The Beat: Cartoon Edition (May 2023)

letter from the editor

Hoo boy! At last, the May issue! This month, we’re celebrating the starlets of the silver screen with thick, black outlines and broad washes of coloranimation!

For many, animation is the first type of media exposure they experience. Whether it’s a Disney film or a Cartoon Network show, we all know something drawn or modeled that’s made us feel all warm and fuzzy. What draws us to these fictional figures? Who knows! Who cares? Me personally, I will be watching regardless.

On a slightly more somber note, I am sad to announce that this will be my last issue as The Beat’s Editor-in-Chief. I thank you, my dear reader, for supporting this passion project of ours; whether this is your first issue or your eighth, I truly appreciate your taking the time to pick up this silly little zine.

On to the toons!!

With love, MacLean Bishop Your Editor-in-Chief

toon tunes

VeggieTales Theme Song - VeggieTales

Daria (Official MTV Theme) - Splendora

How Bad Can I Be? - Ed Helms, The Lorax Singers

Stronger Than You - Steven Universe, Estelle

Ripped Pants - Spongebob Squarepants

I’m Just Your Problem - Adventure Time

Call Me, Beep Me! - Christina Milian

Monster High Fright Song - Monster High

A Cruel Angel’s Thesis - Yoko Takahashi

Motteke! Sailor Fuku - iRis

beats and eats

Have you ever seen a Studio Ghibli movie and felt your salivary glands tingle at the sight of Myazaki’s magical food creations? Have you wanted to dive head-first into your TV to taste the scrumptious soups, buns, and noodles on display? Have you tried to recreate these dishes in your home, with little success? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then join the club.

We’ve all wanted to taste these animated delights, but they’re hard to recreate, and I certainly don’t have the skills or culinary know-how to do a better job than the dozens of other online creators. So, instead, I went to My Thai Vegan Cafe in Chinatown to get dinner today, and I’m going to tell you all about it, since we need to fill these pages!

When you get to the address listed for My Thai, you might be tempted to step into Pho Pasteur instead, and it wouldn’t be a bad choice! But, for the committed among you, climb the dingy stairwell up to the second floor, and you’ll find a charming little eatery with great views of the intersection below. Once you grab a seat, you’ll be presented with a vast menu, of which I had the budget to try the Kruang Kaeng Massaman Curry with Veggie-Shrimp, and the Ground Veggie-Chicken Dumplings.

my thai vegan cafe

The dumplings came out almost right away, and I was pleasantly surprised with how realistic the veggie-chicken was. When combined with the still-chewy dumpling wrapper and a tasty dipping sauce, we all enjoyed our appetizer thoroughly. $10 is a little steep for just 6 dumplings, but if you’re splitting among friends, I can’t deny that it’s a good start to your meal. A warning for chopstick newbies like myself, though: these sticky dumplings will ruin your chopsticks for the rest of the night.

Soon after, a massive plate of curry with zucchini, squash, peppers, bamboo shoots, and onions came out. Guess they must have run out of sweet potatoes, but I was happy nonetheless. The curry was perfectly spicy– not too much, not too little– and the veggie-shrimp were also pretty dang impressive. They still had a tofu-y taste and texture, but the initial bite and taste were very reminiscent of real shrimp, indeed. I always love coconut milk in my curries, and this was no exception. Add in some rice (provided on the side for free) to sop up the excess curry, and you have yourself a delicious meal. Again, $18 is more than I’d want to pay for the amount of curry I received, but the taste satiated me enough.

My companions for the evening got Penang Curry, Temple Soup, and two noodle dishes that I didn’t grab the name of, but they all agreed that every bite was as tasty as the last, so it’s safe to say you can’t go wrong at My Thai! Yes, it’s a little expensive for a college student’s budget, but the atmosphere is enjoyable and the meat and dairy replacements are really well-made! Consider doing what we did and adding My Thai to your itinerary after a movie at the AMC just a short walk away.

My Thai Vegan Cafe is located at 3 Beach Street, and is open Sunday to Thursday from 11am to 10pm, with extended hours to 11pm on Friday and Saturday.

- Toby Pannone

what to watch:

ARIES: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Come for the cool robot fights, stay for the existential psychodrama.

TAURUS: The Simpsons

A solid classic for any day of the week. May want to stick to the earlier seasons though.

GEMINI: Phineas and Ferb

MOOOM!! The editor is making a horoscope in the backyard again!

CANCER: Family Guy

The perpetual cancer on American animation, the humor of the show’s early seasons is really something else.

LEO: The Boondocks

Banger. No further explanation necessary.

VIRGO: Batman: The Animated Series

The best Batman. The bravest Batman. The boldest Batman. Batman.

a may horoscope

LIBRA: Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist

Enjoy frequent celebrity cameos through the mundanity of a psychotherapy session.

SCORPIO: Daria

If you don’t have the theme song on your playlist yet, you will soon.

SAGITTARIUS: Futurama

Dive into the broad abyss of space with some of the most iconic characters adult animation has to offer!

La la la la la.

AQUARIUS: Sailor Moon

CAPRICORN: King of the Hill ‘Ol reliable. Propaaaaaane!

Legend has it that if you watch the transformation scenes for long enough, you’ll awaken to your magical girl powers.

PISCES: Lucky Star 曖昧3センチ そりゃぷにってコトかい? ちょっ! らっぴんぐが制服…だぁぁ不利ってこたない ぷ。 がんばっちゃ▼やっちゃっちゃ そんときゃーっち＆Release ぎョッ 汗々の谷間に Darlin’ darlin’ FREEZE!!

- MacLean Bishop

an interview with

Zoë: I want to start off with your new EP The Wound Is A Gift. What do you think was different about this compared to what you’ve done before?

