SPRING 2015
STIR Life and Death
LIFE
Page 4
A Lesson from J. Alfred Prufrock Take a Hike What Does Life Look Like to You A Brief Overview of Human Relationships The Life and Death of an H&M Cotton Peasant Shirt Playlist: I Feel So Alive Designing Justice Mom and Dad Music Becoming Pi Evidence of Gender Fluid Living
PURGATORY
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“If There’s Magic in Boxing...” What to Expect When You’re not Expecting Senioritis: a Retrospective Clark University’s Robert H. Goddard Library Sophomore Slump
DEATH
6 7 10 17 20 22 23 30 32 34 40
50 52 54 57 60
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Famous Last Words Metal and You Sudden Grief vs. Anticipatory Grief Mourning the Glamour Shot Death Grips - The Powers that B, Pt. II: Jenny Death My Childhood Died in Japan What’s on Your Bucket List? Playlist: Thanks for the Memories Humor & Dying Decay
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STAFF
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ASST. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
LAYOUT EDITOR
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
EDITORS
LAYOUT TEAM
COPY EDITORS
CONTRIBUTORS
Laura Matthew
Sofia Kromis
Audrey Dolan Abby Moon Lance Yau
Laura Matthew Matt Newberg Audrey Dolan Abby Moon
COVER PHOTO Laura Matthew Dominique Pratt
CONTACT US STIR Magazine 950 Main Street Worcester, MA 01610 stirmagazine@gmail.com facebook.com/stirmagazine
Matt Newberg
Dominique Pratt
Andrew Tierney Zi Zi Spak Dominique Pratt Laura Matthew
Elvar Bjarkason Joshua Cogswell Fileona Dhkar Audrey Dolan Pi Fong Rose Gallogly Laura Matthew Isabella Mekker Abby Moon Matt Newberg Chris Pirsos Dominique Pratt Dina Rollheim Thomas Scappini Leah Simonson Zi Zi SPak Eliana Stanizlawski Skye Wingo Lance Yau
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Reader, For most of this semester, STIR Magazine has been stuck in purgatory. We lost quite a few of our weekly meetings to the intense amount of snow we received this winter. Before we knew it, midterms had come and gone and we had barely gotten started. At that point, we were all afraid that this magazine would not be made at all. But this magazine was merely in limbo—we couldn’t declare it dead yet. And whether it be dumb luck or sheer persistence, we’ve been able to watch all of the pieces fall in place as this issue was able to scrape its way up out of the darkness and back to life again. The theme of life and death is one that we have all been excited to work with ever since one of our editors, Matt, suggested it. Just like last semester’s space-themed issue, this semester’s issue brings together different aspects of life, death, and limbo, attempting to capture multiple interpretations of these themes. These interpretations range from frank to funny, serious to sentimental, with the ultimate goal of challenging the reader to think about life and death in ways they may not have before. Also, as editor-in-chief and assistant editor-in-chief, Matt and I are both Seniors, and this is a theme that resonates with us especially as we are living through the “death” of our time in college, and embarking on new chapters in our lives. Unlike last semester, you’ll find that the traditional sections of previous STIR issues are missing. In order to keep interpretations of our theme broad and free-flowing, we took a radical route in forgoing the sections we’ve had before, dividing up our magazine into thirds: Life, Purgatory, and Death. For better or worse, this change has allowed our contributors more freedom to express their ideas and think deeply on the theme itself. As the semester comes to a close, I cannot thank the editorial staff enough for all of the hard work and dedication that they have put in to this issue. I am deeply proud of what we have been able to accomplish together. This semester’s issue has certainly been an experiment, perhaps a crazy anomaly in the history of STIR. But sometimes you need to shake things up, even just to remind yourself that you’re alive. Read on, enjoy, and I hope you’ll come away with some new insights on life and death.
Sincerely,
Laura Matthew Editor-in-Chief
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LIFE LIFE LIFE
LIFE
[ LIFE ]
a lesson from
J. Alfred Prufock WRITTEN BY AUDREY DOLAN
It is so easy to feel lost. In fact, I firmly believe it is an essential part of life. We do not learn if we are not forced to feel at least a little bit uncomfortable. Making all the wrong choices can be just as terrifying and damaging as making no decisions at all. During my first English class of my freshman year of high school, my crazy teacher handed out a poem. At the time, I was so baffled by the length and the allusions within it that I completely missed the point. It was T.S Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The only thing that stuck was the ridiculous title. Four years later, my sweet elderly English teacher handed out a copy to my senior literature class. As we began to read it aloud, I felt tears rising in the back of my throat and behind my eyes. It was sheer beauty, and naïve four years younger me was too ignorant to appreciate it. Coming upon a year of so many important life decisions, this poem couldn’t have been more applicable. Prufrock is a man utterly consumed by fear and indecision. He thoroughly appreciates life while being entirely scared by it. He is so aware of both the simple and extravagant things that make up life and how there is such beauty in all of them. The main struggle is that Prufrock also wants to know that his life matters, that he is seen by others and will be remembered. For some reason, he has come to doubt the significance of anything he does. All of this worry and doubt leads to paralysis and indecision. Without any direction
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Many have said that the hardest part is taking the first step... or commitment, he has become an observer in his own life. People move and talk and live all around him, while he is paralyzed by self-doubt. Much of his doubt and indecision stems from social pressure. He fears that whatever actions he takes or things he says have the power to be misunderstood or transformed by the world around him. These feelings are what makes Prufrock’s existence so sad. He has the capability to see that there are many joys and beauties in life, yet his anxieties about making mistakes, which is an essential part of the human existence, keeps him from fully experiencing these great things. While life moves on around him, he is trapped.
He would rather abstain from anything than do something wrong, or perhaps more importantly, something fleeting. This is one thing that Prufrock (or Eliot) really gets right. Our actions can often seem fleeting. Our lives are things of motion, and when we least expect it, something can come crashing in and eradicate it all. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it anyway. It’s all about potential. If you do not give life to things that have potential, then they can never grow. It’s so easy to hide behind my words and tell you all to live your lives. And yet, that’s what I am going to do anyway. Live your life. It may seem irrelevant and trivial to draw some important life message from a poem. But I urge you to listen. The regrets we have are often more about the things we didn’t do, the words we didn’t say and the risks we didn’t take. While it seems like it is overwhelmingly scary to make decisions and potentially fail, it can be even worse to never try. Living in fear will swallow you whole. Many have said that the hardest part is taking the first step. Do not let fear of the unknown paralyze you from taking that step. It may just be the best thing you ever do. Though your world is constantly shifting and rearranging, that does not mean that whatever actions and energy you put out into this world is irrelevant. In fact, it is crucial. Follow that still, small voice pushing its way through any thoughts of doubt you may have. Please, I beg you, please dare to disturb the universe. n
[ LIFE ]
HIKE TAKE A
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DINA ROLLHEIM
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[ LIFE ]
INSTA What Does LIFE ROSE GALLOGY
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[ LIFE ]
GRAM Look Like to YOU?
ZIZI SPAK
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[ LIFE ]
“
“After many freezing, bleak weeks of a record-breaking Worcester Winter, my suite mates and I were in serious need of some warmth and comfort. On one especially cold and desperate day, we regressed and built a blanket fort in our common room. I lived in it for two weeks.”
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” ABBY MOON
“
“These photos were taken in a school for underprivileged children in Mangalore, India over the past summer. To me, they remind me of how even as a photographer attempts to capture what is new or foreign to him, he also is being observed by his subject as someone strange and foreign.”
