The Pacific Sentinel - May 2023

PHOTO BY JEREMIAH HAYDEN

COVER ART BY PEYTEN WOODRUFF

WHO WE ARE

The Pacific Sentinel is a studentrun magazine that seeks to uplift the diverse cast of voices here at Portland State.

We offer a space for writers and artists of all skill levels to hone their craft, gain professional experience, and express themselves. We are inspired by publications such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. We advocate for the underrepresented and the marginalized.

We are always looking for new students to join our contributor team as we can’t do it without your help. If you’re interested in working with us, visit our website at pacsentinel. com or contact our Executive Editor at editor@pacsentinel.com.

OPINION

ARTS & CULTURE FEATURED EXTRAS

6 GHOSTS OF PLANT & PLACE

by Ben Norman

10 EVERYBODY READS OZEKI

12 14

by Guzide Ertuk

SHRINKING: RETHINKING NEW APROACHES TO THERAPY

by Eva Sheehan

BRAIDING SWEETGRASS

by Isa Swain

16

18

LANA DEL REY ALBUM REVIEW

by Becky Phillips

20

THE PERSEVERANCE OF R*PE CULTURE IN ROCK & METAL by

Dan Chilton

PAY WHAT YOU WILL, TAKE WHAT YOU NEED

by Jeremiah Hayden

WHAT WE’RE ENJOYING COMICS & GAMES

FEATURED THIS ISSUE

camden benesh is a creative from Scottsdale Arizona. He is pursuing creative writing at Portland State University. When he’s not in school, he’s thinking of new places to travel to and biking around town.

dan chilton was born and raised in Portland, Oregon where he now studies English and Creative Writing at Portland State University. He’s a poet, essayist, and fiction writer.

guzide erturk was born and grew up in Istanbul, Turkey. She is a storyteller, who currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and is studying Creative Writing at Portland State University.

jeremiah hayden is an activistwriter and drummer living in Portland, Oregon. He typically writes about art, politics, social justice and climate change.

courtney jeffs is from Coos Bay Oregon and moved to Portland to finish her bachelor’s degree in business advertising at Portland State University. She enjoys illustrating, story writing, and design.

dylan o’harra is a writer, musician and actor originally from Anchorage, Alaska. He is pursuing Creative Writing and Classic Studies at Portland State University.

ben norman was born in Oregon a while ago. He studies Arts and Letters at Portland State University, and hopes to write novels.

edwin lh paquette grew up bouncing between the states with their military dad, and rural Denmark with their mother. A senior in the PSUGD program, he enjoys studying page layout and visual narriative.

becky phillips is originally from Rochester, NY but has lived in Portland, OR for seven years. She studies nonfiction creative writing and is currently pursuing a career in music journalism.

jaden quayle was born and raised in Klamath Falls, Oregon, she now lives in Portland Oregon where she now studies sustainability at Portland state university. She is an environmental photographer.

executive editor dan chilton | associate editor jeremiah hayden arts & culture editor sarah samms | opinions editor dylan o’harra production editor edwin lh paquette

sarah samms, our Arts & Culture Editor, has returned to school in pursuit of proliferating her creative writing career after many years of traveling, playing music, and hiking mountains all over the world. When Sarah’s not writing or at school, she’s foraging medicinal herbs, painting, playing music, or hanging out with her pet kids. Check out her other works at sarahsamms.com and her online magazine at travelinwithbones.com.

eva sheehan is a writer that specializes in arts & culture, opinion, and news. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and moved to Portland to study book publishing. She loves poetry and exploring new coffee shops around the city.

isa swain grew up in Salem, Oregon, and is now studying Civil Engineering at Portland State University. She’s passionate about sustainability and urban design. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, bouldering, and riding her bike around the city.

peyten woodruff grew up in Meridian, Idaho. She is currently a freshman majoring in Graphic Design. When she is not drawing, she enjoys running for the PSU track/cross country team, reading and watching horror movies.

WANT TO WORK IN LEADERSHIP?

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Readers,

Welcome to another edition of the Pacific Sentinel.

We’ve left behind the trenches of Winter and our beautiful campus has once again been revived. The bubbling energy of Portland this time of year, fueled by the growing warmth of the Spring sun, truly brings out the best in our community. We’re once more seeing the Park Blocks full of liveliness, students and teachers smiling from ear to ear, the chess tables in heavy and competitive rotation, sporadic picnics laid out in the grass, and a general, palpable sense of life. This may be my favorite time of year. It’s a time of growth and adjustment. A time for cleaning out our lives from the grime of Winter, drawing back the shades of social reclusion, and letting in the warmth of communal energy.

In this issue of the Sentinel, you’ll find both new and returning contributors. From Isa Swain’s article on the economical impacts of our consumerist society in relation to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s intimate work, to Guzide Erturk’s experiences with Ruth Ozeki’s literary endeavors (and the distribution of free literature), and Jeremiah Hayden’s discoveries of the generosity of the Conway family right here in Portland, this edition of the magazine is chock-full of individual and collective community involvement. The same warmth of community that we’re each feeling as Spring blossoms in Portland.

