The Confidential Issue (Spring 2023)

PRATTLER

Letter from the Editor

Dear Prattlers,

As human beings, many of our life choices revolve around the urge to share ourselves with others and be understood in turn. This drive does not spare literature, or movies, or songs. Whether fiction or memoir, an essential kernel of truth can be found at the heart of every story. As art students in particular, I’m sure we’ve all been told to “speak your truth” a plethora of times. With this understanding, what is it about the truth that scares people so much?

For “Confidential,” we asked our contributors to explore the carrying of secrets and the act of releasing them. What are you keeping from the world, we wondered, and what do you suspect it is keeping from you? They responded honestly and, as a result, this issue is composed of confessions from people who have decided no longer to burden themselves.

As we finish the spring semester, the Prattler is sad to say goodbye to both of our current Co-Creative Directors as they continue to pursue great things. However, we are very excited to welcome our new additions to the team, who will keep the Prattler full of amazing art and design. As for me, it has been a truly incredible first year being your Editor-in-Chief. Thanks to everyone’s hard work, we succeeded in creating four stunning issues. I can’t wait to see what we will make in the fall.

Sincerely,

Behind the Cover

When exploring the theme of confidentiality, my initial thought was the symbolic gesture of the hushed finger indicating staying silent, but I also thought about the other side of taking on the responsibility to safeguard information. I wanted to explore the idea and nature of the work by using the front and back covers to depict two sides of the same scene. By revealing the “secret” on the back cover in the character’s hand, viewers can experience both sides depending on which page they’re on. After deciding on a composition for the cover, I then added harsh lighting and smoke to enhance the enigmatic atmosphere.

By Michelle Cao IG: @mi.ch.mich

Many of the compositional and design choices that I made were made with the Prattler cover in mind. For example, the harsh shadow adds a nice backdrop for the title so it stands out, and I made the back cover simpler than the front to differentiate the two. I also decided to make the character’s tie float in the direction of the smokes to connect the character to the motion of the environment around them. Textures were added to make the piece more alive, and I finished it off with little details such as the “no” symbol as earrings.

Prattler Staff

INGRID JONES

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

AMBER DUAN

CO-CREATIVE DIRECTOR

NAOMI DESAI

PRODUCTION MANAGER

JOCELYN LI

JUNIOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR

ERIC ROSENBLUM

FACULTY ADVISOR

MADELINE LANGAN

MANAGING EDITOR

YOTIAN CHU

CO-CREATIVE DIRECTOR

CHRISTINA PARK

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

YOO YOUNG CHUN

JUNIOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR

SAHAR KHRAIBANI

FACULTY ADVISOR

By Dan DeMarse

By Tanvi Kumar

By Ella Beard

By Krissy Williams

By Ingrid Jones

By Kali Kugler

By Jo Jacoby

By Emma Vall

By A.A. Wolfe

Madeline Langan

By Jos Bronner

By Hannah

By Naomi Desai & Avery Slezak

Rios

TILL I END MY SONG

By Dan DeMarse

Content Warning: Mental illness; suicide attempt

I wasn’t necessarily at the end of my rope. That’s the funny part. There was a pretty normal amount of rope.

For most of my life, I have lived in and out of intense despair and psychosomatic mortal peril, extorted by Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Or, as Elliott Smith once penned, “A happy day, and then you pay.”

Another element goes into doing such a thing. It might not be because of any compounded trauma. It might have nothing to do with anything going on in one’s life externally. But it’s always about feeling cornered. By wolves. In some way.

One must escape.

Not to say that the external events precipitating this were not intense. They were. I felt alienated from the two people in my life who were closest to me, outside of immediate family. I had left one of them for the other, then pivoted,

pleading for the one who I had left to take me back. I was also receiving unilateral ECT treatments three times a week and was very forgetful and bipolar throughout that time.

Much like Hamlet’s, this indecision was overcome by submitting to the death-drive. That’s why I did it.

Musing on the actions, events, and, yes, traumas that led to this, I muse as well on ‘the first domino’—and often, all too often, the examples my mind provides me with are deceptively insignificant, unglamorous. Their ripple, however, extends quite far.

I had told my friends and my family about being ‘bluesy’ before—a description of my state of being that was just playful enough to deter further emotional excavation on the part of the person to whom I was talking.

This wasn’t ‘bluesy.’