”
ELVAR BJARKASON
[ LIFE ]
ELIANA STANISLAWSKI
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[ LIFE ] DOMINIQUE PRATT
LEAH SIMONSON
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[ LIFE ]
MATT NEWBERG
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[ LIFE ]
A Brief Overview of Human Relationships WRITTEN BY LANCE YAU PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOMINIQUE PRATT
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[ LIFE ] There’s something to be said about human contact. Somewhere along the rocky path of evolution, we figured out that working with others in groups helped our chances of survival. So we stuck together. Nurtured each other. And soon before long, our capacity to hold social relationships with other humans went far beyond the capabilities of most mammals. Forming a contact and correspondence with each other shaped who we are as a species. But this isn’t about how society evolved or if we’re evolutionarily predispositioned to care for each other to ensure the survival of our genes (hint: we are). No, in order to delve into the deeper essence of what a relationship is, we need to simplify things. Less about society and groups, and more about a single pairing. You and me. Her and him. Them and you. Acquaintances through social contact are plentiful, but having a true and deeper relationship with someone is a feature of our own existence that vividly stands out from the steady monotony of daily interactions. That person can be a family member, a friend, or that one person. You can love them for reasons you know or don’t know, or even hate them for causes that may not necessarily be pinned to one particular thing. The most unlikely thing would be for you to be fully ambivalent towards them (unless you’re masking another feeling that you have), because that’s what a relationship is—a liaison between at least two people that stands out to them due to the emotional investment needed to create this connection. The various types of human connections range from familial and religious ties to platonic and romantic bonds. Each one has a unique level of investment, molding the basis of what one gains from each respective relationship. For those fortunate enough to have a loving family, the feeling of safety, reassurance and dependability defines a one. It doesn’t matter if it’s your biological family that raised you since birth or the Mafia that brought
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you up after finding you on the street. If those feelings are there, that’s what defines it. You can have a biological sister or unrelated brothers-in-arms, but if the existence of both mean the same to you, the difference between the two becomes a mere formality. Of course, the value of blood ties still mean a great deal to many, yet if you actually consider someone family—true family— that’s what they are, period. Apart from having a family, the most “basic” relationship would be friends. From the ages of five to eighty-five, making and having friends are a core piece in understanding and treasuring a relationship. The reason why it would be considered as one of the barest forms of a relationship is because it’s one of the easiest connections to make with another person, a simple step up from being just acquaintances. But once that basic bond is made, friendships can delve deeper. Even if it doesn’t happen to everyone, best friends often emerge from closer friends. Besties, girlfriends, true bros and straight brothas from anotha motha develop from the bonds we get out of friendships. And sometimes when things get even deeper, the line between friendships and romances can blur. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s awkward, and sometimes it’s a bit of both. Romance is a whole thing in itself, a powerful essence of humanity that can single-handedly drive the music industry and the market for teen novels. It’s markedly unique from other relationships because of how much we go out of our way for it, with the amount of sacrifices made being met only by the ones parents do for their children. There’s a similarity between the two—love. Yet romance is entirely beyond love. Love is the greatest extent of emotional determination and care one can express for someone. You can love your family, you can love your friends, you can love god. But romance, romantic love, is that same
extreme threshold released like a waterfall of emotions, with the effects of a strange cocktail of hormonal chemistry and psychological desires crashing down on you when you realize you may just be in love. This internal euphoria associates itself with a person, and if that person just so happens to feel the same way about you, boy does that internalization explode into a torrent of unbridled joy. That’s romance. It doesn’t always start the same way! For some, it sparks ridiculously fast like the First World War after Franz Ferdinand’s death and for others, it slowly entrenches itself in friendships like the actual trenches used in France and Belgium. But once two people start to get into the swing of things, the happiness one experiences feels almost unstoppable. Romance, especially when it’s reciprocated, feels like an unrelinquishable summer wildfire in California (much to the detriment of the Californian ecosystem). But here’s the thing about relationships. They’re not permanent. They don’t come with a thirty days or your money back guarantee. Relationships are inherently an unexplored interaction with someone that can bring positive surprises and eventually settle down into comfort. But like any uncharted territory, you can get lost in the woods. Lost and hopeless, unsatisfied and hungry, weak and defeated. Relationships can break off in abruptness or slowly subside like an unattended candle. Families can be broken, friendships can sour, romances can be abandoned and love can just never be attended to. The same emotional waterfall that filled you with joy can also turn into a pool of nothingness, where relationships seem harmful and even meaningless in the end. What does it mean to be in a relationship, or why is it even worth being in one? Humans aren’t machines. We’re creatures that can adapt amazingly to things but are impossible to fully conform to rigidity. We’re beings inher-
[ LIFE ] ently free in our own thoughts and actions (unless we’re all in the Matrix and these points are all moot), and the purest form of our free thinking is our ability to form connections with others at will. Driven by feelings and emotions, we form these without thought, and relationships just happen. Do feelings define relationships? Partly—but it’s mostly what you seek from one. Whether it’s a group of people to call family, the possibility of someone being your true love, or just a friend to hang out with, we all desire something different from human connections. But as our uniqueness goes, what you seek and what they want can be slightly off or totally different. This is the crux of what starts or ends relationships - the knowledge of what each party wants. Like us, these connections and bonds aren’t set in stone. Nothing we do ever is, and relationships are no exception. So why is it worth being in one? The short and easy answer is that in addition to us hoping to get what we seek from a relationship, it’s what makes us human. The long and immensely hard answer? If you ever get to experience a type of relationship that’s able to stand the test of time and conflict, maybe you’ll know. n
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[ LIFE ]
The Life and Death of an
H&M Cotton Peasant Shirt
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WRITTEN BY FILEONA DHKAR PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOMINIWUE PRATT
[ LIFE ] I am first cotton Gossypium hirsutum barbadense arboretum herbaceum The wind sways past me. I situate myself in a field of my kin, my fellow forms. I feel a touch, a touch that is hungry, needy… so I surrender. Clutch, tug and I am taken from my skin. Separated Cotton. Thrown into a basket. Squishy, conjoined with the basket’s fellow cottons. I am for the wise man’s use. It all becomes mechanical now. Separated I am now fabric. Stretchy, a welded stretch of thin fibres. Parts of me and my kin, morph to our designated forms. Cambric, Corduroy, Denim, Seersucker, and Terrycloth. Separated I am now Cambric. Thin, flat, easily wrinkled. Measured, layered, patterned, cut into strategic forms. Moved under the sewing machine, conjoined to another kin. But these hands are feminine. Yet they are still hungry, still needy. These hands join layers to layers. Tears My fibers absorb my seamstress’ tears. In them, I feel her story. Pramila. 16. Like me, she no longer remembers the smell of her own roots, her land...her village. The tears speak. One drop, her ailing father. Another, her mother tilling the village soil. Another, her little school-going brother. One drop, for her aching wrist. One more, for her aching lungs. One more, for her lost desires. One more for… she wipes our wetness clean and dry. Her face and I. To the pile by the finish line. STAMP: MADE IN BANGLADESH folded, stacked, packed, sealed unsealed, unpacked, ironed, hung I am beyond fabric material. They mark me: “Cotton peasant shirt L, $17.99.” They, who enjoy an air distinctly clear and clean. I realize, I am far from the suffocating mill. A trend, a complement, a statement, a cause for relational stress. Shopping, they call it. Assessing eyes, prying hands, swiftly swoosh me by I now feel skin. My form falls on a pre-ordained form. This human girl, far from Pramila’s timid miniature, pushes her flesh till it tugs my woven fibres. Tried on, checked out, till I am someone’s good fit. Closet, Laundry, Body… a cycle of being used I am now obsolete. Worn 14 times, left amongst a pile. A heap of fibrous privilege. She glances at me, sometimes. But it’s my cropped cousin that has replaced me. Blue, tight, meticulously cropped. The new member of the closet clings to her bosoms, strategically highlighting an apparent “new fad”... so she says. Spring cleaning, shoved into a bag A blur. Send to XXXXXX. A blur My shape now shriveled and wrinkled. I cover a new person, half the size of my designated measurements. I no longer belong to a pile. I am one of two pieces she owns. I don’t feel pride. I am not a trend, I just “will have to do.” My owner collects piles, “garbage,” they would have said. Desperate income, as my current owner might call it, though she doesn’t acknowledge it. Recycling things, different from my own recycling. The air here: rough, dusty, hot. I am just a means of utility. Sweat drips on me. Then dirt. Sometimes tears. I wonder how Pramila is doing. I can feel my fibres wrinkling. But pension isn’t a word here. Torn. Once, twice, thrice, till I am of no use for her body. Cut into pieces. Part of me, bits of me, still of use. Rag to clean, wipe, prevent cooking burns No longer useful. I am coarse. I become her warmth My last pile Her fire n
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[ LIFE ]
PLAYLIST:
I Feel So Alive COMPILED BY ABBY MOON
I hope you all have a cache of positive, inspiring songs that you can turn to during moments of despair. Here’s a playlist on behalf of STIR that’s sure to pick you up when you’re feeling low. Get energized! Go somewhere new! Feel good! I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. Bangers come in all shapes and sizes. n
“Send Me On My Way” – Rusted Root
This song has been featured on the soundtracks of some of the most uplifting movies of the last century—you may remember hearing it while watching Matilda and Ice Age. It’s my go-to jam. Enjoy.
“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” – The Proclaimers “Let’s Stay Together” – Al Green “Yeah!” – Usher ft. Lil Jon, Ludacris If it could revive you and all of your peers at your tired, awkward middle school dances, it can definitely get you pumped up now that you’re much hotter and less self conscious. Let loose!
“All These Things That I’ve Done” – The Killers It has the buildup of a 70’s power ballad and induces very palpable nostalgia. Best experienced on a warm summer day, while driving. Yes, you’re supposed to scream the bridge.
“Go Your Own Way” – Fleetwood Mac “Just Like Heaven” – The Cure
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[ LIFE ]
JULIA CARRASQUEL
In Graphic Design Projects, our final project was to choose any justice issue that we wish we could change and create a poster that delivers the message of the issue to raise awareness. This could be something as personal as the friendliness of your neighbors to world hunger. Here is what our class came up with. n
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ANNA NGUYEN
NINA THACKER
DOMINIQUE PRATT
ZIZI SPAK
ISABEL MIRANDA
MIA CATTANEO
[ LIFE ]
MOM DAD and
Music WRITTEN BY AUDREY DOLAN
My parents are lame. So are yours. This is not a matter of opinion, it’s a fact. And yet, there is something that they have that so many of us love, as well as love to make fun of—their music. Think about it. Try really hard. If you give it long enough, you’ll come to the realization that there is music very specific to the middle-aged mom and dad aesthetic. It’s a mix rock and roll nostalgia, messages of chasing girls and adventures. When I visualize this type of music, I see a dad rollin’ around town, reminiscing to the music he used to get high to in his college dorm room. Moms perhaps also listened to their respective music in their college dorm rooms, or maybe at a gals night over some Brie and Pinot Noir. In my humble opinion, there are subgenres to these overarching groups of music. Dad’s music is comprised of Saggy British Men, White Man Bands and Solo Acts. Mom’s music is very female centered. We have Women of the Feminist Era, Nice White Guys and Cool Ladies. But let’s not segregate here. I also believe there are a handful of artists that can appeal to both Mom and Dad alike, mainly because these people transcend any demographic or categorization.
I promise this is all in good fun. I’m not here to embarrass or shame our older parental figures, but rather to celebrate their genius musical taste. My naïve younger self used to reject the musical stylings of Led Zeppelin and James Taylor. I used to cringe and beg my dad to shut off The Who as we drove the winding roads of my hometown. It’s enlightening to know just how wrong I was. I hope the musical amateur or expert in you can be learn from this subjective categorization of Mom and Dad’s musical choices. Now turn off that racket and go listen to some Paul Simon, you crazy kids. n
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[ LIFE ]
DADS Saggy British Men: • Led Zeppelin • The Police • The Who • Pink Floyd • The Doors • The Rolling Stones
White Man Bands: • The Steve Miller • Grateful Dead • Steely Dan • Dire Straits • Eagles • Creedance Clearwater
Solo Acts: • Eric Clapton • Phil Collins • Bonnie Raitt • Janis Joplin • Jimi Hendrix • Neil Young • Bob Dylan
WHERE MOMS AND DADS MEET • U2
• Elton John • Crosby • Johnny Cash • The Beatles • Fleetwood Mac • Van Morrison • Stills & Nash • The Zombies • Queen • ABBA • Bruce Springsteen
MOMS
• Patti Smith • Carole King
Women of the Feminist Era: • Carly Simon • Joni Mitchell
• James Taylor • Billy Joel • Peter Gabriel • Paul Simon • Bryan Adams • Cat Stevens • Harry Connick Jr.
