tn2 December 2023; Against Irony

tn2’s Gift Guide Poetry by Dónal Ryan The Value Of Vulnerability issue 2 December 2023

Letter from The Editor The theme of this issue is ‘against irony’. Irony can be defined as “a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character’s words or actions is clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character”, in other words, when someone is being ironic, really what they are doing is saying “I know more than you do, and I find your ignorance very funny”. I don’t find this amusing, or intelligent. I’m sick of not being in on the joke, of Fleabag’s detached, knowing looks- what does she know that I don’t? I am finding the world too heavy to pretend that I find your sarcasm endearing. Not when children are dying. Not right now.

This Christmas is a strange one. It feels off to be filled with such joy and excitement when I know the children of Gaza are losing their parents, their brothers and sisters. But my misery and pity will not help them. So this magazine is the best I can do. All I can do is ensure that I’m not putting hate or judgement or harshness out into the world, the world has had enough, I think.

I tried to strike a balance with this issue, between comedic pieces about the perils of having sex with your housemates, and why everyone should have a letterboxd account to genuinely earnest pieces such as an exploration into the trivialisation of women’s pain and the difficulty of having a healthy relationship with food.

COVER by Margot Guilhot Desoldatos

Because when did being earnest ever become undesirable?

When did we lose our ability to express ourselves fully and freely? For a generation obsessed with maximalist art styles, I worry about our minimalist approach to authenticity and eagerness. I have never been a flippant person, I cry at Christmas advertisements and, if I get too drunk, confess my love to strangers in pub bathrooms. And what I’ve realised is that none of us are as ironic as we would like people to believe of us. We all love stupid jokes and being told that we are beautiful and loved.

We ‘stan’ things as much now as we did when we were kids.

So, during these upsetting times, please take this magazine as a manifesto for sincerity. Treat your friends to an extra special gift from our guide, be inspired by our editorial shoot and dare yourself to wear something chaotic, what the hell, watch Twilight.

In our centre pull out in the place of our usual “What’s Going on?” guide* we have printed a poster titled “Gaza Red” by Mothanna Hussein, courtesy of freepalestineproject.com.

Please feel free to use this poster, (without profit) however you see fit. Paste it somewhere people will see it. Remind the world. *Our Dublin guide is printed on the reverse.

ART by Kate Moloney

The Chaos of Fashion

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Hang Tough Contemporary: What we Lose when a Gallery closes

10

The Value of Vulnerability

12

Fiction & Poetry

14

Faust: The Joy of Opera and the Magic of a Good Prop

18

Theatre and Storytelling

20

Interview with Julie Morrissy

22

It (Starts And) Ends With TikTok

24

What to do in Dublin this month, & “Gaza Red”

25

A Defence of Stan Culture

30

Arctic Monkeys and their new “Horrible Sound”

32

In Defence of Twilight

34

The Letterboxd Sensation

36

Gelatin is In!

38

Feeding myself Kindly

42

Shaku Maku Review

44

Flatcest: Cringe or Canon Event?

46

Get Ovariet

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Tn2’s Gift Guide

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FASHION

The Chaos of Fashion

At the first CHAOS came to be...

An ode to our Tn2 Fashion family, who contributed all the pieces modelled

T

he world of fashion is seen as art and like any form of art there is always controversy.. Whether it be the Big Red Boots from MSCHF or Kylie Jenner wearing the Lion Head Schiaparelli dress from the Paris Spring/ Summer ‘23 fashion show; the runway has seen some extravagant, chaotic pieces. Despite causing quite the stir on the internet, the success of these pieces proves evident, with the Big Red Boots selling out in a matter of minutes upon their official online launch, and the Lion Head Schiaparelli dress being shown as part of their ‘Inferno Couture’ line. There is popularity in showcasing unusual pieces, if these pieces can teach us anything it is to be bold in your fashion choices.

While this experimentalist approach is not necessarily new to the runway, a shift towards the chaotic in everyday wear, too, can be seen. As Ashley Malloy discusses in The Washington Post, after Covid-19 Gen Z has been ‘assuming authority and relaxing the rules of presentable adult attire, smushing together discordant patterns and colors and silhouettes into chaotic combinations’. With the rise in popularity of vintage shops, emphasising the beauty of finding unique pieces, it is no wonder that as a generation we are drawn to clothes that stand out.

This photoshoot is inspired by the chaos of fashion. It is about appreciating something mismatched and wondering how it works when it shouldn’t. It is about celebrating the failed fashion choices, the bold and ugly, and the choices that allow us to experiment and discover our style. The clothes we wear reflect little fragments of our identities that are pieced together to create a proclamation of self expression. For some people that means wearing the bizarre and mismatched, for it is in this chaos that we can find our creativity.

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MODELLED by Eloïse Sherrard, Leah Kelly, Eva Stylianides, Rosie Fogarty PHOTOS by Margot Guilhot-Desoldatos

From CHAOS

came forth ...

WORDS by Caitríona McEvoy & Charlotte Glynn

9

ART & DESIGN

HANG TOUGH CONTEMPORARY What we lose when a gallery closes.

WORDS by Hazel Mulkeen

On the 30th of May this year, Michael Hennigan announced the are two of the biggest galleries in the country. The Irish Arts impending closure of the Hang Tough Studio on Lennox Street.

The printing and framing studio had been running for 12 years, but, Hennigan stated, the business was ‘in a very different place today’. The studio’s last active day would be July 21st; he would subsequently be placing his focus on the continued development of Hang Tough Contemporary, the Exchequer Street exhibition space he had launched in 2021. However, on July 21st, more unfortunate news came: The company was going into liquidation, and Hang Tough Contemporary was closing, effective immediately. Hang Tough was fast becoming a mainstay of the Dublin contemporary art scene; it had exhibited a solo presentation of Paul Hallahan’s artwork at the internationally reputed VOLTA Basel fair in June.

Its closure was sudden, and wholly unexpected.

Art galleries are precarious ventures. Hennigan had run three successful exhibitions in a pop-up gallery in Coppinger Row before he had enough momentum to open a permanent location.

A gallery like Hang Tough bases its exhibitions on projected sales, a gamble even outside of a cost-of-living crisis. The 23pc VAT paid by galleries means that when a sale does happen, less goes into the gallery’s pocket than would be the case for a private seller. Even finding a viable location is difficult in Dublin: in order for a space to ‘work’ as a gallery, it needs to be large and open, with plenty of natural light - but also on a street with plenty of public footfall.

Hennigan admitted to the Irish Times in 2022 that he’d only been able to establish Hang Tough Contemporary in the central location that he did because the landlord was an acquaintance.

The collapse of Hang Tough was not an isolated incident. In the last decade, several artists’ studios and venues in Dublin have vanished.

Broadstone Studios, an organised studio space in Dublin 2 where over thirty artists at once could work, closed in 2015 after running for nearly twenty years; the building is now a luxury guesthouse.

The Tivoli theatre in the Liberties, once a major venue for the Liberties festival, was closed in 2019 and the site turned into a Staycity hotel. As property prices become increasingly suffocating, it is becoming harder and harder to sustain artistic spaces in the city. It is unlikely that a not-for-profit arts centre or a gallery that doesn’t charge admission fees could ever bring in revenue at the same daily rates as a hotel.

However, not all spaces for the arts are similarly neglected: last year, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin received €850,000 in government funding, and the Crawford Gallery in Cork received €650,000. However, it is worth noting that these

Council’s new three-year plan, published in 2023, promises to ‘invest in every city and county’ and ‘contribute to national policies and local development plans’. Between 2020 and 2022, the Arts Council’s funding increased by €55 million, of which, the council claims, €42 million was invested in bursaries to support artists.

The plan fails to mention any collaboration with, or support for, independent galleries, despite the vital role they play in the ecosystem of the arts. It seems distinctly futile to offer artists millions of euros’ worth of support to create art, if there’s nowhere for them to display their art, once created, to the public.

Hang Tough promoted the work of Irish designers at their ‘Design Bloc’ Christmas market, encouraging people to buy local art by discounting their printing and framing services on the designs. The gallery celebrated established Irish names, but it also elevated small, up-and-coming artists, who have increasingly few opportunities to present and showcase their work in person. They held an open call competition last year to award fifty artists a print publishing contract; according to Hang Tough, the competition received 3,500 submissions. It’s a sobering number, demonstrating how many Irish artists need the chance to have their work supported by a gallery - even if they don’t have the connections or the following to make it happen alone. Giving artists support based on merit allows art in Dublin to become more unique and more diverse; it gives the gallery the chance to discover singular talents and support them from the early stages of their career. If small galleries are ignored and left to collapse in favour of funding larger, flashier places, these symbiotic opportunities for small names vanish quickly.

“If small galleries are ignored and left to collapse in favour of funding larger, flashier places, these symbiotic opportunities for small names vanish quickly” Beyond individual artists, Hang Tough sought to elevate their fellow studios and galleries. In February, the gallery auctioned off handmade rugs - designed by prominent Irish artists including Sean Scully and Dorothy Cross - to raise money for the regeneration of Ceadogán studios, a textiles workshop and showroom in Wexford.

IMAGE District Magazine What Hang Tough offered the public was something vital, and increasingly rare: free culture. Their walk-in exhibits allowed Dubliners to access vibrant and exciting contemporary art without paying exorbitant ticket fees or travelling far out of the city centre.

The loss of spaces like Hang Tough is felt by all of us, not just artists and gallerists. When emerging artists are squeezed out of

Dublin - losing the venues in which they could promote their work, and studio spaces in which they could collaborate and foster community - their artistic and cultural contributions are lost too, or else redirected to more accessible cities. As a result, we lose a central aspect of what makes this city somewhere worth living.

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ART & DESIGN

The Value of Vulnerability

Maeve Ruane Ronayne speaks on her experiences of sharing the art she creates, the invaluable relationship between speaker and audience, and the celebration of of the everyday.

“The honour of sharing and the privilege of listening should not be forgotten”

I

n a time where it is becoming increasingly easy to focus on the truly detestable qualities of human nature, our quiet beauty, our most valuable asset - the ability to create - is too often sidelined. Our culture is founded on the idea of storytelling; the honour of sharing and the privilege of listening should not be forgotten.

It isn’t showy or flashy. It doesn’t demand big budgets or star studded Hollywood names, only a pair of attentive eyes and ears. There is an ordinary preciousness to it, each of us assuming the role of the artist, the “storyteller”, every day of our lives in some way or another, and yet this does not in any way devalue the act. How many times, over a steaming cuppa, or freshly poured pint do we excitedly ask our friends, “Did I tell ye...”, or an enthralling “C’mere to me till I explain what happened”. They are the modern “Once Upon a Time’s”, the revitalised Shakespearen prologues. What and where would we be without the ability to create, to share, and to feel?

The art of the everyday can be found in these casual conversations. We are constantly creating. We have been telling and retelling

stories since the dawn of man. We solidify our existence in the stories we share and the art we create in a profoundly intimate way. Desperate to be remembered, we leave pieces of ourselves, opening ourselves up and allowing the hidden vulnerabilities of our nature to seep into the things we create. It is beautiful, sensitive, and above all else, it is vital.

