VOL. 69
OBERLIN’S ALTERNATIVE STUDENT NEWSPAPER
EST. 1999 September 27
Front Cover: Charlotte Price Back Cover: Jake Butcher and Jody Shanabrook Editors in Chief: Molly Bryson P.J. McCormick Managing Editor: Charlie Rinehart-Jones
Section Editors: Serena Zets - Features Damani McNeil - Arts + Culture Ben Richman - Opinions Jane Wickline - Bad Habits
Visual Arts Editor: Molly Sheffield
Layout Editors: Maddie Shaw Sam Schectman Amy Baylis Anna Harberger
Copy Editors: David Mathisson Maisie Sheidlower Miriam Khanukaev Levi Dayan
Photo Editor: Clio Schwartz
Staff Writers: Jason Hewitt Grace Smith Cameron Avery Fionna Farrell Web Editor: Loubna El Meddah El Idrissi
Letter from the Editors: On the Value of Contributing Writers BY MOLLY BRYSON AND P.J. MCCORMICK | EDITORS IN CHIEF Dear Readers, Maybe it’s a symptom of Oberlin’s relative isolation, but in our experience, our campus’s culture is built on student contribution. 45 minutes outside of Cleveland, five hours from Chicago, nine from NYC— it means we’re forced to make our own fun. For us, that means hanging out in our Burton office until the wee hours of the night, fiddling with InDesign tools we don’t know how to use and adding Oxford commas to every mis-punctuated list in sight. It means filling the Notes apps on our phones with all of the strange and disconcerting things we come across during the week, in hopes that by the end we might have the basis of a Bad Habits article (or, at least, a byline). It means attending all the random ‘Sco events, public lectures, and house shows we can, for fear of missing out on something story-worthy. It means, in short, learning to love this weird and idiosyncratic pocket of rural Ohio we call home (so that we can endearingly make fun of it, that is). For others, contribution looks different. Some Oberlin students contribute their musical expertise to help book a Friday night act at the Cat. Some students contribute their culinary skills to cook a hearty Tank meal. And some students, like those whose work fills the following pages, contribute ideas, reviews, Op-eds, hot takes, silly satire, and standout student journalism, to help build our paper, now over 20 years strong.
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This campus wouldn’t function without contributors (or, maybe it would, but it certainly wouldn’t be very much fun), and neither would The Grape (or, maybe it would, but it’d be like three pages). And much like this campus, The Grape seeks to source all types of voices for our contributions—not just those that are uncontroversial, or outspoken, or that we’ve heard 1,000 times before. The Grape is a collaborative effort. That is: it’s made up of the time, energy, and care of a diverse array of students. Our contributors are not just surrogates for our own editorial agendas; they’re the backbone, the heart, and the soul of this whole thing. The Grape wouldn’t be The Grape without its trusted and ever-shifting pool of contributors who cue us in to what’s important, and who say what needs to be said. That’s a fact that we, your 2019-2020 Editors-inChief, are proud of, and will do everything in our power to uphold. For The Grape to continue to be the smart, in-tune, and productively provocative amalgamation of student journalism it’s always intended to be, we must make light of our school without taking lightly the work that its students continue to put into it, and into us. With that in mind, for our first contribution as EIC’s, we’d like to say: Don’t be shy—pitch us an article! Help us democratize this paper! Best, Molly and P.J.
Interested in writing for The Grape? Curious about how to get involved? Have a doodle/comic/graphic you want to share? Come to our next contributors’ meeting! 3 PM, Sunday September 29th @ Our office in the basement of Burton
PAL Program: Helpful or Oberkill? BY JOOSKE VAN HOUTEN | CONTRIBUTING WRITER This week marks the completion of my first month at Oberlin. As the new school year is starting to get into full swing, it seems like everyone, new and returning students alike, has gotten used to their new environment. One of the things that smoothed the transition into college life as a freshman was the Peer Advising Leaders (PAL) program. Initiated in the fall of 2017, the Peer Advising Leader Program is meant to help first-year students adjust to their new life at college. Every year, incoming students are divided into different cohorts all consisting of about 15 people. Each group is led by a student who has gone through a special PAL training. Six times throughout the first semester, the PAL cohort comes together in a class called Lead 050, Introduction to Oberlin Life and Learning. The Office of the Dean of Students describes it as a “one-credit, co curricular course [that] will cover topics designed to support students in becoming effective intentional learners.” Each session covers a different topic, such as time management, study strategies, or winter term. Most freshmen view participation in the PAL program as a very useful step in the process of adjusting to college life. “The PAL orientation helped me a lot, first-year Alba Diaz explains. “It helped me learn a lot more about how the system works and how to get places, and it addressed most of my main concerns, like how to register for classes.” However, not all freshmen find the program and following classes convenient. Another freshman, who prefers to remain anonymous adds, “I didn’t feel like it particularly taught me anything that I couldn’t have read somewhere. I think Lead 050 is going to help me with stuff like winter term. But the first session wasn’t really helpful. I just feel like a lot of the info is easily accessible in other places.” Besides helping first-years adjust to the hustle and bustle of college life, the PAL program is also meant to initiate social interaction and create a sense of community among the students. “The PAL program made me meet different people but also my first year
seminar professor and my advisor, which was nice.” Diaz states. “I also engaged more with my peers through Connect Cleveland. My PAL group went to a book bank. We had to sort through books that would be delivered to different libraries. I made friends with the people I was working with and it made us connect a lot more.” Still, not everyone is as enthusiastic about their PAL orientation. “I know a lot of people who have had really good experiences. I keep wishing I had that same experience. I like the people in my PAL group and my seminar. But I don’t really feel like we made any valuable group connection,” said one first-year. Senior and PAL Devyn Malouf, however, finds the program, and especially the Lead 050 sessions, very important in the process of forming a strong bonds with students. “I think that a lot of the benefits you get out of Lead 050 come from the social aspect. The fact that you see people in class frequently and then see them outside of class in a more casual setting really solidifies and strengthens relationships with people that you already know have (at least somewhat)
similar interests. I’ve made a lot of friends through the courses I’ve taken, but the friends I’ve stayed closest with are the ones I’ve made an effort to see outside of class, and I think Lead provides a very natural way to do that. Plus having an older peer to facilitate and organize those interactions, I think, takes the pressure off of y’all if you don’t make the effort or if it feels awkward. So that alone, I think, makes taking Lead 050 a worthwhile experience.” Malouf also mentions that the current program is very different from her orientation three years ago. “It was a complete mess. There was still the required meetings and some organized social events, but they all seemed a bit silly. My main social interactions happened in my dorm, which was great, but I really wish I had been forced to meet and spend time with people from different parts of campus. I I think the structure of PAL and how it forces students to get together and work out things that they’re unsure about is really great.” As an international student who isn’t familiar with the American education system, I can definitely say that the PAL program has provided a good support system for the adjustment to not only my new college life, but also my new American life as well. Furthermore, the program and my first year seminar have given me the opportunity to create a tight bond with the people in my cohort. From discussing important matters in class to spending time with each other outside the classroom, my group has grown into a kind of family that I can always fall back on. I probably wouldn’t have met some of my best friends if it wasn’t for the PAL program (also, shoutout to Devyn, the best PAL ever). While the PAL initiative and Lead 050 are definitely good ways to get in contact with peers during your first weeks of college and learn more about your new environment, the program might not be your thing. And that’s totally fine. At least we can all proudly say that we’ve survived our first month of college.
