Virgil Abloh, Fashion Revolu

ARTS & CULTURE

December 3, 2021 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 7

Virgil Abloh, Fashion Revolutionary, Dies at 41

Virgil Abloh, artistic director of Louis Vuitton menswear collection and founder of the streetwear brand Off-White, died Sunday, Nov. 28.

Courtesy of Sebastian Kim.

Milo Hume

Artist, designer, and DJ Virgil Abloh died in Chicago last Sunday after privately battling a rare cardiac cancer. The 41-year-old was diagnosed in 2019, though he remained at the helm of his popular streetwear brand Off-White and served as the artistic creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear until his passing, all while releasing multiple collaborations with brands like Nike and Ikea.

Born out of the logo-crazed, internet-enthralled fashion of the early 2000s and inspired by his own extensive architectural education, the late designer’s work revolutionized streetwear. Since the launch of his first brand, Pyrex Vision, in 2012, Abloh spent his career crafting collections which emphasized the more formal, structural elements of design while also working to demystify the exclusivity of high-fashion culture and clothing. The absence of his youthful curiosity and penchant for humor is a gap that can never be replaced, and he has definitely set a standard for changemakers for years to come.

Born in 1980 to Ghanaian immigrant parents, Abloh studied engineering and architecture in college and graduate school, equipping him with his notoriously nontraditional approach to clothing design. It was around this time that he met Ye (formerly Kanye West) while working at a Chicago print shop. They interned together at the Rome office of Fendi in 2009, which marked the start of a long, collaborative friendship.

In 2011, Abloh started his own gallery in Chicago. There, he served as the artistic director for Jay-Z and Ye’s album Watch the Throne, and later founded Pyrex Vision. Here, Abloh’s design tendencies first started to take shape as he began printing Caravaggio paintings, the word Pyrex, and the number 23 — an homage to Michael Jordan, his childhood hero — onto deadstock Ralph Lauren hoodies he purchased for $40 each and selling them for $550 each. It was the start of streetwear being married to “high art,” hybridizing seemingly opposite worlds.

See Artistic, page 13

Campus Music Venues Face Booking Obstacles During Pandemic

Raghav Raj

In contrast to the empty stages that defined so much of Oberlin’s live music scene during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, this fall semester has brought the tradition of live performances back to campus. Despite recent full-capacity concerts at beloved College venues like the Cat in the Cream and the ’Sco, the return of live music hasn’t been without obstacles.

For the students who work at and promote these venues, the process of bringing musical acts to Oberlin has been riddled with hurdles. Especially given the uptick in COVID-19 cases on campus in recent weeks, strict adherence to the College’s ObieSafe policies is a challenge that promoters have had to work through while reaching out to artists and their management.

One of those promoters is College third-year Tali Braun. Braun, who has been working at the ’Sco since June, describes her booking job as something that’s constantly changing in order to anticipate and respond to Ober- As live music returns to Oberlin venues with the relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions, bookers at both the ’Sco and the Cat in the Cream struggle to bring musicians willing to comply with the College’s COVID-19 protocols. See Going, page 12 Courtesy of Khadijah Halliday

Chabad at Oberlin Hosts First-Ever Dreidel Tournament

Maeve Woltring

Arts & Culture Editor

This semester marks a rare alignment; all eight nights of Hanukkah will occur while school is in session. On Nov. 28, Chabad at Oberlin Co-Director Rabbi Shlomo Elkan decided to kick off the holiday with something new: a March- Madness-style dreidel tournament. Around 75 students participated in the event, and President Carmen Twillie Ambar made an appearance as guest referee.

“Since President Ambar has been here, we’ve always celebrated the first night of Hanukkah together or with Chabad student group,” Rabbi Shlomo said. “It was a great turnout. I think it was perfect timing. … We’ve been doing events every night for our Hanukkah, but that kicked us off in a really beautiful way.”

While the event was all in good fun, the tournament inevitably got competitive. College second-year Ruby Kopel entered the event with modest prospects and left the victorious underdog.

“I was pretty sure I was gonna lose in the first round,” Kopel said. “I just didn’t really think I would go anywhere. I just decided to do it ’cause I was like, ‘I’m here,’ but I didn’t think I was going to win. I had no major plans to win. It just happened.”

