Vol. XIX Issue 1

The Yale Herald

1.26.18

FROM THE EDITORS Hey kiddos, Welcome back! I hope your Shopping Period went well but, let’s be real, we both know it didn’t.

C’est la vie, you know? Here’s what I’ll say: my schedule is finally sitting in the Morse College Dean’s Office—signed, sealed, and delivered— and I can’t wait to detox the two weeks that aged me two years. Elsewhere on campus, though, this weekend is an active one; sorority rush is well underway and Potential New Members are in the thick of vying to be sisters.

In this week’s front, Emma Chanen, BK ’19, talks with some of the women of Delta Sigma Theta’s Pi Alpha Chapter. The Deltas, as they’re called, make up the only historically Black sorority at Yale. Established in 1984, they’re also the oldest sorority on campus. But the Deltas are a little different from Yale’s other sisterhoods, from their own semester-long rush and pledge process to their emphasis on public service. After a hiatus of several years, they reactivated last spring, and will soon begin to recruit new members.

Meanwhile, in Features, Kat Corfman, SM ’21, investigates how and why Laurie Santos’s “Psychology and the Good Life” broke Yale course enrollment records. Over in Culture, Sidney Saint-Hillaire, BF ’20, puts the work of Hip Hop and Rap collective N.E.R.D and artist Nina Chanel Abney in conversation, and even curated a playlist to match. And in Opinions, check out three hot takes on Shopping Period (because we couldn’t help ourselves).

Whether you’re hitting the hay or hitting this town this weekend, I hope you take some time to kick back and peruse 2018’s first W, too. We made it through, guys. Now the fun begins.

Till soon, Eve Sneider Editor-in-Chief

2 THE YALE HERALD

THE HERALD MASTHEAD EDITORIAL STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Eve Sneider MANAGING EDITORS Jack Kyono, Margaret Grabar Sage, Nicole Mo

DEPUTY EDITOR Hannah Offer EXECUTIVE EDITORS Tom Cusano, Oriana Tang,

Anna Sudderth, Emma Chanen,

Marc Shkurovich, Emily Ge SENIOR EDITOR Luke Chang FEATURES EDITORS Fiona Drenttel, Brittany Menjivar CULTURE EDITORS Allison Chen, Meghana Mysore OPINION EDITORS Lydia Buonomano, Tereza Podhajska REVIEWS EDITORS Gabe Rojas, Tricia Viveros VOICES EDITOR Carly Gove INSERTS EDITOR Zoe Ervolino AUDIO EDITOR Will Reid BULLBLOG EDITOR Marc Shkurovich

DESIGN STAFF GRAPHICS EDITOR Julia Hedges DESIGN EDITORS Nika Zarazvand Lauren Quintela Audrey Huang Rasmus Schlutter

The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office.

If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please contact the Editorin-Chief at eve.sneider@yale.edu. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 2016-2017 academic year for 65 dollars.

The Yale Herald is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Yale Herald, Inc. or Yale University. Copyright 2017 The Yale Herald.

IN THIS ISSUE 6

8

Airline food, am I right? Peter Chung, PC ‘17, recounts his misadventures at Spirit Airline.

Jordan Cutler-Tietjen, JE ‘20, explores grief, family, and the southwest in “Homesteaded” and “Mom showed sandhill cranes to me.”

It’s shopping period! Follow Eric Krebs, JE ‘21, as he details his plan of an improved academic calendar; go through some soul-searching with Emma Keyes, PC ‘19, and place all your classes on the character alignment chart; and finally, watch Everest Fang, ES ‘20, analyze the psychological reasons behind the hatred so many of us have for the first two weeks of a new semester.

VOICES

FEATURES

OPINIONS

COVER

18

Join the masses with Kat Corfman, SM ’21, and consider the implications behind such extensive student interest in “Psychology and the Good Life.”

Elliot Wailoo, SY ’21, sits down with the Elm City Echo’s most committed vendor

Emma Chanen, BK ‘19, talks to some of the sisters of Delta Sigma Theta about their sorority’s past, present, and future at Yale.

20

REVIEWS

CULTURE

Look around you and find Afrofuturism. Delve into David Hurtado’s BF ‘20 analysis of how the YUAG’s exhibit Lazarus uses mixed media to explore the African American experience and how it calls others to action in recognizing American racial tensions.

Reminisce on those timeless summer days as Bleu Wells, ES ’18, discusses the topics of intimacy and maturation in Call Me by Your Name; get gritty with Nic Harris’, BR ’18, on season four of Peaky Blinders.

Sidney Saint-Hilaire BF ’20 compares the Hip-Hop and Rock collective N.E.R.D to the contemporary artist Nina Chanel Abney, investigating what resistance looks like in a post-Trump art world.

In a galaxy far, far away, Linus Lu, DC ’19 examines the riveting originality of the latest installment in the beloved Star Wars saga; Madeleine Hutchins, BR ’19, deliberates over the strengths and weaknesses in The Post.

WEEK AHEAD FRIDAY, JAN. 26 @ 8:30PM YALE INTERCULTURAL CENTER CONCERT FT. PRINCESS NOKIA MARY HARKNESS AUDITORIUM

SATURDAY, JAN. 27 @2:00PM AND 8:00PM NEXT TO NORMAL

SUNDAY, JAN. 28 @7:00PM BENEFIT CONCERT FOR IRIS AND THE TPS ALLIANCE/ALIANZA BATTELL CHAPEL

MONDAY DAY, JAN. 29 @4:00PM MONDAYS AT BEINECKE BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY

DUO MOBILE PUSH Thought you had a text? Cute.

