Issue 3 Fall 2021

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Vol. 69 NO. 3

OBERLIN’S ALTERNATIVE STUDENT NEWSPAPER EST. 1999 November 19, 2021

ISSUE THREE COVER ART Front Cover: Johnny Coleman

Priya Banerjee and Levi Dayan Co-Editors-in-Chief Izzy Halloran Managing Editor Wyatt Camery Features Editor Liza MacKeen Shapiro Opinions Editor

Saffron Forsberg Arts and Culture Editor

Anna Harberger Layout Editor

Juli Freedman Bad Habits Editor

Eva Sturm-Gross Art Director

Fiona Farrell, Teagan Hughes, Nico Moreta, Raghav Raj, Emma Kang, Anna Holshouser-Belden Staff Writers

Jules Crosetto, Olive Polken, Molly Chapin Production Assistants

Letter from the Editors Levi Dayan, Priya Banerjee Co-Editors-in-Chief

Thanks for picking up the latest issue of The Grape!

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what to make of this whole year - both the process of experiencing life on campus in a way that no one’s really experienced in years, and the process of figuring out what the fuck is going to come next. It’s been weird seeing so many people get involved with things like The Grape and Shitpit that for the longest time have felt like they were being shared amongst just a handful of people. It only recently hit me that, unless I end up living somewhere a lot of my friends live, that I’ll have to build basically an entire new sense of community for myself. But what I always come back to is my belief that change is the only constant and that there’s an immense power in embracing change - that’s the principle that guides the music I love, my politics,

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and even my Jewish identity. I’ve never seen any value in looking to the past if the reality of constant change isn’t put at the very center of everything. This is to say that, to everyone reading this paper with a strange college experience ahead of them: come join the team, and make the Grape work for that very strange experience.

Anyways, on the eve of this most questionable of holidays, I’m looking forward to going back to my DC stomping grounds for a bit. I hope this issue is something positive you can all take with you through the break. And when everyone gets back, get ready for Prince Splitchers at the Sco! -Levi

Art by Eva Sturm-Gross

Hello everyone! Priya here. It’s our last issue before Turkey Day. Every year me and my BFF Julia vlog the day on our youtube channel (top secret). I am really excited this year as I’m going to Portland Oregon to be an official girlfriend, which is something I pride myself on being very good at. Though I think Thanksgiving kinda sucks...I love vacation. Many of you may have already left campus for home, or maybe to be an official girlfriend at your s/o’s house too. I got a new TV since the last time we spoke! And I’ve started taking my vitamins again.

MUCH LOVE & XOXO. PRIYA.

An Interview with Johnny Coleman Zoey Birdsong Contributor Though I’ve never taken a class with Johnny Coleman, I got to know him last year as his freshman advisee. He was the first professor at Oberlin that made me feel welcome and supported. After finding out that I’m from New Mexico, he asked if I’d ever been to Taos (my small hometown). It felt good to know that there was someone at Oberlin who had at least heard of Taos, much less someone who understood some of its eccentricities. I had the chance to sit down with him and talk

about his upbringing, career at Oberlin, and post-retirement plans.

After 28 years as a professor of Studio Art and Africana Studies at Oberlin, Coleman is retiring this semester. Professor Coleman grew up outside of Los Angeles and attended Parsons School of Design and UC San Diego.

He’s an interdisciplinary artist, but is perhaps most well-known for his installation art. He explores themes of “history, Black culture, [and] specificity of place” in his work. He came to Oberlin as part of a joint appointment with Professor Nanette Yannuzzi and has been teaching here ever since.

Professor Coleman told me that he’s always loved to draw. As a child, he looked up to Los Angeles artist Charles White and would “keep an eye out” for White’s work on the covers of his parents’ magazines, Ebony and Jet. Despite his early pull towards art, he didn’t originally think of himself as an artist.

He didn’t take his first art class until he was in his mid-twenties. Though he doesn’t believe it’s useful to have regrets, he said, “I would have been happier and healthier had I been intentional and sought out art classes.”

Coleman began his career as an educator in graduate school, where he was a teaching assistant. He wasn’t “born to be an educator,” but learned by developing his own “organic and conversational” approach to teaching. His natural affinity towards conversation gives him an advantage as a teacher. He says that the seminar table is a place of give and take, where everyone shares a responsibility to contribute. As an educator, he’s had to learn to “trust what can emerge within a shared space.”

Coleman’s career as an educator has been as much about learning as it’s been about teaching.

“Art is the central, resonant core of the best of who we, as a collective species, can be,” he told me. He hopes that his students come away from his classes with a “passion for the subject” and continue to create as much as possible. (right) by Johnny Coleman (left) by Eva Sturm-Gross

Moving into the future, Professor Coleman wants to slow down and come to rest. “I want to let some of the momentum dissipate,” he said. He’s looking forward to spending more time in the studio and with the people closest to him: family and friends.

“I hope that folks that I’ve been blessed to work with, from colleagues to students, have received a fraction of what it is that I’ve gotten, and I hope that the exchanges have been reciprocal,” he said.

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Senior Sentiments: Bathroom Nostalgia Chris Schmucki Contributor During my very first semester at Oberlin, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:00pm-4:20pm, I anxiously sat in my First Year Seminar class. Glancing at the clock far too often, I would wait for that minute hand to nearly catch up to the hour hand at the number four, signaling the end of another class. Although I was excited to have graduated from a standard public school classroom to a stunning building like Peters, I could not for the love of God pay attention to this class. Washed over with guilt, with restless legs anxious to move, I would regularly excuse myself to the bathroom around halfway through class. My bathroom of choice was the Peters basement facility, the one equipped with both urinals and stalls. About half of my visits actually involved using the bathroom, and the other half involved just looking at my phone. What I remember most from these visits, and what helps me remember them most, is the distinct odor which the Peters basement bathroom has managed to preserve since my first semester here (and well before that I’m sure). Each time I have entered this bathroom, my nose is immediately met with the curious smell. For a bathroom, it actually isn’t that bad — it’s just a vague, inarticulate odor that’s strong enough to evoke a sense of nostalgia for freshman-year bathroom visits.

Like many of you, my time at Oberlin was interrupted. After leaving campus for 11 months following the March 2020 dismissal and reuniting with a full-capacity campus eight months following that, I find myself longing for the pre-COVID college experience (a hot take I’m sure). So many wonderful things have happened in my past two semesters on campus, but the low-humming frustration and anxiety of this time makes me long for what once was. Since my return to campus, I’ve been surprised in the ways the past has tapped me on the shoulder. Of course the embracing entrance of Mudd, the autumn leaf canopy of Tappan, and the snug living room of Tank are a few of many places where I’m spatially taken back to a simpler time.

But what I didn’t expect was a newfound olfactory connection to my more distant memories of Oberlin. These scent-based neural pathways seem to be strongest, as you might guess, within the pungent bathrooms throughout campus.

I actually wrote most of this short piece in the first stall of the bathroom in Peters where I once sat as a freshman. It was a unique experience to site-specifically reflect on memory, smell, and place.

As time goes on and I experience my last cold front at Oberlin, as the colors turn, when my footsteps through campus are more often accompanied by the crunching of leaves, I know whenever I’ll come back I can rely on these undesired, yet somehow wistful, smells to transport me to an earlier time.

By Sam Merrick

Anonymous statement from Mahallati student As a student of Professor Mahallati for the last three years, I can honestly say the recent investigation into his past has been disheartening and difficult to digest. Professor Mahallati has been a kind, open-minded, welcoming, and sensitive professor over the course of Covid-19 and

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many other challenges in my life; however, I also recognize this does not necessarily define all of his behavior. Provided the evidence and that he is teaching the two courses I have with him from afar this semester, I am genuinely disappointed by the mounting reality of the claims made

against him.

I have been disappointed witnessing the shift in his teaching this semester, possibly as a result of the accusations against him. Teaching at odd hours in Shiraz, Iran, he is often disconnected in class and less engaged. The courses feel

overall distant and a bit disorganized, and it’s clear the changes in his life are affecting him both personally and professionally.

As a person, I am struggling to digest his teachings on forgiveness and friendship, themes prominent in all his

Oh shit, I haven’t been getting paid?

Wait, what tf is TimeClock Plus?

Who do I even talk to about receiving Student Pay? Nico Moreta Staff Writer

Anonymous Statement continued courses, given his likely history. While I value his work and ideas, my ability to absorb them and consider them has been greatly hindered by the knowledge of the accusations against him, and I often wonder if his work and message is motivated by his past. Other students I talk to feel the same: how much of this can we take as lessons if we do not know how much he truly values it either? Additionally, as a student, I struggle beyond just absorbing his lessons; since he is the only professor of Islam religious studies, my particular focus and degree is dependent on him, and while I want justice, I also fear his removal. I find myself torn between my need for him to be at Oberlin and my recognition that, in not boycotting his classes or actively protesting, I am potentially part of the problem. I also struggle to overcome my own personal biases of how I know him. It is easy to enter into denial when he seems such a kind, generous person, and I often find myself wanting to defend him, despite the mounting evidence.

Overall, the situation is not easy. More than anything, I do want justice, but as a personal acquaintance and student of his, I often struggle to fully process the situation and bypass my own wants, needs, and perceptions. Regardless of my own situation, the college must conduct a more significant investigation and more seriously consider the allegations against him. We all attend this college for a reason, and for the administration to not actively ensure that justice and growth are at the heart of this campus is concerning.

