The Stony Brook Press — Vol. 44, Issue 2

Versions of Me and the Resilience of Anitta

By Rafael Cruvinel

A Beauty and a Beast: the Paradox of the Lionfish

By Rafael Cruvinel

Abuse of Authority and the Death of Mahsa Amini

By Ali Jacksi

Pride, or Second-class Citizenship, at Yeshiva University By Dmitry Khrabrov

Step inside New York City’s Fictitious NOTaMUSEUM

By Jenna Zaza

Souvlaki by Slowdive: a Staple in Shoegaze History

By Michael Kearney

How to Become a High-value Male Podcaster

Rewiring the Mind: Neurologists Discuss Deep Brain Stimulation with a Stroke Survivor

By Arun

Nair

By Chad Tyler 29 Photos by Matt Hono

Songs of the Summer

Cover photos by Matt Hono

Letter from the Editor

By Keating Zelenke

Ifound bugs in the pancake mix in my pantry a few weeks ago — that was a major blow. I guess anyone can have flour weevils, but it sure made me feel more pathetic than the average person. Sometimes, I go on reading and reading about them: they lay their eggs in your food, their larvae look like maggots, they can fly. If I ever say I have butterflies in my stomach, know I’m actually talking about the flour weevils I probably consumed while living in my Port Jefferson Station apartment my senior year of college.

I’ve been thinking about the future a lot because this spring is my last semester at Stony Brook. There are lots of people in my life asking rude and uncalled-for questions like, “What are you gonna do after graduating?” as if I know what I’m having for dinner tonight.

What do people even do after graduating? Join the Peace Corps? Move to Brooklyn and start their own sustainably-sourced coffee brand? Start smoking cigarettes? Work in data science?

You know what I think would make me feel better about everything? I should read more. I’m proud to say I actually read a whole seven books last year. That’s probably the most I’ve read since middle school — elementary school even. Every time I start to feel a little fucked in the head, I turn to reading. It doesn’t make me feel as shitty as rewatching the same five episodes of Hoarders over and over again does. It feels productive, like look at me, engaging with literature like a healthy, welladjusted person.

I’m reading a book called Monkey Boy right now. It’s a pseudo-memoir about this half-Russian Jewish, half-Guatemalan Catholic journalist. The main character — who shares the same name as the author, Francisco Goldman — is kind of an asshole. I’m on page 80, and the first 80 pages are building up to Goldman finally eating a goddamn train station sandwich — and you know what, that’s fine. I’m also very excited about sandwiches a lot of the time. Maybe not quite 80 pages worth of excitement, but I bet I could clear somewhere around 60 pages about how much I love sandwiches and how much I’ve mourned lunch meat since I became vegetarian my freshman year. Maybe I’ll become vegan after I graduate — a natural progression following my vegetarianism after high school. Every four years, I’ll become more and more difficult to feed until I’m 70 and the only thing I’ll ingest is cashew yogurt with chocolate chips and prunes. And delicious vegan sandwiches.

Two days ago, I very carefully and lovingly made two very delicious sandwiches for me and my boyfriend to eat in the Press office while I worked on this fucking magazine for like 12 hours straight. Maybe I’ll bring a sandwich to work tomorrow — eat it after we send the magazine file to FedEx for printing. In a way, it’s kind of like the 56 pages in your hands are all leading up to one thing: eating a delicious goddamn sandwich.

THE STONY BROOK PRESS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023

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Ombud Team

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Versions of Me, Anitta’s fifth studio album, is the Brazilian pop artist’s biggest attempt to break out into the United States’ music scene. Featuring genres like reggaeton, pop and funk carioca, this is a record to dance to — or as it’s called in colloquial Portuguese, descer até o chão. Through an array of uptempo dance tunes, Anitta invites listeners to meet different facets of her personality as she explores her vocals in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Even considering its cohesion and commercial success, this album’s biggest accomplishment is that it serves as a global showcase of Anitta’s resilience and visionary attitude — resembling her breakthrough in Brazil 10 years ago.

Anitta is Brazil’s most prominent pop artist. Born and raised in Honório Gurgel, a lower-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, she’s already experienced notable success in the first decade of her career. In 2013, 2014 and 2015, she released her first three studio albums: Anitta, Ritmo Perfeito and Bang. Her 2015 single “Deixa Ele Sofrer” was the first Brazilian song in history to reach the top of Brazil’s daily chart on Spotify. This feat was considered a rebirth of Brazilian pop, a genre that is still not

the most popular among Brazil’s general public.

While maintaining her strong fanbase in Latin America’s biggest country, she started to expand her career to the rest of the continent in 2017, culminating in the 2019 visual album Kisses. Though it features big Brazilian names like Caetano Veloso and prominent American artists like Snoop Dogg, Kisses is a Latin pop album mostly sung in Spanish. Singing in three languages and collaborating with international artists were not new elements in Anitta’s discography, but Kisses was her first album to unite them.

Now, Anitta’s biggest goal is to strengthen her fanbase in the United States, and Versions of Me is here to serve that purpose.

The album debuted in mid-April 2022 with 9 million streams on Spotify, surpassing Camila Cabello’s Familia as the biggest album release by a Latin woman artist at that point in the year. With its release, Anitta reached roughly 32.9 million monthly listeners on Spotify — the most she has ever had — and broke the record for the highest number of listens for a Brazilian artist on the platform.

However, this album’s most notable accomplishment — and perhaps the most enduring — is not its massive debut, but how it illustrated to the world Anitta’s astounding resilience. Because this is who Anitta is in essence: a powerful woman born in poverty who had to work for the clothes on her back, and who did and will do everything to achieve her dreams — even if that means battling for a project only she has faith in.

Judging by how successful Versions of Me has been, one might think that Anitta followed a smooth plan from her first studio session to the album’s release. However, that was not the case; although a triumph, the album went through several restructuring processes. The more Anitta and her label Warner Records disagreed on what they wanted for it, the more it seemed like it would never come to life.

Originally named Girl From Rio, the record was supposed to be released after Coachella in April 2020, where Anitta was scheduled to perform. It would be her introduction to the United States — a performance at one of the country’s largest music festivals and an album in quick succession. But with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival

was canceled, forcing Anitta to rethink what the next step in her career would be. The album was reshaped for the first time, and Anitta decided she would include tracks in Spanish and English instead of exclusively English, as she initially planned.

In September of that same year, Anitta dropped “Me Gusta” featuring Cardi B and Myke Towers, a song that blends both languages with Brazilian rhythms in the background. In contrast to its simple lyrics, the music video is composed of various striking elements — colorful tropical outfits, African-Brazilian musicians playing drums and historic locations in Salvador, one of Brazil’s richest cultural centers. Boosted by this powerful music video and by the collaboration with Cardi B, the song peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at No. 91. “Me Gusta” was the perfect lead single for Anitta because it put her in the brightest spotlight she had achieved thus far and clearly portrayed what she had in mind for her album visually, lyrically and sonically.

The next single and then-title track “Girl From Rio” was released in April 2021, following a series of posts Anitta made on Instagram which provided deeper insight into Rio’s cultural background and some of the inspiring women born in the city. The photos in black and white allude to the colors of Copacabana’s sidewalk, one of Rio’s traditional postcards, helping tie together the cultural elements that helped to build the city’s global image. One of these elements is the “Garota de Ipanema,” perhaps the most famous Brazilian song ever, which was responsible for creating the idea that the girls from Rio are the most beautiful in the world. Over a trap beat that samples this iconic song, Anitta sings lyrics that provide glimpses of her experience as a Black woman growing up in the favela:

Let me tell you ‘bout a different Rio The one I’m from, but not the one that you know

The music video switches back and forth between scenes of Anitta on a stereotypical Rio beach like the ones described in “Garota de Ipanema” and scenes of her in Piscinão de Ramos, a lower-class beach she frequented as a child. Exploring differences between the two Rios, the goal of both the song and music video is to deconstruct the image created in the 1960s of the stereotypical rich, model-thin girl from

Rio who shows off her body in Ipanema. A poor girl with “big curves,” as the lyrics say, who goes to Piscinão de Ramos is also a girl from Rio.

Maybe because of the big interval between the first single and the next, or maybe because the song was leaked hours before its release, or maybe because it is a solo song, “Girl From Rio” didn’t make it onto the biggest U.S. weekly chart and didn’t do as well as “Me Gusta” on streaming platforms. Warner Records decided to hold the album from being released, sparking revolt among Anitta’s fans, the Anitters, who accused the record label of sabotaging her by not promoting the song as it deserved.

Despite the support from her fanbase, Anitta didn’t have many options — she had to create another potential hit. “Faking Love” from October 2021 promised to bring her back to her favela funk roots, but with new ele-

Consequently, Warner Records declared the album lacked a chart-topping song and demanded it be completely redone. Infuriated fans on Twitter and YouTube complained that the label didn’t support Anitta the way they thought she deserved. Although “Girl From Rio” and “Faking Love” were not the songs of the year, shouldn’t the success of “Me Gusta” be enough for the album to be released? It didn’t have a notably high peak on Billboard, but for a song by a non-native English speaker like Anitta, shouldn’t charting among the top 100 songs in the United States be enough to consider it a hit? If the label wanted more, shouldn’t they have gone further in promoting the songs than just sending them to radio stations?

For Warner, the answers to all these questions were “no.” The project was rejected and Anitta had to start over from scratch.

ments like English lyrics and a feature from American rapper Saweetie to bolster its international appeal. Anitta was crowned one of the queens of this genre, also called funk carioca, early in her career, when both critics and fans credited her for bringing it into the Brazilian mainstream. Considering Anitta’s specialty in the genre and the firepower of a rising artist like Saweetie, there seemed to be no mistake for this track — it would be a hit!

However, “Faking Love” sounded more like filler than a song promoted to be the biggest of the era. It’s fair to assume the general public didn’t fall for this marketing push, considering it was less successful than the two previous singles. This — combined with a debut on the same day as Adele’s “Easy On Me” — made it even more forgettable than its generic lyrics and production had already done.

For this second journey, she was joined by Max Martin, an exciting collaboration for Brazil’s national pop scene. For the first time, Brazilians witnessed their biggest pop artist work with one the biggest pop producers in the world — the man behind songs such as “…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, “Blank Space” by Taylor Swift and “No Tears Left to Cry” by Ariana Grande. A new lead single was announced to convey the new aesthetic of the album’s second iteration, which was drastically different from her previous singles.

“Boys Don’t Cry” is a synthpop track that latches onto the 1980s sound that has characterized a number of recent U.S. hits like Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia and The Weeknd’s Dawn FM and After Hours. The music video contains hidden references to some of Anitta’s favorite movies, like Harry Potter and

This album’s biggesT accomplishmenT is ThaT iT serVes as a global showcase of aniTTa’s resilience.

the Sorcerer’s Stone, Resident Evil and Titanic. Still, the song didn’t become the hit Warner wanted it to be.

At this point, even some fans questioned why she was putting so much effort into reaching the United States considering she already had a solid fanbase in Brazil and the rest of Latin America. Anitta was venturing on seas unexplored by any other modern Brazilian artist — her lack of success didn’t represent objective failure but provided the sweeping realization that maybe a singer from Brazil was just not able to attract the U.S. audience.

Everything changed this February when “Envolver” — a song released in November of 2021 as a gift to her Hispanic fans — started to make some noise on TikTok as part of the “Anitta Challenge.” Anitta faced resistance from Warner Records before dropping this song because the label didn’t see value in releasing a reggaeton track in Spanish while trying to promote an al-

Spotify charts across multiple countries in Latin America and Europe including Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Portugal and Spain, which was enough to put it among the most streamed globally. However, the real rise came when Brazilians realized that “Envolver” could become the most listened to song in the world if they engaged in streaming it. Fans created playlists and organized daily streaming parties until the song reached the top of Spotify Global on March 22, 2022.

Anitta became the first Brazilian to reach the top of Spotify Global and the first Latin woman to do so with a solo song. In the following week, “Envolver” was No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 (excluding the U.S.) chart.

This smash success was what Warner needed to finally give a green light to the album.

Versions of Me was released on April 12, containing all five singles. To unite

more Than once, nobody belieVed in aniTTa. more Than once, she succeeded.

bum targeting the U.S. English-speaking audience. However, Anitta wrote the lyrics, directed the music video and created the choreography, demonstrating her trust in the song’s potential to become a hit — even if not immediately.