Looking forward, Rabbi Shlomo has a slew of Hanukkah activities planned to round out the holiday. Rabbi Shlomo and Devorah Elkan have been serving the Jewish community as co-directors of Chabad at Oberlin for 11 years, and created the tournament with the hopes of offering the Oberlin Jewish community a chance to celebrate Hanukkah and enjoy a night of fried food, fire dancing, and fun.

“Every night we’re doing something different,” Rabbi Shlomo said.

In the nights following the dreidel tournament, Chabad at Oberlin served homemade kosher Frosties and french fries; hosted a Hanukkah ‘around the world’ celebration with different Hanukkah treats from Morocco, Yemen, and France; brought people together to make their own donuts; and built lego dreidels. On Friday night, the community will have a typical Hanukkah celebration.

“Saturday night is Havdalah, which marks the end of our Sabbath,” Rabbi Shlomo said. “And then Sunday is our big main event, which is on Tappan Square. It’s called ‘Torches on Tappan,’ where we illuminate a large, nine-foot menorah. That’s being lit by the new Dean of Students and eight faculty members — each one lighting a candle. And then we have a fire juggler and latkes and donuts and a really good time.” Photos by Hadassah Elkan

Oberlin Shansi Opens 2022 In-Asia Applications

Erika Scharf

Oberlin Shansi, a cultural exchange program between Oberlin College and universities and non-governmental organizations in Asia, has a rich history in the College. It has connected students with international research opportunities for over 100 years. The association, founded by an Oberlin graduate in 1908, aims to build cross-cultural understanding while providing various experiences for Oberlin graduates. After the COVID-19 pandemic suspended the program’s capacity to send students abroad, vaccinated Oberlin students can now look forward to the reinstated opportunity to apply for in-Asia grants. For current fourth-years, the reintroduction of the international aspect of the program offers inspiration for post-graduation plans.

Shansi offers a variety of different programs for its fellows, including volunteer-based work, teaching English language courses abroad, and designing programs uniquely tailored for each fellow.

Gavin Tritt, executive director of Oberlin Shansi since 2013, said that the program, at its core, is about cultural understanding and exchange.

“The mission from the beginning until now has been about mutual exchange,” Tritt said. “To me, and to many of our alums, Shansi is about trying to build bridges between the Oberlin campus and community and our partners in Asia, and produce enriching, mutually-exchanged experiences for both Oberlin students and recent graduates and our partner institutions and communities in Asia.”

Shansi’s current programs include on-campus program grants and in-Asia grants that aim to financially support undergraduate research in Asia, as well as the Visiting Scholars program and the Shansi Distinguished Lecture series. Most notable, however, is the popular two-year Shansi Fellowship in which Oberlin graduates live and work in an Asian country partnered with the program. The fellowship program is designed not only to enhance the student’s academic pursuits, career opportunities, and life experiences, but also to benefit the partners involved.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers, OC ’07, completed a postgraduate fellowship in China, an experience that informed a significant portion of their first book of poetry, Chord Box.

“A two-year fellowship (unlike some fellowships, such as Fulbright, which usually last only a year) is enough time to get rooted in a place and build a community,” Rogers wrote in a message to the Review. “China is a very communal place, and I had a wonderful circle of people in Taigu, the university town where I was living. There was no larger expatriate culture in Taigu at that time, so my cultural experience was pretty immersive. My co-fellows and I were integrated into our larger community, living alongside the people we were working with and teaching. I made close Chinese friends, and the closeness and honesty in those friendships made real cultural exchange possible.”

For Rogers, the breadth of interpersonal growth they underwent during this time would’ve been ultimately inconceivable to them prior to their experience with Shansi.

“By the time I left China — having lived and been so deeply immersed there and also having traveled to a number of other countries in Asia during my fellowship — I also felt that my worldview had been forever altered, widened in ways I couldn’t have even imagined before,” Rogers wrote.

Former Shansi fellow Sydney Allen, OC ’19, now living and working in Bali, Indonesia, explained why the program is so important to her.

“Shansi really works with the partner sites to make sure everyone gets the most out of the relationship, makes sure needs are being met, and that we are doing something important and tangible in the community,” Allen said. “It was a very dualistic relationship.”

Shansi is its own program, uniquely positioned as a separate entity from Oberlin College, and yet it is still intertwined with the College in terms of its mission and goals.

