The College Hill Independent — Vol. 45 Issue 1

VolumeIssue 16 September 202204theGIVE US THE RESPECT WE DESERVE 10 ACROPOLIS NOW 16 GOOD DIRT THE TRANSITORY ISSUE The College Hill Independent* 0145

The Indy strives to disrupt dominant narratives of power. We reject content that perpetuates homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, misogyny, ableism and/or classism. We aim to produce work that is abolitionist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist, and we want to generate spaces for radical thought, care, and futures. Though these lists are not exhaustive, we challenge each other to be intentional and selfcritical within and beyond the workshop setting, and to find beauty and sustenance in creating and working together.

Jack NélariDoughtyFigueroa Torres Rose NicholasHougletMiller

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Faith Griffiths Eric CharlotteGuo Haq Anushka Kataruka Roza

METRO

DEVELOPMENT TEAM

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The CollegeHillIndependent is a Providence-based publication written, illustrated, designed, and edited by students from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Our paper is distributed throughout the East Side, Downtown, and online. The Indy also functions as an open, leftist, consciousness-raising workshop for writers and artists, and from this collaborative space we publish 20 pages of politically-engaged and thoughtful content once a week. We want to create work that is generative for and accountable to the Providence community—a commitment that needs consistent and persistent attention.

I have few childhood memories. At a café that separates city east from city west, a coworker tells me about a terrible haircut her aunt gave her at age seven, the bangs like frayed curtains. Walking along the beach bike path, my dad describes the pottery shop his late mother owned, how the pieces of her seem to be disappearing from the living room and our memories. I don’t mean that I am making them now. Summer was slow and my friends realized we’d all be coming back, that Los Angeles was the only place we could return and remain alive. Sepulveda was wide, the sun hung low on the bluffs, the cars were animals with fearful eyes. It had been years since I’d seen all those I loved and when I reached to touch them they were, for a second, unchanged. -CL

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Nicholas Milller DIRT

WEEK IN REVIEW

Tierra Sherlock

Brianna Cheng Ri Amy/YoujinAddieChoiClark Lim Ash

01 THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT 00

ACROPOLIS NOW

ARTS

BULLETIN BOARD Sofia Barnett Kayla Morrison

SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM

Jamil Fatti

Charlie Medeiros WORK AND Lola Simon INDY Annie Stein

Zachary Braner Ryan JennaChuangCooley

SCIENCE + TECH

FEATURES

Hanna

COPY CHIEF Addie Allen

Sylvie Bartusek Noah

18 DEAR

EDITORSMANAGING

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CYANOTYPES

COORDINATORSDEVELOPMENT

Jeffrey Tao Floria Tsui Anna Wang

Alara Kalfazade

DEAR INDY Annie Stein

Masha Breeze Nora Mathews

The College Hill Independent is printed by TCI in Seekonk, MA

Corinne Leong Sacha Sloan

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JonathanSarahKeelinMarianaDanielleLauraSwetabhLilyMarkGracielaMaruMadeleineAboueidAdrianceAttwoodBatistaBuckleyChahineChangkakotiDavidEmersonFajnzylberGaughanGoldmanGreen

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NO PLAY

From the Editors

FREEDOM

Justin Scheer Ella KatherineSpungenXiong

LITERARY

SENIOR EDITORS

Anna Brinkhuis Sam Stewart

When I err in summer, I am not afraid. I sleep in the cradle of blue-filtered indie vampire movies, and Seattle is a gaping place. Nothing can touch me. My home is full of strangers, which I love mostly because I can arrive to Safeway in sweatpants and an ill-fitting t-shirt without fear of leaving a lasting impression. I slouch between aisles, squatting low in search of Burt’s Bees Gentle Cream Cleanser, making faces at the eggplants. In the place I will live when I grow up, I think I want invisibility. -JW

WEEK IN QUEEN DEAD

It’s the couple en route to Prospect Park holding a picnic blanket, two books, and each other. It’s the sweaty, shirtless skaters doing kickflips off the curb. Actually, it’s the men smoking and playing chess as a squirrel watches, spellbound. No, wait, it’s the mother hoisting her newborn onto the bench to listen to the jazz quartet’s sweet sounds. In fact, it’s me, wondering why I’d ever leave this place. -SS

*Our Beloved Staff

Mission Statement

Emma Eaton

WEBMASTER Isaac McKenna MVP Charlie Medeiros

EPHEMERA

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Masthead*

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COPY EDITORS FACT-CHECKERS/ Ava JeanGraceEleanorShravyaEverestAngelinaRebeccaJasmineAlaraRahmlaDorenAidanZoeyKlaraMackEmmaDunQiaoyingBradleyChenJianChinEatonFordDavidson-SchmichGrantHarbisonHsiao-WeckslerJonesKalfazadeLiMartin-WelpRios-GalindoMaya-TudorSompalliPetersSamahaWanlass

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Jane Wang

This Issue

While the Indy is predominantly financed by Brown, we independently fundraise to support a stipend program to compensate staff who need financial support, which the University refuses to provide. Beyond making both the spaces we occupy and the creation process more accessible, we must also work to make our writing legible and relevant to our readers.

Cecilia LolaAnabelleBarronJohnstonSimon

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WORLD Priyanka Mahat Alissa Simon

SHOULD BE FREE

“IDLE HEARTS.”

STAFF WRITERS

EDITORSILLUSTRATION

Sage Jennings Jo Ouyang

UNTITLED FROM THE SERIES

GIVE US THE RESPECT WE DESERVE

Klara AyçaAlexBritneyDavidson-SchmichDeLeonNadirashviliÜlgen

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19 THE BULLETIN

Aicha Sama & Jared Jones THE PRISON OF EXISTENCE, AT LEAST WE HAVE TATTE

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Hyung Jin Lee IN THE ______: Eric Guo

Alyscia Batista Madeline Canfield

ILLUSTRATORS

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David Pinto young navajo girl.

Danielle Emerson

TanyaEnyaJaesunMaMyungPanQu

Opinion: The Queen Is Dead Long Live My Ass haha

Call me a millennial, but I’m afraid to die! I don’t know what happens after. Like, is it just nothing haha? Am I nothing but material, recyclable, nameless? Do I feel as though my life is being observed—its triumphs valorized, its defeats martyred and made lessons—because it truly is, or merely because I desperately need it to be so, because losing this belief would make me just another collection of particles briefly bound together, soon to be shuffled apart, friendless and unremem bered?Who’s to say! All I know is that the Queen died before she got the chance to tell me I’m pretty, which would have been honestly really great for me. I actually kind of need that right now. Indynators, write in! Tell me I’m pretty.

NoraXOXOXOXO“NoraMathews” Mathews

As someone with no prior medical history of being dead, I feel that I can’t fully speak to Queen Elizabeth’s lived experience. However, I do have some thoughts on how this might be the perfect time to restruc ture the British ruling class—what if the royal family looked more like a nonhierarchical improv group? Maybe all British people should just join a big group text, and then everyone can Venmo request each other for taxes.Queen Elizabeth and I have never hung out, and I honestly don’t think we will any time soon! I don’t plan to die for a while—when I do, it will be from natural causes (mercury poisoning)—and I am also gen erally against the idea of monarchy. I’ve always said: The only “Queen Elizabeth” should be “Queen”ing out in “za bath” after a long day of sending your headshot to consulting companies! I’m putting that sen tence on a tote bag and hoping my Irish ancestors don’t send a ghost to haunt me for the rest of my life.

As a trans woman who will weaponize that fact by the end of this sentence, I also want to acknowledge the Queen’s queerness—not only did she slay the gender binary by using neopronouns (the royal We), she was also descended from a long and beautiful polycule. That means we can’t make fun of her!

I guess we have to just find our own ways to deal with death and mourning. For Nora and me, it’s gonna be a madcap Weekend at Ber nie’s style caper where we try to convince Prince George and Louis that their great-grandmother is haunting them from under their bed.

TEXT NORA MATHEWS & MASHA BREEZE ILLUSTRATION ASHLEY CASTAÑEDA DESIGN ANNA WANG

Listen, I’m all for girlbosses choosing their own path in life. But at the same time, I wonder what message the Queen’s death will send to millions of young girls who aren’t dead. Sure, powerful women have a rich cultural tradition of dying—think Cleopatra, Susan B. Anthony, or Kelsey, the Week in Review intern (yes, she’s technically alive, but at this point she is honestly dead to me and Nora because last week she double-booked our joint birthday party with the shoot for our Moni stat commercial, and now we’re blacklisted from any future Monistat sponsorships). But I think that in supporting the Queen’s right to be old-pilled and dead-core (slay), we’ve lost sight of what really matters. There have been a lot of jokes on Twitter about how funny it is that a powerful woman has been KILLED by death, and I just want to say, why is no one talking about how death is bad? I guess it’s cool now to be British and dead. *eye roll*

BRITAIN, The U.K., September 8th 2022 — This week, the Queen took a bold anti-monarchy stance by being dead. Will it pay off, or is this just the latest example of a powerful woman defeated by her own internal ized misogyny? Nora and I investigate.

As I’m watching the Queen be celebrated for being born rich, I’m starting to feel like the groundbreaking work I’ve done in my field (showing a little accidental sideboob at my summer internship) isn’t being properly recognized. If the Queen wanted to connect with me, she could have at least tried doing an indie-sleaze look ONE time. And as far as celebrity deaths go: until they kill Snoopy, I don’t give a crap! That dog is so cute I love Snoopy. Unlike Snoopy, the Queen has never made me appreciate the emotional honesty of childhood or think about how it would be cute to have a bird on my head. The only thought Queen Eliz abeth has ever provoked is this “thot” (sorry) into wondering why Her Royal Highness never had better branded products. Masha and I need to be pandered to via exclusive merchandise: obviously I don’t feel an emo tional attachment to the Queen’s death because no one ever sent me an officially-endorsed Gildan t-shirt with a vinyl decal of the Queen doing oppa Gangnam style in a pastel matching set!! It’s almost like monarchs don’t care about connecting with me. This is all to say that the Queen never even tried to do casual Instagram. Also, I barely even saw her do a clean girl bun one time.