It was something not so passive. It was an evil rotgut. It was deep depression, and that, I

Art by Yoo Young Chun IG: @yyounggy

think, is a different breed.

Maybe, for all my restlessness, the SSRIs gave me akathisia, and I just didn’t know how to dispose of what I have ended up calling, “The Dropping Feeling.”

So, in the summer of 2015, I made a serious attempt on my life.

I rolled a joint and smoked it and went to YouTube on my computer and searched Radiohead’s “Videotape” from the basement recordings with Thom Yorke on piano and pressed play and then, as if controlled by strings, I walked over to the window and opened it and sat on the sill knees up and looked down at the set of stairs leading to the basement by the side of our building and the concrete courtyard below and before the song was even finished I just kind of let myself tip over. I fell 7 stories going 70 miles an hour. My mother told me that her mother, my grandmother, had been looking after me from Heaven. As for this, I don’t know. What I do know is, as I fell, my head hit an AC unit and my body windmilled away from the stairs. Instead of landing on my head, I landed on my left arm, which broke in half. I survived because of that AC unit.

Maybe that was my grandmother. Or it was pure luck. But I survived.

When I think about it all, sometimes I wonder if being open is a repellent, not because people reject your openness, but because they are simply indifferent to it. People can feel offended by their indifference to something they are told to feel something about. Indifference, to me, is a bigger obstacle than rejection. But, I share with you, anyway, and call it a sacred thing.

Though I made my attempt at the start of that summer, I would not end up getting surgery on my broken arm until late in the fall. By then, I was at McClean Hospital in Belmont, a suburb of Boston. Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, and David Foster Wallace being the McClean alumni, I knew I was in good company.

So, I walked around with my arm in a sling for three months, eating loads of Percocet for the pain and going to appointments with a doctor whose job it was to induce seizures in my brain.

Now, recently, I have plumbed more and more into my own life through expression. I used to make it a point to write about what I didn’t know, maybe a perfunctory response to the bromide “write what you know.” Well, now I am.

A crucial element of my writing has always been openness. Underlying my work is a desire to connect with people and make people feel. When I write I am not a cynic, even if outwardly I can appear to be. I wish to exalt myself, and exalt you, reader, with me. If I am to have this borrowed time called the rest of my life, I might as well do something like this with it. Sharing with you is meaningful to me in exactly this way: I exalt, and you feel alive. That is the covenant between reader and writer. As Mr. Ezra Pound once pleaded with Mr. Walt Whitman: “Let there be commerce between us.” I want to make someone feel less alone, in my commerce with them ––because they read it, and it stirs them, and when something stirs us, we feel more alive.

Helping someone get through something, in a way, is why writers exist. Maybe, in this case, the person I’m helping is me. Maybe writers, in their selfish, solipsistic furor, write to help themselves and end up indirectly helping others with their experiences. As for the larger takeaway, I desire to bring visibility to people who suffer from mental illness, just like I do. I have learned a lot, spending my 20’s in and out of institutions, psych units, and interrogation rooms. I thought it was all over when I turned 30—but it wouldn’t be. That’s how I’ve learned that things can always get worse, and the fat lady singing might not be ending her number just now, and myself with still more abdications and salvations ahead.

As for fate: making the decision to end one’s life, the way I see it, can always possibly be the result of the quietest of perfect storms, a negligible disturbance, and plenty of rope left.

But if the moment comes, you, too, might feel as though you were led by strings.

At least, in reading the writing, we can be free from the burden of time’s heaviness and feel lighter than air.

By Ella Beard

Hush

IG: @arts._ella

HAPPY PILLS

By Ingrid Jones

As a struggling teen, I read and watched endless media that attempted to tackle the topic of mental illness in teens, hoping to find some sort of relatability. Only recently have I realized that this media wasn’t necessarily made for people with depression as much as for those with people in their life experiencing it. Most of the media I interacted with at that time did not leave me comforted but with a feeling of hopelessness for myself and my future. Specifically, my favorite wallowing book was “All The Bright Places,” which is a romance of sorts between two suicidal teens. Unfortunately, one of the characters does end their life and the final chapter leaves the reader with the horribly common, harmful sentiment that mental illness is inherently romantic and, if you suffer the correct way, you can be a tragic inspiration to others.

