fortnightly student magazine
Power and Privilege: An Evening with Robin DiAngelo
volume 19 — issue 8
p. 7
Q:A: Ben Noble
p. 16
Jazba at the Northrup
p. 10
Love is a Wild Thing
p. 20
Growing up Palestinian in the United States
p. 11
Six Reviews
p. 22
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Art by Megan Bormann
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VOLUME 19, ISSUE 8 EDITORIAL: Editor-in-Chief
Tala Alfoqaha
Managing Editor
Emma Chekroun
Cities Editor
Sylvia Rani
Voices Editor
Esther Chan
Music Editor
Tosin Faseemo
Online editor
Sammi Divito
Copy editors
Autumn Sanders Hannah Haakenson
BMM EBZ
Multimedia Editor
Sebastian Alfonzo
Multimedia Producer
Courtenay Parker
Editorial Interns: Ian Knoll, Isabel Teitelbaum, Megan Bormann, Marley Rich-
mond, Kylie Heider, Prahlad Sankrti, Emma Smisek, Martha Huson, Kinga Mozes, Jemma Keleher
PRODUCTION: Executive Director
Macie Rasmussen
Creative Director
Kiley Nelson
Finance Manager
Nikhil Barr-Saxena
PR/Ad Manager
Claire Redell
Social Media Manager
Madison Amland
Art Director
Morgan Wittmers-Graves
Designers
Kelsey Hanscom Samantha Fischer Ellie Kestner
Web Manager
Juan Rujana
Distribution Manager
Cassie Varrige
Production Interns: Grace Augustin, Skylar Neuber Art Interns: Joe Price, Gavin Schuster, Selena Philaphandeth, Laura Kuchar
THIS ISSUE: Š2020 The Wake Student Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Established in 2002, The Wake is a fortnightly independent magazine and registered student organization produced by and for students at the University of Minnesota. The Wake was founded by Chrin Ruen & James DeLong. Disclaimer: The purpose of The Wake is to provide a forum in which students can voice their opinions. Opinions expressed in the magazine are not representative of the publication or university as a whole. To join the conversation email eic@wakemag.org The Wake Student Magazine 126 Coffman Memorial Union 300 Washington Avenue SE Minneapolis, MN 55455
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Writers
Anna Aquino, Megan Bormann, Samantha De Leon, Tosin Faseemo, Evan Grill, Kylie Heider, Ian Knoll, Mitchell Levesque, Emma Morris, Kinga Mozes, Nina Raemont, Marley Richmond, James Schaak, Avery Wageman Art 1 Lauren Bastian 2 Joe Price 3 Morgan Wittmers-Graves 4 Meredith Song 5 Selena Philaphandeth Sonice the Hedgehog, Fuck the World, and The Slow Rush art from original sources Cover and feature art by Gavin Schuster
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wink! one page magazine
CONVERSATIONS OVERHEARD: Hot takes, deep questions, and more. Overheard on UMN campus and beyond.
“I just want to know what it’s like to have fun, ya know?” “Why don’t humans have six fingers?” “Sophie Turner is pregnant”
“Bernie Sanders will never become president. The American people won’t stand for it because they’re communist”
“If you italicize anything I will be so mad”
“If you can drink a glass of straight vodka without making a face, something must have gone really wrong in your childhood and you must be pretty messed up emotionally”
“The people who liked English class in high school were the people not doing emotionally well”
“She’s as straight as a pasta noodle” “I physically can’t consume more Diet Coke in a day than I already do”
“Let’s say I have a million dollars and I just have like, a wife, well then I don’t need a ten bedroom house”
“If anyone touches my underwear ever again I’m going to kill someone”
“He’s on the edge of getting canceled for sure”
“I think in Times New Roman” 4
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UPCOMING EVENTS
INSIDE 6
Letter from the Creative Director
3/4
3/19
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Power and Privilege: An Evening with Robin DiAngelo
Glass Animals
Acrylic Pouring
7:00pm
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Bell Museum Focuses in with Sensory Friendly Saturdays
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Jazba at the Northrup
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Growing up Palestinian in the United States
Fine Line
3/5
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Life Drawing with Leslie Barlow 6:00pm - 8:00pm Walker Art Center Try your hand at life drawing in front of a live nude model. All levels are welcome at these monthly, self-directed workshops guided by artist and educator Leslie Barlow. We provide the materials; you provide the creative flow. Please arrive promptly at 6 pm.
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Q&A: Ben Noble
3/5
18
Not-Quite-New York Fashion Week
Andy Shauf
19
Not All Art Has Color
20
Love is a Wild Thing
21
Personality Affirmation
3/10
22
Six Reviews
Wilco
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7:00pm - 8:30pm Inbound BrewCo
Check out the latest craze and experience the magical world of fluid acrylics and pouring medium. No experience required to learn how to create the same beautiful abstract canvases you see on Pinterest. You will create one 9x11� canvas using the flip cup or dirty pour method. A tray will be provided to transport your painting home.
3/21
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The Districts w/ And The Kids 8:00pm, Turf Club, 21+
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w/ Molly SarlĂŠ 7:30pm, Fine Line
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w/ Kacy & Clayton 6:30pm, DECC - Symphony Hall
3/14
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Yoga + Cider 10:00am, $15 Minneapolis Cider Company Join us for a fun flow, vinyasa style, to work out the kinks of the morning and build energy to tackle the day. All humans and levels welcome. Bring a mat and a smile. Includes: yoga, a pour of cider, and feeling better walking out than when you walked
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Letter from the Creative Director Hello reader! First of all, thank you for picking up Issue 8 of The Wake and reading this extremely public diary entry of mine! I feel as though the past year has been the most transformative year of my life. The first half of 2019 was one of my lowest points. I was getting out of a 3-year relationship, the majority of my support system was studying abroad, the weight of unresolved personal issues were cracking at the surface, and I was completely burning myself out when it came to school. I truly felt like I lost who I was; something that I always prided myself in. I found myself in a never-ending cycle of trying to figure out who I am and what I want from life. I can’t even begin to explain how much I’ve grown as a person within the past 6 months and how amazing life has been. It took an immense amount of strength for me to want to get better. I eventually started journaling & meditating daily, going to therapy, taking the right medication, and regularly cooking & practicing yoga. I started loving life and myself again. The moral of the story is, take time for yourself, please please, please. Take time to reflect on how things make you feel, to take care of yourself, to acknowledge when change is needed. Knowing who you are is a powerful thing. Have faith in the unknown and that life will work itself out. I have never felt happier and healthier and DAMN does it feel good. So for anyone who might be wondering, “How is Kiley doing?” I am great. I’m loving life and all that it has to offer, and I hope that you are too. This publication has brought me to such an open-minded, charismatic group of people who are the best to work with. Seriously, I wish I would have joined The Wake earlier on in college. If anyone is interested in getting involved in the art/ design team, I would be more than happy to chat with you :) Final s/o goes out to you for reading this emotional letter, and my friends & fam for keeping me sane during my senior year. That is all for now. Please be kind and spread lots of love. xoxo Kiley Nelson Creative Director
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Power and Privilege: An Evening with Robin DiAngelo Robin DiAngelo speaks to University of Minnesota students about why it is so difficult to discuss racism with white people.