Opinion: Dear Queen, Your Internalized Misogyny is Showing

With love, light and a secret third thing, Masha “The Germinator” Breeze

I think ultimately, after all my extensive research on this topic, I’m left with more questions than answers—like, is it okay to make fun of dead people if they were kind of mid? Why did the Queen comment “!!!” on that piggytaiwan post right before she died? Is there a God? If so, does He accept people into His kingdom just based on how moral they were, or is there also a hotness/vibes component? If it’s the former, does God have access to Wattpad circa the year 2014 and know how to find out the authorship of a robust collection of Terri Schiavo fanfics? If it’s the latter, I ask you, what chance do you think I have of getting into heaven based on just my looks? Am I hot enough to pass for a good person? And lastly, what’s gonna happen to all the Queen’s little hats? Can I have some?

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For people still learning to grasp why monarchy is bad: imagine if a doctor could tell you not to have tuna salad “nine times in two weeks” because you’ll “get mercury poisoning” and “that’s what your headaches are from.” What the hell is this, 1984 or something else where the world is bad? This type of power is unconscionable: there shouldn’t be doc tors and there shouldn’t be a queen and everything should be organized based on what has the most “It” factor. Women named Francesca? It factor. Dogs in a little coat and hat? It factor. Bikini Marge Simpson on a motorcycle? IT FACTOR! Marrying your second cousin once removed? No it factor detected.

WEEK IN QUEEN DEAD: TWO OPINIONS ON THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

In the fall semester of 2021, our president…per sonally reached out to Brown’s Office of Inclusivi ty, Equity, and Diversity. With their help, we put all of our captains and executive board members through identity, diversity, and inclusivity train ing. After training our captains, we put our entire general body through community building and inclusivity training as well. We required all cap tains and executive board members to attend the leadership and general body diversity training. In addition to working with the Office of Inclusivity, Equity, and Diversity, we have also worked with the Community Dialogue Project at Brown. With their help, the general body came together and developed community guidelines for promoting and maintaining a diverse and inclusive group as we move forward as a program. Brown Mock Trial’s executive board also understands that our work does not start and end with just last year. Our work with the Community Dialogue Project and the Office of Inclusivity, Equity, and Diversity are annual trainings.

BMT reached out to Brown’s Office of In clusivity, Equity, and Diversity in Fall 2021 after Aicha sent them an email stating that she would be leaving the executive board and quitting the

Our collective experiences as black people on Brown Mock Trial consisted of overt racism, microaggressions from team members, and ulti mately, disrespect. We were dismissed, outcast, and made to feel inadequate when our ideas were rejected, only for them to be accepted when put forth by white team members. We left the team feeling defeated, especially since we’d made multiple attempts to speak up about our experiences.Noonedeserves to feel as though their voice does not matter. No one deserves to have their confidence stripped away. No one deserves to feel so minimized. In essence, no one de serves to be disrespected. And yet this was our ex perience, that of students past and present, time after time after time when we were on Brown Mock Trial (BMT).

When asked for comment, Brown Mock Trial said, in part:

experiences of racism at Ivy League universities

13. Spoke to the Providence Journal about potentially writing an op-ed

14. Wrote a Medium article detailing Aic ha’s experiences on Brown Mock Trial

11. Spoke to the Brown Daily Herald over six months and extensively detailed our experiences with Brown Mock Trial for an investigative news story

We tried to make change on the team. We took the following steps, in order:

8. Spoke to the Student Activity Office

TEXT JONESJARED&SAMAAICHA DESIGN QUTANYA ILLUSTRATION 03EDWARDSNICHOLASFEATS THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

9. Spoke to the Office of Institutional Eq uity and Diversity

1. Spoke out to the team against overtly racist comments made by team mem bers

10. Spoke to the Office of Student Conduct

6. Filed a discrimination and harassment report detailing the racism experienced on the team

Give Us RespecttheWe Deserve

Racism in Brown Mock Trial and institutional failure at Brown University

4. Provided resources and advice on an ti-racism and accountability

5. Joined the E-board to try to make a change in BMT’s policies

2. Spoke to team leadership over multiple years to make them aware of the ongo ing issues

12. Spoke to the Black Star Journal about potentially writing an op-ed

Now, as we embark on our 15th step, writing an article for the College Hill Independent about our struggle to gain resolution, BMT has yet to take accountability for its history.

7. Spoke to leaders of Brown’s Transforma tive Justice initiative

3. Another former member called out BMT on Black Ivy Stories, a viral Instagram account for Black students to share their

This pattern of failure has negatively im pacted our collective well-being. It took a lot for us to share our stories. It took a lot of time. From the first time alerting the E-board of our

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Brown Mock Trial continued, saying, “It also appears that the incidents referenced are said to have been by current and former members of the team. However, we do not believe any of the students referenced in these past incidents are current members of the team. Only two of our current members were actually members of Brown Mock Trial when any of these incidents occurred and they were not involved.”

Essentially saying that all of the problematic and/or racist people on the team have now left doesn’t change the fact that BMT’s infrastruc ture allowed them to thrive on the team for years with no repercussions for their harmful actions. This doesn’t absolve BMT of years of harm that the organization cultivated and al lowed to occur, or the fact that BMT still needs and has yet to accept responsibility for these years of harm.

fices we spoke to, and even outright discourage ment when we mentioned the option of writing an op-ed about our experiences with the team. When Aicha attempted to seek some semblance of justice through Brown’s established reporting process, she started off by filing a discrimination and harassment report. After that, however, she was sent from office to office with no clear di rection on how Brown Mock Trial could be held accountable. It was just dead-end after deadend. (In a statement, a spokesperson for Brown University said the school was “not at liberty” to discuss details of these experiences, citing federal privacy law.)

Again, it is great that BMT seems to be finally taking some action towards cultivating an anti-racist environment within their organi zation, but that doesn’t mean they get to sweep their racist and harmful history under the rug without taking responsibility. BMT hasn’t made any public statements acknowledging or con demning its racist history. The wider Brown community and the public more generally are aware of BMT’s history only because of Aicha’s Medium article. A big step in working towards real change and moving forward is taking ac countability for past actions; this seems to be a step that Brown Mock Trial wants to skip.

By stating that the people on the team that exhibited racist and problematic behavior have now left, BMT is implying that their issues with racism and discrimination were simply a prod uct of a few problematic members. This is not the case. Brown Mock Trial’s issues stem from a culture of evading repercussions, bystandership, and inequity.Brown University as a whole is also complicit in BMT’s racist culture because of the administration’s inaction. As we attempted to seek some resolution after leaving BMT, we were met with little to no support, zero concrete solutions offered by the many administrative of

made us feel unvalued and disrespected once again. These are experiences that no one should have to endure.

1. Creating mechanisms for reports of rac ism or other harm that are accessible to members of every campus organization and could lead to consequences by the university, financial or otherwise

2. Mandating that organizations inform all club members of these mechanisms

3. Formally reviewing and streamlining the process for reporting racism and discrimination so that students do not have to go from office to office and retell their stories numerous times

5. Ensuring that University officials are knowledgeable about race, racism, and their impact on students of color

Ultimately, we are not experts. We are 19-23 year olds, balancing school, work, and our per sonal lives. Brown University is a 258-year-old institution with a nearly $7 billion endowment and an incomprehensible amount of resources. It is not our job to solve all of these issues; it’s Brown’s. It is Brown’s responsibility to create and improve spaces dedicated to supporting students who face these injustices. Through these ideas, we hope to see some effort made by Brown to help their students.

Our work took a lot of courage. Brown Mock Trial is one of the most funded student campus organizations, receiving $25,500 for the 2021-2022 school year. In past years, they’ve received as much as $40,446. Going against such a well-funded, long-standing organization was daunting.

A big step in working towards real change and moving forward is taking accountability for past actions; this seems to be a step that Brown Mock Trial wants to skip.

Each time we went to a new office or news organization, we had to regain the resolution to speak up; this became harder every single time. It was incredibly draining to retell and re-ex plain harmful and negative experiences over and over again. We began doubting ourselves and our own feelings about our experiences. We wa vered in our tenacity and started to give up on the idea of receiving some semblance of justice for what had happened. Not being listened to

It took a lot of energy. We had to find these offices and reach out to the right people, all while still juggling academic responsibilities, leading other organizations, and dealing with the aftermath of these experiences.

AICHA SAMA B‘24 won’t stand down.

We’re tired of speaking up over and over again just to be ignored. We’re done being treat ed like our voices do not matter. We will not accept the lack of response from Brown Mock Trial and Brown University. Our experiences deserve to be respected. Our mental health deserves to be respected. Our voices deserve to be respected.Giveusthe respect we deserve.

JARED JONES B‘22 won’t stand down.

team due to the racism she had experienced. It’s great that BMT has finally started taking action, but it shouldn’t have taken a third black person to quit the team within two years to make this happen.BMT’s work with the Community Dialogue Project (specifically with Transformative Justice within the Community Dialogue Project) began because Aicha spoke to a representative of Transformative Justice after filing her Discrim ination and Harassment report and requested that they contact BMT’s president to begin their work with the club—work that she asked not to be involved with. The fact that BMT seems to be trying to take credit for working with the Com munity Dialogue Project at Brown when Aicha specifically started this work by going through multiple administrative offices adds yet another layer to BMT’s refusal to take proper account ability and responsibility for their past.

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Some directions that BMT and Brown Uni versity could explore in order to provide a more inclusive and welcoming environment for all students include:

4. Preventing harm before it comes by implementing ongoing and recurring anti-racist, anti-oppressive education within student groups, as well as cam puswide

experiences, to now, this has been a nearly three-year-long journey.

A first step to our healing would be a sincere apology from BMT and the Brown University offices that neglected to take action. Concrete change within the organization and at Brown as a whole would also be integral to our healing. As we write this article, we know that there are more students who have experienced similar degrees of injustice in other student groups. Brown needs to do better in making space for students to share their experiences of racism and discrimination on campus.

By the end of the lengthy journey, we were left feeling dismissed. It became clear that no one was willing to help us get our story out there, either out of fear or complacency. Both BMT and Brown University failed us. Unfortunately, this failure suggests that BMT is not the only stu dent organization where racism and other forms of oppression persist.

latte, where the music is just the right kind of vaguely familiar to make it yours

There’s a common line of critique in all of this, in that paying to exist in public nowadays is kind of fucked, paying to feel spontaneously cared for by strangers is even more fucked, and constantly guessing at how I need to behave in public to appear human has fucked up my sense of self. My $6 latte isn’t correcting this. But when I visit my girl Tatte, my best girl Tatte, at least I know exactly who I’m supposed to be. What I’m paying for in Tatte isn’t love, or a personality, but a chance to experience their absences. In the latest iteration of our capitalist nightmare, where all public existence means an elaborate social dance, I pay Tatte for the chance to be nothing at all.

