Grape Issue 1 Fall 2021

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Vol. 69 NO. 1

OBERLIN’S ALTERNATIVE STUDENT NEWSPAPER EST. 1999 October 15, 2021

Priya Banerjee and Levi Dayan Co-Editors-in-Chief

Liza MacKeen Shapiro Opinions Editor

Anna Harberger Layout Editor

Izzy Halloran Managing Editor

Saffron Forsberg Arts and Culture Editor

Eva Sturm-Gross Art Director

Wyatt Camery Features Editor

Juli Freedman Bad Habits Editor

ISSUE ONE COVER ART

Front Cover: Henley Childress Back Cover: Molly Sheffield ‘20

Letter from the former (ex) Editor-in-Chief P.J. McCormick ‘20 (Ex) Editor-in-Chief Almost no one cares to hear about your college experience. Save for a few friends or roommates savoring the odd anecdote about getting bombed in public, trying to relate the specific place names, geography, attitude, and cast of characters of one’s experiences at Oberlin College and Conservatory will generally fall flat if your audience does not consist of one or more of your closest college friends.

Which isn’t to argue that this phenomenon is Oberlin specific. How many times have you tuned out of a hometown friend’s story about meeting their friend [Gender Non-Specific Name] at [College Town Coffee Shop] without realizing they’d ingested [Copious THC Dosage] before their meeting with [3 More Friends/ Acquaintances Whose Inclusion in The Story is Meant to be Inherently Funny, but the Joke is Lost On You], all on Parent’s Weekend!

You don’t fault your friend for trying to relate their experience, just as they don’t fault you for trying to relate yours. Maybe you’ve even tried to bridge the divide with nights out over October break (does this still exist?) with both parties invited — delegates of your high school class and your Oberlin scene. Maybe there was magic in the air, and beer in some cups, and everyone made fast friends. Or maybe everyone involved had to ask you the next day “what was the name of your friend again who you brought last night?” Both options are acceptable because that’s just How It Goes.

This is to say: whether you have a lovely time at Oberlin

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and made lots of great friends, your classes and extracurriculars were fulfilling, your sex life was optimal for your preferences, and you dreaded the day you have to leave, or your 100-follower-count Twitter is full of you cursing the day the school was founded, the apathy of the student body, the posers, New York City kids, religion hipsters, cigarette smoke, and cowboy hats, no one will ever fully understand what you’re talking about besides your fellow members of the Oberlin student body. Good, bad, fine, or dreadful — your classmates are your best chance for being understood.

When you live in Brooklyn, Oberlin diaspora is everywhere. On a night out with your roommates, it’s entirely possible to run into your ex (and former EIC of The

Grape) and a close friend (and also a former EIC of The Grape) minutes apart at the same bar. And much like Oberlin, the bar might suck. The music might be bad, and you might realize you’ve had a few too many drinks to be trying to do clever bon mots and that maybe you should try shutting the fuck up for a second. These feelings are familiar.

This week, as my friends and I prepare to return for our belated graduation, I’m not expecting a lot. To know Oberlin is to know that it’ll find ways to let you down.

But there is one certainty: at Oberlin, I’ll be recognized.

Not only by the administration, finding time to read my name aloud as I walk across the stage, but by my friends, who shared in my experience, warts and all.

Welcome Back: What The Grape Editors have been up to over September break

Levi, Editor-in-chief: I spent most of September chilling around my house, going to shows at Rhizome (one of the few remaining DC spaces that regularly hosts experimental / free jazz / free improv type shows) and hanging out with the few friends I have who still live in town. Towards the end I went to NYC for a few days with the main intention of going to as many jazz / free improv shows as I possibly could. Many of these shows were free and outdoors, and while most of the shows were ones I knew about ahead of time, there were many I only learned about the day of the show. Pretty much all of them could rank among the best shows I’ve been to in my life, they were fucking amazing, but seeing the group Natural Information Society with William Parker as a special guest was a legitimate out-of-body experience for me.

Priya, Editor-in-chief: Hi guys this is Priya! This past September I was stranded in Oberlin for so long! I rescued a cat from outside and he lives inside now. I went to Chicago and turned 22 years old! Then I went to Philadelphia and saw a boyfriend and a best friend. I watched three seasons of the L Word. Drank 1 beer every night.

Art by Priya Banerjee

Izzy: Managing Editor: Over my break, I took a few trips to the Big Apple to visit some friends. At the end of the month I was supposed to visit my best friend Ila in Los Angeles, and instead, was delayed 9 and a half hours at the airport ranked the worst airport in the entire world (Newark International Airport :-(). Almost spent $25 on a bowl of pasta...but held myself back. There’s something about Newark that inspires unlikely friendships... made 2 best friends from NYU, and got a second boyfriend.

Also sent off some fire tweets. Kind of an epic September.

Wyatt, Features Editor: I got to hang at home, soak up the sun, see some phenomenal live music, and most notably, my friends from Oberlin visited me at home for the first time, which was a total trip!

Liza, Opinions Editor: I spent my September break at home with my family. A few friends visited me and we got up to all sorts of fun!

Juli, Bad Habits Editor: So I got these really cool shoes for $12 at crossroads (honestly, scammers) because the sole on one of them was basically falling off.

The guy at the counter was even like “do you really want these?” Bitch they were vintage Harley-Davidson of course I want them. Little did they know I could just take them to a cobbler up the street and get them fixed super easy, right? WRONG. The cobbler was nice and all but the shoes only lasted a few days until not one, but both of the soles were falling off! So I took them to a different cobbler in Burbank, which is not the farthest thing in the world, but you know, not my neighborhood cobbler (enemy). And this girl cobbler (slay) kept it so real with me. She was like hey since the stitching on the shoe is fake, all we can do is glue it and hope for the best (sad).

She basically ripped the shoes apart in front of me and then told me I could get the price when I picked them up. But then I left for Oberlin, and I keep getting texts like hey your shoes are ready! And then I screenshot the

texts and send them to my mom, but, you know, she’s busy. And my brother apparently is also too busy idk being a boy in love with his gf (who I am “not allowed to follow on Instagram” because of “what happened last time”). Should I ask Sophie to pick up the shoes for me?

It’s not that far from the valley. Actually, it is probably closer to her than to me. Should I be like hey can you put these aside until what, November? December? I might as well have died. These were supposed to be my senior year grand entrance shoes (amazing buckle) but now I am just crying myself to sleep every night thinking about every shoe in America that doesn’t have a home, you feel? Anyways, fun break love life wtf am I gonna do after college.

Anna, Layout Editor: ​​went to the roswell ufo museum and even faced my big fear of caves in new mexico :) best. road trip. ever.

Saffron, Arts and Culture Editor: At the beginning of our little break, I trudged on back to my Texas hometown to see my family for a couple weeks. It had been a while! My mom and I got marg-drunk and cried over three hour movies, which is what we always do when I find my way back in town again. I also got to spend time with my dad and his kindly stoner girlfriend who was very enabling of my rambling, overly sincere art analysis at the Menil Collection in Houston. Then, after two weeks in my hometown and a seven hour layover in Atlanta, I was back in Oberlin all by my lonesome—it was pretty alright! I crashed at our dear EIC and Managing Editor, Priya and Izzy’s place, and took care of Priya’s charming kitty, Stringbean. We never became the best of friends, but he’d sit in the windowsill and watch me paint for hours. What a guy! I also took lots of little night walks around Oberlin when nobody was around, and got acquainted with some older Oberlin-ites with great stories to tell. It felt quite Jarmusch-ian at times. Hi Levi.

Eva, Art Director: My break was jam packed with excitement but not worth the stress of travel and navigating Jewish Holidays. Next time I’m gonna stay with my family in Vermont and savor what little time I have left with Chi-Chi, my elderly dog.

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Tales of 16th Grade Nothing: An Early Semester Reflection Wyatt Camery Features Editor

Well we’re back for another semester at Oberlin, and if you’re like me (a college 4th year), it’s your third semester in a row (without a typical winter/summer break). Despite the temporal proximity of each of those semesters, each has had a distinct look and feel, and it has already become very clear to me that this semester will continue that trend.

Covid-19 has made a greater comeback than our hometown Cleveland Cavaliers against the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Finals (if you want more basketball content, read my article in Arts & Culture on the NBA and their vaccination issues). While the elite group who was on campus over the summer got to experience a liberating, albeit brief, respite from ObieSafe’s stringent policy, we all must reckon with renewed uncertainty.

In case you haven’t heard, we’ve been instructed to wear masks inside and outside, unless in our place of residence. I’ve heard much talk of how this is overboard and not how COVID works, which I cannot agree or disagree with, but to be fair, it does make sense to be as safe as possible for the first two weeks or so in the hopes that we can return to the freedom and safety some of us got the chance to feel on campus this summer.