As we near the end of the school year, we are quickly approaching the final issue of the Sentinel as it is now— soon to be helmed by new and driven students intent on making it the best magazine possible. While we have one more special issue in store for all of you come June, we

are both relieved at passing this project along and excited for its future. If you’d like to be a part of that future, please email one of our editors or visit our website. We can’t exist without the love, support, and passion of so many talented writers and artists.

As always, thank you for your support and we hope that our final stretch continues to bring you refreshing content while simultaneously building up this amazing community.

With respect,

Dan Chilton

With graduation just around the corner, we’re looking for creative and driven induviduals to join our team! If you’re interested in writing or video/audio positions, please contact Dan at editor@pacsentinel.com. If you’re interested in an art & design position, please contact Edwin at production@pacsentinel.com.

Subtle Intimacy. Rui Sasaki, 2023.

Ghosts of Plant and Place

Rui Sasaki’s Portable Memories

BY BEN NORMAN

In its sixtieth year, The Portland Japanese Garden is, as it ever has been, a portal. It’s both a garden and a teleportation device. When you walk through the gate over the path that leads to the entrance, you feel as though you’ve somehow stepped across the Pacific Ocean and into another country. In keeping with this transcontinental oeuvre, the Japanese Garden showcases rotating exhibits in its art pavilion, most often by Japanese or Japanese-American artists. This season’s artist, Rui Sasaki, primarily works in one medium: glass. Pressed into plates, in kilns as hot as 1400 degrees fahrenheit, the pieces are striking. The largest example of her work, a cube which dominates the pavilion’s darkened exhibition space, a room within a room, is titled Subtle Intimacy: Here and There. Dozens of glass plates sit in rows, illuminated from within, light refracting off the bright white remnants of the plants which have been suspended in the center of each hard, clear quadrilateral and turned to ash in the kiln. The ghosts of plants.

Half of these artworks, which are unlabeled to remove the initial sense of sterile botanical diagramming, use botanicals sourced from Sasaki’s native Japan. The other half, clearly separated by a space on the shelves and the empty air of the room-within-a-room’s door frame, are gathered from the Japanese Garden itself, collected over the last 6 months during the course of her two artist’s residences. A collaborative piece between not just Sasaki and the garden, or Japan and America, but between Sasaki, the gardeners of the PJG (specific individuals are mentioned in the accompanying plaques next to each piece) and Bullseye Glass Company, of southeast Portland. Leaving behind the shadows of the pavilion and turning up the path from the koi pond, a glimmering curtain seems to hang in the air. 1500 ten-foot lengths of flexible glass that sway in the breeze like clouds and glint with dew misalign with their surroundings and disrupt the mossy, primordial

garden. This is “Amayadori,” which translates to “taking shelter from rain.” In the tea house up the winding gravel path, a glass mold of a corner of Sasaki’s home in Kanazawa sits, unnerving in its immutability. Titled The Corner, it rests on a tatami mat and seems to be a fragment of another dimension, fallen through a tear in the fabric of reality. The sunlight cuts through the clouds and cascades through the overstory of the surrounding pine trees, brilliantly illuminating a patch of ground chosen by the ineffable whim of chance, before the spotlight shuts off as fast as if it were never there.

Much of Sasaki’s work deals with themes of weather and place. Raised in Japan, she attended Rhode Island School of Design and graduated in 2010 with an MFA. Before returning to her home country, she taught glass and contemporary art at her alma mater and throughout the United States, as well as at Kyoto University of Art and Design and Seto Glass and Ceramic Centre. The idea to preserve plants in glass plates came to her when she wanted to transport plants between the United States and Japan, a practice that is illegal due to invasive species laws. She wanted to create “portable memories.”

The plates sit for nineteen hours in the kiln, a process viewable in time-lapse form in an installation called Inside the Kiln. Despite the slow forging, the finished products contain bubbles, both large and small, imperfections which are left in their blemished state. When illuminated from below (as most of the exhibition pieces are) these flaws resemble raindrops frozen in time. Nature and weather preserved in its most authentic, petrified form. Life and body preserved in ash and death, beautiful to look at and intensely detailed. Intentionality defines these pieces as it defines the garden. Before entering the art pavilion from the path

outside, visitors may catch a glimpse of something glistening within its walls through the open doors. A mystery waiting to be solved, a sightline revealed on purpose by the garden’s curators. Every angle in the garden is perfected, every view a pleasing one to the eye. According to Will Lerner, the Communications Specialist for the garden and forbearant guide of my expedition, when their chief curator was once asked what made the Portland Japanese Garden stand out, he answered in one word: “maintenance.” Not just maintenance of the garden itself, but maintenance of values, maintenance of philosophy. Just as the cadaverous plants in Subtle Intimacy are unlabeled, so are the living plants of the surrounding garden. The experience is one not only of scientific interest, but one of the untranslatable experience of the place itself. This ethos is echoed in the work of Rui Sasaki.