That’s the beauty of it. When you walk into a coffee shop, the $6 you pay for your latte also covers the aesthetic, the brand loyalty, the illu sion that you matter. My girl Tatte, on the other hand, seems like she should ask how I’m doing but never does. The Tatte outside South Station washes my face away in a tide of dead-eyed commuters. The Tatte at Northeastern dismiss es me as one of many fungible college students in a generic extracurricular hoodie. The Tatte by the ICA doesn’t even wish me a pleasant trip. Each Tatte and its overworked staff know exactly what they want to know about me, see exactly what they want to see—that is, another masked, formless face; that is, absolutely noth ing of importance.

Tatte Bakery & Cafe is the only coffee chain that has never disappointed me. True only in the sense that the bar is on the floor. I don’t enjoy conversations with friendly strangers, can’t taste the difference between an Americano and instant coffee, and the one time a barista at a different shop gave me a drink for free, I pan icked about it (loudly) for ten minutes.

But my girl Tatte has never failed to charge me. Its black and white tiled interiors, hanging lamps, and massive picture windows, reminis cent of the compound eyes of some eldritch-hor ror distributed consciousness, form centers of aesthetic gravity in my mental map of Boston. Its presence feels like a sign of gentrification, but I’ve only ever encountered it in neighbor hoods that were egregiously overpriced to begin with—Downtown, Back Bay, Cambridge, the Seaport. It is the most corporate of all non-cor porate coffee shops, the most gaslight-gate keep-girlboss of all non-gaslight-gatekeep-girl boss cafes, the one most likely to survive the apocalypse. Once local to Copley Square (the artsy, hipster neighbor to the finance bro Pru dential Center and the NIMBY ‘feminist’ New bury Street), now Tatte springs into existence fully formed and functionally identical, local to nowhere, loyal to nothing. In short, it contrib utes nothing to the grand romance of The Coffee Shop, that mythical fairyland where baristas’ canned bubbliness erupts just spontaneously enough to feel genuine, where the menu rotates just enough for you to notice their clapback to the pumpkin spice

To be clear, I don’t hate coffee shops, or think that friendly baristas and cafe workers are all fakes. And there have been moments where a barista’s kindness—calling me ‘honey,’ for example—has followed me through an entire day, even week. I’m under no illusions that this barista will remember me or that my imprinting on kind strangers is anything but strange. But I also know that being hailed this way is con tingent on pitching my voice up, smiling extra brightly, putting a little bounce in my step, on being a person you would call ‘honey.’ Everyone who has ever had more than one conversation with me knows that this is a lie, but also not a lie: that ‘honey’ is a self I can slip into with a little bit of effort if I know the rules of the in teraction require it. Standing in the Tatte line (there’s always a line at Tatte), I men tally rehearse my ‘honey’ self the same way I rehearse my order. And I can tell the cashier— usually no more than 30

years old, clean and pressed in their black shirt and apron—is rehearsing theirs too. I did it all the time when I worked in a cafe myself.

KATHERINE XIONG B’23 does not exist.

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To be clear, I don’t think I’m a fake, either. Just a serious introvert who survives social in teractions by reading, pre-reading, and reread ing the room. In everyday life I wear many faces for many people, become whoever I need to be for friends, teammates, professors, strangers. In everyday life, among familiar people, these faces must have depth, dimension, consistency; they require a full-body effort to inhabit and a con stant consciousness of how I inhabit the space around me. When I’m alone at a coffee shop, I’m there to exit that bodily performance, the responsibility of coherence. I can get away with this because any interactions I have at the shop were transactional from the start and everyone knows it. No one expects ‘realness.’ So long as I’m not intruding on others’ space, I will simply be left

Thisalone.relation gets dicey sometimes at other indie coffee shops, where the rules of the interaction shift too easily into pretending the interaction is not transactional. My deathless, depthless girl Tatte offers many things—a less corporate alternative to the Starbucks next door, at least—but she has never pretended to be anything more than she is. A social space, an affective space, perhaps, but still a shop

IN PRISONTHE OF EXISTENCE, AT LEAST THERE IS TATTE

TEXT XIONGKATHERINE DESIGN QUTANYA ILLUSTRATION JENNINGSSAGE

LEE(ERIKA)JINHYUNG “CYANOTYPES”

Hyung Jin (Erika) Lee B'24 “Cyanotypes”Cyanotype

String (실) is a central symbol in Korean shamanism, representing destiny and life. The subject interacts with string in multiple variations, sometimes appearing to control it, other times being consumed by or becoming it.

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07S+T THE COLLEGE HILL

TEXT GUOERIC DESIGN TAOJEFFREY ILLUSTRATION PATTISOPHIA

“You are already deep into the first chap ter. You have not understood a thing. You feel uneasy. It is not because of the book, which so far seems interesting enough; nor is it that your concentration is flagging (if anything, it feels as if it has been heightened); it is something else entirely. You must put your finger on what it is: an uneasiness about yourself. About your being here, sitting in this room and reading these very words. You feel like someone who has lost his way and now does not know where he belongs or how he got here: he no longer knows what his own story is about or what story he belongs in.”

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How AI is changing the way we see writing

Admittedly, there are subtle stylistic dif ferences between the two passages. The first passage relies heavily on words such as “dis pel” and “tell” to command the reader, while

I decided one day to embark on some cre ative experimentation of my own, taking some lessons from Calvino’s writing:

But what I meant by experimentation was not that I actually wrote this paragraph myself. I input the first paragraph of Calvino’s novel into an AI program colloquially called GPT-3, and the program generated this paragraph for me. It is written in the style of Calvino, but it is not Calvino—a quick Google search revealed that the previous paragraph is a completely unique combination of words.

As I read the passage produced by GPT-3, I became aware that the writing was describing my own feelings before I was even aware of it. I was initially surprised that GPT-3 was able to so closely model Calvino’s style while also diverging slightly from it. However, as I read the passage again, thinking especially about the “uneasiness” that GPT-3 describes, I suddenly began to realize that I was experiencing an un easiness—an uneasiness that only compounded after I realized that GPT-3 had predicted my own state of mind.

How is it, then, that an AI like GPT-3 could generate text that says so much? More than simply adopting Calvino’s writing style, the model produced something that describes the experience of reading. The passage it generates feels like more than just words strung together by a computer—its words take on a meaning of

the second passage takes a more passive tone to describe the reader. But we have reached a level of AI sophistication where, if we have not previously read Calvino’s novel, it becomes difficult to discern that the second passage was not written by him. The differences between the passages do not point us to an answer—it could be that Calvino intended the stylistic change.

Thus begins Italo Calvino’s novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. It is a masterpiece of metafiction, a form of fiction that relies not on traditional forms of narration but on referring back to itself in a way that brings the reader into the story as a character. The passage above makes Calvino’s metafiction attempts unmis takably clear; the narrator speaks directly to the reader, who is attempting to read a book called If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. There is no longer a separation between narration and reader.

FILLINGINDEPENDENT IN THE

“You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, ‘No, I don’t want to watch TV!’ Raise your voice—they won’t hear you otherwise—‘I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed!’ Maybe they haven’t heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: ‘I’m beginning chapter one of Italo Calvino’s new novel!’ Or if you prefer, don’t say anything; just hope that they’ll leave you alone.”

act of writing only involves a process in which letters are strung together.

So how do we conceptualize writing in the context of AI? Perhaps there is no clear answer to this question. I will not lie—such experimen tation with GPT-3 made me question my own abilities as a writer. But as I spent more time interacting with GPT-3 and exploring its capa bilities, playing around with several prompts and watching the machine’s response quickly make its way across my screen, I could feel my initial unease dissipate. Several times, the machine’s output reflected an obvious lack of intelligence—digressions, repetition, poor word choice—but I also could not help but stare in si lent stupefaction as it churned out lines of poet ry in the manner of Shakespeare and metafiction in the style of Calvino. It drew out a curiosity in me that made me eager to play around more.

GPT-3 behaves similarly to the inhabitants of the Library because it has no knowledge of what the words it produces actually signify. It can parse through nearly everything written by humans, but it is confined within this world of text that has no reference to the world outside of it. The round object that glows in the night sky is called a full moon. GPT-3 may be able to correctly predict the word “moon” in this sen tence, but its existence strictly within the tex tual realm means that it has no way of knowing what the experience of seeing the moon is like.

GPT-3 is one of many language models that has been built, whether implicitly or explicitly, on this particular line of thinking. The model is not something that simply generates text: more precisely, it uses complex statistical patterns to determine the most likely result. The underly ing idea of GPT-3 is that language, which is the building block for ideas, can be understood and produced in a mechanistic way. To use GPT-3, it is first necessary to give it a prompt: a question, an excerpt from a book, or any other sort of text. Then, through an iterative series of cal culations, the model determines the word that would be most likely to succeed the previous word. This process continues until it determines a suitable place to end.

I can imagine a possible future where writing takes the shape of something collab orative between humans and AI. Writing, in its current human form, will not cease to exist, but there may be a growing proportion of writers who use models like GPT-3 to aid their own writing processes—no longer relying as heavily on the physical act of writing but on the artistic task of being able to write an elegant prompt. The focus may shift from writing to refining text: using the language model as a way to produce what the writer desires, a desire that still resides within us.

ERIC GUO B’23 is letting GPT-3 fill in the blanks.

their own, produce some sort of sensation within us, and illuminate something about the world of which we have previously been+++unaware.

The motivation behind GPT-3 and other language models reflects a consistent trend in associating language with intelligence. The Turing test, proposed by Alan Turing in 1950, determines a machine’s ability to demonstrate human intelligence by testing if a machine can convincingly engage in a conversation with a human being. Turing was not concerned with the question of whether a machine could actually think, believing that this was a meaningless question. Instead, a machine that could pass the Turing test would be capable of something like thinking. And this ‘something like thinking’ is none other than using language.

This mechanistic conception of writing has literary roots. Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Library of Babel” imagines a universe in the form of a near-infinite library that is com posed of interconnected, hexagonal rooms. Each room contains books of 410 pages consisting of every possible combination of letters. Ev erything that has ever been written and will be written can be found in the Library; in other words, it contains every possible combination of letters in every language. The vast majority of the books are filled with nonsense, but it would seem that the entire corpus of human knowledge is contained in the library, including the answers to all of life’s mysteries, the expla nations of every natural phenomenon, and the correct predictions of every future event. The inhabitants of the Library spend their lives futilely searching for this knowledge. Because everything that can possibly be written already exists, the

ting alone with one’s thoughts in the middle of the night and gazing at the moon. The poem is a result of this particular experience, and illumi nates writing as a deeply human affair that can not be emulated by artificial intelligence. The word ‘moon’ may exist within the Library, but the object it refers to lies firmly outside of it.