There are many frustrating side effects of this policy: only grab and go dining options (outside of OSCA), social anxiety over what you and your friends are comfortable with, recognizing new people, and also it’s really hot in October and my upper lip is sweating... Everyone without an approved religious or health exemption must receive the vaccine, and, as of October 4, 90% of campus is vaccinated (including students, faculty, and staff), with 92.8% of students vaccinated. Of all 2,260 tests administered from August 9 through October 3, six people have tested positive, amounting to a 0.23% positivity rate. These mandates and statistics make me feel optimistic for a fun, safe, and mostly Covid-free semester and academic year. I’m no Fauci though - I’m actually a humanities student so it’s really hard for me to make sense of all this science-y stuff. Moving on to campus culture…

I may not be the Fauci of campus culture either: I keep seeing posters for fun events that seem to have taken place

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the weekend before classes began, so I missed all of those. It still seems like lots of exciting things are happening or are going to happen. This semester marks the return of OSCA, which has meant uncertainty about getting a full meal until elected positions shake out in each co-op.

Con students are bringing their wonderful music back to campus, which means exciting concerts, collaborations, and of course, jazz parties. Outside artists are coming to campus more, too. Classes are in person, if you can count that as culture.

I’m unequipped to report on any specific events nor can I advertise anything coming up, but I did hear that the Grape is hiring staff writers, so that’s reason to celebrate.

One major change I’ve noticed is the progress to the Sustainable Infrastructure Program (SIP) which, as I explained in one of my articles over the summer, is a net positive for the health of our planet, but brought to my summer semester only noise, interruption, and no Wilder Bowl. Here’s what Oberlin has to say about the stage SIP is at: “By the end of the year, nearly 13 buildings will have been upgraded, and we will have installed nearly 25,000 linear feet of new heating and cooling pipe. Buildings that are fully converted to the new system are expected to be 30 percent more efficient. Additionally, these buildings will have local controls for greater occupancy comfort, expanded fiber networks, expanded fire protection capabilities, and upgraded mechanical and electrical systems. As we move through the next three years, these improvements will extend throughout campus.” Three more years and we’re clear for the class of 2027 to have a normal college experience. That said, I cannot predict the future. I’m more of a nostalgia type, looking back at the past to assess the present, so join me as I reflect.

As of writing this article, I’ve only been back on campus for a little over a week. As I mentioned, each of the last three semesters (this is including the beginning of this semester) have had a unique feel. Returning to campus at the end of January after 10 months at home to begin the second half of my Oberlin experience was a significant transition. It snowed the first night I got back, which

Art by Henley Childress

is only appropriate, as it rained the day I returned for my second-year, and just the other week on the first day of classes, it rained. In the spring of 2021, I quickly reestablished friendships which endured the distance over space and time and whatever changes we all faced during the pandemic. As an upperclassman, I felt a new confidence and drive I hadn’t felt before at Oberlin. Despite the intense ObieSafe protocol, I made new friends and wonderful memories. Towards the end of the semester, I think we were all imbued with hope for a post-pandemic world, as we received vaccinations in different corners of northeast Ohio.

Coming back for the summer semester was strange and invited curiosity in its own way. I was pretty bummed, quite frankly, that my typical summer routine was going to be replaced with school. Yet, even more so than in the spring, I found the newly maskless and de-densified Oberlin to be pretty fun. The weather unlocked new opportunities (although it was uncomfortably hot in most students places of residence, plus it rained a lot), such as swimming and playing sports and music outside, while the updated ObieSafe protocol allowed us to go inside with our peers and professors again (until

a mask mandate was reinstated, and that became less exciting). I’ve waxed poetic about all that in a previous Grape issue plenty. This semester already I feel reinvigorated by the opportunities afforded by this school and the people who attend it. I can’t speak to the experience much, since I’m only a few days in. However, I’m most struck by the amount of people on campus, most of whom I do not know.

While I feel even more comfortable and confident as a fourth-year, I keep finding myself surrounded by large groups of students I don’t recognize. I can’t help but empathize with the underclassmen and remember my experience as a first year. I can’t imagine having both the end of high school and beginning of college marred by the pandemic, but even without a pandemic, I am acutely aware of how overwhelming, intimidating, and simply strange it is to be a first year. Even if you manage to make friends early on or enjoy your classes more than you expected, it’s a pretty weird time in your life. So as I keep catching myself vacillating between feeling like a first year and fourth year, I wish the best of luck to everyone finding themselves navigating what is a new experience for all of us.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye: A Biblical Disappointment Levi Dayan Editor-in-Chief

The entire Jim Bakker saga is the kind of thing that seems so desperate for a film adaptation that you’d be forgiven for not realizing how difficult it might be.

For those who are not familiar, Jim Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye Bakker were the co-hosts of The PTL Club, and were among the most well known televangelists of the ‘70s and ‘80s. However, due to Bakker’s seemingly compulsive addiction to committing absurd amounts of fraud, The PTL Club came to an end in the late ‘80s, and its hosts were forever relegated to the universe of cheap punchlines on late night TV. After being found guilty on several counts of fraud and subsequently serving a dramatically reduced jail sentence, Bakker pivoted to a different grift, one centered around rapture prophecies and prepper-baiting, one that he continues to this day—my introduction to Bakker was through edits of him shilling his unspeakably disgusting food supplies made by Vic Berger. Following Bakker’s imprisonment, Tammy Faye Bakker left him for the guy who built The PTL Club’s amusement park, and passed away in 2007. Despite the fact that The PTL Club was Bakker’s show in pretty much every way, his wife and co-host Tammy Faye became far more famous than him, in large part thanks to her legendary piles of gaudy makeup and her infinitely peppy—sometimes drug-fueled—showmanship. The fact that the recent biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye centers around her, rather than her criminal husband, comes as no surprise.

The Bakkers’ story is a difficult one to tell. It demands a delicate balance of absurdist cringe comedy and Shakespearean tragedy.Jim Bakker’s addiction to crime, for instance, is so absurd that you can’t help but laugh.But the tragedy of his story—an abused, emotionally damaged man so addicted to the grift that it stops becoming clear what the benefit even is for him—s undeniable. In other words, there has to be an element of comedy and tragedy in this story, and there isn’t a clear way to balance the two.. The fact that Tammy Faye, Bakker’s wife and co-host, and the subject of this film, is one of the greatest camp icons of the modern era, checks

out. To paraphrase John Waters’ definition of camp, the Bakker saga is both tragically ludicrous and ludicrously tragic in spades, and the story of a weirdo, potentially bisexual, televangelist fraudster, his makeup-drenched gay icon wife, and the bizarre crimes and sex scandals that drag down their Christian empire, indeed read as a badly over-budget Waters flick.

However, a badly over-budget Waters flick this is not. It’s a pretty generic biopic, focusing on Tammy Faye’s unlikely journey towardsuccess in a field dominated by chauvinistic, head-of-the-household men, her ruin at the hands of Bakker’s sociopathic behavior, and her quasi-redemption as a gay icon and feminist role model.

It takes this deepy ridiculous story and tells it with a stone-cold straight face. In some ways, this could be considered an accomplishment. But,even if this film was the John Waters-directed nightmare of my dreams, it still might not work for a story as genuinely tragic as this one. But instead of finding the middle ground between comedy and tragedy, the film just sort of sits there without trying hard to be either. No one could take this story seriously while watching the movie, but the near-complete absence of any dark comedy makes one question whether director Michael Showalter—who also directed The Big Sick, a film that presents a different, though still harrowing, true story in a comical way without detracting from the scariness of the situation—knows this.

The truth is that this film tells the story of one of the most batshit insane scams in Christian America, and the craven desperation of pretty much everyone involved in said scam just isn’t there. I can see how Tammy Faye could be seen as bizarrely inspirational, but her story is anything but. There’s a great amount of debate over just how sympathetic of a character Tammy Faye was in the whole Bakker saga. It’s not entirely clear how complicit she was in Jim Bakker’s crimes; she definitely knew what was going on, but considering the stress of being on TV, having a drug problem, and, you know, being married to Jim Bakker, it’s understandable that she would just try to weather the storm. It also wouldn’t be entirely

Art by Eva Sturm-Gross

surprising if she actually was complicit on some level, but again, it’s hard to know for sure. But whether she’s a victim of Bakker’s insanity, a co-conspirator, or (most likely, in my opinion) a little of both, I definitely think of her as the co-host of a TV show that facilitated mass fraud before I think of her as a feminist or a gay icon. She deserves credit as a trailblazer, because I certainly don’t think women would have as much of a presence within televangelism were it not for her eagerness to use the medium to reach out to the world, no matter how much it mocked her. But at the same time, it’s not like televangelism hasn’t continued to be a hotspot for hateful grifters in the wake of The PTL Club’s downfall.

This film is definitely very, very sympathetic to Tammy Faye, but it makes sense that it would be. She did seem to genuinely care about gay people in a time when that wasconsidered a pretty bold stance. But I definitely wasn’t expecting this film to be so sympathetic to Jim. Again, Jim Bakker went through an unthink-

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manner—i.e. “we need to talk about that thing,” “I may have done something wrong,” etc.— and viewers could be forgiven for coming away from the film thinking Bakker simply had an affair rather than violently drugging and raping a church secretary.

It seems as though the film wanted to frame the whole thing as a lapse in moral judgment and not a violent and unforgivable assault in order to present Bakker as someone capable of redemption. This is reinforced by the final scene, where Bakker says that he just hopes “that girl” is ok. And it’s all just really gross.

The single biggest crime a film depicting a story such as this one can commit is being boring, and fortunately the film doesn’t quite go that far.