Oberlin Comes Together for Sunrise Climate Strike BY CASEY TROOST AND NICO VICKERS | CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
On September 20th, 2019, a group of over 600 people gathered in Tappan Square for an international Climate Strike rally organized by Sunrise Oberlin. High schoolers, some of whom risked suspension by walking out of class, marched to join older community members and college students. The strike had five demands: the passage of a Green New Deal, increased respect for indigenous land, global environmental justice, protection of biodiversity, and global adoption of sustainable agriculture. Following the rally, Sunrise members led a series of teach-ins about climate activism, the Green New Deal, and environmental justice. Created in early 2019, Sunrise Oberlin is just one hub of 250+, part of a youth-led national movement focused on climate activism and the Green New Deal. Although the rally received much attention from the Oberlin community, it was not the first of Sunrise Oberlin’s political acts. “I remember one of [Sunrise Oberlin’s] first actions was the Senator Sherrod Brown action on February 26, as a part of the larger Senate sprint. A bunch of people from different Sunrise hubs across the country went to their local Senator’s office and protested to get them to sign the Green New Deal pledge” said second-year Grace Smith, Sunrise National & Sunrise Oberlin social media coordinator. Though Sunrise Oberlin aimed to raise support for their demands, students attending the rally voiced a number of perspectives on climate change. The issue of environmental justice, a featured topic at the rally, was high on student’s minds. Environmental justice deals with the way that systematic racial oppression translates to environmental issues. It manifests in many ways, including, less access to resources, proximity to pollution, and
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the heightened threat that natural disasters pose for black and brown communities. Second-year Banu Newell expressed concern about environmental justice and was excited to see “so many people from Oberlin’s black and brown communities speaking out. This is a fight we all have to fight!” An anonymous third-year student tied climate concerns to the current political atmosphere. “I think that the rejection of climate change by so many important world leaders, the fact that everyone denies it, and the destruction of the Amazon [are all important concerns]. Especially Brazil denying the UN’s 22 million dollars [to help fix the Amazon].” For others, climate change is an issue that affects them personally. “For me, this threat is deeply personal. As a South Florida local whose house sits at an altitude of four feet, rising sea levels mean the threat of displacement for my family and everyone I grew up with. For many, these threats don’t just exist in the future. Already we see the insidious creep of climate gentrification in inland, historically black and brown neighborhoods, like Little Haiti in Miami, where developers seek land beyond the reach of ever-rising tides,” said second-year Faith Ward, a member of Sunrise Oberlin and the MC of the climate strike. Finally, a great number of students were worried about what Oberlin itself was doing to help mitigate the effects of climate change, especially in the light of the college’s goal to be neutral for the environment by 2025, in conjunction with the town’s goal to be net positive by 2050. “I mean obviously our sustainability could be better than it
is at the time. I think there’s a lot of trash a lot around campus which isn’t great, and I think that the administration as an institution is respecting their need for money more than they’re respecting the environmental concerns of the student body,” said an Oberlin student that wishes to remain anonymous. The impressive turnout at the climate strike adds a new layer to the prevailing debate about whether Oberlin students are politically apathetic. “I’d assume [Oberlin students would] at least understand a fair amount [about the climate crisis], probably as much as me,” said first-year Oziah Wales. “I’m just the kind of guy who takes the time to read publications on topics that are necessary for me to be better educated about what’s going on around me. I’m pretty sure Oberlin as an institution encourages that kind of thought process and behavior in students.” At the same time, other students remain unconvinced that this is indicative of improvement of Oberlin’s engagement. “I think there’s definitely more apathy, but I don’t know whether it’s innate, or whether people just don’t see the point of preaching to the choir of Oberlin, because everyone’s pretty much on the same boat [in terms of political opinion],” said another Oberlin student who wishes to remain anonymous. No matter where you stand on this debate, if you would like to get involved in climate advocacy, joining Sunrise Oberlin may be a viable route for you. In the wake of the climate strike, Sunrise Oberlin is focusing on coalition building and putting pressure on Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown to act on climate change. If you would like to be involved with Sunrise Oberlin, email sunriseoberlin@gmail.com or stop by a meeting. Sunrise Oberlin meets every Sunday at 4 p.m. in Wilder. There is also a Sunrise training day on October 6th where you can learn about Sunrise’s plan to achieve a Green New Deal and learn about important organizing skills to make it happen. The event is all day, so feel free to stop by!
A Firsthand Account of the Noodle Fights Up North BY JASON HEWITT | STAFF WRITER I would like to start off by welcoming each and every Obie who is reading this back to campus. It’s a new year, which means new wild Obie stories and adventures. I want to let you all know that while you may take some W’s and some L’s this semester, as long as you keep moving forward, it’s all good. It has already been a pretty wild semester for some of us, but we got this! I want to share a pretty goofy story with y’all for the first Grape issue of the year. Sheesh...This past Saturday night was a rather interesting one. To be blunt, the night pretty much ended with white people smacking the hell out of each other with pool noodles. It was honestly one of the goofiest and funniest events that I’ve ever seen here at Oberlin. I honestly can’t even believe that I saw some people viciously fighting each other with pool noodles, and apparently, this isn’t the first time that this has even happened. So, where do I even begin? It’s important to note that I live on the north side of campus. Therefore, I was basically right in the middle of all the madness that went down later. It was around nine o’clock and the pregames are usually just getting started around that time. In the meantime, I changed into some nice clothes to get ready for the night and linked up with my friends at one of the Goldsmith houses. Once I got there, I had a good time with some good music playing. Sounds like the typical night in Oberlin so far, right? Well, things started getting a little weirder as the night continued. As usual, a lot of people were drunk at the time. Everyone seemed scattered all around the Goldsmith houses. Honest-
ly, it didn’t seem like anything different was going on. Then, I started hearing yelling that was much louder than usual. So, I walked toward the noise and saw this huge crowd of people. I thought there was an actual fight going on, so I look even looked closer. It turns out that there were actually people fighting each other with… pool noodles. That’s right. It wasn’t like they were just play fighting either. To an extent, yeah, they weren’t trying to kill each other or anything. They were definitely passionate about winning the noodle “fight” since they were definitely drunk. I can’t fully blame them though. I mean, think about it. There really aren’t that many things to do on a Saturday night in
place, but it is definitely one of the most unique and drunk things that I have ever seen at Oberlin. If this is an ongoing thing that occurs on north campus, then it should be a very interesting year for Oberlin’s party culture moving forward. I know that I definitely won’t be a participant of these “noodle fights,” but it’s something that is funny as hell to watch. Shoutout to everybody involved with this ridiculous and hilarious idea.
TO BE BLUNT, THE NIGHT PRETTY MUCH ENDED WITH WHITE PEOPLE SMACKING THE HELL OUT OF EACH OTHER WITH POOL NOODLES. Oberlin. Sometimes, the functions that are going on just aren’t the right vibe for some people. So, they decided to do their own thing with the pool noodle fights and have a lot of fun while doing it. I feel like a lot of people here don’t really do things like that. They don’t create their own random fun events for people to pull up to. It’s always the usual party that gets shut down by SNS. These guys got drunk and came up with a pool noodle fight club. That idea in itself may sound goofy as hell, but damn, it does sound a little fun while you’re drunk. I have no idea who came up with the idea in the first
Tots to Thai: Feve Owners to Open New Restaurant
BY TEA CRUNK | CONTRIBUTING WRITER
When I was still deciding on which school I wanted to go to, one of the first things I did was map the nearest Thai restaurant to each college I was considering. And, though I landed at Oberlin, that choice came at the cost of convenient Thai food, something I value so dearly. After a mere three sad, Thai-less weeks, it seems my prayers have been answered: a Thai restaurant is coming to Oberlin. In fact, it’s the owners of the beloved Feve, Matt and Jason Adelman, who have decided to branch out and open a Thai restaurant called ThiNi Thai right in downtown Oberlin. Directly behind the Feve, the building that houses The Oberlin Market and is currently surrounded by plywood and construction equipment will soon serve noodles and sticky rice. Planned to be small, casual, conveniently located, and - perhaps most importantly - affordable, the restaurant will primarily be for takeout, along with a small seating area and a full bar. Feve Owner Jason Adelman and Kitchen Manager Tim Langdon have visited Thailand together on multiple occasions. In fact, they are currently in Thailand to bring back the restaurant’s chef. On one of those trips, the two happened to meet a local named Aon, who showed them around and taught them the local cuisine. For over a year, the two have been attempting to get Aon a visa to fulfill his dream of starting a restaurant in America - and lucky for us, it happens to be right here in Oberlin, Ohio. “It’s gonna be super authentic. It’s [Aon’s] recipes and his family’s recipes that he’s been cooking for years,” Feve manager Tony Tenorio explains. He adds that ingredients
will even be shipped from Thailand. “Everything is authentically Thai,” Tenorio emphasises, clearly excited about the prospect. When asked if the restaurant will serve typical Thai food, Tenori responds “I don’t think [the menu] will have lot of things we’ve seen around here before.” He expects the food to primarily consist of dishes specific to the region of Thailand in which Aon grew up, localized to his expertise. Tenori anticipates that lunch will be popular and believes that the restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner at least, though the official hours are not yet available. Tenori also reminds those of us awaiting the restaurant’s opening that “All this stuff is speculative of course, because once we start getting it open things can change.” Many Oberlin students are eager for the arrival of the new restaurant. A group of fourth years agreed that they were all “so excited” to have a Thai restaurant in Oberlin. They reflected that there has been some change in Oberlin’s food scene over their four years here, including India Garden ‘s closing last year. When asked about the prospect of a new Thai restaurant in town, students had reactions ranging from ecstatic to tentative. First year Kira Mesch recalls that she recently saw a friend post about getting Thai food on social media and thought to herself “‘I wish I could have Thai food right now’ and now I can!” When approached in Mudd, passersby made remarks such as “Fuckin’ awesome,” “It would be cool,” and “Sounds delicious.”
