theatre by an overture, of course. It’s a preview for what is to come, an announcement of what the show will be. It’s comforting to have that liminal time to sink into the show. And maybe the overture will come back. I
7
would be thrilled. But for now, musical theatre is about the story. Music is just as integral as it has always been, but this is so because it guides us willingly into the narrative. Musical theatre has always been meant to transport. In the words of the main character from The Drowsy Chaperone, “It does what a musical is supposed to do… it takes you to another world. And it gives you a little tune to carry in your head.” The songs from a show are not only there to welcome you to the theatre; they’re to take with you when you leave. So we bring the songs with us, and when we return to them, we don’t need to be welcomed to the theatre. There’s no overture. Curtain up. Let’s begin. Illustration by Emma Margulies
songs of our summer
a reflection on call me maybe and shared experiences
HANNAH MAIER-KATKIN contributing writer In the fall of 2011, Carly Rae Jepsen released her single “Call Me Maybe” in Canada. By the following spring, the song had blown up internationally with a little help from fellow Canadian and pop star, Justin Bieber. He signed Jepsen to his label and pushed her song into the public spotlight through his presence on platforms like YouTube and Twitter. In 2012, “Call Me Maybe” reigned triumphant as the Song of the Summer. This title is determined almost entirely by tracking sales, as opposed to by an assessment of the actual value of the product, much like the race to the top of the box office list is determined by ticket sales for summer blockbusters. It is intuitive that music is strongly connected to memory, that hearing a familiar song can immediately transport its listener to the time and place that it represents in their life. A 2009 study from the University of California, Davis made the finding that listening to familiar music activates brain regions linked to autobiographical memories and emotions. “Call Me Maybe” immediately transfers me to the summer before my senior year of high school. In a way I can’t verbalize, I feel what it’s like to be seventeen again. Regardless of whether I enjoy the song, it’s a fact that it wormed its way into my life. Jepsen’s single had the ability to invade all aspects of my daily life. People were eager to show each other the video during class. The song played on the radio constantly, at every party, from the speakers of every passing car. Other groups adopted the song for their own videos, from Justin Bieber and his crew (including Disney stars Selena Gomez and Ashley Tisdale)—the video in question is purely of them running back and forth across the screen, lip-syncing—to the US Olympic Swimming Team during the London Olympics, filmed lip-syncing while in an airplane, at events, and even in the pool. One particularly notable aspect of the song’s quick rise to the top was its presence on social media, which hadn’t been a factor in past years. (Think back to LMFAO’s “Party Rock
Anthem” in 2011 or Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” in 2010: their popularity was less sudden, less exciting). I spent part of that summer at a camp called Girls State, where hundreds of rising seniors met for two weeks to create a mock state government. Perhaps predictably, “Call Me Maybe” had even entered the sphere of campaign speeches. One candidate’s successful bid for State Supreme Court Justice ended with the line: “I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my platform, so vote for me maybe.” The Song of the Summer has the power to become this massive shared experience during the months when people come back out of hibernation to enjoy the return of the sun and each other’s company. It manages to invade every aspect of our lives for that crucial period and then claims a spot permanently in our memories and cultural awareness. According to an article in the New York Times, the label “Song of the Summer” can be traced back to the 1950’s, “when transistor radios spread and teenagers emerged as an economic force.” That was the first time that music labels and radio stations could conspire to determine which song would dominate the airwaves, creating a collective summer experience marketed toward a new audience. Carly Rae Jepsen released a new album last month titled Emotion. The name itself is
imbued with the same lightheartedness as her music. The lead single, “I Really Like You,” is accompanied by an adorable music video featuring a chipper Tom Hanks lip-syncing to Jepsen’s vocals and dancing at about half speed to the choreography. The song is catchy and upbeat, but it hasn’t reached the level of her first hit. It’s not even a contender for this past year’s Song of the Summer. The songs that have managed to claim the Billboard Hot 100 include The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” (a personal favorite) and OMI’s “Cheerleader.” “Lean On” from Major Lazer and DJ Snake featuring MØ has also been a huge contender. In a different way, so has Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood”: although her single hasn’t risen to Song of the Summer status, she is winning at something else entirely with her insane summer tour— featuring a new guest musician in every city and flaunting her friendships with pretty much every celebrity out there. Amidst this race with so many contenders, news outlets from The Huffington Post to The New York Times have proclaimed that for 2015, there was no Song of the Summer. This could be due to the increasing popularity of streaming services like Spotify. Radio isn’t the only means anymore by which popular songs can be dispersed throughout a general audience, and it’s not the only avenue creators have in mind. The number of ways to reach a target audience has increased