Nice White Guys:
Cool Ladies:
• Brandi Carlile • Melissa Ethridge • Norah Jones • Sheryl Crow • Indigo Girls • Tina Turner • Mary Chapin Carpenter • Sarah Maclachlan
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[ LIFE ]
BECOMING Pi WRITTEN BY PI FONG
March 14, 2015
was the best pi day of our lives. It was a day I had wanted to celebrate since I was 13 years old, but as the day quickly approached, all my plans for a Pi Day Party fell apart and I worried that the day would pass without note. But that day became my rebirthday. My naming day. The day I declared to the world, “I am Pi.” The day I stopped being who I was and started being who I wanted to be. My chosen name, my name, finally belonged to me. It was simultaneously intensely intimate and frighteningly public. As a non-binary trans genderqueer person, my name was a constant reminder of the assignment of my gender at birth. I have been living more and more openly as non-binary, trans, and genderqueer over the past four years, but had never shed my birth name. The first name I was assigned at birth is a name used by both men and women so I always said that I would use it. But it never really felt like my name. It was the name I used but it didn’t belong to me and it didn’t embody me. The full name I was given was imbued with gender and family history. As when I got graduation paperwork to turn it, I filled it out quickly because I
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knew if I took a moment to think about it, I wouldn’t be able to handle all the weight that is wrapped up in my birth name. In a conversation with another non-binary trans person, I realized that I couldn’t keep using my birthname. I sheepishly admitted that I always wanted to be called Pi, calling it weird. When I was 13 years old, I became Pi at Girl Scout Camp. Pi became such a part of my identity, when I turned 18, I tattooed 31 digits of pi on my ankle. But I always felt that Pi was always confined to camp. Since I first had Pi as a part of my identity, I always wanted it to be a larger part of my life but I couldn’t articulate how or why. They reframed it as queer, not weird, and thus I secretly accepted my own queer name. The next day at work I was developing a presentation related to identity documents. I was asked to develop scenarios to address empathy surrounding name changes and trans specific issues. I felt I had to say that I was still using my birth name and that I had no first hand experience with the issues I was writing about. This lead to an indepth conversation about my name and all the messiness wrapped up in it. My supervisor told me that if I ever
wanted to use another name in the office, he would be supportive of whatever name I chose. I spent the rest of the day thinking about what I wanted to do. On my train ride home, I decided—I would become Pi. The Greatest Pi Day of Our Lives was Saturday, and that would be my coming out day, my naming day, my rebirthday. It also just so happened to be the day we were presenting for the Identity Document Project. For it to be Pi Day and a day on identity documents, it seemed right that it would be the day I declared myself Pi. I began telling people that Wednesday night and spent most of the next two days telling the important people. I emailed my supervisor and he responded in the best possible way. He quickly changed everything for the office to match my name and was so supportive throughout the process, I never questioned if this was the right time or place. I told my little brother, my closest friends, my mentors, some of my professors. But I couldn’t tell my mom. That Friday I took the train into Boston for the last time as my birth name. I booked a hotel and treated myself to a
[ LIFE ] nice dinner and then I just unplugged. No TV, no phone, no internet, just me, books, and a journal. And that night I shed my birth name and claimed my real name. Early the morning of Pi Day, I posted a Facebook post articulating my name. I knew my mom might see it and I was nervous. I went to work that morning as facebook likes and messages of encouragement rolled in,
but nothing from my mom. Throughout our workshop my mind was on my mom and my Facebook post but I was grateful to have been introduced as Pi and to get to be Pi in a public space for the first time. As my supervisor and I were debriefing from the workshop, I got a response from my mom: “Just like the
number, Pi, you are never-endingly amazing. Love you!” and with that I was Pi. I called her later that night to explain why to her and although she still doesn’t entirely understand my trans identity, she’s listening more and I’m talking more. And that’s because I renamed myself, reclaimed ownership of my identity, and rebirthed myself in becoming Pi. n PHOTO COURTESY OF PI FONG
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[ LIFE ]
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURA MATTHEW
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[ LIFE ]
It is often stated by those in positions of racial privilege that our society is a “colorblind” society, where well-intentioned individuals claim to not “see” race in others around them. This mentality is not only toxic, but often fallacious, as it is nearly impossible to walk down a city street without taking in the multitudes of different races and ethnicities that you may see. Considering this statement of colorblindness, I have often wondered if the same individuals who claim not to see race would consider themselves to be “gender-blind” as well. For those whose gen-
der identities fit into standards of heteronormativity—namely cisgendered individuals—gender is not something that they actively have to consider. For someone whose gender is considered “normal,” they do not have to confront the ways that their actions reflect their identity. They also may not be excessively aware of the way that gender is displayed around them in society. These images fall into two categories— portraits of people, and more abstract photographs of everyday life. The portraits are meant to grasp at iden-
tity, with a specific focus on the small but peculiar ways that every individual chooses to externalize their own identities. Along with the portraits are more abstract images, ranging from bathroom cabinets to lined-up pairs of shoes. These images of seemingly everyday items are meant to force the viewer to look twice and consider the way that gender may or may not appear in the world around them. Looking at these photographs, what do you see? Who do you see? Why do you see it? n
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[ LIFE ]
F LU I D LIVING ARTWORK BY ANNA NGUYEN
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[ LIFE ]
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[ LIFE ]
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[ LIFE ]
[ LIFE ]
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[ LIFE ]
[PURGATORY]
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[ PURGATORY ]
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“
[ PURGATORY ]
If There’s Magic Purgatory is a state of suffering that is supposed to purify the soul. When I was depressed, the world was heavy and murky. I resented myself. I didn’t want to socialize, eat, or even get out of bed most days. It is difficult to comprehensively describe this place that I was in to an audience that has never experienced depression (and hopefully never will). I won’t try to recreate this space for the sake of any readers that might be working themselves out of illness now. I want to provide some context for this period of my life but I’m not sure how I got that low. Some boys that used to be my friends
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were sending me hateful messages pretty regularly. I don’t think that bullying was the only factor. I might have been predisposed to depression—I went through therapy for extreme anxiety as a little girl. Mental health is difficult to understand and somewhat embarrassing for me to write about. I’m using medical language because I think that’s the framework that most people would use to understand what happened to me. Basically, after a year of feeling very sad and sick, I resolved to end my life. I made plans to do it not too long after my fourteenth birthday. November passed, and then December. I stalled, though I was still
very unhappy. I was hoping that things would get better. They did. I attribute my survival to Clint Eastwood (I do this mostly because I think it’s a funny thing to do). My path towards recovery began while watching Million Dollar Baby one night at home. I had a panic attack after the main character convinced her mentor to help her commit suicide. When my mom asked me why I was so upset, I told her that I might be depressed. This was difficult for her to hear (this is an understatement), but she committed
[ PURGATORY ]
in
”
Boxing... WRITTEN BY ABBY MOON PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURA MATTHEW
to helping me get better. I overcame the most debilitating aspects of my illness. I became healthy, and then I rediscovered life. Today, I think I exist in a state of heightened awareness and gratefulness. The past six years have been super dynamic and rad. After deciding not to end my life, every extra day I have here with you is pretty sweet. I’m trying to share this bliss with friends and strangers through my actions and words. I want anyone who might be experiencing symptoms of depression today to see how worthwhile it is to hang in there, reach out to loved ones, and seek help
from professionals. The grass is much greener on the other side—trust me. Over here, we’re not even growing grass—we’re planting Bonsai trees and flowers. Depression might have been my personal purgatory (I’ll remember this statement and laugh at my own naivete if I ever find myself in one of Dante’s seven circles of hell). I wouldn’t trade my ride out of that place and my consequently radiant outlook after it for a simpler experience. I let myself laugh so hard that I pee if a friend does something especially funny. I don’t waste too much time getting embar-
rassed or being self-conscious. I end relationships that no longer nurture me; I value my time too much to spend it with poisonous people. I travel, I try new things, I challenge myself, I mix sriracha sauce into my ketchup. I have learned to embrace my sensitivity and see it as a source of strength—I grow the most in moments of vulnerability. I like me, but I know I can be better. I don’t think there’s anything more beautiful than having time to be better. Bless that mess; my soul is purified. n
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What to Expect
When You’re Not Expecting: How Young Adults Experience Pregnancy
WRITTEN BY LAURA MATTHEW PHOTOGRAHPY BY LAURA MATTHEW
It’s pretty safe to say that if you are a young adult (high school or college student between the ages of 14-21), and you find yourself pregnant, at least someone is going to have something to say to you. And chances are, no matter what you decide to do, you’ll be criticized for it. Even long before the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in the United States, anyone who’s been gifted with the ability to conceive has been the subject of debates, arguments, and overall scrutiny. But this is not an article about political opinions. This is not an analysis of pro- or anti-choice, nor an argument in any direction. This is a collection of experiences, and an attempt to weave them together into a coherent narrative. Young adulthood is a crazy and conflicting time, where you often find yourself being pulled in every direction. Every year you get older, and more responsibilities are levied against you. At the same time, you are still relatively young, and this causes many in the older generations—especially authority figures—to not always trust you to be capable or independent. While certain status changes such as graduating high school and going off to college or joining the workforce help you gain some legitimacy, there’s always going to be plenty of people who doubt your competence because of your youth. And though this has been the curse of young adulthood forever, it seems to have a special resonance in this day and age, when everywhere you look, there’s some sort of article or diatribe complaining about how selfish millen-
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nials are. Given all of this new technology we’ve got, where the internet is practically a necessity and everyone has a smartphone, young adults these days get a bad rap as being too glued to facebook, texting, and virtual worlds— and not present in real life. Thus, it seems like if you’re a young adult today, older generations trust you even less. Our generation of young and emerging adults has also been placed in a particular bind. Popular media sells sex because it was once totally taboo, and even as it loses that sense of being socially deviant, it still has a certain shiny thrill to it. While there have been a rise in messages of sex positivity, which presents sex in a realistic light, provides adequate sex education, and does not shame anyone for choosing to be sexually active (or choosing not to!), sadly, most young adults are still bombarded with messages of the opposite. Many high schools in the United States teach abstinence-only sex education, with the earnest desire to prevent students from having sex. Schools that do teach full sex education often still provide misinformation, leaving young adults mostly mystified. Ultimately, those who want to have sex end up having sex—but if they’ve been given a sub par education and know that their community teaches abstinence, they’re on their own if something goes wrong. So if you’re a young adult, and you’re pregnant, what do you do? I spoke with a handful of college-aged individ-
uals about their experiences with unwanted pregnancy, and many of their stories shared the same senses of fear and uncertainty. As one individual that I spoke with, Micah, recalls: We had started dating in January of 2009 (right before my 14th birthday) and somewhere around the end of September to mid November of my freshman year of high school I found out I was pregnant, in a K-mart bathroom shaking like a leaf during a storm. I was terrified. I knew I couldn’t tell my parents because they didn’t approve of me dating so young anyway, and I knew I couldn’t tell my boyfriend because he would literally kill me. I had to keep it though, to me at the time there was no other option. I was 100% pro-life and this was my baby and I had to protect her. I was so stressed and so scared, I stopped eating lunch to save up my lunch money, because baby will need money a lot of money. I didn’t tell anyone...I needed [my boyfriend]. The baby he didn’t know about needed him. But then I had a miscarriage. When the world expects a lot from you but also considers you irresponsible and “too young,” it’s overwhelming to handle the decisions that come with an unwanted pregnancy. Many feel pressured into keeping a pregnancy that they do not want, or many may want to keep their pregnancy despite others insisting that they shouldn’t. Many are not able to access the type of healthcare that they need. Some even find themselves in dangerous situations
*All names have been changed within to maintain confidentiality.