Art by Eva Sturm-Gross

Most on-campus jobs require you to clock in and clock out digitally now, with the exception of a few jobs that still pay in stipends (OSCA paid positions, RAs, PALS, etc). Whether you work in the stacks, WOBC, or any student org, you have to reckon with TimeClock Plus. This is no biggy considering TimeClock Plus does make life easier in many ways. I mean, paper timekeeping comes with its own set of bureaucratic failings, most jobs require you to be on a laptop anyways, and the mobile app means you can do it from your pocket. However, TCP has problems, and these problems indicate a lack of information and transparency around how students are getting paid.

Listen, this isn’t meant to shit on a stupid website. It’s just that I, and many other students, have a problem with yet another wall of anonymity separating them and compensation for their work. Something that contributes to an overall feeling that this school doesn’t care enough about getting us paid, or at least making this process simpler.

I mean, whose job is it to make sure you get paid? Well, sadly, I think there is only a long-winded answer for this question.

Students?

To me, this is a cop out.

Ultimately, that should be a baseline assumption: every student cares about getting paid for their labor.

We should worry about doing the work, and we should worry about how we are making sure we are adequately paid. It should be simple.

If the website for clocking in comes with problems, if it makes students prone to: forget to clock out, forget to clock in altogether, exceed their hours, clock a 15-hour shift to make up for not clocking in earlier in the

week, and plenty more, then it’s not completely the students problem is it? It’s the students coping with a payment system that can be rather confusing to deal with, and to be specific, the system extends beyond TCP and into the functions of this school. TCP is just another set of jargon setting us apart from our pay.

The heads of our student org?

In many ways, yes. It would be ideal if these people could be a funnel for learning the functions TCP and all things student employment. If they could explain the weird 15-minute round-up confusion. Explain the need for your last four SSN digits and T#. Explain the amount of hours and exact pay each person should be getting. Explain the need for your I-9 paperwork, and other supplemental materials. Explain how to find the payroll schedule. Explain the importance of correcting your hours by Monday at 10am of the end of your pay period.

Explain who your supervisor even is, and what that means. However!

This is a lot! And, what system is there in place to make org leaders messengers and liaisons for getting their staff paid? These are jobs that go through position changes every semester, and you are expected to learn everything on your own? How? Sometimes, you might not even be clear that you have a role in the dissemination of this information.

Your TCP supervisor? Tina Zwegat?

The answer, again, I think is nuanced. Tina Zwegat works with student organization payroll, and is tasked with approving A LOT of student workers’ hours. She can correct your hours if you clock in late, clock you out if you forget to, and all around adjust your hours. She’s the surrogate between TCP and Payroll.

I must stress the importance that, if you have a problem with how you

clocked your hours, she can correct these adjustments! You must email her if you have a problem. Don’t let your labor go unpaid! I know this isn’t easy. It’s hard to see beyond the anonymity of TCP, but there are people behind this. There are people you should be familiar with.

With all this said, I do think our TCP should play a better role in familiarizing herself with her payees. Does she want to enter a million clocking mistakes manually? No. Therefore, she should want us to be informed enough to know that this can be avoided. There should be open communication beyond emails. There should be references to materials.

There should be some kind of training administered to org leaders, office hours, mandatory check-ins, or ideally an openly distributed, everchanging master doc/FAQ of the full list of idiosyncrasies that go into this college’s weird system of getting us paid. Ok, maybe that shouldn’t be entirely her job because that is a lot on one person. But again, why is it all on one person? Why can’t students help approve hours? Why can’t we cut out the complications and just use TCP to record that we worked?

Human Resources? Student Employment and Payroll?

HR is the home of the bureaucracy, and bureaucracy rots the soul. Your paperwork lives here. You send your I-9’s here. You make sure your passport and SSN are on file here. But, how do they fit into everything? Student Employment notifies you of missing documents, and Tina should be tacked onto these emails.

Hopefully, she won’t let you get complacent in these missing documents, but sometimes there is little more than a dejected notice that you won’t get paid because of it. Then, for whatever reason, you need to have your paperwork turned in within 3-5 days of receiving employment, or run the risk of not getting paid for

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TimeClock Plus continued two weeks. Why is this the case?

I have no clue, but it does not cater to international students or anyone struggling with getting their specific identifications (that may be oceans away) to school.

Regardless, there are so many moving parts and levels to this system, it’s frustrating. Why can’t HR notice these multitudes of complications, and inform the students of how things work!

Why do all these problems seem to flatten when you Log On to TCP only to realize you can’t get paid, or there’s a problem with getting paid for whatever reason, and you just want to punch a hole in your computer.

So, I think the answer is a little bit of all, but mostly people at the top. Personally, I could be better about making sure I’m paid. Students obviously could be better, altogether, but it’s not necessarily desirable when you realize this dumb website is doing a lot of heavily lifting for a student pay system that could be simplified.

OCOPE and many other institutions aligned with TCP use the site just to record their hours worked. They are guaranteed their hours every week as long as they record it (something that can be done at any time of the day) unless they’re on vacation, call in sick, etc. Why can’t we do the same? Why are the students responsible to clock in and out on this website, in order to get paid altogether? Does that mean we aren’t guaranteed the hours we supposedly are? Does that mean the school expects us to be complacent in not clocking in?

Flat rates? Department of Labor standards? ACA standards? Why can’t we work at flat rates? It seems like the entire shift from stipends to hourly pay (a result of the Affordable Care Act) took place in order to ensure students aren’t working unpaid overtime. But, placing the weight of clocking in and out on students does not solve the problem of students working unpaid over-

time. There are varying hours of student work. Simply telling us we have only eight hours of work a week doesn’t mean that a WOBC staffer who subbed for x many radio shows on top of their normal allotment is not working overtime. Even further, this TCP system, in a rather odd way, does not guarantee the salary we are promised when we can easily not be paid for an entire work period because of certain functional issues that keep arising.

Overall, the switch to TCP means clocking in and out is now assumed to be the students primary burden. We should know better? I would consider this fair if there was any system in place to teach students about how student pay functions at this school beyond the general, “we should know better.” That could easily start with more top down communication. Someone telling new hires to beware that so many students habitually won’t get paid for the first two weeks (or longer) of the semester because of paperwork minutiae. Someone telling incoming students to bring XYZ identification to campus if we expect to work. And, sure, this information exists on this campus, but why couldn’t it be consolidated into a concise learning material.

Information from everything as simple as who your supervisor actually is to how pay periods operate. It’s findable, but is it accessible? I honestly did not understand how anything worked a week ago, and I’m still unclear about certain legal standards and the role of HR. I just wish this wasn’t all so confusing if you are a student who wants to get paid, or wants to get others paid, or simply wants to understand who to turn to for what problem.

While I think the whole system of student pay could be simplified, as for now, everyone would be better off if someone (HR; Joseph Vitale and Jose Garcia) openly communicated continuing strategies for navigating this convoluted system of student pay and forewarn us of the pitfalls a student may experience: even inconveniences as dreary and minute asTimeClock Plus.

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Art by Eva Sturm-Gross

One last thing. Why doesn’t our hourly pay feel guaranteed?

Nico’s Nook Nico Moreta Staff Writer Welcome to Nico’s Nook, your favorite place for tone-deaf journalism. This weekend I took to the streets to get the hardhitting Halloween news from the gals and ghouls of Oberlin campus. I didn’t want to be too conspicuous about my plans to milk the hot and steamy Halloweekend juice from our spooky Student Body, so I dressed up as a news anchor. Brilliant idea, no? Anyways, the weekend was jam-packed with fear, fright, and Jell-O shots. For my first story, my undercover informants, um, informed me that the Versace siblings were in town so I had to get uh sip of that tea.

These convos were all remembered and conducted off-thedome. Real reactions. From real people.

NM: Hi, I’m here on the scene with Donatella and Gianni Versace. Donatella, what did you think of Milan this year?

DV: It fucking Virgil Abloh(ed) hard.

GV: Ayyy. *high-five* DV: Nice. Anyways, you goin’ to liquor-treat.

NM: Excellent, and, no. All my friends are here.

GV: Word. Peace.

NM: Oh, ok thank you to the Versace twins.

It was an excellent story to say the least, but I couldn’t stop thinking: why would these fashion titans go to liquor-treat?

They’ve travelled the world, no? They epitomize class and culture. Why would they ever go to... Harkness? Alas, as a cutting-edge media journalist I am burdened with questions like these, some of which, will never find their answers. So, I moved on.

My eyes-in-the-sky relayed to me that ‘Aunt Granny’, yes, Dolly Parton herself, was seen “playing monkey-in-the-middle with a gourd on South Professor.” “Say less,” I said (as one would say) and I took to the streets once again. THIS is an exact account of our conversation: NM: Heyyy, Dolly.

DP: Um, hehehehe.

NM: Is that it?

DP: No, wait. Um, hehehehe.

NM: Well…

DP: Should I go talk to Noah? I think I’m gonna go talk to Noah.

NM: Oh, yeah sure, yeah, thank you Tia Nonna.

I soon realized it would be hard to get more than a few words from these cider-filled youths, so I did as any expert dirt-digger would do: I pretended to act drunk. How? By getting drunk.

Nico’s Nook continued My birds-in-the-ground hit me up with intel that Rapunzel had shaved her head. So, I sucked some Jell-O between my teeth and headed over.

NM: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair down, or some sh*t like that, right?

R: Huh? NM: Nothing, nevermind. Um, killer costume.

R: Thanks. I made the hat.

NM: Oh sh*t, no way. I dig the ribbon. So, like where’d the hair go?

R: Oh, I don’t know.

NM: But like Rapunzel’s whole thing is the hair. Is that not part of the bit? You say f*ck the night-in-shining-armor or something?