Being in Trinity, surrounded by the legacies of the frankly overwhelming amount of Irish literary talent, it is easy to feel inspired. The clubs, societies, and student interest help cultivate this creative inspiration, and encourage the art of the everyday. The immense opportunities for creative outsourcing in college is something I couldn’t fully appreciate until I was here. From the student-made, student-performed plays of the iconic DU Players to the ‘48 hour Film Fest’ with FilmSoc. Not to mention the various magazines and papers ranging from current affairs, to satire, to the one you’re reading right now.

“You only have to look and it is likely you’ll find a place that will welcome you, and whatever work you may wish to produce, with open arms”

The value of participating in this act of sharing art, whatever form it may take, is immeasurable.

You open yourself up to so much more through the invitation of an audience: allowing people to view you through the things you create, accepting that their interpretation is out of your control, and perhaps out of your comfort zone.

It is terrifying, but so incredibly worthwhile. We learn so much about ourselves, not just through the process of creating but the experience of response. Art is reciprocal and meant to be felt in multiple dimensions, so allow it to be! I implore you to participate in whatever way you feel is suitable. The observer is as much a creator as the performer. Broaden yourself past the collegiate horizon. There are an infinite number of artistic possibilities, particularly in a rich creative capital like Dublin.

One of these creative phenomenons taking the country by storm is a storytelling night, aptly named ‘Seanchoíche’ (A portmanteau of the Irish words seanchaí, meaning storyteller, and oíche, meaning night). Appearing at ‘All Together Now Festival’, ‘Other Stories’ in Dingle, and now experiencing international success, it is clear that this event has arrived in the public sphere at exactly the right time. It is precisely what we as a society need. Set up by Trinity alum Ciaran Gaffney, it captures the inherent notion of “true art”. It lacks the pretentiousness and exclusivity that frequently occurs in artistic

environments. It acts as a celebration of Irish heritage and the nourishing qualities of sharing and experiencing art with others.

I was lucky enough to be given the platform during October’s Seanchoíche to deliver a ten minute anecdotal story on the theme of ‘Firsts and Lasts’. This took place in the lovely Fumbally Cafe, in front of a crowd of over a hundred strangers. Safe to say, it was a daunting experience. However, there are certain occasions in my life that I can pinpoint as truly meaningful. They stand out with a vibrancy and warmth, highlighting themselves against my many thousands of memories. This was one of them. Standing at the top of the room, knuckles whitened from gripping my sheet with nerves, begging for the paper thin weight to somehow support me, I failed to recognise the infinite support surrounding me. The heartening encouragement from everybody in the room, ready and willing to enjoy another story.

Despite the nature of the event being spoken word, it truly is difficult to describe. There is an ineffability to this side of humanity. The intimacy of listening to another person deliver

WORDS by Maeve Ruane Ronayne

such a profound snapshot of human sincerity is inescapably moving. There is nowhere to run: both parties are active, in the room, delivering and accepting. The authenticity of the deliverance is easily recognisable, and adds another layer of vulnerability and rawness to the telling. Each tremor of the hand, quiver in the voice, and rapid intake of breath is undoubtedly accidental, but it belongs to your interpretation of the story and always will. It is evocative, emotional, intense, funny, inspiring. The list could go on and on. I could use an endless litany of adjectives and still wouldn’t feel as though I was doing that night justice. And that feeling is incredibly special.

selfishness, and hatred that breeds in every city and town, prowling the streets for its newest victims and darkening gloomy nights, there exists these small sparks of light. Sometimes they’re found in the brutalistic buildings of the arts block in Trinity College, others can be sought out in cosy cafes down Fumbally Lane on a crisp October evening, but they exist - and they’re brilliant.

On darker days, I remind myself of nights like those. Filled with joy, love, and relentless kindness. It provides a gentle reminder that, occasionally, we humans aren’t so bad. That, in the right environments, tenderness and decency are the default. Empathy is not hard sought, but found in abundance. There is a delightful remembrance that we are all human, sharing an endless amount of beautiful, complex, bizarre, and hurtful stories. In the interminable gluttony,

PHOTOS by Benjamin L.A

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FICTION & POETRY

Spotlight Writer 8

by Dónal Ryan

6

Ca

l Week, 1 a v i 9 rn

That carnival week we went every night, fervently and devotedly, as though it were a novena, like the one they had in Nenagh with the African priest, when everyone went the first night just to get a look at him, and then went all week, caught in an epidemic of love. He was killed in a car crash shortly after he left us, somewhere upcountry, hardening our hearts against our fellow Midlanders with their dark crooked roads, their Godforsaken dogs holes of parishes.

How well he had to waste himself on his mission to nourish their miserable souls. But that week. Oh, the fun of it. The ball pool and the bumpers and the rifles that smelt oily and real, their cold weight in my hands. I learned that week that I was a good shot. That my sister was a demon for the Waltzers. And that our mother would spend her whole month’s children’s allowance on five blazing frantic hours of neon joy, an endless week of tenpence coins of love.

ART by Kate Moloney

That Time Again

by Rhiannon Ní Chinneide It’s that time again.

The summer threatens to cool. The dreams to continue. My thoughts contract and with each hour the topic returns to them. It’s small and catastrophic. It follows me to sleep and it wakes me halfway through.

Then, suddenly, it’s that time again. I’m that fool again, they’re those

get smaller, how it gloats to me, ‘we’ve lost but there is always more to lose!’.

I am that feeling of remorse, the silver blood running down their hands.

It only takes a little shame to drive me down into the ground.

fiends again.

And this season offers plenty in the way of nightmare fuel. There are

Frozen air. Silent sobs. Almost death.

way they’re here by four. I’m sure they’ll find a way to pull the sun from

In October they hunt for me like men, like they’ve nothing more to do.

They spot me in another room, go on and take me from my bed. A single cry would feed them well for autumn’s end.

They are beasts and I am somehow always sorry.

I have studied the way my cowardice takes shape, the way it grows as I

monsters proudly lining every street. It is dark by five o’clock – either the horizon, point it plainly in my face and ask me why I said a word.

But by now I haven’t any more to say.

By now the grass has grown over every poorly dug grave.

I will look back and gently lay down my goodbyes.

It is the part of me that loved them which returns me to that time.

15

He’s Brilliant at Breakfast

By Laura O’Callaghan

The park bench could use a paint job. Maybe even a good

His pen, finally coming to a rest, indeed exhausted by the

sanding as well, but Cameron likes feeling the history of

pretentiousness of its owner, only to quickly find itself

a bench beneath the weight of him. And so there he sits.

between said owners artificially white teeth, squeaks out a

Though the splinters really were insufferable. ‘To fully im-

sigh. A series of sharp squeals, like the sound of a primary

merse oneself in life is to suffer the ugly and uncomfortable

school classroom when the home time bell signals for chairs

with stoicism’. Using his favourite fountain pen he scratches

to scrape desperately at vinyl, interrupts his journaling. The

these words into the well-crafted pages of his moleskin jour-

depth of the crease which appears between the boy’s brows

nal. Smiling, he wonders if this is how Wilde must have felt

suggests this interruption is being received as a great person-

in his twenties. Most definitely, he concludes. You see, Cam

al slight. He looks around, his eyes screaming accusation and

believes with everything that he has, to the tip of his tasteful

profanity, his neck straining as unused muscles pulled taut

trilby hat, that future historians would be distraught to be

(Cam rarely bothered to look anywhere but straight ahead,

denied the opportunity to pick apart the inner workings of

tempted only to turn his gaze where a reflective surface

his brilliant mind. A light breeze blows, disrupting the pages

catches his eye).

of his journal for a moment, the price tag catching the early spring light, proudly displaying the fact that he coughed up

Finally, he comes to understand the intrusion on his scene

seventy-five euro last month to document... what exactly?

and his mouth settles into a firm, unimpressed line. A

Ah here we go, arms lifted above his head as he breathes in

woman had been walking her golden retriever through the

the campus life, feels it in his lungs, the anticipation of the

rugby field to the left of the student on the bench. Just pass-

day at hand. A day that will blur into yesterday and will of

ing through, a shortcut to her favourite coffee shop. As she

course then bleed over into all the near identical tomorrows,

bent to swiftly remove something from the dog’s mouth, a

that is until graduation seven months from now. A shiny

frisbee sliced through the air just above her hair, tousling the

new English lit degree tucked under his brown-buckled belt.

silver of it faintly. Its startling combination with the bright

He begins, as he begins everything in life, with unfounded

sunlight made it difficult for Cameron to discern whether

confidence.

she had been caught in the crossfire or not. The near miss had caused the perpetrators to gasp and shriek and splutter,

Daily log 2/03/23:

shortly followed by a scattering of nervous laughter, their

9:00am: Modernism tutorial ( Allow the T.A to ramble for a

hands flinging to their mouths. Now shouting apology after

bit, explain the proper use of the term free indirect discourse)

apology in an embarrassed lament, the woman waves off

1:00pm: Quick M and S café stop for lunch with Thea (describe

their distress, laughs and stumbles into a seated crouch on

my diss thesis to her again, this time in more detail, but make

the grass to catch her breath. They all gather in the middle

it simple so she understands, invite myself over to her flat for

of the green space, the students lowering themselves one by

drinks this evening)

one to the dog’s level for a turn scratching behind his grateful

3:00pm: Work on my novella

ears. They seemed then surrounded by a warmth that Cam

3:30pm: Greek Duolingo session for 15 mins

couldn’t understand. The sun was sharp and cold where it hit

4:30pm: Call father (ask him to rev me my weekly allowance a

off of his glasses, so how could it follow that just metres away

day early)

life went on in such a soft and easy way. The scene had been

6:00pm: Glass of Pinot at the campus pub with Joey and the

perfect before, Cam was ignoring the splitters, his back-ach-

boys.

ing, plus that hollow feeling that always crops up around the

9:30pm: Make way over to Thea’s.

midday mark which has him running to his journal in the

first place. These strangers had overstepped. Cam feels a tug

his presence loudly when he finally enters his tutorial, just

at his chest, feeling vulnerable and small.

as the hand on his watch hits 9:15. It needn’t have been so

The buzz of them all growing louder causes Cam to sneer

loud: ‘So sorry everyone’. He cuts off a student’s response

and roll his eyes. He didn’t relish trivial interruptions

to the T.A. as he enters, projecting his voice. He waves his

when he was thinking. ‘Ridiculous, shallow, unimportant’,

journal in one hand and runs his hand through his hair

he thought to jot down hastily after a glance at his watch

with the other in a practised move of perfect dishevelment.

alarmed him to the fact that it was five to the hour and

He then puts on a ruminating half-smile so his next line

he had a tutorial at 9. Standing up lazily from the bench,

will hang in the air as profoundly cryptic, ‘I was lost in my

Cam brushes the flecks of paint away that have stuck to the

own head’. A collective sigh.

corduroy of his trousers. In the same movement he swings his bag across his body and makes his way, all intention and purposeful strides, up the cobblestoned campus. He holds his journal with extreme casualty to his chest. Its price tag reflected by the fluorescent ceiling lights above announces

17

THEATRE

Faust The Joy of Opera and the Magic of a Good Prop WORDS by Charlotte Glynn

I

recently went to see the Irish National Opera’s production of Gounod’s Faust, a French 19th century opera with, to put it quite simply, a lot of swag. Characters are cocky, bodacious and dramatically tragic and overall, the whole thing is just a bit of a hoot. Now, I can hear all of you shouting at me from the rafters “What makes an opera a hoot Charlotte? Tell us. TELL US”. I will tell you. It’s when an opera embraces the dramatic nature of its storytelling and musical crescendos and leans whole-heartedly into the emotions that lie behind them. Opera is the finest expression of sincere and heartbreaking emotion you will ever find. They go big into the depth and breadth of life’s profound feelings and when an opera leans into the drama that comes with the handling of emotions like these is when it truly shines. My favourite quote describing opera is by Robert Benchley: “Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings” and a truer word could not be spoken. Opera is in the raw emotion of life and its troubles and how an opera’s production chooses to highlight this is usually pretty interesting.