[ PURGATORY ] with abusive partners. Nina recounted how when she found out she was pregnant, her emotionally abusive partner became even more controlling:
For young adults dealing with mental illness or any other health conditions, being pregnant becomes even more complicated. Lee describes,
He wanted me to live with him at his dirty, rundown apartment. It was the Spring semester of my Freshman year and I was just trying to finish all of my classes and do well, but he kept telling me to come spend every weekend with him. I was spending most of my money on cab rides while trying to save up for the abortion procedure. I wanted to schedule it as soon as I could, but he kept telling me that we had to wait until he could save up the money to pay, while spending half of his paycheck on drugs and alcohol anyway…this was how I knew I couldn’t stay pregnant.
I briefly considered adoption, but there was a problem there too: I desperately did NOT want to be pregnant anymore. For somebody with a mental health condition, pregnancy is more than just nine months of inconvenience. How could I nourish the life growing inside of me when I can hardly even take care of myself? How could it grow to be strong and healthy when most days I struggle to eat due to lack of appetite and most nights I barely get any sleep?
There’s pressure, too, that’s placed on young adults—do well in high school, do well in college, get a good job, be a productive member of society in order to have your value recognized. And sure, mostly all young adults have internalized some of this because it’s the only way to gain value and acceptance in our society. At the same time, regardless of whether you want to follow this path or not, everyone around you is yelling at you to do so. This tends to create a narrative where when something such as pregnancy disrupts this path for you, the answer is to terminate it. This is not to say that it isn’t the right decision for someone to choose an abortion—only the pregnant individual can make that choice. Rather, it is just an explanation: almost everyone that I spoke with chose to abort, because they simply felt that they were not ready. Micah told me about how after dealing with a miscarriage at age fourteen, she became pregnant again at nineteen. At this point in her life, she chose an abortion, and she described feeling a profound sense of relief afterwards: “Once I got [to my appointment] all of my nerves and mixed emotions melted away. I was doing what was right for me.”
Grappling with mental illness and other health conditions makes the difficult decisions that come with unexpected or unwanted pregnancy even more difficult. If you are young and struggling already, when you find out you are pregnant, it is even harder to find the support that you need to have a healthy pregnancy. This is not a catalogue of all types of experiences. Many young adults have gone on to become wonderful parents, with helpful and non-judgemental support systems in place for them. Many young adults have access to the
health care that they need and people who will not shame them for choosing to abort. But the anxiety, uncertainty and even trauma that cuts across so many of these experiences is powerful. Derek, whose partner had become pregnant, told me: It was a huge shock. I don’t think either of us were prepared…I remember just sitting there and looking at the test…we were just sitting there, looking at it, and just freaking out. And part of me was, “alright, we kind of know what’s happen, let’s get a move on,” but part of me wanted to keep it at a pace that was at her level…because it was really a traumatic experience. Ultimately, while these individuals have all shared their stories with me, there is a thick smog of shame that surrounds this whole issue, forcing many to stay silent and carry their decisions with them throughout the rest of their lives. This silence is powerful—it is a result of a society that mistrusts young bodies, and it keeps perpetuating a cycle of miseducation, anxiety, and fear. My hope is that someday we can break this silence, so that our next generations of young adults do not have to feel this same shame and fear. n
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Senioritis: WRITTEN BY LAURA MATTHEW PHOTOS BY LAURA MATTHEW
I wrote my first college paper—a threepage close reading analysis of gender roles in the assigned text—sitting in the lounge of my first-year dorm, the night before it was due. I stayed up for most of that night, pouring over my paper, worrying that I had not put in enough information, that my analysis was not deep enough, that I wasn’t going to be able to produce the perfect
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collegiate response that my professors were all looking for. When I finally finished, the sense of accomplishment that washed over me was unparalleled. This was it. I was finally on that higher level, getting that higher education. The A- grade I received for my efforts sealed the deal for me. I felt like a Real College Student™ now. It was the start of a long journey of academia,
late nights, caffeine, and profound self discovery. As a young first year, and throughout most of my college career, I balanced my total exasperation and exhaustion with all of the work and commitments thrown my way and my ever growing enthusiasm for all of this knowledge I was being exposed to. I soaked up the-
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a retrospective
ories and frameworks and—especially as an English major with a Sociology minor—I read and read and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote until three pages seemed like an minuscule amount, and a hundred pages actually seemed possible. Yeah, sometimes college sucked, as I encountered boring lectures and professors I just didn’t really get along with, and there were times when it felt like every single assignment was due on the same day. Sometimes it felt immensely and even painfully frustrating, as I grappled with the knowledge that I was part of this institution, where access is primarily allowed to some, and denied to quite a few. I groaned along with friends who told tales of how they had to fight for medical leave or even for their identity to be recognized by the administration. I came face-to-face with the gravity of my own privilege, and learned how to shut up sometimes.
But ultimately, college was always this beautiful adventure for me, this time of immense growth and transformation. I walked across campus on sunny days in the spring and wished that I would never have to leave this place. Last year, during the Spring semester’s finals week, I sat with a group of seniors who were plunking away at their final papers, counting the seconds until their impending graduation. Each one of them had the same complaint—their “senioritis” was real, and nearly debilitating. For them, the end was so close that they were having a hard time mustering up the motivation to get their work done, and get it done with the same enthusiasm they’d had in their earlier years. And silly me, I scoffed—college was my beautiful, wonderful little bubble of safe exploration, seemingly liberated education, something that I would never lose my
zeal for. And I squeezed out every bit of my brain on my final papers that semester, glancing every so often at the screenshot of my schedule of classes for next fall that I kept on my desktop background. My journey was still going.
But once senior year began, and the Fall semester turned into the Spring, I felt an unfamiliar feeling creeping in. It loomed over my shoulder as I walked in late for class, and giggled in my ear as I put off an assignment for another day. But it wasn’t just that I was suddenly sick and tired of this place—rather, I was slowly finding it harder to care. Of course I cared in some sense, I always cared and I still do care, at least enough to get things done. Unfortunately, however, I came to the realization that senior year is also the year when your future is right outside, hanging out on your front
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porch, and getting closer and closer to ringing your doorbell everyday. And boy, my future was one houseguest with a lot of expectations. I finished off mentoring program hours to fill out my grad school application, and jumped through every hoop I needed to get into the accelerated BA/MAT program here at Clark that I’d been dreaming of since I’d first matriculated. On top of finishing off major and minor requirements, starting an Honors Thesis that grew into a large creative endeavor, and managing to keep steady employment, I felt (and as I am writing this, still feel) like I did in middle school gym class dodgeball. Facing every single thing I needed to do—and realizing that very, very soon I would be moving on to the next exciting chapter of my life—I had moment after moment of shit, senioritis is REAL. As my friend and I discussed recently over our collective piles of unfinished work, senioritis is not just a matter of
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being lazy, it’s a matter of being stuck. It’s like sitting in the library on the first nice day of the season, watching everyone else enjoy the weather while you’ve still got research to do. You know, or at least have some idea of, what’s going to be ahead of you; at the very least, there is freedom and novelty heading your way. But before you can get there, you’ve got to get everything else done. Sure, that might motivate you to work harder and faster, but I think most of us get stuck daydreaming about how things are going to be. Perhaps I regret not studying psychology a little more during my college career, if only to be able to offer some sort of diagnosis or analysis of why this phenomenon is so rampant among us soon-to-be graduates. Nonetheless, nothing quite gives you an understanding of how powerful senioritis can be than feeling it firsthand—I learned that the hard way. n
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Reifyi
ng Ro
Resistin
oms i or,
n a Pe
rec-ia n
g the Ad jective “
Resisting the
or,
or,
Architectural
Sense
,
Eschere
sque,”
Term “Brutali sm
,”
s ’ y t i s r e v i n U k Clar y r a r b i L d r a d d o G . H t r e b o R
WRITTEN BY CHRIS PIRSOS // PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURA MATTHEW
The inner chambers the dark rows of bookshelves the glass the pale brick the corrugated red rivers that run suspended from the ceiling the concrete the jutting angular concrete the massive impenetrable exterior that amazes you each time you walk up to it of course it looks much larger than it actually is it hides secluded spots the asymmetry of exterior and interior where no two sides are the same, the four outside edifices all different, each wall inside each room inside, different, normally with rooms they are square but are really more like rectangles (as in, two walls are similar to each other, normally ones facing each other, & the other two walls, facing each other, are similar to each other) in that sense rooms are normally rectangles but here they’re warped & wobbly & nonsensical trapezoids or parallelograms that aren’t even that even, geometrically speaking. Now, it is difficult to think of rooms where all four rooms are identical. A few types of rooms (and what is a building if not a big, big room that has been subdivided into more rooms?): Classrooms- blackboard/ projector screen on front wall. (sometimes on back wall and/or side wall(s), too). Entrance can be from any wall. Normally windows on one of side walls. Rarely on front (too distracting) or back (useless)- always on sides (just distracting enough).