More than once on the tour, Lerner and I stopped to admire the beauty of our surroundings. The Portland Japanese Garden has often been hailed as the best of its kind outside of Japan by visiting dignitaries. When asked how long he had been working there, he said, “A little over a year and a half. Every day I see something new.” A new viewpoint, a new perspective on the garden. A new experience. “It’s a special place,” he said.

- Excerpt from artist statemenmt. Rui Sasaki

Subtle Intimacy: Here and There will be on display at the Portland Japanese Garden from March 18th until June 12th, 2023.

“I DECIDED TO USE THIS PROJECT AS A MEDITATION TO REDISCOVER THE RESIDUE OF WHO I AM.”

Subtle Intimacy. Rui Sasaki, 2023.

everybody reads ozeki Thoughts On A Tale for The Time Being

BY GUZIDE ERTURK

During the first week of the winter term, I went to PSU’s library to return some books. While I was waiting in line, I saw a sign that read: “Free Book: A Tale for The Time Being, written by Ruth Ozeki,” since it was published by Penguin Books I said to myself, “Okay, why not?” Then, one month later, I saw a literary event announcement that said Ruth Ozeki was coming to Portland to discuss her book. Everybody Reads is a community reading project by the Multnomah County Library, which has distributed 8,000 copies of Ozeki’s novel for free, and I was holding one of them! So, I bought my ticket and started reading her book.

Soon after, I recognized that I was holding a Japanese American teenage girl’s diary in my hands, and she was speaking to me! The novel starts with Nao declaring, “Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being.” Her incredible voice and humor were engaging and kept me reading more. Later, Nao asked, “Who are you, and what are you doing? Are you in a New York subway car hanging from a strap or soaking in your hot tub in Sunnyvale?” Unfortunately, I learned she was also suicidal, and not only her but also her father. Her Japanese high school friends bullied her because she had returned from America. They even prepared an excellent funeral for her while she was alive and let her watch the ceremony.

Nao and her father, Haruki #2, were my favorite characters. During the time that Nao kept a diary, her father made daily unsuccessful attempts to commit suicide. Another prominent character is Nao’s greatgrandma, a Buddhist nun named Jiko. For sure, they form an interesting family. In Nao’s world, Jiko symbolizes life. She had become a nun and went to live in an isolated temple near the mountains. However, the nunnery has internet, and the great-grandmother uses it to communicate with Nao often. The teenage girl admires her grandmother and learns serenity and inner strength from her. For example, Jiko asks, “Have you ever tried to bully a wave? Kick it? Pinch it? Hit it? Beat it to death with a stick?” The waves serve as a metaphor for the passage of time. The wise nun explains fighting with them is futile, their ups and downs are ultimately indistinguishable.

arts & culture

In contrast, Nao’s father symbolizes death, not only because of his frequent suicide attempts, but also due to the overwhelming sense of disappointment that permeates his life. Before, Haruki #2 was a computer programmer in Sunnyvale, California. But they moved back to Tokyo after Haruki’s company went bankrupt. Unemployed and feeling hopeless, Haruki does not know how to cope. Still, his relationship with Nao touches the reader’s heart. They try to learn how to live together and trust each other. But, “How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal father?”

8,000 free copies of A Tale for the Time Being were distributed by the Multnomah County Library program, “Everybody Reads.”

Yet, Nao is not the only writer in the novel. The book is composed of two interwoven parts, with the chapters alternating between the two. The first is about Nao’s life and her diary. In the second part, we meet a new character, Ruth, living in Canada, who also shares the author’s name. It doesn’t take the reader long to figure out that the author included herself and her husband, Oliver, in the novel. One morning, Ruth finds Nao’s diary lying on a beach on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. She sets out to unravel the mystery of Nao. Where is the teenage girl from, how old is she now, and how did the diary end up on a beach half a world away? The novel’s pace is slower here compared to the first part describing Noa’s life. I looked forward to meeting with Nao again because her voice was more potent than the fictional character Ruth’s. This dilemma made me more eager to listen to what Ruth Ozeki had to say at her event on Thursday night, March 16.

The Keller Auditorium was crowded with all sorts of people, including librarians and even quite a few high school kids. After describing how she loves libraries, Ruth Ozeki started by lecturing about how she writes her novels. She remarked that writing a book takes her ten years and added that random factors influence her stories by saying, “My first two novels were all about food. My Year of Meats was about meat, and All Over Creation was about potatoes.” Her other two novels also share the same DNA. She said, “The Book Form of Emptiness and A Tale for the time being are like siblings. They were both about young people with mental health problems. They both included nuns, and both questioned their environment. Finally, the pair were searching for what was real and unreal. These two books are in conversations with each other.”

“Learning to write is learning to trust.”