Not only does this message stigmatize those who struggle with mental illness, but it can also deter them from seeking necessary treatment such as therapy and antidepressant medication. There are many prejudiced misconceptions about antidepressants in daily life and even professional medical practices, such as that antidepressants will give you intolerable side effects, that they’re ineffective, or that they will alter your feelings and personality. To the misinformed, antidepressants leave you a shell of a person, dull and vacant-eyed. This couldn’t be further from my experience.

After years of burying my feelings under a mountain of denial and continuing on regardless, my mental

illness caught up with me in 2021 and reintroduced itself in a way that I could no longer ignore. It manifested physically and mentally, my every thought and action controlled by relentless fear and panic. Every suggestion that all I was missing was “self-care” in the form of a little bit of yoga, three glasses of water, or a listen to *insert Sad Girl album here* left me despairing and exhausted. A temporary Band-Aid slapped overtop a downward spiral only goes so far. And what happens next, when you have to go on, wake up every morning, and live the rest of your life?

Let it be said that antidepressants are not an end-all cure-all – they are often locked behind barriers such as the healthcare system, and certain prescriptions won’t work for everyone. But, for me, no amount of self-care or self-love can replace the effects of my daily ten milligrams of Lexapro, which keeps me functioning as best as it can. There’s just nothing quite like pinpointing an instance that would have previously garnered a depressive spiral or anxiety attack, reveling in the feeling of progression, and just going about your day.

It doesn’t mean that life is easy or that I’m never unhappy. The purpose of this little white pill is just that, maybe, a depressive episode doesn’t lead to hitting rock bottom. Maybe everything good that happens in life doesn’t have to be tainted by an eternal twinge of despair that follows like a sour aftertaste. Maybe, when you decide to watch the movie adaptation of “All The Bright Places,” you don’t indulge or decide to wallow and instead shut it off in disgust.

Art by Jos Bronner IG: @josbronner

MORNING WOMAN

By Kali Kugler

When life is unseasoned or my days brutalize me with their unforgiving cyclicity, I imagine myself as an old woman – an old woman who has dealt with her life’s responsibilities and cut off unnecessary loose ends. In this fantasy I am on the coastal shore of Maine. The sun is rising, so the sky is a glorious concoction of orange and violet. The crash of the waves sprays my wrinkled, sun-damaged face. There is no pit of regret or guilt in my stomach, only morning coffee and contentment. White sand and chipped sea shells cut the worn surface of my feet. The sun begins to thaw the night’s cold blanket. I am unbothered, independent, and off-the-grid, but the most enticing filament of this moment is that I am entirely alone. It’s just me, the Atlantic chill of spring, the whitecapped surf, and an obligation-free existence.

I met this woman in Maine one summer, during the mild New England month of June. She was running a diner staff like the Navy without even breaking a sweat. The establishment was sweltering from kitchen commotion and grease. We got to talking while she poured my coffee, and I picked her brain about hiking trails in the area. She told me of her dawn routine: hike the Chandaluar Trail in the early morning darkness before anyone else, make it to Sand Beach by sunrise, and swim out to the cove’s cliff border. She called it her ode to peace.

I, a twenty-one year old, pretend that I am the elderly woman from the diner in Maine. This fantasy version of me has truly lived, but in this moment, she is reflecting, breathing, existing. There is no pressure to be with anyone or be anywhere other than the shoreline. Her responsibilities remain unspoken be-

tween her and the ocean. Her mornings are reserved for silent affirmations from the ocean’s curled waves, the salted winds, and the shifting of sunrise tides.

My secret to sanity could possibly be deemed as insanity. I love to hallucinate my existence. Some could say hyperbolize or imagine – I say hallucinate. If I am sitting through a painfully slow thesis lecture where everyone writes the same thing, or I am on a run and my knees feel like they’re going to shatter with one more step, or my mundanity starts to pull the air out of my lungs until my lack of oxygen delightfully disorients me, I pretend to be someone somewhere else. My life in New York City is fast and productive. I built it for myself, and I take pride in that. Though, in the depths of my soul, part of me resents myself for fortifying a life in such a materialistic environment fueled by hostility and status. My deadpan stare on the subway may come off as disengaged or rude, but at least in my mini curated reality I am at peace.

Verbally confessing my alternate reality feels dishonorable. I’ve exposed the potential of my future self to the eyes of readers who will claim to relate to or judge my choice of imaginative venture. My daydream confession is not meant to justify my mental dissociative behavior but to reinforce humankind’s magical ability to move through time. In this intangible reality, we can be whoever we want, wherever we want, whenever we want. Daydreaming is the ultimate intimacy one can partake with themselves. Just know, while I write this, I am on the shore in Maine.