Churches (Greek Orthodox specifically)- altar on front wall. Stained glass windows on both side walls. Entrance in back wall. Back wall undecorated (?)
Bedrooms- window(s) on at least one wall. Door in one wall. Very variablenormally the bed is far from the door, touching at least one of the walls, though sometimes two (corners being popular places for beds to be) & also near/under a window.
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[PURGATORY] Ok- we have some hints of conceptual distinctions between front, side, & back walls, though of course these are relative to each other. Rooms where there is a door/entrance-way in what is considered the front wall are terrible (people who are late for lectures/ who leave early/ anyone who is not the first to walk in or the last to leave is scrutinized). Back walls are the least attended to- thus, surprises always emerge from them (shouted interjections and assassinations). From the outside, the library looks like it has independent, isolated, detachable, rearrangeable parts, like it could shift overnight & you wouldn’t necessarily notice so much as you would just feel unsettled upon looking at it again, like the way people in East Germany must have felt when the Stasi would break into their homes and do nothing other than simply rearrange their displayed framed family photographs. On one side, the Bullock Hall side, the higher echelons are hidden by trees which only have firs/leaves/greenery at their tops, like fists that look too big for the long lanky arms they’re at the ends of. The middle & bottom branches have been cut off, probably to prevent climbing. A reminder that everything high up there, Heaven, Space, Knowledge, is all unattainable. Now the library, I’m up here on the fourth floor (Third- Quiet. Fourth- Quieter. Fifth- Quietest [silent]), in a corner of the stacks (there are eight corners- in this slanted, rough parallelogram, there is a further interior continuous wall that follows/ is parallel to the outermost walls- this interior wall which is like the true inner castle, the small strip, the walkway/ moat between this further interior wall & the outermost walls protecting the stacks of books inside) the library sounds like it’s breathing, every eight minutes there is a precise breathing that comes from this wall behind me, like the pressurized air sounds that come after mechanical whirrs in hospital rooms, the amplified sound of an oxygen tank, breathing machine, if your ear was close to the unconscious patient’s mouth & the machine too, it breathes five times, in and out, ten breaths in all. There is also the hum of the lights and/or of the ventilation system, more of a pulsing, a hum w/ tremolo, ascending/descending, coming towards/going away. Door opening or closing, both, opening first then closing, exhaling sighing then people talking, voices swallowed by the huge and concrete stairwells, one on each wall, near each corner, the elevator beeps, that’s near one of the stairwells, near the corner. It’s almost impossible to describe where you are in the library unless you appeal to buildings outside the outermost walls, common reference points, there’s three entrances to the library, one is clearly the main one though the stairs up to the second floor, the floating free impossible stairs, are near the back entrance (which unlike the main entrance doesn’t have stairs leading up to its doors, though you do have to walk up a slight incline to get to it (the sense of ascending still present then)) & once you go up those to the second floor, you’re at the front of the second floor, there’s another elevator near the main entrance that only goes as far up as the second floor, and this drops/lifts you to the ‘back’ of the second floor, so there is only one way to get to the second floor by stairs (preventing easy theft of the books), so front & back switch, they’re opposite each other, & then once you get to the 3rd 4th & 5th floors there’s no clear front, back, sides, they’re all just four ‘sides’ really. You can also appeal to the kinds of desks you’re near- 3rd floor, high desks on one side, w/ small window alcove desks behind those- 4th floor above these- large multiple people table desks w/ some couches- 5th floor above these- all small window alcove desks, some bigger, dual desks on one wall.
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[ PURGATORY ] So when you are trying to describe where you are to someone remote, it always takes way more than a few words & you always fumble through potential points of reference until you land on a common one that they recognize & they realize, generally, where you are, it’s never exact & so many areas of study are tucked out of straight sight away so even after you both figure out where the hell you are they still have to search for you a little, or a lot. And now, after searching for yourself, you, too, find yourself. You didn’t realize how lost you were. While you are alive, it is always difficult, after all, to ever, at any point in time, say exactly where you are.
Postscript: A proposition. From now on, everyone should learn the entire categorization system of the stacks, so that when you’re in the library and somebody’s trying to find you and you say “I’m in between Babel and Bulgakov” or “I’m on the outside of Czech novels” people will know immediately exactly where you are. Wait until that knowledge becomes standard, because if you say those things now, people will think that you are hallucinating that you are (I think this would have been historically impossible anyway) seated on a train between Babel and Bulgakov (well, first off, you should brush up on your Russian history before you start spilling names all over the place, and also, don’t actually go to this section of the stacks, I might be napping there right now and I don’t want you to wake me up), or they will think that you think that you have suddenly turned into a book cover, wrapped around Kundera or Kafka. We don’t want people thinking that! n
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WRITTEN BY AUDREY DOLAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURA MATTHEW
SOPHOMORE SLUMP
I am undoubtedly experiencing the infamous Sophomore Slump. Some characterize it strictly as a drop in grades, others see it as the general feeling of being in a rut, one that is allegedly anticipated after the shiny newness of freshman year. The beautiful luster wears aware, and many find themselves lost among the clutter. This is me.
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While freshman year came with its natural ups and downs, little bumps here and there, the year as a whole was a success, and I expected it could only go up from there. In all my wideeyed freshman wonder, I was wrong. May 2014 came and I was lost. All the plans I had hoped to have did not pan out and I was floundering, trying to grab a hold of anything that would sus-
tain me and pay me for the few summer months. Once that was settled, all I could look forward to was the fall. Great new roommates, awesome classes, new chances for necessary change. Then fall came, but none of those other things did. Now that sounds a little harsh. What I mean is, my expectations were so high
[ PURGATORY ] and large that reality was a hard hit to take. I acted as if all these things would come naturally. I failed to acknowledge that I needed to play an active role in making the year as good as I thought it would be. So, to put it plain and simple, I got stuck in a rut. Reality sure as hell kicked in. Life suddenly got real in ways that were very hard for me to handle. Though this may come across as melodramatic, for a while I felt like I was drowning. I knew there were things that I needed to change, and I even knew how to do it, and yet and I remained stuck. For a moment, it felt so bad that I was convinced I was falling back into depression. Then amid the haze, I came to find the other side. It was not depression, just mere unhappiness and misfortune that had been piling up. I came to terms with everything and dishearteningly deemed all of these feelings events the infamous Sophomore Slump. We all feel this way at one time or another. I firmly believe that this feeling of being stuck, of having expectations that will not always be met is a significant characteristic of this young adult
stage. During college, and even potentially a year or two post-grad, we are bound to feel lost among all the changes rushing at us. We have to figure out what to study, plan our course of action, graduate with certain grades, determine a career, become completely independent, maintain numerous types of relationships and most important, be good at doing it all. I don’t think we’re ever really told that these lulls in excellence and achievement
will happen. “Mama told me there’d be days like this” doesn’t really cut it. We all know what the Sophomore Slump is but so many blow it off like it’s some myth, or maybe even worse, something that only happens to “losers.” Having life suck sometimes is not specific to certain people. We are all susceptible to the shit life throws at us. Going through the dreaded Sophomore Slump was the kick in the ass I needed, in more ways than one. It made me see that it is very real. It made me realize that not everything is going to go smoothly. In fact, it probably all go wrong on the same and it will feel like the biggest challenge ever.it made me think more deeply about my mental health. It showed me that I have more control than I sometimes think. And mainly, I realized that things can be hard and unpleasant and generally no fun for a while, but then it will get good again. Time will get managed better, schedules will free up, the awful snows of winter will melt and that spring will come again. Sophomore year will come to an end and hopefully you will have learned something. I know that I will always be better for it. n
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FAMOUS LAST WORDS COMPILED BY DOMINIQUE PRATT
“A dying man can do nothing easy.” - Benjamin Franklin
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“I’m losing it.” - Frank Sinatra
“Swing low, sweet chariot.” - Harriet Tubman
“Pardonnez-moi, monsieur.” - Marie Antoinette, stepping on her executioner’s foot en route to the guillotine
“Tomorrow at sunrise, I shall no longer be here.” - Nostradamus
“I’m going away tonight.” - James Brown
“Happy.” - Raphael
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“I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” - Isaac Newton
“At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves.” - George Orwell
“I’m bored with it all.” - Winston Churchill
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“One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes.” - Alfred Hitchcock
“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” - Steve Jobs
“I must go in, for the fog is rising.” - Emily Dickinson
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METAL
AND
YOU
(A Tongue-in-Cheek Piece) WRITTEN BY JOSHUA COGSWELL
Abrasive Ramblings on Metal from a Metalhead and Why You Should Get into it if You’re Not Weak. 68 | STIR SPRING 2015
As an avid listener of metal music, I’d like to share with you some thoughts I have about metal. If you’re not already into metal, this might be able to give you a perspective you’ve never had. Maybe you’ll even dislike it more! So what is metal music? Though the genre of “metal” is almost as loosely defined as the genre “alternative,” I would say there are two qualifiers that most would say label a band as metal: death vocals and heavily distorted guitars. However, a simple investigation shows this is an unsatisfactory definition. For example, power metal and many other metal genres have sung vocals. Also many metal bands have songs without a heavily distorted guitar or even entire albums without a distorted guitar (Burzum, Agalloch, Alcest etc.). So how is metal music defined? To be perfectly honest, as a person who has listened to an ungodly number of hours of metal—I don’t know. Metal is one of the least understood genres of music. While it would be easy to judge that this claim is bias due to my love of the genre, I hope you will see the rationale behind my case. Recently, I’ve been on a huge atmospheric black metal kick. Over the past month I have listened to at least
fifty new albums in this sub-genre. You might guess that the genre of atmospheric black metal would be small, but there’s enough content in this genre alone for thousands of hours of listening. To illustrate the amount of metal subgenres, allow me to chronicle my fall from grace. When I was in the 8th grade, I was into this particular band called Linkin Park (some call them nu-metal but I now would rather die than let them into the metal genre). Some friends of mine introduced me to System of a Down (SOAD), and I quickly fell in love with them. Pinning down SOAD into a genre could be an article all by itself, but I would probably lump them just on the border of metal and progressive rock. Next on the list is Disturbed, a gateway band that led me deeper into the realms of metal. Once I got past Disturbed, I launched headfirst into the metal genre. The next few bands I started listening to were Dark Tranquillity and At the Gates (both melodic death metal). Falkenbach (sometimes black metal, other times closer to viking or folk metal), Korpiklaani (very straight folk metal). From then on, there was no stopping my plummet into the depths of metal, Bloodbath (just about as death metal as it gets), Agalloch (play everything from black-