Other students are less enthusiastic, but not opposed to the idea, like a fourth year who stated “I mean, I guess I hope it’s good.” Above the restaurant doors, there will be a lit-up arrow directing the way in, along with a happy chicken figure spinning above the arrow - a choice that has already proved controversial. One Oberlin citizen criticized the idea schematic. Despite not being a vegetarian, he found it “kind of offensive that they have this caricature of this bird they’re torturing and killing, y’know smiling . . . so disgusting.” Another man commented that “The novelty of the sign is gonna wear off real fast” for those living nearby. To taste the food for yourself and decide if the sign warrants controversy, keep an eye out for ThiNi Thai - coming to the college town near you by the end of October.* *This is the goal; not a guaranteed date
In Conversation With Honey Brown, Oberlin DJ BY DAMANI MCNEIL | ARTS + CULTURE EDITOR I’d been playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate for hours with Dani Miriti Pacheco -- one of Oberlin’s most skilled DJs, who performs at parties and venues across Ohio under the moniker Honey Brown -- and I still had absolutely no idea how to match Dani’s prowess. As we passed blunts and exchanged combos, we listened to everything from Carti leaks and footwork breakbeats to deep house. Even doing something as innocuous as playing video games and blowing off some steam after class, I found myself realizing that the vastly different songs that Dani chose came together naturally, creating the perfect blend of music for the occasion. Dani’s attention to detail and natural affinity for adjusting to the temperature of the room is something I’ve come to expect from them, and with a gig at the ‘Sco on the horizon, opening for Suzi Analogue and Amber London on October 12th, I was happy to get a chance to sit down with them and ask a few questions about the music that inspires them, and how they approach DJing. I’m hella curious about how you prep for a show. How does Honey Brown get ready, and what do they think about on the stage? Honey Brown/Dani: Honestly prep will become a lifestyle. I wake up in the morning and I’m usually kinda groggy, and one of the things I like to do is try to find tracks. I’ll just wake up and go on Soundcloud and Youtube and go through all my recommended tracks and collect the tracks I like. In terms of performance: in the past I’ve always had a kinda intense/complicated relationship with tempo switches in mixing when performing. ‘Cause obviously there’s the art of beatmatching, and all of that, but then you also have to be where the audience is, and a tempo switch can be either where you lose or totally win the audience. [Tempo changing] is already such a chaotic thing, it’s like a wave within the ocean landscape of the mix.. You’re kinda trying to keep the beat steady, and you have this powerful force that’s coming in, and you have to balance out where it’s coming thru, where it’s loud, where it’s soft, where it’s coming and going, all of that. Gotcha, gotcha. And personally you also blend a lot of different styles... Honey Brown/Dani: Yeah, and I’ve found that’s definitely complicated but something I like doing. I love to connect things you might not have thought of connecting before, and when you get down to the bare materials that
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honey brown’s recs
Lil Flip - “Limbus: Part 1” Turn Up Fam - “Samba Gqom” Ministry of Funk - “Funk Operator” MC Lan, Skrillex, TroyBoi feat. Ludmilla e Ty Dolla $ign - “Malokera” Lady Leshurr - “Your Mr” nadus - “mack” Alfred English, Tsvi, & Luru - “Piston” (Tsvi & Luru Remix) Detroit Swindle - “Love Rain” (Seasonal Redux) Emo Kid feat. WorstHood - “Hennessy” MC Bin Laden - “Tototo” (Zutzut Remix) A-Star & Edouble - “Eggplant” Afrobeat Remix Suzi Analogue x Mndsgn. - “Quarter Inches [Brain WaverLude]” make songs, you can make really interesting soundscapes as you mix things that probably have never been mixed together but are very clearly connected. I’m really into blending as a way of recontextualizing and creating a dialogue between a lot of different styles of music. I think there’s high levels of finesse to doing that, which is something that I’m working on: taking that perfect blend and then recording it into a track. One of the other things I wanted to ask you about. You mix a lot of styles… I’m not tryna pigeonhole you into saying top three or top five or anything like that, but if you were to label your pool of influences, what would you say the genres you work with and are influenced by? Honey Brown/Dani: In any genre, it’s gonna be messy. Especially with mixing. But trap definitely influences me. Gqom, a contemporary form of house coming out of South Africa is really impactful. Footwork, clearly! Have to rep footwork, and Chicago tech-life. That’s one of the struggle ones because a lot of people don’t fuck with it… Honestly! Some people do, but it’s hard to tell. Techno, clearly, plus Jersey club… Shit is heat! But there’s tons of other stuff I try to bring in that comes from my upbringing, like R&B and funk. That’s one thing I love about footwork, it’s a great way of recontextualizing R&B samples and music in general. That’s what I really wanna do, play R&B from the 80s and 90s like slow jams and shit but with some cold footwork drums under that? That shit gets me going! That all definitely shines through in your mixes… Do you find that combining all those things leads to, or embraces a certain politics?
Is there something about that combination that says something about you politically, or are they inherently political? Honey Brown/Dani:I think it is political. In some senses I feel that’s where genre becomes even more relevant because as much as they don’t really exist, certain artists and movements in music are heavily politicized in certain ways. I think all dance music is heavily connected to a living pulse; it’s what the people want, it represents what people are gonna cool off and chill too. I think that personal pleasure and enjoyment is intensely political. I often times try to speak to my own experiences and thoughts in my mixes. There was a reading I did for class about digital identity, and I think my mixes -- more so than Instagram or anything like that -- is one of the most creative ways for me to build creative identity. That something that I’m attuned to mostly, ‘cause I’m the only one that’s at all my sets, but I do put a lot of work into crafting a style and thematic content sonically, and with vocal samples and different tambral aspects, and that’s the broader vision. Getting back to the politics though: I think that music and different forms of it have a way of bringing about such a release, that I think it’s political because all emotions and actions in the current state are heavily politicized. But beyond the politics, there’s this emotional release [for me] that kinda comes down to the balance between trying to perfect the craft of mixing, and also providing a good selection and energy so that people can have the release that they’re looking for. But as I craft my image I wanna be able to relate to people politically too. You can see Honey Brown spin in support of Suzi Analogue and Amber London at the ‘Sco on October 12.
These Days…Oberlin is More than just its Stereotype BY MOLLY BRYSON | EDITOR IN CHIEF The Christmas before I left for college, my uncle Rob, a music aficionado, gifted me the record Chelsea Girl by Nico. “If you’re going to liberal arts school, you have to have this record,” he said, unblinking. He said it as if it were law. I nodded in earnest, embarrassed for not having known about this requirement prior to enrolling in Oberlin, a school whose notorious alternative art and music scene was already something I had become anxious over keeping up with. And so, for the six months or so before I left Chicago for Ohio, Chelsea Girl became my soundtrack. I was desperate to catch onto the album’s melancholic tone, desperate, too, to understand the moody, intellectual pace of my to-be peers, whom I imagined as a flock of mini Nicos, all curtain-banged and high cheek-boned and smoky-eyed. In my fantasies, Oberlin was the overlooked epicenter of nostalgic, folksy America; it was a place where young, disparaged urbanites came to bask in the off-beat beauty of the rural Midwest, to read Marx in the rain, to smoke rollies and string pick guitar. I spent the spring semester of my senior year sprawled across my bedroom floor, listening to Nico croon from the speakers on my cheap Crosby record player and hoping that some of her ennui might rub off on me. If Chelsea Girl was really the musical equivalent to liberal arts school, I thought, then liberal arts school must be dismal indeed. Publicly and defiantly dismal, that is, and in a compellingly raw, subtly sexy way, which was
everything that I thought Oberlin required, and expected, me to be. If you’ve ever listened to Chelsea Girl, you probably know it best for the hit song “These Days.” The tune is exquisitely composed and effectually somber, marked by its descending fingerpicking pattern and its majestic, almost classical-sounding string and flute accompaniment. It begins, despondently sparse in its poetics and tinged with a quiet sense of regret: “I’ve been out walking/I don’t do too much talking these days/ These days I seem to think a lot about all the things that I forgot to do.” The lamentation continues; “I don’t do too much gambling these days…I had a lover/I don’t think I’ll risk another,” Nico sings, sounding tiringly morose, as if she were a jaded middle-aged ex-creative who had all but given up on romance. Certainly, such lyrics boast
I’ve witnessed the student body’s transition from being largely apathetic to being largely optimistic and engaged. Oberlin students are generally more active than they are resigned, more self-aware than they are narcissistic, and more emotionally giving than they are frugal. I’ve spent my time here, not locked away in my room (over) sentimentalizing my feelings of loneliness and discontent, but (over)dedicating myself to classes, clubs, friends, and activism. I run around constantly, hardly ever with a moment to myself, and am almost never tempted to consider withdrawing before I consider immersing myself further. I am speaking for myself, but I don’t think this is unlike how many of you also exist in this space. It is hard for me, now, to see Oberlin as the backdrop for Chelsea Girl, when so much of the school is grounded in a sense of duty far more honorable than Nico’s sequestered sense of
”IF CHELSEA GIRL WAS REALLY THE MUSICAL EQUIVALENT TO LIBERAL ARTS SCHOOL, I THOUGHT, THEN LIBERAL ARTS SCHOOL MUST BE DISMAL INDEED.” an emotional maturity beyond the kind of performative teenage melodrama that had dominated my musical tastes up until then (think Alex G, Frankie Cosmos, the Sunflower Beam version of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon)— or so I thought. As it turns out, Jackson Browne, “These Days’” original writer, was only sixteen when he penned the song, a fact which now strikes me as absurdly funny. Did Browne really know what it was like to fall out of love, quit gambling for the sake of sobriety, and in effect resign from life, all before the legal age of adulthood? I doubt it. Then again, had I not identified with these exact tropes myself, and at the ripe pre-collegiate age of eighteen, nonetheless? In hindsight, I suppose that “These Days” must have offered me some kind of consolation. A recourse to the unattractive starry-eyed giddiness I witnessed in my ivy league-bound peers, Nico’s passivity seemed a much more modest and respectable option—akin, one might say, to Oberlin’s own anti-glamorous sense of humility. Yet, in proclaiming “These Days” my theme song, had I not inadvertently accepted that my life was over before I had even had a chance to begin living it? My diary from the summer of 2016 suggests something to this extent. “I feel very old, as if I have already experienced everything good in life,” reads one pathetically angsty entry. In reality, I was an anxious Oberlin-bound, wannabe intellectual with a sixties music infatuation, a tendency towards pessimism, an overly romanticized notion of sadness, and a record player at my disposal. Rather than anticipating my transition to college in that stereotypical over-the-top high school way, I decided to take a cue from Nico and be radically, artfully miserable instead. When I arrived at Oberlin my first year, misery sure as hell wasn’t absent from campus culture, but it wasn’t rife, either. If anything, over these past few years
cynicism. What about Chelsea Girl as a whole had inspired my uncle Rob to claim it as the defining album of the liberal arts school experience? Why did liberal arts school have to be the butt of every suffering artist joke, the institutional surrogate of the manic pixie dream girl, the default setting for the indie genre at-large? Perhaps it is because we liberal arts school-ers are sensitive—not in a demoralizing way, but in an acutely perceptive way that makes us, well, prone to artistry! Since that Christmas, my uncle Rob has gifted me a slew of similarly-toned records: Yoko Ono’s Season of Glass, Circuit Des Yeux’s Reaching For Indigo, the complete discography of Maki Asakawa (one album cover features a blurry black and white portrait of the singer, whose face is half obscured by a lit cigarette and dark, sweeping bangs). Their music is all dark, and forlorn, and slightly eerie, but I no longer feel that my uncle is trying to ascribe an undeserved over-the-top solemnity to my liberal arts experience by giving me these records. Nowadays (or “these days,” rather), I cherish the records. Their longevity comforts me, as does their theatrics, their confessional quality, their sheer intensity of sound. All this to say, coming to terms with the reality of my day-to-day life as an Oberlin student didn’t mean I lost my love for 60s music, or my tendency towards sentimentalism, or my general nostalgia. Sometimes, when I am fed up with all of the commotion and the todo lists, I retreat to my room. I put Chelsea Girl on my turntable. I light a candle. I lie on my floor, trace the circular wobbling of the record with my eyes, and cry. Got a story about the sad, angsty music that defined your transition to Oberlin? (Come on, we know you do!) Write to us at thegrape@oberlin.edu!