There are three ways of commonly interpreting an opera, each of which depend upon when the director (or dramaturg) chooses to place the opera. The first is by placing it in the time the composer wrote it for. If they have placed the opera in a classical time period, like in Wagner’s The Ring Cycle, then classical costuming and baroque-style painted stage backgrounds feel appropriate. A production may also place its scene in the time period it was written in, so in the case of Faust, 19th century France. Finally, they may also place it in the modern day. You’ll find this modern day placement less frequently in opera as it is in a lot of other modes of theatre mostly because it is harder to convey the sense of the fantastical and dramatic in a white t-shirt.

One reason that I enjoyed Faust so much was that it was set in the time it was written. I love it when the production chooses to lean into this time period. I like to get an insight into the mind-frame of the composer. What about his time made him compose his scores in such ways? Where can you see the influence of the time period on the choices in the story? Why does the jovial Gounod choose to re-interpret Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in the manner that he does, making a story of hilarious satanic greed focus on bawdy and lusty youth? It’s a history, music and literature lovers’ wet dream to analyse an operatic production and that’s the honest truth. Now onto the knitty gritty, how did Faust tickle my fancy in these ways and what did I learn from the Irish National Opera’s production of it? I learned very, very much indeed.

The Faust I saw this October leaned wonderfully into the 19th century French industrialism of it all. It’s an important choice to

place it in this period, especially with an emphasis being placed upon the amazing chorus and set design. The factory setting with tall slatted windows and three huge chimneys and grey, grey, grey everywhere, as intimated by the fabulous set design by Francis O’Connor, highlighted the narrative’s focus on class prejudice by focusing the centre of the action in the workplace.

The huge chorus was made up of bawdy but honourable factory workers that become soldiers, flirtatious women, plain women and the high class factory owners dressed up in finery and snobbily judging the ways of their poverty stricken employees. This comes elegantly into play with the very, very religious aspects of the opera (religion naturally plays a part in a story about making a deal with the devil). Gounod and the Irish National Opera’s team highlighted the interplay between class and religion wonderfully through the use of props. Yes, yes. I said props.

Due to the genius of Francis O’Conner and Jack Furness, (could a last name be more apt for a play about hell with a literal furnace built into the set design specifically to act as THE MOUTH OF HELL ... emotion overcomes me) the chorus were charged in one particular number with the act of building bombs- very cartoonish little bomb-like rockets- in an assembly line. This was a visual spectacle: beautiful, fun, impish, like you want a lot of choruses to be and plays into the class reading wonderfully as they are engaged in performing active labour on stage.

Now, as if this bomb-making scene wasn’t wonderful enough, the bombs make a comeback. In a scene where Méphistophélès is tormenting Faust … or maybe it was Marguerite? Honestly everyone is religiously tormented in Faust at least once. Regardless, there is a scene in which religious torment is ensuing and the demon and his posse reign in red cloaks down upon their victim. The bombs that were executed by the chorus of factory workers in the earlier act are refigured into the shape of a huge, dangling, menacing cross which is hauled out for the torment of the persecuted.

This bomb cross (literally) had me stunned, flabber-ghasted and in awe of the magic of a good prop. If you have ever had any training in acting or enjoyed a drama class or two, you will know that they must teach their students not to rely on props. I believe that this can sometimes lead to us forgetting how wonderful tool props really can be. They can bring life, reality, dreams, fantasies, sometimes humour, sometimes pain and a whole lot of drama to a production when executed well.

“We must not forget the humble prop, for when the prop is allowed to shine alongside its actorial and musical counterparts, well, it can really bring the piece together in striking ways.”

I also might mention the hundred of flowers that burst onto the stage at the high point of one of Jennifer Davis’ arias. Factory lockers were moved onto the stage in a genius stroke of set design before her aria began and at her top note comes the bursting out of hundreds of prop flowers in pink, red, orange and yellow. The beautiful matrimony between set design and good prop-making is

at it’s best at this moment. At the emotional height of the narrative as Faust finally wins over his love comes the momentous burst of dramatic and theatrical visuals, that when combined with the beautiful soprano voice of Jennifer Davis, makes it a truly opera worthy moment.

As is obvious, I deeply enjoyed Faust, as I deeply enjoy most operas I am lucky enough to attend. I have a love for the craft. It touches my heart, as it has touched the hearts of many for centuries. Faust reminded me of what I said at the beginning of this article: that

when an opera leans into the drama of life’s profound emotions is when it truly shines. Faust’s whimsical creativity in direction, set design and my dear-beloved prop design was truly inspiring to see and I am excited for the direction that the Irish National Opera is heading in. With this I’ll leave you with my wish for the Irish opera scene going forward as I have seen fulfilled in Faust. I would like drama drama drama, clever use of props and man, just some innovative thought behind an artform that has brought joy to so many, especially myself and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

ART by Eoghan Smyth

19

THEATRE

“All the World’s a Stage” Theatre and Storytelling

After passing by Seanchoíche in IMMA on Culture night I started to think about the connections between storytelling and theatre, and what distinguishes them from each other. The piece that follows tries to illustrate some of the patterns that emerged from these reflections.

T

here’s a miserly part of me that views storytelling as an act of self-indulgence. Probably because of the ego boost I get from successfully telling a good story. Each a performance crafted in the back of my head so that the many features of something once mundane becomes a twist: “And he had the key all along!” Leaving out the part where I crawled under the bins to cry. In lockdown I physically craved an experience worth talking about. I thought my friend had summed up the latent grief of time passing when she dejectedly said on the phone: “it’s been two years and I feel like I have no new stories to tell.” The universal ache for a beginning, middle and end, a twist however artificial, when all that seemed to occur was a mindless, numbing, pause. A hyphen, filled with tense apprehension.

I convinced myself of the fact that it was all a “begannies”. An old hiberno-english word for a ‘pause for dramatic effect’ used in storytelling as a way of capturing an audience’s attention. Possibly my whole life was one big story, made of smaller stories I had recited to my friends (“the key there! In his pocket!”) leaving out all the dread. Storytelling became a coping mechanism to declare to the world: “Look how much I’ve lived!” A deflection at the worry that I might be doing this all wrong.

That’s when I began to notice the ubiquitousness of stories. All the origin stories as selling points, biopics, auto-fiction, private playlists titled as soundtracks, sequels, personal aesthetics, true crime, articles with anecdotes as subtitles; each acting as little easily digestible packages of experiences. Take stories from social media as an example, which exhibit moments from people’s lives (knowingly curated and fake) as intimate, authentic, glimpses into somebody else’s narrative. We crave “main character moments”, our mantra: “do it for the plot!” But we are not telling just any story. We are telling our own, the only one we feel we have permission to tell.

Each story draws an imperfect salt circle around our feet that wards off all the demons of insignificance. Just maybe if we articulate the world as we see it - that world might actually be real.

I see connections between our love of storytelling and a recent move in theatre towards spectacle. Productions are marked by their associations: the biggest names in Hollywood, the loudest designs, the lazy recastings in lieu of creating new spaces for marginal

voices, the names blown up on posters, all the vacuous glamour mistaken for campness. We take the most interest in actors who have had dramatic physical transformations, who picked up new skills, who spent hours and hours looking right, sounding right.

Because secretly we believe that if work is not obvious or available then it must just not be there. We have to invent superficial metrics of assessing their talent by their commitments. Otherwise, anyone could go on screen or stage and say a few lines written for them if they tried hard enough.

Theatres are attracting audiences by selling the theatrical experience as a sort of live cinema, which it’s not. Trying to change the fundamental features of theatre comes from a belief that theatre is only a lackluster, outdated, version of other artforms that needs to catch up. People who believe this simply haven’t seen very good theatre, and I wouldn’t blame them. Theatre is expensive, it can appear elitist, and some of the time it’s also a bit shit (it’s part of the risk). This shift in structure results in audiences who are more disruptive than ever. So many phones ringing, maltesers being eaten, alarms going off, as audiences are increasingly under the impression that the stage is totally distanced from the reality of their seat. Worried that audiences still aren’t engaged enough, theatres become bigger, bolder, louder, emptier! The commodification of theatrical space results in a product that constructs its own importance through spectacle. The edges of the stage become the end of its packaging; Forgetting the craft, forgetting the work, forgetting the point.

What has this to do with storytelling? My point is that theatre, when it’s not interested in spectacle, has certain capacities that storytelling doesn’t have. Storytelling has its place, and its power but I would argue that we are diluting its power by trying to get it to achieve things that theatre is better at. Storytelling is all about knowability.

A set of events within a recognisable framework. A pattern that we follow and feel satisfied with when it fits together the way we know it should. It is the integration of a perspective into an existing world. Most importantly, it’s an ancient pursuit of knowledge and meaning. It provides us with a deeper understanding of place and our relationship to it. So why then is storytelling not the perfect way to capture the zeitgeist?

The problem with storytelling today is that we have obliterated the subversive power of storytelling by restricting the boundaries of the knowable world. These boundaries placed around culture and knowledge are masquerading as necessities while being predicates of a destructive economic system. A system unrivaled in its ability to convince populations of its own importance. Now at the end of history and trapped in a decaying structure, we are caught between an increasingly cumulative past and a catastrophic inevitable future. We find ourselves clambering to define the moment – one that we assume lies unconsciously in our stories.

So, we have resorted to telling and retelling stories to make our mark. All to create an immanent present out of the reified scraps of significance we retrieve from rubbish heaps and internet rabbit holes. To continue believing that truth is an emergent, predetermined feature of the phenomenal world we create our own using these half-formed things. In turn, denying the possibility of spontaneous change from fear of ambiguity, or worse, indifference!

Which is why we are left in worlds of things, built to look like something, that we charge with meaning. Our possessions are now props, desperate motivators of an illusory narrative arc.

Theatre escapes from this conceptual trap as it requires its own metaphysic. Theatre is forced to move toward spectacle by our current cultural limits because it doesn’t fit within these restricting terms. Though shows are specified to an hour and a venue, they

stretch and collapse space and time. By spinning various locations and times within a show, and by acting as a palimpsest for all past productions and a platform for all future productions in that same space, and for that same play. The past and the future are conjured into a cascading present. The many tiny variances between each show creates something utterly unique and simultaneously totally networked.

The relentless immediacy of theatre, not only because of this collapse of linear chronologies, is due to something that few artistic mediums get to utilise in real time: bodies! But equally, ghosts! The haunting of the stage by all that is absent and present results in a multiplicity of perspectives which cannot tessellate into a singular worldview but contend as possible worlds on the stage. Theatre doesn’t integrate voices to suit its pre-existing structure, it amplifies them. Theatre recognises a pause not as a begannies but a silence because not all of the elements of theatre are a means to an end.