OUTGOING

OFF BROADWAY THEATER

INCOMING

14, 16

10

DUA LIPA’S OLD RULES 1) Pick up your phone 2) Let him in 3) Be his friend

3

C R E D I T D F A I L

CR/D/F OF CR/D/F ZOE ERVOLINO, MC ‘20 YH STAFF

Cr-Fail D-Cr Fail-D Sad, but cool.

Live a little.

Absolutely no idea how you managed this.

Syllabus Fonts and What They’re Really Telling You ADDEE KIM, JE ‘21

Admit it, despite all the CourseTable perusing you did over break in order to avoid interacting with your family, shopping period has straight up destroyed you. Well, agonize no more, because I’ve got the hottest tip west of the Quinnipiac River: the font of the syllabus determines the quality and character of the professor. Here is the comprehensive guide.

Garamond: The vanilla. Honestly, this is a fine course. When people ask you what classes you are taking, this is the one you will forget.

Comic Sans: The deceptor. Commonly used by science “guts” to convince you that they are guts, which they aren’t actually and FUCK YOU, LISA, FOR TELLING ME OTHERWISE. Avoid at all costs.

Georgia: The racist granddaddy of fonts. Get ready for a semester chock full of microaggressions. Never brings snackies to class.Garamond: The vanilla. Honestly, this is a fine course. When people ask you what classes you are taking, this is the one you will forget.

4 THE YALE HERALD

I N S E R T S

I am a Human of New York and no one has ever asked to take my picture.

M.P. ROTH, SY ‘19

I’m a pretty interesting person. I’m not the most interesting person in the world or anything, but people generally say I come off as charismatic and pleasantly quirky. So it’s just a bit weird that I’ve never been approached, interviewed, or photographed by the tall, granola man I’m told runs Humans Of New York.

I get that there are almost nine million people throughout the five boroughs.

But how many of them walk around Central Park wearing a graphic tee of a forlorn Cookie Monster asking ‘what’s kale?’ And also, I love going to the High Line and getting lunch at Pret A Manger. I use the subway! I’m the quintessential New Yorker, but, again, I’m also different. And quirky.

I should also mention that I’m pretty attractive. Not, like, supermodel attractive, but at least a 6/10… maybe a 6.5/10. Think a poor man’s Dave Franco. Actually, think a middle class man’s Dave Franco. I don’t say that to brag – it’s just so you have the full picture.

And honestly I’m funny too! I’ve got more than a few one-liners saved in the ol’ noggin. For example, if Brandon asks me where I’m from, I’ll say: “a small, farm town originally – the type of place with more cows than people and more incest than cows.” I know it’s not, like, Seth MacFarlane-level comedy, but it’s fine. And I know how to pause halfway through to make it seem totally organic. If I said it to you at a cocktail party you’d think I was really clever.

I’m not mad. If anything, I’m a tad confused. The organization is called Humans of New York and I am literally a human of New York – an interesting, conventionally handsome human of New York. And I haven’t once been stopped to talk about my life by Brandon Stanton? Yes, I know his name is Brandon Stanton.

I realize the odds are stacked against me. I don’t really have any of the life experiences that are guaranteed to get you a HONY picture. Like I’m not narcoleptic or something cool like that. Plus, demographically I’m screwed.

Sad teenagers, old people, and divorcées tend to get all the attention.

Unfortunately, I’m none of those things. But a few months ago I started wearing a Minions backpack to up my game, so that’s something I guess.

To reiterate, I’m not mad, but Jesus how hard is it to get a single, stupid HONY picture. I just want one. And it doesn’t even have to go viral! And for Pete’s sake if I wake up one more morning, open my laptop, and realize I wasted all of yesterday afternoon scoping out SoHo when I should have been on friggin Coney Island I will literally take a bath with a toaster.

If, by chance, Brandon Stanton reads this, you can find me sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park from 4pm to 8pm, Monday through Sunday, for the next two weeks. I will be the man with the Minions backpack.

Sincerely, A Human of New York

5 SILVER LININGS OF THE MORSE FLOOD ELLIOT CONNORS, MC ‘20

5 4 3 2 1

Vindicated my Noah complex.

Covered up the smaller flood caused by my botched above-ground pool installation.

Vindicated my fish complex.

Saved a shit-ton on my son’s baptism.

Increased correspondence with Yale administration.

Vc Jan.26.2017

Homesteaded JORDAN CUTLER-TIETJEN, JE ’20

My mother remembers his beak with three lizards splaying shadows behind his sprint. For his babies.

I survey his homestead, where my mother’s grandfather made the wilderness shift, near where we wake like rocks to the sun. We wait for lizards on our heat. Here, inheritance has followed the mesquite roots and floats deep under the water table, waiting.

For pioneering blood. Or toward dry air said to save the sick. Or wanting space between mountains, that’s why he came. For silent nights. I try to find my past mapped onto the dust. I start to trace my line, snaking to and from cholla stalks,

Mom showed sandhill cranes to me outside our hotel in Florida on vacation to see her brother and his wife as we watched them, the cranes, preen in grass the color of sandhill cranes. The way she named them, the sandhill cranes, was so beautiful, I learned serendipity.

I remember these sandhill cranes bending their knees in dry grass tilting toward their southern home,

atop a windswept hill. I took a step or two toward them and the closest few moved their eyes with me.