“Envolver” had an insignificant debut, reflecting the lack of investment the song received compared to pretty much everything else she had released since 2020. But during a series of concerts Anitta did to celebrate Carnaval, Brazil’s most popular holiday, a fan named David Neves recorded her dancing to the song and posted it on his TikTok account. Called “El Paso de Anitta,” the dance move consists of twerking in a push-up position. The challenge was to replicate this move. It was enough for the song to go viral.

With “El Paso de Anitta,” the artist envolviò the world to dance to the same beat. The song appeared on

such different songs, Anitta divided the tracklist into three blocks.

She starts serving the reggaeton that made her famous in the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America with “Envolver” as the opening track. Other highlights of this block are “I’d Rather Have Sex,” which samples shaking bed sounds in its production, and “Gata.”

“Love You,” which successfully combines a simple, catchy chorus with a vocally powerful bridge, is the first song of the pop block. This part also includes “Boys Don’t Cry” and the title track. “Versions of Me” is Anitta’s most Katy Perry-like song and the lyrics joke about how Anitta can get crazy about an ex to the point of smashing his car’s windows. Rolling Stone played with this verse, saying that if this song doesn’t become a hit, “Somebody at Warner Records needs their windows smashed.”

The ending block is not defined by a genre, but by its encapsulation of Anitta’s Brazilianness. “Me Gusta,” “Girl From Rio” and “Faking Love” join “Que Rabão” — a funk track in Portuguese — and the cute “Love Me, Love Me.”

Together, these three blocks form the simple yet well-executed concept of the album: three languages, three main genres, many versions of Anitta. The album’s name change — she explained in an interview with Andy Cohen — came because she realized that, after all the singles released, all the performances on late-night shows and award shows and all the collaborations with big names, she didn’t need to introduce herself to the U.S. audience anymore. She needed to make them love her. For that, there was nothing better than an album explaining all the versions of her.

Anitta’s path to release her fifth studio album curiously resembles her national breakthrough, a story of resilience that played out almost 10 years ago.

When she started in 2012, it seemed impossible for a national pop diva to attract the bigger Brazilian public’s attention due to the genre’s unpopularity. But in 2013, Anitta enchanted a large audience with her strong attitude on stage and in real life thanks to “Show das Poderosas,” a song that combined elements of pop and funk. The most interesting part is that — similar to “Envolver” — “Show das Poderosas” was a song entirely created by Anitta without support from her record label.

More than once, nobody believed in Anitta. More than once, she had to swallow haters saying she was not good enough. More than once, she had to shake off people commenting that her goals were unrealistic. More than once, she had to hear fans and executives calling her efforts a waste of time. More than once, she had to face her label trying to discourage her work. More than once, she succeeded. That’s what resilience is in essence, and that’s what Anitta is in essence.

“Show das Poderosas” paved the way for many Brazilian pop artists to follow in Anitta’s footsteps and achieve national success. Nearly 10 years later, “Envolver” paved the way for these same artists to achieve international success. History repeated itself. g

n Sept. 13, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, was taken into custody by the “morality police” in Tehran for wearing her hijab improperly. Later that week, she would be pronounced dead at Kasra Hospital. Amini’s family alleges that she was beaten unconscious by officers while in police custody and eventually died of her injuries. However, a coroner’s report conducted by the Iranian Legal Medical Organization and released to Tasmin News on Oct. 7 claims that her death was due to “underlying disease,” and related to an operation she allegedly received as a child for a brain tumor.

Amini’s death has ignited protests in both the streets of Tehran and throughout the rest of Iran. Iran International — a pro-democracy broadcasting outlet based in the U.K. — published information on the circumstances surrounding Amini’s death as protests escalated. A source from Kasra Hospital informed Iran International that Amini’s brain tissue was severely damaged from multiple blows to the head, to the extent that the hospital could not undertake any procedures to save her. Photos of Amini in the hospital show bleeding from her ears, a potential indication of severe head trauma.

Dr. Hossein Karampour, an Iranian doctor and leader of the Medical Council of Iran’s Bandar Abbas branch, wrote a letter to the head of the organization pointing out that Amini’s symptoms were not consistent with a heart attack or stroke. He urged officials to acknowledge that Amini’s symptoms were more consistent with head trauma. Multiple doctors on social media and elsewhere have voiced their agreement with Karampour.

Eyewitnesses to the attack claim that Amini was beaten in a police van as she was transported to a detention center. Mahsa’s father, Amjad Amini, said in an interview with BBC Persia that other girls who were detained with Mahsa also said she was beaten.

News sources affiliated with the Iranian government deny these claims completely, attributing her death to a heart attack. These outlets point to video evidence of Amini falling after getting up from her seat in the detention center, and claim that morality police “do not have the tools to beat detainees” to this extent. However, photos and medical reports leaked by Iranian International led people to believe otherwise.

Protesters called on Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to investigate the cause of death and reform the Iranian police force. The Iranian government’s coroner’s report on Amini’s death supports previous statements from officials, stating that she died of an “underlying disease.” In a phone call to Amini’s parents, President Raisi expressed his condolences. “Your daughter is like my own daughter, and I feel that this incident happened to one of my loved ones,” he said.

This incident has led to the largest mass demonstrations in Iran since 2019, when people protested the raising of gas prices. Many Iranian women have taken to the streets to protest the “morality police,” the government and the hijab. Protests have become increasingly violent — police stations and cars were set on fire and by the end of 2022, Iran Human Rights reported nearly 480 protesters had been killed, with another 100 facing execution. These numbers are just what Iran Human Rights has been able to confirm — the real numbers are likely much higher.

President Raisi’s government has responded by blocking internet access, making it more difficult for protesters to coordinate. This has also made it almost impossible for news media to get an accurate picture of the situation on the ground.

In response to the unrest in Iran, activists have mobilized internationally. Allies have gathered in front of Iranian embassies in dozens of countries, from Germany to Chile. Many of these protesters are advocating for the women’s right to choose whether or not to wear the hijab. Others are protesting bans on hijabs in other countries like France and India as a violation of a woman’s right to choose.

Protests have even spread to Stony Brook University. On Sept. 26, Iranian international students and Iranian American students stood outside the Student Union to spread awareness about the movement and the protests in Iran.

“Unrest has always existed in Iran since before the revolution,” said Niki Nassiri, a recent Stony Brook alum and Iranian-American dual citizen. Despite this history, Nassiri also pointed out the shock they and others felt when they learned about Amini’s death.

“Something like this, where a normal person dies,

is just the tipping point,” Nassiri said. “That could’ve been anyone.”

Nassiri said they fear for the lives of family members participating in protests back in Iran, which tend to end in violence. Getting involved means putting more than yourself at risk. But regardless of the danger, many people feel it is their only way to ensure change in the society, economy and infrastructure of Iran. The protesters at Stony Brook echoed this sentiment, saying that people can use Amini’s name as a symbol for a wider movement. Some Iranians want social change, and more internet access has allowed them to organize. Others want their government to change into something closer to democracy.

Much of Amini’s story has been framed around a woman’s right to choose, yet the standards of our American

culture cannot be fairly equated to those of a different country and culture. Iranian culture promotes a higher standard of modesty, and to assume that all women in the Middle East are subjugated against their will is highly ethnocentric and reflects Western views on women and Islam.

Modesty is an important concept in Islam, and Islam has a long history in Iranian culture. In 1909, American and British forces imperialized this culture and changed the course of history for Iranian people. This was the year the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was established to exploit the Persian Gulf oil field.

The majority of the profits from the APOC went to Britain,

which left Iran making less money from their own natural resources. When the new prime minister, nationalist Muhammad Mussadeq, was elected in 1951, he attempted to nationalize the oil industry to improve the Iranian economy. American and British officials put sanctions on Iranian oil in response, and the economic situation in Iran only worsened.

To maintain control, the Americans and the British staged a coup and replaced Mussadeq with an Iranian monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi only served the interests of America and Britain, and therefore promoted Western ideas, which included a lower expectation of modesty. While many people in the West are quick to glorify this era of “modernization,” it’s much more complicated than that. The “modernization” of Iran was and continues to be in no small part a reflection of cultural imperialism forced onto the Iranian people by the United States and Britain.

When Iranians took control back from foreign powers, they tried reclaiming their culture and religion. Though many Iranians saw the reintroduction of modesty as a cultural victory for their people, a number of Iranians no longer wanted to wear the hijab. This deviation from the historical norm in Iran occurred in some people for many different reasons. Some were used to an American lifestyle — after 26 years under Shah Pahlavi’s rule, many

Iranian adults only knew this Western culture. Some may not have wished to follow Islam, or simply didn’t feel their practice of Islam required that standard of modesty. This complicated history is why there has been persistent conflict between Iranians over the issues of wearing the hijab and modesty.

To promote a culture of modesty, Iran introduced laws for women to wear hijabs and loose clothing, and for men to wear long pants. According to the BBC, these laws were not initially heavily enforced, and some subversions were acceptable. However, in 2005, a “morality police” force was established under former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to better enforce these laws. The “morality police” were given the power to take people into custody if they were found without a proper hijab and either give them a warning or issue a fine for indecent exposure.

The BBC reports the Islamic Religious Police, as it is officially called, would release women only when a relative insisted on their behalf that they would follow the rules. Women have been detained for offenses as small as wearing lipstick or boots deemed “too erotic.” President Raisi introduced surveillance cameras, counseling for women on how to properly wear a hijab and a prison sentence for those posting content online against the hijab-wearing rules. Police have been known to use excessive force when handling these violations, as alleged in the case of Mahsa Amini.

Despite this crackdown on women’s modesty and their need to follow strict guidelines, instances of men being taken into detention centers are few and far between. Iran wants to promote a culture of modesty and enforce this through punishment, but does not enforce these rulings nearly as much for men. Such gendered expectations demonstrate how modesty and the morality police in Iran are no longer about Islam or the preservation of Iranian culture, but rather controlling the Iranian people, specifically Iranian women.

The main issue in Iran is the abuse of authority, not one of wearing the hijab or practicing Islam. Police brutality is an issue in American culture, as well as in other cultures and countries around the world. This cannot be condoned by anyone under any circumstance. In Iran, the police and by extension, the government, have misused their power, and the excessive use of force is inexcusable. Amini died in police custody and many more have died in clashes after that incident. At best, we can hope that these deaths are not in vain and may act as a catalyst for change in policing practices. g

hile I prepared to go underwater, Gabriel Costa, one of the instructors guiding my family on a scuba diving vacation, showed me the hand sign used by scuba divers around the world to communicate that a lionfish is on site. The gesture is made by intertwining the fingers of both hands to resemble the lionfish’s poisonous spines, which are rarely lethal but can cause extreme pain and other symptoms in humans.

My first encounter with the carnivorous fish came as a surprise three years ago during a scuba diving trip to the island of Roatán off the coast of Honduras. The only other time I saw the species was in 2021 in the waters around Fernando de Noronha, which was also unexpected. Returning to the Brazilian island in June of 2022, I knew the chances of seeing it again were higher than the year before.

Native to the Indo-Pacific, the lionfish is an invasive species in the Atlantic. Although the exact cause of its invasion remains unknown to scientists, they believe it involved human interference. According to the U.S. National Ocean Service, some scientists speculate that people have been dumping fishes from home aquariums into the ocean for a long time. The first lionfish reported in the Atlantic was found in Florida in 1985, and the species was documented as “established” — meaning that it had created a self-sustaining population — by the early 2000s. Since then, it has spread south, crossing the entire Caribbean and arriving at the Brazilian coast in a region near the mouth of the Amazon River. In December 2020, the appearance of the lionfish at Fernando de Noronha, an island one hour by plane off the northeastern coast of Brazil, proved its expansion.

Due to the species’ lack of predators in the Atlantic and its fast reproduction rate, its population is growing at higher rates than what the environment can support. Scientists fear that an abundant community of lionfish in the waters around Fernando de Noronha might consume the island’s resources faster than they are naturally replaced.

No more than five minutes after the start of the dive, I saw Costa emerge from behind the coral reefs, making the lionfish sign with his hands. I followed him to the place where he had discovered it, at about 50 meters under the surface.

The fish was paradoxical; it evoked real and fantastical images at the same time. Its tail reminded me of a broom, a mundane object, yet its fins resembled wings made of flower petals, something imaginary. For a while, I could only focus on the spines on its back and how the signal that Costa made with his hands did, in fact, resemble them. The thought that such a majestic creature could become so destructive in the wrong habitat felt heartbreaking and somehow unfair.

“It is one of the biggest I’ve ever seen,” Costa said as soon as we raised our heads above the water.

He has worked as a scuba diving instructor on the island since 2002. The first time he saw a lionfish was in September 2021.