Brilliant theatre is not beautiful. It doesn’t allow for the distance to gaze admiringly. That’s what valuing spectacle in theatre gets wrong. The proscenium of the stage is not its frame! The audience is not divorced from the actor! Theatre leaks from the stage and creates tendrils that infiltrate each row. Theatre denies the external reality of truth, of binaries, of answers. Brilliant theatre is one big

question mark, intentionally tormenting the audience with their incapacity to reply.

Let’s stop trying to make theatre as knowable as storytelling, let’s stop using storytelling to shirk away from our fear of ambiguity.

Theatre can be one of the keys to understanding the complexity of the present by sitting with it. Storytelling is a wonderful way to establish yourself in the world and to learn more about other people. I love to tell great stories and will continue to collect them like treasures. With the added understanding that there is no narrative arc in the real world.

We intuitively understand that every single story we tell won’t add up to the place that we live in. You don’t have to be a playwright to know that if the world were a text, it would not be a story but a play.

WORDS by Éle Ní Chonbhuí ART by Alice Gogarty

21

LITERATURE

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Interview with Julie Morrissy

ulie Morrissy is an Irish poet, academic, critic, and activist.

She was the first poet-in-residence at the National Library of Ireland from 2021-2022. Our literature editor Rachel spoke to Julie about her work, including her recent poetry-play ‘Certain Individual Women’ which deals with Article 41 of the Irish Constitution.

The theme of our issue is ‘Against Irony.’ What was it about poetry that compelled you to pursue it professionally, and are there any works that inspired this decision?

I have been writing since I was quite young, poetry first and, as a teenager, I wrote a manuscript for a novel. I hadn’t really intended to become a poet, but during my MA in Creative Writing I found my feet in poetry in a way that suited my work more than fiction did, and I just stuck with it. In terms of works that inspired my decision initially, for a long time I’ve been captivated by the artistic relationship between American poet C.D. Wright and photographer Deborah Luster—I also wanted to make work with collaborative, documentary, and mixed-genre impulses. That has always been exciting to me.

Your most recent project Certain Individual Women brings together your backgrounds in various fields such as law, activism and poetry. Do you ever feel tension between the ‘seriousness’ of law versus the creativity that comes with being a poet?

I suppose I think that law can be creative, and poetry can be serious.

There are actually a lot of similarities between the two fields. Both are concerned with interpretation, precision, and expression, and both have a very particular economy of language. Of course, the motivations may be different, and I would say that poetry has ability to get into gaps in the law and maybe pose questions about absences or particular uses of language.

Your work often involves a mixed media approach with Certain Individual Women involving a poetry-play performance alongside an upcoming exhibition in the Museum of Literature. What motivates you to experiment with different forms; and are you perhaps drawn to the impermanence of say a performance and exhibition in comparison to the permanence of a traditional novel?

I love impermanence! As you say, it is a totally different dynamic and experience to book publishing. In academia, we place a lot of weight on permanent forms of dissemination, text in particular.

There are other ways of knowing that are just as important. I am interested in bringing the work to life in various forms—playwriting, gallery exhibition, film, live performance. And making books is really exciting too. I try to be led by the work itself. I try to follow where it is taking me.

From 2021-2022 you were thePoet-in-Residence at the National Library of Ireland. Tell us about your time here, and how did you find working with the past for Radical! Women and the Irish Revolution project differed from writing about the present?

A lot of the work I make explores experiences over generations.

For example, part of “Certain Individual Women” is about my grandmother, who was born in 1921 in the same week that the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed. I am fascinated by the first 100 years of the Irish State and particularly women’s involvement in the revolutionary period, and the subsequent implications of the founding of the Irish State for those who identify as women. Women played a crucial role in the revolution alongside men and their contributions were subsequently marginalised and erased. In thinking about the present, Bunreacht na hÉireann is highly exclusionary and currently still has sexist provisions—and the gender equality referendum that should have happened this year has been notably delayed.

‘I am lonely for those days of change/lonely for all we achieved/ and all we haven’t/ yet.’ These are lines from your poem ‘An Appreciation’ in Radical! Women and the Irish Revolution. To what extent would you identify with your poetry being an act of activism as an attempt to achieve ‘all we haven’t yet?’ And I suppose how impactful do you think poetry is as an act of activism?

Something I found troubling as a Poet-in-Residence at the National Library were the huge gaps in my own knowledge about women’s contributions during the revolution. I was questioning all the time how it happened that I did not know those stories...I did a lot of activist work for Repeal with X-ile Project and I would say that work is different to poetry. I see the two things as somewhat separate, or maybe coming from the same impulse but with different aims and outcomes. I think or hope that my poetry sometimes asks meaningful questions about law and society. Poetry can spark conversations, certainly, but my activist work was more direct, more connected to structures of political power, more “active”!

What advice would you give to any aspirational poets?

My advice is to read as widely and as much as you can. It is the best way to learn. And also: find your community—go to literary events, talk to people if you can, and be kind, respectful and generous to your peers. You will need each other.

Julie’s artwork, “Positions Gendered Male in Bunreacht na hÉireann / 1937 Constitution of Ireland”. will feature in the upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Literature Ireland. The exhibition, titled Is This A Poem?, will run for 6 months from January 25th 2024 and is curated by poet Christodoulos Makris.

(1) Women holding positions in the civil service other than posi-

Civil Regulations Amendment Act, 1956: Retirement of Women Civil Servants on Marriage tions which are declared excepted positions under subsection 2 of this section are required to retire upon marriage.

(2) The minister may from time to time declare any particular positions (not being established positions) or class of positions to be excepted positions for the purpose of subsection 1 of this section. hold women/position women/service women/other women/declare women/except women/require women/establish women/ retire women/ purpose women/section women the minister holds women in sub positions positions women in marriage the minister others women, declares women for service the minister retires women for other purposes purposes women to marriage

the minister establishes service positions for women women from women of women upon women for women to women in

women hold/women position/women declare/women require/women establish May women declare positions other than service?

May women declare positions other than marriage?

May women be excepted from being civil?

Minister, may we?

The above poem was first published in Poetry Ireland Review, no. 122, by Eavan Boland.

IMAGE by Peter Tomka WORDS by Rachel Kelly

23

LITERATURE

It (Starts And) Ends With TikTok: Mass Consumption, Changing Trends and Colleen Hoover WORDS by Ava Bolger

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e live in a world of mass culture and consummation.

Every second of every day we are plugged into machines exposing us to rapid-fire bouts of information, entertainment, all attuned to our personal preferences. The algorithm probably knows us better than we know ourselves. Food lovers are awarded with reviews and recipes. Fashion lovers are privy to all of the latest fads and styles. Book lovers are exposed to book based content across all platforms; Bookstagram, BookTube, and most influential of all BookTok. It is almost impossible to escape any bookshop without seeing a BookTok display table or wall, boasting to hold all of the internet’s favourite books. But what is Booktok exactly and how is it changing the way we consume and engage critically with literature?

In and of itself BookTok is not a threat to literature, the short, fast paced videos exchanging knowledge and recommendations has been incredible for book sales and has been a huge help to those trying to make it in the world of writing. Case in point: the success that BookTok has brought writer Lloyd Devereux Richards. It took Richards 14 years to write his novel Stone Maidens, and 11 years after the book’s publication on Amazon it had received very few sales. His daughter Marguerite made one short TikTok talking about her dad’s work and it went viral, sending the thriller into the number one book of its genre on Amazon and selling millions of copies worldwide. Stories like this are in abundance nowadays where TikTok can make and break careers.

But there is always another side to the coin and it doesn’t take a lot of looking to expose TikTok’s underbelly. One of the widest circulating criticisms of the platform and the way that we interact with it is that these high-speed, constantly available videos are changing the way that we consume media.

“Being exposed to so many opinions at one time has slowly begun to erode our ability to critically engage with the literature that we are reading.”

Opinions are formed through comment sections and captions and if some unlucky soul is unable to find validation of their opinions in regards to a book through videos or through comments they will assume their opinions are wrong. Taking this a step further, if anybody dares to criticise what has been approved and lauded

by the general consumer they are increasingly privy to vicious verbal abuse and backlash.

A study of these kinds of “digitised, aggravated opinions” and the influence of herd behaviour in online environments was conducted by scholars from Hebrew University, NYU, and MIT where online comments were either positively or negatively rated (up or down) for a period of five months. The results of this study revealed that when a comment received an artificial positive rating before being viewed by the first person, that individual was 32% more likely to upvote it. Over the duration of the study, comments artificially boosted with positive ratings displayed an average score 25% higher than the control group. The researchers concluded that prior ratings created substantial bias in how individuals rated, and positive and negative influences had differing impacts on herding effects.

One particularly interesting way that this behaviour has been seen online is through the fluctuating opinions surrounding Colleen Hoover. Hoover has been around for years, having self-published her debut novel Slammed in 2012 but she’s only really risen to stardom in the book community within the last few years. After Slammed she wrote more than 20 books, jumping from young adult romance to erotica to a thriller. Since then she has struck deals with major publishers and is currently under contract to release six books Grand Central, Atria, and Montlake. She has dedicated tables in most booksellers and her easily digestible writing style has made readers flock to her but opinions on Hoover are definitely divided. During the pandemic Hoover has a golden aura, an ability to do no wrong, with only raving reviews in her peripherals. But slowly the less than positive opinions started to crawl out of the woodwork.

Although easily digestible, many have argued that Hoover’s writing is subpar, elementary, and sounds like it belongs in a Wattpad story rather than a bestselling novel. Need we look further for the infamous, slightly traumatising line from one of Hoover’s most popular books Ugly Love “We both laughed at our son’s big balls”. On top of that some readers feel that the serious topics Hoover explores in her books like domestic abuse and homelessness are sensationalised or used as mere plot devices to create drama or tension without truly exploring the complexities or consequences of such issues.

It only took one person to speak out on the issues surrounding Hoover’s books for the dominoes started to fall, and fall they

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January

did. Talking on this trend and why she decided to get rid of her Colleen Hoover books, TikTok user imogen or @literary_cherry said “there is a real genuine pressure to like Colleen Hoover books on this app, and I think part of that is to do with the fact that Colleen Hoover is herself on this app. But I genuinely think the main one is that people are so mean if you don’t like them, and I don’t want anyone to be mean to me but, like, I know for a fact that I have a review of ‘Ugly Love’ up where I said it was a four out of a five- I hated that book but I lied [be]cause I was scared.”

When we get down to the real bones of these trends it’s important to note that these developments are not solely about individual authors or books; they’re a broader commentary on the evolving landscape of literature and more broadly literature consumption.

The rapid dissemination of opinions through digital platforms, while invaluable for book sales and author visibility, poses a significant risk to the diversity of thought and critical engagement necessary for a vibrant literary culture.

As the digital age continues to shape our interactions with literature, it becomes increasingly vital to strike a balance between the accessibility and popularity of content and the preservation of independent critical thinking. And there’s no right answer on what we can do to safeguard space for diverse, thoughtful, and dissenting opinions to flourish. Maybe we stop engaging with short form content altogether. But would that be primitive and backwards? Maybe we should embrace it and accept the evolution of our thought process under these circumstances? But would that be rolling over and handing a way a part of ourselves?

Or is it even that deep? If only there were a stitched video and an active comments section to tell us how to think.

As the digital age continues to shape our interactions with literature, it becomes increasingly vital to strike a balance between the accessibility and popularity of content and the preservation of independent critical thinking. And there’s no right answer on what we can do to safeguard space for diverse, thoughtful, and dissenting opinions to flourish. Maybe we stop engaging with short form content altogether. But would that be primitive and backwards? Maybe we should embrace it and accept the evolution of our thought process under these circumstances? But would that be rolling over and handing a way a part of ourselves?