- Ruth Ozeki

The books Ozeki read, the news she saw, the links her husband sent her daily, rumors, dreams, or disasters were all inspirations for starting a new novel. Before starting to write, she described, a book begins to speak with her. “Novels come with a voice,” she claimed. Nao also began to talk to her, and it seemed promising to Ozeki. She highlighted, “If something speaks to you immediately, write it down; otherwise, they will speak with others. From the beginning, I knew that Nao was in trouble. She was writing in English. Nao had a reader in mind. The problem was she didn’t know who she was writing to.” It took five years to figure out that it was for Ruth. After the earthquake and tsunami in 2011 in Japan, she decided to cut off “the reader” part and instead put herself in the novel. She was going to be the reader of Nao’s diary.

I don’t think Nao needed a reader who was part of the novel. While reading her diary, I felt she was writing for me, not for the fictional Ruth. Therefore, I would have been happy reading just her story. In addition, adding the earthquake and tsunami, in my opinion, was not needed. It didn’t fit with Nao’s life or her feelings. While reading these sections, I asked myself, “Why am I reading this now?” She wanted to include the disaster in her novel. Later, she explained why in her two books, A Tale for the Time Being, and The Book Form of Emptiness are like siblings. Ozeki revealed that she created the later book with the pieces she had cut from the former. She has a “dumb” folder on her computer where she puts the things she writes but hasn’t used yet, never the one to waste.

Ozeki also stated that she always puts herself into her books. “Every character is a facade of the writer. So how did I write like a suicidal teenager? Because I was a suicidal teenager when I was young. Putting some versions of myself requires trusting in me.” For me, this part was the most memorable part of her speech. She talked about the years it took for her to learn how to trust her writing and readers. She said, “Learning to write is learning to trust.” You need to trust yourself, your characters, and your readers.

Illustration by Camden Benesh

Shrinking: Rethinking New Aproaches to Therapy

arts & culture

TV Show Review

BY EVA SHEEHAN

Spring has held connotations of rejuvenation, new beginnings, and rebirth. If you’re looking for a TV show to marry with the season, Apple TV’s new comedydrama series “Shrinking” is a match.

The show follows a Psychologist, Jimmy, who is played by Jason Segal. Jimmy’s wife has recently passed away in a car accident and he has chosen to grieve through dissociation. Partying, drugs, and leaving parental responsibilities of his daughter to the next-door neighbor, Liz, became his norm. However, it’s not until he’s given a new patient from one of his colleagues, Gaby, that his life and grieving habits start to change.

His new patient, Sean, is a 22 year-old war veteran suffering from PTSD. Jimmy finds a connection with Sean and is able to relate to his inability to process a traumatic event. Something in Jimmy switches and

he is re-surged with motivation to better his patients and eventually, better his own life. However, his new methods are controversial. His colleague and superior, Paul, played by the stoic Harrison Ford, warns Jimmy that mixing his personal life and his work can lead to bigger problems. The rest of the season follows his attempts to follow unorthodox therapy methods and to reconcile the relationships he neglected during his period of grief.

One thing I find very interesting about this show is that the main character isn’t the only one seeking selfimprovement. Almost every character is working to better themselves in some way. The show displays each character’s flaws and mental illnesses throughout the season, and we are able to see them make small strides towards bettering themselves. The show sends an important message that anyone can work towards being a better person and that it should be a continual process.

Paul (Harrison Ford) and Alice (Lukita Maxwell). Image courtesy of Apple TV.

However, despite a positive message, I think circumstances make it a lot easier for these characters to make time for their mental health. For instance, a life surrounded by psychologists and therapists certainly keeps the discussion of mental health in one’s mind. If these characters weren’t so closely related to one another, I don’t think they would be so open to therapeutic thinking. Another aspect to keep in mind is the socio-economic status of the characters. Majority of them live in upper-middle class Pasadena, California. Unfortunately, setting the backdrop of the show in an affluent town can cause some disconnect from other communities that cannot afford quality healthcare nor afford time to spare on one’s mental health.

That being said, Jimmy’s world and the people around him almost create this utopian world that reveals a society that does focus on mental health. It’s enlightening to see how we could communicate and function effectively if we all had the resources to adequate mental healthcare.

Another aspect the writers of the show do well is marrying comedy and respect for therapy. One of the writers in an interview explains, “I hope it comes across as respectful of the process and respectful of the people going through what they’re going through, but also showing how there is some absurdity and [comedy], no matter what’s going on in our lives, as dark or as hopeless as it may seem. It feels like that’s very true to life. The hope was that it’s part of what makes the show feel grounded and real and authentic. It’s sort of a mirror with respect to that.” This quote rings true for so many patients and therapists. As someone who has gone through therapy themselves, I resonated deeply with finding the hilarity in my anxious thoughts; it makes them less scary and shrinks (no pun intended) them to silly thoughts.

Without giving too much away, I’ll end this review by saying this show is a must-watch. It has good writing, good acting, it is laugh-outloud funny, wholesome, and deeply important.