“It was very little,” he said about that first sighting. “It wasn’t larger than a stretched thumb.”

Between then and now, Costa has seen the fish five

times. He said when it happens, his fellow instructors work with him to catch it if possible. They share information about their encounters with ICMBio, the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment’s administrative arm.

“We always communicate with ICMBio, when we catch it and when we don’t. When we do catch it, we deliver the specimen to them.”

Costa said that in the beginning of 2022, every person who works on the island’s scuba diving operations team received training on how to use a Hawaiian harpoon to kill, capture and store the fish correctly, avoiding their poisonous spines. He said the first capture he was involved in was upsetting.

“Although this is the recommendation, I don’t like killing animals,” he said. “I hope the lionfish can come into harmony with the ecosystem of Noronha.”

Clara Buck, a marine biology researcher who works with lionfish handling on Fernando de Noronha in partnership with ICMBio, said she expects the fish to completely establish itself off the coast of Brazil. She is working with the organization to construct an action plan to control the population based on different phases of invasion. It would be very difficult to eradicate the species from the island — such a task would mean eliminating all of the lionfish in the

Atlantic, which is an impossible feat due to its adaptability.

“The lionfish can survive up to 300 meters deep in waters with different pHs and visibility,” Buck said. “It eats everything and is able to deal with environments very different from the ones it is used to. It also reproduces very well. It can lay 30,000 eggs a month and its reproduction lasts the entire year.”

Buck emphasized that the first step in the process of handling an invasive species is educating the local population with banners, flyers and classes.

“There, in the Amazon river’s mouth, the fishers didn’t know [what they were fishing],” she said. “They thought, ‘What a weird fish!’ and returned it to the water.”

Additionally, she said that authorities can begin informing the public before the invasion accelerates. When the lionfish appeared in other South American countries like Venezuela and Guyana in 2013, Brazilian scientists were alarmed at the possibility of its appearance in Brazil. In 2016, a researcher named Pedro Pereira went to Fernando de Noronha and warned the locals about this threat. At the time, Buck said, some called him an alarmist. However, she emphasized that this process is fundamental for any situation involving an invasive species.

“The scientific dissemination is the first part in a project of invasive species handling,” she explained. “The people need to know the species and this is something we do up to this day.”

After starting to educate the local population, Buck and her team promoted a training program for dive operators, in which Costa participated. To teach the instructors to capture lionfish, they enlisted biologist Paulo Bertoul, who has been working with the species for more than 10 years on the island of Bonaire off the coast of Venezuela.

“There was one theory class for everyone, and then a practical class for separate groups of people,” Buck said. “It took us seven days until we were able to do it with all the divers of all operations.”

Beyond giving the training, they had to gain a legal authorization to use harpoons, since underwater fishing is prohibited on the island.

With education, training and authorization properly done, the plan is to manually remove lionfish from the ocean. So far, divers in Noronha have collected more than 50.

Once a lionfish is captured and delivered to ICMBio, Buck asks the diver for basic information about the fish, including how deep underwater it was, the kind of environment it was in and its behavior at the time of the capture. Then Buck takes basic biometric data, including the fish’s size and weight, and collects a sample of the fish’s gills. This data and sample are sent to different scientists around the world who study the genetics and biology of the lionfish, aiming to understand how its population on the island is

developing.

However, all of these mitigation efforts hinge on the fact that the lionfish’s invasion of the island is in its initial stage. Although it is not clear how long it might take for the lionfish to establish itself on the island, Buck explained that she expects this to happen. When it does, they will have to somehow introduce the lionfish in commerce.

“In Bonaire, they are doing this kind of control: supporting captures and doing competitions,” she said. “Several times a year, there are groups of fishers that gather together to award who got the biggest, the greatest amount, the smallest, the prettiest, the ugliest. … They are transforming the lionfish into a valuable asset that moves the economy.”

There are limitations to these solutions, though. Buck said one of them is that physically taking the fish out of the water takes time and effort, making it too slow a process to effectively decrease the population. Another one is the mental toll involved in killing animals, which Costa cited.

“There is an ethics question behind all of it,” Buck said. “It’s a fight that has to be done because human beings caused this somehow, and we need to fix the damage we’ve done.” As some people might say in a popular Brazilian expression, há males que vem para o bem — there are evils that come with the good. g

PRIDE* AT YESHIVA UNIVERSITY

By Dmitry Khrabrov

eshiva University’s Wilf Campus is a lot smaller and quieter than our own at Stony Brook University. Yeshiva University (YU) is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City — the Wilf Campus is located in Washington Heights. During Rosh Hashanah, it was especially serene. Women in muted floral skirts and dresses pushed strollers, walking with older children at their side. Well-dressed Orthodox men filed into the Glueck Center Beis Medrash, grabbing a copy of the machzor from the foyer to celebrate the Jewish New Year on their way in.

An angular rainbow filtered through the window onto a table where the holy prayer books were neatly stacked. I looked through a glass door with a white privacy shutter, caught a glimpse of the men again and suddenly felt like an intruder. I headed out.

The rainbow cast across the machzorim — that’s what this story is about. On Sept. 16, 2022, Yeshiva University banned the only student-run LGBT club on its campus. This is not their first fight. YU’s queer students have been struggling for an officially sanctioned place to belong for over a decade.

On the side of a building by a major thoroughfare at YU, “Core Torah Values” are emblazoned: infinite human worth, compassion, life, truth and redemption. The colorful banners remind me of pride flags. I wonder whether the university has lived up to what it says it believes in.

INFINITE HUMAN WORTH

There are sizable groups of Orthodox Jews who not only tolerate gay members, but embrace them wholeheartedly. Eshel and Jewish Queer Youth are two organizations fulfilling this role. Their opponents argue that halakha, Jewish law, prohibits samesex relations. Although religious grounds for homophobia have long preceded the events at YU, the recent history is worth mentioning. It starts with the administration’s response to the Tolerance Club in 2009.

The Tolerance Club was a small group devoted to altruism but unsure of its ultimate goals. It put up posters on campus that asked students to be kind — Tolerance Club members called it the Nice Campaign. They published a newsletter arguing that “every person, within YU and without, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.” Only 15 students attended the first meeting.

Later that year, the club invited queer students and alumni to speak about their lives. In the Weissburg Commons — a lecture and event hall at YU — 700 students curious about gay life in a Modern Orthodox world crowded around one another to listen.

“Every person, within YU and without, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.”

-The Tolerance Club at Yeshiva University (2009)

A group of Orthodox Jewish men celebrate Rosh Hashanah on Sept. 26, 2022. Photo by Dmitry Khrabrov.

Left: A sunny fall day at Yeshiva University on Sept. 26, 2022. Photo by Dmitry Khrabrov.

COMPASSION

The speakers took pains not to speak to the halakhic implications of queer lifestyles. A YU administrator moderated the discussion. It seemed that the Tolerance Club and the university’s School of Social Work, which co-sponsored the event, had struck the impossible balance needed to humanize gay suffering without overstepping into scriptural debate.

It didn’t work. A firestorm of bad press immediately followed and Yeshiva’s president professed a sort of pity for those who spoke — and for people like them: “those struggling with this issue require due sensitivity, although such sensitivity cannot be allowed to erode the Torah’s unequivocal condemnation of such activity.”

In another statement, five of the school’s deans went further: “Homosexual activity constitutes an abomination ... As such, publicizing or seeking legitimization even for the homosexual orientation one feels runs contrary to Torah.”

The Tolerance Club disbanded.

YU Pride did not mobilize a Nice Campaign — it sued the university for equal recognition alongside other student organizations.

TRUTH

After the Tolerance Club, gay students at Yeshiva wouldn’t be in the national spotlight for another 10 years. Life went on, though — if you dig, you’ll find a queer Facebook group dating back to 2011, blogs describing the fallout of the Weissburg panel and a few other signs of LGBT student life. 2017’s Diversity Club sought to “celebrate what makes us unique, and remind ourselves of everything that connects us.”

The current generation of gay students at Yeshiva, YU Pride, did not mobilize a Nice Campaign — it sued the university for equal recognition alongside other student organizations. YU Pride believes that the university is violating the New York City Human Rights Law. By refusing to formally approve YU Pride, the argument goes, the administration is treating queer students as second-class citizens. YU Pride won its first lawsuit.

Yeshiva University did not concede. The administration appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that to compel the university to accept YU Pride constituted an “unprecedented intrusion into Yeshiva’s church autonomy.” In seek-

ing parity over tolerance, Yeshiva administrators believe YU Pride has overstepped.

The Supreme Court ruled that Yeshiva University had not exhausted its appeals in New York, and returned the case to the state. YU exercised its vaunted autonomy. University administrators banned every student club on campus. A de facto moratorium on all club activity created social pressure among students that made it impossible for YU Pride to keep pushing for an official seal of approval without alienating its peers. Exercising grace unseen within their own university administration, the members of YU Pride decided to pause their fight until all administration appeals are exhausted in the courts.

Yeshiva University, feeling the burn of the national spotlight, has created its own LGBT club that is not run by students: Kol Yisrael Areivim. The Hebrew translates to, roughly, “All Jews are responsible for one another.” The effectively faux club exists only in press releases, statements and a word that kept appearing in my search: “framework.” “Skeleton” feels more appropriate.

Yeshiva’s “Core Torah Values” stand tall on Sept. 26, 2022. “Our five core Torah values comprise our moral compass and guide us towards a better future,” Yeshiva University’s website says.

Photo by Dmitry Khrabrov.

Orthodox Jewish communities can be tightly knit, which makes them seem opaque to outsiders like college students at non-Jewish universities. Stony Brook junior Leah Schwarz, with a pen in her hand outside the Melville Library Starbucks, outlined the three largest denominations of Judaism. Schwarz is both Jewish and queer — her aunt attended Yeshiva.

“It’s interesting to me, from an anthropological perspective, how communities change over time,” Schwarz said, describing the three main arteries of modern Judaism: Orthodox, Conservative and Reform.

Schwarz observed that, to her, many of the students at YU are acting as bystanders to the surrounding power struggle. Schwarz framed many students’ passive rationale as such: “The university didn’t do anything rude to me personally — I’m still allowed at events.”

“I believe that the tenants of Judaism and what it means to be Jewish is to be welcoming and inclusive of people so that they feel safe to be Jewish in your space. So if we are going to turn away Jews because of how they love and how they show up in the world, that’s just not the Judaism that I want to provide for our students.”

REDEMPTION

Lemons’ advice for the students at Yeshiva is to take care of themselves.

“With queer Jews, the reformists are totally fine with that. There are certain topics being contested in the larger Jewish community. Another thing debated a lot is female Rabbis.”

Yeshiva University claims to be queer-affirming. However, this affirmation comes with a heavy asterisk: hate the sin and not the sinner. That asterisk is revealed in the university’s stated priority: helping gay students navigate “the formidable challenges that they face in living a fully committed, uncompromisingly authentic halakhic life within Orthodox communities,” implying that commitment (to core Torah values) and authenticity (being gay) are disharmonious co-obstacles.

A rainbow across the machzorim on Sept. 26, 2022. Photo by Dmitry Khrabrov.

Back at Stony Brook, Jessica Lemons, the executive director of Stony Brook Hillel, explained the difference in vision between Yeshiva and SBU. Besides the obvious distinction of Orthodox Jewish versus public secular, there are subtler ones. Hillel’s stated mission is to become “a home for Jewish students to explore their relationship with Judaism, Israel and each other.” “Hillel is a pluralistic organization,” Lemons said, “which means that we do not affiliate with any one denomination of Judaism like Orthodox, Conservative or Reform. We have students of all observance levels. Hillel aims to be a very LGBTQ-affirming space.”

How does Hillel do that?

“I think there are a lot of layers to it,” Lemons said. “More openly, making sure that we have appropriate signage.” More deeply, Lemons said:

“You as a person are priority number one, and if that means continuing to rage against the machine ... or removing yourself from that situation, ... both of those things are valid. Don’t let it destroy your relationship with Judaism.”

For now, Yeshiva University’s tactic of collective club canceling and the resultant compromise has held. But on Dec. 15, 2022, the university lost an appeal in a mid-level court. This means there are two arenas left for the final word on whether Yeshiva must officially recognize YU Pride: the New York Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. The fate of those living in the vicinity of a rainbow cast delicately across the machzor in the first days of a Jewish New Year remains to be seen. g

Yeshiva University claims to be queer-affirming. However, this affirmation comes with a heavy asterisk: hate the sin and not the sinner.