R: I didn’t really think about it.

NM: Ugh, okay then…

I just didn’t really get how the shaved thing wasn’t a part of the bit, but okay. We ended up talking about trampoline parks, and I accidentally let it slip that I get my anger out by throwing dodgeballs at little kids—I’m not the best when I’m drunk. But, the drama continued to unfold and your favorite man-about-town couldn’t let these stories go untold, ya know? So, I sobered up by stopping by the charcuterie board...

NM: Hey, wow you all look so great.

SALAMI: Thanks, yeah, but it’s kinda hot in here. I’m getting the meat sweats...

NM: No way, did you really just say that?

S: Yeah…

NM: Epic. And, you, what are you?

GRAPES: I am Grapes.

NM: No. Way. How many grapes are left on your vine, Grapes?

G: I have four grapes left on my vine.

NM: Wow, and what are you gonna do when there are no grapes left?

G: I will just be my vine, I guess. But, eventually I will grow back, and I’ll be even more bountiful. For now, I’m going to give my last few grapes to my closest friends.

NM: The people who really deserve it.

G: Exactly.

NM: Wow, thank you Grapes. How moving.

This interview struck me hard. Isn’t that what Oberlin Halloween is all about? Going out, having an alright time, but saving your last few grapes for your nearest and dearest. Savoring those moments at the end of the night, when you’re tired and dwindling, but you have to walk the bestie home, or bake some late-night muffins; together.

The night was full of poetics like that: Aren’t we all a Jack Torrance hunting for our Wendy? Even if she is a first-year dancing in the other room. What’s Dobby like without Harry and the gang? A chiller, honestly. I like her better. Who knew Chazz Michael Michaels from Blades of Glory was in that Large Format Photo Class?

And, if it could, what advice would a grape give to a Grape?

The creativity was really there, and you’re all pretty good drunk conversationalists. Props to all y’all weirdos. Plus, since Halloween was on a Sunday we got to spend the real day doing stuff we actually wanted to do: watching spooky movie. Anyway, that’s it for Nico’s Nook...

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An Interview with Will Curry and Henry Nelson of Probable Voltages Teagan Hughes Staff Writer

Photo provided by Probable Voltages

Will Curry and Henry Nelson have just come from a music video shoot for Oberlin singersongwriter Claudia Hinsdale when I meet them on the second floor of Wilder. Curry and Nelson comprise Probable Voltages, an art collective that produces music videos, short films, original music, covers, and everything in between. As of late, they’ve been holding house shows at the longtime “show house” that they inherited this year.

--TH: Just for a baseline, what is Probable Voltages?

HN: It’s a label, as well as a mini-minimini studio for shorts. We do have a lot of our own gear. Saying it’s a mini-mini studio isn’t too far off because we have a lot of our own gear through which we can produce things. And I guess, at the moment, it’s a concert venue. But if you break it down really really really mathematically, it’s an Instagram page, a Bandcamp, and a YouTube channel. And I guess—I suppose now a Venmo. We have an email too!

WC: And as far as the personnel, it’s kind of everyone and also not.

HN: Yeah, I mean basically, Will and I run the thing. And a lot of people overlap in terms of acting in the music videos and personnel on records and shows.

--Curry and Nelson are both fifth-years.

They began Probable Voltages as freshmen in the fall of 2017, and Curry tells

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me how they met in order to elucidate the whole process.

--WC: We met at jazz orientation, actually.

At some point along the way, we discovered that we both loved movies, and that kind of started this relationship where we were playing together all the time, watching stuff, thinking about movies, and we kind of realized at a point that

our trajectories were parallel in a way, and that there was a sort of fruitful thing that we could do, not only as really close friends, but as artistically aligned...we were gonna be able to push each other, but also not always be fighting about style and things, you know, that there was going to be some sort of understanding there. And so that’s kind of the genesis of how we started working together, and then Probable Voltages as a whole started as the record label, yeah?

HN: Yeah, it sort of kicked off with this album we did called Minotaur in freshman year and so it started as a label to do that [author’s note: Minotaur was recorded in the fall of 2017 and released in the winter of 2018]. It was just like, hanging out in the TIMARA studios, and the engineer of the album and myself were hanging out and it was just about done, and we were like ‘we should come up with a fake label, just to seem more professional, to seem cool’ and we tossed that name out there,

every continent.)

--HN: We try to direct for folks who, I guess, push at some sort of border in some stylistic way. You know? It has to be something that we really really really really really love. It has to be something that, whether it’s folk, whether it’s noise, whether it’s jazz, whether it’s free music, it has to be on the edge of something. If there’s anything that Probable Voltages stands for, it’s that.

--The videos on Probable Voltages’ YouTube channel have a very identifiable and consistent aesthetic. The most recent video on their channel as of this writing is a recording of a performance by Jack Hamill, filmed on November 6th, 2021. In the video, the camera drifts from Hamill’s face to the crowd to Hamill’s instruments and sound equipment, holding close on its dimly lit subjects, bathing everything in ultra-saturated blues and oranges.

---

By Henley Childress

and then now we’ve put out projects from an assortment of other folks.

WC: Not just that, it’s kind of become the blanket entity by which we can do a lot of things. On our social media there’s all the photography. So when Henry and I are gone for the semester, or really at any time, we’ll just take pictures, mostly street photography, and upload it. It’s this unified platform and this idea really just to make something that encompasses what we wanna do, because, you know, we’re not just musicians, not just whatever.

There’s a way in which all those different things intersect, and I think both of us feel that music and movies and writing and photography and even drawing, these things have to be a part of our lives. So it’s just kind of a way for us to, in a way, put a little pressure on ourselves to just put it out there. And two, just to have a place to put it.

HN: And also it’s that thing where one style always tries to bleed into another.

Our hope is to have a continuity between all these things.

--Probable Voltages has existed in some form or another since the fall of 2017, but like many enduring artistic ventures, they’ve become more productive since March of 2020.

--HN: Junior year when COVID hit, we really decided to try to do something with it because we couldn’t really do much else, so I figured ‘we can build this thing up!’

Because one of these music videos got some attention on campus; it was a music video for a song that our friend Owen [H Frankel] did called ‘Upside Down.’ And when that came out and got some attention, Will and I figured ‘well, we should try to build this into something bigger than just a label.’

WC: That’s when the Instagram page started. If you look at the dates, it’s like, all the first things are from March 2020.

So yeah, we kind of went in full throttle there.

--Curry and Nelson identify a number of friends and frequent collaborators throughout our interview who are or have been involved with Probable Voltages and its projects: Beth Ann Jones, Matei Predescu, Holly Handman-Lopez and Tom Lopez, Sam Friedman, Jeremy McCabe, Jack Hamill. (Hamill hosts weekly listening sessions on Fridays at approximately 7:30 p.m. in the TIMARA studios, Nelson tells me after asking if he can “plug someone else’s thing.” At these sessions, Hamill exhibits experimental music from

HN: We’ve kind of upheld an aesthetic through everything. Through the way the performances work, through the albums that we put out, and through the music videos, and through the shows too, we’ve tried to maintain a really retro, old-seeming kind of aesthetic. And when building the space in that house, we really worked hard to keep that going.

--That retro aesthetic has stayed consistent through the years, judging by Probable Voltages’ social media archive. I ask what draws them towards that aesthetic.

and feeling very lonely, and I guess seeing old things...I don’t know, I guess that kind of made me feel better.

--Now that we’re discussing their stylistic trademarks, the time has come for me to ask about artistic influences. I pose the question. Nelson looks at me very seriously and says, enunciating every word: “We love Radiohead so much.” They list a few filmmakers: Paul Thomas Anderson, David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Park Chan-wook, Gaspar Noé. They like directors that “use the form and tradition of filmmaking sort of against itself,” Nelson says. “Yeah, you know, folks that a lot of people would call provocative for the sake of being provocative, but I actually have a different take on all that,” Curry adds. “I find it, kind of, incredibly sincere.”

Curry and Nelson list a few musicians along with the filmmakers: Wolf Eyes, Tom Waits, Alex G, and Black Midi.

--WC: Bands like Black Midi, though, have been kind of a guiding force—you know, it’s kind of astonishing when you listen to their music, you say ‘how did this band get to be as relatively big as they are?’ And they have kind of similar instrumentation to a lot of the groups that we play in, they play stuff that’s somehow really interesting and iconoclastic, yet not pretentious.

And I think that’s a line that we would like to emulate.

HN: Yeah, I think that another thing is, everything we try to program and do, I think we try really hard to keep it coming from a place of honesty, especially when it comes to the folks who we put out and the folks that we direct for. It comes down to honesty and expression and nakedness towards one’s audience.

----HN: Yeah, I think it’s a lot of the stuff Will and I watch and listen to. I mean I personally love Tom Waits, we love old movies, and we love period movies, and I love old clothing and old furniture, and so I guess when I’m making decisions about art and making decisions about production, both musically and visually, we love to call attention to the machinery, to, you know, things forgotten. We love shooting in old places. We love wearing old things.

You know, I guess we just like forgotten stuff. For me it’s a– WC: It’s an intuitive thing, yeah.

HN: Yeah, I guess I was kinda like an oddball in middle school and high school

Curry and Nelson have been planning and hosting house shows this semester; it’s a new development for Probable Voltages.

The programming they do at their house this year has its roots in Nelson’s prior experience doing programming for Hanson Records. They inherited a known “show house” this year, giving them a great deal of freedom when it comes to planning and hosting shows. They acknowledge that the house show scene at Oberlin changes a great deal depending on who’s hosting: “It totally depends on who has the houses.