In late 2015, a handful of Silicon Valley giants, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman, the former president of the start-up incubator Y Combinator, gathered together to found the orga nization OpenAI. The founding of the organization was a response to radical techno logical developments at the time—in particular, the creation of a neural network architecture called AlexNet that had achieved unprecedent ed accuracy in correctly classifying objects in images. The discovery spurred the use of similar neural network architectures in various other AI tasks, including language prediction. GPT-3, short for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, is the third-generation language prediction model created by OpenAI. Its goal is clear: to generate text based on any written prompt, and to do so in a convincingly human way.

This seems to pose some problems for the act of writing—if GPT-3 has no way of experi encing the world, how can GPT-3 ‘write’ in the way that Borges and Calvino did so flawless ly? It seems that while we can conceptualize both human writing and computer writing as a mechanistic stringing together of words, there is far more involved in the process. I often be lieve that there is something special to writing, writing as something that isn’t simply a combi nation of words, but something that arises from within the writer. When a human is writing, she is reflecting on her own ideas, thoughts, and experiences, and in that process gradually finds words to describe them. If told to write “a poem about the moon that evokes feelings of longing and solitude,” GPT-3 will churn out a poem that does precisely that. We can even ask GPT-3 to write in the style of a particular poet, and it will convincingly complete the task. But what GPT-3 can never do, which a human writer can, is actu ally experience the feelings of longing and soli tude, the feeling that iswhencomesonesit

In my brief experimentation with GPT-3, it seemed that what was most important to receiving high-quality output was crafting the right prompts. A prompt like “write an essay in which you analyze Calvino’s use of metafiction” produced something that vaguely resembled a five-paragraph essay with the straightforward style of an elementary school student. But when I entered the opening paragraph of Calvino’s novel, it was able to produce something con vincingly Calvino-like with even a small stylistic change of its own. In artificial intelligence, this is a concept known as prompt engineering—the quality of output is directly correlated with the quality of the prompt given. The task of writing high quality prompts is not easy, and it emphasizes that language models are unable to write purely on their own. In a sense, they require a human to provide them with the experiential knowledge that they lack.

“The Library of Babel” hints at a future in which language models become the dominant form of writing. These models work by string ing together words in a mechanistic process governed by the laws of probability. What is striking about the Library is that it forces us to imagine that every possible combination of words already exists, and any text that is written is only the realization of some possibility. If we think of writing in this way, then what GPT-3 produces seems to be no different than what humans are doing: the process of writing may be different, but the end result, the text itself, shouldn’t be much different from a human-pro duced text. But such a conception of writing leaves out an important detail—the lived experi ence of humans that often goes into a particular work of Herewriting.isaquestion that has always bothered me about the Library, which seems particularly relevant in the context of GPT-3: what lies out side the Library? At first, this does not seem to be a particularly useful question—if the Library is infinite, then the obvious answer would be that there is nothing outside the Library. But this seemingly banal question becomes some thing puzzling and important. The Library contains every possible word in existence, including words we have not yet come to know, but these words don’t point to anything in the Library. The word “tree,” for instance, does not refer to an actual tree in the Library, and the Library contains all the textual knowledge of what a tree is without providing the knowledge of experiencing a tree.

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S+T 08VOLUME 45 ISSUE 01

LONDON — In the British Museum, about six ty protestors are dressed in blue. A giant glass roof casts a cold glow on the flags and picket signs below. People of all ages have gathered to demand the return of the Parthenon Marbles, a collection of 2,500-year-old sculptures from Athens. Bystanders turn their heads as cries of “Send them home!” echo throughout the cav ernous“Theyspace.were illegally acquired, they were stolen from Greece, and they belong in the Par thenon,” declares Christopher, a zealous Greek national who has brought his entire family to the event. The dispute over the Parthenon Mar bles (formerly Elgin Marbles) is far from new, but recent developments may pave the way for a resolution. This is how Greece lost its national treasures—and how it might get them back.

09WORLD THE COLLEGE HILL ACROPOLISINDEPENDENTNOWHowtheBritishMuseummightloseitsmarblesTEXT PINTODAVID DESIGN CHOIRI ILLUSTRATION WRIGHTIRIS

years of human history. Much of this collection was accrued at the height of the British Em pire, during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The museum now specializes in preserving and displaying these globally sourced artifacts, some of which were attained through violent means. But if its contents are relics from a bygone age, so too are its policies. Since 1963, an act of parliament has forbidden the British Museum from giving away its objects except under a few special conditions. This is by design.

I glance back up at the Parthenon Marbles, extending hundreds of feet on either side of their lofty display hall. Legions of life-sized mar

In an ideal world, the British Museum would return the marbles outright. But negotiations

ble warriors on horseback charge bravely into battle. Scores of centaurs rear back on their hind legs, their sinews tensed in suspended motion. “Look around,” urges George, an activist for the BCRPM. “Every single sculpture in this room is part of one unified work of art. One half is here in the U.K., the other half is in Greece. They ob viously belong together,” he reasons. I begin to notice missing pieces of the frieze—amputated hands, torsos, and heads. Blunt cuts starkly con trast the smooth sculptures, as if they’d been pried off in a rush. This scene begs the question: how did Greek antiquities end up in England in the first place?

Western institutions have increasingly come under pressure to confront their historical con nections to colonialism and critically consider where displaced art belongs. This has inspired a movement for ‘museum decolonization,’ with the aim of repatriating spoils from the colonial era. French president Emmanuel Macron led the response in 2017, promising to return African art stolen during the colonial era. In the last year, the Musée du quai Branly and the Smith sonian have also returned the looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Museums around the world are facing an identity crisis: to avoid being con signed to the dustbin of history, they will need to adopt a fresh approach.

“Whatcosts.aninept individual,” grumbles Vic toria Hislop. She argues that Elgin’s expedition was a moral and logistical disaster from start to finish. But the problems continued under the British Museum’s stewardship. In the 1930s, the rose-coloured marbles were ‘cleaned’ with an acid solution to give them a fake all-white look. This reflected anachronistic perceptions of classical sculpture, which wrongly assumed they were white. (We know in fact that Greco-Ro man sculptures were colourfully painted.) Sadly, the ownership history of the Parthenon Marbles is defined by greed and incompetence. They really belong in Greece.+++

Ever since Lord Elgin ordered pieces of the Parthenon frieze to be hacked off and sent to Britain in 1801, there have been international cries of protestation. Denounced as an act of plunder, the expedition became a symbol of imperial greed and hubris. And with the birth of the independent Greek state, the Parthenon became a national emblem akin to Britain’s Big Ben. In 1983, the Greek government filed a for mal request for the return of the marbles, and a movement for ‘reunification’ has been sim mering ever since. All the while, these demands have fallen on deaf ears in London. But circum stances have changed.

The protest moves deeper into the British Museum, entering the Parthenon display gallery. “It disrespects the Greek nation, its people, and the symbol that is the Parthenon,” shouts one activist. The protest is peaceful but restless; many of the attendees are Greek and feel robbed of a deeply symbolic national treasure. Despite requests from international organizations like UNESCO, the museum has stubbornly refused to negotiate with Greece.

Officials feared that repatriating even one object would be seen as an admission of guilt. In turn, countless countries would come knock ing to confiscate the museum’s encyclopedic collection. And so the venerated British Muse um would disappear in a tsunami of post-co lonial vengeance—such was the reasoning of frightened politicians at the time. Shielded by the law, the museum trustees stuck a finger in each ear and sang triumphantly of ‘cultural achievement,’ as the Parthenon Marbles attract ed hordes of visitors. But the clamor for change eventually grew too loud to ignore.

The British Museum is a time capsule. It houses 8 million objects spanning 2 million

At the protest, organized by the British Com mittee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM), I interview bestselling Anglo-Greek author Victoria Hislop. “When I grew up, the map was all pink. Everything in pink was British,” she muses. “Our mentality has changed enormously since the beginning of the twentieth century. We don’t learn about the British Empire as if it was a good thing anymore.” Hislop describes a cultural shift from below, with a younger generation rejecting the long-held attitudes of their parents. In Britain, what was once a source of pride has become a source of shame: a recent Sunday Times poll found that 78% of readers would have the mar bles returned to Greece. As public opinion has grown to reject colonial heritage, there’s been a clear change of mood.

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As British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Elgin was a man of status. He wanted the marbles as decoration for his country house, and claimed to have received a firman (official permit) from Ottoman authorities to remove some of the ruins. (No evidence of this docu ment has ever been found; it’s more likely he bribed Ottoman officials to turn a blind eye.) Thus, the marbles were hacked off with heavy tools and loaded into ships back to Britain. When one transport ship wrecked in the Aege an Sea, it took divers three years to recover the sunken marbles. Meanwhile the expedition grew unpopular at home, and British poet Lord Byron called it an act of vandalism in his poem “Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage.” The now desperate and financially ruined Lord Elgin sold the marbles to the government for £35,000—a fraction of his expense

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Commissioned by General Pericles in 432 B.C., the Parthenon was a temple built to commemorate Athens’ victory against the invading Persian Empire. Its frieze was designed by legendary sculptor Phideas, adorning a vast religious and social space. As empires rose and fell around it, the Parthenon stood still over the Athens skyline for two millennia. By the time Lord Elgin arrived in Ottoman-ruled Greece in 1800, it had fallen into ruin.

Amid a flurry of recent protests, the British Museum finally broke its silence this summer. Chairman George Osbourne conceded there is a ‘deal to be done’ with Greece over the marbles. Since then, officials have begun cautiously sug gesting a ‘loan’ or ‘partnership’ with the Acrop olis Museum in Greece. This language, however vague and unsatisfactory, marks a big shift from precedent. The sense of legal immunity seems to have crumbled as the museum directors now feel obliged to address criticism. With these announcements, a new optimism has taken hold that the Parthenon Marbles may finally return to their Athenian home.