Meet the Doodles of Oberlin’s Mudd Library BY BEN RICHMAN | OPINIONS EDITOR Some say “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Others say “Take a picture it’ll last longer,” but after looking through the vast collection of doodles inscribed within the study carrels of Mudd Library, I think it is clear that art is truly what you make it, and beauty is in the eye of the pen holder. Within the labyrinth of Mudd there is a vast collection of art that goes unnoticed by most. The long second floor carrels in the back of the building serve as the Mecca of these hieroglyphs of boredom. These carrels hold years worth of messages, drawings, love notes, and conversations—all haphazardly scratched into the wood on either side of the desks. The notes and drawings are not signed or dated, their authors possibly long graduated and currently working for a non profit, or trying to make it as an unemployed artist. While I was looking through each carrel I couldn’t help but think about the first person to ever draw on the clean wood. How long ago were these drawings made? They could have been here for decades—who knows how long the furniture in Mudd has been there? And who were these bored students who left marks to be looked at for years to come? The doodles in Mudd also serve as an opportunity for open communication. One side of the carrel could be considered a fluid art piece that is forever changing, as artists add and edit past work. On one carrel, a doodle artist wrote in a brown marker, “I like My girlfriend’s butt.” This simple, seemingly uncontroversial statement was followed up with the timid black markered-declaration, “I like my boyfriend’s butt.” This rebuttal was then edited, possibly by a third artist, who crossed off the word “boyfriend’s” and wrote “girlfriend’s” in large letters. This discourse between artists that potentially spanned years is extremely common in the Oberlin world of doodles. This space also serves as a place for artists to air their grievances and complain about their lives. In one instance, an artist wrote, “If I find whoever stole my bike, I’m going to murder them. Seriously what kind of a bastard steals a bike on a Sun-
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day??” This question was answered by a second artist who wrote “Someone biking to church?” These anonymous texts are in direct conversation with each other, and in many ways give a glimpse into the past values and concerns of Oberlin students. Next to the bike text is a statement that I assume is referencing the Bezos nude scandal, which reads, “Jeff Bezos can suck my nuts.” This apt social commentary is situated near a piece reading “Hentai Lyfe,” revealing an interest of one anonymous Oberlin student—an interest that has become a motif amongst many Mudd doodles. In another carrel, an anime drawing of a girl with a speech bubble that says “Study you fucking nerd” exemplifies this such trend of anime drawings. This trend possibly reveals a common interest amongst those that choose to
doodle on their desk. There are also some very impressive, detailed drawings that show the level of procrastination that some students were able to commit to. One particularly haunt-
ing drawing of a face staring out into the distance stuck with me long after I left the library. The figure’s eyes stare right at you as you sit in the carrel. Though most people probably don’t pay attention to the doodle, the eyes will be eternally staring at unsuspecting students until Mudd is abandoned and overrun by nature, causing the desks to slowly decompose, or until the library buys new furniture. Another detailed drawing of a lion seemed very impressive to me, and employed some elements of pointillism to illustrate the majestic lion in pen. Many of the more impressive works seemed both time consuming and unproductive. I do not have the chance to discuss most of these pieces, but I have included images of them below. Though the artists were probably procrastinating an essay or extra long reading, the doodles they left behind will continue to serve as a reminder of their struggles, triumphs, and creativity.
Spotlight: A Conversation with 47Soul BY MATT KINSELLA-WALSH | CONTRIBUTING WRITER Next Tuesday, October 1st, 47Soul will be bringing their unique blend of noise to the Oberlin ‘Sco. Formed in Jordan, and now living in London, this Palestinian quartet bumps an electronic form of dabke, a musical genre and dance common across the Levant. They call this “Shamstep,” in reference to Bilad Al-Sham, a former province that includes modern day Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon. It’s a telling choice, given that the modern borders of the Middle East have indelibly shaped the band ’s circumstances. Although all members of the group are Palestinian, none grew up in the Palestinian Authority. As members of the Palestinian Diaspora whose families were displaced during Israel’s founding in 1948, El Jehaz (guitar & vocals) and El Far3i (darouka & MC) came up and met in Amman’s underground music scene, where Z The People (synth and vocals) eventually joined them, after moving from Washington D.C to Palestine to learn the Arabic quarter-tone keyboard. The band’s fourth member, Walaa Sbeit (vocals & percussion) is from Haifa, Israel, and holds an Israeli passport. This odd combination of documents—two Jordanian passports, an Israeli, and an American—limits their travel across the Middle East and Europe, and resulted in a recent series of shows in the West Bank sans Z the People, who was unable to cross Israel’s border. In anticipation of their Tuesday show, members of Students for A Free Palestine and Jewish Voice For Peace interviewed the band. Their answers have been edited for length and clarity. A lot of our readers will have never heard of “Shamstep.” Can you explain a bit about the genre and what it entails? We’ve given the name “Shamstep” at first as a way of playing a groove on the percussions or drums and we built most of our music on that. The bigger picture is creating a sub genre from dabke (dance/groove) that allows us to have a dabke feel on other genres like hip hop, rap and dub. It’s electronic Arabic music with synth, percussions, and vocals that we can dance to the way we dance at any celebration in Palestine.
In many ways, shamstep articulates a Pan-Arab vision, bypassing the modern political borders of the Middle East to instead reference Bilad AlSham. How does this theme of borders emerge in your work, and what is the role of music in finding the cracks in borders?
our people in the diaspora as well as others and creates a space for many conversations that you don’t find everyday. It is a dance party in the end and we are lucky (for lack of a much more descriptive word) to have other passports...most of our people are at risk of losing their homes if they travel if not under siege.
The beats that we use are typical to the area of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq but you’d hear some of these beats in different ways in Africa and South America and probably elsewhere. Everything was moving freely, but that is not the case now with all the borders and walls. The forced geographical division is a big part of our identity; it is almost like the music already carries that story without having to force it.
Can you explain what dabke is and its importance in your performances? Like I said earlier, we created a certain instrumentation or production style that allows for different vocal styles to come in over dabke. Dabke is a dance known in every event in the levant. Danke is as Palestinian/Syrian/ Lebanese/Jordanian/Iraqi as dance can get! That’s what happens in the fertile crescent when people celebrate. People would call the music [that’s performed] with it dabke as well and that has Mijwiz/Arghool, basically instruments that you find on a keyboard these days or you can redesign them with synth, and that ‘s what we do, we don’t sample, we play these types of melodies.