We just got the house this time,” Nelson says.

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Probably Voltages continued TH: With regard to the shows, do you see them as kind of existing in this continuity?

Like, do you see yourself as part of a tradition of this sort of thing that’s been happening?

HN: I think so, actually. I think that there have been shows here for as long as we’ve been here—house shows. And I see us as a part of that. And when we leave, somebody else will have the house that we live in, and they will probably put on shows. And with that we also—understanding that and having been to those shows and even played some, we wanted to do our own thing with it.

--Probable Voltages hosts these house shows on their own terms, on their own time, but Curry and Nelson both have experience booking and hosting shows through the College and Conservatory as well. I ask them how their shows feel different from school-sanctioned shows. Their more informal format makes the entire experience more cathartic for everyone involved, Curry says, and Nelson adds that there’s no institutional pressure.

scene in the way that a place has a scene or something. You know, we make it. Everyone makes the scene. And so everything’s kind of fair game, and I think it allows people to really fuck up in interesting ways that lead to more—ultimately, more interesting and considered work than if you are reaching for some kind of criterion that is so elusive and ambiguous and enigmatic and it just doesn’t—where you’re waiting for someone else’s approval. Here, it’s just, like, every four years this incredible group of musicians cycles and there’s an attentive audience, ‘cause people all over the school love art. And that’s really unique...I think people are very supportive, you know, people are very open-minded to seeing something new. There’s not a million other things you could go to, you know. You’re not wasting your time if you go and see someone really try something. And that’s great not only for people that are 20 years old, but I think it’s great for listeners and people that engage with art, too.

--Before I end our interview, I ask if there are any messages they want to transmit to The Grape’s readership. They have a few plugs to share: Jeremy McCabe’s WOBC show Community Hour, Tuesdays at 2 p.m., and Curry’s upcoming recital, which will take place at The Cat in the Cream on December 11th at 12:30 p.m.

--HN: I think that putting it in a house, and putting it later at night, and stripping away a lot of the formal elements that were previously there, I think that allows people to come for fun. And I think people are coming for fun, or for an experience, or to get pushed in some way, or just to hear some really really loud shit, depending on the concert.

WC: I mean, a lot of the stuff that’s played at the shows, I think, just wouldn’t be the same in a different venue.

HN: Yeah, it’d be a little bit more buttoned-up, a little bit more rehearsed. There are very few rehearsals for the sets that are performed at our shows.

TH: So would you say that there’s almost an improvisational element sometimes?

HN: Absolutely. I mean in every respect both musically and just in nature. Even though we’ve done a lot of work, there’s still that.

--Curry hails from Chicago, and Nelson from New York. Being from a small town myself, I can’t even imagine how making art in Oberlin would compare to trying to hack it in the Big City. So I ask.

--HN: I think that in a big city, yes, that we’d be hosting shows for folks all over, but sort of on the other hand, we’d be competing against the Beacon Theater, Terminal 5, every single place in Brooklyn. But because we’re all fucking here, we have to care about the things that we put on. You know? You would be writing an article about AC/DC, for all I know—you probably wouldn’t be writing an article on AC/DC. TH: I don’t know what I would say!

HN: But I think that us all being here together, while socially it can cause this place to be a toxic fucking nightmare, I think that artistically speaking, we are in this greenhouse where we have the freedom to do whatever we want. And also, it causes the people here to really get exposed to a lot of shit and not shy away into independence. I know a lot of people at colleges in the cities who aren’t friends with folks at their college because they’re friends with all their friends in high school, and it’s just basically no fucking difference. But here we have to meet new people and get exposed to new things, and people take every opportunity to do that, including going to these house shows and watching our videos. And I think that if we were to try to do something like this in a big city, it would fall on its ass.

WC: Yeah, I think it’d get lost in the shuffle. Or, there’s a greater chance of it getting lost in the shuffle.

HN: Absolutely. And also, it’s so competitive.

WC: It’s so competitive, I was gonna say. The necessity for self-empowered DIY stuff that happens—I mean, Oberlin’s got a ton of musicians, but there isn’t, I would say, a

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Art by Michael Hastings

Probable Voltages can be found on Instagram @probablevoltages, as well as YouTube and Bandcamp under “Probable Voltages.” Their next project, a short film called “The Settler,” comes out on November 20th, 2021.

Makeovers and Making Out! with Priya and Liza Priya Banerjee Editor in Chief

Liza Mackeen Shapiro Opinions Editor

Welcome to Makeovers and Making Out! The Grape’s new style and lifestyle makeover column! Priya and Liza, our two in-house style gurus, will meet with those who were deemed (by themselves or others) to be in need of a new look. Each fashion victim will have their closet evaluated by the Fashionistas to determine how to best transform the wardrobe of each participant.

After we’re done with them...we will set them up on a blind date with another one of our transformations.

Our first victim? Kathleen Kelleher.

Certified second-year and self-proclaimed “trad” girl. When Priya and Liza first heard that Kathleen was looking for a new look, their interest was instantly piqued…

The opportunity to bring some funky, spunky style into a trendy trad lifestyle doesn’t come around often! In our initial evaluation of Kathleen, she described her style as “academic” and “classic”. When we trotted on over to Russia House where she resides, her closet confirmed this.

Seeing little plaid skirt after little plaid skirt made it clear that Kathleen doesn’t often stray from her current schoolgirl chic style.

We sat down with Kathleen to hear about her style inspirations and the direction she was hoping to go with her new look…

PRIYA AND LIZA: So Kathleen, you described your current style as “classic ‘n academic with lots of earthy warm and neutral tones”. Who are people you look to for outfit inspiration?

KATHLEEN: I really love Twiggy, Liza, ballerinas, and Audrey Hepburn.

PRIYA AND LIZA: Why did you sign up to get a makeover from The Grape? What kind

of changes are you looking to make in your wardrobe? Is there any in particular style that you find ugly and want to avoid?

KATHLEEN: I signed up for a makeover cuz I really like the style of both you guys! In terms of changes to my wardrobe, not anything super major. I like the way I dress. I feel comfortable but I want to challenge myself. I really only wear browns and cream especially in the winter months. I don’t think there’s anything I think is that ugly….

KATHLEEN: I have this blue and plaid schoolgirl skirt that’s slightly too long and has a weird shape. When I was home I got this fur stole and I’m not really sure how to wear it out. I also have a few slip dresses and nightgowns that I am trying to find ways to wear in the colder months...

PRIYA AND LIZA: Are there any pieces in your closet that you love but don’t know how to style? Conversely, what are your go-to pieces?

KATHLEEN: None! I trust your process Fashionistas!

PRIYA AND LIZA: Any last questions, comments, or concerns for the Fashionistas before we begin your makeover?

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Post-Makeover Thoughts from Kathleen: KATHLEEN: I’m really happy with the outfits that Priya and Liza made for me, and I think they have a bright future as Grape fashion columnists! I really felt ready for the day at the opera with the fur stole and white gown. I’m definitely curious about the black blazer over the black slip dress as I don’t usually pair black items with other black items. I love the scarf tied around the neck in the ‘off to class’ look! I’ve never done that before! Each outfit really had a distinct vibe...Great job Fashionistas Liza and Priya!

The fashion police save the day once again! If you or a loved one has a wardrobe emergency please reach out to Priya and Liza via the form in The Grape’s Instagram bio to find a time to meet with the Fashionistas and transform your style. Ciao Baby!

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The Two Dunes, and Why I Choose the Beautiful Disaster Fionna Farrell Staff Writer Google Dune (2021) and Dune (1984) and you will be met with staggeringly different results. In the latter case, here are some choice articles that came up: “David Lynch’s Dune Is A Beautiful Sci-Fi Disaster”.

“When Dune 1984 Star Knew the Movie Was in Trouble”. “David Lynch’s Dune Is still the Stuff of Migraines.”

By contrast, I found an article titled “The Problem With Dune (2021)” Its first sentence read “There is no problem with Dune (2021).”

Perhaps, from an “objective” (writing that word makes me throw up in my mouth a little) viewpoint, there really is no, or very few, problems with Dune. If there were an Oscar category for “movies with the least problems”, perhaps Denis Villeneuve would be someone you could bet on. He’d probably lose, though, because, as many have pointed out, Zendaya only being in the movie for seven minutes is quite a sizable problem. Hans Zimmer, I also found the score just a bit overwrought. But that’s for another time.

Nonetheless, it is still Lynch’s 1984 version—in which Zendaya accrues zero minutes of screen time— which is universally regarded as the failure. An utter shit show, if you will. Even David Lynch himself agrees, claiming that the film gave him deep “heartache” and he has “zero interest” in watching Villeneuve’s version (It’s

been 37 years, David! Give yourself a break!) For a film to deeply distress its viewers and its creator alike, one has to wonder what exactly went wrong. And what, if anything, went right. To what extent are these matters of content or mere aesthetics?

I have never read Dune and have no intention to, but the first question/concern that automatically comes to mind is: which version is truer to the book?

And, consequently, is it presented in a way that is graspable? Does the movie feel like it should be a movie? For Dune 1984 the answer is...not quite. I have never been very quick on the uptake when it comes to fantastical science-y stuff, but, even so, I constantly felt like I was missing something when watching the film. Not necessarily due to miscomprehension, but because what I was searching for simply wasn’t explained to me in the first place. At least, not in an intelligible way; there are many haphazard attempts at explanation throughout the film, like, for example the film’s opening monologue, which provides the old spice-rundown, but these only seem to reinforce the viewer’s concerns that they should’ve read the book before jumping into the Lynch abyss. While enduring Dune (2021), I experienced no such feeling.