Art by Poorvaja Subramanian IG: @poorvaja_09

THREE CAN KEEP A SECRET IF TWO OF THEM ARE DEAD; SO LAY US IN A BOX AND PRAY GOD KEEPS HIS MOUTH SHUT

By Jo Jacoby

kiss me like the confession you can only give behind a curtain

no prying eyes only praising hands

dark walls holding this weekly service holy partnered worship knelt in devotion

choir hymns hum love & we lay like lion and lamb

sheltered in a cedar closet sinners performing saints upon leaving this sacred place

no silver could free my tongue no Judas instead Peter repeat denier

my lips cannot form words when they’re sealed with yours

no sermon can spill from me lips locked with your tongue the only key

Art by YoTian Chu

PATH TO POSSIBLE REDEMPTION

By Hannah Power

Growing up devout, religion was encouraged but not pursued within my family. We would go to Sunday mass at the awful hour of 7 A.M., and I would attend CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) after school, but we were far from virtuous Catholics. Yet we still did what was expected of us within the religious community.

As a child, I dreaded attending church and CCD. I often feigned being sick to avoid going to mass, but I could never avoid going to the afterschool program. Every Tuesday, we’d spend hours after school being taught about how God loves everyone, how you need to confess your sins to go to heaven, and how to be a good Catholic. These principles were lost on younger me. There were so many discrepancies between the things I was being told there, and what I was taught in school. I was slowly becoming disengaged from the religion I was being taught, but I still couldn’t escape it.

My real detachment came at nine, when we were introduced to the sacrament of confession. One night, we were taken into the church and told that we needed to confess our sins so we would be redeemed in God’s eye. We weren’t given an option, we were only told that this would be happening. We were lined up in the church’s lobby and coached by the adults on exactly what to say to the priest… “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been x day since my last confession…”

Panic set in as I waited in that line, attempting to memorize what I was supposed to say. I remember it being agonizing. What sins was I supposed to confess? I was only nine. I didn’t kill or hurt anyone. I told white lies like all kids do, but surely that wouldn’t damn me to hell. I did what I was told, but apparently that wasn’t enough.

Inside the booth, I sat in a dingy foldable metal chair, and repeated what was told to me. The priest corrected my stuttered mistakes and asked what I needed to confess. And in that moment, instead of being a good Catholic, I lied, I made up whatever sins I might have committed (i.e. stealing pudding from my sister and lying to my parents). I only told a few sins; I wanted to make it believable but not earn any judgment. He listened to me, and once finished, told me my way to redemption: say five Hail Marys and five Our Fathers. God would forgive me if I did that.

Leaving that booth, I felt ridiculous. The adults led me to a statue of Mary and Jesus that I was meant to pray before, where I would find redemption. Kneeling, I thought about how absurd this concept seemed. At nine years old, I was supposed to act as if I’m a criminal and beg for forgiveness for the untold actions I committed. I left that night changed, and perhaps for the better. I never finished those prayers, nor do I ever plan to.

Art by Serena Y. Cheng

THE MEATPACKING INDUSTRY VOL II

By Amanda Rios

i am a bacchanal personified a never-ending party of swapping my identity like shitty thrift store clothes i change it whenever it makes the joke funniest come and drink the wine from my lips the Pope excommunicated me when he took a sip sip sip and my teeth impaled his holy tongue—

i defile my body constantly with black ink and steel it gives me a high it gives me control that i’ve never had

as i take my meat saw saw saw off all the parts that serve me no purpose luscious voluminous chicken breast that i cut c ut c u t off my

so my chest bleeding pretty forbidden string of pearls

drip drip dripping from my incisions

Art

by

Jack Bullard IG: @bowtie.pasta

my meat, thick and crimson raw, splattered on a wheeling cart unforgiving udder, departed, a soul for a soul a piece of the body for rebirth if only, if only

if only i had the courage to pick up the bone saw

i hate looking in the mirror i love looking in the mirror i’m not pretty enough it boosts my ego i’m not masculine enough cause i know i’m pretty and sexy and hot and masc everyone still thinks i’m a girl the power of queerness everyone still thinks i’m a girly girl woman girl the power of flattening your chest

the power of the illusion of control

look me in my dark brown eyes, saucers, dirt galaxy, and tell me that i’m pretty. aren’t i pretty?

don’t i look masculine enough? don’t i look like a man? Mami, stop rolling your eyes, and say yes. please say yes. tell me i’m a handsome man, that i’m the son you always wanted.

i don’t believe you.