Or is it even that deep? If only there were a stitched video and an active comments section to tell us how to think. said “there is a real genuine pressure to like Colleen Hoover books on this app, and I think part of that is to do with the fact that Colleen Hoover is herself on this app. But I genuinely think the main one is that people are so mean if you don’t like them, and I don’t want anyone to be mean to me but, like, I know for a fact that I have a review of ‘Ugly Love’ up where I said it was a four out of a five- I hated that book but I lied [be] cause I was scared.”

When we get down to the real bones of these trends it’s important to note that these developments are not solely about individual authors or books; they’re a broader commentary on the evolving landscape of literature and more broadly literature consumption.

The rapid dissemination of opinions through digital platforms, while invaluable for book sales and author visibility, poses a significant risk to the diversity of thought and critical engagement necessary for a vibrant literary culture.

PHOTO by Jon Shireman

29

MUSIC

A Defen Stan Cu You Can’t Afford a Flat,

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aylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Olivia Rodrigo, K-pop and more.

If you are a young person, then you probably have someone in your life who considers themselves a ‘stan’ of a certain artist. Less than 10 years ago the idea that a significant portion of young adults worldwide would be fixated upon pop artists would have been weird. For a long time, this culture of obsession was associated only with pre-teen and teenage girls, which is one of the reasons it has received so little attention. Michael Jackson had a worldwide following the like of which has yet to be replicated to this day, but the intensity of online Stan communities have created a new culture in and of themselves.

A brief familiarity with ‘stans’ hardly needs me to recount their many, many flaws. Chances are you’re either someone who finds them inherently annoying, or you’re a ‘stan’ yourself - who gets defensive when people insult your interests. On a deeper level, however, we rarely consider the conditions that allowed for stan culture to arise, and how it has become enmeshed in the lives of young people in 2023.

As of August 2023, a survey from Eurostat has shown that 68% of adults in Ireland still live with their parents. We can see that the effects of living with your parents, the cost-of-living crisis, and the

precarious pre-recession economic crisis that we’re living through at the moment has stunted the lives of young people in Ireland.

People are moving out later, getting jobs later, getting married later, having kids later - all milestones of adulthood seem further and further out of reach for a majority of young people in Ireland today.

The psychological damage this situation is having on people is manifesting in many ways, one of which is a deep pain and anger at our childhood expectations of adult responsibility not being met. There is a feeling that we have missed out (exacerbated by the effects of the Covid-19 lockdowns), and we are looking for things that can fill that hole within us.

‘Stans’ create communities where they can bond over a shared interest, something so simple yet so difficult to find in the lonely world of adulthood.

Plus, there’s always the reassurance that even if you can’t afford an apartment, never mind a house, anywhere in Ireland without a high-paying job, people can at least enjoy splurging on concert tickets with their friends. What difference does it make in the wider scheme of things if you pay for expensive seats at your

nce of Culture But You Can Afford a Hobby

favourite artist’s live show? It’s a privilege certainly, but for the average person in their twenties, avoiding concerts won’t bring you much closer to financial security in today’s economy.

Part of the snobbery connected with stan culture is thinly reconstructed misogyny and homophobia. Artists with large fan bases of women and queer people contain some of the most intense communities of stan culture. The artists are demeaned for making low-brow, repetitive, soulless art, regardless of the artistic value of the music. When football and rugby fans travel across continents to see their favourite players no one bats an eye, it’s regarded as just another fact of life. But when women show the same dedication to music, it gets ridiculed. Allowing yourself to even ‘stan’ an artist requires at least some effort in unlearning internalised misogyny. Society has told women that their interests (music, art, reading, etc) are vapid for as long as we have been a marketable demographic and had our own interests.

I think we have reached a point where we need to start viewing stan culture for what it is, a cultural phenomenon. It did not pop into existence out of nowhere, and it hasn’t grown and thrived for no good reason. Stan culture is symptomatic of the malaise young adults around the world are suffering. We are still deeply

disconnected from each other, and we all feel like we are missing something within our psyche. So, stan culture offers an escape from that reality, an idea of safety, fun, freedom and youth from which we feel robbed.

So no, I will not cringe at the millennials who see themselves within Olivia Rodrigo’s music, I will not scoff at the people crying over not getting Taylor Swift tickets, I will not flinch at the people with white Ikea shelves dedicated to K-pop albums. In a world where everything seems to be falling apart, where the normal desires of young adults 15 years ago seem so incomprehensibly out of reach that it doesn’t matter anyway, I will not expend further fury at young people who have hobbies. Because that’s what it is, a hobby. Music is one of the most important creations in the history of mankind, finding community is natural. And, in a world so harsh and soul-destroying, we have much larger issues to tackle than this. Stan culture is valid.

WORDS & ART by Fleur Griffin

31

MUSIC

10 YEARS AFTER AM:

ARCTIC MONKEYS AND THEIR ‘HORRIBLE NEW SOUND’

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hile the Arctic Monkeys had experienced success in the UK since their debut, it was the energetic riffs and addictive rhythms of the band’s fifth album AM that pushed them towards worldwide success. It topped the charts in over a dozen countries and marked the band’s first significant breakthrough in the US. September 2023 saw the ten-year anniversary of this iconic album, and while the band has somewhat departed from its psychedelic rock sound with its orchestral new release The Car, the continued popularity of AM still proves the album’s everlasting appeal and ability to survive today’s music climate.

Arctic Monkeys formed in Sheffield in 2002, consisting of guitarist and vocalist Alex Turner, drummer Matt Helders, guitarist Jamie Cook and bassist Andy Nicholson, later replaced by Nick O’Malley.

Their energetic rock ‘n’ roll sound coupled with Turner’s fun and punchy lyric delivery led the band to become an instant success in the UK, with their debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not becoming the fastest-selling debut album in British music history. Later albums were just as well received as the band became a household name in the UK. Their third album Humbug saw an evolution of the band’s initial punk rock sound, as Turner’s rapidly delivered vocals became slower, and the band’s overall sound became darker and heavier. The band’s next album Suck it and See was similarly popular, however Turner felt that once the band began playing it live, it ‘exhausted itself quite quickly.’ This led the band to write their 2013 single ‘R U Mine?,’ and with its fresh new R&B inspired sound it became the band’s highest charting single since ‘Crying Lightning’ from their second album Favourite Worst Nightmare. As a result, ‘R U Mine?’ evolved into the band’s biggest and most ambitious release yet, AM. Turner had become dissatisfied with the limitations the band created for itself in the making of their previous music, saying, ‘We used to go into the studio with the stage in the back of our mind. Like, “We’re this rock ’n’ roll band, and we’ve got these certain ceilings and parameters that we impose on ourselves.” But this is the first time we’ve decided, “Let’s just make something that we haven’t made before.”’ AM marked this pivotal change in direction and saw new sounds that the band had never experimented with previously. They drew influences from genres like R&B and Hip-Hop and music legends such as Black Sabbath, Outkast, Aaliyah, and Michael Chapman. In the creation of the band’s most iconic song ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ Turner stated that the idea behind the track was to ‘take the compositional perspective of an R&B producer and apply that to a four-piece rock ‘n’ roll band.’ The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was also a significant inspiration for the album, with guitarist Jamie Cook saying that it was one of the only albums they listened to while recording AM. Turner’s spellbinding lyricism poetically captures universal themes of love, longing and heartbreak, citing inspirations such as Lil Wayne and Drake.

Keyboard instruments were utilised more and more in the album, hinting at the band’s piano-driven future. The album was success-

ful in the UK, with the crowd chanting back ‘Do I Wanna Know?’s iconic riff during the band’s performance at Glastonbury only a week after the song’s release. Most significantly, AM marked the first time the band reached the top ten in the Billboard Charts, proving it to be their first significant breakthrough in the US. While the album faced mainstream success, AM became more than its music, evolving into a cultural identity for young people.

The Arctic Monkeys were one of the first ‘internet bands,’ building a community on Myspace in the early 2000s, and then exploding in popularity on Tumblr in the mid 2010s after the release of AM. Tumblr is a blogging site which became a home for youth culture and fan communities, transforming the way people were discovering new media. Alternative and Indie artists such as Lana Del Rey, The 1975 and The Neighbourhood were particularly popular on the platform, and along with the Arctic Monkeys, became staples of a new indie and soft grunge subculture that was developing among young people using the site. The minimalist sound wave album cover became part of an aesthetic, posted alongside black and white pictures of Doc Martens, fishnet tights and alternative song lyrics.

As other platforms became more mainstream and user friendly, Tumblr decreased in popularity. However, especially as these bands are making comebacks and moving away from their older music, this aesthetic has somewhat resurfaced on TikTok and Instagram with ex-users nostalgic for their 2014 sounds.

The Arctic Monkeys have transformed over the course of their seven albums, aesthetically and sonically, however the most prominent development has been their change from the psychedelic rock AM to the completely piano-driven Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. Five years after the release of AM, the band came back with a concept album that took their music in a completely new direction. Inspired

by Sci-Fi, 1960s film soundtracks and Jazz, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino was polarising for the band’s fans, with many criticising the ‘horrible new sound,’ which Turner reflects on in their newest album, The Car. The Car continued the band’s exploration of this new orchestral influence, with songs like ‘Sculptures of Anything Goes’ seeing an almost complete departure from their initial sound, leaving fans nostalgic for the familiarity of AM. Since its release in 2013, AM still remains the Arctic Monkeys’ most popular album, with its songs frequently taking up more of the band’s concert setlists than The Car and Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino put together. This album saw the band’s discovery of how to appeal to both casual listeners while staying familiar to their fandom. While they could have decided to stick to this foolproof formula in their new releases, they chose to continue their tendency since their debut to evolve and change their sound. And what is more true to the Arctic Monkeys than unapologetic exploration of what they can create through their music?

WORDS by Kate Glynn

33

FILM

In Defence of Twilight.

Lara Monahan explores why our favourite vampire fantasy shouldn’t just be a guilty pleasure.

I

t’s that time of year again. The trees have turned the burnt orange of Bella Swan’s pickup truck, the evenings seem to be tinted blue and everything I do seems to be scored to the first “oah oah oah oah oahhh”s of Blue Foundation’s ‘Eyes on Fire’. It is officially Twilight season.

Twilight has long held the status of a guilty pleasure film; whether the subject of mockery is the scattered non sequiturs in the dialogue or the sheer volume of Robert Pattinson’s quiff, derision for the film and its sequels runs deep. The contemptuous response to Twilight, however, was nothing compared to the supportive fan response. Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock - or in a secluded town like Forks - has heard of it, either the book or the film, and the fandom of ‘Twihards’ is one to be reckoned with. A film that prompted such strong opinions, both negative and positive, can’t just be dismissed as a guilty pleasure, and in fact, I’d argue that Twilight’s direction, cinematography and soundtrack are just a few of the reasons why it should come off of your guilty pleasure list, and be promoted to one of your favourites on Letterboxd.