Andrew Garfield’s performance as Jim Bakker is pretty weak, and fails to capture both the weirdness of the character, as well as the charisma that he somehow channeled into a lifelong career despite.

But the main star, Jessica Chastain, gives a great performance as Tammy Faye that shoots just enough life into this film to save it from being totally irredeemable. Like many biopics, the film feels like a vehicle for its central performance, and Chastain certainly delivers. But this film simply doesn’t work as a vehicle for one performance because, as I said earlier, it’s the story of several craven people surrounding one exceptionally craven liar, grifter and abuser, all of whom go along for the ride until the walls close in and they all throw the lunatic in charge under the bus. This story is not biopic material, and as noble a failure as this film might be, it is a failure nonetheless.

Pitchfork, Pitchfork....

Liza Mackeen-Shapiro Opinions Editor

Frequently invoking the ire of everyone from teenage stans to musicians themselves (most notably the singer Halsey), the music publication Pitchfork is arguably the most infamous hub of musical criticism on the internet today — particularly in terms of their treatment of pop music.

Founded in 1995, the website has since transcended its original status as specifically alternative publication to somewhat of the virtual paper of record for music criticism, covering both independent music and mainstream releases. Although I can’t speak to exactly why Pitchfork decided to widen the scope of their coverage — perhaps due to the emergence of “poptimism” or a desire to distance themselves from the tired yet enduring stereotype of the pretentious, Radiohead loving Brooklyn toxic hipster man — I find their attempts to cover pop music to be largely uninspired and pointless whether supposedly conducted with a new sense of serious critical appraisal towards the genre or not.

To those who are unfamiliar with the term, “poptimism” refers to the belief that pop music deserves to be treated with the same critical legitimacy as rock/folk/alternative etc. — a philosophy that may sound reasonable enough, but has unfortunately devolved into reviewers like those who work for Pitchfork tripping over their own feet to extract quality and meaning out of even the most mediocre major label pop releases lest they potentially miss something (and this is coming from someone who

Art by Eleanore Winchell

Tammy Faye continued 6

ably traumatic childhood, and his life is a very clear example of how hurt people hurt people. But that should be the extent to which anyone sympathizes with him. Yet the film closes by making Bakker look like a genuinely changed man. Maybe this would make sense if the film came out 20 years ago—which is when the documentary this film is based on came out—but it makes absolutely no sense today. After getting out of jail early, Bakker took advantage of the Black church as a way to build his own redemption arc, left them far behind pretty much as soon as he got the ball rolling again on his televangelist hustle, and has since spent his life shilling food supplies to preppers, promoting fake COVID cures, and making batshit insane prophecies about Trump bringing about the return of the Messiah or whatever. In short, if looking at Jim Bakker as a well-intentioned man who simply had no control over his demons was questionable 20 years ago, it certainly doesn’t make any sense today.

Perhaps the most baffling thing about the movie, to me, is the way it frames accusations made by church secretary Jessica Hahn. Hahn claims that Bakker drugged and raped her, and that Bakker used PTL funds to pay her to keep quiet about the assault. This incident, which did not lead to any criminal charges but did lead to Bakker stepping down from The PTL Club before being indicted for fraud, is downplayed in the film, which is pretty fucking shocking considering the feminist lens through which itapproaches Tammy Faye’s story. All the talk of the scandal in the film is done in a weird sort of hush-hush

loves pure, unadulterated pop so much that I often listen to original songs from Nickelodeon or Disney shows.)

As part of this attempt to move away from their gatekeeping days of yore, Pitchfork recently issued an article updating the score/commentary on albums many of which were of a poppier nature and had been previously panned by their reviewers. One of such albums was Charli XCX’s Vroom Vroom EP, which was produced by the legendary late SOPHIE and marked the singer’s turn from a relatively mainstream artist to pioneer of the experimental genre now loosely known as “hyperpop”. The original review, which awarded the EP a rather dire 4.6 out of 10, is mostly concerned with trying to decide whether both XCX and her PC Music brethren are pulling one over on the listener by taking the typically vapid tropes of pop music to an abrasive extreme, as if they’re too scared of falling for a hypothetical joke to admit they might like it.

To Pitchfork’s credit, the re-reviewer readily acknowledges this fear of being trolled as the primary impetus behind the publication’s initial negative review; however, she justifies their decision to update the score to a 7.8 by writing that “nowadays, it doesn’t seem that extreme. And when you don’t think too hard about it, it’s pretty fun. ” This implication that the base pleasure of infectious dance beats combined with goofy hooks can be ruined by thinking about it too hard betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of both XCX’s brand of hyper-accelerated pop and the genre as a whole; the genius of her and the PC music project is that they understand that pop music can be largely vapid and formulaic while also joyfully intoxicating, much like how McDonalds is still delicious even though we know it was chemically engineered to hit the maximal amount of our taste buds and dopamine receptors. Although the parody of the original genre is clear, their satire is never at the expense of what makes pop so enjoyable in the first place. It’s more than a little ironic that Pitchfork’s obsession with hunting for meaning within pop would lead to them dismissing one of the rare records that combines salient commentary with actually enjoyable and interesting music, and even more frustrating that their re-appraisal of the album still falls into the same trap.

I don’t really like Pitchfork, but I don’t necessarily think their misguided approach towards pop music is the fault of anything about their publication in particular so much as the nature of the genre itself. It may seem obtuse to complain about music critics practicing, well, musical criticism, but I honestly don’t think most pop music is befitting of detailed analysis unless it is specifically oriented towards the cultural legacy of the work in question, which obviously cannot be

Get Vaxxed or Ride the Pine Wyatt Camery Features Editor

It’s that time of year again, folks.

No, I’m not talking about Halloween. I’m not talking about syllabus week. Heck, I’m not even talking about pumpkin spice season. The NBA season is upon us and everyone (believe me) here at the Grape is thrilled. But like the start of our academic season, the pandemic continues to bring uncertainty to the basketball season. Over 90% of NBA players have been vaccinated, yet a few players are still holding out on receiving their first shot. LeBron James, a perennial face of the NBA, only announced he was vaccinated on September 28, and didn’t exactly encourage others to get vaccinated, framing it as a personal choice. Other notable players, such as Washington Wizards shooting guard Bradley Beal and Orlando Magic poward/ small forward Jonathan Isaac, remain unvaccinated. The most significant player to remain unvaccinated after the beginning of NBA preseason is Brooklyn Nets starting point guard Kyrie Irving. One of the league’s top players on one of the league’s top teams, Irving has a history of giving voice to conspiracy theories, like the Earth being flat. Simultaneously, Irving’s activism has ranged on the selfless and humanitarian side, expressing support for those demonstrating at the Dakota Access Pipeline, pledging money to WNBA players who sat out the pandemic-interrupted season, and among many other generous actions, he has been a constant and vocal supporter of issues surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, particularly in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna

Taylor’s deaths. In addition to all this, he has even starred in a feature film, Uncle Drew, inspired by a series of commercials he shot for Pepsi Max. And on the court, the first overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, among other accolades, is a 7x AllStar, NBA Champion with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and won Rookie of the Year in 2012.

Irving plays in New York, one of three cities with NBA teams, along with Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York are the three cities with NBA teams to have issued mandates requiring proof of vaccination before entering buildings. New York, where Irving plays and practices with the Nets, requires proof of only one shot to enter arenas and other facilities. Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors (which is based in SF) remained one of the last vaccine holdouts in the NBA after being denied religious exemption by the league, but got vaccinated over the weekend, stating “the only options were to get vaccinated or not play in the NBA.” Not playing in the NBA is not the only consequence players are facing now. Irving faces a pay dock of $380,000 per game. Only a seemingly hefty fee, this accounts for a little over 1% of his salary.

I would imagine if he continued to sit out because of his vaccination status, the fee would increase, but if that is the rate per game, Irving could miss all 41 home games this season and still make nearly $18 million, which is, as the New York Times says, a “substantial loss” to his expected income, but I think Irving will be alright with that $18 million (minus tax).

All this follows in a long line of the issue of the increasingly complex role of professional athletes in our society. The job of an athlete goes beyond practice and

Pitchfork continued accurately assessed in the immediate aftermath of its release. There’s only so much you can say about music which is either, from the charitable perspective, fundamentally designed to accomplish little more than making people feel good and want to dance, or, from the cynical perspective, masterminded by a bunch of Swedish men to appeal to the most amount of people with the minimal amount of creative effort (two attitudes which I don’t believe are mutually exclusive) without inventing a purpose that isn’t really there — or, in the case of the Vroom Vroom EP, agonizing so much over what that purpose actually is that you end up missing it entirely.

Ultimately, music critics like those at Pitchfork could learn a lot about how to handle pop from XCX’s own response to Pitchfork’s re-evaluation of her EP; instead of writing a multiple tweet-long thread articulating her own subversive artistic mission statement, the singer merely quote tweeted the article with a simple “lol.” After all, if you’re anyone other than a professional critic, her music — and pop in general — is more than capable of speaking for itself.

Photo provided by Wyatt Camery

play: they are celebrities, spokespeople, employees, and artists, one might argue, all at once. With this, athletes must reckon with the responsibility of a far reaching platform, and lots of fans, especially younger people, look up to them.