Sure, the film rests on its backbone of stunning visuals, but we get our first “explanation” of what we are really getting into while the screen is still dark: when Zendaya utters to us “My planet, Arrakis, is so beautiful when the sun is low.” A certain feeling is automatically evoked, one in which we might empathize with lived experiences. I remember exhaling a small sigh of relief—okay, now I have something to work with.

For the remaining two hours and thirty-five minutes, the film did not fail to bestow these small gifts upon me. The film is long, but there are checkpoints.

Things that at first appear divergent eventually make their way back to the center. All in all, I felt that even I could understand this movie. That is not to say that the film is not imbued with a certain mysticism—a certain enigmatic forcefield that I think would take an entire army of the mind to penetrate. But this does not hinder

the movie; it only widens its scope.

Not, however, in a way that is not stultifying at times. Maybe that’s just because movies that I understand tend to bore me. Maybe it’s because Dune was just too perfectly orchestrated—even the questions were within reach. I don’t want them to be! I want to have to snatch them up. I want to have to stretch my arms a bit.

Have I ever watched a Lynch movie and really known what’s “going on”? I can’t recall the last time. That, for me and probably every other Lynch fan, is part of the appeal to his movies. Mulholland Drive might be a bit more seamless than Dune. But what really separates them at their core? It is surely not the fact that they are bizarre.

In Dune, it’s just that the bizarreness doesn’t translate to anything meaningful or...comprehensible.

For meaning and comprehension, though, the film does offer two suitable alternatives, who go by the names of Kyle MacLachlan and Sting. The film’s score was composed by Toto (you may know them for such hits as “Africa’’ and “Rosanna”), including a song, “Prophecy Theme”, performed by Brian Eno (you may know him for ambient stuff and for making Talking Heads happen). In Dune (2021), I can’t much recall a time when Timothee Chalamet smiled; in Dune (1984), Kyle MacLachlan is possessed by an endearing, impish naivete. And who can really blame him, when the distant moons at which he soberly gazes look like the solar system on The Truman Show? When the technology of 10,191 looks like abandoned early Apple experiments?

When the people of 10,191 talk in royal 1891 fashion (and in a royal monotone, at that)? The worm behemoth does look pretty cool though, especially when MacLachlan embraces his chosen-oneness and is able to control it.

This is all by 1984 standards, though. But still, the film had a forty million dollar budget. It appears that the studio really was hoping for the Star Wars of ‘84.

Perhaps, this is where all the problems arise.

Dune ‘84 is so vastly overreaching, so ridiculous in its mock severity, that it’s impossible not to take it for what it actually is: a lighthearted camp joyride which isn’t, God forbid, supposed to be understood. Do I really want a film with no problems, anyway? In all honesty, those tend to put me to sleep (especially when they are nearly three hours long). Surely, it might be impossible not to cringe in their midst, but I will take the myriad problems of 1984’s Dune in stride. When given the choice between the beautiful masterpiece and the beautiful disaster, I’ll gladly choose the latter. Maybe not every time, but definitely when I need a good pick-me-up. Must entertainment always be so somber nowadays? Visions don’t always have to be fulfilled—sometimes it’s their failure that lives on.

Art by Molly Chapin

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“No Crying”: On Language, Wes Anderson, and the Unrelenting Humanity of The French Dispatch Raghav Raj Staff Writer Oftentimes—at least within peculiar circles of those who write about film—there’s this sort of language that seems to follow Wes Anderson wherever he goes, a shroud of mealymouthed adjectives that coalesce around criticisms of him like a swarm of Hitchcockian birds.

Among these: the cloyingly saccharine “twee,” a term that’s often caught in conversations with “quaint,” “precious,” and the dreaded “cutesy”; the subtly dismissive “eccentric” or “idiosyncratic,” wielded alongside far less subtle terms like “suffocating,” “distracted,” and “unbearable”; the ambiguous tonal indicators, like “dry,” “arch,” or god forbid, “polished.”

Now, it’s not to say that all these adjectives are pointless—I might use a few of them myself later on in this piece—just that they all seem to have Anderson’s unique, wildy distinct style pinned down in a few neat sets of words. The endless discourse around Anderson and his films, for better or worse, seems content with this language, ping-ponging back and forth with meaningless conversations between these adjectives. He has been effectively placed within this neat rhetorical box, under this all-too-common assumption that nothing the man does could really challenge us.

Of course, all this talk about the “language” of a Wes Anderson film is overwrought.

In the most inelegant of terms, the most powerful thing about a Wes Anderson film isn’t how elegantly it speaks. The most powerful thing about a Wes Anderson film is how it breaks your fucking heart. Whether it’s a soft, subdued sadness or a

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quick kick to the stomach, the draw with Anderson is that his work is bittersweet, that it’s filled with this intense longing, this piercing wistfulness, that makes its way through every perfectly manicured scene.

At least in The French Dispatch, his latest and maybe most intricately engineered work, this wistfulness never leaves the back of your head.

The conceit here—a farewell issue of a travelogue literary journal settled in the imaginary French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé, consisting of three republished articles from past editions and an obituary—is one wholly animated by grief, brought on by the death of the paper’s founder.

This founder — Arthur Horowitz Jr — is, of course, played by Bill Murray, and just like in every other Anderson feature Murray has graced with his presence, the man absolutely brings his best. And, though his presence is mostly a footnote or endnote between the film’s episodic stories, he unifies the film, piecing together its fragments with his curt yet sympathetic mannerisms. He is the film’s spiritual glue and his presence gives Anderson the ability to expand on his greatest strengths, to keep those moments of heartbreak so potent even in the most kaleidoscopic stylistic sprawl he’s attempted.

And make no mistake: without a shadow of a doubt, The French Dispatch is the boldest that Anderson has gone.

The sheer scope of every single sketch or story that Anderson lays out is staggering. The set pieces are his most intricate, dwarfing even The Grand Budapest Hotel with its titanic works of art and miniature revolutions alike. The colors are bombastic, oscillating between black-andwhite and painterly technicolor,

allowing a narrative and aesthetic rhythm that makes every jump feel profoundly purposeful. The mediums of the film themselves are malleable, shifting into excerpts of theatrical rendition and vibrant animation with the sort of confidence you’d expect from someone like Tati in his Playtime period, the sort of period where every artistic instinct is indulged with the delicate craftsmanship of only a true auteur.

With a lesser director, I’d be tempted to whip out the adjectives, to call this sort of maximalist filmmaking “self-indulgent,” “gaudy,” or “chintzy.” But while negotiating with those terms for the entirety of his career, what Anderson has managed to do is make this maximalism feel so profoundly purposeful, so necessary to tell these stories that he argues deserve to be told. The French Dispatch is undoubtedly a reflection of Anderson’s love for The New Yorker, and the way that publication reflects Anderson’s unmistakable storytelling instincts is a sign of the influences he wears on his sleeves coming full circle with this film.

With all this in mind, it’s not much of a surprise that The French Dispatch comes off like a magnum opus as it makes its way through every sublime moment. The film is Anderson’s utterly unrelenting vision fully, finally realized, a homecoming and a victory lap that gathers all the heavy hitters and knocks it out of the park.

By the heavy hitters, of course I mean the cast here, which is potent both in its sheer star power and the utter lack of ego. This is an ensemble film through and through, filled with Anderson mainstays (a shortlist of which includes aforementioned Murray, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton,

and Willem Dafoe), critical darlings (Benicio Del Toro, Frances McDormand, Christoph Waltz in an amusingly minuscule bit part), and promising starlets (Saoirse Ronan, Alex Lawther, the endlessly polarizing Timothée Chalamet) alike. And though the performances here are mostly moving as parts to the whole, like intricate little gears in an old, ornate watch, it doesn’t stop Anderson from every-so-often placing the spotlight on some of the utterly striking performances he’s able to draw out.

There is no singularly flawed, fascinatingly complex Andersonian hero here, no analogue to Schwartzman in Rushmore, Murray in The Life Aquatic, or Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Still, the sheer strength of performances in The French Dispatch is something astounding, an achievement that sees Anderson drawing out highlights from the likes of Léa Seydoux and the aforementioned Timothée Chalamet (the former in a physically demanding, utterly fascinating role as prison guard and muse; the latter in the best role of his career, a youthful, plucky, tragic revolutionary with a flair for the poetic).

Then, of course, there’s Jeffrey Wright, delivering a performance as a James Baldwinesque food writer that’s maybe as brilliant a performance I’ve ever seen in a Wes Anderson film. As Roebuck Wright, he’s simply, unrelentingly magnificent; it’s a performance that’s so wry and succinct and so absolutely devastating, especially in those moments where the artifice vanishes and we are faced with a man who writes for his soul, a man who picks up a typewriter and sits down at a dining table because it’s the only way to really fend off the loneliness

of his life. The revelation of his story—which entails attending a dinner with The Commissaire of Ennui’s police force, prepared by legendary police officer/chef Lt. Nescaffier, turned on its head amidst a kidnapping plot of the Commissaire’s precocious son— is an absolutely moving one, the sort of conclusion that moves you to tears in the theater.

In The French Dispatch, there’s a delectable irony in the sheer catharsis of a good cry.

Almost immediately in the film, we are made aware of Arthur Horowitzer Jr.’s most resonant maxim, the one that adorns the door of his office, the epitaph he has etched onto his gravestone: “No Crying.”