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BY NINA RAEMONT “It’s the land of 10,000 wokes,” author and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem called the state of Minnesota while speaking with Robin DiAngelo in front of a University of Minnesota audience. But what does it mean to be “woke,” especially as a white progressive, if you are unable to address the systemic problems that you contribute to? That was what Robin DiAngelo, whose newest book “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism” recently garnered the attention of the New York Times bestsellers list, was about to unpack. On Tuesday, Feb. 6, the Northrop auditorium filled with students and staff alike. They all awaited the arrival of DiAngelo, a University of Washington affiliate professor, who, after 20 years of orchestrating diversity and equity training, realized that white people are especially terrible at talking about racism. Hosted by the Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence, the event sold out every available seat within the 2,700 seat auditorium and was intended to touch upon privilege, racism, and power within American society. Too much of the discussion of race, for white individuals, is centered upon whether or not they themselves are racist, instead of acknowledging their own privileges, which allow these implicit biases they have to reproduce within society. This causes white fragility: White people are not able to speak about these issues that they rightfully contribute to. As someone who has studied critical discourse and how whiteness is reproduced into everyday life, DiAngelo made a deliberate point to emphasize to the audience that racism is ingrained within our culture. Once we stop debating the semantics of this issue and begin to accept these ideas, we will finally reach a point
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in the conversation where critical thinking and reflection can take place. Within the first five minutes on stage, DiAngelo emphasized her own whiteness, making it clear that she will never understand racism to the extent that someone who experiences this oppression on a day to day basis does. After all, it is quite a privilege to learn about racism rather than experience it. But, if she didn’t use her platform to discuss these issues, DiAngelo declared, she would be doing a moral injustice to anyone whose voice is not heard. DiAngelo began to touch upon our white dominant society by showing statistics of those who make the decisions within America. The unsurprising yet unsettling majority of whom are white—in fact, 96% white. The media we consume, the decisions our country makes for us, the news that is reported to us, are dictated by an overrepresented majority that fails to consider perspectives other than their own. But it isn’t just the statistics of today; it is also the hundreds of years of oppression that black people faced in America. It’s the fact that black people were considered three-fifths of a person until 92 years after the Constitution was written. And because of that, DiAngelo says, we live in a world that is teeming with race. To deny these racist biases because we are not ready to address the real issue in America is an injustice to anyone who has experienced it.
not racist?” And a man responded, “Oh, absolutely!” Laughs filled the auditorium. She tackled these difficult subjects with hard facts that were alleviated with humor. Through the deliverance of witty digs at the “woke” white people in the room, she intentionally tried to alleviate some of the cognitive dissonance that the white half of the audience felt. It was a way to reflect upon these terrible issues marginalized groups in America face while shedding light on the absurdity of it all with humorous digs and criticism. This allowed everyone to step back and see our society as it is. DiAngelo not only hoped to spread awareness but also incite change. She educated those who needed to be educated and reminded those who experience racism that they are not alone. These discussions need to frequently occur; we need to call out our behaviors and discuss the flaws of our own biases. After all, what good does attending political marches do if the people participating don’t realize they’re a part of the problem?
The audience seemed receptive to her presentation. There were many times when she would ask the people of color in the room questions that supported her argument. For example, she asked, “Could racists work three cubicles down from you? Even if they think they’re
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CITIES
Bell Museum Focuses In With Sensory Friendly Saturdays Exploring nature, science, and the sensory friendly movement at the UMN’s own Bell Museum
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BY IAN KNOLL Cockroaches and mammoths. The molecular building blocks of organisms, and the search for life amongst the stars. Glacial ice ages and a warming globe. The origins of the universe and the era of man. When it comes to the natural sciences, the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum has it all. Almost too much, in fact. During normal hours, the museum is packed with visitors jostling and chatting as they migrate between exhibits, each of which often comes with its own set of animal ambience, narration, or attention-grabbing effects. There’s a palpable sense of excitement, sure, but it’s hard to deny it can distract even the most stoic attendant, let alone those with sensory sensitivities. But if you’re looking for a calmer environment-and are willing to get up early-the Bell Museum has you covered with Sensory Friendly Saturdays. First, a bit more about the Bell Museum. Situated on the St. Paul Campus, the museum touts itself as “Minnesota’s official natural history museum and planetarium.” While the latter was out of order when I visited, I can confirm it certainly lives up to the former. Exhibits include the permanent Minnesota Journeys, which traces the past, present, and future of Minnesota’s varied biomes through a series of dioramas (the most famous being their woolly mammoth), capturing the essence of various real world locations in Minnesota. Later, the exhibit discusses how our impact has irrevocably changed this intricate ecosystem and how we’re trying to better understand and treat our state. Somewhat contradictory, the series also includes “Life in the Universe,” which beautifully details the atomic and energetic foundation of our reality, its progression, and the trials and insights in our journey to find other life. Alongside these, the museum currently features a display of seminal