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ened doom to simple neofolk), Meads Of Asphodel (extreme metal with Middle Eastern elements), Opeth (progressive metal that occasionally goes into prog death). The point I’m making here is that many people hear metal and instantly think “This isn’t for me,” but there’s actually an insane amount of content that the person in question is completely disregarding. I’ve heard many say they hate “screamo, “which doesn’t make entire sense. For me, it’s comparable to showing someone an Xbox and them telling you they hate Gameboys. Metal does not and never will equal screamo. Screamo is a very separate genre that has no business being associated with metal music! What I assume that their misguided statement, that they do not enjoy death vocals, which makes a lot more sense. So now we get to death vocals and metal vocals in general. Death vocals are very much an acquired taste—though just like singing voices, each vocalist has a very different style. Death vocals can generally be separated into two paradigms: 1. The Death Growl, or 2. The Death Scream (for those of you following along I suggest Amon Amarth’s “Guardians of Asgaard” to hear an example of the death growl). I find Amon
Amarth to be the archetype of the Death Growl. To hear an example of the scream, I would suggest “Slaughter Of The Soul” by At The Gates. But for weaker ears, you can check out metal without having to dive right into death vocals. Opeth is a great starter because they have plenty of tracks without any death vocals which are quite lovely (see “Harvest”) but they also have some songs which are mixtures of soft noodling with some harsher vocals later. “Dirge for November” (the track right after “Harvest” on Blackwater Park) is an exemplary case. The song starts with an acoustic guitar and Mikael Akerfeldt’s angelic voice, slowly building up to a demonic growl.
it is the equivalent of hipster status for the black metal community, often characterized by being very raw and harsh). For those of you who undoubtedly exist I would suggest Sektemtum’s “Aut Caesar, Aut Nihil” or Deathspell Omega’s “Si Momumentum Requires, Circumspice”. There are many different bands I would recommend for various feelings: upbeat drinking music (Korpiklaani’s “Happy Little Boozer”), lifting music (Ex Deo’s “Romulus,” because what is better lifting music than Roman Themed Death Metal? Also, Amon Amarth), or perhaps you want to unwind with some epic fantasy style stuff (Summoning, which is Tolkien inspired atmospheric metal).
Tired of short songs? If you’re going to give metal a chance, longer song times are something you’re getting used to. Six minute songs? That’s short, Fall of Efrafa, one my favorite bands at the moment, has an album Elil, and it has three songs at twenty minutes apiece. Now for some of you who might have listened to Opeth and might be thinking, “That was too soft, I want a cathartic album that expresses my deep feeling of isolation and emptiness,” try out Gris’ “Il Etait Une Foret”. Or maybe you are thinking, “That was boring. Show me something trve and kvlt” (for those of you unfamiliar to that expression
I could go on even more and more to illustrate the different sub genres and types of metal but I think I’ve made my point. Disregarding the metal genre is ignoring hundreds of very unique styles and bands. Metal has such a breadth of work that there is something in it for anyone and I encourage you all to give it a chance, although part of me hopes that everyone hates it so I can maintain my metal hipster status. n
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Sudden Grief vs. Anticipatory Grief There is no correct way to deal with grief. It manifests itself in many ways for different people. Regardless of its form or length, grief is a very real and human emotion that unfortunately we must all inevitably confront. Through research, along with my own anecdotal experience, I investigate how people may experience these feelings when it comes to sudden death versus anticipated death. These two terms are very important in discussing people’s feelings of loss and bereavement. Sudden deaths are usually caused by some type of accident, uncontrollable event or an unanticipated medical emergency. One moment the person is here and the next they’re gone. An anticipated death is normally a result of some prolonged illness or condition that persists up until the time of death. Neither is necessarily easier than the other, but there can be differences in the ways we perceive each kind of death. Sudden death is shocking and numbing. It hangs hard and heavily. There are so many changes that can not be expected. Many people feel at a loss because there is no time to prepare, no time to say goodbye. You are left to deal with an absence that you never believed would exist. In the case of accidents or unfortunate events, there can be the feeling of not having an explanation. As humans, it’s hard for us to process events if we do not have a way of understanding or explaining them. We struggle to comprehend why such events could happen to someone we love. I completely understand these feelings. Four years ago, I lost a friend
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suddenly and unexpectedly. One day she was here, the next she wasn’t. So many people, myself included, were left to work through the reasons for such a loss. We will never have a concrete explanation for her absence. It is a burden I know many of us carry every day. While I can understand that her suffering is over, most of us didn’t know there was suffering until it was too late. People who experience sudden loss resulting from car accidents often question how and why. It feels as if there is no rhyme or reason to why such a thing could happen. Nothing can be taken back and nothing can be changed. Anticipated loss comes with its own challenges, but some benefits have been recognized such as the fact that it allows for preparation and conversation throughout the process. People that experience this type of loss the most often are loved ones of cancer patients. As their time comes to an end, the loved ones of cancer patients can attempt to have closure and express all their feelings towards the one they’re about to lose. It can bring a sense of closure to know that there is time to say all the important things and to prepare for life without the person. In doing some exploration, it seems that many experts feel that things like war tread a line of sudden and anticipated death. When someone inserts themselves into a combat situation, there is an understanding of the danger that accompanies it. In this way, there is an anticipation factor. However, most people would like to believe that death will not happen to
WRITTEN BY AUDREY DOLAN
themselves or their loved ones. When it does happen, it can feel like it came out of nowhere just as painfully as a sudden death would. These military families and friends grieve the same. There is no explanation, no reasoning why it happened. And yet, there is a subconscious understanding that death is a possibility. Being a part of the military puts a person at risk, but when it comes to our loved ones, we always believe it will never be them. Ultimately, there is no correct way to grieve. The ways in which people handle death are all unique to the human experience. Though there are examined differences in how one may experience these two types of death, these observed behaviors should not be seen as limiting. Grief is an unfortunate part of life and we must all be free to express it as we feel it. n
Helpful sources: Everyone’s Guide to Cancer Supportive Care: A Comprehensive Handbook for Patients and their Families, By Isadora Rosenbaum and Ernest Rosenbaum
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Mourning the
GLAMOUR PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOMINIQUE PRATT
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Death Grips- The Powers that B Pt. II: Jenny Death (An Album Review) WRITTEN BY THOMAS SCAPPINI
The Sacramento-based experimental hip-hop group Death Grips is full of surprises. After announcing their breakup in 2014, they released Fashion Week and the first half of The Powers that B, and now they have released their “final” album, Jenny Death. Enigmatic, esoteric, and abstruse as never before, Jenny Death is a blistering 49-minute endeavor. “Jenny Death when??” Was the cry that came from internet music boards in the months and weeks before the release of the album. This, of course, comes from Fashion Week, which was released with absolutely no warning, in typical Death Grips fashion. The song titles from that album, such as “Runway J”, “Runway E” and so on, spell out the phrase “JENNY DEATH WHEN” in an acrostic. From abandoning concerts, to destroying their equipment onstage, to leaking their own albums to spite their record label, (NO LOVE DEEP WEB) Death Grips have had a complicated and tumultuous relationship with both their fanbase and the media. Who can forget when, in lieu of showing up for a concert, they simply unfurled a banner of a suicide note from one of their fans? Frontman MC Ride is notoriously reclusive--little is known about the man whose real name is Stefan Burnett, preferring to have the music speak for itself. So, what are we left with? Abrasive, deconstructive, and aggressive “industrial glitch hop,” as it was described to me by a friend. Sure, the word “experimental” can be thrown in there as well, but Death Grips are a different sort of “experi-
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mental” than say, Animal Collective or tUnE-yArDs. Rather, they are solidly in the vein of the likes of the Velvet Underground. Jenny Death starts out with the absolutely punishing “I Break Mirrors With My Face in the United States,” which is over before you can even process what is happening, but rather is two and a half minutes of pure chaos, evoking images of punk rock bands from bygone times (think of how on Exmilitary they chopped up Black Flag’s “Rise Above” on “Klink” ) “Inanimate Sensation,” with its thoroughly strange music video, is one strange song with what sounds like a Shepard tone at the beginning and then devolves into noisiness with some catchy drumming by Zach Hill. The song also presents MC Ride with an opportunity to showcase his street cred, with the line “I’m so Northern California, I call scratch “bammer,” apparently referring to a lower-grade of marijuana. One really gets a sense of who MC Ride is with the couplet: “Axl Rose in a blender/ Slash on Satan’s fender,” referring of course to the two legendary members of Guns N’ Roses. In the lyric, MC Ride sees himself a much eviler version of the two men, who already have a reputation for being the bad boys of rock. This reference makes even more sense in the context of Jenny Death, which has many overt nods to its classic rock influences. “On GP,” for example, has a clear rock influence, which is made apparent by the guitar riff that drives the song as MC Ride, in his most per-
sonal song, contemplates suicide and even refers to himself as Stefan–something he has never done before in any songs prior. The music video is equally haunting-–it depicts the group sitting around a speaker ominously as the track plays on a speaker that is in the center of the room, none of them moving. “Beyond Alive” also has rock elements with its distorted riffs and disillusioned lyrics that deal with the pain of despair and the lengths people go to deal with it. My personal favorite track is “Pss Pss” with its, quite frankly, weird sound effects and onomatopoeia that make up the chorus. In the song, Ride fantasizes about debased behavior, including voyeurism, urophilia, and indecent exposure, all with a maniacal and harsh delivery that almost seems like it would be more appropriate on an album from Kreator or Slayer. The connection is there, though, with the lyrics that have the ability to disgust and offend the listener. The much-debated “Death Grips 2.0” sounds more like Aphex Twin than DG, and the title alone has led to much speculation as to the future of the band. The track itself feels like a song playing over the credits of a great movie. Given their recent announcement of another tour, the whole audience is still seated, and eagerly awaiting to see what else Death Grips has in store for us. n
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My Childhood Died in Japan
WRITTEN BY SKYE WINGO
My childhood will die in Japan. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to go to Japan. Sucked in by the usual ‘Oh wow anime is cool’ story every kid that discovers Japan’s most known product says; I obsessed. I watched every show that came out, I read every chapter of manga that popped up on One Manga, and I downloaded tons of JPop and JRock onto my Japanese bedazzled 8GB iPod Nano. Then I hit senior year. I stopped watching. I slowly stopped reading. Fast forward to Junior year at Clark. I’m 20. I’m looking at schools to study abroad in. I meet up with a friend at the Goddard Library. Stan. He’s studying abroad too and we compare. I tell him “I’m thinking of England, or Australia . . . but I’m not sure that’s the experience I want.” He takes a moment. Puts his mechanical pencil down, and his Genki textbook on his lap. “Why not Japan? They have film classes at the University. It could be fun.”