CONFESSIONS OF A NEW YORKER

By Tanvi Kumar

part of the New York City experience as a pedestrian, I usually didn’t stop to decipher these messages. Since that encounter, however, I not only started spending more than the standard 30 seconds looking at these notations but also started documenting them to study how artistic expression plays an integral part in the vernacular of the city. I aimed to capture the idea of reclaiming the space around us through human intervention on inanimate surfaces and their subsequent degradation with time.

The nature of these anonymous confessions allows the city dwellers to reveal their secrets, share their thoughts, and sometimes even have a conversation for everyone to see, transforming the entirety of New York City into a community canvas. In a fast-paced city where every individual is often indifferent to their surroundings or other people, the anonymous inscriptions bring the community together. These intentional moments of communication describe the events and relationships of the city’s occupants.

My roommate and I were on our way to Forte Greene Park, feeling the warmth of the sun and a brush of cool breeze on our necks. It was the perfect day for a picnic. Along the row of two-story houses was a brick wall with wooden windows. On this mundane structure, I found a black-and-white painted illustration of a woman holding a skeleton (with the artist’s Instagram handle). It felt like a revelation, a confession of some existential thought about confronting death or mulling over it. It displayed an intertwining of opposites - a skull in one half, its reflection alive with flesh. With the woman’s face turned away from us, only visible to a skeleton we couldn’t confront, it truly seemed like a secret moment hidden in the shadows.

While encountering graffitied surfaces is very much

These graffiti expressions allow for a reach to the masses, with a promise of solace and respite from the fear of exposure that usually accompanies a confession. As images unaccompanied with an explanation are open to multiple interpretations, these confessions remain secretive while being revelatory, confidential while being on display - truly undercover.

Furthermore, these interactions are captured through the lived experience of inanimate surfaces and traces left behind from these confessions, situating them in a specific time and space. It’s a continuum, and the line may undulate, but it never fully leaves the surface, even as it withers away. And with the erosion of material, these messages become more and more illegible, remaining faithful to their secretive nature.

HILL AND STUTZ

By Krissy Williams

On December 22, 2017, the music industry lost a titan in Jordan Feldstein, who passed away at the age of 40 due to a pulmonary embolism. Feldstein was the founder and CEO of Career Artist Management (CAM), a talent management company that represented high-profile musicians and actors. Feldstein’s younger brother is actor and director Jonah Hill.

Recently, Hill has opened up about his emotional journey of grief and healing in the confessional documentary “Stutz” under the expertise of Phil Stutz. He is known for his unique form of psychotherapy, which combines traditional psychoanalysis with principles of spirituality and metaphysics.

Throughout the film, Hill is willing to confront and explore difficult emotions and experiences, including his struggles with body image and his complicated relationship with his mother. In one scene, Hill shows a giant cardboard cutout of his 14-year-old self, explaining how he despised his body at the time. As an actor, Hill faced criticism over his weight and appearance which affected his self-esteem.

This approach allows him to physically represent the negative self-image he experienced as a teenager, demonstrating the importance of visual aids in the therapeutic process.

Another critical moment is when Hill shares a personal moment when he discusses his late brother. Initially, he avoids discussing Feldstein on camera but later reveals that Stutz captured a photo of him on the day of his brother’s passing. The technique used in capturing the image is “exposure therapy,” a type of therapy that involves safely and gradually confronting traumatic experiences under the guidance of a trained therapist.

Hill avoided looking at the image for four years. By deciding to confront it on camera, he takes a significant step towards acceptance of his loss. He stares at the picture in disbelief and contemplates how differently he would’ve reacted to the picture on the day of his brother’s death vs. how he views it at the time of the documentary. In response, Stutz acknowledges the rarity of being able to capture a pivotal moment in a person’s life and then revisit it after healing has taken place.

Stutz’s personal experiences are also explored. He discusses his on-and-off relationship with a woman for over four decades, his struggles with Parkinson’s, and losing his younger brother at the age of nine. He also talks about his relationship with his parents. As sessions between Hill and Stutz progress, their close bond over the years is evident in their banters and the casual “I love you”.