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nature painter John James Audobon’s “The Birds of America” and the natural art it inspired, and the “Touch and See Lab”, which gives kids an opportunity to directly interact with the nature around them through live bug and reptile displays, animal remain collections, and various activities. The museum isn’t particularly rigorous in its material (there is a clear leaning toward children), but even for adults it provides an engrossing overview of the world around us. What, then, does it mean to be sensory friendly? The movement largely began as a means to make public events more accessible for individuals on the autism spectrum or with sensory processing disorder, for whom sensory information is often processed differently and in ways that make it easy to become overwhelmed. Sensory friendly events aim to help by reducing stimuli through a number of means: smaller crowds, quieter atmosphere, soft lighting, and less sudden changes to visual or auditory stimuli—just to name a few. It’s grown to include adapted setups for museums, theme parks, films, concerts, and even sports events, and continues to be an important step to a more inclusive society. For the Bell Museum, this translates to the once a month Sensory Friendly Saturdays, where the museum opens two hours earlier with fewer crowds and an altered, serene environment. It means dimmed lights, drawn shades, and a quiet room for those who need to get away. It means trading sounds for subtitles, removing animal ambience like wolf howls and bird calls from dioramas, and turning off the more intensive visual interactions. And it means offering weighted lap pads, fidgets, hearing protection, and ALDs (Assistive Listening Devices). And, although still open to the public, it means smaller (around
twenty person) crowds. These changes are minor, hardly ruining or altering the overall museum experience, but they can mean opening up a world of possibilities for those who normally struggle with sensory overload. I’ll be clear—I can by no means speak for people with such challenges. Even as a normal museum goer, though, I can feel personal benefits. The quiet, dim setting and small crowds gives one the space to not only absorb the knowledge around you, but to reflect on it, too. As a museum dedicated to the mission of immersing yourself in the natural world, that’s a great boon, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed when the shades came up, the crowds rolled in, and the wolf diorama next to me starting howling (that one I just don’t get in any context.) That peaceful environment gave me the chance to reflect not just on the nature around me, but also on what it means to be inclusive and accepting of those with autism and sensory processing disorders. The conclusion? Sensory friendly events are here to stay, and I couldn’t be more happy about it. For more on the Bell Museum, check out: bellmuseum.umn.edu
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Jazba at the Northrop The Bollywood fusion dance competition continues to dazzle years after its genesis BY MITCHELL LEVESQUE In the Northrop auditorium, integration of TV shows and movies such as “Black Mirror” and “Incredibles 2” with Bollywood fusion dance yields an interesting result, yet no one could have expected the intricate and exhilarating experience that occured on Saturday night’s stage. Jazba, a Hindi-Urdu word meaning “passion,” is an annual intercollegiate dance competition, aiming to highlight South Asian culture while raising money for the non-profit Women in Need. Bollywood fusion is the combining of genres such as contemporary, hip hop, and—of course— Bhangra, an ebullient traditional dance of Indian culture. Although each group that participated represented the unique blend with their own twist, a central thread running throughout was the incorporation of a skit, featuring references to various TV shows and movies. Washu Chaahat, a group hailing from Washington University in St. Louis, gave a portrayal of the Black Mirror episode “Hang the DJ.” Many groups, while incorporating skits, also blended the music, with one group featuring Bollywood vocals on the top of Biggie Smalls’ “Hypnotize” instrumental. If there was any match to what was happening on stage, it was the crowd: “oohing” and “aahing,” the atmosphere was electrifying as the performance filled the ground floor and three balconies in Northrop. After the festivities, the action settled down to crown the winner. Following an exuberant performance by University of Michigan’s Michigan Izzat, the all-men’s fusion team took home the first place prize. Despite being three and half hours, Jazba made good use of its time, showing off dedicated groups that celebrate South Asian culture. The only question that remains is whether next year’s Jazba will be able to match the passion of this one.
Amplified 2020: A Reason to Put Down Your Phone
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Apparel design’s senior fashion show BY EVAN GILL Amplified is apparel design’s annual fashion show, and the seniors are the showcase for the night, presenting their fashion lines of four complete outfits. Each designer briefly explains their fashion line. The designers hope their words bridge the gap between the garments and their vision. However, their work does most of the explaining. Many designers chose to proudly display their own identities. A stand-out among these was Warda Moosa displaying her line “SOMALI BAAN AHAY,” which translates to “I AM SOMALI.” Featuring bright colors and flowing fabric, it showcased Somalia’s rich culture with a twist of modernity. Other lines looked to the future, featuring elements of fantasy, mysticism, and sci-fi. Yet of the most successful future-looking line was “Reduce, Reuse, Restyle” by Andrea Dunrud. Turning T-shirts into yarn and suit jackets into jeans, Andrea used 42 recycled garments to create her line. She constructed her pieces by arranging used garments into new patterns and materials, creating highly textured pieces of intrigue. Andrea also gave us a vision of the future with her sustainable fashion that is also cutting edge. Borrowing from more recognized styles, Rachel Katz created a men’s skateboarding line titled “Sababa.” Inspired by graffiti and other urban elements of fusion and chaos, it was mixed with rich patterns, blocks of colors, and “bad boy vibes.” Thinking about the future of these garments, she noted they are meant to be “worn, torn, and worn again.” With the diverse array of designers and their unique visions, all of the fashion lines captivated the audience to keep their phones put away. We hope next year’s show also captivates the audience to look up.
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THE WAKE
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Art by Kiley Nelson
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FEATURE
GROWING UP
PA L E S T I N I A N
IN THE
U N I T E D S TAT E S My identity should not be up for negotiation. But sometimes it feels like it is. BY TALA ALFOQAHA THE WAKE
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FEATURE
Arab, vaguely Middle Eastern—but rarely ever the label that they instilled in me most strongly at home, rarely ever Palestinian. On the way home from the doctor’s office that day, my mother explained that she didn’t want to be “controversial” by telling the doctor that we were Palestinian. We went to get a check-up, not to start the IsraeliPalestinian conflic, she reasoned. I sat in the backseat and nodded silently, toying with the idea that my mere Palestinian-ness could spark conflict. Up until that day at the doctor’s office, I had understood my identity in terms of the affirmative— cultural ritual, cuisine, music, dance, embroidery, an intangible homeland that I felt I knew intimately yet had never actually seen. That day at the doctor’s office marked the beginning of a long descent into constructing my identity in terms of its absences—the loss of over 80% of historic Palestine’s land at the hands of Israeli settlercolonialism from 1948 to now, decades of failed “peace” deals, the ahistorical erasure of Palestine from historic representations of the Middle East, the lack of visibility of Palestinians in US media, the exclusion of Palestinian rights from mainstream liberal politics, the sense of feeling stifled, the sense of feeling compromised, the sense of feeling hyperpoliticized.