Yet, for the rest of the film, Anderson seems to test our commitment to the phrase, eagerly tugging the heartstrings in ways that only he could ever do, guiding us through a reunion of old friends, the fizzling of a youthful spark, a quiet acknowledgement of a shared humanity in a foreign town, all in the wake of a loss that spells the end of an era. We embody these stories in all their idiosyncratic, humanistic excesses, and we’re effectively able to live within them as we watch the film, even as the stories themselves remain at arm’s length. Despite being his most detached work, The French Dispatch is also Anderson’s closest and most deeply affecting—a triumph that truly warrants the shedding of a celebratory tear or two. Newsroom rules be damned.

Art by Olive Polken

19 Years After Their Last Studio Album—And 40 Years After “Tainted Love”—

Soft Cell Returns With a New Single Teagan Hughes Staff Writer As a rule, you usually expect one-hit wonders to fall off the face of the earth. They might release a few more singles after their big hit, maybe another couple studio albums. Then they’re gone.

When was the last time you heard about Haddaway? Lipps, Inc.? The Buggles? The typical listener of the era may have

expected the same of Soft Cell in 1984, when they broke up shortly after the release of their third fulllength studio album, This Last Night in Sodom. But since then, Soft Cell has reunited multiple times to release new material, determined not to die the meager death of the onehit wonder. Their latest effort is “Bruises On All My Illusions,” the first single from their announced 2022 album *Happiness Not Included.

“One-hit wonder” has always been somewhat of a misnomer for Soft Cell. Sure, “Tainted Love” is their only single to have ever broken the Billboard Hot 100, spending a thenrecord-breaking 43 weeks on the chart. But they’ve had 12 singles break the top 40 in the UK, and their first three studio albums, along with an EP of remixes, all broke the top 20 albums in ye olde England.

Dave Ball’s instrumenta-

tion on their early albums length album, The Art of metaphors and colorful was hugely influential in Falling Apart, and “Where imagery with a near-agothe world of synthpop, the Was Your Heart (When nizing degree of directness genre that would dominate You Needed It Most)” and and honesty (see “Where the ‘80s.

“Surrender to a Stranger” Was Your Heart...”).

If you’ve only from This Last Night in “Bruises On All My Illuheard “Tainted Love,” the Sodom. sions” just doesn’t strike rest of Soft Cell’s output Listening to Soft that balance. I don’t mean may surprise you. Soft Cell has never been a pasto say that Almond has Cell’s “Tainted Love” is a sive experience for me—it totally lost his songwriting cover, a reinterpretation can’t be. Their music is prowess; “bruises on all of the original recording ominous and startling my illusions” is certainly made by Gloria Jones in and introspective in turns, an engaging piece of figu1964. It’s this fact that sets something that I apprecirative language, and there “Tainted Love” apart from ate it for. The lack of these are additional compelling the rest of their discograqualities is precisely the turns of phrase here and phy. “Tainted Love” gets problem with their new there. However, I would much of its bounce and its single, “Bruises On All contend that “Bruises levity (musical, not lyrical) My Illusions.” Musically On All My Illusions” just from the original, and it’s and lyrically, it’s hard to doesn’t carry the same these qualities that made it pinpoint what distinurgency and defiance of appealing to the early ‘80s guishes “Bruises On All their earlier repertoire. It’s listening public, primed My Illusions” from Soft a dull blade. by the success of early Cell’s earlier work—less It’s a cliché to MTV staples like “Video debauchery, certainly, declare that an aging muKilled the Radio Star” and since Marc Almond is 64 sician has lost their edge.

“Mickey.” now. But I know this: I I don’t want to fall into The rest of Soft feel passive listening to it. this cliché, but I struggle Cell’s discography stands Older Soft Cell stuff wants to find another way to say in stark contrast to to get in your face, wants it. Of course, I don’t mean “Tainted Love.” It’s dense to unsettle you. “Bruises to imply that there is no and foreboding, with close On All My Illusions” has musical or lyrical value in synth riffs woven together no desire to invade my “Bruises On All My Illuin such a way that you feel personal space, which is a sions.” As I stated above, trapped inside of them. real shame. there are some engaging Lyrically, Soft Cell’s origiIn the years since lyrics, and Dave Ball, as nal music speaks to many their first breakup, Soft always, plays a great synth. of the common lyrical Cell has become far more This isn’t Soft Cell trying to themes of early synthpop: heavy-handed in their rehash their old successes; “isolation, urban anomie, lyrics, lending an almost there is clearly something feeling cold and hollow “makes-you-think” quality new at play here that inside, [and] paranoia,” as to them (take, for instance, shouldn’t be disregarded. described by British music the title of their upcoming What exactly that thing is journalist Simon Reynolds. album, *Happiness Not remains to be seen. I supBut it doesn’t fully embody Included). At their best, pose we’ll find out in 2022. the perceived sterility of Soft Cell mixed concise lots of early synthpop; it engages, mu- “If you’ve only heard “Tainted Love,” the rest of Soft sically and lyrically, Cell’s output may surprise you. Soft Cell’s “Tainted in a great deal more Love” is a cover, a reinterpretation of the original debauchery. For some great examples recording made by Gloria Jones in 1964. It’s this fact of this, and also just that sets “Tainted Love” apart from the rest of their some great songs, discography. “Tainted Love” gets much of its bounce I’d put forward “The and its levity (musical, not lyrical) from the original, Art of Falling Apart” and it’s these qualities that made it appealing to the and “Heat” of off early ‘80s listening public...” their second full-

Art by Michael Hastings

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Reflections on Travis Scott’s Astroworld Kayla Kim Contributor

cause of a prick of Narcan from When I was seven I saw a picture of a human a concert goer, stampede for the first time on the front page of the New a claim that has York Times. Hundreds of people were crowded together been debunked so tightly packed you couldn’t differentiate between bodon the Internet ies. They looked like gaping fish, reaching out their hands a million times. for whatever there was, hair drenched in sweat and faces A couple days filled with shock, terror, or nothing at all. Pictured was afterwards the the Phnom Penh stampede where over 347 died and 755 police officer were injured, making it one of the deadliest human stamretracted that pedes in the 21st century. Now, thanks to the Internet I statement. can log onto Twitter and see something eerily similar: There’s videos of dead bodies being carried away, people getting another popular trampled, and thousands of people packed like sardines saying as well: in a can, all under the watchful eye of Travis Scott. Less ‘regulations than 24-hours after the Astroworld incident, I found my are written in social media feeds inundated with memes and conspiracy blood’. In 1979, theories, claims of rap being inherently ‘violent’, imBritish Rock ages of white girls captioning their Instagram posts with band The Who things like ‘barely survived the rage!’, and clips of people performed in dancing over ambulances as they tried to reach people Cincinnati Ohio, injured in the crowd. Most troubling, though, was a viral when thousands video of two young adults, Ayden Cruz and Seanna Faith of concert goers climbing onto platforms begging for the show to stop rushed through only to be met with boos from the crowd.

2 doors, resultThere’s a popular saying: history doesn’t repeat ing in the deaths of 11 people, all of them teenagers and itself, rather it rhymes. In the 1990s, the Hillsborough young adults. For the next 25 years, Cincinnati would imdisaster echoes that sentiment, when hundreds of Engpose a ban on unassigned seating in festivals, and today, lish soccer fans got crushed to death in a stadium, their there must be nine square feet per person at a venue. This screams covered up by the joyous cheers of the opposall could have been so preventable, after all, did we not ing team. After this initially happened, police blamed learn our lesson from nearly 40 years ago? the event on concertgoers and deflected any personal The answer is that profit is always above lives. responsibility. Only after years of investigation, protests, Profit is what killed Halyna Hutchins, the young filmand the suicide of a friend of the victims due to survimaker on the set of Rust, via the lack of proper training vor’s guilt, was it finally found that police negligence was and safety standards. Profit is why someone would even responsible for not aiding fans quickly enough. I think think of hosting a massive gathering of people during a about this when I see the video of Houston Police, who deadly pandemic that has killed over 72,461 people in deployed 500 cops at a concert with a performer known Houston alone. to incite disorder among fans, blaming overdoses for the Profit is how people got crushed and trampled stampede and that one of the officers fell unconscious be-

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to death by others as they look up at their idol; meanwhile, his billionaire girlfriend or fiancé or whatever is safely escorted with noise cancelling headphones while workers under a company with countless OSHA violations helplessly watch on. But I guess at this point, after a pandemic and too many ‘unprecedented times’ to count, we really couldn’t care less about how profit will find the next way to take away our lives and can only think about what we can get out of such a situation. In fact, I don’t even know how many people will care about this article because Astroworld is no longer a ‘trending topic’.

Ultimately, no event better represents the quintessential American individualism and life in a capitalist hellscape than Astroworld does.

Swift v. Swift: Who will come out on top?

On Taylor Swift: I Relish in Being a Hater and There’s Nothing You Can do About It

<3 Swiftie Love <3 Liza Mackeen-Shapiro Opinions Editor

Saffron Forsberg Arts and Culture Editor It seems like, every couple of years, the general public —with, of course, the exception of the most doting Swifties —decides whether or not to like Taylor Swift. Love her, even. Sometimes she is hashtag libfem-white-woman-cringe, and at other times she is the face of high butchness for those who have never met a lesbian not currently hoping to earn a clean four on the AP US History exam.