How do your personal circumstances as members of the Palestinian Diaspora inform your music, and where and how you can play? We make music that has a sonic experience. It is new to some people and “typical” to Arabs and that gathers
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Arts + Culture Weekly Playlist BY DAMANI MCNEIL | ARTS + CULTURE EDITOR
•Freddie Gibbs & Madlib “Freestyle S**t” (Bandana, 2019) •Earthgang - “Bank” (Mirrorland, 2019) •Larry June - “Smoothies in 1991” (Out the Trunk, 2019) •JPEGMAFIA - “1539 N. Calvert” (All My Heroes Are Cornballs, 2019) •UMI - “Sonshine” (2019) •Pimp Tobi ft. Shmoplife Dookie, Lil Hen - “3 Man Weave” (Pimpin Since the Playground, 2019) •Dianna Lopez - “Blu” (2019) •Normani - “Motivation” (2019)
(47Soul continued)
What’s the significance of performing dabke outside of Palestine? How does that affect its meaning and the way the crowd interacts? We don’t perform dabke the way a dabke troupe would, because that is a dance show. Of our members, Walaa Sbait is a Dabke dancer and we do bust into a dance here and there, but what we do is just dance music that we create over Arabic drums and we dabke and rap and sing over that. At shows where there is a big Arab community
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there is always a dabke circle, cypher, or moshpit happening. What can audience members expect from your October 1st show at the ’Sco and what’s one thing they should take away from the performance? Expect dancing ...a lot of it .. so much of it…a lot of different vocal styles and bass.
•Lana Del Rey - “Doin’ Time” (Norman fucking Rockwell!, 2019) •DaBaby - “INTRO” (KIRK, 2019)
9/11 and the True Meaning of Bipartisanship BY LEVI DAYAN | COPY EDITOR The events of September 11, 2001 seem like a lifetime ago. This is perhaps easy for me to say; considering I was only two at the time, the only memories I have of the day are stories my parents told me of the chaos surrounding what was supposed to be my first day of preschool. However, considering how fast the news cycles shift in this day and age, it’s almost rational to feel like 9/11 occurred in a different universe. Since then, the U.S. has entered and left Iraq, experienced the most dramatic economic downturn since the depression, and elected a black president. All of this without even considering the events of the 2016 election and onward. This is the context in which last week, on the 18th anniversary of 9/11, some people, conservative and liberal alike, reminisced nostalgically on the brief period of unity that followed the tragedy. According to a recent CNN poll, Bush’s approval rating amongst Democrats is currently an infuriatingly high 54%. In all fairness, this period of unity is pretty staggering to think about in retrospect. According to Gallup, George W. Bush’s approval rating hit a high of 90% post 9/11, which sunk 56 points by the time he was out of office. American pride was everywhere in pop culture, from Will Ferrel flopping around in a star-spangled crop top and short shorts on SNL, to the now-defunct Mad Magazine showing Alfred E. Neuman’s tooth gap filled in with an American flag. As a kid, I remember scrolling through a giant Mad Magazine coffee table book and looking at all the covers over the years; seeing that cover amongst a list of covers that included a literal giant middle finger was striking to say the least. Perhaps most stupefying was New York City’s unification around mayor Rudy Giuliani, considering the city has practically turned despising its mayors into a pastime. Taking all of this into account, it makes sense that many wish to return to this brief
“THERE ARE MOMENTS WHEN ONE HAS TO WORK WITH SOMEONE THEY DISAGREE WITH, AND THESE MOMENTS CAN SOMETIMES HAVE BENEFITS. IN AMERICAN LIFE, AND ESPECIALLY AMERICAN POLITICS, THESE BENEFITS OFTEN LEAVE OUT MUSLIMS, OR ANYONE WHO ISN’T WHITE.” period of unity. America is currently in the midst of one of the most divisive periods in its history in which the president is so loathed that many question why they ever had pride in their country in the first place. We’re worlds away from post-9/11 unification, and if political leaders from both sides could come together and agree on something, wouldn’t that make everything a little easier? Not quite. Analyzing 9/11 solely by looking at the reactions of politicians and media publications is misleading at best and negligent at worst. According to the FBI, the number of hate crimes against muslims across the country skyrocketed from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001. The hatred extended beyond muslims; according to the Sikh Coalition, there were more than 300 hate crimes against sikhs in the first month following 9/11. A budding hatred for any religious group foreign to white normalcy was unleashed, and the death toll was devastating. As sad as it is, this information should not be shocking. Racism and hatred have been such common threads in American history that the eruption of white supremacist violence in that moment is not surprising. However, as someone who has long been desensitized to the horrifying realities of racism in America, I was still taken aback by these numbers. These hate crimes are completely absent in the media narrative of post-9/11 America. The unity that followed the tragedy was white unity, something dangerous in and of itself. George W. Bush’s response to 9/11 had devastating consequences for the entire world, but for many Americans, his response is abbreviated to one line: “those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.” These remarks were made in his address
to a joint session of Congress a week after 9/11, and they are perhaps the reason (along with his occasional critiques of President Trump) that Bush currently enjoys such a high approval rating amongst democrats. However, actions speak louder than words. When taken at word alone, Trump has technically condemned white supremacy; this doesn’t change the fact that his actions are those of a white supremacist. After extending an olive branch to the muslim community, Bush then proceeded to yank it away, Lucy from Peanuts style, sending America plunging into endless warfare that, according to the Watson Institute, has yielded between 244,124 and 266,427 civilian casualties. There were obvious reasons for going to war, such as oil *cough* - I mean, “spreading democracy.” But when thinking back to what caused these wars, I think of a quote from General William Westmoreland regarding the Vietnam war: “life is cheap in the Orient.” That could easily be changed to sum up the Bush administration’s true feelings for muslim lives. These numbers should paint a telling picture of what bipartisanship in America truly is. Bipartisanship may be inevitable in day-to-day life, and it certainly is in politics. There are moments when one has to work with someone they disagree with, and these moments can sometimes have benefits. In American life, and especially American politics, these benefits often leave out muslims, or anyone who isn’t white. The truth is that American bipartisanship is a sham. Blind, unconditional unity to any given country, especially America, can only lead to disaster. So, in the future, when you express a need to get along with the other side in the face of racial hatred, think about who your unity truly serves.
Working Class on Campus: An Ode to the Connectionless By Saffron Forsberg | Contributing Writer Last night, I posted a handful of childhood photos of myself on my Instagram account. They’re funny because they’re so…me, so Saffron-esque in their silly intensity. The photos show an eleven-year-old me dressed as the feminist icon Gloria Steinem; The woman who infiltrated the New York City Playboy club in a cottontail, detailed her experiences in a slicing investigative piece, and went on to form the feminist publication Ms. Magazine, among other triumphs. I am in disguise for my fifth-grade penny arcade, an event in which a sea of my eleven-year-old peers and I dressed as adults we admired and performed short speeches for anyone who would throw a penny in our paper cup. My embodiment of this less-than-radical figure will probably not surprise most at Oberlin College. However, standing next to a student dressed as Robert E. Lee, I stood out in my suburban Texas town. In my neighborhood, it was common to hear people express, with the confidence of a Fox News commentator, how abortion is murder and Obama wasn’t born in the United States. I came of age in Seabrook, Texas—with chunks of time in rural Louisiana—in a working-class neighborhood where places like Oberlin College didn’t seem to exist. Dressing up as a feminist activist, no matter how cheesy, was a big deal. I remember it as so much more thrilling than it appears, projected in the photos I requested from my parents last week. I remember being questioned by the insulted parents of my classmates, who sneered at me, asking who put me up to this. For someone from my upbringing, attending a private liberal arts college is whimsically unthinkable, until one is seated in a college town café in a spirited sweatshirt, almond milk latte in fist, and even then there is the ordeal of fighting off the guilt, alienation, and elitism that accompanies this economic divide. Before starting my first year at Oberlin College, I knew I’d have a hard time relating to my peers on a socioeconomic level. If I hadn’talready known it, the private art high schools and prestigious summer programs that featured on my peers Facebook profiles would have filled me in.