T *Thobe: an ornately embroidered long-sleeve dress, traditionally red and black; Maqluba: traditional dish consisting of chicken, rice, fried vegetables, and yoghurt; Musakhan: uniquely Palestinian dish made with roasted chicken, onions, sumac, and pine nuts served over taboon bread **Name has been changed for security concerns *The Time That Remains dir. Elia Suleiman
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he first time I realized that my identity could make Americans deeply uncomfortable, I was 8 years old. Sitting in a doctor’s office, I watched in silence as my Palestinian mother told the doctor who’d just asked about our ethnicity that we were Jordanian. At the time, her response baffled me. This was the same woman who made my sister and I volunteer at the Palestine booth in the Festival of Nations every year, who dressed me up in my intricately embroidered red-and-black thobe* for any remotely pertinent occasion, who, in my opinion, made the best maqluba* and musakhan* in all of Minnesota, who raised me with pride and certainty in my heritage—and who was now claiming that we were Jordanian? I shot her a quizzical look, yet before I could correct this egregious claim, the doctor remarked, “Oh, nice. I have a friend who’s been there,” and we moved on. Identity is complicated. Living in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, I grew up watching my parents identify themselves to white Americans with a variety of different ethnic labels—Jordanian, Kuwaiti, vaguely
Laila** is a freshman at the University of Minnesota. She carries a ten-year plan for her life after college and a sense of bright determination in her eyes. As a Palestinian who grew up in Nablus, she also carries a deep familiarity with injustice. “I was strip-searched,” she said, lowering her voice. We were sitting in the BioMedical Library as she recounted her experience partaking in the most standard college experience: visiting her parents over winter break. She explained that after seeing her Palestinian passport, airport officials in Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport separated her from the rest of the passengers and led her to a windowless room. First, they searched through her phone and laptop. Then, they demanded she take her clothes off. “At first I kept my bra on, but then I had to take that off too.” Laila wore nothing but her underwear as two women patted and interrogated her. “I didn’t really talk for two days after that,” she said.
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FEATURE
Laila’s story, while traumatic, is not unique among Palestinians. Invasive searches and hourslong interrogations are part-and-parcel of the pilgrimage to visit family. For Palestinians born in the US, traveling to the West Bank requires deactivating social media, deleting pictures, and attempting to distance yourself from any past Palestinian activism. By writing this story, I risk being deemed a security threat and barred from visiting Palestine—my friends have been denied entry for less. That day at the doctor’s office, I did not—I could not—understand that my parents were engaging in an existential negotiation: trading their identity for a sense of stability. Twelve years later, I understand. Palestinians barter to survive. In 1985, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, one of the earliest Palestinian rights organizations based in the US, was firebombed— twice. The physical attacks followed a larger pattern of routine harassment, threats, blacklisting, and accusations of terrorism. Four decades later, attempts to silence Palestinian rights activists continue: Dunia, a student at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, received three rape threats this past year in response to her advocacy for a resolution urging her university to divest from companies complicit in human rights abuses against Palestinians. She constitutes one of many students whose photos, tweets, and personal information have been posted on “Canary Mission,” a site dedicated to compiling, intimidating, and smearing Palestinian activists. The site’s reach is extensive: three of the past four presidents of the University of Minnesota’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, along with many more general members, have been added to Canary Mission. My experience advocating for Palestinian rights has shown me that—despite Israel’s brutal military occupation in the West Bank and allencompassing land, sea, and air blockade in the Gaza Strip—the discourse in the US spends more time policing my civility than listening to me. I am still searching for the civility in occupation. Checkpoints routinely force Palestinians into hours-long interrogations and strip searches. Home demolitions and forced evictions occur with impunity. 96% of water in the Gaza strip is contaminated. Illegal settlements are openly subsidized by the Israeli government. Electricity blackouts last up to 12 hours every day in Gaza. 42% of the land in the West Bank now belongs to Israeli settlers. Trump embraces these settlements. Even the most liberal politicians in the US still advocate for the long-defunct “two-state solution.” Google Maps can’t even show me a driving route from the West Bank to Gaza. I will not be civil.
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Being Palestinian in the United States entails navigating a web of existential contradictions. We are both inherently political and politically inconsequential. We watch students who denounce the maltreatment of Native Americans and Black Americans in the US accept free trips to Israel and participate in similar structures of settler-colonialism and ethnically-based brutality abroad. At the same time, as inhabitants of the US, Palestinian-Americans participate in settler colonial structures built off the land of Native Americans every day. Our taxes help pay $3+ billion in military funding to Israel. We negotiate— with our history, with our right to return, with our identity—to exist in spaces that otherwise hold no space for us. And yet, “I wish I didn’t have to talk about the occupation every time I say that I’m Palestinian,” said Laila. Me too. At 15 years old, my father’s father was shot by an Israeli militiaman while sleeping on the roof of his home in Palestine. He fled to Lebanon, where he spent a year in a mental institution. The anxiety haunted him for the rest of his life. My mother’s father was a nurse. After leaving Palestine, he and his wife resettled in Kuwait. Despite facing regular discrimination for being Palestinian, they attempted to rebuild their lives. Yet, in 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait. My mother stayed inside for six months, making gas masks out of cloth and bomb shelters out of bathtubs at 21 years old. Her father left home every day to take care of injured Kuwaitis at the local hospital. After the invasion ended, Kuwait expelled over 200,000 Palestinians. My mother and her family were among them. They lost everything. My grandfather fell into a deep depression and became, quite literally, paralyzed by grief.
I am still learning to make room for the generational loss that exists within my identity, to make room for so much more. Two years ago, I discovered that my best friend descended from the same man Palestinian man who my grandfather once called his best friend in Kuwait. They were both nurses, working alongside each other during the invasion. Last year, I sat in my Palestinian Film and Literature class and watched as a character in a movie* recited lines from a poem that my great-grandfather had written decades earlier. The character shot himself moments later. I walked out of class in a daze. My identity encompasses it all: the friendship that spanned space and time, the poem that endured generations to find its way onto a screen in Ford Hall, the loss, the occupation, the activism, the absence, and what it all gave me. These things are non-negotiable. Yet I understand my parents’ negotiation now. They watched geopolitics unfold in their living rooms for the majority of their lives. They want what the American dream claims to offer: stability. I grew up with stability.
The American dream has yet to offer us justice.