Catherine Hardwicke’s direction should be one of the most obvious reasons to rid yourself of any guilt while watching Twilight. The atmospheric blue filter which she casts over the film serves many purposes: like a vampire, the filter drains the blood and warmth from the screen, making everyone’s skin seem even more ‘pale white and ice cold’, to quote Miss Swan herself. This means that when we do see a flash of blood, or a colour-changing iris, for example, it stands out all the more. This blue-green filter lets us look at the world through the eyes of a vampire, as the visual emphasis is put on the rare warm colours; we as viewers are visually attracted to them, like they are our

‘own personal brand of heroin’. The warm colours that are included become signifiers: whether it be the earthy tones of the interiors of Charlie Swan’s house, Jessica’s pink costumes, or the red of that one ketchup bottle, these warm colours begin to represent the grounded, pre-vampire-romance life that Bella could have had. Or perhaps the blue lens through which we see the world of Forks, Washington is representative of how first love in its strange, enchanting quality can cast the world in a whole new light.

However you interpret it, Hardwicke’s choices here speak of her incisive cinematography, and if that isn’t enough to get you proudly streaming the film, Alexandra Patsavas’ curation of the Twilight soundtrack will be.

The music used in the film has a real identity, expressing all the rebellion and romance central to the narrative. The decision to feature contrasting musical genres in the soundtrack serves one of the biggest thematic concerns of the story: the fine line between pain and pleasure. Much like Edward in the final scene, the soundtrack begins by threatening to bite with angsty rock anthems like Linkin Park’s ‘Leave Out All The Rest’, before kissing us sweetly on the neck with the gentle folk of Iron and Wine’s ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’. Many of the artists featured feel so representative of the time period of the film’s release; Paramore, who have three songs on the soundtrack, burst onto the scene in 2005 and had reached serious acclaim by Twilight’s 2008 release, and Muse’s most successful single in the UK, ‘Supermassive Black Hole’, which is often recognised as the music scoring Twilight’s iconic baseball scene, had been released in 2006. Watching the film all these years later, the soundtrack adds to a nostalgia for the late noughties. Even the temporality of the songs serves the narrative; the soundtrack reminds us of the intense love affair that the youthful 2010s had with alternative rock.

So what is up with the contempt for Twilight? There is plenty of justified criticism of the film, but the wide-ranging problem with it seems to be that it portrays the angst and desire of teenage romance from the perspective of a female protagonist. Yes, the relationship portrayed sets a scary standard for romance: Bella literally sacrifices body and soul for a codependent, uncommunicative relationship which separates her from her family and actually ends up hospitalising her. But isn’t it important that we watch films that open up conversations about what an unhealthy relationship looks like? The assumption that people watch Twilight and take it at face value feels like an underestimation of the audience’s critical thinking skills. Of course, I’m not suggesting that Twilight is a trailblazing feminist narrative - Kristen Stewart plays a challenging role in portraying an often two-dimensional main character whose dialogue is limited at best and completely nonsensical at worst. However, the film adaptation of the story is beautifully crafted by women, and largely for women. Catherine Hardwicke’s unconventional path to filmmaking is particularly inspiring, and alongside the aforementioned Alexandra Patsavas as music supervisor and Melissa Rosenberg adapting the novel for the film, lots of women were at the creative helm. The fanbase that emerged from it was decidedly feminine, and unashamed in celebrating their joy for the film; at one point in time, asking whether you were Team Edward or Team Jacob was a question just as reasonable as asking someone’s name. I suspect a great deal of the criticism levelled at Twilight which might have asserted it as a guilty pleasure was actually due to the film serving the interests of feminine desire, and being embraced and enjoyed by so many women.

If none of this has convinced you of the filmic merits of Twilight, then perhaps one thing that we can agree on is its cultural significance.

The film adaptation further popularised an already bestselling book, contributing to a huge demand in 2010s pop culture for supernatural romance - think The Vampire Diaries (2010), or Warm Bodies (2013).

The appetite for the star-crossed romance story became a bloodlust with the success of the supernatural romances, prompting the arrival of a spate of dystopian romance adaptations like The Hunger Games (2012) and Divergent (2014). And Twilight’s cultural impact lives on; in fact, I’m anticipating a Twilight revival. Ballet pumps are back in, people are wearing long sleeve tops under t-shirts; it is only a matter of time before you unironically pull out your Team Edward keep cup.

And even if the 2010s were only vampirically lingering by the door before, Olivia Rodrigo has invited them into the house with her 2023 release ‘vampire’.

As the November mist creeps in, and you find yourself greeting winter with a ‘where the hell have you been, loca?’, maybe consider a rewatch of everyone’s favourite supernatural romance. You might even find a community in it: The Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield runs a Twilight marathon, and a Cinema Book Club where you can read the book, watch the film and discuss the adaptation afterwards. And hey, even if I haven’t convinced you of the importance of Twilight, I’m doing away with the whole guilty pleasure concept. If entertainment isn’t enough reason to proudly enjoy something then I don’t know what is.

WORDS by Lara Monahan

35

FILM

The Letterboxd Sensation A social media site dedicated to film

“Letterbox? That’s where you show the movies that you’re loving? Is there a dating aspect to it?”

T

hese are the words of esteemed director Sofia Coppola, but could be mistaken for those of any poor unsuspecting Trinity student who is about to be subject to an earful from someone who takes the business of watching movies far too seriously. Alongside the birth of mainstream social media websites like Facebook and Instagram, more niche sites devoted to specific interests have also sprouted up in recent years. Goodreads and Letterboxd, dedicated to reviewing books and films respectively, stand out in particular.

Goodreads has been a staple of any self-respecting reader since about 2014, but Letterboxd is a space which has seen a particular explosion in usership in the past couple of years. 2020 and the experience of the pandemic birthed many a casual cinephile, but also apparently unleashed the compulsion to share said film consumption with those close enough to us to care.

Created in 2011, Letterboxd at first remained an obscure website used only among the most die-hard of film fanatics to log their cinematic activity. Today it boasts a usership of more than 10 million people.

Its various features make it a fun tool to complement one’s moviewatching: you can rate each film you watch out of five stars, write your own review, and compile your own lists of films based on whatever vibe you’re going for. As for the social aspect - while it has yet to develop the dating element Coppola envisages, you can follow other users, observe their film consumption, and like their reviews.

Reviews with the most likes show up at the top of each film’s page; pithy one-liners tend to do the best numbers, much to the chagrin of the more self-serious filmbros. It is a very unserious endeavour - the top comment on The Godfather is about the scene which references it in Disney’s Zootropolis. There is a space at the top of everyone’s profile to display your four favourite films of all time - a weighty decision that requires much consideration, but also makes the impossible question (often casually thrown about in conversation by philistines as if it means NOTHING) easier to prepare for.

The Letterboxd Top Four has become such a thing that the likes of Viola Davis, Matt Damon, and Jennifer Lawrence have been asked about theirs on the red carpet. The presence of Letterboxd representatives at nearly every red carpet event is testament to how much the platform has grown and how significant it has become among the film community. Although this influence has regrettably not reached Sofia Coppola, other respected directors have recognised

the platform and have gone so far as to endorse it - Barbie director Greta Gerwig did an interview with the site, while its star Margot Robbie made a list of films she watched to get into character (this included The Truman Show, mermaid rom-com Splash and the 1967 French musical comedy The Young Girls at Rochefort). After being discovered by the masses, Robbie deleted her Letterboxd account, but not before we were able to find other lists she had compiled for various roles, such as the one for 2022 box-office flop Babylon.

Lists are by no means the most popular, relevant, or coveted feature of Letterboxd. If not the famed Top Four, this might be the option (unlocked by paying for Letterboxd Pro) to change the posters of each film and how they appear on your profile. But for most of its users, it’s not that serious. It’s just a fun way to share with your friends which movies you have watched recently and what you thought of them.

Or really, a way to document it for yourself, like a diary. Because it is still cringey to bring up in conversation, most of us do not follow our friends on it. Rather than sites like Facebook and Instagram where it is encouraged you follow everyone you have ever met, Letterboxd and its cousin Goodreads require a deeper level of intimacy before one can broach the prospect of connecting on these hallowed platforms, which arguably require much more vulnerability than mainstream social media sites. The books and films you engage with, as well as your opinions about them, reveal a significant amount about you as a person, and it can be easier to keep these guarded rather than divulge such passions in a world where doing so can be seen as embarrassing.

There are different categories of Letterboxd users: notorious filmbros (write eight-hundred-word reviews which no one will read), people who like films a bit more than normal (mostly write brief witticisms, but nearly always change the film posters of their Top Four to the most aesthetically pleasing ones) and those who, like me, are a bit obsessive about everything in their life and use the site as one of many tools to document their existence on earth (log movies watched, rate them out of five stars, sometimes write a one-line review if feeling brave).

While more and more of the Hollywood elite are acknowledging Letterboxd’s existence, actual celebrity users remain rare; although, this October, Martin Scorsese famously joined their ranks - a big win for bros and mere enthusiasts alike. Much like himself, his bio is short and sweet, and references the meme a quote of his has inspired:

“This is cinema.”

Let us have the courage to unabashedly do the same - to shamelessly share our likes and dislikes, to relentlessly record every take no matter how lukewarm or trivial, to stand up and say of our favourite film, without a hint of irony that such a situation normally necessitates: “This is cinema.”

WORDS by Rosie O’Mara

37

FOOD & DRINK

Gelatin is in!

WORDS by Helena Gelman

I

f you have a negative opinion on gelatin, and in my experience many people do, it is most likely an intellectualization of visceral disgust. Jelly, or jello – if like me, you are inclined to vulgar brand-name Americanisms– is less likely to provoke horror than knowledge of its active ingredient. However, it still suffers malignant association with hospital cafeterias and ‘50s suburbia.

I personally adore gelatin. Luxuriating in a quavering mouthful of bavarian cream or headcheese (cured pork bound in aspic served with brown mustard and rye bread), I am thankful for having never been forcefed jellied cranberry sauce or gefilte fish as a child (not to mention anything like Under-the-sea salad). I am also thankful to find myself able to consider the fact that gelatin is made of hydrolyzed collagen extracted from animal tissue interesting rather than disgusting. I have never been a squeamish person, or seriously considered vegetarianism except as an act of ecoconsciousness. If I can accept consuming animal muscle tissue and to understand it as such (e.g. that guanciale is a cheek cut off a pig’s face and salted) rather than an innate substance, then to consider something derived from an animal’s connective tissue ‘disgusting’ is irrational.

Gelatin-set desserts, on the tables of the well-off for hundreds of years, have what the Cambridge Companion to Sweets and Desserts calls ‘drama.’ Jello (properly ‘Jell-o’) was invented to keep the drama in the presentation but out of the preparation— Laura Shapiro in Newsweek in 1997 called it “tradition in the shape of novelty, elegance in the shape of efficiency.”

The year that article was published, the centenary of the product’s release, more than 1 million boxes of the stuff were sold to Americans every day. It has managed even to gain a foothold in the underage drinker market – a 2011 study published in Substance Use and Misuse found that Jello shot consumption in adolescents belied ‘higher-risk drinking behaviour.’ Jello seems to me symptomatic of our national cult of childhood and convenience. It is also reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell or Wayne Thiebaud milieu that almost no one I know, myself included, has experienced.

Shouldn’t it be something like chicken nuggets or boxed mac & cheese that one grows out of?

Still, without the citric acid or Red #5, wobbly desserts are elegant– it’s no coincidence that panna cotta is on every aspirational Italian restaurant’s menu.