This generation of NBA players looked up to a generation who weren’t known for their leadership or activism, but for their intensity and fierce competitiveness on the court. Today, star athletes have a new spotlight on them, and although it’s one they may not have asked for, it’s one they inherited when they got lucky enough to achieve financial and statistical success in the field of their passion. Typically, athletes embrace this platform and use it to promote progressive ideals (and of course, many times quite the opposite).

Yet, in such a divisive political climate, it must be stressful to have to grapple with constant scrutiny over anything one shares, especially since sports fandom typically brings together both ends of the political spectrum. This difficulty is only exacerbated by the ease with which athletes can communicate to the world. I think athletes and other celebrities alike deserve privacy and to be treated decently; however, when anyone with a voice as loud as theirs chooses to use their name to promote false and potentially harmful ideas, they should be censured.

Through his actions on social media, Irving’s social stature has been coopted by the anti-vax movement to promote misinformation. In fact, NBA players are a safe bet for conspiracy theorists to harness since they are less likely to be banned from social media than other influencer types. Unfortunately, Irving has avowed indisputably false and dangerous

opinions. Typically outspoken players such as Irving and James have now begun to make claims for privacy and individual choice only when it comes to the vaccine.

As human beings, their claims to privacy are valid. Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka who have made strides for the recognition of athlete’s mental health and personal well being off the court. They have sat out competitions, putting their own needs and inner struggles ahead of the game.

Despite the controversy, they are human just like you and me. But Irving and James’ wishy-washiness when it comes to the vaccine is hypocritical. To reiterate, these two players have undeniably done plenty of positive work for various communities all while earning themselves spots in the basketball pantheon. Yet their choice to not speak out and support what is safe for just about everybody is not a personal choice. It affects family, friends, teammates, and anyone those people interact with, and again, anyone who looks to them as trustworthy. James has embraced the “Shut Up and Dribble” controversy, spinning it into a series on Showtime highlighting Black athlete’s achievements off the court and their right to speak out on social and political issues.

But where is his voice now? For those who haven’t (yet) read my pieces on the NBA, I am a proud New York Knicks fan, so I would be delighted to see the Nets falter without one of the best ball handlers ever (oh, they still have Harden and Durant? I guess they’ll survive...), but if it shuts up vaccine-efficacy deniers and conspiracy theorists, I think I’d be just as happy to see a ring on Kyrie’s finger and a banner at the Barclays Center.

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Anti-Institutionalization, Workers’ Rights, & Grassroots Disability Justice: What You Need to Know About the Better Care Better Jobs Act

Saffron Forsberg Arts and Culture Editor

“Right now, we’re outside of the Hart Senate building protesting, trying to get Senator Joe Manchin to support the Better Care Better Jobs Act, which would help provide funding for home and community-based services, for personal care attendant wage increases and benefits, and for integrated and affordable, accessible housing,” disability rights activist Lydia Nunez Landry tells me on Thursday afternoon. She’s rolling in her powerchair as she speaks to me over the phone while I hear the warble of fellow activists in the background. By this time, they’ve been on the ground since Tuesday, subsisting on independent fundraising, mutual aid, and peanut butter sandwiches. After nearly two years of COVID-19 mistreatment, and an age-old fight for disability justice, members of ADAPT—those often credited with making public transportation accessible and helping to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)—are rightfully fed up.

Nunez Landry, a bold voice in national disability justice—particularly in relation to issues of anti-institutionalization and abolition—is the lead organizer for Gulf Coast ADAPT, a chapter of the larger National ADAPT, a grassroots organization fighting for the rights of disabled people in the United States. She also worked as a longterm care ombudsman in the Gulf South for many years, where she fought against the abuse and neglect faced by disabled and aging people in nursing facilities every day.

Texas, where Nunez Landry is based, is one of the worst states in the country to be both a disabled person and a care attendant. The hourly pay for a full-time Medicaid personal care attendant is $8.11 with no benefits. Disability and workers’ rights organizations, and affiliated

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Photos provided by Saffron Forsberg

unions, across the country are trying to bump this to at least $15 an hour. It’s a step in the right direction.

The week of October 3rd, ADAPT activists from chapters around the U.S, along with 15 other organizations (AAPD, ACLU, ARC, ASAN, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Be A Hero, Care Can’t Wait Coalition, Caring Across Generations, Justice in Aging, Little Lobbyists, National Council on Aging, National Council

on Independent Living, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Health Law Program, and SEIU) held a vigil near the Capitol to underscore the desperate need for adequate funding for home and community based services (HCBS), along with wage increases and benefits for attendant care workers. Over 750,000 letters were read during the vigil from those who require these services. Currently there are over 800,000 people on waitlists

for HCBS who are at risk of institutionalization. ADAPT also protested outside of Dirksen and Hart Senate Office Buildings, the Capitol, and the Rayburn Building. This diverse coalition of organizations have one common goal: trying to get senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (D) to vote for the full $400 billion in funding for the Better Care Better Jobs Act. The passage of this bill would be impactful for not only disabled people and survivors of institutional mistreatment, but also those employed in the care sector. “The vigil was Wednesday and Thursday, all night. And we spent the night out there. That was held at Union Square, across from the Capitol,” Nunez Landry tells me.

On Tuesday, October 5th, Nunez Landry and many fellow activists were arrested outside the Hart Senate Building. Though they are now safe and free on bail, the arrests call into question who is allowed to resist in this country—perhaps even who is allowed access to our representatives. The answer being: not significantly disabled, low-income BIPOC in wheelchairs. “The arrests seemed unwarranted because we weren’t blocking all the doors. They told us if we didn’t disperse, we would get arrested. Many people tried to move...but you know, it’s kind of hard to move quickly with all these powerchairs.

So then they hauled in the cavalry—I mean it was ridiculous...it was almost like there were more cops arresting us than there were [arresting “alt-right”] insurrectionists at the nation’s Capitol.”

There’s a reason activists are so adamant about passing this bill and willing to put themselves in danger. Nunez Landry tells me its impacts are far-reaching.

“This is huge for human infrastructure. If this passes, it will be on par with the New Deal.” “If fully funded, it will be comprehensive. It really focuses on the needs of BIPOC and women and disabled people.” Such is the case because many of the jobs the bill addresses--both in the paid and unpaid labor sector--are those most often performed by working-class Women of Color. Insofar as ADAPT and their affiliated organizations are addressing gross human rights violations, they are also addressing the grave and ever-widening socioeconomic class divide in this country. The intersections of disability injustice, gentrification, and, in effect, institutional poverty, are not difficult to locate. Most significantly disabled people in the United States are low-income, and many live in poverty. Their personal care attendants are much the same. This bill assists disabled people, but it also assists non-significantly-disabled POC and those performing underpaid, undertrained “pink-collar jobs.” To Nunez Landry and her fellow “ADAPT-ers,” better pay and treatment for personal care attendants could mean safer working conditions, a step toward class justice, and thus, better treatment interpersonally between disabled people and their aides.

“A lot of ADAPT activists are People-of-Color.

Some members are immigrants. But, for the most part, we’re all living in poverty because SSI benefits are ridiculously low. People are trying to live on $800 [a month] when rents are over $1000,” says Nunez Landry.

I ask about employment in the paid workforce in relation to disability. Nunez Landry, as well as many of her fellow activists, are unemployed in the traditional workforce.

Most cannot drive. And, because of gentrification, many do not live in safe, accessible, “walkable” cities. “There are a lot of us here who are significantly disabled and, because of employment discrimination and an unwilling-

ness to accommodate our needs, we can’t get jobs,” she says. “Like, in my situation, how am I supposed to get to work when there’s no access to public transportation?

Or, in areas where there is public transportation, America’s infrastructure, like our sidewalks, are crumbling so much that you can’t even traverse the sidewalks.”

“[Additionally,] in the United States now, there are these huge real estate corporations that are buying up all the housing and driving up the costs. And some of these real estate corporations are also owners of nursing homes. So here you have people unable to afford accessible housing, and so they’re thrown in a warehouse [institution].” Says Nunez Landry.

Indeed, nursing homes and other institutions are created to profit off of disabled people. Private and public institutions, like prisons, often act as mass-housing for the poor in the United States. Institutionalization is a hugely profitable business model run by only a handful of powerful corporations.

“These corporations and lobbyists...they’re colonizing the bodies of disabled people for insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and government benefits.” Nunez Landry explains. “It’s way cheaper to support home- and community-based services than it is to keep dumping money into these huge nursing home conglomerates, where their money is being funneled into shell corporations, and there’s no financial transparency...I’ve been working with healthcare economists—I won’t mention their names—and they’ve been looking into the longterm care industry’s finances...and they’re not losing money. They have a lot of money, it is just not going to

care for the disabled people in these facilities. There was a Congressional hearing on this last year.”

“So, right now, there is what is called a Medicaid institutional bias. And that means that Medicaid dollars automatically go to putting people in nursing homes and institutions, but there are like 10-15 year waiting lists for home- and community-based services. So it’s optional for states to even provide home- and community-based services. They don’t have to. So we’re trying to end the Medicaid institutional bias...that money, rather than go to these huge, predatory nursing home corporations should go to the consumers, so we can live in our communities.”