“We have a separate tax status with the IRS, we have our own Board of Trustees, but functionally and mission-wise we are closely integrated with the College,” Tritt said. “Shansi supports different initiatives on campus, like the Asian American Pacific Islander Experience Grant program, student groups, and departments.”

Shansi fellowships are not limited to only students with an Asian background, or even students who have a major or concentration in Asian studies. In fact, the program welcomes students of all majors and areas of study to participate in the program.

“Shansi has always been about the entire Oberlin community,” Tritt said. “We try to be really explicit and clear that the opportunities we provide are for any Oberlin College or Conservatory student. We’ve had students from all sorts of majors from all sorts of backgrounds.”

“It’s important, especially now, to be able to work in an international workplace with various cultures,” Allen said. “Those skills of learning how to navigate the awkward culture or language differences and being able to adapt to a longstanding unknown can be incredible and useful for whatever career path you choose.”

Allen now works at the international news agency Global Voices and has become proficient in Indonesia’s official language, Bahasa.

Shansi is currently accepting applications from graduating students for the upcoming summer.

Reading Recommendations from Review Staff

As students look ahead to a long-awaited and much-needed break, a few members of the Review staff have compiled a collection of their favorite books. We encourage you to get cozy with these five reads over the holidays.

The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah, OC ’90

The Next Great Migration, by science journalist and Oberlin alumna Sonia Shah, masterfully reframes the so-called current migration crisis as a potential solution to the ongoing and ever-worsening — not to mention aptly dubbed — climate crisis. From reverent descriptions of scientists who study the changing migrations

Published in April 2021, Michelle Zauner’s memoir, Crying in H Mart, offers insightful reflections on grief, identity, and belonging. of checkerspot butterflies, to those of immigrants who heroically cross the dense and deadly jungle of the Darien Gap, to the classical thinkers who have shaped the discourse on nativity and invasion, Shah’s words flow beautifully and challenge our society’s conditioned assumptions about migration. (Disclaimer: Shah is my mother, but this book rules!) –Kush Bulmer, News Editor

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Released in the spring of 2021, Crying in H Mart is the debut memoir by songwriter, essayist, and Japanese Breakfast lead vocalist Michelle Zauner. Following the death of her mother, Zauner reflects on growing up in one of the few Asian-American families in Eugene, Oregon, in the 1980s and ’90s. The book examines her fraught relationship with her late mother and her disconnection from her Korean-American heritage as a result of her passing. In this deeply profound, insightful memoir, the reader sees Zauner reckon with selfhood as she sifts through hazy memories of painful adolescence, moments of vulnerability as her mother neared death, and formative family recipes. Brimming with emotional resonance and humor, Crying in H Mart offers a radiantly honest meditation on living with loss. –Lilyanna D’Amato, Arts Editor

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

In her novel The Undocumented Americans, writer and DACA recipient Karla Cornejo Villavicencio follows the lives of several undocumented Americans, from workers on the post-9/11 cleanup to residents dealing with environmental racism in Flint, MI. Each story she tells is deeply intertwined with her own, as she balances her journalistic duties with her empathy toward and involvement in her subjects’ lives, which ultimately paints a more holistic picture of each person she features. Cornejo Villavicencio’s book captures a range of emotions, from joy to rage, that makes every page of this book worth reading.” –Ella Moxley, News Editor

Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee

Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man is a memoir by Thomas Page McBee, a trans man, about his journey in training for a charity boxing match at Madison Square Garden. In this process, he struggles to find “what makes a man,” and explores the relationship between masculinity and violence. McBee speaks insightfully about the nuances of American masculinity and seeks to understand why men fight. In a society where men’s sports are often viewed as violent and as cultivating a culture where men cannot share their feelings, McBee offers a reflection on what it means to be a man and the broader dynamics of masculinity. –Zoë Martin del Campo, Sports Editor

The Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu and the Plagues of Capitalism by Mike Davis

Activist and author Mike Davis revisits his earlier book The Monster at Our Door to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in his 2020 book The Monster Enters. Davis writes an accessible and alarming account Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man follows Thomas Page McBee, a trans man, as he struggles to answer the question, “What sort of man should I be?”

of the incidents that lead up to the COVID-19 pandemic, namely the series of zoonotic influenza outbreaks that have occurred in the last 20 years. This read is not for the faint of heart; Davis shares an unspoken history of assisted disease evolution and sheds light on the disturbing and often lethal consequences of global capitalism, but his book offers some much-needed context on our current circumstances. This book is perfect for any Obie hoping to get angry, fit in with their friends, and spur their communist awakening. –Katie Kunka, Production Manager

’Sco and Cat Staffers Talk Booking Artists During COVID-19

Continued from page 10

lin’s guidelines.