In turn, my skittish head spun to Mom, who saw what they could do for me and so told me to approach them.

Project calm, she may have said;

the vacation required some

funny calm, her sister-in-law defending televangelists at dinner and her brother lapping wine.

Their Christmas Tree was nonetheless lovely.

And since I had just learned about that special grove of aspen trees in Colorado with all roots connected, I wondered

whether their Christmas Tree

was connected to the sandhill crane grass and knew of the sandhill cranes skittering through it and away from me and my mom, but not before the tree knew of my steps toward the sandhill cranes, and hers toward me, organisms so we claim to be.

6 THE YALE HERALD

but stop short. My uncle took most out of the ground after the will was settled.

For the garden. Did he feel like we do, driving the Mojave tuned to Christmas hymns, layering hosannas over cacti, while he planted his vines?

Which failed to commune with this ground and so, again, no green.

Still we watch for movement, something rubbing against the wind. I crane my head and forget which ancestors stand beside me, mothering. For the West has a way of losing itself, unlike our roadrunner on his way home.

7 Why I’ll Never Fly Spirit Again PETER CHUNG, PC ’17

The signs were plenty.

1. I am on the bus to the airport when my phone buzzes. Your flight has been delayed by 27 minutes.

“Good grief,” I think to myself. “That’s a weird amount of time for my flight to be delayed.”

2. I am waiting to go through security when my phone buzzes again. Your flight is back on time. And will be landing 6 minutes early. “Interesting.” I rush through security, now that my extra half hour has been snatched from me.

3. I get to my gate. The flight has been delayed again, this time by an hour. I know something is up.

I jump on a flight tracking website and, with great rapidity, look up the flight number, 630. At the bottom of the webpage there’s a history of flight service: Arrived on time, arrived on time, cancelled, arrived on time, arrived on time, arrived on time, cancelled, arrived on time, cancelled, cancelled.

I try to extract more information, but to no avail.

I have seen the signs. I know what they mean. The flight will be cancelled. I turn to my compatriots.

“This flight will be cancelled. The gate agents are lying to us.” In dismay, they scoff. “How can this flight be cancelled? There are hundreds of us. They can’t do this!” I reply, with timidity in my voice, “They’ve done this before.” My fellow passengers don’t listen.

I sneak off to an American Airlines gate on the other side of the airport, a flight also going to New York. My new friend Marsha, the gate agent, tells me that I can buy another ticket, but it will be $200. Wracked with indecision, I pause.

What if I’m wrong? What if the signs were lying to me? What if I can still get on the first flight?

I call my aunt. What should I do? My aunt says I should buy the American Airlines ticket. Full of hubris, I ignore her and return to the gate. I can always rush back to American Airlines if the Spirit flight is cancelled.

I am waiting at the gate when at once I hear a booming announcement. The flight has been cancelled. I was ready for this message. Knowing that Spirit offers essentially no refunds, I pick up my bags and sprint to the American Airlines ticketing gate. Marsha is there waiting for me. The fare has not increased and I’m able to get a ticket.

My compatriots are left stranded.

I board my flight. I have succeeded, but this is a melancholy success. My fellow passengers could not read the signs. And for the strife this caused them, in their name, I will never fly Spirit again.

Dread fills my heart. I look up Flight 630 on Google, and an article from the International Business Times shows up. “Why Spirit Is The Worst Airline In America, Or My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Flight.” The article describes the signs, point by point. It describes the weird delays, the unsettled crowd, the unanswered questions.

In a flurry, I rush to the gate agent, something I never do, and ask her why the flight has been delayed. The pilot hasn’t shown up, she tells me.

I ask her if the flight will be cancelled. She says, with darkness in her eyes, “I can’t say.”

7

Op Jan.26.2017

Institute the Pre-Shopping Period Shopping Period ERIC KREBS, JE ‘21

EVEREST FANG, ES ‘20 Shopping Period blows. Getting two weeks to explore different classes is an obscene luxury that instills an unproductive false confidence. Shopping Period only extends an initial period of uncertainty. We still have no way of really knowing how things will turn out.

Shopping Period leads us to believe that we know what is interesting and what is not, which professors are good and which are not. It reinforces a confidence in our own beliefs that runs contrary to the purpose of higher education. One of the primary objectives of pursuing higher education is to develop doubt in your convictions, to question your ideas and principles in a persistent quest for truth. We will inevitably start each class with a base set of assumptions. The most valuable skill that we cultivate is learning to challenge those assumptions and adapt to the changes that will inevitably come about. When we commit ourselves to a set of classes, we are committing to embrace uncertainty and roll with the punches. It is an exercise in living a life that will always be filled with uncertainty. In the end, college should really be training us to thrive in uncertainty.

I have a proposition. Yale University should hold a pre-Shopping Period Shopping Period in the middle of winter break to teach us to savor the time we have at home. Let me explain.

Approximately two weeks ago, I found myself alone at home on a Wednesday. My parents had gone to work, it was sub-zero outside, and I had not a single thing in the world to do. I was three spoonfuls into my fourth bowl of Raisin Bran—one bowl per every episode of Planet Earth I’d watch—and I was getting dangerously stuffed. To appease the growing, sharp pain in my abdomen, I slouched upstairs to my bedroom and sprawled on my bed, maximizing my surface area. Staring at the baby blue ceiling of my childhood bedroom, it really hit me. I was bored out of my mind. I wanted to be back in New Haven with things to do and people to see. I wanted it to be Shopping Period already.