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My Sister By Emma Otremba They’re doing construction on the river outside my window and I can’t fall asleep. I chose this location specifically for the peace and serenity to lull me from my days and now all I get is beeping. The movement, power, and flow of this river has always been a part of me. I grew up watching and growing, patiently learning about the ability to let go. Water rushed by to remind me that I don’t have one destination. A clear point B does not exist as long as I keep moving. Set free from expectation and fearing my ability, I waved goodbye to the mind that damned me. So How the fuck do you expect me to respond while they poke and pry at the land that holds me. Metal cracked in as they pulse and pound my ground into sand. I go into places I don’t know. Shocked and gasping, my mind floods with memories of before I knew my strength. Dizzy, I lay down. They plan to pool me. Train me. And keep me still as they do what they want with me. I lose my ability to feel untouchable and I see the hand that controls these teeth that bite me. I Don’t even remember how I fought this before, because I know I never did Why Why Why Why do I lose my strength the moment I need it. Numb and alone, I try to keep moving.
Sipping my tea I pop a melatonin and try to fall asleep. I still hear working through to midnight. Yet there she is. I see her keep going. I don’t know how she does it, I’m running dry day after day yet she’s still moving. Morning comes. I roll out of bed, look out the window, and give a small smile. Knowing she fights beside me.
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THE WAKE
Art by Ben Jourdan
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Q&A
Ben Noble BY TOSIN FASEEMO Ben Noble is a Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter. His music explores themes of reflection and growth. Read on to find out about his new album, “Where The Light Comes In.” Ben Noble will be opening for Alina Maira at 7th Street Entry on March 16.
: Are you originally from Minneapolis? Benjamin: Originally, I’m from Denver, Colorado. I moved here 10 years ago.
: Did you move here specifically to join the music scene? B: Honestly, I moved here to go to college, and then I kind of got stuck here after that. I went up to college then through that I met some of my musician friends. I just really like the music scene, so I stuck around.
: Did you find that the music scene in Minneapolis is something that you didn’t find in Colorado? B: My time in Colorado was before I turned 18, so I didn’t get much of a feel of it. But I do think that there’s a pretty special community in Minnesota, specifically in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I feel like there’s probably more of a music scene than in
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Denver, but it’s not so saturated, like in the big music cities, like Nashville, LA, or New York. I feel like it’s a happy in-between, because there are opportunities and there are a lot of people here that care about music and original art. I feel like Nashville is so country, and LA and New York are so pop-y. Maybe it has to do with the weather and climate we’re inside for half the year...maybe it changes our personalities to where we aren’t really in the mood for pop.
: On the topic of genre, how would you categorize yourself? B: I would say indie-folk with electronic elements, with an emphasis on soundscapes and textures. Obviously, most artists don’t want to put themselves in a box, but it helps people understand you better. One person told me that my music is like if Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Sufjan Stevens made a baby together.
: Would you say those are your biggest artistic inspirations?
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Q&A
B: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely those three. To add to that list would probably be this Icelandic artist, Ásgeir. He’s been really influential. Also, Novo Amor. They’re from the UK. All of those have been really big influences the last few years.
major theme throughout the whole record with tiny arcs that float between all the songs. To get to that point, it’s just a matter of digging into other people’s stuff, seeing what resonates with me, and writing from that space, if that makes sense.
: When it comes to things that inspire you when you make music, what else do you look to?
: You mentioned that your past two albums have been really focused on themes. With your most recent album, “Where The Light Comes In,” what theme are you exploring?
B: Usually, it’s hard for me to just come right out and say what I’m feeling, both through my music and in life. Saying how I feel is not my strong suit. If I’m trying to get what I’m feeling out, I will often go into somebody else’s words. I’ll take a poem or a book, and I’ll pull quotes from them. I’ll catalogue them, then I’ll go back when I’m going to start writing something. I’ll read through them and see what sticks out to me, or what I connect with. There’s almost always a moment where I’ll think, “Yeah, that’s what I’m feeling right now.” It’s kind of a second hand approach to lyric writing. That’s how I’ve always done it. This is my second record; both records have been focused on one
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B: The main theme is this yearning for people, myself included, to look inside ourselves and try to identify the trauma that has taken place. We all carry our wounds with us. The album title comes from a quote by the poet Rumi that says, “the wound is where the light enters you.” So it’s just this idea that we need to take a look at our wounds in order to heal. Whatever we have inside of us, we ultimately pass on to the people around us. I have two kids now, so I’m trying to process my own stuff so I can hopefully not pass on bad things.
: In terms of the future, where do you hope to go with music? Do you want to travel, or stay in Minneapolis? B: My goal for the near and distant future is to stick around Minneapolis, because there is a lot going on here. But with the Internet, it’s great. Streaming has opened a lot of doors. People can listen to you all over the world. You can get your music out that way, or from licensing it. I think my ultimate goal would be to have a studio and produce for other artists. I do a lot of producing, so it would be fun to build on that. I feel like, as an artist, there are a lot of different hats you have to wear. You have to be a songwriter, you have to be a visionary artist, you have to do social media stuff, you have to do business, booking, and emailing. The list goes on forever and ever. Of all the hats, I would just love to wear the ones that involve making music more than all the other ones. Whatever that does for me, it is what it is. I just want to keep making music.