Imagine you are walking down Broadway one late September morning when you suddenly see a picture of Leonardo DaVinci’s “Salvator Mundi” pasted on the front of a building, staring right at you. It’s advertising a private collection opening September 2022 featuring world-renowned artists. At the entrance, there’s a sign reading “Closed for Installation.” You make a mental note to come back when the museum officially opens. Suddenly, someone opens the door and invites you in.

Upon entering the New or Traditional Art Museum (NOTaMUSEUM), I saw various cleaning supplies tucked

in the corner and hard hats hanging on the wall. As I surveyed the scene, I wondered if the person at the door mistook me for a curator. Another person welcomed me in, and they encouraged me to venture beyond the plastic curtain. Baffled, I hesitantly stepped through the curtain onto the exhibition floor.

To my surprise, there were other people admiring the intricate works of art. Each piece was still nestled in plastic and bubble wrap, and they leaned against the walls and sat on top of crates.

Artist Robin Eley and creative director David Korins set out to create this

fictitious museum, where replicas of 18 of the most valuable privately held or lost artworks are covered in painted plastic and bubble wrap. They wanted to illuminate the inaccessibility of these pieces.

“Metaphorically and symbolically, the plastic is a representation of that separation between the art and the viewer, and also between the artist’s intentions and the way that the work is interpreted and used today,” Eley said.

The exhibition, which lasted from Sept. 17-25, featured recreations of notable masterpieces such as Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” Andy Warhol’s “Turquoise Marilyn,” Jean-Michel

Basquiat’s “Dustheads” and Alberto Giacometti’s “L’Homme au Doigt.” The monetary values of the original artworks range from $5 million to $450.3 million, with an average cost of about $116.6 million.

“It’s about those particular cultural, economic and political forces that conspired to make these works unat-

tainable,” Eley said. “And yet you arrive here and you can almost attain them, but they are still unattainable because they’re still packaged.”

At first glance, the vinyl covering protecting “Dustheads” seemed real. It extended beyond the canvas, and it appeared that a simple undoing of the painter’s tape would unveil the piece

underneath.

“Everything is artifice — intentionally so. On closer inspection, everything starts to crumble and fall apart,” Eley said.

The viewer is confronted with the reality that everything is painted.

“I want the first impression to be, ‘This is real,’ and then … as the exploration continues, you start to realize that it is fake.”

The originality of the exhibition stood out to Miguel Brotons, who found out about it through TikTok. “To be honest, [I’m] a little mindblown,” Brotons said. “I’m really impressed by all the different textures of the packaging materials.

I haven’t seen anything like that.”

Eley implored the audience to begin to question their greater

role in ensuring that art remains accessible to the public.

Mariana Espinoza, who follows Eley on Instagram, was excited to see the exhibition.

“His take on [these famous works] is so different, and that’s what stands out to me,” Espinoza explained. “Paintings are usually very elevated and not public — they are either in these giant museums or private collections — and [Eley] makes [them] much more accessible to everyday people.”

Eley said that when art is easily consumable online, the artist’s

original intention is lost. However, many works remain famous and obscenely expensive. Museums cannot afford to purchase them for their collections anymore. As these pieces drift into the hands of private collectors, they are stolen from the public eye and lost to history.

“We can’t see the private collection because it’s covered up, but we can see a tiny bit,” said Raine Jiang, a modern art student. “We will never see these paintings in a finished exhibition. I think it’s really interesting.” g

With sizzling beats marinated front to back and mixed in with a few piping hot melodies, Slowdive’s 1993 sophomore studio album Souvlaki is just as good as your all-time favorite Greek cuisine. Souvlaki paved the way for future generations of music by creating new styles of sound that completely coat listeners’ ears, soothe their hunger and leave them satisfied.

From the resurgence of shoegaze artists in the 2010s to the adoption of the reverb-heavy subgenre on TikTok, the sounds of whirling guitars and ethereal vocals have entranced the minds of Generation Z. Nearly three decades after its release, Souvlaki has become a staple in shoegaze history and has touched the hearts of both receptive newcomers and old fans.

Originating in the late 1980s, the short-lived subgenre of shoegaze began in the United Kingdom and fizzled out in the late ’90s. Containing elements of both indie and alternative rock, shoegaze songs have textured, prominent noise in the background and dreamy, unintelligible lyrics in the foreground. The distinction between different instruments is hard to decipher but all together, a shoegaze soundscape resembles a distorted crowd of guitars. Contrasting with these busy surroundings, soft vocals make the listener feel weightless. This combination of two vastly unlike elements still manages to create a delightful and immersive experience. The name “shoegaze” is derived from guitarists using pedals to create sonic fuzz, causing them to constantly look down at their feet and avoid eye contact with the audience.

So, who birthed this long-lost cousin of rock music? Cocteau Twins and The Jesus and Mary Chain — two prevalent alternative rock bands during the ’80s — are often recognized as the parents of shoegaze. Cocteau Twins’ 1982 debut album Garland possesses a perfect blend of punk rock and goth, and their discography steadily became more shoegaze with time, culminating in their 1983 al-

bum Head Over Heels. Likewise, Psychocandy, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1985 debut album, contains recognizable shoegaze sounds such as constant guitar feedback.

While influential to the genre, these bands did not directly initiate the shoegaze era. My Bloody Valentine, a band closely associated with Slowdive, defined what the genre truly meant with the release of their first EP You Made Me Realize (1988) and their debut album Isn’t Everything (1988). Both projects were the building blocks for their renowned second album Loveless (1991), which is one of the most recognizable albums in shoegaze history. The tracks on Loveless fade into each other with great ease, creating an experience of seamless continuity. Guitar sounds resembling startled bees or earthquake vibrations flood the album, overlaid with washed-out lyrics. I find Loveless to be my favorite among their vast discography, with my all-time favorite track “Sometimes” alongside other standouts like “Come In Alone,” “Only Shallow,” “Soon” and, of course, the popular “When You Sleep.” My Bloody Valentine made their first influential steps into the dawn of shoegaze, and Slowdive kept the momentum.

Slowdive dropped their self-titled EP in 1990, followed by two more releases a year later, Morningrise and Holding Our Breath. In a review by Andy Kellman of AllMusic, he proposed that their breakout EP was a weak effort but was successful in developing a musical palette that featured sonic haze and a dreamy soundscape, which was also mirrored in their 1991 EPs. The public response to their debut album Just for a Day (1991) was relatively the same — perhaps even worse. Written and recorded in only six weeks, this album performed poorly as the British music press started to become more invested in the American grunge scene, leaving shoegaze bands undesirable. The press believed the album failed to meet the anticipated enthusiasm, and other critics deemed it “a premature debut album” and “not as advanced” as their previous EPs. Though Slowdive’s early work lacked large commercial success, it greatly contributed to the development of their overall sound and revealed their growth as musicians.

Two years after critical backlash, a new item was on the Slowdive menu — the perfectly seasoned and tender Souvlaki. Just like their distant brother My Bloody Valentine, their sophomore album became an essential part of the shoegaze environment by building on their previous efforts. Souvlaki captures the essence of their debut album while also incorporating new ways of making sounds. Stemming from the breakup of band members Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, this coming-of-age album captures themes of personal turbulence, discovery and heartbreak. Simulating an experience of mindlessly transcending through space, Slowdive crafted guitar melodies that spin and twirl alongside voices that loop and whisper. Repetitive lyrics and recurring motifs, such as the sun, flood the entirety of this convoluted album. Souvlaki creates a listening experience that calls for both head bops and melancholic swaying.

“When The Sun Hits,” Slowdive’s most-streamed track on Spotify to date, and fan-favorite “Alison” are songs that have an upbeat tempo and catchy lyrics, luring in those unfamiliar with shoegaze who might want to delve deeper into the genre. My personal favorite, “40 Days,” captures the feeling of living in the past with an ex-lover and hating the present that lacks them. Enraged reverbed guitars bury the fragile lyrics beneath, exuding those “crying in the club” feelings.

The gut-wrenching acoustic closing track “Dagger” conveys themes of dysfunction in relationships and regret for past mistakes. When portraying a love interest as the sun, the slow-paced “Here She Comes” encapsulates the feeling of being cold in the absence of another and warm when you see them next. The shadow on the wall signals that the light in their life is arriving.

After devouring Souvlaki, the band released their third studio album Pygmalion (1995) — an album building toward electronic, ambient music. Their record label wanted Slowdive to release a pop album, but the band resisted, resulting in them being dropped and breaking up. Some band members formed a new band called Mojave 3, while others left the music scene entirely.

Two decades after their break up, Slowdive reunited in 2017 and released their fourth studio album, Slowdive, where their current success lies. Fully re-entering the music scene, they announced a tour following its release with opening act Japanese Breakfast.

In the time since Souvlaki, the creation of a new genre called “nu gaze” has captured the ambient feeling of ’90s shoegaze in the modern world. Inspired bands such as Beach House, Whirr, LSD and the Search for God, DIIV and Nothing implement elements of shoegaze music and have allowed the genre to resurface after decades of dormancy. Among all vinyl sold at Amoeba Music, Souvlaki placed on their top 50 best-selling albums for 2021, proving Slowdive’s everlasting effect on music creation and their

growing fandom in newer generations. Retroactively, Pitchfork recently recognized Souvlaki as one of the best albums of the 1990s, cementing its classic status.

Aging like wine, an album that once repulsed the public came back with an enticing scent, inviting in more fans than ever before. Though the future of Slowdive is unknown, the recipe for Souvlaki’s success will continue to influence the means of music production for generations to come. g

Oh no! Has a female rejected your sexual advances again? Are you a sincerely nice guy who only wants to know what the female touch feels like? Did your female break up with you because you “gaslit” and “mistreated” her? It’s hard to cope with rejection, I know. Well, guess what — now you don’t have to own up to your mistakes! Just start a podcast.

Creating a podcast run by men, for men, is a fast and easy way to nurse your fragile ego. You’ll be in a safe space where you can complain about arbitrary things, mostly directed at the gentler sex. So, if you’re a man seeking to become the ultimate podcaster, look no further than my 11-step guide to becoming a truly insightful host like me.

BY CHAD TYLER

Step 1: Be an alpha male

This is self-explanatory — you either got it or you don’t, king.

Step 2: Comment on the female body

This one is important. Females need our validation so they know how to please us. Always comment on their bodies. Remember, they have to have the basics: big tits (because every true alpha male has mommy issues), wide hips, a fat ass with no stretch marks or cellulite and a snatched waist. Bearing our children (read: sons) is the exception to this rule — until the kid pops out. Once they do, your woman better hit the gym, or she’s being traded in for a newer model.

Step 3: Speak loudly and with purpose

You can’t be wrong if you yell. That’s why I keep my volume between Alex Jones and a baby on a seven-hour flight. Just ask my ex-girlfriend, Tammy.

Step 4: Money, money, money!

Flaunt that wealth, king! Your hard work needs to be shown off. While doing this, always mention all the hoes in your life who only want you for that check — these can be real or imagined.

Step 5: Talk about your value

These females don’t know your true value, king. They’re out here on the streets and in the sheets while you’re making moves and investing in your brand. Just think about how many cars you have, and their respective carbon emissions! Bring this up at least four times during your podcast, and don’t forget to mention how nice you are. You’ll make your bitch ex Tammy wish she never left you in that Red Lobster parking lot, sobbing on your knees — feel free to substitute your equivalent alpha origin story here.

Step 6: Put females in their place

This new generation of females is a joke. Feminism has ruined the quality of women. All they care about is sex and money, but they never want it from you for some reason. They’re out here with 50 bodies, but when a nice, hard, working guy comes along, they choose the streets. Chin up, king — they’ll hear all about it in your podcast.

Step 7: Invite a female guest to interrupt

Interestingly, females don’t watch alpha male podcasts — probably because they can’t handle the truth. Invite a female that’s hot but basic onto your show, and remember the golden ratio: allow her to speak for no more than 30 seconds during the entire 58-minute episode. Always speak over her (loudly), and make sure to remind her of her worth. I consistently choose brunettes that are way out of my league so I can reenact arguments with that cunt, Tammy.

Step 8: Gesture wildly

Nothing gets people’s attention like waving your hands around violently. It’s how I got the cops called on me three times in one day, and how I made sure everyone in that Red Lobster was listening.

Step 9: Talk about how it feels to be a female

Females are too simple-minded to express their own feelings. It’s up to us to speak for them. After all, no one knows women better than men. Nothing makes females happier than being submissive and taking care of us, feeding us, cleaning us, coddling us and unconditionally loving us — why would our mommies do it if it wasn’t their life’s passion?