Now if only it was.

If these last two weeks have taught me anything, it’s the power of regret. Specifically, the regret of wasting your entire winter break. I understand that I’m not alone in this struggle. Upon the completion of our very first class, friends and I gathered and lamented all we had missed out on. I reminisced, recalling the days spent wallowing away in isolation: eyes tired from ceaseless TED Talk surfing, legs sore from inactivity, and brain blighted from boredom after consuming an unhealthy amount of useless information. Only then did I realize that all the time I spent passively relaxing could have been spent actively doing nothing. Passive relaxation, to be clear, is the process of doing nothing while waiting to do something. Actively doing nothing is the process of doing nothing to really just do nothing.

The active form allows one to enter a state of flow, in which they are consumed by the present (yes, I am in Psychology and the Good Life). I should’ve relished the days I didn’t get out of bed until 2:30 p.m., ate a copious amount of food without being shamed by pretentious recipe cards, and didn’t walk so much as a tenth of a mile (according to the MyHealth app).

We have all felt the retroactive shame of having done both too much and not enough over break, and at that moment, I realized something had to change.

Thus enters the pre-Shopping Period Shopping Period.

Exactly two weeks after the last final of Fall semester (right between the time you stop counting the days you’ve been home and before you start counting how many days you have left), there should be a fake Shopping Period in which everyone, from near and far, must return to campus and face the music. For three days, the school will put us through a bootcamp, requiring five classes minimum per day. On Monday, you’ll go to three oversubscribed seminars and two

8 THE YALE HERALD

Shopping Through Life

QR’s for good measure. On Tuesday, you’ll try your hand at finding a science gut (and fail all seven times).

Wednesdays, you will return to the EP&E seminar you shopped your freshman fall for 10 minutes before “taking a bathroom break,” running back to your dorm in fright, and switching your major to anthropology.

(And this time, you have to sit through the entire thing). You’ll find yourself bouncing between the Watson Center, the YUAG, and that dark closet in the basement of LC you mistook for a classroom that one time—for twenty minutes. You will be injected with a 72 hour intravenous dose of the hell that is Shopping Period.

And then you get to go home.

Fake Shopping Period would wake us up and snap us out of the foolish boredom of Winter Break. It would teach us to truly savor every second of nothingness.

Friends don’t call you to hang out? Who cares! At least you’re not crying in the back of Macro. Don’t have anywhere to be? Savor it! Two weeks from now you’ll have 8 places to be at once. Slept in till 4 and feel guilty about wasting the day? Nonsense! You can stock up on sleep weeks in advance—trust me, I saw it in a TED Talk over break. Studies show that at least one food coma a week does wonders for mental health. Aside from the night terrors and cold sweats, the final two weeks of break will be the most relaxing fortnight of your life. Every second will be savored, every uneventful night will be cherished, and you’ll arrive back at school more rejuvenated than ever.

See, all it takes is a little nip in the bud to really ignite your sense of laziness, and nothing quite like three days in the frying pan will make you revel in the chill of winter break isolation.

The whole purpose of allowing students to explore classes to let them experiment with their various interests and test the waters in classes they’re uncertain about. It is based on the idea that students’ preferences are not fully developed. Yet, at the end of Shopping Period we are still asked to make a decision. We cut out the classes we found to be boring or excessively difficult, and keep the ones we found to be exciting, engaging, or required to graduate. Yet, we picked those classes based on the same halfformed interests and hazy preferences that led Yale to create Shopping Period. Shopping Period might provide a little bit more information about classes, but it does not improve our ability to process that information. In the long run, we’re often schooled: the classes we thought were exciting actually suck and classes we thought were a drag are actually incredibly interesting.

Shopping Period in college is unnecessary and ineffective. After years of simply taking the high school classes you were required to and learning to deal with it, you suddenly get to pick and choose, reassured that you know what you’re doing. But you don’t. You have no idea. And deep down, you know you have no idea, which is why you hate Shopping Period as much as you might also love it. Shopping Period is a failed attempt to solve an unsolvable problem. And in reality, that problem is not really a problem at all. It’s just how things are. At some point, you just have to commit to decisions knowing that they might be bad ones. You can’t know how things will turn out, whether a certain class, job, or person will be a perfect fit.

The only thing you know is that whatever happens, you’ll have to learn to deal with it.

Shopping Period is Actually a Dungeons & Dragons Game in Your Mom’s Basement EMMA KEYES, PC ‘19 YH STAFF Shopping Period is chaotic neutral. If you don’t know what that means then you live your life in a very different framework than I do, but I’ll explain.

In the fantasy tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, every character has a moral alignment somewhere in a three-by-three grid. Each row of the grid contains lawful-neutral-chaotic and each column contains good-neutral-evil, so each alignment is some combination of a row and column, anywhere from lawful good to chaotic evil. This spectrum succinctly captures every aspect of the entire world.

I view nearly everything in my life through this lens, so take what you will from that. The best quiz to determine your own moral alignment (I’m chaotic good) assumes that you are taking the quiz on behalf of your DnD character, which makes it all the more fun (The Elders have besmirched you. How do you react?). Please take it and let me know what you get so I know where to put you in my meticulous moral positionings of the people and things in my life. Moral alignments don’t just apply to people after all. I like to position the classes I take and the extracurriculars I do in this grid, as well. WYBC Yale Radio is chaotic good.