Mental health still holds a lot of stigma and ignorance. A show that focuses solely on the jobs of psychologists and therapists is quite novice and this show gives ode to their work by also bringing light and humor. The show “Shrinking” can be found on the streaming platform Apple TV.

if we all had the resources to adequate mental healthcare. ”

“ It’s enlightening to see how we could communicate and function effectively...

Illustration by Courtney Jeffs

“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.”

- ROBIN WALL KIMMERER, BRAIDING SWEETGRASS

BY ISA SWAIN

In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about how the life-forms of the natural world can be viewed as giftgivers. With this perspective, you aren’t just taking an apple when you pick it from a tree; the tree is giving it to you. Once you begin to see the world in this way, it opens your eyes to all the ways in which the “more-than-human life” (as Kimmerer calls it) has been giving to us, while we have been giving nothing back. Think whole forests cleared for land development; biodiverse ecosystems destroyed in wake of monocultures; and oil harvested from deep under the Earth’s surface to be burned. Our current rate of consumption is not sustainable.

The current economy in the United States is a system based on the perception of scarcity. Every day, we are faced with a constant barrage of advertisements telling us that we don’t have enough. That we need to buy more. More electronics! A new gadget! Another car! A new pair of shoes! Kimmerer calls this a Windigo economy

(in reference to an evil mythical figure present in many indigenous traditions and characterized by greed, cannibalism, and overconsumption); one where “grain may rot in the warehouse while hungry people starve because they cannot pay for it.” What will it take to reframe our relationship with nature, to recognize and respect the abundance around us? How can we learn to give back, not only to each other, but to the Earth?

Kimmerer presented a different system, one that acknowledges abundance: a gift economy. In a gift economy, goods and services are exchanged without the expectation of any form of payment. Kimmerer points out that many indigenous communities use systems of giftgiving (a notable example is the potlatch, a feast commonly held in indigenous communities along the Pacific Northwest coast, where gifts are given away as a sign of status or wealth). Not only does a gift economy help circulate goods that might not have been used in a market economy

(making the system much more sustainable), it also strengthens relationships between individuals and groups within a community. The PSU community has begun implementing ways to use a gift economy system in exchanging goods and services. The first is the PSU Reuse Room. Located in Room 180 of Cramer Hall, the room is like a walk-in closet, with the door left open so that people can enter whenever they choose. Shelves that line the walls are filled with items such as books, dishes, binders, and partially used school supplies. A clothing rack often has fun, one-of-a-kind items, like the powder-blue jacket dotted with white flowers shown on the PSU Reuses (@psu.reuses) Instagram page. Anyone can go in to take what they need, or to drop off items that they don’t want anymore. I’d urge you - yes, you! - to check it out (and maybe bring along that coffee mug that you never drink out of).

But PSU Reuse doesn’t stop there - they also regularly host pop-up swaps. Functioning like Portland’s Farmers Market (except for the fact that everything is free), these material exchanges invite various communities to come together when giving away their items. Past themes have included clothing swaps, office supplies swaps, and plant swaps. By gearing these pop-up swaps to different communities on campus, they become a sort of social gathering. Students, faculty, and staff get to come together and connect over their shared interests in the items layered out on the tables. People rummage through the piles, swap stories along with gifts, and leave with full hands and even fuller hearts. The gifts find a home, and the people find each other.

These mini-gift-economies encourage the PSU community to choose used items instead of buying new, and to give things away instead of throwing them in the garbage. They show us that there is a way to consume less, that there is a way to break out of this unsustainable cycle. They show us that we are not living lives of scarcity, but rather abundance. We have all the things we need, given to us by the Earth. Why not continue the cycle? Why not give them to each other?

THE AMERICAN ALTERNATIVE POP PRINCESS, LANA DEL REY, SLOWS DOWN WITH HER NEW EASY LISTENING ALBUM

ALBUM REVIEW BY BECKY PHILLIPS

It’s rare when a new musician breaks into the scene and grabs little pieces from various styles of music to create their own genre. In 2012, Lana Del Rey released her major label debut album, Born To Die, an immediate classic. Though her first album titled, Lana Del Rey, was released in 2010, it was pulled from the shelves due to a lack of funding so as a result, it did not get much press. The first time listening to the popular Born To Die was like whiplash. Her melodic, deep voice reverberating hip hop influences, concocted a new indie/alternative, melancholy pop sound. I had to listen to the album a few times to really grasp who the new artist was and what she was doing. She represented herself as a symbol of the American dream so to say, as her songs reference having pride in her country.

With nine studio albums, her Americana theme has stayed consistent, and has earned its place on the “sad girl” music list. As most artists do, she has gone through some musical transitions throughout her career. The indie pop princess slowly strayed from the hip hop elements that were present in her first couple of albums, and began to mellow out a bit.