However their quest for transparent therapy sessions is challenged by a deception halfway through the film. Hill reveals that the office they film in is not Stutz’s workplace but a replica. Both Hill and Stutz wear the same outfits repeatedly. Hill even wears a wig due to hair changes during filming. The following scenes depict them sitting behind large green screens, their crew members and behind-the-scenes snippets. Hill’s decision to reveal showcases his commitment to authenticity even if it means shattering the illusion of continuity.

By showcasing the complex emotional struggles of both Hill and Stutz, the film offers a compelling case for the importance of confronting difficult emotions and the unique role that therapy can play in facilitating this process.

Art by Amber Duan IG: @_moynin_

COMFORT OF THE CLOSET

By Emma Vall

Coming out of the closet was a strange experience. It was a part of me that I spent many years coming to terms with. I kept it from my family though I knew they would have accepted it quickly if I told them. For me, it felt like this unspoken secret that wouldn’t be true unless I said it out loud. In my family, pretty much everyone is straight except for my Uncle who has still never officially “come out.” He has lived with his partner for over 30 years and we call them both “Uncle.” But he still hasn’t come out to his parents. There was this strange line between acceptance and rejection that the family existed in. So I buried this secret.

Most of my high school friends were also gay and I watched them all come out to their families. Some struggled and some were accepted with ease. I never saw an issue with them coming out, yet still kept this part of me under wraps. I pushed it away and even at times denied its existence. I already felt different: I was a quiet nerd who did theatre in a school full of jocks; like a walking stereotype. Sayville is a small town in the middle of Long Island, filled with conservatives and Trump flags. Those who were out had to deal with slurs from other students. While they would simply snap back at anyone who made fun of them, I felt that I would feel shameful in their position. They saw their differences as positive traits to celebrate; I saw my own as flaws. It was never the people in my personal life that I feared, it was just this constant unbalance.

So long as I kept it to myself, I didn’t have to add to my differences. I supported my friends and pushed for LGBT rights. We went to walks, performances, and drag shows where I happily played the role of the dutiful ally to all my loved ones, as long as nobody knew my secret. But the more I did that, the more people around me suspected something. Things began unraveling when I met up with one of my cousins and she congratulated me on coming out, having seen a video I posted of me at Pride. I protested before mumbling, “I think I could be Bi.” That was the first time I openly said anything. But once I said it, I felt the pull. I wanted to be myself to the fullest.

I began slowly bringing up my own sexuality as casually as I could,which for me meant commenting on how pretty I found actresses like Daisy Ridley. Would chopping my hair off and dying it blue do the trick? I threw myself so far over the line that, in my head, she couldn’t possibly miss the signs, only to be met with confusion when I finally talked about liking a girl from my school. “I thought you were just an ally?”

It only took one conversation before I was no longer balancing and had finally leaped out of the closet. In order to thrive, I had to let myself be queer.

Art by Yi Shen Wei IG: @p.papple_artist

THE PRATT TUNNELS: FACT OR FARCE?

By A.A. Wolfe

If you’ve been on the Pratt campus for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard the rumors. Pratt’s buildings were constructed in the 1800s, and supposedly have a network of tunnels connecting many buildings from one side of campus grounds to the other. Are these rumors true? If not, then why have posts about them on Pratt gossip accounts been quietly deleted? Other investigators in the Prattler’s past have tried and failed to locate these ancient tunnels that the school’s administrators have evidently been hiding from us,but I resolved to go further than any other reporter has gone before…and what I found may shock you.

I started my investigation in the basement of the chemistry building. Waiting until the coast was clear, I grabbed the beaker I found looking quite conspicuous on the shelf. It released a hidden pressure plate, which further revealed a secret revolving wall. I followed a dark, sloping tunnel downwards into the steamy bowels underneath the school, unsure of what I might find but eager to discover the truth. I soon came upon a cistern lit only by the daylight that leaked through the metal grates we walk over every day without a second thought. In the center of the cavernous room was a massive, slightly crumbling statue of the school’s founder, Charles Pratt. It became quite clear these tunnels were no mere transportation system–– they were built to hide the darkest secrets of the college.

As I approached the statue, it rumbled and pre-

sented me with a riddle: “My first is in chocolate but not in ham, my second’s in cake and also in jam, my third at tea-time is easily found, my whole is a friend who’s often around. What am I?”