Severed from one indivisible structure, the Parthenon Marbles are a unique case among contested artworks. These sculptures are not meant to be seen as individual artifacts, but as parts of one integrated design. Yet half of the sculptures are in Greece, the other half are in

Forever Loan

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If the Parthenon Marbles are returned, new technology can fill the void left behind in the British Museum. For years, the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) has offered to take 3D scans of the sculptures. These would be fed to a ‘robot sculptor,’ which uses chisels to carve precise replicas of the sculptures into massive chunks of marble. The robot reproduces the originals to an astonishing degree of accuracy, creating a product “orders of magnitude better” than the “low-quality plaster casts” of the past,

One proposal by British actor Stephen Fry sug gests augmented reality (AR) as an option for the British Museum. In addition to the replicas, AR glasses could superimpose a photorealistic 3D reconstruction of the Parthenon as it once stood. These glasses—much lighter and less intrusive than VR headsets—could be distrib uted at the entrance of the exhibit and taken off at will. The rendering would include the most up to date knowledge on the original structure, displaying its colourful paints and lost sculp tures inferred from gaps in the metope. This could help correct historical misrepresentations and ensure the return of the marbles to Greece. If done right, such technologies present the British Museum with an opportunity to lead a technological revolution in museums. A combi nation of “loaning,” exchange, and technological innovation could be enough to push a deal over the line.

Of course, the British Museum has been resistant to such proposals: “People come to see the real thing don’t they?” asks Jonathan Williams, deputy director of the museum. And he has a point. But that hasn’t stopped a few digital archaeologists from taking clandestine scans of the marbles with iPhone cameras. In fact, the robot sculptor is already hard at work, having already reproduced a horse’s head in its laboratory home in Italy. Though reproductions will never inspire the same awe as the originals, the British Museum has used copies many times before; it currently houses a life-size reconstruc tion of a Japanese teahouse and a replica An glo-Saxon helmet. It’s not that far of a stretch to suggest the same for the marbles.

as the executive director of the IDA told the Guardian. These replicas would then adopt the place of the originals in the British Museum, in distinguishable to the naked eye—cutting-edge technology in its most literal sense.

WORLD 10

the U.K.; they were torn asunder without rhyme or reason—heads and limbs hastily hacked off for sheer convenience. The frieze was not just a work of art, but an integral part of the temple’s architecture. Why simulate the Parthenon in a museum gallery in London, when the original structure still stands? It’s clear the sculptures are best appreciated as a complete set at the foot of the monument from whence they came.

Augmented Reality

The British Museum is at a turning point— the way it chooses to behave now will deter mine its path forward. Unlike the Benin Bronz es, the Parthenon Marbles were not acquired through direct violence; perhaps the actual spoils of war should be higher on the British Museum’s list of returns. Nonetheless, the marbles are a rare case of divided art. Reuniting them would be a watershed moment, forever shifting expectations of museums around the world. Countries like India and Egypt would feel emboldened to demand the return of other treasures from Europe.

But this won’t mark the end of museums— quite the contrary. I believe a smart approach to repatriation can save museums from forced obsolescence. To maintain their influence as centers of learning and culture, they must be sensitive to changing attitudes. If the British Museum fails to adapt, it may lose its prestige and become vilified by an iconoclastic young er generation. It would be far shrewder in the long term for museums to become agents of change, rather than opponents. For the first time, advances in 3D technology give the British Museum an elegant way out of the Parthenon Marbles dispute, and the chance to pave the way for museum modernization. And new diplomat ic proposals can make a deal for repatriation very attractive for the British Museum and its trustees. We’re now closer to reuniting the mar bles than we’ve ever been. As Pericles once said: “Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time.”

require compromise. The museum has made clear any deal will depend on an acknowledge ment of its ownership. The word ‘loan’ will thus be central to any future agreement, a strategy that allows the trustees to spin the move as an act of charity. However patronizing this arrange ment sounds, it may be the only way to get the marbles back to Greece. A few diplomatic solutions have been proposed.

Give-and-Take

DAVID PINTO B’24 spends too long in museums.

VOLUME 45 ISSUE 01

Under this arrangement, UNESCO brokers a deal between the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum to “loan” the marbles. They are shipped back to Greece and reunited on dis play with the other sculptures in the Acropolis Museum. The length of the loan is unspecified, allowing the marbles to remain in Greece indef initely. This ‘forever loan’ model has been suc cessful in the past, like when the V&A museum ‘lent’ its Head of Eros sculpture to Turkey for an undisclosed amount of time. If this arrangement is still unpalatable to the trustees, the British Museum could create a remote campus to house the marbles in Athens. Of course, there’s a twisted irony to the U.K. loaning items Greece considers its own. But a loan is better than nothing, and once the marbles arrive in Greece, it’s unlikely they’ll ever come back.

Robot Sculptor

To incentivize a deal with the British Museum, Greece could offer something in return for the marbles. Greek officials have suggested a ‘rotating collection’ of priceless Greek antiq uities in exchange. These could include the Mask of Agamemnon, a gold funerary mask from the Bronze Age, considered the Mona Lisa of antiquity. Artifacts such as these would be placed on temporary exhibit at the British Museum, allowing the museum to boast of new attractions never seen outside of Greece. This deal could be portrayed as a ‘partnership’ or a gesture of goodwill between the two countries. As with a loan, the irony of needing to reframe theft as an equal partnership is present. But it must be remembered that the British Museum trustees still hold the leverage, and may need to be coaxed into a deal.

*

young girls–– at’eed old girls–– aszdáán older women–– masání

A young girl, whose name latches uncomfortably on white tongues. They tell her, “Whisper––don’t let your voice echo.” because with her thecomesvoices and names of young girls back home.

Her eyes are soft, if she smiled, they’d crinkle at the edges. If she frowned, they’d flatten and glaze over.

Each with words in their throat, twisting and bursting like strungblueberries,likethe branches of juniper trees grounded between teeth in the crisp morning air cold and damp on their tongues.

Calluses knot her heels. At her feet, sunlight licks her toes.

growingHands yucca plants and yellow rocks, from their fingernails.

In the land’s large palm, its distance the rough edges, make her look so much Mesasmaller.table tops, stacked like hands fingers intertwined, wrinkled and callused. theHandsgirl has held before. theHandsgirl has never seen before.

Dirt mats her shins, andscrapedwet with sweat, Her grandmother’s old coat rests on her shoulders, like hardened clay on her arms, bits of rock and ripped corn stalks peek between the girl’s matted silhouette.

rightinInhaling,outExhaling,andinandout,before they jump.

During times of transition, we long for the lost moments. We call this yearning nostalgia, which can feel like grasping for the absent people, places, objects, and routines—holding onto memories un til they fail to hold us. In this first issue of the Indy Lit, we asked our writers to consider this perennial wistfulness. In response, we received something perhaps unexpected: two reflections on nos talgia for the self as it loses its history within the unstable course of its surroundings. It is a nostalgia for the ongoing, as our selves are always with us even after they have fled. We hope that these pieces remind you of all that you miss now: both the things that have gone and those that remain.

l . TEXT EMERSONDANIELLE DESIGN PANENYA ILLUSTRATION LEBOWITZLUCY

A young girl with skin the shade of the land she calls home. Dark hair the length of her ancestors’ well wishes, tied up with yarn behind her ears.

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y o u n g n a v a j o g i r

DANIELLE EMERSON B’22.5 misses the smell of juni per trees and wet southwest dirt.

whenCrinklingroadside vendors sell her steamed corn. whenFlatteningdrunk fathers and uncles break their promises.

The reservation border, a string pulled, makestaut, her chest hurt. A line she’s forced to walk, palms out, knees locked.

Hands guide them, at’eed, aszdáán, masání, across the string, gripping tight, rubbing coaxing shapes into their tired wrists. Listen closely, to the wind and you can hear them.

Wishing you an open heart you signed your last letter was about falling in love to be quite frank I can’t imagine it and might not even if it was simple and scripted as nature’s course of decay which I know you have experimented with did it feel right as you sense something consuming you it can still resemble fate isn’t it so strange to have all this time and nothing else the raccoon is good for keeping track though the mirrors here are untrustworthy moody and mean I am allowed to go to the grocery store now I love leaving and spending hours away as if life were really happening would I need to run to breathe and where do you go to be gone is your mother eating have you found any animals living or not

LIT 12VOLUME 45 ISSUE 01

EMMA EATON B’24 is not nostalgic about this.

1.

2.

Did you mean it when you said your pockets will be full of stamps from now on I question whether I am reliable a narrator when you stop writing my friend the days get longer and I am drawn taut across the raccoon is still here if you were wondering its little body lasts and lasts a foot off NY-52 the dead grass is growing back around it’s strange to read I think I just miss the world because in truth I am not missing maybe I’ve forgotten how but at least I am learning some things like pacing stamina self-control and what unadulterated time does to the body

Here are the five phases fresh bloat active decay advanced decay skeletonization so the raccoon and I are both getting smaller it is worse to lose control you’d agree and I don’t instead I count steps and heartbeats neither of which roadkill have a rest finally from running and fear and being prey I wonder how this one happened quick easy or otherwise and what might pavement feel like against a body torn

De/compose

TEXT EATONEMMA DESIGN PANENYA ILLUSTRATION LEBOWITZLUCY

I run past the same dead raccoon every day I am watching it rot in the time between our conversations it happens faster still I wish I could take you with me when I go out collecting miles there is so much sky here sometimes I cannot stop going and farther each time maybe to put flesh on the world outside this house where I am only in the literal sense your words do help the shrinking of me I write also to remind this could be temporary

3.

Two other bills introduced last legislative session—H 7691, proposed by Rep. Anastasia Williams (D-Providence), and S 2399, intro duced by Sen. Ana Quezada (D-Providence)— similarly prohibit the use of financial conditions for bail in misdemeanor cases. Williams’ and Quezada’s bills both provide exceptions for domestic violence and situations in which the court deems there is a risk the arrested indi vidual will obstruct justice, not appear for trial, or seek to intimidate a witness.

The bills are part of a nationwide push for cash bail reform that has led 14 states to enact legislation restricting or discouraging monetary bail for minor offenses. Multiple states, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Illinois, have imposed strict prohibitions on the use of monetary conditions for bail in certain cases. This movement began in response to the long spike in pretrial detainment rates that originated with harsher bail policies in the 1970s and ’80s, Shima Baughman, a professor specializing in bail issues at the University of Utah College of Law, told the Indy. “Pretrial detention rates have gone up 433% since 1970,” said Baughman.

Surety bail, on the other hand, provides the defendant with three options for how to satisfy the financial requirement and attain release: posting 10% of the bail amount in cash, posting property of equal value, or using a bail bondsman (someone who intervenes to help pay the bail amount for the defendant).