“Booking for the ’Sco is one of those things that’s evolved so much, even just from when I started working to now,” Braun said. “When I was first getting into my job, we didn’t even have much funding for bringing in artists. … When we reopened Splitchers somewhere around the third week of June, there wasn’t an indoor mask mandate. … By the time we held Angel Ultra Fest in the beginning of August, everyone was wearing masks inside again.”

This fluctuation in mask policies is an ordeal that College third-year Emelia Duserick, who has been working at the Cat in the Cream since July, has become accustomed to. And while these policies haven’t prevented Duserick from booking multiple shows this semester (including Squirrel Flower in October and Grace Ives, who will play at the Cat in the Cream this Friday at 8 p.m.), they are a source of discomfort in negotiations.

“Honestly, it does affect us in terms of having to let artists know that they do have to wear a mask,” Duserick said. “I don’t think we’ve lost anyone because of that, but it does impact the ways we’re communicating with artists and their management, because it’s not something you enjoy having to tell an artist, you know? When we’re trying to get them to perform here, they usually don’t really want to hear that stuff.”

At the ’Sco, frequent changes in mask policy have also created several challenges for promoters trying to book acts to perform. Braun described an instance where an Oberlin mask policy requiring all performers, including singers, to be masked at all times while playing indoors nearly jeopardized a potential gig that she had booked.

“We were moving along with the planning and the contracts, and at one point I had to mention the fact that, as of that moment, artists had to be performing with masks if they were indoors,” Braun said. “Originally, the concert didn’t work out because the manager was like, ‘Sorry, I don’t think that’s going to be possible; the artist doesn’t want to wear a mask while performing,’ which was really just a bummer.”

Despite this, the artist, Kari Faux, ended up performing at the ’Sco in early November, once Oberlin relaxed mask mandates for those performing in front of an audience, as long as they were vaccinated and at least six feet away from the audience.

Alongside the mask policies, something else that Duserick cited as an obstacle with live shows is the limited ability to sell drinks and snacks to bring in revenue. The issue of finances, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, has impacted live music at an immense scale, and it’s an issue that a lot of bookers at Oberlin are having to deal with as they attempt to revive the College’s live music scene.

One of those promoters is College fourth-year Shanthini Ode. Ode, who booked Shannon & The Clams in October, was hired by the ’Sco in 2019. She has a firsthand understanding of the ways in which the pandemic has reshaped artists’ expectations.

“Artists these days are definitely asking for a lot more to play colleges — sometimes double the price,” Ode said. “It makes sense, since they basically couldn’t tour for over a year, but it means that it’s harder for us to negotiate down prices. Funding from the College has changed, too, since the [Student Finance Committee] has changed how they’re budgeting for live acts, so it’s essentially a lot that the ’Sco has to work around.”

For the Cat in the Cream, the biggest financial setback has been their inability to serve their signature ooey-gooey chocolate chip cookies. For most of the fall semester, the Cat in the Cream hasn’t sold food or drinks during shows. This change has been difficult for the venue. As Duserick explained, the Cat in the Cream hasn’t been able to earn the sort of money that it was earning in the pre-pandemic era, and that has also changed the experience of going to a show.

“One of the main things about the Cat, what makes it such a unique venue, is that it’s basically like a coffee shop during concerts,” Duserick said. “I’ve had people come up while I’ve been working, and ask me if they can get a drink or a Cat cookie, and because we’re not selling anything we have to apologize and say no to them, which is kind of sad to me because that’s what the Cat is known for.”

Despite this, Duserick remains optimistic for the future.

“Even though we’re not selling food or drinks during the show, last night when we had Slow Pulp at the Cat, our workers spent the show baking cookies so that we could sell cookies while everyone was clearing out at the end of the concert,” Duserick said. “It just shows how everybody is so dedicated to the Cat and ensuring that it succeeds and that we keep those traditions alive, that I think the Cat is in really good hands. I think we will build back in a way that’s better than before.”