Admittedly this creates room for errors in judgement, like believing a set cheesecake is equivalent to or better than a baked cheesecake. See photo below of my mother on her 18th birthday, wearing periodappropriate shoulder pads and looking very excited about her gelatin-set birthday cake.

My grandmother no longer makes this cheesecake; these days Bon Appetit is more likely to publish a recipe for the Basque variety than for one with a graham-cracker crust. Still, that is just to say that fashion dictates taste as much as anything, and while I know that not everyone can enjoy gelatin, sweet or savoury, I hope you can come to understand it as not inherently repulsive.

‘Childish’ Raspberry-Lemon-Lime Jello Serves 4

There is no way to make instant desserts taste or look non-artificial: that is not the point. I would not want to eat packet jelly every day, or even every week, but sometimes it is nice to eat something so blatantly and unashamedly unnatural.

Ingredients ½ packet of Raspberry Jello ½ packet of Lime Jello (the photo makes this quantity look insufficient; not all of it made it into the glasses) Juice of 1 lemon

Preparation Make up the Raspberry Jello according to the packet (half boiling water until dissolved, then half cold water), substituting the lemon juice for some of the water. Measured by volume, a nice non-rubbery set is a ratio of 1:4 powder to liquid.

Let it set it firm up for 1-2 hours, then make up the Lime Jello and carefully pour over.

Leave to set for 3 hours or more before serving.

Of course you need not seek out Jell-O™, only it seemed appropriate for the article, but any instant gelatine dessert will do. To really embrace the spirit of this exercise I would suggest suspending canned fruit, perhaps mandarin segments, in the mixture. Be careful to add them only after it has thickened slightly lest the fruit sink to the bottom. And why stop with two flavours? You can always add more layers as long as you leave them enough time to firm up before pouring on the next one, and adorn with whipped cream, cold custard, fruit (fresh, canned, as sauce), or (shudder) Cool Whip.

39

‘Elegant’ Panna Cotta

Serves 4 Adapted from Rachel Roddy and Katie Parla

with Berry Coulis

Ingredients For the Panna Cotta 400 mls single cream– if you only have double cream, cut it with half whole milk Lemon zest Vanilla bean or a very very small dash of extract 90 gms/ ~6 tbsp caster sugar 3 leaves/sheets of gelatin 100 mls double/whipping cream (optional– if you want a classically smooth rather than slightly mousse-y texture, simply heat this with the single cream) For the Coulis 150g red fruit of your choice– I used a mixture of frozen raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, and sour cherries. Can be either fresh or frozen.

Juice of ½ a lemon 30 gms/ ~2 tbsp caster sugar or 1 tbsp caster sugar and 1 tbsp raspberry jam

Preparation Heat the single cream with the lemon zest and vanilla to just below boiling point. Turn off the heat.

In the meantime, soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for 5 minutes until very floppy.

Strain the cream mixture to remove the lemon zest, put back on very low heat and add the sugar to dissolve. Add the gelatin and stir smooth, then add the vanilla extract if using.

Leave to cool for an hour or until slightly thickened.

Whip the double cream (if using) and fold into the mixture.

Pour into glasses and refrigerate 4-6 hours until set.

Make the sauce by combining the ingredients over medium heat until the fruit is softened and its liquid shiny and slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.

You can sieve the sauce for a coulis rather than a compote.

Turn out the panna cottas and dress with the sauce (which must be cool or it will melt the cream) to serve. Alternately serve in their glasses with the fruit on top.

Note: to turn out your desserts you must lightly oil the ramekins or moulds in which you are making them. When ready to serve, place for a few minutes in warm water to slightly melt the outside, break the seal by running a knife around the edge, and turn them out.

41

FOOD & DRINK

Feeding My self Kind ly

N.B: this article discusses dieting, weight gain and loss, and body image.

F

ood has always been one of the biggest parts of my life. I’ve always been aware of what’s healthy to eat and what’s not because my dad is a researcher studying sugar and diabetes and my mom is also very health-aware. They raised my sister and I on ‘making healthy choices for your body’ and ‘limiting the amount of sugar you eat in a day’. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and I’ve always seen my city as a place that nurtures the diversity and deliciousness of food. LA is also a place of alternative diets. Everyone drinks oat milk, or is vegan, or does intermittent fasting – everyone does something. My mom participates in this culture, going on a juice cleanse or not eating gluten for a week, to ‘clear the toxins from [her] body.’ While I did grow up in a very body positive environment, I was always conscious of my parents’ reactions when I asked to get a special coffee, or to buy the spicy tortilla chips from Trader Joes, or to have a piece of cake I had baked.

I first noticed a change in how I saw my own body when I tried on one of my favourite dresses getting ready for a party. I had worn the dress a few months before and it fit perfectly, but now the first thing I thought was ‘I’m not skinny enough to wear this.’ I wore the dress anyway and didn’t think about it for a while. Throughout the year I noticed the fact of my weight and body more. I always bloat after eating and have usually been fine with it, but I started to feel uncomfortable looking at my torso. I would sit with my partner in bed, watching movies in our underwear, and see the skin on my stomach scrunch up in a way that was so foreign to me that I had to cover it up with a baggy t-shirt. I confessed to my partner that I

had been feeling insecure about my body, but he reassured me that I was perfect and he would always love me anyway.

Still, coming home for the summer with this newfound insecurity, I turned to my mother and her diet books for advice. While I never entirely trusted these books, I still wanted to do something to change my body. What was most noticeable about my experience dieting is that I never felt quite full. However, it was not uncomfortable; the absence of certain foods took away my bloatedness, my lethargy. It was a certain emptiness that made me feel strong. Exercising more often than I usually do made me feel stronger. I did want to be more in control of what my body looks like, but I felt guilty reconciling my allegiance to body positivity with this desire.

The plethora of information from the internet and my parents was overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do with it, but I also knew that not all of it would be true for me. Apps that track the miles I run also tell me how many calories I burned in a given session.

This confused me, because how does the app know? It doesn’t know what my body looks like, or how much I actually ran or if I walked instead, or what the terrain looked like. It was trying to give me an arbitrary number, an invisible subtraction, to make me feel like I had achieved something. When my real achievement was that I ran twenty minutes without collapsing!

I felt confused when dealing with all the conflicting information about how and what to eat in order to be ‘healthy.’ I saw TikTok

of vegan chefs cooking only with vegetables and tofu. I saw more videos of ‘quick and easy student meals’ involving infinite variations on instant ramen. I also saw plenty of videos against any type of diet culture. One woman depicted my exact dilemma: her jeans don’t fit her anymore, so does she diet so they fit her again?

Or does she buy a new pair of jeans that fit and move on? She chose the second option, and I eventually decided to adjust my wardrobe a bit as well. Yet still I hear my mother, whose opinion I have always trusted when making hard decisions, who told me I should choose the first option in order to feel better. That I now had to regulate what I eat in order to keep the way my body looks shook me. I had never had to think about my weight this much before.

The other truth is that I never felt unhealthy when I was gaining weight. I always tried my best to eat lots of vegetables and make good meals for myself. But truthfully, the only reason I even gained weight was that this was my first year consistently taking hormonal birth control pills. My college work and filmmaking projects were causing me intense stress. I had also entered a serious relationship.

Nights spent with my partner sharing wine and snacks or big meals I cooked for us, full of butter and love, are some of my best memories of the year. Gaining weight in a relationship is a very real thing*, and cooking for two meant that I was also eating more consistently than when I was single. Weight gained with a partner is happiness. It is abundance and warmth and kindness, two full bellies connected through hands intertwined.

Food has always been one of my greatest joys of life. I have been cooking since I was little, and I give the people around me, including myself, love through the smell of onion and garlic cooking in olive oil. I do it because flavour is art, that nourishment is transcendent and beautiful. I love eating and I love being adventurous. I love boba and pad see ew and spice bags and oat iced lattes and whiskey sours and vodka pasta and carnitas tacos and spicy tuna sushi and oysters and udon. I wish to cook Hanukkah feasts of brisket and latkes. I wish to drink fruity cocktails with my friends every weekend. I wish to make myself steaming bowls of rice and succulent curry every winter. While I chose not to follow any predetermined diet ideology, my reflections on this experience helped me to accept that my body changing is not the end of the world. I can adapt to live in harmony with the physical form I’ve been given, eating and moving in a way that is kind to both my body and my soul.

*Angela Haupt, “Relationship weight gain is real – and can be a sign of happiness,” The Washington Post, August 9th 2022.

WORDS By Coco Goran

ART by Kate Moloney

43

FOOD & DRINK

Shaku Maku review

Palestinian restaurant brings flavours of the Middle East to Rathmines WORDS by Ella Sloane

“The mainstream media has attempted to dehumanise the people of Palestine.

You’ll often hear rhetoric like referring to the west as ‘the civilised world’ as if we are somehow less civilised. Our culture is as old as time. This event was to remind people of our rich heritage and culture”

S

haku Maku: the Iraqi Arabic way of saying “What’s the craic?” and the name of one of the newest Middle Eastern restaurants to grace the streets of Dublin. Situated in the heart of Rathmines, Shaku Maku opened its doors early last year and has since firmly established its place on the city’s culinary map. The diner is one of a series of successful businesses owned

by Adnan Shabab, a Palestinian man who moved to Ireland with a dream over two decades ago.

Speaking to a member of the team about the inspiration behind the restaurant, I was told that Shaku Maku was created as a celebration of Middle Eastern hospitality: “Anyone who has dined with Arabs knows that hospitality is ingrained in our culture.” Wanting to have this experience, I went to check the place out for myself at the weekend.

Walking down Rathmines Road with dining partner in tow, stomachs rumbling, we were soon met with the restaurant’s eye-catching new mural, created by artist and political activist Emmalene Blake. The mural portrays a black and white image of a smiling child wearing a keffiyeh (traditional patterned head garment) contrasting with the vibrant Palestinian flag in the background. It had been freshly painted the day before, in honour of the thousands of children who have lost their lives in the continuing bombardment of Gaza. After stopping to admire the art, we stepped into the warm interior of the restaurant, already bustling with customers.

Upon entering Shaku Maku, you’re immediately greeted by its unique decor. Colourful vintage posters with Arabic calligraphy adorn the restaurant’s walls, depicting iconic Middle Eastern

cultural figures such as singers Asmahan and Umm Kalthoum.

We were lucky enough to get a front row seat to the action, in full view of the restaurant’s open kitchen.

We were truly spoiled for choice with the menu, which is entirely Halal and also offers good vegetarian and glutenfree options. For starters we ordered some hummus and lamb kibbeh, recommended to us by our Lebanese flatmate (shoutout Mohamed). The hummus was silky smooth and the lamb kibbeh, stuffed with a flavourful blend of spices, onions, walnuts and minced lamb, was delicious paired with its accompanying mint yoghurt dip.

For mains, I went for the beef moussaka, whilst my friend opted for the Lebanese grilled chicken. Served in a griddle pan, the beef moussaka was a super-filling melange of minced beef, aubergines, and potatoes in a rich tomato sauce – all topped with a generous coating of bechamel sauce and cheese. I tasted the other main course as well, and let me tell you I have never had chicken thighs so tender. The succulent grilled meat had been marinated in lemon, garlic, rosemary and other herbs.

At this point we were already stuffed but we couldn’t leave without trying some of the authentic Middle Eastern desserts on offer. I ordered a mint tea and knafeh, which consists of a warm gooey cheese filling sweetened with rose water syrup, encased in a golden sugary string pastry known as kataifi, and topped with chopped pistachios. My companion went for the Lebanese rice pudding, similarly infused with rose water, vanilla and topped with pistachios.