A 2008 amendment to Rhode Island statute 12-13-10 prohibits cash-only bail except in cases in which the defendant owes restitution payments to the victim of a previous crime. But judges are still allowed to impose monetary conditions for release with surety, meaning defendants can still be forced to pay for their release despite having few or no options to do so.

“I’ll be brief because it has been a very long night,” she began. “Pretrial liberties should not be a question of how much money you have in your bank account.”

FREEDOMINDEPENDENT SHOULD BE FREE

Opponents claim that the legislation would deprive the judiciary of discretion that is used to ensure appearance at trial and protect public safety. “[The courts] are in the best position to examine the unique facts and circumstances of every case because every case is different,” Craig Berke, the director of communications for the Rhode Island Judiciary, told the College Hill

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Supporters of the bill argue monetary condi tions for bail discriminate based on the finan cial means of the individual. “Cash bail is an inherently unjust system because it frees those with money and it incarcerates those without, who are disproportionately people of color,” said Anusha Alles of Direct Action for Rights and Equality while testifying in support of Felix’s bill.

But in her testimony, Felix questioned the objectivity of judicial discretion during the setting of bail. “There is significant research that shows that the imposition of cash bail is arbi trary and…is imposed more harshly on people of color,” Felix said. A 2019 Prison Policy Initiative study, which Felix cited in her fact sheet, found that “Black and Brown defendants receive bail amounts that are twice as high as bail set for white“Itdefendants.”isdisingenuous to say that judges should have that discretion or that authority,” Felix said.

Those who testified in support of Felix’s bill— Steve Brown, the executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island; Mike DiLauro, the director for legislative initiatives for the Rhode Island

Public Defender; and Alles—all highlighted the destructive effects of pretrial detainment, even when it lasts only a couple of days. DiLauro described the loss of housing and employment that detention can cause, while Alles added that incarceration can lead to the loss of child custody and damage an individual’s mental health.

Kathleen Kelly, general counsel for the Rhode Island Supreme Court, submitted written testimony that expanded on the judiciary’s opposition to Felix’s bill, claiming the legisla tion “usurps the constitutional authority of the courts” and would “remove the essential discre tion of the Court in making bail determinations based upon facts, public safety concerns, and the prior criminal history of the accused.” Kelly wrote that the judiciary already presumptively frees defendants on personal recognizance (meaning the release of arrested individuals without any financial precondition) and that the bill would only prevent judges from making exceptions they deem necessary to protect the public and ensure appearance at trial.

But Felix questioned whether monetary conditions of bail actually make people more likely to return for trial. She cited studies of New Jersey and Washington D.C., where restrictions on the judiciary’s use of cash bail were enacted, which showed that defendants’ rate of appear ance after the reforms was similar or superior to the rate before the legislation was passed.

As the March 3 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee approached its fifth hour, Rep. Leonela Felix (D-Pawtucket) arrived at the lectern, donning a cream blazer over a black shirt emblazoned with “End Ca$h Bail” and with a mask in her pocket that read “Freedom should be free.” She was there to present a bill that would prohibit judges from setting cash or surety bail for people arrested on misdemeanor offenses.

Felix’s bill, H 7353, allows judges to impose “non-monetary conditions” for bail, including community supervision, treatment programs, schooling, and employment—but the legislation would prohibit any financial condition, according to a fact sheet Felix distributed to lawmakers.

In Rhode Island, cash bail, or more precisely cash-only bail, refers to the imposed require ment that an arrested individual pay a finan cial sum in order to be released prior to their trial. That sum is returned when the individual appears for trial, but can be forfeited if they miss a court date or commit another crime. To fulfill cash bail, the defendant must pay the full bail amount the judge sets.

In Rhode Island, pretrial detainments have occurred frequently over the years, even for misdemeanor offenses. According to the results of an public records request filed by the Rhode Island Public Defender, 4,063 arrests in Rhode Island for misdemeanor offenses between 2015 and 2017 resulted in the defendant being detained pretrial for an inability to post cash or surety bail. The vast majority of these detain ments lasted fewer than five days, before the defendant eventually managed to post bail.

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According to the Prison Policy Initiative, more than 400,000 people are now being detained pretrial across the country and 67% of the people held in city and county jails have not yet received their trial.

Pretrial detainment also has a negative impact on defendants’ trial outcomes. Writing in the Boston University Law Review in 2018, Baughman argued that the detained have more difficulty meeting with counsel, finding witnesses, and researching laws. Additionally, those who have already been detained are more likely to plead guilty to avoid continued impris onment. One study Baughman cited found that defendants who are detained pretrial in federal court face sentences longer by an average of 39 months. Baughman explained that judges are more likely to dismiss charges for defen dants who have been released pretrial, partially because judges have a second chance to examine a defendant’s pretrial behavior and determine whether the individual is, in their eyes, a ‘productive’ member of society. This opportu nity, afforded only to people released pretrial, is yet another instance where being unable to pay bail can undermine an incarcerated person’s freedom.What’s more, Baughman said, subjecting individuals to this kind of detainment makes people more likely to commit another crime in the future. “Even a couple of days of detention [can] make a person 30-40% more likely to recidivate,” she said, as the loss of housing or employment during detention can push people to commit crimes out of economic necessity.

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Independent.

sure you don’t go anywhere? The reality is it is more effective to use an ankle bracelet. What does the money have to do with anything?”

And after a federal judge eliminated cash bail for misdemeanor cases in Harris County, Texas, the county experienced a 6% decrease

Neronha acknowledged the socioeco nomic prejudice inherent in requiring payment for release, but said he didn’t know how else to protect members of the public from the purported threat of certain released individuals. “There is a level of unfairness to that, [but] I don’t have any easy solutions,” he said.

In the view of other officials, monetary conditions for bail not only have an impact on trial appearance, but also on public safety. Given that Rhode Island allows for defendants to be held without bail only for capital offenses and probation violations, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told the Indy that bail acts as a “stand-in” to ensure the detention of people whom the state deems “so dangerous that to put them back on the street regardless of the charge” would ostensibly endanger public safety.

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NICHOLAS MILLER B’24 is a fan of Felix’s sartorial statements.

in new prosecutions of individuals in the three years following their arrest, according to a 2022 study by the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania.Despitethis national evidence, appeals to public safety—and qualifiers like ‘dangerous’— continue to thwart bail reform efforts.

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“Flight risk is extremely low,” Baughman said. “So few defendants are actually fleeing and purposely escaping their trial date.” She added that sending text reminders or postcards, as Washington D.C. and other jurisdictions have done, has proven to be a far more effective strategy to improve attendance rate at trials.

But Berke, the judiciary spokesman, told the Indy that a financial bail amount, paid by the defendant, a family member, or a bondsman does deter people from fleeing. “Somebody is on the hook for that money and it’s money that the state would use presumably to help cover the cost of trying to find [the defendant if he or she fled],” he said, gesturing to the instrumental role bail plays as a source of revenue for the state.

Despite these limitations, if a version of Felix’s bill were to eventually overcome its opposition, it would provide immediate relief for those within the criminal legal system and communities with high rates of poverty, said Hannah Stern, a policy associate at the ACLU of Rhode Island. “I think this is one of those pieces of legislation that does actually help us reframe the way we think about the criminal justice system,” she said. “Community reintegration is a critical part of ensuring that people who are justice-involved are able to go back to having an enriching life.”

Unlike Felix’s bill, Rep. Williams’ (who on Tuesday lost her primary to 26-year-old chal lenger Enrique Sanchez) and Sen. Quezada’s bills both include a specific provision to allow for the Courts to impose financial conditions for release in cases of domestic violence. Williams said she included that exception because of the difficulty domestic violence victims face in escaping their attackers. “I felt that needed to be looked at a lot closer,” she said.

All three bills were held for further study and were not voted on before the end of the legis lative session in June, delaying any legislative action on bail reform until the state legislature reconvenes in January 2023. Felix said in March that she would meet with court officials, public defenders, and advocates to discuss how the bill can be improved and to create “consensus among all parties,” adding that legislative leadership is hesitant to enact laws that the Courts strongly oppose. “It’s just a lot of negotiation, and if it doesn’t happen this time around, we keep the bills alive next session,” she said.

In the case of domestic violence specifically, advocacy groups like Survived and Punished and Critical Resistance offer insight into how prisons can harm rather than protect survi vors. For example, according to Survived and Punished, “nearly 60% of people in women’s prisons nationwide, and as many as 94% of some women’s prison populations, have a history of physical or sexual abuse before being incarcerated.” Moreover, 80% of sexual assault victims are afraid of contacting the police, and around 97.5% of perpetrators don’t face charges, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Instead, many advocates argue for investments in community safety structures that support the housing, financial, and emotional needs of “We’resurvivors.notsaying release that person and call it a day,” Felix said in reference to her bail legislation. She argues that other tools protect victims more effectively than financial require ments. “Let’s say you were accused of domestic violence against your partner. What is more effective: for you to give the court $10,000 or for me to put an ankle bracelet [on you] and make

Recent studies of other U.S. jurisdictions that enacted similar bail reforms suggest that the concerns about public safety are unfounded. Both before and after New York State enacted prohibitions on cash bail in most misdemeanor and nonviolent felony cases, fewer than 1% of the people released pretrial were rearrested for violent felonies, according to New York City’s fiscal watchdog.

Ankle bracelets carry unique concerns for advocates, though. A 2021 George Washington University Law School report argues that such electronic monitoring is “not an alternative to incarceration” but rather “an alternative form of incarceration.” These technologies “restrict movement, limit privacy, undermine family and social relationships, jeopardize financial secu rity and result in repeated loss of freedom,” the authors write. Moreover, “unlike traditional models of probation and parole, electronic surveillance is more intensive, restrictive and dependent on private surveillance companies that are driven by profit motive.”

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Moshfegh began her Lapvona press tour on June 21st at the Center for Fiction in New York City, where she was interviewed by John Waters. “The press this week called you the Empress of Filth,” Waters gleefully remarks to Moshfegh, his pencil-thin mustache covering a toothy smile. “You aren’t trying to steal my title, are you?”

While Waters delivered this line with his signa ture, sarcastic affect, there is truth to his senti ment. The two artists fulfill similar roles within their respective creative fields: Waters being the 1970s arbiter of filth, and Moshfegh being the contemporary.