Step 10: Slut-shaming

Men are wrongfully called “fuckboys” when really, we’re deep and emotionally intelligent creatures. We have big hearts and just want to love our females. Sometimes we resort to surprise polygamy, but it means nothing when you’re with the one. Men shouldn’t be judged by their sexual encounters, but by how they attempt to make up for them. (Please forgive me, baby. I promise I’ll be better, Tammy. Just give me a chance.)

Step 11: WHORES

Females are nothing but dirty whores who lie and cheat because they don’t know anything else. They don’t understand the complexities of the male mind and can’t even fathom what having an ounce of testosterone is like. They’ll never realize how superior we are. I am a self-proclaimed incel — that’s right, Tammy. You could never fulfill me the way my boys can. I’ve never felt more like a man. The man inside me has come to realize that females are overrated. I’ve finally found my space you bitch — hope you rot in your whore hell!

Okay guys, that’s all for my list. For other alpha male advice, check out my podcast on Spotify, Dismantling the Matriarchy, where me and my boy Throckie talk about all of these topics and more. Don’t forget to follow me on my insta, @bassproAlph1, where I post at least 10 fishing photos a week featuring my backwards hat and my gnarly neckbeard.

Remember fellas, if we can’t feel good about ourselves, we’ll tear down any female that has even an ounce of self-respect to feel better online for the world to see. Go team! g

My name is Arun Nair. I am a science editor at The Stony Brook Press and a recent graduate of Stony Brook, where I studied neuroscience and creative writing. I am also a severely disabled young man.

In 2009, I came back from a two-year tour in Iraq with no visible injuries. I became disabled after being hit by a car on Memorial Day weekend of 2012. I was initially in a coma for a month, and moved from one hospital to another and finally back to my parents’ house on the border of Queens and Nassau County around Veterans Day of that year. While I was in that coma, I had a stroke on the left side of my brain, and when I woke up, I was paralyzed on the right side. After months of physical therapy, I received deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery in 2014 because my relatively young age and good health made me a good candidate for this invasive procedure. It had a profound impact on my life — after intense physical therapy, DBS and some additional treatments, I regained enough movement and control to return to school in the summer of 2017.

This summer, I discovered that two physicians — one pediatric neurologist and one neurosurgeon — were living just upstairs from my aunt in Brooklyn. Both Dr. Lekshmi Peringaserry Sateesh and Dr. Vinayak Narayan are from the same part of India as my own family — Kerala — and both doctors also have experience with DBS.

The three of us shared breakfast and coffee at my aunt’s dining room table while speaking about this procedure and the field of neurology as a whole.

I know they do deep brain stimulation, the surgery that I got, at NYU Langone. Is that where you work, or do you work somewhere else?

Dr. Narayan: Yes, I work at NYU Langone.

Dr. Sateesh: I work at SUNY Downstate, where I am a pediatric neurology resident. I’m in my fourth year of residency. It’s a five-year program. What got you interested in neurosurgery?

Dr. Narayan: During my time in med school, I was really fascinated by the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord. When I started seeing patients, I was interested in seeing neurological problems. At the same time, I started getting interested, watching surgeries and performing some basic small surgeries. So, combining the surgical field and neuroscience, I decided to take my career ahead with the neurosurgery specialization.

What got you interested in pediatric neurology?

Dr. Sateesh: I like children, and I like to help them. I like pediatrics. And also, I like neurology. That’s why I wanted to do pediatric neurology — I like both specialties. And I cannot do both separately, so I thought I’d do neurology for kids. Neurology is a very interesting specialty. It’s kind of a puzzle. I always liked to solve puzzles. What roles do neurology and neurosurgery play in human lives?

Dr. Narayan: The brain is the most vital organ of the human body. There are many kinds of diseases that can affect the brain. So, the types of illness which can be treated by surgery are taken care of by a group of doctors called neuro-

surgeons, and certain diseases that can be treated with medicines are taken care of by the neurologist, or the neurophysician. So, that’s where both jobs are coming into play in the treatment of neurological diseases.

Dr. Sateesh: The brain [has] supreme control of all other organs; it frames the topmost part of your body — it even controls emotions or feelings. People think emotions come from the heart, but they don’t. They actually come from a particular part of the brain. And that’s why it’s very important in our lives.

In basic terms, what is deep brain stimulation? How is it performed?

Dr. Narayan: Deep brain stimulation is a very complex kind of neurosurgery in which, as the name indicates, we are stimulating very specific deep tissue in the brain by implanting a pacemaker inside of the brain. This pacemaker within the brain is connected externally to a battery, and this battery will constantly deliver some kind of electricity to those pacemaker electrodes and stimulate the brain structures.

How was the technique developed?

Dr. Narayan: Deep brain stimulation was developed many years ago and the concept considered the head in a stereotactic1 space, and based on that stereotactic dimension, people started thinking, “We can focus on one particular point in a coordinate system.” So, based on that, we can precisely target a certain area or certain nucleus within the brain, and the stimulation of that structure can lead to remarkable benefits for the patient. A man named Dr. Lars Leksell pioneered this system and developed it. … Nobody was aware of such a treatment. Many changes and modifications have happened to the system. Nowadays, we can provide really advanced treatment with DBS. It’s very, very beneficial — amazing, actually.

What are its strengths and limitations?

Dr. Narayan: Deep brain stimulation can be used for Parkinson’s disease patients who are having a very bad tremor or rigidity, really classical forms of the disease. It can be done for essential

1 Stereotactic: to exist on a graph. In this context, Dr. Narayan is explaining that neurosurgeons like himself imagine the brain to be a three-dimensional map — a “stereotactic space.”

2

tremors, which are really severe tremors that affect a person’s quality of life. DBS is also used for the treatment of certain kinds of epilepsy or seizure disorders. Nowadays, it is also used for psychiatric disorders like depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addictions and other issues.

The limitations are that we have to do a lot of testing prior to the procedure. And only after doing all these tests can we decide if candidacy for this procedure is possible — only a few people are good candidates. The second thing is the patients should be well-motivated, and there should be strong support for these patients. Even after the procedure, they will need a lot of help in terms of hospitals, treatment and everything. So, there should be a strong support group for these patients, and they should be responding to certain types of medications or willing to take some medications even after procedures. So those are the limitations that make many patients not good candidates for DBS.

I had a stroke and got DBS as a result. What is done for people who have had a stroke to bring back normal function?

Dr. Narayan: If a person has had a stroke, to bring back normal functioning, the most important thing needed is courage and a strong mind to come back to his life. That’s the most important thing they may need. Provided they’re supported with other kinds of continuing medical treatments, like good rehab treatment, like speech therapy if they’re having speech issues and physical rehab treatment — all those things are really important. At the same time, preventing another stroke by treating the risk factors is very important.

If you find a fetus has a neurological issue, what can you do for it or for the mother?

Dr. Narayan: If a fetus has a problem, it can be detected to some extent by doing a blood test on the mother. We may be able to detect it in the initial months of pregnancy. For a few of the problems we can predict in utero, neurosurgical treatment options are available. However, many times these problems are pretty severe. Preventing those problems is something we can [try to] do. One thing we can do is counsel mothers to take the needed medications, like certain kinds of vitamins or iron tablets. But certain kinds of genetic problems, of course, we cannot avoid and we have to accept the fact of the poor prognosis.

Dr. Sateesh: There are certain genetic conditions that we can pick up very early during first-trimester and second-trimester blood screenings. For example, there are diseases with a very poor

prognosis like spinal muscular atrophy, which can be picked up prenatally. Treatment is limited, but there are advanced treatments we can do: in-utero procedures and in-utero intrathecal therapy.2 Again, the prognosis is poor either way.

What is the future of deep brain stimulation? Are there other techniques in development that could supplement or improve it?

Dr. Narayan: I think there’ll be robust applications for deep brain stimulation. Primarily, we are using it nowadays for tremors, for Parkinson’s disease and for epilepsy, but the future may be more focused on psychiatric disorders like depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction in patients which are refractory to routine medications. That will be a great platform for DBS to show its power. The advanced technologies we have now have some very, very safe deep brain stimulation treatments,

Intrathecal therapy: injecting medications directly into the spinal cord.

like tractography.3 ... So, in the development of those things, DBS is going to be very safe and very effective for the management and treatment of many of these neurosurgical problems in the future of care. Tell me about some challenging or unique experiences you’ve had.

Dr. Narayan: One unique experience I had was when I was in Ohio, during my fellowship in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery. I saw a patient who had a very debilitating tremor, which he had been suffering with for more than 40 years. He was 75-plus in age, a gentleman who was not able to do anything because of his tremor — he was not able to have food by himself; he was not able to hold a spoon by himself; not able to drink water by himself. So he came to a treatment called MRI-guided focused ultrasound ablation treatment. This is a surgical procedure and it takes around two to three hours.

We finished [his] procedure in a three-hour time span. And once the procedure was completed, he had almost complete improvement of his tremor, and now he’s able to drink by himself, to have food by himself. His life has completely transitioned, almost like a 180-degree turn in treatment. At the end of those two, three hours, he was feeling like magic and [it was] one of the most important things that happened in his life. So that was a very unique experience to me, and it’s the kind of patient happiness that, in our field, is very, very rewarding.

Dr. Sateesh: During my residency days, I had some challenging cases. One of the cases was a newborn baby, born to a normal mom, normal family, no other risk factors. But the baby had significant abnormalities from head to toe, with significant facial dysmorphism and limb abnormalities. It wasn’t responding very well to any kind of treatment and needed respiratory support among other kinds.

It was very challenging to find out what the baby had; it was very interesting as well as challenging. So we did imaging, we did the EEG, the EMG4 — all kinds of neurological investigations. Finally, we got a positive genetic testing, which revealed a very, very rare genetic abnormality with the baby. I think it was the second case of its kind in the U.S., so we couldn’t even find much maintenance around this genetic abnormality. But the problem was — even though eventually we were able to find out the diagnosis — we didn’t have much treatment for the disease, so we were unable to help the baby in any way, other than supportive measures. So that is a sad part for those diseases. But the good thing is we were able to at least find out what was the cause. g

3 Tractography: advanced three-dimensional mapping of nerve tracts within the brain.

4 Electroencephalogram (EEG): a recording of brain activity using external sensors that do not harm the patient. Electromyography (EMG): a diagnostic test that measures the health of nerve cells and the muscles they control.

“What I Want” MUNA

By Michael Kearney

I found “Gloom” by Djo at just the right time this summer. I turned 20 in late July and struggled to come to terms with the end of my teenage years. I did my best to distract myself from feeling shitty about it by working, hanging out with my friends, watching movies and scrolling on social media. The beginning of August always feels like time is slipping away from me. While I wanted summer to last longer, I also couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could get on to the next season of my life. As soon as the song opens, Djo puts these feelings into words.

And now I’m ready to go I’m sick of hanging out and now I’m ready to go

Djo is the musical moniker of Joe Keery, best known for playing Steve Harrington in Netflix’s Stranger Things. Even though he’s been releasing music since 2019, he received more attention this summer following the popularity of the show’s fourth season. Many people online were shocked to find out that Keery makes music. I first heard “Gloom” on TikTok (typical) and was instantly hooked. I already knew about his music, but I

MUNA — the self-titled album from indie pop musicians Katie Gavin, Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin — provided me with a solid direction on how to live my summer to its fullest potential. Before the release of this album, Phoebe Bridgers announced new tour dates with MUNA for New York City, and I knew I had to go. At the concert, MUNA reminded the audience that their album would drop the following week, marking the true start of my summer.

On the night of its release, I plugged myself into the highly anticipated MUNA. Bathed in bouncy synth beats and electrifying rhythms, I was brought back to the euphoric concert from the previous week — the whole crowd roaring with exhilaration like no other. I was fully invested in each track, from the jovial opening party tune “Silk Chiffon” with Phoebe Bridgers to the somber lullaby closer “Shooting Star.” However, there was one song that struck me the most: “What I Want.”

Released during Pride month, “What I Want” is an upbeat queer anthem that captures overarching themes of self-discovery and gay culture. Taking place in a gay party scene, the track begins with desires and experiences that the narrator wants to be fulfilled.

The never-ending desire to date their love interest floods the track as they describe her leather outfit and fiery dance moves.

MUNA speaks to their LGBTQ+ audience about themes of self-evolution

didn’t realize how much it would resonate with me.

Though it’s only two minutes long, the song packs a serious upbeat punch. It moves fast — it’s over almost as soon as it begins. The repetitive guitar, synthetic beats and vocals make it sound like a song straight from the 1980s, yet his sound is unlike any other new music that I’ve heard recently.