Game Theory is lawful evil. American Architecture and Urbanism is neutral good. Close Analysis of Film was true neutral (I can’t speak to its current alignment now that JD Connor is no longer at Yale and therefore no longer teaches it). As you can imagine, I could go on.

I don’t think I need to explain the inherent chaos embedded in the era of our lives we call Shopping Period, but the first two weeks of every academic semester thrive on undermining the comforting routine that we expect from a supposedly world-class institution such as Yale University. Sure someone could argue that there is some order imposed, since pre-registration for classes exists, but to that person I say: Go to Hell History Major and Leave the Rest of Us Here to Suffer in Chaos. The neutralness of Shopping Period comes from, I think, the balance between the competing forces of good and evil every single time we shop more than four classes in one day. You probably shopped some killer seminars with interesting readings, engaging professors, and other really intelligent students these past two weeks.

That’s the good side. On the evil side, you probably won’t get into any of said seminars. Therefore, this two-week period can only be described as neutral.

And that brings me to my concluding point: Shopping Period is chaotic neutral, but the rest of the semester is neutral evil. Thank you and I’ll see you all at my Dungeons & Dragons game next week (I don’t play Dungeons & Dragons, but after writing this, I feel like I should start).

“The Elders have besmirched you. How do you react?”

9

Ft Jan.26.2017

In Good Company KAT CORFMAN, SM ’21

A quarter of a year is three months; a quarter of a dollar is 25 cents; a quarter of an hour is 15 minutes. A quarter of Yale College is “Psychology and the Good Life.”

On Tues., Jan. 16, students of all years filled the pews of Battell Chapel. The next class session, they spilled over into Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall (SSS). Two years of brainstorming and development couldn’t prepare Professor Laurie Santos for the turnout: 1,165 students. This surpassed the previous enrollment record of 1,052 students, held by President Peter Salovey for a class he taught in 1992 entitled “Psychology and the Law.” What makes Santos’ class most intriguing, however, is not just its record attendance—it’s the questions these numbers raise and the answers they demand of Yale and its culture.

According to Yale College Dean Marvin Chun, the class was not even projected to fill the largest classroom on campus— located at Yale Law School—let alone Battell Chapel. By the first week of Shopping Period, however, Battell had reached capacity, SSS was annexed, and the lectures simulcast.

The following week, Woolsey Hall experienced its maiden voyage as a classroom. “We predicted the class would be large,” said Chun, “but it blew past all our projections… and then we had to scramble.” Chun continues his support of the course by attempting to procure Woolsey Hall not as a temporary fix, but as a semester-long solution.

“This is a movement to devote our time and energies to learning what psychology and the social sciences and humanities and scholarship have to say about what defines a good life,” said Chun. The class begins by introducing common misconceptions about what makes a person happy.

From there, it will “review scientifically-validated strategies for harnessing our cognitive biases to live a better and more satisfying life,” as the syllabus states. The goal, though, is to synthesize psychological research and “give it to students in a way that they can apply [to] their own lives,” said Santos.

This is also the first Yale class to use an app called “ReWi,” which was developed by Felipe Pires, ES ’19, and funded by the Center for Teaching and Learning.

What draws Yalies of all stripes to this class, especially when “Psychology and the Good Life” isn’t the only class at Yale that attempts to explore questions of life and happiness?

“The question of the good life—of what is worth wanting in life—is contested in our day in a way it has not been for centuries,” said Professor Matt Croasmun, head of the Life Worth Living Program. Croasmun also teaches a section of “Life Worth Living,” an elective in the Humanities major that, he says, aims to “equip students for the life-long process of discerning the good life for themselves, seeking after the truth of what makes life most worth living.” The course engages these ideas through the study of various religions and philosophies rather than psychology. It also requires an application in order to “craft seminars that bring together diverse voices and experiences” belonging to students who are “hungry to use the very best of their intellectual energy to address the question of the good life.”

“Psychology and the Good Life” obviously did not require an application. There will be a midterm exam and two research papers in addition to five in-class quizzes, but only

10 THE YALE HERALD

a student’s best three quiz scores will count towards the final grade. The second set of requirements are called “rewirements,” which the syllabus describes as “a series of activities and exercises aimed at making you happier, healthier, and more resilient.” Next week’s rewirement, for example, is a 7-day “daily gratitude journal.” Though the rewirements will require “even more time and hard work” than the course requirements, they will not factor into students’ final grades. Students will use the “ReWi” app to log their weekly rewirements. But it doesn’t end there—Santos encourages students not to dwell on grades and even to take the class Credit/D/Fail.

It’s unlikely that all 1,165 students in this class are truly invested in reprogramming the way they think. That doesn’t mean, however, that all of the students are there simply to coast through the semester. “[The students] want answers to the big questions,” Santos said. Perhaps they find comfort in the “psychological insights” and “scientifically-validated strategies” that the course description promises. “They’re worried, they’re anxious,” said Santos of Yale students, crediting her experience as Silliman’s Head of College as the catalyst for her decision to use her teaching experience to work towards positive campus-wide change. “[Students] know something’s wrong with [Yale’s] culture. They know that this is not the healthiest culture it could be.”