So why are nursing home corporations so powerful? How are they so influential politically? The answer lies in powerful lobbyists. “Diversicare Inc. is one of the rather small number of publicly listed nursing home chains. For the most part, it is a ‘failed company’ due to poor management. This corporation was on the brink of bankruptcy until generous federal and state COVID subsidies breathed new life into it.” Writes activist David Kingsley on his blog Tallgrass Economics. “The public is fed several myths about the fundamental nature of government-funded long-term care in the United States.

The myth that providers are operating in a competitive, free-market, system drives the propaganda disseminated by trade associations such as the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/ NCAL)...Wall Street and its affiliated trade associations (e.g., AHCA/NCAL) distribute immense amounts of money to legislators to maintain the highest prices for

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Disability Justice continued the least amount of care in skilled nursing facilities...

In the 2018 cycle, the AHCA/NCAL PAC distributed $610,616 to federal candidates. Democrats received $401.616 (65.77%) and Republicans received $209,000 (34.23%). The top recipients of the industry’s patronage are some powerful legislators.”

“The nursing home industry receives HUD funding, receives tax breaks...they got over 20 billion dollars in COVID-relief funding.” Nunez Landry explains.

“In some places, they even sent in the National Guard and Doctors Without Borders because they [nursing institutions] refused to adequately staff their facilities.

Now, nursing homes say they can’t find enough staff.

Well, of course not. You can’t find staff if you’re only willing to pay them the minimum wage and overwork them...you have one staff person to twenty significantly disabled people and you’re paying them a pittance of a wage! Of course you’re not going to be able to keep them.

So they want taxpayers to subsidize the cost of their doing business; they want us to subsidize their workforce.

Meanwhile, families are caring for loved ones without pay, which means many of them have to drop out of the

The Nostalgia Crisis:

ties, segregated. We experience a social death; people find them too disquieting and dreary to come visit us.

And we just don’t want to live there. We want to live in our own homes and communities.” Says Nunez Landry.

“And, you know, I’m here. There are people here who have children. One ADAPT activist...was put in a nursing home! And she has children!” The impacts of institutionalization—whether that be as a physically disabled person, a person with psychiatric or cognitive disabilities, or a member of the ever-expanding aging population—are not often spoken of. Deaths go unrecorded, and abuse is shrugged away. These, too, are not isolated incidents, but grave realities for those with significant disabilities.

Grassroots activists like those in ADAPT, disability justice organizations, and workers’ unions, are trying to make the United States a better place to be a person with disabilities.

Special thanks to Gulf Coast ADAPT, National ADAPT, and organizers Rhoda Gibson, Latoya Maddox, Josue Rodriguez, Lydia Nunez Landry, Nancy Salandra, Misty Dion, Laura Halverson, and Allison Donald.

Why the business of the past is killing the art of the future

Levi Dayan Editor-in-Chief

One of the very first shows I went to after being fully vaccinated was a birthday celebration for the late great Sun Ra, and for the now 97 (!!!) year-old Sun Ra Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen, who performed with a band that included fellow Arkestra members Noel Scott and Heru Shabaka-Ra and the brilliant rhythm section of Luke Stewart and Tcheser Holmes. Prior to the performance, a benediction was given by Thomas “Bushmeat” Stanley, sound artist, author, radio host and assistant professor at the George Mason University School of Art, amongst other things. This benediction covered a lot of ground, but something he said that particularly resonated with me (which I’m paraphrasing here) was “I want today’s equivalent of The Temptations to be Death Grips.” The connection between the two groups may be

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workforce. And so you have people living in abject poverty.”

If one has no experience or knowledge of the impacts of institutionalization, this can seem like a lot of information to digest at once. Are nursing homes really that harmful? Even that nice one my grandmother lives in right now? Nunez Landry and her fellow institutional abolitionists say so. “186,000+ disabled people died in solitary confinement, in substandard institutions across the United States [last year].” She says matter-of-factly.

“For years and years, there have been congressional hearings and testimonies talking about the lack of basic infection control practices, neglect and abuse in these facilities, rape, dangerous understaffing levels, dumping of residents considered too time consuming at homeless shelters, and drugging people against their will with powerful anti-psychotics when they’re people who don’t even have psychiatric disabilities.”

Institutionalization, especially for the aging population, is often forced or coerced. “This is a human rights issue. Nobody wants to live in a nursing home.

We’re socially removed from our families and communi-

baffling to some (though less so, I’d imagine, to people who have heard some of the deep cuts from their late 60s/early 70s albums. Shit gets pretty out there), but it makes perfect sense when one considers the arc of Sun Ra. Some of Sun Ra’s earliest including performing with the Rhythm & Blues shouter Wynonie Harris and big band legend Fletcher Henderson, and many of his earliest recordings were of him backing doo-wop groups in Chicago. Sun Ra’s music was crucial in the development of post-bop, free jazz, and even free improvisation and experimental electronic music, as seen in his groundbreaking synthesizer work. These innovations never mandated a jettison of his past; most of Sun Ra’s music was recorded in a big-band setting, typically maintaining a sense of swing hand-in-hand with moments of full-blown chaos, and the influence of 50s pop music can be heard in the endlessly catchy vocal parts and chants accompanying his many compositions. Sun Ra made the

Sun Ra in Robert Mugge’s A Joyful Noise, 1980

music of the future while clearly evolving from the past, but to have stood still in the past would have rendered all of his innovations unattainable.

Bushmeat’s benediction stuck with me in large part because it feels like this message has been ignored by a large segment of society. In the present day, appeals to nostalgia are central not only to corporate marketing and advertising, but also pop culture as a whole. On the base level, this is nothing new. Ever since the explosion of rock n’ roll reached adulthood, nostalgia has always been a dominating force, ranging from the success of American Graffiti and Grease in the 70s, to the insane amount of boomer former rock stars who scored latecareer hits in the 80s, to Dazed and Confused and That 70s Show in the 90s. But one can’t shake the feeling that nostalgia has operated differently in the post-9/11 culturescape. For one, 80s nostalgia (perhaps one of the most questionable decades to be nostalgic for) lumbered on for what feels like fucking eons. It started with 80s-inflected club music at the beginning of the aughts, continued with the instant sampling of 80s hits in mid-00s pop, the “post-punk revival,” neo-new wave bands like The Killers, the development of synthwave, chillwave and vaporwave at the beginning of the 2010s, and reached perhaps its most shameless point with, of course, Stranger Things. That’s nearly twenty fucking years, and it still hasn’t fully died.

Beyond the excruciating longevity of 80s nostalgia, an additional unique factor of present-day nostalgia is the pervasiveness of the aughts nostalgia. Central to this nostalgia is the reality TV and children’s TV of the day, as well as basically anything in the media at that time that can make people cringe in retrospect. Memes referencing Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel shows, Glee, the Twilight franchise, and more are absolutely inescapable on social media. A video of former Blues Clues host Steve Burns has been one of the most shared (and probably one of the most memed) videos of the year. The impact of 00s nostalgia can also be felt in the music industry. The most notable examples

would be the pop-punk influenced music of Machine Gun Kelly, Olivia Rodrigo, 100 gecs, and countless others, but the influence of the boy band and teen pop music that a lot of pop-punk bands made fun of is also omnipresent. The boy bands clearly had an influence on groups like BTS (and for what it’s worth, groups like Brockhampton also call themselves boy bands), and even beyond the cultural significance of the Free Britney movement, Britney Spears’s influnece can be found everywhere. The most egregious example of these manifesting in a single song is Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s “1999,” which namechecks Spears in the chorus and whose video is chock full of references to relics of the Y2K era.

This is not to say any of these artists, or these reference points, or nostalgia as a whole are a bad thing. Nostalgia is part of human nature, and of course the pop culturesphere of when any given person comes of age is gonna be a source of endorphins.

I still have an attachment to a lot of the mid 00s, as it was some of the first music I remember hearing on the radio and was also dominated by producers like Timbaland and The Neptunes who could get pretty weird when they wanted to. There’s certainly criticism to be made of present-day pop music, but the current state of pop music is certainly the most fun it’s been since the dawn of the 2010s, when Americans were high on hope and change and every song seemed tailor-made for Bar/Bat Mitzvah parties.

At least some of the credit for that can be given to musicians embracing the influences of music that only a few years ago might have been laughed off as stupid and embarassing. In other words, individual pop stars, and people’s own individual nostalgia, is not the problem. But when a sense of collective nostalgia becomes not just a trend, but a determinant factor of art and culture, it can spell something dark.

It’s not difficult to understand why collective nostalgia has been such a pervasive phenomenon for the past 20 years. People whose childhoods were defined by MTV, TRL, and YouTube respectively have all aged into a rapidly intensifying quagmire of recession, inequality, and institutional decay, to name just a few things. When the carefree innocence of childhood is obscured by a raging shitstorm as chaotic as the one most people are facing in 2021, the glow of nostalgia intensifies. And again, this isn’t specific to 2021; it’s possible that in the midst of Watergate, a lot of Americans were nostalgic for the 50s, a time when a war general was president and Nixon was simply his dog-loving second banana (racism is another good explanation for the 50s nostalgia boom). And the insane omnipresence of boomer rockers in the 80s is, of course, intricately tied with the cultural dissatisfaction of the boomers themselves, who looked at the self-centered materialistic nature of the era (that they helped create) as well as its cultural shifts and concluded that everything had to be done their way. But while these were certainly dominant trends, they weren’t the dominant trends. The 70s may have been the decade of Grease, but it was also the decade of funk, disco and punk rock. The 80s may have been the decade of “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” but it was also the decade that Prince and Springsteen dominated the charts. In other words, while a collective yearning for the past was inescapable, popular music still found ways to challenge and resist, often directly, the “good old days” ideology of the Nixons and Reagans of the day.