I’ve been in Japan for two months now and I have come to turns with the fact that my childhood will die here. Why such a hard word? DIE. Indifferent. Yeah. That sounds about right.
die1 (dī) 1. To pass from physical life: expire. 2. Topass out of existence: cease. 3. Sink, languish. 4. To cease functioning. 5. To become indifferent.
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If you told me I would be going to Japan as a kid I’d say “Yeah! I’d love t00!” then go back into the manga I was reading. Silly how that works. In Japan, I’m treating myself to things that would I’m seeing things that is satisfying the kid in me so much I feel as if a little me will burst through my belly just to understand what it feels like to be in Japan. I’ve watched Anime. I’ve sung Japanese songs in karaoke. I’ve eaten onigiri. I’ve gone to a bathhouse.
“
”
said Skye’s belly.
“Haha yeah. It’s cool. But, it doesn’t feel satisfying.” I said to my belly.
“
”
When I’ve freaked out, it’s been doing things I’ve gotten into as a what the united state would consider me; an adult. Filmmaking. Nature. Socializing about things other than Japanese pop culture. I’m experiencing school in Japan, something that I’ve always wanted to experience. I’m participating in clubs at the college in Japan. Something I only dreamed about doing as a kid. Now I’m doing it. Now my child self is becoming satisfied. It’s becoming full. When my abroad experience ends. I won’t be able to take my childhood with me. It belongs in Japan. It wants to stay in Japan forever. But I have other plans. I have
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[ DEATH ] other dreams I need to accomplish. And to do them, I need to start taking more responsibility. I need to grow up.
Skye stands over the edge of a cliff in Japan. He looks down at civilization below him. His stomach growls.
“
”
It says.
“I know. It’s hard. But I’m ready. I’m ready to let go. I’m glad we did this. I’m glad you’re happy.
“
”
Skye takes out a sword. He points it at his chest. n
PHOTO COURTESY OF SKYE WINGO
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What’s on Your Bucket List? WRITTEN BY AUDREY DOLAN
When I was 17, I decided to make a bucket list. In all honesty, it’s not really about what’s on my list or anyone’s list for that matter, what was important was taking the time to really think about it. Whether or not I accomplish everything I wrote down, whether or
not these things will even still matter to me in 5 or 10 years time is not the point. I just wanted to think of things, small and large scale, that would fulfill me. Some people never consider creating a “bucket list” because they simply want to live. Others find it limiting.
• Go on a Cruise
• Go to Hawaii
Some feel that if they do not reach every goal, they may feel they have failed. A “bucket list” should help you recognize goals that are important to you and give you a chance to see them into fruition. It should not be seen as limiting, but freeing. n
• Hike the Appalachian Trail • Go to Ireland
• write a novel
• VISIT GREECE
• Collect Keychains From All Over the World
• Get a Tattoo
• Ride a Motorcycle • Watch Every Movie on AFI’s “100 Greatest Movies of All Time” List
• Run the Bases at Fenway Park • Hike Mt. Kilimanjaro • Visit All 7 Continents
• GO SKYDIVING • Get a College Degree
• Go to the Winter Olympics in a Foreign Country
• Learn to Surf
• Fall in Love
• CLIMB THE 7 SUMMITS
• Go on a Safari
• Visit All 50 States • hug a trained bear
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• Go to India
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PLAYLIST:
THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES COMPILED BY ABBY MOON
There is an element of truth to every cliché—it holds that songs written by the heartbroken are often better than songs written by those that are blissfully ignorant. Indulge in some sorrow, on us. Let it out and let it go. n
“Dudley” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Goodbye Dear Friend” – Deer Tick “It Ain’t Me Babe” – Bob Dylan This is one of a few breakup tracks on this playlist. It is sung from the perspective of a man who does not want to be with a woman, though she deeply wants him to love her. Bummer!
“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” – The Smiths “Stay” – Rihanna ft. Mikky Ekko This is a feeler, indeed. It was released not so long after her very public, very abusive relationship with Chris Brown. My heart goes out to the baddest girl in the game every time this song comes on the radio.
“Killing Me Softly With His Song” – Roberto Flack “Hey Mama (Grammy Version)” – Kanye West Yeezy wrote this song as a celebration of his mother. After she passed away, he performed it as a tribute to her at the Grammy’s. You’ll tear up.