I know what you’re thinking, dear reader. A riddle this obtuse must have surely stumped me and sent me home defeated. But if I were so easily dissuaded, I wouldn’t be A.A. Wolfe, Prattler reporter for the people! It took me no time at all to consider the noblest of animals and our official Pratt mascot, the cat. I told the statue my answer, and it crumbled to dust before me.

Hidden underneath where the statue toppled was a cache of Charles Pratt’s hidden treasures: the mayoral key to New York, the Ark of the Covenant, the missing casket of the Polish Princess Izabela Czartoryska, and many barrels of expired crude petroleum. Unfortunately, before I could recover any of these artifacts, the tunnels began to rumble and I took it as a sign that collapse was imminent. I sprinted back through the tunnels as old brickwork came loose and narrowly missed me. I managed to slide back into the basement entrance of the chemistry building right before it disappeared in the avalanche of rubble that sealed it back up, never to be seen again.

Although I may have mistakenly lost Pratt’s treasure forever, I consider the truth reaching the masses the real victory. You’re welcome, Pratt Community!

Art by Amber Duan IG: @_moynin_

DIARY ENTRIES

By Madeline Langan

03.13.22

googling how to console your friend on her twenty-first birthday in a pit of derealization and vodka crans. no results found.

03.15.22

clawing. carnations and clawing into a scratch in my throat that air perforates. tiny whistling. seamless. dry.

03.17.22

telling you i want a house on peach street, only because I like how it sounds. I like how a lot of things sound. tupperware. coal.

03.18.22

a twining plant of a woman, creeping tendrils desperate for the next softness. you always know where to find me.

03.20.22

floating, somewhere in the pacific, thinking of you sticking to my skin like salt. wondering if the water is getting warmer, or if I’m only getting used to it.

Haunted Minds by Jos Bronner

AMBER DUAN: PATRON SAINT OF THE PRATTLER

By Naomi Desai

Amber and Naomi are junior ComD students and besties. Amber has been Co-Creative Director since 2019. Naomi is Production Manager and has previously been Social Media Manager. They’re sitting down to review Amber’s four-year Prattler career.

Naomi: What drew you to ”Prattler,” Amber?

Amber: I was first interested in doing editorial illustrations for the magazine, so, I joined the club in 2019 and worked on those issues. I was then invited to become a creative director but took a gap year because of the pandemic. Upon coming back for sophomore year, that’s when I took over.

Naomi: What’s something people don’t realize about the role of a creative director?

Amber: Many people think that being a creative director is just designing the issue, but so much additional work goes into administrative duties. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes managerial work that’s not as glamorous.

Part of the process is trying to tailor everyone’s different formatting styles for consistency, which sometimes takes thirty-plus hours. It’s always really cool to see it coming together as one big issue.

Naomi: There’s always two creative directors at a time, what’s that collaborative team effort like?

Amber: It’s a big role and being able to delegate some of those tasks to someone else is necessary. Working with Yotian was especially helpful because, in my first year as creative director, I was super new to InDesign. I didn’t know anything about formatting, but she was there to lay the groundwork for how we do things now.

Naomi: One of the highlights of my “Prattler” career was working with Carly, Nina, Tien, and you coming

back from the pandemic. It was such a dream team once we could finally work together in person. It’s only grown from that, but I feel like being an all-female group and mainly women of color made a huge difference in how we all worked together and dealt with issues.

Amber: For sure. It was so rare to have a group like that in a professional setting.

Naomi: Being in illustration and doing this role is a huge learning curve. I feel like having a large skillset is one of the things that makes you a very impressive creative director. The layout is definitely a huge part of it, but also just general direction and assertiveness. When we first met, I thought you were so timid, but you have truly grown with the role and become an admirable leader of “Prattler.”

Amber: It’s wild that I started doing this sophomore year. Typically our creative directors have been graphic design upperclassmen. Coming at it from an illustration perspective, I’ve created visual media opportunities for all majors by further developing the feedback process, resulting in a greater focus on quality art in “Prattler.”

Naomi: What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned that you’ll carry into future roles?

Amber: Communication. There is so much going on in a workplace all at once, if problems come up you need to tell someone instead of keeping it to yourself. Then, we can figure it out together and move on. So I will be taking that with me in the future.

Overall, I’m really glad I got to be a part of “Prattler.” It’s definitely changed the course of what I thought my creative growth was going to be like and made me more open to production-type roles. That’s been a welcome and monumental discovery for me.

Art by Avery Slezak IG: @_artvery_