The idea of being “ready to go” is repeated throughout the song, even though his final destination is never revealed. I often feel that way too. I know I want something more out of life, but I don’t quite know what that something more might be. I want to get out of the house, but I don’t know where I actually want to go. During the summer, whenever I did go somewhere, I found myself blasting this song on repeat.

Why is such a fast-paced, energetic song called “Gloom?” I have no idea — just like I have no idea why I would feel so sad and strange for the better part of an otherwise exciting summer. Sometimes those feelings just hang over you, no matter what you do or how much you’re ready to go.

and their lifelong craving to be around like-minded people in the pre-chorus:

I’ve spent too-too-too many years

I’ve cried too-too-too many tears

But

In a world riddled with homophobia and growing debates on gay rights, this synth party song speaks volumes about living in the moment and finding your true romance. Learning to become oneself requires tuning into your inner soul and tuning out the rest of the world. MUNA declares that the time to be free without fear is now.

Since its initial release, my love for “What I Want” only became greater with time; it’s now one of my top 15 all-time streamed songs on Spotify. From chanting in my car during hourlong commutes for my summer job to blasting on the stereo behind friendly poolside conversations, I found myself listening to the track at multiple points throughout my day. When I listen to “What I Want,” I become more confident and feel liberated to live my life how I was destined to. Living in the mix of others’ opinions can make it difficult to figure out what I truly want in life, but allowing myself to find joy in the discovery makes the journey worthwhile.

“Gloom” Djo

By Sydney Corwin

now I’m gonna make up for it all at once ‘Cause that’s, that’s just what I want

The 1975 is back. Their new single “Part of the Band” dropped in early July, teasing their next album and beginning a new era for the English pop-rock band. It was the first song they put out following the release of their fourth album, Notes On A Conditional Form, during the nightmarish fever dream that was 2020.

“Part of the Band” has an overwhelmingly folk sound, reminiscent of John Mayer’s Born and Raised and accompanied by delicate strings. The lyrics question societal norms and gender roles, and frontman Matty Healy reflects on his former drug abuse and the contradictions he notices in both society and his own mentality.

I spent most of this summer bored by the lack of a consistent routine and an inability to occupy myself productively or even creatively. I bought a lot of acrylic paint from Michaels, took online summer classes, worked five days a week as a barista, spent time with loved ones and indulged in thinking about nothing and everything. “Part of the

Band” was my summer anthem for semi-intrusive thoughts and questioning both myself and the world — a constantly evolving and complicated society.

Sitting

Writing

Aside from the nostalgia I feel for The 1975’s music, I have also grown a love for their raw, poetic and sometimes nonsensical lyricism. They consistently release bops with lyrics

I can dissect, cry about at 2 a.m. and even hate for Healy’s lack of social awareness. “Part of the Band” is unrefined, lyrically thought-provoking and an undeniably groovy summer night jam.

“Did You Ever Know? ”

Joyce Manor

By Matt Hono

In a summer full of haphazard searching for stability, the moments you spend with friends mean that much more. I spent the summer working for a busy political campaign and ping-ponging between work, home, a friend’s couch and my partner’s apartment. During these months, I was never able to

“Part of the Band” The 1975

By Jess Castagna

find a routine to hold on to. Unrelenting travel to distant locations did not allow for relaxation and careful planning; instead it encouraged panicked mishaps and nervous energy. The campaign constantly pushed me out of my comfort zone, requiring me to knock on doors, attend staff events and make thousands of phone calls. I traversed neighborhoods buried in upstate New York that I’d never been to before and survived off of fast-food meals. Now, with 4,000 miles added to my car, I have begun to unpack the experiences that shaped my joyfully chaotic summer — one that was over before I ever got my balance.

Joyce Manor released their new album, 40 oz. to Fresno, in June. The 17-minute-long album moves swiftly from song to song. Within the first few seconds, the band hits the listener with quintessential pop-punk chords. It’s relentless fun that encapsulates the feelings of a summer that speeds by.

“Did You Ever Know?” was the immediate standout song. It’s energetic, and the first lines quickly bring to mind images of light-hearted afternoons spent in a park. Did you ever know that I loved you most In the tall green grass where we laughed and smoked? Stray cat fast asleep, same place he was last week Fleas all in his coat, did you ever know?

Instrumentally, the song grabs your attention with heavy riffs that immediately transition into a steady drum rhythm and bass line. With each progressing lyric, however, the volume steadily rises until the second verse; then the full band crashes into the scene, exponentially raising the emotional intensity.

The lyrics are catchy, playful and vivid but exit with an ounce of regret. They provide the listener with a highlight reel of snapshot memories: from drinking at a park until sunset to the approach of a stray cat. It’s a flip book of memories that often make me miss the kind of freedom that seems to only exist in the summer months.

Like that fleeting freedom, a song that is less than two minutes long does not overstay its welcome. Before you know it, lead vocalist Barry Johnson sentimentally yells:

Now we’re nearing the end And we’re saying goodbye Like a song in my head

Leaving nothing behind

“Did You Ever Know?” is a transient moment of whirlwind energy that leaves before you know the answer to its title. It was the soundtrack for many long drives and train rides, and regardless of where I was going or what unfamiliar task awaited me there, it always reminded me to make time for the simple afternoons spent drinking tall cans with the people I love — before it’s all left behind.

I know some Vaccinista tote bag chic baristas

east on their communista keisters

about their ejaculations

“I like my men like I like my coffee Full of soy milk and so sweet, it won’t offend anybody”

“SKIN OF MY TEETH” Demi Lovato

By Lauren Canavan

Demi Lovato has finally re-entered the rock scene. I repeat, she has RE-ENTERED THE SCENE. “SKIN OF MY TEETH” was the first single release to her latest album, Holy Fvck.

When Demi teased a return to her rock roots, no one took her seriously. However, as someone who has been following her music since the release of Don’t Forget in 2008, I knew she wasn’t messing around. The unapologetic teenager who had no shame in styling her dresses with Converse sneakers has finally flourished into the rockstar of her dreams.

“SKIN OF MY TEETH” is an angry anthem. It talks about Demi’s close brush with death following her overdose in 2018. The song opens with sarcastic commentary:

Demi leaves rehab again When is this shit gonna end?

In the accompanying music video, a reaper-inspired character haunts her as she tries to escape her twisted thoughts. The lyrics and wailing guitar accompaniment unravel into a message of strength, emphasizing the invaluable gift of being alive. In just under three minutes, the song manages to encompass a deep, continued struggle and a preserving triumph.

This summer, “SKIN OF MY TEETH” was my go-to song as I drove home from my seasonal job or the gym. It’s exhilarating to physically feel your car speakers bumping to an artist you’ve been following since you were 6 years old. Whether I’m singing her older lyrics about feeling confident or newer ones about surviving an overdose, Demi’s ongoing transparency has served as one of my greatest experiences as a music fan.

“Cracker Island” Gorillaz ft. Thundercat

By Dylan Gallo

On Cracker Island, it was born

The next phase of Gorillaz’s discography takes aim at mob mentality and the occult over a groovy backdrop of psychedelic funk. I’ve always loved Gorillaz’s style of music and genre fluidity, and this song is no exception. The mixes between indie, funk, hip hop, rap and pop that surround the virtual band’s discography not only make each song a completely different experience, but they also introduce listeners to styles of music they may have never thought to experiment with otherwise. This is what makes Gorillaz such an interesting band. Their latest single, “Cracker Island,” only further shows the flexibility of their sound.

While the subject matter of the song may not reflect how my summer went, the instrumentals

were the highlight of the season for me. The synths, guitars, drums and vocal harmonies are truly something to behold on this track, but the bass line from featured artist Thundercat is quite plainly the best part of this song. While Thundercat’s magical bass skills always shine through, they almost fit too perfectly set behind Damon Albarn’s hypnotizing vocals as Gorillaz’s lanky but lovable lead singer, 2-D. The first few notes of this mesmerizing beat burrowed this June single into my mind for the entirety of the summer. After listening, I fell down a massive rabbit hole listening to both Gorillaz and Thundercat, and I highly recommend getting into both artists after listening to this dark and groovy tune.

“Runner”

Alex G

By Keating Zelenke

Alex G owned my summer this year. His shaky vocals, his plucky guitar riffs, his fingers stumbling across piano keys — I hardly listened to anything else.

There are two things I love about Alex G’s music. First, his constant use of synthesizers and keys makes half his music sound like it’s straight out of a homemade video game. However, “Runner” — the lead single he released in June from his new album, God Save the Animals — is not really one of his beep-boop electronic tracks. This new single belongs to the other half of Alex’s discography — his folksy, all-American ballads.

The first part of my life, I lived in a town called Averill Park, about a four-hour drive north on the Taconic Parkway. My childhood home was so isolated, restaurants didn’t deliver to our neighborhood. Every summer, I ran around barefoot making traps for frogs in the sewers that ran along the side of my road. My friend and I combed through garbage in the forest for fun and pretended to be archeologists. Once, the older boys found a wolf’s

skeleton in the woods and told us ghost stories about what killed it.

Alex G’s stories are often grimy. “Runner” is potentially about the relationship between a drug runner and an addict. But something about them is whimsical, too. Alex writes about the strange, everyday lives of poor and working-class Americans in towns like the Rust Belt one I grew up in. Through his music, I see the beauty and freedom of rural New York like I remember seeing it when I was a kid — and I see the shadow cast over my hometown by heroin, racism, poverty and obsolescence.

“Runner” transports me back to the creek, my flip-flop floating away from me in the rushing water. It takes me back to the crawfish, to the tadpoles; it takes me back to squatting in the dirt to get a better look at dried deer tracks. And it does it in a way that reminds me my hometown wasn’t a safe haven or some kind of heaven — rather far from it.

But what is it they say about summer? You’re never waiting for summer — you’re waiting for summer 10 years ago.

My runner, my runner, my man

My runner, my runner, my man...

“Mythical Bonds” Mamalarky

By Jane Montalto

Opening with a magical, upbeat guitar riff, “Mythical Bonds” by indie art-rock band Mamalarky instantly transported me to a dreamy world. I was patiently awaiting new music from Mamalarky after discovering the band’s self-titled album last year. The album quickly became an obsession of mine, and I listened to it over and over again until I squeezed out every last note. So, to say I was excited to hear “Mythical Bonds” is easily the understatement of the year.

The song is a single off their new album, Pocket Fantasy. The track bubbles with joy even before the first words are spoken, but it overflows during the first verse.

someone else’s coming-of-age movie. Friends were kept at a distance, fading in and out of my life like seasons. This facet of my life often made me insecure, leaving me wary of deep connection as I felt an expiration date on friendship. It wasn’t until recently that I started to understand the true value of friendships like the one Mamalarky’s lead singer, Livvy Bennett, belts about in “Mythical Bonds.”

Ooh, you make me wanna grow old Long live mythical bonds

“Mythical Bonds” is the ballad of life-changing friendship — which is a little too on the nose for me at this moment in my life. It is something I never saw myself having. Growing up, I moved around a lot, from New York to Texas and back to New York again. I was one of those kids who never had the time to grow roots. I often faded to the background, a side character in

The lyrics to this song make me reflect on my past and where I am today. I’ve learned of the joys that can come from “mythical bonds.” There is an electricity that can be felt when talking with those you feel closest to — a mutual, unspoken understanding of each other. This feeling brings me such a sense of comfort, like an idyllic escape from an unforgiving world. Between the psychedelic guitar and refrains of la-las, “Mythical Bonds” is like skipping goofily in a sunny meadow with a group of your best friends. It embodies the feeling of unity and humanity that is found through hanging out together, laughing at stupid jokes and having meaningful conversations at midnight. So please, I implore you to listen to “Mythical Bonds” with your best friend.

You are my best friend

I don’t want to know what it’s like to live without you by my side

I queued up beabadoobee’s new album, Beatopia, while sitting with my boyfriend in his silver 2013 Nissan, heading to Six Flags Darien Lake. The theme park has rusty rides, overpriced food and a waterpark that’ll surely give you foot fungus. But in Western New York, where the most notable attractions are giant fields of cows and a town that claims to be the “onion capital of the world,” it serves as a fun summer activity.

I slathered on sunscreen and ate a granola bar to prepare myself for the sweltering heat and stomach-dropping rides.

I didn’t, however, prepare myself for the existential crisis awaiting me in beabadoobee’s new release.