Overall, the dining experience in Shaku Maku was unlike any other we’ve had in Dublin. The food was so delicious; we couldn’t stop ourselves from clearing our plates despite the generous portions. The staff were friendly and I even spotted the owner, Adnan, recommending some desserts to some other newcomers at the table next to ours. A unique feature of Shaku Maku is the Shisha lounge which can be found tucked further into the restaurant. This is a place where guests can unwind after eating, enjoy some drinks from the bar and smoke Shisha, which is offered in “a wide array of flavours”.

Shaku Maku recently organised a “Plates for Palestine” event on October 26, feeding and entertaining the masses in aid of Palestine Red Crescent who are currently working to provide food, shelter and urgent medical aid to those in need in Gaza.

They raised €7,400 in proceeds. “The mainstream media has attempted to dehumanise the people of Palestine. You’ll often hear rhetoric like referring to the west as ‘the civilised world’ as if we are somehow less civilised. Our culture is as old as time. This event was to remind people of our rich heritage and culture”, explains the restaurant’s representative, adding that “we’re so grateful to the Irish people for their support.”

For people interested in learning more about Palestinian food, culture, and history, the staff at Shaku Maku have three book recommendations: ‘Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen’ by Joudie Kalla ‘The Question of Palestine’ by Edward Said ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’ by Israeli historian Ilan Pappé.

45

SEX & RELATIONSHIPS

latcest F

Cringe or Canon Event?

I

t’s one of the 10 commandments of university living : Thou shall not copulate with your flatmate.

daunting- and don’t we know it can be at times - this also means that any potential flatmate flame will love you for the real you, no matter how many gross cereal bowls you may leave in the sink.

Why would that be? You don’t have to search for long to find out why you may want to avoid the perils of getting involved with the person literally next door. It can complicate things with other flatmates, create a dreaded and unavoidable awkwardness if things turn sour, or lead to a co-dependant and strained relationship.

These are just a few situations you should consider before getting involved in the intricacies of flatcest. But - can you really help who you’re attracted to at the end of the day?

After all, flatmate flings can turn into the most solid and caring relationships of your life, so don’t be scared to shoot your shot!

Light some candles, put on some music and make sure to close the curtains - the last thing you’d want is for the whole courtyard to see just how close you and your flatmate are getting.

Shared university living can be difficult for many reasons, but one of the toughest dilemmas freshers face when they first move in can - funnily enough - come in the form of being faced with the person of their dreams.

Living with your crush brings an entirely new perspective to the relationship - you get to spend more time together, and consequently get the chance to know each other on a much more intimate level. Basically, this whole situation puts your relationship into fast-forward, which can definitely be a great thing. Flatmate romances can totally work; there are so many stories of people who met as soon as they stepped into Halls, fell in love and still walk blissfully through the corridors of the Arts Block today, hand in hand, looking sweet and in love.

Another useful advantage is that getting with your flatmate is so much easier than getting with someone outside of your inner circle. Just think about it: you won’t have to sneak them home to campus after a night out and hide them from the security guard at Front Gate, nor worry about the awkward introduction to the other flatmates in the morning. Not only this - I would even go as far as saying that fancying your flatmate can unite the rest of the flat in a common mission. After all, nothing bonds a group quite as much as a shared determination to help a member in their quest for love, and the gossip sessions stemming from flat friendships-withbenefits will certainly break the ice between you all!

Moreover, we all know that it is impossible to hide the messiest parts of yourself when you’re living with 4 or 5 other people and sharing a kitchen and bathroom with them all. While it may sound

Having said all this, it would be foolish not to warn against the reverse side of fancying your flatmate.

First of all, “complicated” would be an extreme understatement when describing the process of navigating a potential break-up within a flat.

If things don’t work out, you want to be careful not to overburden your flatmates with the downsides of your flat-ship. It can be indeed energy-draining - and sometimes unfair - to have them all choose sides between you and your crush.

To avoid unpleasant situations like this, a key question to ponder in advance is if you really fancy the person in question, or if the proximity is playing tricks on your mind. Is getting with a flatmate once or twice worth running the risk of causing a major flat fallout?

Not to mention that you might have to get ready for the day that they will bring back someone else to the apartment, which can put you in a truly heartbreaking position.

Feelings can arise unexpectedly and be so difficult to figure out, especially when you’re seeing someone every single day. In this case, sometimes a little bit of space can be crucial in figuring out whether or not you’re ready to make your move on your new neighbour. Go home for the weekend if you can, spend some time with your friends, get however many KC Peaches coffees your heart desires until you feel clear-headed enough to make a judgement call on what is best for you. If that call is to pour your heart out to the person in question and come clean about your adoration, then everyone who loves and supports you will be behind you 100%.

In the end, college is all about exploring who you are and who you like, and flatmate relationships can be a really important part of that.

And don’t forget - nothing in this world ever happens by accident!

If a gorgeous human being just lands in your flat and cosily nestles

their cans next to yours in the fridge, you can absolutely take that as a sign to be brave and see what happens. Regretting not taking your chance with someone is one of the worst feelings you could possibly overwhelm yourself with, so try not to let the nerves get to you.

Be confident that whatever happens, it won’t be that big of a deal since you have your whole hot-girl college career ahead of you - if nothing else, it’s good for the plot!

feel bad about getting with or fancying your flatmate. Like we said before, you can’t help who you’re attracted to. Being honest about your feelings and going for what you want is something courageous and to be admired, so even if things don’t go the way you planned, don’t deep it too much and trust that you will get through it. Besides, there’s always next year and a whole new pool of fit flatmates to look forward to…

It’s fundamental to bear this in mind: do not let anyone make you

WORDS by Annie Neill

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ALT.

Get Ovariet A look into the universal acceptance of female pain.

WORDS by Kate Ryan

“It falls upon women to bear the pain of contraception, whether that is the short-term stabbing pain of an IUD insertion or the longterm melancholia that many will experience while taking a contraceptive pill”

W

ith confusion and much dismay, I often recall a particular morning assembly in my first year of secondary school.

It was around November or December of 2015. Once a week, our entire year group had a roll call together. Approximately seventy thirteen-year-old girls flocked into a classroom for the 9 a.m congregation, which involved the exchange of important information, complaints or news between staff members and students. On some occasions, it involved our year group being reprimanded by the teachers for misbehaviour. The sombre winter exterior as well as the unnerving uncertainties about our first-ever set of Christmas exams seemed to parallel the mood of this specific assembly. We were all in for a scolding and the issue on the agenda was school absences.

The teacher co-ordinating the assembly began criticising a trend of absenteeism permeating the year group. More specifically, she resented the inadequate reasoning for our playing truant, ‘Coughs…head colds… oh and my favourite, period pains. Come on, girls’ At the time, I did not think much of the exchange, although the memory remains with me eight years on. If anything, I probably agreed with her. At this age, periods were still somewhat of a sensitive subject among most of my peers and I. Not everyone had theirs and most people that did were too sheepish to discuss them. Moreover, it was generally not until two or three years later that many began experiencing problems with their menstrual cycle. At the age of thirteen, it was just a monthly inconvenience that you (maybe) told your mum about.

Two and a half years later, I found myself sitting in a doctor’s office tearfully explaining my teenage angst. For several months, I had been incurring two or three-week-long episodes of anxiety and distress.

Although tender, the practitioner seemed unphased at the site of a fifteen-year-old girl revealing that she experiences mood swings.

‘Pre-menstrual syndrome is experienced by almost every woman in some form. It’s nothing to be too concerned about unless it becomes much worse. Like everything else, the best thing that you can do is to look after yourself, eat well, you know yourself. I will have your blood tested if it gives you any more peace of mind.’

I left the office that day with little peace of mind at all. I do what I can to ‘look after myself ’ and five years later I still regularly experience one to three week-long episodes of low mood linked to my cycle.

Minor research on the HSE website informed me that PMS covered the wide range of symptoms that women experience during the lead-

up to their periods, both physical and emotional. As I have matured and shed any shame around talking about periods with friends, I have found that far more often than not, they too experience days or weeks of intense physical pain and perturbing emotions before and during their period. Shared anger at the expectation that women should just get on with this is a frequent theme of such discussions. Not only is this pain accepted, but complaining about it carries a burden. The naturalness of the pain renders it somewhat illegitimate. Like many others, I am guilty of contributing to this narrative, frequently adding the caveat of, ‘it’s probably just my period though when speaking of my monthly bother. The timeliness of this cycle means that it will eventually end, however, it inevitably starts back again after several weeks. Throwing contraception into the mix can create a hormonal cocktail characterised by rapid volatility.

Female pain is expected, accepted and often undermined. Serial Productions and The New York Times highlighted an extreme case of this in their most recent six-part podcast special, ‘The Retrievals.’

The five-part series, produced by Susan Burton and Laura Starecheski, takes a deep dive into the 2020 Yale Fertility Scandal. A nurse at the Yale Fertility Centre in Connecticut pled guilty to swapping out the fentanyl used as a painkiller for egg retrieval procedures with saline solution to fuel her drug habits, for several months. This resulted in dozens of women experiencing antagonising pain while undergoing egg retrieval procedures, which entail a needle being guided through the vagina and into the follicles.

Seven women who fell victim to the unfortunate situation spoke of their experiences. A common theme from their accounts was the feeling of being dismissed by medical professionals. Most participants told the doctors about the unexpected and appalling discomfort that they felt, but for months their thoughts were largely dismissed. One woman even recalled her doctor expressing annoyance at her complaints. Most felt as though their bodies must have been the issue. They concluded that they perhaps were immune to the effects of fentanyl. The true cause of this pain was revealed somewhat by chance when an open bottle of fentanyl was noticed by a staff member at the clinic. Persistent expressions of suffering made by women had not warranted any kind of investigation.

When the truth was revealed to the participants in a letter from Yale, they were assured that they had, ‘“no reason to believe that this event has had any negative effect on your health or the outcome of the care that you received. The statement felt belittling and tone-deaf, completely disregarding the physical pain and consequential emotional turmoil that the patients had endured. Most women who underwent the procedure succeeded in their goal of getting pregnant but their pregnancy was inextricably tied to and tainted by the harrowing pain of the egg retrieval. Yale’s letter acknowledged the incident as unfortunate, but ultimately trivial.

This dismissive nature is a testament to the attitude shown towards female pain on a grander scale. Months are characterised by a 28-day cycle of restraint and release. It falls upon women to bear the pain of

contraception, whether that is the short-term stabbing pain of an IUD insertion or the long-term melancholia that many will experience while taking a contraceptive pill. Society is not constructed to cater for a cycle experienced by half of the population, those who experience it are expected to bend to the conditions of society.

not be seen as legitimate due to how universal it is. I have carried this on with me throughout the years, never using my period as an excuse to get out of work or university deadlines, regardless of how smothering it regularly feels. Those who menstruate carry an extra weight (of varying degrees) around with them that can colour their world very differently.

That comment made to my year group of seventy girls, eight years ago, as well as the verdict from my GP taught me several lessons about how I am to walk the world. Menstrual-related suffering that I experience will

I find it likely that it is this expectation for women to carry an extra burden that allowed for something like the Yale Fertility Scandal to materialise.

ART by Sadbh Caulfield

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