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VOICES
Not-Quite-New York Fashion Week BY MARLEY RICHMOND
After seeing Billy Porter’s iconic ballgown look for this year’s Oscars, I was eager for more fashion that pushed the envelope; for that, I looked to February’s New York Fashion Week. Yet while this year’s showings were more diverse than ever in some areas (especially race), gender diversity and size representation were far below ideal. For the last five years, racial diversity at New York Fashion Week has been on the rise. While there wasn’t a huge increase between the last two seasons, this year’s shows saw almost fifty percent models of color, with at least two walking in every show. Some of the big names in this area were Pyer Moss, whose show was 100% women of color, Tommy x Zendaya, Gypsy Sport, and Chromat, all notorious for their intersectional models and diverse showings. From dapper, primarily black and white looks at the Tommy x Zendaya show, to bright, bold bodysuits with contrasting netting from Chromat, this Fashion Week gave a wide array of styles to fit a wide array of models. Still, a larger majority (almost 70 percent) of NYFW’s top-billed models— those who walked in the most shows, this year between ten and thirteen castings—are white. The four models of color in this category are seen by many as token representatives of minority groups. And given the disparity between representation in ad season (less than 40% featured models of color), it is fair to criticize and question how genuine designers’ efforts towards representation really are. Beyond racial diversity, representation of plussized, over fifty, and transgender or nonbinary people drop to below 3% of all models. Sixty-eight plus-sized models walked the runway this year, a genuinely (and unfortunately still low) recordbreaking 2.92%. And while this has almost doubled since fall 2019, there is tremendous room for growth. The same handful of designers, including Christian Siriano and, again, Chromat and Tommy x Zendaya, cast most of these women. It comes as absolutely no surprise that these shows were stunning—perhaps even more so because real women could see themselves represented. Siriano showed that tight-fitting leather doesn’t only come in size 00, and curves look damn good in dark, dominatrix-inspired gowns. In a day and age where the average
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A deeper look into the diversity of the fashion industry’s biggest shows
person would be considered plus-sized by the fashion industry, it is more important than ever to make clothes an inclusive outlet for representation. Under 3% representation in some of the biggest shows of the season is simply not cutting it. New York Fashion Week let down the transgender and nonbinary communities as well, with a disappointingly small number of transgender and nonbinary models in this year’s shows. Models with diverse gender identities made up only 36 bookings of 2,327, less than 2%. And while androgynous styles could have worked to break down the gender binary as well, there was little experimentation or boundary-pushing design on this front. It is no longer enough to consider putting trousers on women as “defying gender roles.” Since the ’60s, stars like David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Freddie Mercury, and Prince have brought more attention and acceptance to androgynous styles that incorporate feminine elements into men’s fashion. Yet these looks, like Cobain’s floral dress, Mercury’s plunging, sequined bodysuit, or Bowie’s iconic makeup, ended up staying on the stage, never making it to mainstream (or even designer) fashion. Certainly, no one at NYFW took as many risks, or changed the name of fashion, like these stars did. Today, seeing a man in a dress still causes controversy. While New York Fashion Week could break boundaries by celebrating diverse gender identities and gender expressions through fashion, they have largely failed to do so. Transgender and nonbinary communities are not strongly represented in these iconic shows, and while suits on women are commonplace, feminine styles for men are still widely taboo. Fashion has always been one of the pillars of self-expression, yet one of the biggest events in the industry, New York Fashion Week, consistently comes up short in representing real people. Each year, progress is being made towards a more truthful depiction of the population, but genuine effort is still necessary to break boundaries, eliminate tokenism, and push for more shows—not just a handful—to incorporate intersectionally diverse models in their runway shows.
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MAR 2 - 23
VOICES
Not All Art Has Color Exploring whiteness in art exhibitions BY KYLIE HEIDER Recently, the conversation around representation and diversity in works of artistic expression has centered around the mediums of film and television. This concentration on forms of popular, accessible, and image-based media is deserved: There exists considerable power in image, and seeing yourself in something that you consume everyday, like television, is of substantial importance. However, there is another realm of art that is far less considered when topics of representation and diversity arise: the fine arts. It can be argued that the so-called “art-world” is among the most Euro-centric and whitewashed spaces you can think of. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? When we think about visual art—about paintings and sculpture—in the context of modern society, it is often already relegated to the tiers of the wealthy upper class. Such an assumption is in itself based on colonial preconceptions. For the most part, the study and preservation of the visual arts as it exists today is heavily steeped in the same colonialist ideals. It is widely acknowledged that the foremost capital of the art world in the Western Hemisphere is New York City. New York’s significance in the art world arose out of the artistic movement of abstract expressionism, a period which marks a turning point in the histories of both American and contemporary art. Today, New York City is home to about 1,500 art galleries. According to a 2016 study conducted by CUNY Guttman College, 80% of artists in those New York galleries are white. Nationally, according to the same study, 88% of gallery artists are white, and 70% of artists featured in New York galleries are men. In 2018, the New York Times reported that of all the work acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, only 11% of it was made by women. The survey doesn’t mention what percentage of those women are white. In many cases, art museums are structured around the teachings of art history, which are, of course, shaped by and for European colonial forces.
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As a student of art, the artistic “canon” is almost entirely Western. Every new movement of artistic practice is determined by a white male artist from either Europe or America, standardizing the curriculum of human expression to a certain elite group. While art by racial minorities is featured in museums like the Met or our local Minneapolis Institute of Art, it is usually a smaller collection and features work from an antiquated or ancient period. This phenomenon has been particularly present in the Native American community, as most art museums lack substantial contemporary indigenous artists, painting Native people as a fixture of the past and not present in today’s society. There is also a diversity problem in the curation and collection of Native art. For example, in 2018, the Met curated an exhibition of over 100 pieces of Native art primarily acquired from the private collections of wealthy white New York philanthropists and decided to show it alongside the white American artworks of the likes of John Singer Sargent, a decision that reeks of the disingenuous stamp of “white approval.” Furthermore, the Met failed to consult with the tribal nations whom the artworks were taken from, who later denounced the exhibit, with the executive director of the Association on American Indian Affairs saying that most of the items on view are not works of art, but “ceremonial or funerary objects that belong with their original communities and could only have ended up in a private collection through trafficking and looting.” The misrepresentation or lack of representation of racial minorities in art galleries and museums ultimately stems from a fundamental misgiving of humanity on the part of the oppressor, a poisoned appendage of the colonial systems which rule the world. Art is meant to be a reflection of the boundlessness of the human spirit, transcendent of class and race. It’s time that art, and its galleries, imitate the lives it stems from.
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VOICES
Love is a Wild Thing
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Love—organic, powerful and unkind BY SAMANTHA DE LEON There is a saying: “There’s no love like your first.” Part of me believes that quote was made up by someone to make you feel warm when thinking back to your first love. In my case, I feel everything when I think back to my first boyfriend: the bad, the good, and the ugly. I was in high school when I met my first boyfriend. We didn’t know of each other prior to being introduced, but when we met, we clicked. From that point on, we spent every minute we could together. For a good portion of our relationship, we were happy and infatuated with each other. He was the first boy to ever express interest in me. He never judged me and accepted me for who I was. Sadly, our honeymoon phase came to a halting stop when we would argue more than we talked. Further into our relationship, we started to argue about minuscule things occasionally, which eventually turned into daily spats. I would shed tears of frustration because I honestly didn’t know what made him happy. He pressured me to do things I didn’t want to do. Not the least of which was the “magical” night I was given the ultimatum to either lose my virginity or get broken up with. It pushed me to hate him. From that point on, our relationship was on a declining slope. I found myself crying on a weekly basis because he made me feel like “our problems” were my fault. My pent-up emotions of anger, sadness, and frustration boiled inside of me; yet, I kept it all to myself. Despite the tensions, we carried on with our relationship—going through our ups and downs like a rollercoaster. We continued to “love” each other and carry on like normal. That was until the accident.