dramatically since the 1950s. Listeners can bypass radio altogether, and reject what labels are trying to sell them. It is also easier for musicians to self-release their music and promote it online. Music labels are still important for promoting new artists, but they’re no longer essential (consider artists like Amanda Palmer, who very publicly denounced her label and crowdfunds her music projects, or the Silversun Pickups, who just released a new popular single—“Nightlight”—without signing to a label). The social media spread of “Call Me Maybe” is now more commonplace and is essential to the way we interact with music. Whether inadvertently or with great intention, we are all amassing a soundtrack of our lives. The Song of the Summer, during its brief rule, causes our playlists to converge. In some ways, it seems like a shame to lose that connection to each other. But it also seems arbitrary that one song should dominate that space. After all, it’s lonely at the top. There’s no cap on how much music we can listen to and enjoy, only on the amount of hours in a day. If there’s no clear winner, every contender should be able to metaphorically join Taylor Swift on stage simultaneously for a mash-up, making one out of the many songs that made this past summer a little brighter. Illustration by Emily Reif
8
lifestyle
Overheard at the GOP Debate at Brown: On birthright citizenship: “Well, I hate to say it, but Donald Trump has a bit of a point here.” (Rand Paul) On former New York Gov. George Pataki: “He wouldn’t be elected dogcatcher right now. I heard what he had to say.” (Trump) On Fiorina: “I think she’s got a beautiful face and I think she’s a beautiful woman.” (Trump)
topten things one direction should do now 1. Retire to Florida 2. Make way for ducklings 3. Find a second direction 4. Enter an experimental medical program researching male pregnancy 5. Announce a reunion tour. Cancel it. Enjoy the sound of broken hearts. 6. Recall every poster they’ve ever released as health hazards 7. Go all Miley Cyrus. WHAT’S GOOD ONE DIRECTION? 8. Get haircuts 9. Ghostwrite One Direction fanfiction. Act it out. 10. Find a third direction
obvious/curious
appreciating what we don’t expect
“I’m here to say that I think we are the A-team.” (Huckabee)
ABBY MULLER managing editor of arts & culture
“You don’t want me operating on you, I can assure you of that.” (Huckabee)
On the first day of my study abroad program this summer, the program staff had us watch a TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on “the danger of a single story.” We watched through blurred eyes, trying to keep from succumbing to jet lag in our chairs. The program – the Council for International Education and Exchange (CIEE) – used the “single story” concept to remind students to be aware of their own biases, that they might have a lot of preconceived ideas about a country and its people. It was interesting, but dizzy as we were with new information, the excitement of being in Paris, and severe and crippling trans-Atlantic exhaustion, it could have easily faded from memory. However, it turned out that CIEE loved the phrase “single story.” As the internet can attest, when you hear or read a phrase a lot, it starts hanging out in the front of your mind and on the tip of your tongue. We heard “single story” so much it became almost meme-like. Thanks to CIEE’s effort, “single story” hovered, waiting to spring into speech. We couldn’t shake it, so we turned it into a bit of a joke, using it to point out every stereotypical thing that we saw. And it turned out there were a lot of things that could reinforce the stereotypes that we hold about Parisians. At the Bastille Day parade, the couple in front of me spent 25 percent of the time arguing, 50 percent of the time making out, and the remaining quarter of the time searching for the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner” on their phones so they could make fun of us for being American. Rude, overly PDA-embracing Parisians? Single story: check. So yes, it became a game. But I also began to realize that CIEE had picked its phrase with care, choosing something catchy enough that we’d repeat it. Every time we joked about something reinforcing our single story, we were also acknowledging that that’s exactly what it was: a single story, one-dimensional and far from the whole picture. They’d taken our impulse to roll our eyes at goofy taglines and turn
“I say, not in a braggadocios way, I’ve made billions and billions of dollars” (Trump) On Rand Paul: “I have never attacked him on his looks. Believe me, there’s plenty of subject matter there.” (Trump)
hot post time machine
“But it might be a wasp, the nasty ne’erdo-well insect that is basically a rude wanna-bee.”