Sophia: So for the EP, it was definitely my first trial at actually producing a body of work that’s more of a musical composition rather than something that’s more noise based, I guess. So with that, it definitely took a lot. That was honestly a year-long process, even though it’s only a couple of songs, it was all on me, in a way. I definitely produced that all myself. And then I did get a little bit help with mastering it. But other than that, it was all on me.

Z: I feel like when I was listening to it, I heard some influences. My favorite track is Phantom, and I feel the underlying bass to it is 80s house/techno, a little bit. I know that you like Dreamcrusher, Machine Girl, and The Garden. Are those some influences or what are some influences that helped with not just that track, but all of your work?

S: I really do think those are still some of my influences, especially just considering the timeline of just music that I’ve discovered over the years. Definitely those bands and the New York digital hardcore scene, those bands are one of the reasons I realized I could do this, too. Just being at those live shows, there’s just so much energy and I just felt at home going to see those bands. And about Phantom, my influence for that song was just trying to make people dance.

Z: Love that. Besides musical influences, do you feel like there’s any other media that influences your aesthetic overall with your work?

S: I don’t know about media. Definitely just everything we see influences us. A cool looking stain, that’s influential. But for my own personal work, I really take influence from past experiences, like maybe not so great experiences and traumatic things, and use that as fuel to be creative instead of fuel to be destructive.

Z: That makes sense. I feel like a lot of artists take past experiences like that and weld them into something artistic and emotional. So when you create, do you have a specific creative process? Something ritualistic?

pleasure coffin

S: I think that isolating myself is a part of the creative process, which is sometimes not good. And sometimes it’s like downward spiral into actually being a hermit. And that’s something that I have struggled with in the past. So I guess the process is that I’m trying to figure it out and I always will be. I just have to get in the zone, be alone and just stare at the wall for a few hours and then something happens. I don’t know. It just happens.

Z: I can understand that, I feel like that makes the most sense with your sound.

S: Yeah. Because it’s such an internal process and it’s only me, right? So I need to just create something out of just me, which is crazy. I don’t know. The process is going crazy.

Z: In a nutshell, yeah, that’s what it sounds like. In that process, are there any specific instruments or kind of DIY outlandish tools you use to create sound?

S: So I do use a lot of software synthesizers for my own music production. But as far as live performances, I like to incorporate some handmade electronics that I have built. So I have the noise bra, that was the first thing I made. And then I made a noise teddy bear. And then a noise gun.

Z: I’ve seen that at your shows here! Those are so awesome. With being in Boston do you feel like the scene here is established? Would want to stay here in this scene or do you think you’d want to go and join others, like in New York?

S: I think the scene here is definitely great. Of course, it could grow. And I really want to encourage more people to just go out and make something and just get on stage. But as far as staying or going, I don’t know. I love Boston. It’s where I started out. I’m always going to love it. But I mean the scene in New York is amazing and there’s just so much going on every single day anywhere, so it’s hard to compare the two. I like to go back and forth. I think it’s a good best of both worlds, Boston and New York. I also want to definitely do a tour someday. I just want to travel around with my art.

Z: Noise is such a large genre and there’s so many different kinds of sounds and sub-genres within it. How would you place

pleasure coffin interview

(cont’d)

your sound and your art within them?

S: I would say it would be a noise that a haunted doll would make. I usually like to say I make haunted electronic music and people are like ‘Oh!’ That’s just how I feel. I don’t really know what to label it as because it does take from a lot of different genres, sometimes pop, sometimes even metal. So I don’t know. It’s haunted doll music noise.

Z: I feel like that’s really spot on, honestly. I like that description. Are there any other artists that you’ve encountered personally or that you work that you think have helped you along the way and helped influence your individuality?

S: Definitely. I think that meeting other bands has been just amazing and becoming friends with bands that I would listen to before I started making music then becoming friends with them through playing shows has been amazing and surreal. Death Insurance from New York, The Mall from St. Louis, White Ring from Florida, everybody from New York, Polly Urethane from Denver. Damn, there’s too many. But those are the ones at the top of my head.

Z: Some good ones. I like Death Insurance. Do you feel like performing is really crucial to your sound or do you feel like you separate what you upload and what you perform?

S: I think the live performances inform the recordings a lot to be like, ‘Okay, how does the crowd react to this song when I do this or this?’ It’s like trial and error before I really solidify the idea. It is so different, especially from just the recording standpoint. It’s like, how do I manufacture this emotion that I only really get when it’s live? So that’s impossible.

Z: And I guess my last question, do you have a current favorite artist of the moment?

S: I guess what I’ve been listening to a lot has been a lot of post punk from the 80s, like Red Laurie, Yellow Laurie, The Birthday Party. That’s honestly been influencing me at the moment. I’m stuck in the past, I’ll let you know when I’m in the future.

-Zoë Anderson

arms

by Josh Rosenthal

next time i tremble into arms will be a homecoming to my discarded body for viewed as damaged as desecrated it was easier to sever than mend what was all torn up and tongue tied flesh can’t rest in a state of panic and

giving away what i fought to ignore means having to draw my hand to cover the scar from when maybe i won’t even finish before they enclose in understanding and i can return

-josh rosenthal

hey.

it’s may. that means if you’re still at bu (if you’re reading this when it’s published) it’s finals season.

that sucks. finals season sucks.

so you can just chill here for a bit on this page. you can just chill here on this page with this frog and his bong.

if you ask nicely he might let you take a hit but that’s up to him. it’s not mine and it’s not cool to volunteer other people’s stuff.

- maclean bishop

(art by vanessa bartlett)