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The accident turned both of our lives upside down. He was in a coma for about two weeks. When he awakened, he wasn’t the person I knew before. He suffered from memory loss and had to relearn how to do everything. He had no idea who I was, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was 16 years old when I made the decision to stick by his side and care for him. I stayed with him because he was my boyfriend and I felt that I owed him that. I justified this by my mentality that if I continued to endure him and our deteriorating relationship, I could learn to be ok with it. It didn’t take much time for me to realize it wasn’t working between us. I eventually broke up with him. From that point on, I wasn’t under stress of being with someone in an unhappy relationship. I felt happy and like myself again.
Over time, I stopped ruminating and reflected back on our relationship. Through this reflection, it was clear that we were too young to be in such a serious relationship. I also understand that his crazed actions stemmed from being prescribed many medications and his misconceived notion that he could become the same person he was prior to the accident, which allowed for his insane actions to not have any consequences. Despite all that happened, I forgive him. Forgiveness has helped me move forward and remove the anger, sadness, and frustration I had before. This journey has shown me that I have a large capacity for love and forgiveness. In the end, we are only human, and it’s up to us to make the best of our lives.
Looking back at it now, it was a journey I never expected to take. I never thought my first relationship would end up as it did. I came out of the relationship stronger than I was before, and it has shaped me into a woman who can sympathize, forgive, and love. Without the experience, I don’t think I would be who I am today. If there is one takeaway I want people to remember after reading this, it’s the ability to overcome resentment. At the time of the accident, I had empathy for him and took on the role of caretaker. But, I could not rid the everlasting memories I had when he was mean to me. The accident did not excuse his actions before, and it did not excuse his actions after. Ultimately, I chose what was best for me, and it was breaking up with him.
MAR 2 - 23
VOICES
Personality Affirmation Don’t take personality quizzes too seriously 2
BY AVERY WAGEMAN Personality quizzes are a fun, effortless way of determining who we are and prophesying our futures. However, if the answers they dole out aren’t what we wanted or expected, they suddenly don’t mean anything. It’s great when the results validate how we see our own personalities, but are we being honest with our responses, or are we catering to the result we want from the quiz? If we’re not honest with our answers, the results are fabricated and not an authentic assessment of ourselves. Depending on the quiz and what we expect from the results, they can be harmless and solely used to assuage curiosity. For example, Buzzfeed’s “What Kind of Pickle Are You” quiz probably would not send you into an existential crisis if you didn’t get the answer you wanted. But quizzes that determine deeper interpretations of our identity and psyche, like the Myers-Briggs test, can have a greater effect on our sense of self. These tests often include questions that exploit the test taker’s insecurities, forcing us to confront difficult aspects of ourselves. It’s comforting to have our positive traits confirmed, but having our faults called out can hit too close to home. In a time of incredible amounts of stress, when climate change is worsening, student debt is rising, and the state of our mental health is declining, having a test to explain who we are is one less puzzle to solve. But if you don’t like the results from a quiz, or are concerned about who you are, remember that our personalities evolve and change. Ask yourself who you want to be or how you can work on the aspects of yourself you may not like. If you can’t answer these questions yourself, ask the people closest to you; the people who you interact with everyday provide better feedback than an internet quiz driven by algorithms.
You’re Lonely and That’s Okay Making peace with loneliness in college BY ANNA AQUINO And suddenly I was standing there in Coffman, wanting to hang out with someone, and I didn’t know who I could call. I didn’t know who was free or who would say yes or who actually liked spending time with me. I scrolled through my short list of contacts, and some of my guy friends’ names caught my eye. But I wondered if hitting them up would send a message I didn’t intend. Why was wanting to spend time with someone suddenly so mentally taxing? I’ve only known these people, as lovely as they are, for five months at most. The trust just isn’t there yet. I’ve known my friends from home for at least five years; I know what to expect from them—good or bad. But here, even with the people I want to label as “keepers,” I still wonder how and when they’re going to get sick of me, or which vulnerable moment is going to send them running, and vice versa. It makes me hesitant to actually click on any of those contacts. Loneliness is often hypocritical in this way; we feel frustrated that no one is reaching out to us, but we also are not taking that risk of a “hey, are you free tonight?” text. In sending the text, we release our control and leave room for rejection. That level of comfort we are looking for, that friend-from-home familiarity, will never be achieved amidst all this hesitation. But that’s okay. Your loneliness does not make you alien or weird. Bouts of loneliness are inevitable in any transitional period of life—college included. Everyone is feeling a little out of place, a little lonely, a little short on hugs. So reach out to people without reservations, without fear of being clingy or too forward. Rather than fearing distance and loss, focus on love and connection.
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SIX REVIEWS
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Bojack Horseman
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P.S. I Still Love You BY MEGAN BORMANN After Jenny Han’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” was adapted by Netflix, the world was captivated by Lara Jean Covey and Peter Kavinsky’s romance. Now Lara Jean and Peter are back, and there’s more drama. Lara Jean soon learns how to cope with dating someone who was previously involved with her frenemy, Genevieve. Jordan Fisher debuts as John Ambrose McClaren, one of the other recipients of Lara Jean’s five love letters. Fisher’s character is important because he helps Lara Jean discover the difference between love that is safe and comfortable and love that is risky and heartbreaking. The love triangle between Lara Jean, John Ambrose, and Peter is the most accurate portrayal of high schoolers suffering from romantic tension. In this version, the two boys have limited interactions with each other, and the story focuses on Lara Jean, who is trying to figure out her emotions towards the two of them. The story also focuses on the destruction of female friendships that can come with competing for a boy’s attention. Lara Jean and Genieve learn how to reconcile their differences. In this new chapter, we learn more details about Peter and Lara Jean’s relationship, focus on the toxicity of jealousy within a relationship, and we get to continuously switch who we are rooting for Lara Jean to end up with. Team Peter or Team John?