Additionally, on the surface level, pop culture seems to have made crucial progress even in the face of everything else backsliding. In fact, I think one of the more interesting questions cultural historians will grapple with in the future may be how to explain the chasm between the pop culture and politics of the Trump era. Hollywood has both always been thought of as more liberal than the rest of the country while simultaneously being the most powerful source of reinforcement for right wing ideology and values, and that certainly hasn’t changed in recent years. But as America veers closer and closer to full-blown fascist autocracy, pop culture has undeniably witnessed a shift towards the most marginalized in society. This is a time where Lil Nas X and Megan Thee Stallion rule the charts, films like Us and Black Panther dominate the box office, and films like Moonlight and Parasite win Oscars. However, when looked at in the greater context of art and culture, these advancements are dwarfed by an unprecedented devaluation of art occurring on an unthinkably massive scale.

The entertainment industry has certainly never been a nourishing environment for artistic and creative integrity, but even during, say, the mid-to-late 90s, a pretty awful time for summer blockbusters, there was at the very least some sense of competition. Even if it meant having to choose between two different movies where the White House gets blown up, at the very least people had the option to see new movies that weren’t sequels, remakes, or franchise films, and they weren’t all owned by the same company.Today, corporate consolidation has monopolized the entertainment industry. In the film industry, practically every studio is owned by Disney or another megacorporation, and almost every avenue of success in the music industry is similarly monopolized. The streaming “market” is essentially limited to Spotify, Apple Music,

and YouTube, none of which provide an even remotely sustainable income for musicians. Any chance of success in the industry — which was never less than elusive in the first place —depends entirely on social media virality and algorithms, which, of course, are controlled by the biggest monopolies of all, Facebook and Google. Considering that many of the largest syndicated radio stations refuse to even play the most genuinely popular music in the country,which, these days, is almost always Rap,of course the oldest gatekeepers of all in the music industry are not helpful for working musicians.

The last remaining source of a legitimate income is touring, which, in addition to being gutted by the pandemic and still facing a deeply uncertain future, is also being monopolized by LiveNation, a corporation that has jeopardized smaller, community-driven venues and shown a clear indifference towards the health and safety of its workers in its stances on vaccination. Most ominously, in recent years old music has been far more profitable than new music, even as more and more new music is released every day

This speaks to the throughline of all these forces working to kill independent and creative music, which is that they gravitate towards the business of the past. Success in the entertainment industry has become practically synonymous with virality and memeability. This is not always a bad thing, as there are artists like the aforementioned Lil Nas X and Megan Thee Stallion who have been aided by these dynamics and are also making genuinely great music. But as I mentioned before, so much of the present-day memescape is fueled by nostalgia. There may be no surer way to go viral than to dig up something completely and totally memory-holed, like flash games on Newgrounds and Miniclip or some Cartoon Network deep cut that gave kids nightmares, and send social media users into a Proustian flashback of being an 8 year old with a questionable amount of internet access. While this can make for great meme content, and great marketing, it does not make for great art - but since making great art is the least of a corporate enterprise’s concerns, memeing and marketing come before any other consideration can be made. It’s why Disney uses its near-complete monopoly over the entertainment industry to pump out remakes, sequels and franchise films, why a Space Jam sequel and not one but two Sonic movies are allowed to happen, and perhaps most chillingly, why a Mario movie would have Chris fucking Pratt in the lead role. When invoking nostalgia and going viral come before common sense, Chris Pratt doing an Italian accent is only inevitable.

But before I veer off course, these are, obviously, symptoms of monopolized industries that have long been committed to the commodification of art and all that surrounds it. As I said before, nostalgia is part of human nature, and no one is immune to the endorphins that it can release. But just as it would be insane to suggest that all art should be as experimental and challenging as possible, it is insane to suggest that all art needs to center around repackaging the past and escaping from the present and near-distant future. However, this is happening as we speak. Even as streaming services, and the internet as a whole, claim to eliminate “gatekeepers” to discovery, the new media that people consume has become more and more limited to just a handful of ideas. While nostalgia-fueled viral hits and movie remakes show no signs of disappearing, making a career in uncompromising and creative art has become completely unsustainable. And of course, Black artists are the ones who are in the most danger of being priced out of artistic fields that are more and more the domain of the children of CEOs and celebrities.

The obvious solution to these problems is to break up big tech and Disney, make Spotify pay a living wage to the musicians whose labor they exploit, and actually fund the arts. But in the short term, I believe we have a collective responsibility to reject the business of the past and embrace the limitless creative potential of the now.

The mindset that art just isn’t as good as it used to be — beyond being stupid and racist for a multitude of reasons that I do not have the space to get into — is a dull, dead-end way of looking at life. If I genuinely believed such a thing, I don’t know how I’d live with myself, as one of the few things that has kept me content in the midst of the endless stream of catastrophes thrown our way in the past few years is the knowledge that art never dies, that people are inherently creative, and that as long as people are given the space to create, beautiful things will happen.

To conclude, I’ve also been thinking of a quote from another show I attended this summer, which was a performance by the Michael TA Thompson Trio at the ArtsForArt InGarden festival in New York City. At the end, as the audience was applauding an incredible performance, Thompson cut the applause short to make a statement, which, again, I’m paraphrasing: “People say everything in the world is crazy, but it can’t all be crazy because we’re all here sharing this music.”

And, lastly, the words of the late, great Sun Ra: “I like all the sounds that upset people, they’re too complacent, and some of those sounds really shake ‘em. They need to wake up ‘cause it’s a very bad world and maybe they could do something about it.”

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Chabad at Oberlin

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Prozac Nationalism Priya Banerjee Editor-In-Chief Oberlin is full of kids on pills. We eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and maybe pop a couple more for dessert. No, I’m not talking about those little blue pills you might crush and snort before a party, but rather those little once-daily treats that promise to take away the blues. Almost everyone I know is on, or has been on, antidepressants. Personally, I take Prozac.

When I first started taking it, I quickly realized that it’s more likely that someone has a spare Prozac for me when I’ve forgotten my daily dose than an Advil when I’ve got a migraine. Despite the ubiquity of SSRIs, a prescription has nonetheless become a badge of honor that daily pillpoppers everywhere can’t help but show off. The proliferation of antidepressant prescriptions has made it apparent that being medicated just isn’t enough to separate you from the rest of the crowd anymore; when everyone is a self-proclaimed psycho on meds, a prescription is no longer enough to grant bragging rights to the hoards of depressed twenty-somethings afflicted with individuality complexes.

I recently read Elizabeth Wurtzel’s 1994 memoir Prozac Nation, whose title has come to represent the cultural phenomenon that was Prozac and its unprecedented celebrity status. Fluoxetine HCl, the chemical name for Prozac, was first approved by the FDA in 1987 and with the help of a very skilled marketing team, quickly became the coolest, hottest, trendiest drug of the 90s.

Wurtzel’s novel follows her years in college as a reckless, unstable, junkie who just can’t seem to keep it together.

Her being prescribed Prozac in its early phases of testing is where the novel leaves us, and where finally she finds a semblance of stability. Of course, Wurtzel’s story is far from a happily-ever-after; in her reflections on Prozac’s rise to fame, she mentions what many pill-takers tend to forget, and what many prescribers tend to withhold; Prozac and similar antidepressants were not formulated with the intent to treat depression. When drug companies create a new product they decide what it will treat after they figure out what effects the drug actually has on the body.

In the case of Prozac, they stumbled upon a drug that effectively numbed human reaction to stimuli and created a barrier between emotion and emotional response. In short, Prozac and other SSRIs prevent you from feeling sad, but they also prevent you from feeling happy. And there’s a reason you can’t come on Prozac. The sexual dysfunction that 70% of those taking SSRIs report as a side effect comes as no surprise when you reframe the idea of antidepressants into what they really are: antieverythings. You can’t get hard on Prozac because yes, it took away your misery and despair, but it’s so good at being a feel-nothing pill that it also took away your desire to fuck. But in the end...it works. I am not antianti-depressants. They undoubtedly make many people’s lives better,but are by no means a cure. While I am not

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Art by Amelia Connelly

opposed to the prescription of these types of medications (I’ve got a couple myself!) I am wholeheartedly opposed to the terrible mental disease that SSRIs have left in their wake: something I like to call Prozac Nationalism.

Prozac Nationalism is very, very contagious and has infected our entire population of Prozac Nation. It’s like some twisted offshoot of the Oppression Olympics but instead of people trying to one-up each other on how severely society has marginalized their identity (barf), it’s a competition between the mentally ill and whoever has the highest dose listed on their pill bottle wins. The recipient of the highest dose must, in the eyes of the citizens of Prozac Nation, be suffering the greatest and are most deserving of sympathy. The longer the list of symptoms and side effects you’re able to complain about the more impressive your ability to cope is perceived by those who are supposedly suffering less, with the hierarchy of suffering of course being determined by how many milligrams have been bestowed upon you by your psychiatrist. God forbid an unmedicated person comment on the fragile state of their emotional or physical wellbeing, as there is no way in Hell that they could be experiencing what you experience everyday. The mere fact that you are medicated and they are not must mean that their pain pales in comparison to yours, and that they have no right to complain. This is the mindset that plagues the medicated, and I for one have had enough.