With her new album’s release in March 2023, Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, she delivers her easiest listening yet. The first track starts with an acapella with multiple vocalists, which immediately reminded me of the all female folk trio Mountain Man. As the track continues, it transitions into a slow tempo piano and vocal number. Surprisingly enough, the whole album encompasses this sound. Each song is piano heavy with minimal to no drums or percussion as her haunting melodies seem to carry the music.

As expected, her Americana references still hold true here as she retains her original image. Although she does still hold the title as an alternative pop artist, here she morphs into a singer, where I imagine her performing in a dark and smoky lounge accompanied by a pianist playing behind her. She does give an homage to her electronic hip hop roots briefly at the end in “A&W” and on the final three tracks, “Fishtail,” “Peppers (feat. Tommy Genesis),” and “Taco Truck x VB.” Maybe as a reminder of where her roots lie, and that she is still the American pop princess that everyone knows her to be.

Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Lana Del Rey, 2023.

“It’s rare when a new musician breaks into the scene and grabs little pieces from various styles of music to create their own genre.”

The Perseverance of Rape Culture in Rock and Metal

On Decapitated’s Sexual Assault Charges

BY DAN CHILTON

CONTENT WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS DETAILS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

This article was originally published on our website on March 19th, 2022.

In September of 2017, all four members of the Polish death metal outfit Decapitated (Michał Łysejko, Wacław Kiełtyka, Rafał Piotrowski and Hubert Więcek) were arrested on charges of kidnapping and rape following a show they played in Spokane, Washington. The charges came from two women who were reportedly held against their will on their tour bus after the show. One was able to escape. The other reported that she was then raped by all four members of the band in the bus’s bathroom— the police citing “significant bruising and abrasions on her arms that were consistent with being restrained.”

That October, while being held in the Los Angeles County Jail, they were all formally charged with rape. Awaiting their upcoming trial that was scheduled for that January, they left on bail of $100,000 each after spending a total of 96 days in jail. Come January 5th, 2018, and the band is dropped of all charges with the victim’s “well-being” cited

opinion

as the sole reason. Shortly after, Decapitated released a long-winded letter expressing desire to “move forward” from this event and claimed complete innocence— even going so far as to call themselves victims of false accusations, saying that “[w]ords hurt. Words matter. Truth matters.”

Decapitated has since returned to the scene in full force. Touring all over the world with acts such as Napalm Death, High on Fire, Inferi, and Archspire, it seems that the community has been more than willing to look past the victim’s horror stories of sexual violence in the continual allowance of rape culture that has long-pervaded the rock and metal scenes since their inceptions.

One needn’t look far to find instances of this culture. Courtney Love’s reported sexual assaults at her own shows; The Scorpion’s pedophilic original artwork on their album flagrantly titled Virgin Killer (Google it at your own discresion); the countless reports of assault at both Woodstock events; the continued admiration for womanizer, abuser, and pedophile GG Allin; Manowar’s Karl Logan’s recent arrest and guilty charges on possession of pornographic content of girls as young as four years old . The list of such transgressions, even just the ones actually being reported, could fill pages. Sexual assualt, pedophilia, and other forms of violence against women, the queer and trans communities, and others, have long been an issue within the predominantly white and male-centric rock and metal communities even if so many refuse to acknowledge it (not to mention the flamboyant white supremacy displayed by such a globally popular act as Pantera).

In the case of Decapitated, a band established in the metal scene since the mid 90’s during death metal’s

heyday, there exists a common sentiment among fans that the band itself are the victims— the women reduced to debased liars stalking the wealth and attention of a relatively obscure death metal band. Many have deduced that this woman dropping all charges with little explanation is sure evidence of foul play on her part. Many also fail to realize the mental anguish that these women are forced to deal with when going to the law for justice in sexual crimes— something that’s been made historically difficult for victims due to the law’s narrow definition of rape, the deeply rooted patriarchal cultural beliefs and systems that primarily benefit white and rich men, the pervading idea of victim-blaming in these instances placing more of the pressure on the victims than the abusers, and so much more.

with horrendous crimes due to how little value we place on the voices of victims in this society— especially nonwhite, non-male victims.

While Decapitated was officially acquitted of all charges, this by no means convinces me that they’re innocent. There’s a lot more to unpack here than either the band or their many fans are willing to admit— let alone, are willing to do the internal work to face. In what world would a woman put herself through the hell of receiving death threats from fans, facing the forced public and private shame of being a sexual assault survivor, in order to gain what little this relatively obscure band has to offer? And what exactly do these people think that she was after? Money? Attention? Some sick kind of fame? The obvious answer here is that she was not a liar seeking to exploit some B-side death metal band. But rather, that the community at large has again chosen to side with the abuser rather than the victim, allowing rape culture to continue unabashed because men would rather listen to their favorite band without feeling the guilt intrinsic with their (in)actions than to do the hard work of deconstructing these toxicly patriarchal values that we continue to uphold.