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Sonic the Hedgehog BY KINGA MOZES The theater was packed, considering it was Valentine’s Day and that the movie playing was none other than “Sonic the Hedgehog.” Although the animators recreated Sonic after some heated backlash on Twitter, the bluedog-mixed-with-Grinch end result was... disturbing. Voiced by Ben Schwartz, a.k.a. Jean-Ralphio from “Parks and Recreation,” it was impossible to tell Sonic’s age. According to the video game, he is supposed to be fifteen, which makes sense, since Schwartz is forty. The movie was a never-ending chase scene to escape Dr. Robotnick, played by Jim Carrey. Carrey is a masterful comedian, but you could tell through his eyeliner that he was not having it. His performance fell flat and wasn’t enough to make up for the multiple scenes of Sonic flossing. Despite my lack of amusement, the audience seemed mesmerized. At one point, someone behind me was wheezing, and it felt like the laughter was auto-generated. I overlooked the existence of a Sonic fandom; it felt like I was being left out of a 101-minute-long inside joke. The movie’s saving grace was the sexual tension between Sonic and Tom, which shined brightest when they were throwing darts and square dancing together. Tom was played by James Marsden, the guy who got curved by Rachel in “The Notebook.” I guess it worked out since he and Sonic seemed happy together. Thankfully, Lil Yachty and Ty Dolla $ign made a song just for this movie that played during the credits, and there will definitely be a sequel.
Season 6 BY KYLIE HEIDER There are few shows more pleasantly surprising than the adult animated comedy “Bojack Horseman.” Its six-season arc came to an end as the final episodes streamed on Netflix in late January, and with it concluded the stories of Bojack, Diane, Todd, Princess Caroline, and Mr. Peanut Butter. In those six seasons, “Bojack Horseman” has evolved from a silly comedy about show business, animals, and people into one of the most compassionate and emotional portrayals of humanity in recent television. Perhaps the show feels so refreshing because it doesn’t run from the failings, lies, broken promises, and immorality of its characters. In fact, the morality game is at the heart of the show, the inhabitants of “Hollywoo” constantly trapped between their own vices and virtues. In this final season, Bojack is fresh out of rehab and off to a new job as an acting teacher at Wesleyan University, wondering how he will move on from the wrongdoings of his past. The season brings forth everything built up from the previous seasons, as Bojack tries to reconcile his mistakes and create his future. From a technical perspective, the showrunners have demonstrated a mastery of the development of character and the relationships between characters. Despite the tremendous lows that Bojack has seen, a show about loneliness, addiction, and depression manages to offer the catharsis of optimism. Frankly, I cannot recommend “Bojack Horseman” enough. There will be something in the show you will connect to, some epiphany to be gleaned. So if you haven’t started it, start it. And if you haven’t finished it, finish it.
MAR 2 - 23
SIX REVIEWS
Fuck the World Brent Faiyaz
BY NINA RAEMONT Memorable music requires two things: a message and a sound that fits that message. But what happens when an artist forges his way with only one half of that formula accounted for? Mediocrity ensues. That is how I would describe Brent Faiyaz’s recent EP, “Fuck the World.” Faiyaz, a 24-year-old R&B artist known for his song “Poison,” which has 45 million listens on Spotify, has the voice for R&B, but must work to develop his own unique sound and lyrics. With a title like “Fuck The World,” you would expect the music to hold an ounce of a shock factor, but with his banal beats and repetitive verses, he does anything but. Unfortunately, the only thing that shocked me was the terrible lyricism of the song “Fuck the World (Summer in London),” when he unironically says, “I’m a walking erection.” His lyrics scrape the surface of his messages and the repetitivity of his songs allows for little originality. The repetition of his lyrics seemed meaningless and not a result of artistic intention, but rather derivative of a lack of originality. Faiyaz, with his smooth as butter voice, has made memorable songs in the past; he has the capacity to do so again. However, the work on his EP feels like Faiyaz has relinquished his motivation to improve. In “Fuck the World,” the listener hears him tap into vulnerable messages, like that of race, drugs, self-love, and isolation, but these ideas are only an inch deep. Your art must have a refined depth of meaning to be deemed memorable. Ultimately, his EP poses as a testament to the idea that a beautiful voice doesn’t equate to beautiful music.
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The Slow Rush Tame Impala BY JAMES SCHAAK The pressure on Tame Impala after mainstream success (Kevin Parker’s A-list collaborations, Max Martin aspirations, and a Rihanna cover), combined with a series of lackluster singles leading up to “The Slow Rush,” suggested that this could be Tame Impala’s first mediocre album. Songs like “Borderline” and “It Might Be Time” sounded reminiscent of Parker’s masterpieces but lacked the unpredictability that fans crave from him. These singles threatened to subjugate this album to Spotify playlists titled “chill vibes” rather than to realms of creativity and substance that earned Tame Impala its fame. However, “The Slow Rush” is not a mediocre album. It’s quite good. The album’s opener, “One More Year,” instantly entices with its house beat, and by the time the listener revisits “Borderline,” the third song on the record, they’ll realize that Parker has tightened up the song since it was released ten months ago. Although “Borderline” is the only one of the four singles on the album that has been edited since their release, they don’t bog down the album. When supplanted with the deep cuts, the singles make more sense as they play into the overarching theme of time. Throughout the rest of the album, Parker continues to amalgamate rock, hip-hop, and R&B, perhaps a result of his recent collaborations. Other highlights include the groovy, Pharell Williams-inspired “Breathe Deeper” and the maximalist, seven-minute closer “One More Hour.” Once again, Parker has provided a noteworthy piece of psychedelia that delivers on his signature chill vibes without sacrificing his ingenuity.
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King Princess, Kilo Kish, and Puffy BY EMMA MORRIS The show was held at the Palace Theatre, a dope venue, although I couldn’t fully enjoy the general admission experience of seeing one of my favorite performers live. The concert included King Princess and her two openers, Kilo Kish and Puffy. The first opener was Kilo Kish, a rap artist. Personally, I thought that she was an interesting choice. Her set featured a psychedelic-techno sound. She also had a nice lighting setup, with colorful UV lights that accented her costume. At first, Kish did not engage with the crowd, but later in her set, she interacted with the audience more, with sassy comments that excited and engaged the crowd. Puffy, who is a drag artist, was next to perform. They were fun and hyped up the crowd with well-known TikTok songs, such as “Say So” by Doja Cat and “ROXANNE” by Arizona Zervas, along with the matching dances. Their performance was short, but it was revitalizing and prepared the crowd for what was to come. Now onto King Princess. She was everything and more. Dripping in sex appeal, she strutted her stuff on the stage. She moved from guitar to piano effortlessly and seemed to float across the stage. She told stories through song, performing many of her hits, including “1950,” “Talia,” and her newest, “Hit the Back,” which is from her most recent album, “Cheap Queen.” She left me speechless and feeling reborn.
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