Ultimately, I think everyone should just shut up! Believe it or not, everyone’s going through one thing or another, and so many people are on meds! For that matter, so many others aren’t on meds for so many reasons, and not because they aren’t messed up in the head enough to need them. Not only is the process of getting a prescription arduous and expensive, but also finding a good therapist who will refer you to a good psychiatrist will cost you a pretty penny that not everyone is willing to shell out for a product that comes with no promises of improvement but lots of promises of terrible side effects.

Taking meds has become a personal brand for so many, acting as the foundation of their online personality and social media presence. I think there’s something very very sinister about the way that Big Pharma has wormed its way into our brains to such a degree that a product has become a personality trait. You shouldn’t be defined by the medications you are prescribed. It is so gross to don an attitude of eliteness because you have made the decision to try medication, a decision not everyone is able to make. There’s no need to compete over who is the most fucked-up. And even if it were a competition, medication status is not at all an indicator of who is suffering the most, or who “needs” medication the most. Let’s find something else to compete over. Maybe we could brag about how many cartwheels we can do in a row...or maybe how many servings of vegetables you can eat in a day. That at least would be a good start.

Official, 100% No-Bullshit Exco Catalogue by the Official Oberlin Exco Committee (not a legally binding title)

There’s only one thing better than a regular college, and that’s an experimental college.

The old saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t apply at Oberlin, and this semester our student body’s brightest minds have been experimenting to hell and back with these courses! We’re happy to give all of you today a preview of what we, the Official Oberlin Exco Committee, who have officially written this article together, have to offer, officially. Enjoy!

Piggyco

From the twisted mind of that one quiet guy in your bio class comes the most refreshing exco of the semester! In this course, expert piss pigs will teach amateur piggies the importance of hydration, aim, and stamina as they train to impress the world-renowned Piss Queen. Credit for the class will be given based on the evaluation by the Piss Queen, and she is not easy to please. But, urine luck!

1 deserving piggy will be granted official piss pig status for being the filthiest little mud-grubbin hog and will serve the Piss Queen for eternity. Each piggy is responsible for their own water jug, slop bucket, and uninstalling the toilets in their residency so they can practice their skills in pairs outside the classroom. Final exams will be held in the center of Tappan where the Piss Queen will provide olympic-like tasks for the amateur piggies. All are welcome to watch the showcase - just stay out of the splash zone!

Punchco

If you’re an Oberlin College student who wants nothing more than to punch stuff all day, there’s only one class for you, and it sure as shit ain’t Animal Biocapital.

Punchco is Oberlin’s only course dedicated entirely to punching, in all of its myriad forms. Taught by former IDF soldier John Cougar Herbert Walker Bush, Punchco teaches Oberlin students how to punch high, how to punch low, how to punch birds, how to punch deer, and how to punch a whole bunch of shit you don’t even want

Art by Sam Merrick

to know about, and won’t know until you take the course!

And for the final exam, students will get to punch not one, not two, but three holes in the wall, 3rd Floor Barrows Lounge 2018 style. Sign up or GET PUNCHED!

Do I Have A Foot Fetishco?

Welcome to Do I Have A Foot Fetishco, Oberlin’s first safe space for those questioning the important questions.

Once a week you’ll be able to come to class and pose hypotheticals (we swear it’s hypothetical) of scenarios that might constitute foot fetish-ery. Included in the curriculum is the answer to the top of the foot/bottom of the foot conundrum (spoiler: kissing the top of the foot is a-okay!). Each class will begin with light ankle stretching and move into a massage circle. Open toed shoes required.

SantaCo

Who is Santa? Why is he sooooo jolly? And why did I not get a switch for christmas? All I asked for was a switch,

like the one Gavin has. Like c’mon I have been such a good boy. I shared my toys with my sister, I ate all my vegetables, and I made my bed every freakin day! Gavin calls his mom the B-word when she tells him to take a bath and he gets a switch!?! All I got was an architectural lego set. I haven’t played with legos since i was 4!!! I’m 6 now! And the architectural sets are for gay people, and my mom said that Santa puts gay people on the naughty list.

In this class we will learn all about the origins, traditions, and pop culture portrayals of Saint Nick but also ask Santa. . . am I gay?

Transco

Spooky season is upon us and what better way to celebrate than through a big transformation - into a vampire! Transco offers insight into both the current vampires of Trannslyvania and detailed instruction on how to become the palest, scariest, bloodthirstiest monster you always knew you were. Learn our tips and tricks so

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This is The Oberlin Grape’s second installment of Ask Dr. Gags, an advice column from our resident sexologist Dr. Gagatha McCreampie. If you have a question about sex, intimacy, dating, or pubic lice, feel free ot reach out to Dr. Gags through emailing thegrape@oberlin.edu

Dear Dr. Gags, I can’t tell if my girlfriend doesn’t like me anymore or I just have depression, how do you tell which one???

-Depress-on My Dick Dearest Depress-on My Dick, Oh honey, this is a tough one. Seeing as I have never felt even a hint of sadness in my life, it is hard for me to relate to your unappealing struggle. See, I view depression as a wasted emotion. That’s why they invented wine!

My best advice would be to sit her down with a heaping glass of red, put on some Tegan and Sara, and tell it to her straight. I know it can be scary, but being direct is the best thing you can do, babycakes. It’s like I always tell my 4 rowdy boys who all look the same (they’re feminists), don’t be afraid to be a stone-cold b*tch! My mother was a stone-cold b*tch, her mother was, and her mother’s mother was. This world wouldn’t get anywhere without us. Anyways, you can always have sex with yourself. It is quite often more enjoyable. Till next time.

Dear Feels on Wheels, Girl, have I been in your rollerblades before! And many, many, many times. In my experience, getting a pet together can very rarely be the key to fix a broken relationship. But you know what really works? A baby! See dogs and cats or whatever, those things can be expensive.

Between the barrels of feed, the ketamine, and the new rollerblades, you are running a pretty tight budget for about 50-60 years. But for a baby, fssshhh, that thing basically takes care of its goddamn self! Now to catch a baby, that may seem a bit challenging, and it can be, but it is also a couples activity! I mean they do it on The Bachelor all the time. Maybe while you are on the baby hunt, you could also play games like 21 Questions or Tire Slash. I know all of my rescue babies have brought such immense meaning and joy to me and my really fucking sexy flaming hot hunk of a husband. So try it out! Because you know what they say about babies. . . why not!?

Queefs, Gags

Mouth kisses, Dr. Gags Dear Dr. Gags, I accidentally ran over my partner’s cat on roller blades and now she wants to adopt a new cat together but I don’t feel ready for the commitment. Help!

-Feels on Wheels

Exco Catalog continued when you go home for break you won’t just be mommy’s anemic goth child but an immortal being that slurps the blood of virgins. Required materials include swooshy black capes, a confused sense of self, flour, and a mason jar (sometimes you have leftovers). You’ll be evaluated on how well you can discreetly shift from mortal being to immortal, accuracy of bite, and ability to dress well, even without recognizing yourself in the mirror. Forbidden: garlic, crosses, silver bullets, and stakes

MILFco

Do you think Stacey’s mom has got it going on? Have you ever called your fourth-grade teacher “mom” by accident? Are you having a hard time scheduling a therapy

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appointment at the counseling center? Then MILFco may help fill that void that was definitely not filled by a present maternal figure. Our instructors will match students one-on-one with generous, kind, dazzling, brilliant, husky-voiced women from the greater Cleveland area who happen to have children. This course is structured as a private reading, and may require work outside of class, from babysitting Monica’s 18-month-old when needed to driving Jennifer’s asshole son Brian to the airport. Assessments will be based on feedback from the mothers on how they’re being pampered, respected, and enjoyed by their assigned students. If you get laid by the end of the semester, let us know in our survey! We want to keep this exco going for MILFS to come. :)

Bluesco

Bluesco is the first exco dedicated to tracing the historic roots of American music. Students will start at the very beginning in the home of the blues: a small village in Surrey where Eric Clapton, the first official bluesman, was born. After being immersed in Slowhand’s discography, students will then move on to Stevie Ray Vaughn, and then progress further down the great journey of the blues to Jack White, John Mayer, The Black Keys, and finally, Steven Seagal. Special preference given to the recently divorced.

NibbleCo

If I see a baby’s chubby cheeks, you know I just need a little nibble.

Why I’m a Heterosexual Taylor Swift Truther Liza Mackeen-Shapiro Opinions Editor

Karlie Kloss, Dianna Agron, Emily Poe. To the uninitiated observer, the succession of these names will likely appear to be nothing more than a seemingly disparate list of Jared Kushner’s sister in law, Quinn from Glee, and some random third person. However, to anyone who has paid more than a passing glance to any online discussion about the life and work of the wildly successful international pop star-turned-humble underground indie cottagecore vibes singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, this group is easily identifiable as a collection of the singer’s rumored ex-girlfriends.