There remains a measure of skepticism surrounding the class, frequently taking the form of memes—our generation’s hallowed mode of expression that can be a telling source of insight into the inner workings of a young population. One meme on the “Yale Memes for Special Snowflake Teens” Facebook page asserts that the sheer portion of Yale’s undergraduate population taking the course is “a sign that Yale students need more than just a class about managing happiness,” and, similar to what Santos’ own close experience with undergraduates has revealed to her, “it goes to show that there is something insidiously wrong with campus culture.”

So what’s the remedy for tired, stressed, maxed-out Yalies? What exactly does a healthy culture at Yale look like? As proposed by the syllabus, healthier culture would likely involve less emphasis on “performance goals” (i.e. grades and achievements), thus allowing for more “learning goals.” Santos would like to see more open discourse between students and faculty regarding one’s purpose and how to live a meaningful life, regardless of what shape that might take for each person.

“Our minds deliver to us the wrong answers all the time,” Santos said, citing simple optical illusions as everyday examples of how our brains trick us into thinking things that are not necessarily true. “Many students have developed unhealthy mentalities or lifestyles from the pressure cooker of Yale,” Becca Rose, SM ’21, said. “I think the high turnout really shows that students care about improving their own happiness and personal wellbeing.” The course offers methods to make students’ lives happier and alleviate the weight of responsibilities most Yale students bear.

Last week, while shopping a class, a professor quipped that Shopping Period seems to wear down on students’ mental health more intensely than anything else.

“Psychology and the Good Life” instantly came to mind.

The turnout could be regarded as a response to existing problems concerning the intensity of Yale’s atmosphere coupled with lack of accessible mental health care, a persistent issue for many students. But are quick, easy, concrete answers all it takes to positively impact campus culture and improve students’ mental health, or is there something additional that can be done with this common goal in mind? More accessible, better-funded mental health services are a prevalent example, as evinced by both current meme trends as well as constant discussion amongst students.

“With an unexpected relapse in my health, I’ve still spent hundreds of hours on something that is not schoolwork and not extracurricular, that will never appear on my

LAST WEEK, WHILE SHOPPING A CLASS, A PROFESSOR QUIPPED THAT SHOPPING PERIOD SEEMS TO WEAR DOWN ON STUDENTS’ MENTAL HEALTH MORE AGGRESSIVELY THAN ANYTHING ELSE. “PSYCHOLOGY AND THE GOOD LIFE” INSTANTLY CAME TO MIND.

resume. Advocating for the care I need is hard work,” said one student who has struggled with mental illness for years and asked not to be named. It seems particularly unfair that students whose college experience is inherently more taxing than others’ would have to work even harder to find a remedy.

While the turnout for “Psychology and the Good Life” may be an indicator of underlying systemic issues, every student has a different reason for taking the course. For some, the class may serve as a reminder to slow down and “[appreciate] the day-to-day,” as Michael Borger, SM ’20, said. “So many of us have poured years into getting into Yale, and now that we’re here, time seems to be fleeting because of classes, extracurriculars, internship hunts, and so on.”

David Glaess, SM ’19, jokingly compared the class to a TED Talk. This comparison could easily be due to the class’s sheer size, considering that TED Conferences “[bring] together up to 1,200...people” according to the website. But perhaps the class’s overall spirit could be equated with TED’s slogan: “ideas worth sharing.”

Glaess also said that people in the class seemed to feel as though “they were part of a movement… something bigger.”

For many students, this may well be the case, especially for underclassmen, who have another two or three years during which they can stimulate positive change and make Yale a better place. Santos speculates that, with graduation a mere hundred or so days away, seniors are more likely to use the class as a vehicle for critical thinking about their future careers and the lives they hope to lead outside of college.

“It demonstrates to me what I know about Yale students— that they love learning,” Chun said of the high turnout to the class. “To see Yale students get excited about a course just as they would get excited about a show or about their other activities—to see this level of passion—is very rewarding.

That’s one reason why I didn’t want to cap the course.”

Such widespread interest and participation in a class on “the Good Life” exposes not only the difficulties students face because of campus culture and systemic shortcomings, but also a degree of hope. There is hope for change, hope for improvement, hope for the future of mental health care at Yale, and hope for students’ success on their academic and personal paths. And, even while some people may have less than profound reasons for occupying a seat in Yale’s grandest auditorium this semester, there is solace in banding together and reminding ourselves that we do not struggle alone. “We are all responsible for each other’s well-being,” as Nika Zarazvand, TD ’20, said. “Let’s support one another.”

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12

Be the ∆ you wish to see EMMA CHANEN, BK ’19 YH STAFF

On the first day of 2018, Californians visited legal recreational marijuana facilities, the Pope castigated humans for ruining 2017, and Yale sororities opened registration for recruitment. From Recruitment Orientation to Bid Night, sorority rush on Yale’s campus takes a little over a week—nine days exactly—before each Potential New Member is united with her sisterhood.

For the members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the process of joining the sisterhood is different. Membership intake is a long, intentional, and demanding process, and it culminates in a New Initiate Presentation, the welcoming and pronouncement of a new line. The process forges bonds between line sisters (members who are initiated at the same time) and teaches them the history and ways of the organization.

On March 9, 2017, the Pi Alpha Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. held its presentation of its eight new members, the first line of members since 2011. This line, led by President Kaylan Burchfield, TC ’18, decked out in crimson bomber jackets, took to Cross Campus to celebrate and embody the mission of their group: Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated is an organization of college educated women committed to the constructive development of its members and to public service with a primary focus on the Black community. ***

On the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in March of 1913, the Woman Suffrage Procession marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. At the rear of the cluster of protesters stood the 22 Illustrious Founders of Delta Sigma

Theta Sorority, Inc. They composed the beginning of Alpha Chapter, which is located at Howard University. They were at the back because the white southern suffragists threatened to boycott the march unless strict segregation rules were enforced and the Black delegation got the last slot in the lineup. (According to the NAACP’s The Crisis, Black women resisted this agreement, and women like Ida B. Wells refused to comply with the enforced segregation.)