I still, however, maintained my enthusiasm. I’d always wanted to be around this breed of people: accomplished Manhattan teenagers with educated parents and mouths spouting a near-constant stream of intelligent cultural references—that brilliant film director, this experimental musician, that college program, this industry connection, and that amazing underground haunt in a city I’d never visited. They were everything I’d ever strived to be and everyone I’d never met before. But, upon arriving on campus, I realized that beautiful outer sheen of cool kid progressivism often manifests in subtle elitism and insincerity. I think we would all be lying if we didn’t admit to being acquainted with quite an array of trust fund punkrockers, upper-middle-class anarchists, and the socialist offspring of ivy league professionals. Me? I am the daughter of a retail employee and a disabled (and, because of this, unemployed) volunteer nursing home ombudsman, and I am proud. I am conscious of my class, and I am not ashamed, nor writing this out of personal insecurity. I am writing this out of frustration. Perhaps you’re reading this with a smirk. Why must my class define me so? Why can’t I come from wealth and also promote anarcho-socialism and avant-garde music? It’s not as if the money my parents have made and the atmosphere I grew up in is anything I can control! Aren’t you the one with the “Die Yuppie Scum” button on your army jacket, anyway? And, sure, I suppose you’re right. But just because your class is something you could not opt out of does not mean it is something you cannot recognize, not just as an economic barrier but as a cultural barrier. On the walk home from an introductory club meeting last week, I jokingly said something to a friend that, looking back, is rife with truth; “I didn’t come from a place like Brooklyn or San Francisco, I had to make my own culture! I had to seek it out!” In this, I mean that I did not grow up in a cultural hub. The art, music, literature, and academia I consumed to create the sort of person I am now was not fed to me, but was something I had to actively search for and establish. Thus, when someone who has grown up in a place similar to my hometown is criticized or alienated for
not being knowledgeable about a certain art form or social movement, it is not simply the act of a pretentious college kid that is sullen to be so distanced from a Seattle mosh pit, it is an act of elitist classism. The thing is, even if we would like to believe that by living in this idyllic little college town together, we belong to an equal educational and social playing field, this is not the case, and an Oberlin student is not the product of a homogenized experience. Having a political stance that benefits people of lower economic statuses is important, but economic status is also a deeply social issue. Understanding the cultural impacts of privilege creates an environment that is not just inviting to those of the same neighborhood, but to academics and artists with differing perspectives. Recognizing the value of workingclass experiences is crucial, and elitism acts as a silencer for those of us who have worked hard to break the barriers that held us back from the experiences of our peers. The voice of our community shouldn’t be one that quiets perspectives, but rather amplifies them because of their freshness.
How to Stand Strong in the Face of Adversity: A Lesson from Tall Girl BY ANOKHA VENUGOPAL| CONTRIBUTING WRITER “Let’s face it Jodi, you’re the tall girl. You’ll never be the pretty girl.” Netflix’s Tall Girl examines the common trope of selfacceptance through the lens of Jodi, a 6’1 tall girl who seems to hate every inch of herself. Jodi is ridiculed daily for her 73 inches at school, which, to be fair, is not extremely tall. However, she has become somewhat of a social pariah as she is constantly teased at school. One creative student has the audacity to ask “how’s the weather up there?” For Jodi, life is ‘hard’. In fact, she even feels the need to tell us so, and breaks the fourth wall to complain, “You think your life is hard? I’m a high school junior wearing size 13 nikes. Men’s size 13 nikes. Beat that.” I guess if we ever need some perspective on the mundane nature of our own problems, we should just turn to Jodi. While Tall Girl seems to have multiple plot holes and faults as a film, its main fault is in its base concept: that being a tall girl is enough of a marginalizing experience to serve as a vessel through which to depict hardship. I don’t deny that being tall may come with its own set of problems, and can very well be a point of insecurity for oneself, especially if they are frequently teased about it, as in Jodi’s case.
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I myself cannot identify with the struggles of extended height; I’m a bit lacking in that area, in my 5’2 (and-a-half!) glory. Perhaps for some people, this film was a potential representation of the challenges they face on the daily. To see how an actual tall girl identified with the film, check out USA Today’s article “What Netflix's 'Tall Girl' gets right (and wrong) about being a teenage girl over 6 feet”. However, my problem with the film is that tallness, of all things, is not the sort of representation we so lack in Western media right now. In fact, the primary physical trait that diversifies Jodi in Tall Girl is her height. Other than that, she is a privileged blonde white girl with blue eyes and an equally generic white love interest to match. One may argue that this love interest, Stig, a Swedish man, is an attempt at some level of diversity. However, you’ll be shocked to find out that he was actually American actor Luke Eisner putting on a Swedish accent, which Youtube comments claim was horribly botched. Perhaps some credit can be given to the filmmakers for her black best friend Fareeda (Anjelika Washington). However, even then, she is not given much more than a supporting role, primarily being there to defend Jodi and serve as moral support. In fact, Fareeda herself at one point states, “Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to go to lunch with my friends and have
them ask me about my problems,” after being repeatedly talked over and vented to by Jodi and her secondary love interest, Jack Dunkleman. Fareeda desperately needed more moments in the film; her coolness and bold fashion sense are given a back seat, and serve only to amplify the fact that while Jodi cannot accept herself, Fareeda can. Fareeda symbolizes the confidence that Jodi aspires to have, and doesn’t amount to much more than that as a character. However, there is an interesting moment of tension in the film in which Jodi decides to flake on Fareeda for a boy, who up until two minutes prior, had been one of the many teasing Jodi for her height. Even though Fareeda and Jodi ‘resolve’ their conflict at the end of the film, this is done half-heartedly, with Jodi apologizing from a stage rather than in person, and Fareeda silently acknowledging her apology with a smile, granting her no agency over the situation, or any lines for that matter. Interestingly, the director of Tall Girl was a black woman, Nzingha Stewart, who in response to a question on being a black female director had to say “I don’t even think about it. It is harder for black people to get non-black movies, if you run the Article continued on next page
statistics. Sometimes, there will be a non-black movie that I love where I do have to talk to myself. You can almost talk yourself out of it first. You have to stop that. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. I can’t say no to myself before someone else has.” Outside the film’s true message about accepting one’s self despite who they are, there’s nothing truly creative about it. As Elisabeth Vincentelli of the New York Times puts it, “America’s mood has changed, and many viewers might not feel much empathy for the small-minded grievances of wealthy teens who drive to school in S.U.V.s.” I’m all for the nineties high school rom-com, but the reason I love those films is because of how dated they are. Between the makeover, the prom, the mean boys finally getting their penance, I’m more prone to take them as they are because I expect less of them. Right now, Tall Girl feels like something desiring to attain that same credibility with a more selfempowering twist. But it’s getting old. How many more films do we need to see detailing the ‘horrors’ of highschool, with the mean girl, the nerdy boy, the funky best friend, the hunky guy, etc? Because, to be honest, that’s not what high school was like for me.
casts, such as Yesterday, Moonlight, Crazy Rich Asians, The Farewell, Get Out, Us, and maybe even Avengers or Bohemian Rhapsody, it seems that films directed primarily towards teenagers are missing quite a bit of diversity. From some crowdsourcing and self-reflection, I have come up with Bend It Like Beckham, which albeit being from 2002, still holds up as an excellent film about an Indian teenager in England, who joins a football team despite the warnings of her family. Another film by the same director, Gurinder Chadha, is Blinded By the Light, a recent film that follows a British-Pakistani teenager introduced to the music of Bruce Springsteen. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a cute, compact rom-com, with Lana Condor as the Asian-American protagonist. Some other films that I think do pretty great jobs of inclusive racial diversity are the recent Spiderman films, particularly Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, a beautifully animated film about Miles Morales, a teenager with an African-American/Puerto Rican background living in New York City, who of course, is bitten by a spider. However, we need more films like these that, unlike Tall Girl, portray a more realistic viewpoint of modern society,
“DESPITE ADDRESSING THE IDEA OF INSECURITY AND SELF-ACCEPTANCE, TALL GIRL BARELY SCRATCHES THE SURFACE OF ‘ADVERSITY.’“ For those looking for something slightly more modern, a film I found personally more enjoyable was Booksmart. Though this film also lacks in racial diversity, I especially appreciated Kaitlyn Dever’s performance as Amy, a jittery, hilarious lesbian lead. It was an interesting moment when I asked myself and friends for diverse teenage highschool films, and found that many of us struggled to think of more than a few. While there have been several films in past years that have made it to the forefront of Hollywood with diverse
be that in racial diversity, LGBTQ+ representation, singleparent households, and other walks of life. To Hollywood, these are minorities, but to the standard viewer, especially a teenager growing up in the USA, these are experiences that we encounter on a daily basis, and need to see projected on the large screen to avoid the mindset that we will never have our stories told to a wider audience. Tall Girl at times makes a mockery of itself, especially when Angela Kinsey, Jodi’s mother, saya “You just have
Photo courtesy of Netflix to be strong in the face of adversity.” Despite addressing the idea of insecurity and self-acceptance, Tall Girl barely scratches the surface of ‘adversity.’ Perhaps the film would have been more successful if it had dug deeper into each character in the film and their true insecurities or supposed faults. Instead, it focused on Swedish love interest Stig’s (Luke Eisner) fears that he seems too geeky or that Jodi’s pageant queen sister Harper is pretty but has allergies. Tall Girl doesn’t bring anything new to the table, and even in attempting to teach us to embody our faults as strengths, it is very one-sided. It is not the only vessel through which to show us how to love ourselves, and perhaps, had it been more diversely cast, it would have resonated with a larger audience. Netflix’s recent increase in originally produced content can only be successful if we are presented with alternate story lines. Instead of cancelling beautifully inclusive shows like One Day at a Time, and pouring all their money into a film like Tall Girl just to make sure that every character is abnormally short in comparison to Jodi, Netflix needs to focus on creating the next generation of comprehensive, relatable cinema. It’s not that hard. Sincerely, Short Girl.