Powerful men throughout history have always been able to skirt responsibility for their crimes; attempting to destroy all hope for justice for their trail of victims. Chris Brown, Michael Jackson, James Franco, R. Kelly (until very recently), Pablo Picasso, countless priests and religious officials, even past U.S. presidents such as George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump. All men who have gotten away

As a lifelong member of the metal scene, especially here in the Pacific Northwest, I’m profoundly disappointed at the continual ignorance displayed by so many within said scene. As a fringe community that touts camaraderie and acceptance amongst the downtrodden, this allowance of rape culture stands starkly against what many believe this community to be— let alone, what it actually is. Until we hold these people responsible, offering the benefit of the doubt to the victims rather than the abusers, we are all failing.

“ VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, THE QUEER AND TRANS COMMUNITIES, AND OTHERS, HAVE LONG BEEN AN ISSUE WITHIN THE PREDOMINANTLY WHITE AND MALE-CENTRIC ROCK AND METAL COMMUNITIES”

Illustrations by Vivian Veidt

pay what you will, take what you need

Ramona Street Art Farm Cultivates Community in East Portland

BY JEREMIAH HAYDEN

12946 SE Ramona St. Portland, OR

Every now and then, a 13-year-old boy knocks on the door of the stranger’s house that stands between Gilbert Park Elementary and Alice Ott Middle schools, just to the west of Portland’s Powell Butte Park.

“It started when it was really hot out, and he just keeps coming back,” Amy Conway tells me. She and her husband Brandon have lived in the home with their children Alvah, 15, and Heywood, 13, since they bought it in December 2020.

“He’ll play basketball at the school, and not remember to bring a water bottle,” Brandon adds with a laugh.

Anyone familiar with the Conways would be unsurprised that they welcome this interaction. Though they wittily described themselves to me as “not always social, friendly, or regular neighbor people,” the intention behind their half-acre plot nestled in a diverse neighborhood is rooted in this kind of community care.

When they moved from the city to the outskirts of town, the Conway’s weren’t trying to start a farm as a source of income. Rather, they wanted to reshape their daily lives; to reprioritize and materially change the way they participated in the world. They envisioned a place that could operate as a garden or a performance space, a classroom or some still-unimagined thing. Though nothing is overtly political here, in many ways the small farm demonstrates how the direct action typical of mutual aid groups can exist in any neighborhood willing to think outside of commonplace, narrowly defined notions of what a space should be.

opinion

“That [is] really inspiring,” Brandon says. “That is something we are trying to do—to take care of people in some way or another.”

Each summer, on the sidewalk at the edge of the front yard where pumpkins and watermelons grow next to pear, apple, and cherry trees, the Conways occasionally set up a fresh fruit and veggie stand adorned with a sign that read Pay What You Will and Take What You Need. They accept cash payment, and they give away a healthy amount, but a key feature is that friends and neighbors can trade bags of coffee, wine, or pears from their own yard in exchange for fresh organics. One neighbor traded coloring books for the kids; another acquired zucchini and reciprocated a baked loaf of zucchini bread. An artisanal fabric banner stitched with the name of the farm, a mixtape, plumbing work, and a pile of dirt have all been traded straight across.

“You see the social value of things instead of the monetary value,” Brandon tells me. “I guess in that way, it is kind of political—to not have everything be caught up in a capitalist, transactional thing.”

The main backyard garden is a fenced-in, 36-by48-foot area lined with 18 no-dig soil beds. Its gate swings at the end of a wood chip path, guided by rows of strawberries and cherry tomatoes, past a rickety shed barely large enough to shelter a few garden tools, junk, and a playable drum kit. On Lloyd the Scarecrow’s edge of the fence, two Blue Runner and four Khaki-Campbell ducks—Kathy,

Photographs by Jeremiah Hayden

Photographs by Jeremiah Hayden

Babs, Grandpa the 3rd, Duckter Who, Addie Quacksalot and Mabel Syrup (“because, puns,” Alvah tells me)—wait for their afternoon snack and a shared bowl of fresh hose water. As ducklings, they were brought to the farm to eat pests, but their manure plays an increasingly important role in the making of compost, which directly contributes to the land’s permaculture. Inside the fence, tomatoes, brassicas, beets, potatoes, arugula, peas, squash, onions, and garlic grow beside other companion vegetables and flowers that attract bees, birds, and other helpful pollinators.

In 2019, Amy sustained a traumatic brain injury from a car wreck, which temporarily slowed her cognitive function. While she was suddenly unable to do tasks like use a computer or cut carrots, she often found herself slowly working in the garden, disappearing into the dirt.

“To sow a row of seeds is so slow, quiet, precise and concentrated—” she says. “Really hard tasks when you’re supposed to focus and move slowly. It’s meditative. The patience of it has been good to practice.”

Transforming the land demands an abundance of patience. Plants and trees will take months and years from seedlings and saplings to fully-grown florae. This is the convergence of Amy’s meditation, recovery, and art practice, all in the interest of something larger than the half acre with which it exists.

it has to be, not a digression from the civil rights and peace movements, but the logical culmination of those movements.” The point he wanted to drive home, some 50 years ago, is that in order to correct course away from the enduring abuse of the environment and each other, a wholesale reimagining of our way of life is necessary. To think little, and improve a small piece of the earth.