The 22 Howard University students, who constituted the founding line of Delta Sigma Theta, had grown frustrated at the lack of political engagement in the community.

Nia Berrian, BK ’19, the Pi Alpha Chapter’s Sergeant at Arms and Social Action Committee Chair narrated, “The National Women’s March of 1913 was coming up, and they wanted to do something about that and get more active in their community and talk about the issues of the day, because it was 1913 for a Black person. Lynching was a huge thing at this time.” Inspired, the Illustrious 22 established Delta Sigma Theta Sorority on January 13, 1913. Their first public act as a newly formed organization was the Woman Suffrage Procession. Founding member Florence Letcher Toms commented in 1963, “We marched that day in order that women might come into their own, because we believed that women not only needed an education, but they needed a broader horizon in which they may use that education. And the right to vote would give them that privilege.” According to the official Delta Sigma Theta website, 97 percent of Deltas were registered to vote as of 2008.

Fulfilling their founding intention to be a nationally-focused organization, Delta Sigma Theta and their mission spread.

Berrian said, “After that, we get women like Pauli Murray;

we get women like Mary McLeod Bethune and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander. And in the span of like five years they went from DC to Ohio and Pennsylvania. They get out to the West Coast and spread the word of committing yourself to these organizations and creating national programs for us that actually focus on the issues that we face.”

This focus on the issues has since been organized into the Delta Sigma Theta’s Five-Point Programmatic Thrust: Educational Development, Economic Development, International Awareness and Involvement, Political Awareness and Involvement, and Physical and Mental Health.

President Kaylan Burchfield articulated the benefit of this breakdown: “It’s super meaningful because you can find all of these communities which might be disproportionately affected by something or disenfranchised, and we can go in as Black women and say, what are the things that need to be done? What are the particular needs of these communities? We don’t just go in and say this is what needs to be done. We talk with those communities; we try to get familiar, and then we see from there what we can best do to serve them based on the things that they’ve expressed.”

The Yale Deltas embody that spirit in New Haven, where Yale’s efforts (or lack thereof) to support and engage with the New Haven community are often criticized for lacking this important attribute. Burchfield continued, “For example, Pi Alpha recently did a winter gear drive here on campus because New Haven has a huge homeless population, and particularly those people are people of color.” The Deltas gathered winter clothing items from friends on campus as well as friends and family from home over breaks to donate to the New Haven Housing Authority. In the coming months

13

“And because they were Black gated to the back of the line, b w ity 10 they’ll be working with Hunger Heroes and continuing their Red Talks, designed to elevate the voices of Black women and showcase the work they’re doing. Dean Renita Miller of Berkeley College and member of Delta Sigma Theta hosted the first of the Red Talks titled “Minority Voices: Representational Roles of African American and Latino Legislators during State Legislative Deliberations.”

Burchfield emphasized that Delta Sigma Theta is a service organization first and foremost. She said, “While we love our bonds of sisterhood and devotion to one another, we also realize that our first love is service, so you’ll usually see a tagline, ‘Sisterhood, scholarship, and service.’ We are educated Black women who are devoted to one another but who also realize that we have an obligation to the communities from which we came.” Berrian echoes this sentiment when articulating what attracted her to the Deltas. She said, “I think there’s no other group that really focuses on public service the way the Deltas have. Even their founding story is very focused on what they can do for their community, and I try to be someone who thinks about their community in such an intentional way. So it’s kind of a way for me to better myself and also have people to support me on that journey.”

Burchfield herself comes from two generations of sisterhood, scholarship, and service through the Deltas via her mother and grandmother. Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee—a predominantly Black city, she noted—she witnessed and admired the work they did in her community. According to Azaria King’s (BK ’20) article “The Return of Yale’s Deltas” in DOWN Magazine, Naiya Speight-Leggett, GH ’19, also comes from two generations of Delta women. Though these familial bonds underscore the lifelong dedication to service and sisterhood, Burchfield is quick to note that one does not inherit this enduring commitment but rather must choose it: “Being a legacy of my sorority is a privilege, because it means I came from somebody who had the resources and the education to be able to be a part of this organization. But at the same time you have to make a choice for yourself. I had to make the decision for myself about why I wanted to become a Delta, and that was because I saw Black women at the forefront being innovative leaders, being trailblazers, being some of the nation’s finest minds.” ***

Though March of 2017 marked the re-establishment of the Pi Alpha Chapter, the Deltas are not exactly new on campus. In fact, it was the first sorority ever to be established at Yale. The homepage of the Official Website of Pi Alpha Chapter Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated opens, “On March 24, 1984, two women in the New Haven area, Soror Delilah Gomes and Soror Mattie Long, inspired by the legacy of the founders of our beloved Delta Sigma Theta, met and established the Pi Alpha Chapter. Pi Alpha was

14 THE YALE HERALD

the first undergraduate chapter of Black Greek-letter organizations for women chartered in the New Haven area.”