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HUMOR
&
WRITTEN BY MATT NEWBERG
It is unfortunate that we live in a culture today where certain subjects are only discussed in these short bursts of relevance that occur only after they are publicized by a major national news story. This trajectory is currently making its course with regard to the numerous discussions of the connection between humor and death that have been cropping up on the internet, lately, after the tragic demise of Robin Williams last week. An example of one of these conveniently timed meditations is Alice G. Walton’ Forbes Magazine piece that links up mental illness, addiction, and being a prominent comedian or any sort of “creative type” —three rather expansive topics that almost definitely encompass a bit too much for Walton’s two page thinkpiece. But despite the ultra-brevity of her piece’s focus, Walton does cite two primary sources that are worth taking a closer look at. The first is a British Journal of Psychiatry study from earlier this year where 523 comedians from the U.S., the U.K., and Australia were given a shortened version of the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences test (O-LIFE), which measures four different types of psychotic traits. The study found that comedians scored significantly higher than the norm on all four aspects of
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O-LIFE, proving that a more unstable or unusual personality structure may explain how some of us happen to be more naturally funny that others. Keep that in mind as we move on to the second primary source of note that Walton references in her article. Constance Scharff, PhD Senior Addiction Research Fellow and Director of Addiction Research worked at a treatment facility in California that Williams had attended. In an interview, Scharff relayed that during his stay, Williams “had spoken…about how sometimes it’s important to be funny when you’re speaking about really painful subjects. Humor can be a tool to obfuscate pain. How many comedians have we watched die from addiction (accidental overdose) or suicide? Sometimes people make us laugh so we can’t see how much they hurt.” In those few sentences, Scharff gives us a lot to think about. We can all agree with the sentiment that humor is important during tough times, but Scharff and Williams aren’t saying just that. They’re saying that it is important to implement humor when speaking about painful subjects rather than just using it as a method to deflect these subjects. But Scharff brings up another good
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point about the growing trend of selfharm among famous funny people. Over the past twenty years we’ve lost more comedians to drug abuse and suicide specifically than actors which makes sense since in that British Psychiatry Journal study I mentioned earlier, they gave the same exam to actors and while they still scored consistently above O-LIFE norms, their results were still on average lower than those of the comedian group. Chris Farley, John Belushi, Mitch Hedberg, and Greg Giraldo are just a few of the many lives that have been lost in the comedic world due to these sorts of issues. And although someone with a background in dealing with death or mental illness may be able to see that link, it’s important to realize that many of us may not be able to make those immediate connections. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not important or that we should just forget about them in a few weeks when the next celebrity dies. David Wong, an editor for the humor site Cracked.com, wrote an article about William’s suicide and perfectly summarizes this point when he writes: “…when I hear some naive soul say, ‘Wow, how could a wacky guy like [insert famous dead comedian here] just [insert method of early self-destruction here]? He was always joking around and having a great time’ my only response is a blank stare. That’s honestly the equivalent of ‘How can that cow be dead? She had to be healthy, because these hamburgers we made from her are delicious!’” It’s a brutal metaphor but unfortunately it’s all too telling. Think about it: these peoples’ senses of humor aren’t just their respective personality traits anymore. Once they
achieve fame, the humor becomes a product, an image, something that sells. Wong continues, “The jokes that keep the crowd happy—and keep the people around you at bay—come from inside you, and are dug painfully out of your own guts. You expose and examine your own insecurities, flaws, fears—all of that stuff makes the best fuel. So, Robin Williams joked about addiction—you know, the same addiction that pretty much killed him. Chris Farley’s whole act was based on how fat he was—the thing that had tortured and humiliated him since childhood.” When it’s put as bluntly as that, it’s clear that this sort of lifestyle or way of making a living could easily wear on a person. We’re going to shift gears here for a second so let’s just summarize what we’ve learned real quickly. Irregularities in the brain are probably somewhat responsible for certain people’s natural propensity for humor and those same irregularities can very easily lead to a person’s demise if mercilessly exploited for years on end. That’s a lot of dark stuff especially considering that humor is often used to lighten the mood. It’s supposed to incite laughter and happiness. So here’s something else to think about: in 2013, Christopher R. Long of Ouachita Baptist University and Dara Greenwood of Vassar College released the results of a study called Joking in the Face of Death. Long and Greenwood took 117 students and divided them into four groups. The first group was repeatedly unconsciously exposed to the word “DEATH” as it flashed on a computer screen for a third of a second while they attempted to complete
tasks. The second group was given the same assignment except the word that was flashed on the screen was “PAIN.” The third group was asked to write a short writing piece expressing emotions relating to their own death, and the fourth group was asked to write a short writing piece relating to a painful visit to the dentist. Afterwards all four groups were asked to write captions for several New Yorker cartoons. Then an independent panel that was unaware of the context of the study voted on which captions were the most humorous. The individuals who were primed with the word “death” had the funniest captions according to the panel, while the individuals who had to write about death had written less humorous captions. And while Long and Greenwood themselves admit that more research needs to be done before any sort of definitive conclusion can be deduced, they do suggest that “humor helps the individual to tolerate latent anxiety that may otherwise be destabilizing.” This goes along with Sven Svebak of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who in 2007 released results of his seven-year study of 54,000 Norwegians who he studied for seven years and asked about how easily they found humor in day-to-day life. Sure enough, those who found the most humor in their daily lives were thirty five percent more likely to be alive at the end of the seven year study. William Breitbart, psychiatry chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City is skeptical, though, saying that he’s seen plenty of funny people die quickly from cancer and
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[ DEATH ] that factors like stages of the disease and aggressiveness of the tumors are far more important than one’s sense of humor. He does mention humorist Art Buchwald who according to Breitbart, would “be the poster-boy for that idea.” Buchwald, a Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote a weekly column for the Washington Post entered hospice in January of 2006. He went on CNN and publicly discussed his living will and his desire to not be revived if he fell into a coma. He was expected to die within days of entering hospice, but he miraculously lived on for another whole year and never stopped joking about it. Even though it is just one case, it exemplifies the different perspectives that we’ve examined so far: humor has the power to bring about one’s demise but it can also possibly prolong life. But of course, like all aspects of culture, humor changes over time due to an incomprehensible amount of social and societal influences. A team at the University of Oklahoma that was interested in analyzing the changing attitudes towards death and humor, led by Marianne Matzo and David Miller, analyzed 19,039 New Yorker cartoons printed between 1986 and 2006 and found about 634 with death-related themes. The primary themes they observed included “‘punishment,’ ‘something you can’t avoid,’ ‘bad news,’ ‘wills,’ ‘things that kill,’ ‘finality,’ ‘assisted suicide,’ ‘meaning of death,’ ‘personification of death,’ ‘memorialization,’ and ‘the afterlife.’” Overall, death-related cartoons increased from 1986 to 2006 ultimately reaching their peak in 1997 with a sharp decline noted in 2001 and early 2002. This can most likely be attributed to the September 11th Terrorist Attacks, after which many New Yorker readers of The New Yorker would not have found death very humorous at all. The most prominent themes during that time included “memorialization” and “the afterlife” and often found humor in the idea of the afterlife not being very different from life on earth (i.e.
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two angels sitting on a cloud reading the newspaper and one asks the other if they’re finished with the living section yet, a pun that plays on both the living/lifestyle section of the paper as well as the obituaries). This hints towards the idea that even when we joke about death, it tends to be in contrast with life or as sort of a celebration of life. Between 1995 and 1998, we saw the appearance of many death-related high profile news stories in the media including the SUPPORT study, the Institute of Medicine Report, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, and Jack Kevorkian’s televised assisted suicide— all of these led to a sharp increase in the amount of death-related cartoons, which goes back to my initial point that as a society we are only willing to discuss controversial issues in spurts when relevant stories get picked up by national news. It’s the same reason you’ll see a bunch of articles about mental health and gun control after a mass-shooting, but then it’ll all fade to the background after a month in favor of racial violence or women’s rights, or class issues (all of which are important and should constantly be kept in the foreground, by the way). Of course this has the opposite effect too, as we observed with the sharp decline in death-related humor after the 9/11 attacks, when a jarring occurrence will actually force us to become more sensitive towards these topics ultimately leading to suppression. It has been well-studied and documented that one of the first signs of severe depression is the loss of a sense of humor and, being a New York based magazine that caters largely to an audience in the same city, it’s understandable that The New Yorker would want to stray away from certain types of material during a sensitive time in our nation’s history. But, then again, why is it sometimes okay to use these tragedies as an opportunity to discuss these issues with or without humor and other times why do we become too sensitized to discuss anything mildly controversial? After 9/11, Rudy Giuliani did a special appearance
during the cold open of the season premiere of Saturday Night Live declaring that New York City would go on as normally and SNL would continue to run. Producer Lorne Michaels famously asked Giuliani, on air, “Can we be funny?” to which Giuliani responded “Why start now?” Ultimately, though, as the study was conducted as a part of research on palliative care, Matzo and Miller found that humor, specifically death-related visual humor like the New Yorker cartoons to be a potential source of understanding and comfort to palliative care patients as well as ourselves. So that’s a lot of information, studies, data, and firsthand accounts to process. But what’s the point? How does humor actually impact death? We’ve seen evidence that a humorous outlook on life can actually prolong it, but then we’ve also heard from a cancer doctor who seems awfully skeptical of that idea. We’ve also seen the havoc that simply being funny can wreak on a person’s mental health. And my grandmother is one of the most humorless people I’ve encountered in my entire life but she’s also one of the healthiest for her age, so you always are going to have these contradictory personal anecdotes. But is there any universal truth we can grasp onto after digesting this hearty meal of death and humor related information? Starting at the foundational level, one of the most basic things we can take from all of this is that humor matters and it’s not something to make light of. All of the studies that we’ve looked at have all come to a similar conclusion in that humor affects the brain. As to how it affects the brain, it really depends on a person’s individual circumstances, the type of humor, and so many other factors, but the fact that it affects the brain is pretty much undeniable. Comedians have higher psychotic tendencies than average citizens and even other types of performers whose acts aren’t entirely based on
[ DEATH ] comedy. The people who were primed to subconsciously think about death came up with the funniest captions. There’s something about death or tragedy that brings about comedy and there’s something about comedy that makes it have the tendency to incite death or tragedy. One of my best friends from adolescence, who I am still very close with today, and whose name I am going to leave out for obvious reasons, also happens to be one of the funniest people I know. He is quick-witted, intelligent, clever, and I am constantly amazed watching the way his mind formulates humor. When we first became friends, it was because I was drawn to his sense of humor and quick-wittedness but about a year into our friendship, I began to realize that underneath that comedic outer shell were some serious issues with depression and anxiety. And all too often what happens when people become close enough to a person to see through that initial layer is that they become disappointed because all they wanted was to laugh. David Wong writes about this in that aforementioned Cracked.com article: “Be there
when they need you, and keep being there even when they stop being funny. Every time they make a joke around you, they’re doing it because they instinctively and reflexively think that’s what they need to do to make you like them. They’re afraid that the moment the laughter stops, all that’s left is that gross, awkward kid everyone hated on the playground, the one they’ve been hiding behind bricks all their adult life. If they come to you wanting to have a boring-ass conversation about their problems, don’t drop hints that you wish they’d ‘lighten up.’ It’s really easy to hear that as ‘Man, what happened to the clown? I liked him better.’” The reason I keep bringing up this Wong article isn’t just because it’s one of the more well thought out, sensitive, and impactful pieces that came out after Williams’ demise (though it definitely is), it’s also because Wong isn’t only speaking for himself. Wong works as an editor at Cracked, which is a humor website as I mentioned before, but without exception every high ranking editor on the site has at some point written a piece discussing their own “behind-the-bricks” selves touching on issues like depression, addiction, and
crippling social anxiety. The point being that these cases aren’t anomalies. They are the norm. So ultimately the takeaway here is this: humor is powerful and is often a symptom of more than someone trying to be funny or make someone laugh. There are psychological roots that extend deep into the psyches of both the person being funny as well as the recipient of the humor and the more aware we are of these roots, the better chance we have preventing deaths like Robin Williams’ along with maybe a few of the approximately thirty-eight thousand who take their own lives in the United States every year. Humor is a force, but unlike other forces like gravity, it goes in more than one direction and we can control it. We can control the types of humor we perpetuate and we can control the ways in which we perceive those who are responsible for much of the humor we encounter. Few people are simply just funny. Often there’s something else. We’re often too busy laughing to really look. n
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ARTWORK BY ANNA NGUYEN
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