Some years, she represents everything mediocre and pumpkin spice about white, upper-class, American womanhood, and other years we decide she stands for the sort of empowerment that decries “let women have fun! Let women like pop music! Nobody has ever let women like pop music before!” Plus, she’s revolutionizing what it means to be a gay little freak. As it turns out, gay women don’t have to look like hairy, man-spreading weirdos; they can look normal too! In the last couple years — or something; god knows I’m not doing a lick of research for this tirade — Swift’s mild and innocuous queerbaiting has turned into full-scale homo allegations, as she’s decided to quit capital letters cold-turkey, hug her female friends, deny her Republicanism, and act sort of like she goes outside and wears regular clothes sometimes.

But, Saffron, you cruel, generalizing, little dirty dyke-man, you! Haven’t you ever read her lyrics? Let the polish of her lab-spawned production wash off your shoulders like a sweet, cottagecore rain? She is a poet, a speaker for sentimental women everywhere, not to mention an LGBT icon on par with Baldwin and Feinberg. Because of T-Swift, women can act acceptably bonkers when men split; they can wear knee socks beneath little ankle boots when it’s kind of nippy out; they can be silly with their herd of supermodel besties. Plus...she’s fun. Haven’t you ever had any fun? I feel like you’re maybe exhibiting signs of internalized misogyny — dare I say homophobia — in declaring her fame pretty grating. Maybe you should listen, really listen, to her again. It’d do you both good. Underdogs like her need the streams.

And to answer you: yes. I have heard Taylor Swift. Thoroughly. I’ve let the subtle intellectualism of her genrebending brand of earworm Top 40 drill itself into my skull while clocked into every one of my many shitty retail jobs.

And all my childcare gigs. And every time I ever tried to befriend a straight girl with an in-ground pool. And, fine, I’ll admit it: I was the sort of little girl who shied away from things I found pink and vacuous. I was a stick-in-themud about boybands, High School Musicals, Hannah Montana merchandise, and the Twilight industrial complex. I acted like a little bitch when my friends recruited boyfriends in the seventh grade and insisted I stop “hurting their feelings and pushing their fingers back too far.” Kim Gordon was my Harry Styles, and I spent my childhood idolizing Ghost World’s snide, misguided cult heroines. Yada yada yada. I was insufferable in my own right. I, without a doubt, unknowingly had a severe case of I’m-Not-Like-the-Other-Girls Syndrome.

But, I must point out that I’ve never spent a minute of my time defending one of the most famous pop stars in history. She need not be defended.

She’s Taylor Swift. She doesn’t give two shits about whether or not I, a person currently receiving text alerts from “McHire”, is mildly depressed by her fame-to-mediocrity ratio. She’s like six feet tall or something. She’s fine, man.

When Taylor Swift first uttered the mockingly self-referential ad-lib “Who’s Taylor Swift anyway?” in her iconic birthday anthem 22 way back in 2012, it was already comical enough to imagine someone sincerely possessing such unawareness of her stardom; listening to her sing the same lyric on her re-recorded version of the Red album 9 years later, it is simply unthinkable. Indeed, despite a brief fall from grace at the hands of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian circa 2016, Swift’s career is arguably stronger than ever these days, thanks both to the critical and commercial success of her 2020 surprise albums Folklore and Evermore and public interest in her quest to regain ownership over her back catalog.

Although public opinion towards Swift has certainly become more favorable in recent years, there are still many people to whom her entire existence is grating and cringeworthy. I am not one of those people. Anyone who so much as follows me on Instagram knows that I am a die-hard Swiftie; after being a casual fan of hers all throughout elementary, middle, and high school (with the exception of senior year when I discovered Kanye and subsequently disavowed her — sorry Tay,) I re-discovered her discography towards the end of my first fall semester at Oberlin and have been an ardent supporter of hers ever since. My sincere love for Taylor often surprises people, probably because most people think her fanbase is made up of 12 year olds and basic sorority girls (which is honestly not very accurate,

sorority girls all like Kanye,) — not to mention that her now-signature brand of liberal feminism is exactly the type of schtick that typically annoys me.

It’s hard for me to generate any kind of intellectual defense of Swift because my attachment to her is so fundamentally emotional. I do think she is objectively an incredibly talented songwriter (less so singer) who creates sonically engaging, if not exactly groundbreaking, music, and I also think that most people are unwilling to discover this for themselves because they are too embarrassed to be caught listening to her (which is lame.) However, I am not the kind of person who subscribes to a “let people enjoy things” philosophy, nor do I believe that “internalized misogyny” is the only reason one could dislike Taylor, and thus my Swiftiehood often comes into direct conflict with my critical thinking skills whenever I try to come up with reasons why everyone should be obligated to love and respect the multi-millionaire businesswoman who wrote ME!. There are a lot of principled arguments one could make in favor of Swift — she’s a crusader for artist’s rights, a virtuoso giving voice and validity to the emotions of young women everywhere — but I don’t think moralizing is particularly effective strategy for defending her because nearly every principled argument you can make against her is more compelling (i.e. she’s a millionaire with a victim complex who discovered Tumblr feminism in 2015 and has been selectively deploying it in her favor ever since.)

Ultimately, being a Taylor Swift fan is all about experiencing some emotional connection and identification with her, and you either feel it or you don’t. As she astutely observed in one of her recent songs, “I’m a mirrorball/I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight,” — through her signature confessional writing style, she has let the public in on just the right amount of her personal life such that people can still project their own lives onto it. That’s the reason there are legions of people online who are convinced that she is gay, and why I feel so strongly that she isn’t; part of being a Swiftie is convincing yourself that on some level she is just like you. Thus, in this article written with the express purpose of defending Taylor Swift, I can’t actually bring myself to offer any official defense of her. All I can tell you to do is listen to her music and hope that you find some piece of yourself reflected back in it.

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NO PISS NOVEMBER IS HERE!

By Jared “Absolutely Shredded” Franklin Hey fellas! Have you been absolutely crushing No Nut November and wondering, how can I make this a little more challenging? Well do I have the answer you have been (not) cumming for. As a certified Gains Master (on the dark green bowling ball) you have to believe me when I say that not wanking is not enough! But you know what is? No Piss November!

We all know pissing is kind of a cop out because it feels the same as nutting.

Its the same hole baby! Its the same baby hole! This month, Urinary Tract Infection fffsshhh more like Ur Trophy of Insanity!!!!!!! So If you don’t rack up at least 10 UTIs, you ain’t doin it right!

But what about my loser ass kidneys? Only little bitches have 2 kidneys. The less kidneys the more room for gains. You should want your body to be 100% gains, stamina, and turbo urine. You know who did No Piss November like a fucking champ?

George Lopez. Then he took his wife’s kidney and divorced her LIKE A BOSS!

Think you’ve mastered your fluids? Try these next: No Shit November No Chew November No Swallow November No Speak November No Sweat November No Empathy November No Smoked Salmon November No Memories November No Bending of the Knees November Nothin but Walkin’ Around on Stilts November No Nerve Endings November At the end of the month once you have defeated your primal urge to tinkle and splat and whatever, I swear man, your head will reach new levels of clarity. You will start thinking really smart shit like “who even needs women?” and “relationships!? more like selling Young Living essential oils to all my high school friends because I make my own hours so I can have enough time to start MY business, grow MY downline, and spend time working on MY LEGEND STATUS. If I get 100 entrepreneurs on my downline the guys at the top will give me an old Camry that, in their words, ‘screams like a prom queen that wants to get plowed HARD’. ” To really do it right, you gotta come on down to my piss pad where we can just let all the goo pour out of every pore of our beautiful bodies. The gushy mush will, yes, be made into the essential oils and you wouldn’t believe it these bottles are selling like hot cakes! And by hotcakes I mean I need $1500 or they are gonna kill me man.

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This is the Oberlin Grape’s recurring 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 Gagatha, My boyfriend is late to everything. At first, it was cute and endearing. Now, he’s making both of us late and I hate it. How do I fix him?

Sincerely, BoyfProblemz Dearest BoyfProblemz, Hey girlie, great question! Boyfriend’s are so annoying, I hate all of mine. It seems that you have left the honeymoon phase, and I’m sorry to say, it is most likely all downhill from there. If you insist on making it work, here are a few things to try. First, tell him how you’re feeling. Depending on how he responds, you may want to get a few pairs of those vibrating underpants. When he’s running late, just zap him as a gentle reminder. It’s fun, hot, and effective! If that is still not working, ultimatums are always a healthy and cute way to keep your pathetic boyfriend in line. Say “Honeypie, I’m gonna divorce you if you don’t show up on time.” It’s a true win-win situation; if he shows up on time, you’ve fixed him! And if he continues to be tardy, you just break up with him! Good luck cookie, love you.

Tongue Kisses, Dr. Gags Dear Dr. Gags,

Dear Derek B. Quagmire, Well well well if it isn’t my Labiana’s stupid little shit boyfriend writing in for my help. So I guess Labiana didn’t tell you about me! You got one thing right you little punk, I will be asking a lot of questions. For one, according to her chip, Labiana hasn’t climaxed from your performance of cunnilingus EVER! Cunnilingus is one of the biggest family values in our house. Before we put that bird in the oven, it is a McCreampie-Johnson tradition to pleasure the turkey to completion. We all take turns and whoever makes the bird spasm with glee, gets the favor returned. It adds a really nutty flavor to the stuffing. I don’t know if Labiana has told you this but when she was still incubating before hatch day we engineered her to have an extra sensitive clitoris. And boy when it came to the title of Miss Teen Squirter 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 were we so goddamn proud of our baby girl. So if you can’t even make Labiana girl-cum, then you will really embarrass yourself when it comes to the beautiful, bountiful, bodacious bird.

So Derek, what is it that you do to make my precious little pumpkin so happy? Was it when you never asked how she was feeling after her pomeranian died?