“We figured out how to be global,” she says. “We relished in it. But it’s ruining our planet too. How do we marry this ability to be able to reach across the world easily, with the fact that we still need to live like everything around us is affected by what we do?”

In his 1972 essay “Think Little,” Kentucky farmer and activist-writer Wendell Berry posited that “the movement to preserve the environment will be seen to be, as I think

The Conway’s envision the future of their farm as even more intentionally open. The front yard garden has been planted with the hopes of one day welcoming passersby to “wander in and pick a peach, strawberries or herbs.” The seeds of this openness have been planted—seeds of thinking little, of an artistic vision of how a space may morph in a given moment to cultivate mutually enjoyed meaning and peace in a neighborhood at the edge of the county line. For a handful of friends, a diverse group of neighbors, and one parched kid on his way home from the basketball court, those seeds have rooted into the soil, and their flowers have begun to bear fruit.

“‘How do we marry this ability to be able to reach across the world easily, with the fact that we still need to live like everything around us is affected by what we do?’”

“In order to correct course away from the enduring abuse of the environment and each other, a wholesale reimagining of our way of life is necessary.”

sliding scale produce boxes, art events, and more info, visit: www. ramonastreetartfarm. com.

WHAT WE’RE ENJOYING WHAT WE’RE ENJOYING

Posies Bakery & Café

8208 N Denver Kenton

Dan’s Score: *****

Portland is certainly known for our cafes and coffee shops, but as a born-and-raised local, believe me when I say that not many come as close to Posies. Aside from great coffee, they’re also a fully fledged bakery with everything baked fresh in-house daily. And you can’t go wrong with anything on the menu. Though weekends can be quite busy there, they’ve become a Portland staple.

Puff Coffee

2816 SE Stark Sunnyside

Jeremiah’s Score: *****

Portland is a mainstay in the coffee avant garde. Since the early days of 3rd wave coffee, local roasters like Stumptown, Coava, and Barista have been pushing the boundaries of what the two-billion cup a day ritual can be—think ristretto shots, light roasts, and that rosetta latte art you can’t get at the unnamed union-busting chain. Typical of a 20-year fashion cycle, Puff’s roaster (and Stumptown founder) Duane Sorenson roasts a bit darker than the 3rd wavers, and offers some unique flavor pairings. In 2022, Puff announced they’d created a psilocybin-infused coffee bean, which is unavailable in Portland—at least for now.

Chestal Honey Cough Syrup

as a hot toddy ingredient

Edwin’s Score: *****

I was sick this week, and god did this shit save my life. It doesn’t completely knock out your symptoms like DayQuil, but as a hot toddy ingredient? Game changer. In my thermos I sugared a few lemon slices, threw in some cloves & a cinamon stick, and drizzled a few capfuls this instead of regular honey. Some boiling water and a non-disclosed amount of Eastside rum later, I was feeling pretty peachy. 10/10.

Image courtesy of Posies Bakery & Cafe

Image courtesy of Puff Coffee

Somedays the Song Writes You

by Guy Clark (2009)

Dan’s Score: *****

Released towards the end of Guy Clark’s life in 2009, Somedays the Song Writes You sounds like grandpa reminiscing over an oak aged bourbon, only willing to wrap things up once the bottle’s been thoroughly polished. From the masterpiece of “This Guitar”, a Western-style story of his finding his destined guitar in a seedy pawn shop, to “Hollywood”, which paints the dirt and grime of an Americana landscape, I’ve had this album spinning on repeat all week.

Hanlon’s Razor

Dylan’s Score:

a philosophical razor from approx. 1980

*****

The most common version of this philosophical adage, attributed to Robert Hanlon, is as follows: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” This razor offers a grounded perspective on human nature, applicable when experiencing perceived slights. While this aphorism has the power to diffuse feelings of outrage, I’m knocking off a star and a half because sometimes, outrage is righteous. It’s often a thin line—and that’s why it’s called a razor.

Evil Dead Rise

Dan’s Score: *****

by Lee Cronin (2023)

A splatter fest with a twisted sense of humor reminiscent of 1987s Evil Dead 2, Evil Dead Rise is just the right amount of ridiculous insanity. With the updated setting from the original cabin in the woods to a condemned apartment building, loyalty to the original lore, and amazing practical effects, it’s well worth a watch (especially if you enjoyed the 2013 reboot). Also, the deadites are possibly the best we’ve seen since the 80s.

The Court of Foolishness by Gerard de Lairesse

NIM: HOW TO PLAY

Grab a friend and 2 different colored things to write with.

First player crosses out as many sqaures as they want. Squares must be from the same row, and at least one must be crossed out.

Second player does the same. The person who gets to cross out the last square is the winner.

Courtney Jeffs

PHOTO BY DAN CHILTON