Throughout his disgusting career, the Baltimorean director John Waters has built a cult following from his filthy films. Despite international bans and numerous bad reviews, his campy, dirty films have become fixtures of queer cinema, establishing filth as a staple of the genre. But it is no longer the 1970s and Waters is no longer producing films. So, with the decline of the once-dubbed “King of Trash,” there must be a filthy contemporary to rise as the protégé of puke.

In an artistic sense, filth can be thought of as a diagnostic tool. Filth serves as a cultural thermometer, allowing the author to take the temperature of whatever they find sick in the world. But a fever doesn’t stay in one place forever; it spreads from person to person, devel oping new and complex strains, spreading even faster when the conditions are dirty. While piss and puke are forever, a temperature taken in 1972 will read differently from one taken in 2022.

Filth, similar to camp—defined by Susan Sontag in her 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp’” as a sensibility prioritizing exaggeration, irony, and playfulness—can be both “deliberate” or “naive,” with the former being more satisfying to the audience. Naive filth is filth without a purpose, filth without care. Vomit for vomit’s sake, shit for shit’s sake. Naive filth is uninten tional, and thus unsatisfying. Waters echoes a similar point in his book, Shock Value: “It’s easy to disgust someone; I could make a nine ty-minute film of people getting their limbs hacked off, but this would be bad bad taste and not very stylish or Sontagoriginal.”arguesthat the defining characteristic of camp is “a seriousness that fails.” Similarly, if camp and filth are two sides of the same ridiculous coin, filth can be viewed as insincerity that succeeds. To clarify, filth is an aesthetic lens of viewing the world that borrows from a visual language of deviancy—drag queen supermarket shoplifting (Pink Flamingos), or shitting on the floor of an art gallery (My Year of Rest and Relaxation). Deliberate filth, filth which knows itself to be filth, is then able to subvert initial hesitation by creating entertainment. Again borrowing from Shock Value, Waters notes a difference between good-bad taste, and bad-bad taste: “ To under stand bad taste one must have very good taste. Good-bad taste can be creatively nauseating but must appeal to the especially twisted sense of humor.”Inthe closing scene of Pink Flamingos, Waters uses deliberate filth. Deliberate filth is grounded in political motivations, the intentional choices behind the disgusting. Through the stylization and characterization of Divine—exaggerated drag make-up, a sleeveless, gray cocktail dress, and a hairline that starts on the crown of her forehead—Waters is creating an amplification of typical queer visual signaling. Waters simul taneously critiques queer respectability while producing a sensory shock, where we want to

Ottessa Moshfegh first rose to notoriety with her debut novel, Eileen, later gaining a younger, online fanbase through her apathetic lit-fic hit, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Her novels are mostly first person, typically following a young, cynical narrator, with Moshfegh describing the appeal of her writing as “seeing Kate Moss take a shit. People love that kind of stuff.” Much like the visual Moshfegh has modeled for us, the characters in her novels are often white and young, often wealthy and beautiful, and almost always full of shit. Moshfegh’s writing focuses on finding solace—and maybe even pleasure—in the darker parts of the human experience. As writer and critic Andrea Long Chu writes in her Vulture review of Moshfegh’s latest novel, Lapvona, Moshfegh’s work suggests that “disgust does not preclude delight—and, in fact, it often enhances it.”

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Time is not the only thing that affects an artist’s filth; filth is a disgusting intersection of an artist’s biases. Waters’ filth is a male filth, a gay filth, a working-class filth, a campy filth. Moshfegh’s filth is contemporary, it is online, it is middle class and sexually normative.

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On March 17th, 1972, audiences at the University of Baltimore—gathered together for the premiere of a new film—were shocked at what was on their screen: drag queen Divine, decorated in grotesque makeup and costume, eating fresh dog shit directly off the Baltimore sidewalk, staring directly into the camera, smiling. This shocking scene ended John Waters’ 1972 film, Pink Flamingos, leaving his audience appalled, offended, and intrigued.

look away, but we just can’t. It is a labor of filthy love to make shit-eating watchable. It is the set-up into a dirty, dirty punchline.

On Ottessa Moshfegh, John Waters, and filth

Waters, being born in the mid 1940s, takes his temperature anally and focuses his filth mostly on what comes out. With his films, he takes the temperature of both gay men and straight men alike. If filth is an antinormative tool, then the norms that Waters chooses to critique with his films are heteronormativity and homonormativity.Heteronormativity is the ideal that straight people, and more importantly straight cultural conventions, are the correct way of being. Queerness and queer people, excluded from this categorization, are left othered and outcast. The defiance of this normalcy is what queered queer into exis tence. What Waters does with his filth is create a grotesquely queer image, one where queer visuals and filthy visuals are so interwoven that they become difficult to separate. Once he has created this dirty amalgamation, he places them into nuclear spaces: the kitchen, the nursery, the living room Christmas morning. Through this queasy combination, Waters disrupts the nuclear setting, visually challenging who is typically seen in these spaces, creating shock, humor, and sometimes even vomit. This deadly combination is what makes the character of Divine: murderous drag queen, femme fatale. Singer. Homemaker. Shit-eater.Thewaters are murkier with homonor mativity, as this belief system can be hidden amongst seemingly antinormative practices. This (shitty) ideology believes that the goal of gay and trans-rights activism should be assimilation into a heterosexual world, where the cultural char acteristics of the normative straight population should be taken on by gay and trans people in exchange for civil protections. This vision is one of acquiescence, where queer culture is sacrificed

When examining filth in art, filth is often literal filth: dirt and puke and piss and shit. But when examined broadly, filth is an antinormative device, where the grotesque assumes the role of the political. By reaching for the lowest common denominator of dirty imagery, artists are able to use such visuals subversively, challenging their audiences’ perceptions of whom and what we often conceive of as filthy.

for respectability amongst those who have the ability and desire to assimilate. But what about those who cannot assimilate into a heterosexual mode of operation? For Waters, filth provides an answer to this question, or rather a rejection to the question entirely.

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A main example of Moshfegh’s filth is clin ical psychiatry. While Moshfegh often likes to keep her politics hidden, saying that she “never intends for her work to be political,” Moshfegh believes that the world is shitty and that the answer is not medication. Within her novels, this is clearest in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, where the unnamed narrator abuses sleeping pills. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Tuttle, is naive, unaware, and always eager to prescribe. As she says to Waters in their interview, “You can walk in [to a clinic] and they’re already writing Prozac.” Moshfegh’s filth manifesting as psychiatry does not present itself in a typical ‘Watersian’ fashion, instead trying to create a sense of disgust through the mundanity of the situation. Moshfegh creates a sense of filth without the dirty, shitty without the shit. But this internal, moralistic filth that Moshfegh is trying to exercise may be even dirtier than Waters’ literal version.

chooses to make dirty in her work. Through her reliance on depraved narration, she ends up producing a lot of depraved text. It is up to her reader to decide for themselves whether or not their delight outweighs their disgust. Moshfegh herself does not care.++

All that we are left with is dirt. + +

In the words of Moshfegh in conver sation with Waters: “People love talking about shit. They are using us talking about shit as an opportunity to talk about it.” So maybe it is not that audiences are necessarily adverse to filth, but rather that they are adverse to their own enjoyment of it.

Waters and Moshfegh are not tricking their readers into enjoying their filth. Instead, they are curating their filth in a way that gives their readers the comfort to act on a desire they have always had. They want to witness humanity’s darkest moments, but through a controlled, morally sound medium—a politically correct way to experience the politically incorrect.

In all of this conversation surrounding piss and shit, why is it that an audience might want to engage with filthy art? The answer may be quite simple: that it is human nature to be curious about filth.

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If a line can be drawn between enjoyment and repulsion, filth allows us to take this distinc tion, queer it, and then shit on it. Filth is not a doctrine but a device to be used deliberately, as things can easily get messy. So if you are inter ested in walking down the hot, asphalt streets of Baltimore, or perhaps Spring-Breaking in Lapvona, I might put a towel down first.

As a critique of heteronormativity, Waters’ use of filthy queer characters exacerbates stereo type to the point of absurdity, showing the filth and horror in the prejudice of queer individ uals, rather than in the individuals themselves. Conversely, the conflation of queerness and filth serves as an antihomonormative practice, where the straight cultural conventions needed for assimilation are dramatically rejected through acts of filth. Filth, serving as the antithesis of respectability, allows for the loudest and dirtiest possible rejection of gay assimilation.

Lapvona utilizes naive filth, in contrast to Moshfegh’s earlier work. The filth in Lapvona, while intentional, is not political, or at least does not have a unified focus of critique. Instead of aligning her filth with a specific politic, she has cast a wide, shit-covered net, using any and all filthy visuals and images. What we are left with is just gross: erotic breast feeding, animal massacre, pube-eating…sorry. This disgustingness, though, is not without an objective. Rather than choosing to critique using deliberate filth, the newest Moshfegh is instead utilizing naive filth to serve her own personal interests.With Lapvona, rather than trying to make an argument through her filth, Moshfegh is trying to protect her ability to say whatever she wants. Due to the online nature of celebrity, Moshfegh has a much more direct relationship to critique than Waters ever did. Lapvona is Moshfegh’s rejection of political correctness and online respectability, reaching for the zenith of filth to prove that she is the one in control of her voice, not her critics on Twitter.

CHARLIE MEDEIROS B’24 is queasy.

But just because Moshfegh has chosen these topics as the subjects of her filth, that does not mean that these topics are morally soiled. Critiques of Moshfegh are often over what she

While Moshfegh may write that “Lapvona dirt is good dirt,” in the end, the dirt was not good enough to save Lapvona from its own filth. Much like the absent Lord Villam, watching Lapvona from atop his manor on the hill, Moshfegh has dropped us into the town of Lapvona with no promise of assis tance and no ability to escape, no means of pleasure and no justification for its absence.

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In conversations of filth, the topic usually falls on excretions: piss, shit, puke. Yuck. But in her work, Moshfegh also makes time for the filth we put in our mouths: food, alcohol, pills, men. Issues of self-image plague Moshfegh’s charac ters, from laxative-abusing Eileen to the repet itive “I’m skinny” utterances of My Year of Rest and Relaxation’s narrator. Alcohol abuse weighs over her novella, McGlue and her short story, “Bettering Myself.”