NO! Is it when you showed up late, didn’t buy her nice corsage for the prom and didn’t tell her she looked beautiful in her Tardis dress? NO!! Or was it when you forgot her birthday and then were on snapmaps with some crusty dusty pussy ass bitch Kayleigh? NO!!!!!!

It’s over Derek. Don’t even think about dragging your gunky trail of smegma to my quaint little Cleveland abode you Jake Gyllenhal motherfucker!

Choke on a Chode! , Mother-in-HELL Dr. Gags <3

I’m meeting my girlfriend’s family for the first time for Thanksgiving and I am so nervous! She says that they might be tough on me and ask a lot of questions. What if they dont like me!?! What do I do to make them like me?

SOS!, Derek B. Quagmire

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PLACES MY DAD THINKS HE MIGHT HAVE LEFT HIS READING GLASSES ON PARENTS’ WEEKEND Isabel Hardwig Contributor

Tappan Square My dad is definitely, super sure that he left his reading glasses somewhere in Tappan Square, possibly while he was “lying in the grass” and “looking at the sky,” which is an Ohio sky and therefore world-changingly different from any sky he’s ever seen for reasons that he was unable to articulate to me The gap between my bed and the wall All kinds of ridiculous nonsense falls down there, and my dad’s reading glasses are no exception! He feels very certain that if he crawls down along there enough he will either find his reading glasses or get to tell me some facts about moth eggs.

The Feve bathroom while receiving oral sex from a jazz instrumentation professor Sometimes when you reach a certain age you need some assistance to see what’s going on down there, which is why my dad’s reading glasses are almost definitely in the

second stall of the Feve men’s room, where he received astonishing oral sex from a jazz instrumentation professor during family dinner The car, but not the first two times he checked My dad’s reading glasses are definitely in the car. They weren’t there before, but they will be now.

His shirt pocket There is something both beautiful and very sad about seeing my dad desperately pat at his empty shirt pocket, like watching a beautiful baby bird blindly opening and closing its mouth in preparation for a worm being fed to its ugliest sibling The cornfield that he pointed at and said “look, a cornfield” It sure was a cornfield, Dad, and I feel very certain that your reading glasses are in it!

Finney Chapel While watching a capella, my father is constantly ready to make a runner if his a capella tolerance meter ticks over unexpectedly. It would be totally understandable if he lost his reading glasses in the rush.

The Mudd study room where he spent Saturday night

When my father was accidentally locked in the library over Saturday night, he hunkered down in a study room on the third floor. When we found him the next day, he had chewed through two of the table legs and had pulled up some of the carpet in order to conserve warmth. By that point, he had gone mostly blind from lack of light, so it’s totally possible that he forgot his reading glasses.

His Daylight Savings void Twice a year during the lost hour Daylight Savings Time, my father is banished to the extratemporal void from whence he came, where he waits in desperate fury for the moment where he is once again released into the mortal world. He leaves his reading glasses here all the time and so feels pretty sure that this is where they are.

The other side of Tappan Square He also laid down over here, so it’s important that the whole family joins in to search for his reading glasses.

“You’ll find them” My dad has a lot of faith in the idea that I will run into his reading glasses sometime over the next four years, and has asked me to text him when I do Art by Molly Chapin

Notes from the Editor:

Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start Watching Tampa Baes Juli Freedman Bad Habits Editor You Love Amazon Prime?

You Love Original Series from Amazon Prime like idk Fleabag?

You Watched Fleabag And Didn’t Feel That Fucking Bad About It So Why Not Just Try One More Show, What LIke Netflix Is That Much Better Of A Company? Maybe It Is, Who Knows, But Again, You Watched Fleabag, Bitch.

You Love Lesbians That All Look The Same?

You Love Lesbians That All Look The Same But None of Them Are That Hot?

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You Love Lesbians That Are All “Traveling Nurses” Whatever The Fuck That Is or Gentrification Mural Artists?

You Love Millenial Lesbians Gracefully Toeing The Line Between Masc and Femme Which Is Just Snapback and Naked Palette Eye Shadow Look?

You Love The Lesbian Oasis Otherwise Known As Tampa Bay, Florida?

Are You Thinking ‘Why Didn’t They Call It ‘Tampa Gay’ But Then Maybe That Was Too Much of A Cheap Shot, Right?

You Love That The Premise of The Show Is That Cuppie Lived in Orlando For Only A Year And Now Has Just Moved Back to Tampa?

You Love A Group Of Lesbians Where There is No

By Eva Sturm-Gross

d4^~H@ L3 Contributor

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Editor’s Note continued Sexpot Shane Type But Just One Named Shiva Who Asks Girls She Just Met If They Are Curious And Leaves With Nothing?

You Love That The Lesbians Barely Even Kiss?

Even Though There Are Three Couples, There Is Not A Shred Of Sexual Tension?

You Love When One Of The Biggest Plots On The Show Is Which of The Feuding Lesbian Couples Is The Least Annoying This Episode?

You Love That One Character’s Name Tag in The Confessionals Is “Brianna A.k.a Murphy” But Literally No One Calls Her Murphy They Only Call Her Bri? You Love Whenever These Lesbians Get Heated They Always Say “Don’t Pop Off”?

You Love When Bri Says She Is Built Different Because She Doesn’t Want To Get Married?

You Love The PTSD Of “We Are Friends That Only Makeout When Drunk” Being Played Out Right In Front Of You? You Have Literally Nothing Else To Watch?

Are You Aching From Gay Ass Heartbreak And Need A Glass of Booze And To Watch Simple-Brained Florida Lesbians Do Nothing For Hours On End To Feel Something?

Did You Say Yes to Literally All Of These?

Then you are ready for the must-watch show of the century SUCCESSION! Sorry I mean TAMPA BAES!

QUIZ: DID YOU LEAVE YOUR KEYS SOMEPLACE REASONABLE AND GOOD OR TERRIBLE AND BAD? Isabel Hardwig Contributor

The last time you lost your keys, where did you find them?

Silly me, I thought that my keys were in their designated key box next to my heart, but instead Choose the answer that you think best defines you, and calthey were in their designated key spot on my culate your score at the end to figure out where your keys are desk! I can be so scatterbrained sometimes. once and for all. Compare with friends for endless fun!

Sometimes when I lose my keys I find them in places like my bookshelf or under my bed, while Where did you last see your keys? other times I find them in places like the toilets a. I remember seeing my keys in their desigor between the couch cushions, and once I found nated key spot on my desk, which is labeled them in a DVD case for the movie The Sentinel.

“Keys :)” with a sticky note. This is where I left This morning, while I was being a free spirit my keys. and going up and down the elevator over and b. There is a chance that my keys are in the place over again, a man in a trench coat got on and we on my dresser where I usually put them, but also discussed how much we hate organization and a chance that I decided to switch it up this time love going with the flow. We then engaged in and slip them into my pillowcase some impromptu carnal relations, after which c. I remember last seeing my keys in the box of he reached into his trench coat pocket and gave Oatmeal Squares that I was eating while thinkme my keys. ing about how I am too loose and casual to be constrained by boundaries such as locks. There When you don’t have your keys, how do is a chance that there is a piece of my keys inside you get into buildings? each Oatmeal Square a. I call Campus Security and ask them to let me . in. When the security officers get there I pay the How do you usually carry your keys appropriate fee and then another ten dollars out around? of pure gratitude to once more be reunited with a. I keep my keys in a little box that always rests my keys. The security officers tell me that I am a in the pocket closest to my heart. This box is also model student and they wish everyone lost their labeled “Keys :)” with a sticky note, and I never keys like me, and then if I’ve been very good they leave my room without it give me a little sleeve of salted peanuts as a treat. b. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I carry my b. Usually I ask a friend or roommate to let me keys around on a carabiner that is outdoorsy, in, but sometimes when I’m feeling the call practical, and a little lesbian, but on Mondays, of the moon I will tunnel underground with a Wednesdays, and Fridays I carry my keys plastic fork. around in a hollowed-out kiwi just to add some c. I am casual and relaxed enough to just phase zest to my key routine through walls when I feel like it, but instead I c. Whenever I leave my room, I give my keys to a usually choose to pull the fire alarm and then rat to swallow. It is always a different rat, and he every other fire alarm in every other building, is welcome to do whatever he likes with my keys and then I break a window and climb in while because I couldn’t care less. everyone is distracted by the fire Art by Eva Sturm-Gross

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Do you think you might have left them in a classroom? a. Almost certainly not, since I rigorously pat myself down for my keys every time I leave a room and ask my classmates to pat me down as well in case I missed something. But many of my classmates are more slack about this procedure than I would like because they are terrible chaotic people. I will have to go to all my classrooms just to be sure. b. I have a strong feeling that my keys are either in my pocket or at the bottom of Lake Erie, so I don’t think I will find them in a classroom. c. I might have left my keys in my Your Mom 201 classroom, either when I was spreading butter across the chalkboard or when I was riding a grocery cart full of marbles across the room. If I did, I am probably never going to find them because I am too fun and wild to go to the same class more than once.

RESULTS

Mostly A’s: Your keys are definitely someplace reasonable and good! Consider checking the places where your keys usually are and the places where you specifically put your keys when you set them down.

Mostly B’s: You are a tough nut to crack!

There is a chance that your keys are someplace reasonable and good, but there is also a chance that they are someplace terrible and bad. You will have to cover all the bases when looking for your keys.

Mostly C’s: I am sorry to say that your keys are someplace terrible and bad. I hope that this does not deter you from your hobbies of being loosey-goosey and putting important things down just any old place.

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Art by Molly Chapin

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