Semi-distracted, I heard her soft voice and caught a few of the lyrics midway through the album:

Don’t think I’m over it

“broken cd” beabadoobee

By Sophie Beckman

From the indie rock band’s fifth studio album, Dance Fever, “Cassandra” by Florence + the Machine is an alluring take on the Greek myth of Cassandra, a prophet cursed by a god to be deemed a liar and later ripped from her home. When I first listened to this song, I was immediately captivated by lead singer Florence Welch’s enchanting vocals. Welch took me on a journey as her breathy, eerie voice told the story of a woman whose trust in herself was questioned when everyone turned their backs on her.

Every song I thought I knew, I’ve been deafened to And there’s no one left to sing to

This song was so enthralling to me — the powerful lyrics paired with the soft wind-chime twinkles in the beginning drew me in — and it became one of my most-played songs this summer. The lyrics arouse sympathy for Cassandra, while also signaling a quiet strength within her that only she sees. I imagine this song describes the feeling of hitting rock bottom and finding only yourself there.

As the lyrics of this song floated through my ears for months, I was allured by Cassandra and wanted to understand her. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of the last

It hurt when I was 17 Flew by so quickly I could hardly breathe Immediately, my attention was solely focused on the song.

Don’t think I’m over it Like how I said I was Like a broken CD That plays on repeat

king of Troy before the city fell. The god Apollo became infatuated with her, giving her the gift of prophecy, but when she refused his sexual advances, he cursed her so that no one would believe her tales. It is believed that Cassandra predicted the fall of Troy and that her brother Paris would bring war to the city, but the vengeful god’s curse left her all alone with no one to listen to her.

My eyes blurred as I stared out the window, listening to Bea’s repetitive lyrics and soft instrumentals, now the background music to my thoughts. A broken CD started playing in my own head.

I thought about my 17-year-old self and the times I assured her everything was fine. A constant self-reminder that nothing was wrong, to be positive instead. This repetition was soothing for me.

Now, I find myself stuck on the same track, unable to move past feelings that I never accepted in the first place.

Back in the car, the somber lyrics melted away, giving way to the next song on the album. My eyes regained focus, and from a distance I caught a glimpse of the worn blue and red tracks of the Ride of Steel roller coaster, a landmark for the otherwise underwhelming theme park.

Even as the album continued, I couldn’t help but reflect on the lyrics of “broken cd.” I still find myself stuck on this song. My memories are a scratched-up CD that can never fully play, getting caught at certain moments and repeating over and over.

Paying $20 for parking that day really brought me back to the present moment, but the song continued on repeat for the rest of the summer and even now. I’ll be listening until the scratches on my own CD work themselves out.

This song ends with a hard-hitting crescendo of drums leading up to Cassandra left alone in despair with no redemption waiting for her, as she was brutally kidnapped and became a prize of the Trojan War. She was eventually murdered alongside the king who claimed her and their two sons, a fate she ruefully predicted.

This song is a poetic ode to the tragedy of Cassandra’s story. It tells it from her perspective, depicting the feelings that she may have had when everyone turned against her. She knew her fate, and there was nothing she could do to avoid it. Florence + the Machine captures the essence of this feeling in “Cassandra.”

By Samantha Aguirre

And if I run fast enough, could I break apart As empires tumble and cathedrals flatten my heart?

“Glimpse of Us” Joji

‘Cause sometimes, I look in her eyes

And that’s where I find a glimpse of us

And I’ll try to fall for her touch

But I’m thinking of the way it was

We are standing in Prospect Park. The warm night air clings to my skin as the ballad begins. A simple MIDI track chimes in steady meter, like a heartbeat. A piercing yet somehow soothing vocal track invites itself in:

I’m not afraid of anything at all

At this point in time, this song was relatively new to me. It had not yet marinated in my brain as songs often do; I didn’t fully understand its meaning. To my left, I can hear a change in her breathing, from a steady inhale and exhale to a hiccup in between each breath. We grip each other a bit tighter.

In that moment, letting the lyrics wash over me, I see the glimmer of the night sky reflecting in her tears. Instantly, I feel my eyes well up too.

Watch the world from the sidelines

Had nothing to prove ‘Til you came into my life Gave me something to lose

By Komal Grewal

As I look back on this past summer, my mind is flooded with its breezy mornings and bright beach days, hours on the LIRR and trekking through the streets of Manhattan. I met a lot of new people in these few short months. As the days passed by — feeling altogether too long and too short at the same time — I found “Glimpse of Us” by Joji to be the soundtrack of this time. Although it has been made popular by TikTok — an app notorious for overplaying songs — “Glimpse of Us” has endured for me.

Its somber notes and whispered words provide for a beautifully tragic and poetic song. It reminds me of someone I once knew. Although he isn’t in my life anymore, this song made me realize that I still carry him with me — perhaps I always will. This brought me to the realization that we inadvertently carry all the people we have loved throughout our lives with us longer than we think.

With many of the new people I met this summer, I noticed myself subconsciously comparing them to him. Maybe it’s unfair that I hold these people to a certain standard based on a person they have never even seen, but I can’t help it. It’s something we all do. As we carry pieces of everyone we have loved with us, we try to search for those pieces — or even a “glimpse” — in new people we meet. On the rare occasions we find them, we can’t help but be reminded of those people who gave pieces of themselves to us, and think of them every time we look into newer eyes.

These are happy tears. Her embrace is a blanket, a silent acknowledgement of what it really feels like to be alive and have someone who cares for you. She is that someone, and she’s something I am afraid to lose. In a way, it is less a fear of loss and more a reminder of what I have and how lucky I am to have it. “Sidelines” is a song that urges the listener to embrace a little tighter, a little longer — to live with more feeling.

This song evoked nostalgia in me. It reminded me of the person I used to be: too scared to participate in life out of fear of failing. I had never even given myself the chance before. I had once been a spectator in my own life.

Not anymore.

By Megan Walton

Joji’s “Glimpse of Us” is an incredibly heartfelt, gut-wrenching song that I can’t listen to for more than 15 seconds without sobbing. It, unfortunately, puts me in the headspace of falling out of love with my significant other (whom I love dearly) or wondering if the reverse will happen.

What if there’s some inevitability that my person will get tired of me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it? What if we’re perfect for each other, but one non-negotiable thing spells the end of our time together? What if I’m not healthy enough to fully move on if that becomes my reality?

It’s the same feeling I get when an actor plays a villain well — seeing them out of context conjures up some unexplained visceral fear and hatred. For me, that’s Antony Starr as Homelander in The Boys.

Even though “Glimpse of Us” turns me into a wreck, it demonstrates how artisanal and effective Joji’s writing is. I’ve spent sleepless nights silently weeping from this pain. It’s so beautiful and mesmerizingly captured that it allows me to take a step back and reflect on my own pain. Maybe this type of connection is just a part of the human experience. This song is the definition of a tragic loss we don’t take the time to grieve.

I’m only here passing time in her arms Hopin’ I’ll find a glimpse of us

“Sidelines” Phoebe Bridgers

By Sarah Conway

The pandemic years have changed all of us. The person who I was before wouldn’t recognize who I am now. Yet, across the globe, there’s a place where my old self still lingers. This summer, I visited my family in Greece for the first time in four years, bringing that contrast to light.

“Familiar Fields,” from alternative rock band Duster’s latest album, Together, is a song that represents the conflict between my past and present identity. Faces of people I know are now obscured by age and distance. I feel detached from a place that was once extremely important to me. Everyone around me remembers who I was before the pandemic — my pictures are around their houses, memorialized in Christmas cards and poorly printed photos from Facebook. I am not the person in those photos, and while I have memories of them, everyone around me feels like a stranger.

Part of a dream I can’t remember

Just out of reach

This song became a soundtrack for my summer, not only because I was literally walking through the fields at sunset, but because I had to confront all the versions of myself who once walked these familiar fields; each form of myself relating to the longing and wistfulness portrayed in these lyrics.

Every time I listen to this song, my body gets pulled along within the rhythm. Duster is known for their unique sound, consisting of fuzzy low vocals with loud background feedback and distortion. You can feel their instrumentals vibrating intensely through your body, and the lyrics softly whispered

into your ear. The repetitive, murky chorus dragged me lower and lower into a nostalgic yearning for the past, when I did not have to worry about the future.

I am a junior now and graduation is growing closer and closer every day. Everything in my life is coming to a head. I am endlessly running away from this because I don’t want to disappoint those around me. People have expectations for me. People still see me in those old photos and have their own idea of who I am supposed to be. I try not to let these thoughts get to me, but I can’t help mourning my past self to this dreamy, yet heavy slowcore song.

I hear your voice like you are still here

The guilt I have for my past is intense. I keep trying to remember the hopes and dreams my past self had, but these childhood memories are fleeting. As much as I fear disappointment from those around me, I keep asking myself, “What would a 12-year-old me say? What would a 7-yearold me say?” I feel that I have become my past self’s worst fear. I would do anything just to speak to any earlier variation of myself for some answers. However, the person who remains in these familiar fields today is me.

Yet I am optimistic. Maybe when I return, I can walk those fields with the hope that I finally know myself. My identity is not just who I am today, but what I hold onto from all my past selves and how we culminate in one being. Maybe understanding myself requires me to travel to other familiar fields of my life to fully grasp what it means to be me.

“Familiar Fields” Duster

By Marie Lolis

By Emily Scott

This summer was arguably one of the most boring ones I’ve ever had. I was caught in a cycle of driving to work, coming home to eat a late dinner and then fucking off to my room where I would pack up the various trinkets lining my walls in anticipation of my stepdad’s impending move-in date. I mean, sure, there were a few parties here and there, but in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think I even went swimming once

That being said, it was a summer of iconic albums and singles being released across the board, ranging from Lizzo’s new album Special to Nicki Minaj’s single “Super Freaky Girl.” The release I was most excited for dropped the weekend I drove my brother home for the summer — Harry Styles released his third studio album, Harry’s House. The album had a few standout songs, including the singles “As It Was” and “Late Night Talking.”

After about 3,000 listens, I found myself playing “Keep Driving” on repeat. The song opens with a drum pattern that sounds like a car driving along the highway, and the differences in the pavement beneath the car when on a long stretch of

road. It transitions into a beat that matches a car’s turn signals, blinking to change lanes. It’s one of the more poetic songs on the album lyrically, coming across as a metaphor for the good times in a relationship.

Maple syrup, coffee, pancakes for two

Hash brown, egg yolk, I will always love you

The bridge is where Styles strays from the romantic vibe — talking about wine, smoking and passports, all in a stream of consciousness. My personal favorite piece of the bridge is “cocaine, side boob, choke her with a sea view.” At 23 years old, I 100% foamed at the mouth at the mere thought of Harry Styles choking me, let alone anywhere with a sea view.

Styles manages to mix the nostalgia for the good times of a relationship with a mellow beat, making for an instant classic. Despite my boring summer, I knew I could “just keep driving” to and from work.

Harry Styles

“Mona Lisa” mxmtoon

By Jenna Zaza

Corner seat at Devoción Cafe in Brooklyn — the words blur together on the blue-lit computer screen as I reach for an unbranded brown coffee cup, absent-mindedly taking a sip of the bitter, soapy liquid that I hate yet can’t get enough of. The longer I stare at the screen, attempting to make out each curve and point of the letters, the more the words warp and blur into a mirage. I’ve always played the part of Shakespeare I hide behind the ink and pen

Tearing myself from the laptop and the work that pains me, I look up — finding myself submerged in a lucid dream with the lyrics floating in the air. Everything is obscured, and everyone stares from afar with intrigue radiating from behind their eyes. Suddenly the lighting shifts focus, highlighting me as I sit there at the table. A smile paints on my face and my chest

begins to bloom as I realize that these people in the crowd are here for me; to see my craft — my art.

I wanna be a Mona Lisa

The kind of girl that you can dream of

Then I blink. The crowd stills as they start to fade away. In a moment of panic, I pry my eyes open, attempting to preserve the image, but to no avail.

The image whirls into reality. People crowd the coffee bar, sitting on the couches and chairs with books, computers or friends.

Think I’m ready to start a new chapter

I turn toward my computer, grazing the mouse, waking up the screen. The story pierces my eyes, as I recognize the light, airy tune that has been filling my ears — “Mona Lisa” by mxmtoon.

My gaze shifts back into the crowded cafe. Comfort settles in.

A smile reappears on my face, but for a different reason.