The 21st Century Cowboy Craze: An Investigation BY ANNA HARBERGER | LAYOUT EDITOR
red cowboy boots I received for my 16th birthday and my Spotify playlist entitled “dust...EVERYWHERE!” chock-full of old country western singers (think Patsy Cline, Roy Rogers, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Loretta Lynn) makes me a prime culprit of cowboy co-opting. Much of my unresolved feelings for my (seemingly) cultivated “Western” aesthetic stem from my hometown: Chatsworth. Located in the northwestern corner of San Fernando Valley, the infamous Los Angeles suburb, Chatsworth is a small desert town that feels perpetually stuck on the set of one of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns. The gold-painted swinging doors of the local line-dancing bar (notably called the Cowboy Palace Saloon), the rustic horse stables on every block, and the Manson Caves tucked in the Santa Susana Mountains all live within a five mile radius of my house. This summer I found minimum wage work as a hostess at the Country Deli, a Turkish and Israeli owned delicatessen. Murals of Hassidic Jewish cowfolk lined the walls while I sat parties of men wearing wide-brimmed cowboy hats and embroidered button-ups tucked into the flashiest belts one could imagine. Chatsworth exists as some kind of warped anomaly, or is, at the very least, eccentric. While taking myself on long, solitary scooter rides to the local haunts, it felt like John and June Carter-Cash were singing only to me through my earbuds. In those moments, my town felt like an idyllic, beautiful dreamland. For hours at a time, I forgot that I was surrounded by hushed conservatism and Confederate flags hidden in kitchen windows. Article continued on next page
COWBOY DESIGNS BY IAN RUPPENTHAL
It’s a Friday evening, and the 10-foot LED lights you gave Jeff Bezos $28.99 for dance between muted magenta, green, and blue hues. It’s only 11 PM, and the night has already turned into a sad impression of a Petra Collins photo set posted on Rookie in 2012. And just as the PBR-fueled pregame in your sweltering Barrows single is coming to a close, your pal catches sight of the hot pink, fringed cowboy hat resting dormant on the upper closet shelf. They place it atop your box-dyed bob in the name of both Self-Awareness and Camp. When intoxicated by feelings of Dolly Parton level hotness, it becomes easy to disregard, or at least not think about, the violent history of the romanticized Western Cowboy. From Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” becoming the longestrunning No.1 single in Billboard’s history to Kacey Musgraves’s Golden Hour (2019) winning Best Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, cowboy culture has permeated the artistic and aesthetic mainstream over the last year. As bootcut jeans fly off of Urban Outfitters shelves and Smiling Cowboy emojis flood the captions of Instagram influencers worldwide, one begins to wonder: What is calling Gen Z (and millenials, alike) toward the Old West? Why right now? In embarking upon my journey to unpack this curious state of affairs, I started where my therapist would tell me to begin: looking inward. First things first, my Instagram username during 10th and 11th grade was @rode0.c1own. hitting not one, but two bases of performative ironic buffoonery. This, combined with the
The Trump signs of 2016 were tucked away on kitchen window sills where I couldn’t see them, but that doesn’t mean that those bigoted, violent ideologies don’t permeate just beneath the bridle path. My comfortable admiration of Chatsworth as ironic, imaginary Western bliss is privileged, in the same way Cowboy Culture has been adopted in fashion and culture by other upper-middle-class kids from coastal cities. So, where do we go from here? In the words of Mitski Miyawaki, who can or should “be the cowboy?” In answering those questions, let us turn our attention to the ignored narratives of history by asking a simple question: who actually were the cowboys? In her article published in The Atlantic, journalist Leah Williams explains. “Cowboy culture refers to a style of ranching introduced in North America by Spanish colonists in the 16th century—a time when most ranch owners were Spanish and many ranch hands were Native. None of the first cowboys were (non-Hispanic) white. And while historians don’t know exact figures, by the late 19th century roughly one in three cowboys (known as vaqueros) was Mexican. The recognizable cowboy fashions, technologies, and lexicon... are all Latino inventions,” Williams wrote. Williams went on to explain the role cowfolk of color played in the physical labor that built the American West. While that labor was often born from coercive enslavement, scholar of African-American history and author of The Black West William Loren Katz describes some of the effects of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation on the issue of of cowhands of color. “Right after the Civil War, being a cowboy was one of the few jobs open to men of color who wanted to not serve as elevator operators or delivery boys or other similar occupations,” Katz said.
only three isolated incidents. What happens when we consider objectification of women, implications of ethnic genocide, environmental damage, toxic masculinity, and the lack of queer representation in traditonal, idealized versions of the West? We find that these new narratives, while historically untold, are exploding into the cultural landscape of 2019. Increasingly, there seems to be a shift toward a celebration of all kinds of identities within the once-limited scope of Cowboy Culture. Featuring photos of RuPaul, Lil’ Kim, and Beyonce in Western gear, Instagram accounts like the Yeehaw Agenda (@theyeehawagenda) are bringing these changes. Founded by Bri Malandro, the Yeehaw Agenda looks to highlight Black identities as part of the “cowboy culture” aesthetic. “Black cowboys have literally always been here regardless of the image most people get when they hear the word ‘cowboy.’ I think the main thing I’ve learned is that a lot of people had no idea that was the case. I’m happy I could be a part of bringing it to the light in some way,” Malandro commented in a Dazed Magazine interview. Additionally, musicians and performers like Orville Peck, Trixie Mattel, and Lil Nas X have brought queerness and cowboy-ism together in a wonderfully Western union of expression. Online platforms like Queer Appalachia (@ queerappalachia) focus on queer issues in rural areas of the American Appalachia, while also bringing folksy, cowboyadjacent pop culture references to Instagram feeds. Now that Halloween is just around the corner, it is time to decide whether you’ll join the masses of VSCO girls dressing up as Sexy Cowgirl. Now, while I fully advocate for assless chaps and hot pink fringed cowboy hats, we should take this season as an opportunity to engage with the deeper implications of cowboy culture, in terms of human rights, agency, and representation.
“WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE CONSIDER OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN, IMPLICATIONS OF ETHNIC GENOCIDE, ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE, TOXIC MASCULINITY, AND THE LACK OF QUEER REPRESENTATION IN TRADITONAL, IDEALIZED VERSIONS OF THE WEST? WE FIND THAT THESE NEW NARRATIVES, WHILE HISTORICALLY UNTOLD, ARE EXPLODING INTO THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF 2019.” Williams bolsters this notion by adding that black cowboys became the “primary architects” of the West through social and legal coercion. Though they were instrumental in completion of “hard labor,” tasks that white Americans avoided themselves, black cowboys continue to fight for recognition today. The ugliness perpetuated by idealized visions of the west has manifested in countless ways within American media of the past and present. Stories of young chivalrous men (who also happen to be straight and white) venturing West in hopes of adventure and love, and life have capitalized on racist, imperialistic notions of American Exceptionalism. The fallacious concept of an “all-white West” has been memorialized in countless Western films, especially in the 1950s. Williams explores the responsibility of Hollywood in the erasure of non-white identities within Western films. She highlights the works of directors like John Ford and Cecil B. DeMille who were unabashedly racist in depictions of non-white characters. Continually presenting non-white individuals as villains with names like “Mexican Henchman” in The Virginian (1914) and “Facetious Redskin” in By Indian Post (1919), or not including them at all as Ford does when telling the story of the first transcontinental railroad without Chinese actors in The Iron Horse (1924.) These are
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How to Celebrate Straight Pride All Year Round BY GRACE SMITH I STAFF WRITER Last month Boston made history with the nation’s first ever “Straight Pride Parade”. The gathering of 200+ dinosaur blow up costumes, blue lives matter shirts, and incels crossing their fingers that tonight was the night was a milestone for hets across the nation. For those of you who missed the Boston parade and are itching for more, here are some ways you can celebrate Straight Pride all year round!
- Collect personality traits from your friends! - Sob harder during Tall Girl than you did at The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. - “I’m a little psychic :p” - Call your boyfriend a “Daddy” for putting his thumb in his acid-wash jeans pocket. - Get a UTI because you’re scared he’ll leave if you go to the bathroom.
For the ladies: - Trample over an elderly woman to get Glossier’s lidstar this Black Friday. - Comment “yes bestie <3!” on the insta post of the girl you just called “an STD dispenser” on your finsta. - Correct people for misgendering your dog but ignore your trans co-worker’s pronouns.
For the gentlemen: - Ruin the family roadtrip by defending the ethics of step-sibling pornography. - Punch a hole in the wall after every conversation with your father. - Learn empathy in your late 20s. - Wear a brown tie to every church service because that’s the only time your teeth look white.
- Military bedsheets are a must. - Get a little frisky when cargo shorts go on sale at the GAP.
- Yell at your mom in the Vineyard Vines pullover she bought for you with her allowance. - Go to Senior Prom with a 14 year old. - Seriously weigh the pros and cons of removing your bottom 2 ribs. - Never communicate your feelings until it’s time to sign the divorce papers. For couples: - Dry, dry sex. - Get married before 2015. - Eat Blue Apron exclusively (or the Jessica Alba version of Blue Apron). - Sex stuff with pumpkins? Could be cool. - Taking MackleCo to educate yourself on queer issues. - Hold hands in a city you don’t know.