the secret life of the brown beekeeper -09/27/2012
them into jokes as a way to get us repeating something enough that it would sink in. Single story. Single story. Single story. While we sat in a public park, tossing glances at the couple deeply involved in each other’s mouths to see whether they might’ve just gotten engaged, joking about how they pretty much confirmed everything we suspected about Paris, what we were actually doing was reminding ourselves that what we were seeing wasn’t everything about Paris. It was one couple, on one bench, in one park, on one warm afternoon. “Hey guys, I don’t know about you, but this is reinforcing my single story.” What I am seeing is a single story. Another method CIEE used to make us think more seriously was the assignment they gave us for our program’s weekend trip to Prague: “Obvious/Curious.” We were supposed to take photos of stuff we thought was “obvious”—things that we recognized, that felt familiar—and stuff we thought was “curious”—things that were culturally different, that surprised us or didn’t make sense right away. “Curious” is such an uncomfortably unintuitive word to use in that context that it just sounds ridiculous. For the first couple hours, we went along with the assignment half to fulfill it, half to joke about it. But like “single story,” it became sort of a game: when you see it, call it. Street signs in the middle of the buildings? Curious. Rice and hot dogs for breakfast? Curious. Sovietera metro-entry escalators that plunged at sharp angles and breakneck speeds into the earth? Definitely, definitely curious. Curious food, curious language barrier, curious that the language barrier caused one of us to accidentally order identical meals at lunch and dinner. Giant metronome overlooking the city? No idea why it exists. Curious. Between the five of us walking around the city together, we probably called curious on a hundred different things. I don’t think I realized until I left just how smart CIEE’s choice of “curious” was. Unusual and clumsy in that context, it be-
came free of associations. It pointed out things that were unexpected, and since it had a touch of joke about it still, it did so in a way that made us feel fond of them. When I got home, I still had the impulse to say it but instead would swap it out with other words out loud. Most of the time, my go-to word was “weird.” Words are powerful things. There’s a concept I’ve read about in linguistic anthropology classes called performativity, which is the idea that language doesn’t just communicate, it also does something by being said. When a couple says “I do” at the altar, those words actually marry them. By saying, “It’s a girl,” a doctor designates the gender role that society will expect the child to fill. The words we choose to describe our reality also work in turn to construct it. “Weird,” said idly, isn’t really a judgment, not exactly. At least, we don’t usually mean it that way. It’s a placeholder word for a thing that is unexpected or for which we don’t necessarily have enough of the context we need to understand. But while “curious” is often a positive word, “weird” is definitely not. It has a tone of alienation. While we might not mean it in a judgmental way, that sense of it lingers. Nine times out of ten, if you interrogated me about the way I’d just used the word “weird,” I would deny having meant to label whatever it was as strange and unnerving and other. But the words we use can shape the way we think about things. The more we label things other, the more we avoid them. Our first morning at breakfast in Prague, I did think that hot dogs for breakfast was a little, well, weird. It didn’t sound appealing, and it didn’t make any kind of intuitive breakfast sense. It was not part of my single story of what breakfast is supposed to be. But what I remarked to my friend next to me wasn’t that it was weird, it was that it was curious. We laughed a little, and then I let go of that strong human impulse to make things other, just a bit, just for a minute, and tried some.