By Rafael Cruvinel

When I saw a video of Lizzo twerking in a bikini and wearing a glittery pink “lucha libre” mask, it didn’t even cross my mind that the baseball organ playing in the back was a snippet of what would be my favorite song on her new album, Special. “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)” is my song of the summer not only because it’s good, but also because it encapsulates the feeling that filled my weeks from late July to early August with butterflies in my stomach over what’s to come — which is exactly what this hit is about.

The first listen was surprising. I expected “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)” to be a slow ballad about romantic frustrations, similar to Adele’s “To Be Loved.” However, Special’s track four is a classic upbeat pop anthem that explores the uncertainty of being ready to finally receive what you have been waiting for for so long. Lizzo wanted to be loved. Now that someone loves her at last, she is afraid that she is not ready for it.

Am I ready?

‘Cause I want it

Am I ready To be loved?

I had a similar experience to her — not in love, but in other areas of my life that moved on this summer. Coming

into it, I wanted to find joy and comfort again after a frustrating spring that drained all of my energy.

Although I was successful, the process was filled with self-doubt. As I was invited to parties, selected for job interviews and busy working on personal projects, I constantly felt insecure about whether I was prepared to deal with all of that. These were good things that I wanted to happen — but that apprehension loomed. What was even worse was that as I realized my goals for the summer were being achieved, I began to fear falling into the same traps that ruined my spring.

Yesterday I would have run away

And I don’t know why I don’t know why, but I’m ready

During those moments, listening to Lizzo’s vocals repeating “to be loved” in the chorus brought me peace. That seems to be her objective after all — throughout her career, she has been vocal about wanting to make people happy and valued. For me, her happy, spontaneous self is accomplishing that. Sometimes when you’re sad, all you need is to watch a video of the pop sensation cursing during her victory speech at the VMAs.

“Skin Tight” Ravyn Lenae ft. Steve Lacy

By Antonio Mochmann

Last summer, I had to make a fairly quick decision about going to college in a place 4,000 miles away from my home, where I knew absolutely no one. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t adjust as quickly to college life as I hoped. But thankfully, my freshman year was coming to an end, and I had made some really great friends who made me feel better about being so far away from home. It was around this time that I discovered “Skin Tight” by R&B singer Ravyn Lenae.

Hearing this song while experiencing a dramatic emotional shift from worry and disappointment to relief and hopefulness was exactly what I needed this summer. Steve Lacy’s dreamy and rhythmic guitar riffs, paired with Ravyn Lenae’s enchanting and hypnotic voice, lifted all the negative emotions that had been weighing me down before the summer started.

In many ways, this song felt like therapy: Hold me while you can, hold me while you can I’ll still be your friend, you’ll come back again Hold me while you can, hold me while you can

The chorus serves as a gentle reminder that everything is fleeting. Emotions, people, situations — they all depart from your life at some point or another. The bad times will pass and I should intentionally be present in moments of bliss. The lyrics helped

me realize that I need to stop obsessing over my worries. There are constants in my life that I can always fall back on — one of those constants being myself.

When I went back home this summer, I spent a lot of time on my own. With my parents going to work and my brother and friends still busy with school and university, I turned to myself and music for company. Listening to “Skin Tight” felt like someone was holding me as I swayed and danced back and forth in my bedroom. My loneliness was washed away. Lenae’s soothing and intimate voice helped me unwind and ground myself, giving me a sense of peace I hadn’t felt in a while.

If you’re feeling isolated and lonely, Ravyn Lenae’s “Skin Tight” is the friend you can always rely on. Her new album, Hypnos, offers many more heartache remedies like “Skin Tight,” so be sure to listen!

“Memories” Conan Gray

By Lily McInerney

The most fantastic movie franchise to date has to be Despicable Me. Each time a new entry releases, the public is introduced to another round of toe-tapping, spine-tingling bangers. This past summer, along with the release of the latest movie Minions: Rise of Gru, came the best soundtrack ever created. The film is set in the 1970s, so the music is all either from that era or heavily inspired by it. It was hard to choose which one I wanted for Songs of the Summer, but I eventually realized it would have to be “Desafinado” by Kali Uchis, a cover of a classic song by Antônio Carlos Jobim. The melody is rich and nostalgic, leading the listener on a euphonious journey. It’s a plucky tune with a strong presence of acoustic guitar and keyboard, which harmonize in a pleasing way. This is the definition of a summer song — it’s playful, yet calm. The song radiates a comforting warmth that only Kali Uchis can bring to life in a song. A keen listener will note that although the sound is a happy tune meant for a children’s movie, the lyrics are about falling out of love:

We used to harmonize, two souls in perfect time Now the song is different, and the words don’t even rhyme

‘Cause you forgot the melody our hearts would always croon So, what good’s a heart that’s slightly out of tune?

Summer, personally, has always been a weird mix of nostalgia and appreciation for the present. “Memories” by Conan Gray encapsulates this feeling. For most, summer means freeing yourself from being bombarded by endless obligations — yet I find myself constantly dissecting the interactions I had with other people when I was in the bubble of my college campus.

I send the big paragraph anyway. I find that Conan Gray was right. The ending does always stay the same.

However, I’m reminded of the title of the song, “Memories.” This situation gets to be a memory for Conan Gray, not his future. Like him, I am one of those people who lets the past infiltrate her present. I promise I’m working on it.

These lyrics beg my mind to stop beginning the same “what-if” scenarios, to stop the never-ending “Should I send that huge paragraph that has lived in the notes app of my iPhone for an embarrassing amount of time?” ruminations living in my mind.

I promise that the ending always stays the same Essentially, Conan is promising that no matter the amount of effort you put into a person, it will never be reciprocated.

It feels like a poem — a story of two lovers trying to find their way back to each other, longing for their hearts to become in tune once more. It’s tragically beautiful, portraying the realities of falling out of touch with someone you once loved and trying to make it work. Uchis conveys yearning in a tangible way through her delivery of the last few lyrics.

We’re bound to get in tune again before too long There’ll be no desafinado When your heart belongs to me completely Then you won’t be slightly out of tune

You’ll sing along with me

I love that because the perspective is that of the lover trying to bring them back together, the listener is being told a biased and naive story — one that might not end the way the song explains.

“Desafinado” has depth beyond the audience of the movie and encapsulates a groovy ’70s vibe with a fun acoustic melody and playful percussion, matching the theme of the film.

The melody of the entire song is reminiscent of a coming-of-age film. The ballad-like piano and sudden bursts of airy crescendos remind me that I’m lucky to be this young, to be a teenager. The memories we make when we’re young get to be the memories of us when we were young. We’ll see what happens in the future.

“Desafinado”

Kali Uchis

By Carmela Cassara

You see, it’s hard to find an end to something that you keep beginning Over and over again

“This Love (Taylor’s Version)”

Taylor Swift

By Clare Gehlich

The still air clinging to the sun-kissed sky has enveloped me like a letter addressed to a tapestry of stars. I feel like I’m holding onto dreams disappearing in the starlight. Days are wasting away unfazed like silly songbirds humming a tune in a careless melody. Words feel like a runaway boat lost in a riptide, so I’m free. “This love came back to me” is what I hear softly. The words’ meaning echoes in my ear as I put on my headphones and find myself transported back to a memory.

I remember us sitting underneath the charged sun. The ocean blues are a billion miles away, but I can still smell the salty air like no time has passed.

He is staring at me, and I feel as though there are missing pieces of my heart in his dark eyes. It’s like coming home after you’ve been away for a long time.

I never knew the sounds of birds harmonizing in the broken summer wind would ignite this nostalgic feeling inside me.

In silent screams, in wildest dreams, I never dreamed of this

But with the sun setting, the moon rises in the cloudy sky. I’m just waiting for him to kiss me beneath the natural glow of the moon, soft and gentle. I know because when I lean forward, I’m listening to his heart beating just as loudly as mine.

This love is good, this love is bad

This love is alive back from the dead

It’s like I’m lost at sea, like I’m set adrift by the wind and stars. “This love came back to me.” I remember it all like it was yesterday. This is summer love.

“Gotta Move On”

Diddy ft. Bryson Tiller

By Anthony Johnson

When I got back home from Stony Brook at the end of last semester, I had no idea how my summer would go. What would be the first thing I did with endless time on my hands?

The night I got home, the Billboard Music Awards were on, and I decided to tune in. To my surprise, a familiar voice opened the show: Bryson Tiller. I have been a fan of his since the 2015 release of his debut album, TRAPSOUL . He took the BBMAs stage to debut a new single — “Gotta Move On” — with Grammy Award-winning rapper Diddy.

The song is reminiscent of late 1990s and early 2000s R&B. Listening to it takes me back to my childhood, when my parents would play artists like Usher and Ne-Yo for the whole house to hear.

“Gotta Move On” is the first release under Diddy’s new label, Love Records. Originally titled “She Don’t Want It,” the song leaked on SoundCloud back in 2018. It was intended to be included as a solo track on Tiller’s forthcoming album, Serenity.

Tiller’s verses on the track illustrate how he mastered the art of rap and singing:

Girl, he with you for the wrong reasons ‘Cause you was with me, uh, tell him stop reaching Guess that’s just the

jealous in me

I’m salty, I need it, my wounds keep bleeding

While Diddy does not play a major role in the song, he is still credited as the main artist. Hearing him on the track was a pleasant addition, transporting me back to the 2000s.

Looking back, watching the Billboard Music Awards that night heavily influenced the music I listened to this summer. If I hadn’t done so, I would have never found “Gotta Move On” — a perfect representation of fun R&B music that is fit for the summertime.

My one question is: Where’s the album, Bryson?

“Blue Velvet” 070 Shake

By Sophia Trifoli

I came back home in early May from a semester across the country in Flagstaff, Arizona, riding on a love-blind train. I was finally breaking the distance of a then-thriving relationship and ecstatic to see where the summer would take me and my partner. As the beginning of June approached, we were both equally excited to hear that 070 Shake was going to drop new music.

Her sophomore album You Can’t Kill Me was released on June 3. In it, the American rapper and singer tells us stories from her exhilarating and anguishing personal life using dynamic, synth-filled melodies and harrowing drums. The album’s sixth track, an agonizing ballad titled “Blue Velvet,” is jarringly beautiful — it began to stand out to me as this summer came to a close and my relationship was put on hold.

The song begins with a string of drums pulsating eerily, layered over a trilling vocal mix. Continuous, heart-wrenching beats that continue throughout the song immerse the listener into the bittersweet and panic-filled moment that Shake is singing about.

That blue velvet

You wore the first night that I felt it I felt the touch of you I’m worried I could lose you any second I’ll always remember

She is singing of the conflicting, constantly changing feelings and thoughts that she has about her ex-lover, describing the stinging fear she has of losing this person and knowing that the connection they had is something she will never be able to forget.

I’m not running straight I’m running in circles

The love that I thought I had I don’t deserve you Now that it’s over I’m reminded of you

As the song slows to an end, a symphony of violins emerges and Shake repeats the same tortured lines that she began with. Her tone has changed now, demonstrating an acceptance of reality — she and her first lover have parted ways.

In this track, 070 Shake has encapsulated the different emotions that can strike a person when they allow themselves to reminisce on the time spent with a first love — something that, for many, can feel so equally beautiful and gut-wrenching.

I have no other choice than to make “Blue Velvet” my song of the summer, and yet it is a song that I never imagined would resonate so deeply with me by the end of August. This summer was full of many firsts for me — whether it was one of the firsts that filled me with pure and innocent joy, or the one that stripped me of that, I found myself constantly entwined in new experiences.

070 Shake put words to the notion of heartbreak, a feeling that many, including myself, have intensely felt at different points this summer, yet never knew how to grasp and describe.

“Miss America” Bazzi

By Janet Chow

My song of the summer is “Miss America” by Bazzi. It’s upbeat and fun-loving, filling my summer with such great vibes. The song has given me that I am the moment feeling, and over the summer, I felt that I truly accomplished something. I had an internship with NEW 102.7 and it was such an amazing experience. I met Lizzo; I pranked the number one program director in New York City and I worked with radio hosts like Karen Carson and Johnny Mingione, who I have listened to since the start of college. I love the way this song makes me feel. It brings me back to how I felt when I got to meet Lizzo and work with other broadcasters.

Move like the way you move

Do like the way you do

The lyrics and the feel of the song made me realize that I felt accomplished and was doing what makes me the happiest — radio. Along with the internship, I also passed my road test to get my driver’s license. It felt so liberating and wholesome to finally be able to drive my mom after she’d been driving me for the past 19 years of my life. When the song comes on in the car, I always belt it out because it reminds me that I have finally become the person I wanted to be. This song makes me feel that I am truly becoming my better self and that I am my own “Miss America.” Scan to listen to all of