Now, you might be asking yourself: “Wait, Taylor Swift is gay? Didn’t she write a love song about the guy from Owl City?” While you would be right about that, the sect of online Swifties known as “Gaylors” nonetheless maintain that Swift is a closeted lesbian, citing evidence such as her tendency to write songs addressed towards women from the so-called “male perspective” and the existence of paparazzi candids in which she appears to be acting suspiciously affectionate with her

female friends as proof.

Indeed, despite Swift recently celebrating her fifth anniversary with her boyfriend, British actor Joe Alwyn, speculation about the true nature of her sexual orientation remains prevalent as ever — and this heterosexual Swiftie has had enough! Gaylor truthers claim that, even if sometimes tenuous, viewing Swift’s music through a queer lens provides both an interesting and validating opportunity to see their own experiences reflected in the work of one of the world’s most famous musicians. Don’t her straight fans deserve that representation too? The same comfort that Gaylors derive from interpreting songs like Betty as a lesbian anthem is what heterosexual fans like me get out knowing that rapturuous love songs like Enchanted are about the man who sung Fireflies. If the straight community has lost Taylor, the woman who once wore a harness backwards over a “This is my Fight Song” tank top, we truly have no one left.

Ultimately, to paraphrase Swift herself, “Shade never made anybody less straight” — and I’ll continue to maintain my belief in her heterosexuality no matter how many essay length Kaylor or Swiftgron proofs I am presented with by members of the Gaylor community.

Do Not Adopt List

By LovingPaws Cat Shelter

Hello new students! We know what a crazy year it has been but we are more excited than ever to have your smiling faces back on campus and in our lovely town. We know that you may be on the hunt for a new furry friend in your life to provide emotional support or just some boops on the snoot. While we encourage you to come on down to our shelter, in light of cases in the past, we must once again publish our Do Not Adopt List of 2021. While they may look cute, these guys are vicious and should not be messed with.

VICK (left)

Wow, take a gander at this scumbag. You can just tell he’s up to no good. All he wants to do is drink booze, get in fights, and pretend like he ain’t never loved a woman.

But don’t let this tortured soul tell you his life story, because he won’t tell you about Sheila. Before Vick, was Victor, an upstanding citizen, a law student, and head over heels in love with a flight attendant he met on a trip to Detroit. Next thing you know, she’s meeting the family, he gives her the keys to his place, and they’re talking about the future. He even bought a glistening diamond ring. But one day she went to work on a flight to Timbuktu and never returned. He heard from her mother that she was off with the pilot, and it only lasted a couple of weeks. When he asked her mother why, she hung up. Since then, he just lives with the ache of never knowing. Was it him? Was it all moving too fast? Was he too focused on the law of the land and not the law of his lady? So he abandoned the big firm to be a low-life-goodfor-nothing, swearing off love for the rest of his meaningless life.

So yeah, you can try to fix him, many have attempted, but you can never mend a heart so broken and so in denial. Do not adopt.

ANGEL (middle)

Don’t let her name (that she chose) fool you, this kitty is nothing but an absolute demon. She might be tolerable,

if it wasn’t for all the lying. And she’s one of those liars where the lies are just unnecessary. For instance, I asked her “did you leave a hairball in the kitchen?” I made sure to let her know I wasn’t mad, I just had some guests coming over and I wish she would just take two seconds to clean it up. But she was all like, “No, but I wonder who it was…” and just looked at me as if I was the one that left it there. When have I ever in my life even tried to make a hairball? Meanwhile this girl has the same grey hairballs all over her bed and has the audacity to ask some “openended question” when she knows it was just me and her living there. Another example was when I was like “do you think this skirt looks good on me?” I was only re-

ally asking this to be considerate, not because I actually wanted her fashion advice, but she responds, “it’s a little short for you, isn’t it?” In all fairness, the skirt was short, but nothing too scandalous, especially for watching my boyfriend’s band play at Cheetah’s (which was awesome baby, I know you’re reading this, you rocked!) It’s like she gets off on making me feel so horrible about myself and I would not recommend letting her into your house.

Do not adopt.

RUFUS (right)

Do you see how fugly this cat is??? Do. Not. Adopt.

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Cara Delevigne, What Do You Do? Juli Freedman Bad Habits Editor Dear Cara Delevingne,

What do you do? Besides being passed around like a sack of salami by every Hollywood lez and “pegging the patriarchy”, really, what is it that you do all day? Sure, technically you’re a model, some would even dare to call you a supermodel, but just something about that doesn’t sit right with me. It should be a simple question, followed by a simple IMDb search or whatever, but this mystery of how you remain too relevant has truly consumed my every waking moment.

According to my memory as a tumblr blogger, you had eyebrows at one point. I also know that you were in the movie Paper Towns, which I could only assume you were passively bland in at best. But my memory fades when I try to think about you past 2014. What did Anna Wintour do to you to for you to still be invited to the Met Gala in 2021? Were the brows even thaaaaat cute?

As a fruit myself, it would be truly inspiring if you could make as much money as I think you make just by being gay and annoying. One for the history books. Hey I mean if you could make bank moving you and Ashley Benson’s sex swing into your house, then all I would be asking is where can I sign up! But, there is no way this is possible. I mean even if it was, could it really afford your gigantic hideous house with a ball pit, costume room, and whatever interior designer you put a gun to their head to make your “vagina closet.” I am starting to think that maybe you are a straight person paid by some homophobic all-seeing overlord in order to make the public hate lesbians. And, oh, is it working!

Every night before I am about to fall deeply into a marvelous slumber I am reminded of the terrible ache I have to find out what it is you do. I haven’t slept in years! So please, I beg of you, for the sake of my sanity, GET. A. JOB!!!!!!

Love, Juli <3

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Advice From A Senior To a Freshman (That Can Hang) Izzy Halloran Opinions Editor Finally, I’m a senior at Oberlin College and Conservatory. I’ve waited 4 long, stupid years to make this list.

Throughout my time at Oberlin, I’ve kept meticulous handwritten notes in the hopes that I could improve even one person’s life. *Stop reading if you are a 3rd or 4th year. KEEP READING IF YOU ARE A FIRST OR SECOND YEAR.* Okay now that it’s just us, let’s get into it. <3

1. Smoke weed every day.

2. Jump off something high to prove you have hops.

3. Planking. ‘Nuff said.

4. Make sure to publicly announce your Hogwarts house. Personally, I’m a Hufflepuff.

5. Say that things are goals when they are epic.

6. Don’t talk. Just shut up.

7. Fall onto a giant spike. They’re everywhere if you really look.

8. When sharing a space with a Senior, show some respect. They know more than you could even imagine.

9. Shave your legs in Mudd ;) 10. Talk about cancel culture.

11. Touch hot stuff when you come upon it.

12. Start a fistfight...catch a few punches. Or perhaps...throw a few.

13. Rock a big hat.

14. Get a massive dorm animal. Like a lion.

15. Lick the ground to prove something.

16. Pick an alumna and worship. Here are some popular options: My friend Eva’s mom, Rachel (she’s really fun to talk to), John Greene, and the Paul Brothers (Logan and the other one). Great options!

17. Fall in love with your therapist. Whoops!

18. Pantsing. Get pantsed and give pantsed.

19. Call your professor “O Captain, My Captain.”

It’s a Dead Poet Society reference, so everyone will know you’re cultured as hell.

20. Spill your deepest darkest secrets to a Creative Writing workshop of 20 strangers.

All art by Eva Sturm-Gross

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Comic by Ella Causer

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CROSSWORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ACROSS

1. You take one of these before a rhinoplasty 10. The house of a fertilized egg, baby maker 11. Yoko 12. Most popular side at The Feve 14. A social media account autonomously operated by computer software 17. Everyone things their relationship will be one that does this 18. Whereabout unknown 19. Name of an asteroid family located in the outer regions of the asteroid belt 20. Star Wars character that uses the Force 21. Acronym for the safety measure credit card companies must comply with to ensure the security of transactions 23. Test your drugs to make sure they haven’t been this 24. Expressing exasperation with people that are horny for animals 27. What someone might say immediately before losing all their money at the casino 28. Lodging, follows air 29. When you have to say “Good Morning Nancy We Live Uptown” but only have 6 letters to say it 30. You’ve got one of these when you’re pitching a tent

DOWN

1. Fat transfer on your rearend 2. Keeping an eye on the clock when en route 3. A common descriptor in Oberlin classrooms, having an indecent interest or obsession in a subject 4. When referring to our EIC Priya’s buddies...you could mean any number of people such as Julia __ _____.

5. How Scooby Doo might tell you that something hurts

6. This in Spanish 7. Sexy babe 8. Where you might find a red nose 9. ...and fro 13. Spherical shape 15. Tidal misheard by a scribe 16. The reason for many celeb-

rity cancellations 20. What Bolsonaro’s mother likely said when he was troublesome as a child 22. Bathroom to a Brit 23. A word meaning tongue in the language derived from J.R. Tolkien’s elves

25. A web application that allows users to request and curate content from multiple sources 26. A type of image file...with an extra G on the end (oops!)

28. We will get one of these when we graduate

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