Lapvona represents a tonal change for Moshfegh. Where some of Moshfegh’s earlier works—My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands—deal with 21st-cen tury filth, Lapvona centers around a fictionalized medieval peasant village, where filth is more literal: village massacres and canni balism, as compared to pill-popping and body-checking.

sacrifices a degree of control she has over her story, inserting her disgust at the expense of the readers’ delight. To create good filth, one must understand what makes bad filth so unsatis fying. Moshfegh is still learning this scripture, preaching her filthy sermons while still waiting to be confirmed.

Moshfegh’s use of naive filth is why Lapvona may feel tonally different than her previous work—and why it probably feels worse. Worse, in this instance, refers both to morality and enjoyability. In a rejection of any attempt at poli tics, Lapvona embraces gratuitousness. Through sacrificing her desire to be political, Moshfegh

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SCARIES!SEPTEMBERPresents...

Love, Counselor in Need of Counsel

Obviously it’s not perfectly parallel. You’d have to change some of the lyrics in “Summer Loving” to “spring semester loving” and that would ruin the syllables and the rhythm of the song. But one key ele ment remains the same: after some time apart, two lovers are reunited at school on very uncertain terms! And you already have an advantage over Sandy and Danny—they had no idea they were going to see each other again. At least you can form a plan!

Dear Spring Flung,

Dear Indie,

You have the rest of your life to get a boring, urine-free, well-paid job. You managed to evade the selling of your soul to a corporate cubicle for another summer, which seems like a win to me. I bet some employ ers value the skill set that one develops as a camp counselor, maybe. And if you’re still really worried about your resume, you could look for an internship to do during the school year. There’s no reason to feel inferior to your friends, who all seem like sellouts and kind of annoying anyway.Asfor the staph infection, I would try to not be so vocal about that.

Dear Counselor in Need of Counsel,

I’m excited to be back at school, but there’s something making me a little worried. While all of my friends spent the summer doing very legitimate internships in tech and finance, I spent the summer being a counselor for eight-year-olds at a sleep away camp. It seems like everyone else left their summer gig with a huge paycheck and invaluable work experience, but I left mine with $300 and a staph infection. I’m starting to feel a little regretful and even a little inferi or. Did I waste a really important opportunity?

Ah, summer: warm weather like a breath of relief or a nurturing hug; ecstatic trips to the beach, with its refreshing, purifying ocean; the joy of reuniting with high school friends; the comfort of returning to a familiar hometown; the feeling of endless freedom, with one warm, infinite night following endlessly after the other; a rainbow-sprinkled ice cream cone whose cold, sweet taste, for one fleeting moment, reminds you of being a child again.

Dear Indie,

Grease is actually a great model of what not to do in a situation like this. When Danny and Sandy are reunited for the first time, he acts like a complete dick to her, brushing off their steamy, romantic time togeth er in Australia like it never happened. You don’t need to play it cool. In fact, the whole plot of the movie probably could have been avoided (which honestly maybe it should have been, unless you think stuff like a musical number about quitting cosmetology school is a normal and valuable thing to have in a movie) if Danny had just been upfront about being excited to see Sandy again.

Love, Spring Flung

Well, that’s over, so welcome back to Dear Indy!*

I think I understand the source of your panic. There’s only so many times you can delete a “Final Week to Share Your Summer Info!” email from Brown CareerLAB before you start to question everything. When you’re worried that you’ve made a grave, fu ture-jeopardizing mistake, not even the tantalizing Echo-Dot-atthe-end-of-the-tunnel can compel you to trudge through the Career LAB Summer Plans Survey.

Last spring I was involved with a casual but pretty consistenthookup. It was really fun, but now that school is starting upagain, I’m getting a little nervous about seeing them. We neverdefined or labeled our situation, even when we said goodbye forthe summer. I would be open to hooking up again, but I don’tknow what to expect at the start of the semester. Should I tryto start things back up? Should I play it cool and wait for themto approach me? Or should I just move on?

So my advice is: if you’re still into it, ask them to hang out again. If their response is lukewarm or negative, take the hint and move on. Moral of the story is you’ll still have preserved your dignity, which is way better than Grease’s moral of the story, “change your entire person ality to impress the guy you like.” If their response is enthusiastic, that’s great! Ride away in a flying car together. While you’re hanging out, you can even initiate a conversation about what you’re looking for out of the hookup. Remember, there are only seven stories, and the conflict of every single one of them could most likely be solved with a little plot device called “open communication.”

* To clarify: The Indy is the publication, which is why the column is called “Dear Indy,” while I, Indie, am the columnist. If this is too confusing, you can read the Brown Daily Herald instead.

If you spent your summer at all like I did (interning remotely for Tesla, trav eling bi-weekly between Ibiza and Mallorca by helicopter), you might be ready for a change of pace in the fall. Or, like this week’s advice-seeking readers, you might have some reservations about the start of the school year. Transitions can be diffi cult, so it’s a good thing I’m an expert at them. See how seamlessly I’m transition ing into this week’s first question?

They say there’s only seven stories—that is, seven basic narrative structures in all of storytelling. Some people take it even further and say that there’s only one story. (If you’re thinking to yourself, “that sounds pretty incorrect,” it might be! But bear with me.) I mention this for two reasons: one, because I’m certain you aren’t the only reader who’s ever fallen into this predicament and that many of you out there might be experiencing the same story; two, because this question kind of reminds me of the plot of Grease!

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While I have never been a camp counselor, I did once babysit for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, so I think I can probably empathize with your experience. Taking care of kids is difficult, and it teaches you a lot about life! Just because you didn’t make a gazillion dollars or get to wear a nametag/ID badge on a lanyard doesn’t mean your summer wasn’t valuable. For one, you did it for the children! No one has ever made a good argument against something for the children. But I’m also sure it must have transformed or affected you in some way, too, maybe by helping you learn how to live in the world with a renewed sense of wonder, or by helping you learn how to clean up a bunk bed that has been very thoroughly peed in.

Re*generation is an initiative centering around education—particularly working to unite, support and empower people of color within this realm. Re*generation meetups are a great way to get involved and learn about the Location:initiative!The Industrious Spirit Company, 1 Sims Avenue #103 Providence, RI 02909

+ Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness Donate at https://www.rihomeless.org/donate

Consider contributing to the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness. These funds go toward the distribution of resources to Rhode Island’s homeless population, creating access to housing-ready documents, reducing barriers to court-assistance, funding training for service providers, building legislative champions, and more!

Location: Warren Alpert Medical School

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Audition for the Theater Arts & Performance Studies’ November play! No prior acting experience is needed, so feel free to sign up here. Otherwise, keep an eye out for their performance times later in the fall.

Location: Stuart Theater

+ Support Graduate Students at Risk Donate at http://tinyurl.com/support-grads

Arts

19BULLETIN THE COLLEGE HILL

Jeremiah Zablon, Karina Santamaria, and Clew are three graduate students at risk of not being able to complete their degree programs at Brown due to tuition cost. Each of these students have contributed to Brown’s research and educa tional mission—Jeremiah having worked for Brown his entire time as a student. Help these students cover some of their tuition costs as they fight for fair pay and their degrees!

Friday 9/16 @ 7 PM: Illusions, the Show

Brown’s Bereavement Group is an informal group setting that welcomes all students who are seeking support for grief and loss. This group is not clinical nor religious, and is discussion-based with tea and treats.

Sunday 9/18 All Day: Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration

+ 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. National Physician Suicide Awareness Day Program

Support sex workers statewide, priority given to BIPOC sex workers, trans sex workers, and sex workers who have been impacted the pandemic

+ Ocean State A$$ Mutual Aid Fund Donate at https://tinyurl.com/oceanstateass

Upcoming Actions & Community Events

Join the The Warren Alpert Medical School in acknowledging National Physician Suicide Awareness Day. The events throughout the day are as follows:

Location: Butler Hospital Campus

+ Providence Covid Relief Fund Donate at https://projectlets.org/covid19

Saturday 9/17 @ 12 - 5 PM: Rhode Island’s 44th Annual Heritage Festival

Location: Symposium Books Roof Deck 240, Westminster Street Providence, RI 02903

BULLEINDEPENDENT

This unique festival displays various Rhode Islanders’ cultures and creative talents. Rhode Island heritage groups will set up cultural exhibits, present visual art, and host craft demonstrations from all over the world. Come stop by for food and drink and the myriad cultures RI has to offer!

Pop out to celebrate Rhode Island queerness in its most extravagant form! Whether you’re looking for a celebration or just a fun night out, Illusions is the drag show to see. Watch some celebrity impersonations, eat, drink, play, and enjoy. General admission tickets cost $30, get them here.

Location: Lit Lounge Nightclub, 971 Broad Street, Providence

Location: Goddard Memorial State Park Beach

Thursday 9/22 @ 5:30PM: Re*generation September Meetup

Saturday 9/17 @ 1:30-3:30PM: Poetry Healing & Activism Experience

+ 10 - 11 a.m. Out of the Darkness Northern RI Walk

Location: The WaterFire Arts Center, 475 Valley St, Providence

Combining poetry and advocacy, this is a workshop where individuals have the opportunity to participate in reading discussion led by poets, write, and share their poetry with one another. Additionally, participants have the opportunity to submit their pieces for publication in a zine.

Friday 9/16-18 @ 6-10 PM: Audition for Sock & Buskin’s Two Mile Hollow

Project Let’s Erase The Stigma (LETS) is working in coalition with various grassroots organizations in Rhode Island to support marginalized groups in our community. All donations will directly help individuals, children, and families meet their basic needs.

Saturday 9/17 @ 9AM: 2022 American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA) Rhode Island Optimism Walk

Do you have an event, action, or other information for the Providence community that you’d like to see shared on this page? Email us at indybulletinboard@gmail.com!

Location: The Bell Gallery in the List Art Building

Hosted annually, the APDA Optimism Walk is a walking fundraising event to mobilize people to aid in the effort to end Parkinson’s disease. In addition to the walk, the event has activities and music.

Saturday 9/17 @10-1:30PM: National Physician Suicide Awareness Day Events

+ 11:45 a.m - 12:30 p.m. National Physician Suicide Awareness Day Luncheon

Mutual aid* & community fundraisers

This art exhibition, featured daily until December 18th, portrays and explores the relationship between the US prison system and visual art. There is no cost to attend the exhibit.

Location: Warren Alpert Medical School

Location: Page-Robinson 411, 61 Brown St, Providence

Friday 9/16 @ 7:30 PM: Bereavement Group

*Mutual aid is “survival pending on revolution,” as described by the Black Panthers. Join in redistributing wealth to create an ecosystem of care in response to a system of institutions that have failed or harmed our communities.