Automatic Waitlist
BY DAMANI MCNEIL | ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR I don’t know about you all .but the new Automatic waitlist is seriously fucking up my whole system of worming my way into classes by sending a flurry of desperate emails that strike a fun balance of humiliating and charming. You’re telling me that, in light of a change that applies the tiniest dash of meritocracy to the process of getting courses here, I will now have to have the foresight of clearing the eight holds I have on my account in the last 24 hours of the enrollment period? Next, you’re gonna tell me the front row puppy dog eyes and fake note-taking won’t do shit for me either. With double and triple emailing you on
the last possible day to solve the problem out of the picture, me and you both know I got no fuckin’ shot of getting in to Astronomy 100. My major is not even remotely related to the subject you dedicate your every waking hour to more deeply understanding. I’m gonna be brutally honest--I have only a loose grasp on what even happens in Astronomy class besides pointing out constellations that look like crabs and spoons and twins.
But here’s the thing: until this semester, I could have hit you with a “I’m a prospective major” with complete plausible deniability. And I mean complete plausible deniability. That was my plan. It was all of our plans. I was gonna lie to you about how much I’m gonna study, and how I’m gonna throw myself into getting everything out of the experience possible. I was gonna beg and
plead with you, remind you that you control the fate of my academic destiny and that without this class I won’t be able to walk the stage (this is untrue --there’s gonna be a hundred identical courses next semester), maybe make a little astronomy joke (please don’t eclipse my registrar dream haha), I don’t know. It was gonna be cute. It was gonna work. It’s worked a hundred times. I guess my argument is less that I think I deserve to get away with exploiting the kindness of Nobel prize-winning professors because I slept through my registration timeslot and more that it was really fun back when I was able to do that.
Oberlin Announces Plans for New Climate Change Denier Dorm BY CAMERON AVERY | STAFF WRITER Oberlin is a place where fierce intellectual debate takes place, and there’s no hotter topic than the climate question. To honor its history of accepting a fair, equal exchange of ideas, the College is announcing the construction of the T. Boone Pickens Climate Change Denier Dorm, funded by a generous donation from the estate of T. Boone Pickens himself. Powered by a giant coal burner in the basement that belches noxious black fumes into the air, the dorm will function as a safe space for those dedicated to ignoring the
planet’s imminent demise. “Oberlin has had a reputation of being a liberal bubble, but we want to push back on that: we’ve always been a place where people on both sides of an issue can come together and have honest conversations about what matters to them,” said director of PR Ronald Windsor. “When ExxonMobil came to us with the offer of financing the construction of a new dorm dedicated to the anti-scientific denial of climate change, we knew we couldn’t pass it up.”
Oberlin broke ground with the construction of Kahn, a first-year dorm with industry-leading green energy standards and the requirement that residents commit to living sustainably. Now, it is continuing to blaze new trails with the Pickens Climate Change Denier Dorm, which hopes to entice those whose lives climate change would not significantly affect in any way. “Until now, there just hasn’t been somewhere where people like me can feel like they belong,” said son of oil magnate Josh S,
who spent last summer personally dumping oil into the Atlantic Ocean for fun. To complement the new dorm, the college is also planning to offer courses in the new Business concentration, such as the recent addition Ethical Fracking 265. Climate Change Denier Dorm will also feature an Anti-Vax themed living hall.
Lights Out: Stories From the Power Outage BY CHARLIE RINEHART-JONES I MANAGING EDITOR Imagine this: the lights stop working for 35 minutes in the middle of the night on a moderately warm Wednesday. That’s it… 35 minutes, mid-week, nighttime, mild weather. It would literally be impossible to design a more harmless set of conditions for a power outage. And yet, somehow, in the wee hours of morning on September 12th, several Oberlin students really managed in their own special ways to turn this nonevent into the crisis of the century. Nice. 1st year Henry McAdams was getting ready for an
exciting night at the LateNight Heavy Machinery club when suddenly the forklift that he was charging stopped. Henry had this to say “people were saying the craziest shit ‘dude my high-quality excavator has stopped dead in its tracks’ and ‘bro are you kidding me I’m going to have to stop logging for the night’.” Club President Timothy Johnson said in a statement that “this is something that we hadn’t considered.” The club planned to continue their fun when the power got back on. 3rd years Sandra and
Patrick, who asked that their last names not be included in this piece, were performing a kidney transplant for the Surgery ExCo on the 4th floor of Wilder at the time. When the power shut off they weren’t able to move vital fluids from one part of the patient to the other, leaving the transferred kidney useless. Patient AmeliaGrace Bucker was frustrated by the botched operation, but continued her can-do attitude. An eyewitness said she offered support to Sandra and Patrick from the operating table, even offering them a flashlight in
Some Additions to the “E” System BY SAM SCHECTMAN I LAYOUT EDITOR
The E-System is the best. It’s the creme de la creme of deciding how people should go to the bathroom. There are some great things about the E-System, such as making it so everybody can go to the bathroom and having a big E on the door. However, I’d like some more specifications beyond just “Men” (what?), “Me, myself, and I” (who’s that?), and “Women” (is this a joke?). Here are some of my ideas: You cannot use the empty shower stall directly next to me, but may use the empty shower stall one spot over: Take a second E and tape it up an appropriate distance from the first. I’d only like those who know the password to enter the bathroom: Tilt the sign to the angle of the specific password you would
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like to use. Password angle guides are given in the student handbook that everybody has and reads every day. Oh, you don’t have it? That’s weird, I guess nobody wanted to give it to you. I am having a smelly poo so please factor that into your decision to enter: Dude that’s gross! What the hell! Don’t tell people that! Stop it! I’m studying for my physics class while I’m on the toilet and I want everyone to know what a smartypants I am: Make a second sign that says “=mc2” and place it next to the E. If you want to alert people to another common bathroom situation that isn’t on this list, make sure to write a detailed description on the back of the E-System sign on your bathroom.
case they wanted to try again. Buckner said if she learned anything from the situation it was “maybe don’t have your kidney transplants done by students, unsupervised, in the middle of the night.” Overall, if Oberlin students learned one thing from the event, it’s that you can’t be without a flashlight. Ben Richman, the 4th-year president of the flashlight enthusiasts club, said “I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so.” Richman hopes that the club membership will grow after such a relevant event.
Love in the Time of HFMD
BY CAMERON AVERY AND JANE WICKLINE | STAFF WRITER AND BAD HABITS EDITOR
Crushing on Brian P. from afar, because obviously if I were to approach him, I would risk getting Hand Foot and Mouth disease. I want to kiss Brian P. but I don’t want to risk getting Hand Foot and Mouth disease, which is most commonly transmitted via saliva.
Brian P. is so cute even though he’s suffering from a viral infection that typically only affects infants and children younger than 5 years old. Brian’s beautiful blue eyes distract me from looking at the bulbous, festering sores that are quickly developing on his mouth and the rash covering his hands. Brian is one sick dude! In both senses of the word. Would love to be better friends with him, but maybe starting like 2 weeks from now. In the meantime, it would be great if he could wear, like, a hospital mask or something to stats.
Something about Brian’s perfectly circular sores tells me I’m going to catch more than feelings (Hand Foot and Mouth disease, to be clear). I think we would all really appreciate it if Hot Brian stayed home from Stats on Thursday.
Brian is so gorgeous and brave for coming to every one of our stats classes, even though his Hand Foot and Mouth sores are rampantly multiplying. I will say that one even cuter thing for him to do might be staying home from our stats classes as I really can’t afford to get Hand Foot and Mouth disease right now.
Notes App Nonapology from a Staff Writer We Just Hired BY A DISGRACED STAFF WRITER
“WHEN YOU GO THROUGH 10 YEARS OF COMEDY, IT CAN REALLY WEIGH ON YOU. SOMETIMES YOU’RE JUST SITTING IN A PANERA THINKING TO YOURSELF ‘GOD, WHAT IF I JUST SET THIS PLACE ABLAZE AND ROSE FROM THE ASHES?’”
I am first and foremost a comedian who pushes boundaries. Am I second and second most an arsonist? That depends--are you an artist if you’ve painted one picture? I just want to remind everyone that there was no one--or at least, no people-- inside the Panera at the time. When you go through 10 years of comedy, it can really weigh on you. Sometimes you’re just sitting in a Panera thinking to to yourself “God, what if I just set this place ablaze and rose from the ashes?”. If I legitimately offended anyone, if anyone is actually upset that we now have one fewer Panera on this godforsaken planet, I am happy to apologize. I’m happy to say “I shouldn’t have allegedly burned down that Panera”. Can we all just grow the fuck up and accept that I deserve a huge platform to express all the hatred and the rage that I feel in my heart without consequence? In the words of Marshall Mathers, ‘If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my art will be really wack and boring; I’m gonna live forever.’ We at the Grape take atrocities very seriously and are proud to report after the video of Shane burning down that Panera surfaced, we only supported him for another week or so.
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