It does not specify Yale because the Pi Alpha chapter was founded by thirteen women from both Yale and Southern Connecticut State University and later welcomed membership from other schools in the area including Albertus Magnus College, University of New Haven, and Wesleyan.

Much like the Zeta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (which remains a New Haven fraternity rather than a Yale one), Pi Alpha was associated with a region rather than a school. Though the last members of Pi Alpha were active around 2012, and all of the new members are Yalies, there is also a New Haven Alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta—one of many such chapters across the globe.

The reason for the disappearance of the Deltas around 2012 is not completely clear. An old Twitter account for Pi Alpha last tweeted in April of 2012. Though it’s (unlikely but) possible that interest waned, and there were simply no new members to induct, Berrian stated “I’m not sure of the exact details.” If there were issues, it seems as though the Deltas were taking the time they needed to take stock, reevaluate, and plan for the future.

In the time since the Deltas disappeared, and again this week, the week of sorority rush, members of Yale’s Greek community have faced uncomfortable truths about seemingly intractable problems. With the shameful (though not particularly revelatory) revelation that multiple women had been sexually assaulted at Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE), Yale’s Greek life once again intersects with its nasty sexual climate. It was only two and half years ago that Yale’s Greek life exemplified its institutional racism when a brother manning the door at a Sigma Alpha Epsilon (now “Leo” locally, though still SAE nationally) proclaimed that it was letting in “white girls only.” (The Herald reached out to Leo for comment on their lingering affiliation with SAE’s national organization but did not receive a reply.) Leo has recently been receiving praise for making its parties safer for women, but there was no similar Herculean effort made to repair the harm done after the incident of 2015.

Berrian commented on joining a potentially turbulent Greek scene by noting that Black Greek organizations are somewhat separate and certainly not mired by the classic pitfalls of privilege that many Greek organizations come up against. Delta Sigma Theta is not a member of Yale’s Panhellenic Council, though it is a part of the National Panhellenic Council, the organization that comprises the nine historically Black Greek lettered sororities and fraternities. Delta Sigma Theta’s identity as a service organization rather than a social organization is also a key aspect of this separation. Though sororities across the nation participate in philanthropy, service is not as integral to their missions. Burchfield clarified, “We don’t just give

k women they had to be subjubut nonetheless, we were there with our Delta Sigma Theta sorory banner held very proudly. And 05 years later we’re still there.”

— Kaylan Burchfield TC ’18 money, write a check, take a nice picture, and then leave.

Deltas are going to work with Habitat for Humanity for example, who’s one of our partners, and go out and help build the homes. We’re going to go to soup kitchens and roll up our sleeves. And we’re not doing it just for publicity or just for show. We are a service organization, so the reason you’re joining a lifetime commitment to serve is because you are willing to.” (Delta Sigma Theta was the first Black organization to partner with Habitat for Humanity.)

Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and South Korea.

The Deltas also don’t mix with fraternities in the same way that sororities on the Yale Panhellenic Council do. To further articulate their difference, though, Berrian talked about the role race plays in making spaces: “Realizing how race and this space interact with each other, it’s very different. A lot of it is, we just have different missions and different focuses, and people join for different reasons.”

In 1974, Alice Paul, organizer of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession described Mary Church Terrell’s plan to bring a group of protesters from the National Association of Colored Women “a hurdle.” Along with Terrell’s contingent, the founding 22 members of Delta Sigma Theta made up the entire delegation of Black women that participated in the march that made important strides toward the right to vote for women — the same march that white women had threatened to boycott because of their involvement. In remembering her organization’s inaugural act of national engagement, Burchfield recounts, “And because they were Black women they had to be subjugated to the back of the line, but nonetheless, we were there with our Delta Sigma Theta Sorority banner held very proudly. And 105 years later we’re still there.”

These differences of Black Greek life will soon (if they have not already) become relevant in a current campus debate: should Yale disband or coeducate Greek life altogether?

The campus group Engender is leading the charge to eradicate gender-exclusive social spaces (with a focus on allmale spaces), but what about a historically Black fraternity like Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.? Berrian argued, “It’s very interesting to see how we fit into the Engender conversations. I don’t think Engender is going to ask Alphas to disband and coeducate anytime soon. And it’s very interesting to see if they should; you just have to think about how the politics of that works. But then a lot of it doesn’t even apply, so it’s not like any bad blood is there for not being included.”

When asked what the Yale community can look forward to seeing from the Deltas in the future, Burchfield, a proud president, gushed, “Pi Alpha has been one of the leading sororities on this campus, and I don’t think that that will change when the school year ends. I’m excited for Pi Alpha to just continue to be the leaders that I know they will be and that Delta trusts them to be and molds us to be.”

*** Seventeen years after their founding, on January 20, 1930, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority incorporated, and fulfilled one of their original goals to enlarge the scope of their organization. Today, Delta is not just national but international spanning the US, England, Japan, Germany, the

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Ft Jan.26.2017

Echoes in the Street ELLIOT WAILOO, SY ’21 I heard Carolyn Huckabey days before I saw her and weeks before I met her. While sitting at my dorm room desk or meandering through cross campus, I would often hear a voice calling, “Yale Hunger Homeless Project!” repeatedly and clearly. Only later, when I looked for her, did she materialize— holding a magazine, approaching pedestrians and students, following her first cry with a second: “Elm City Echo!”

It’s a cold Friday morning, and Carolyn is making her way across Chapel Street toward me. She has a round face and wears her silvery hair drawn back in a tight ponytail. I’m waiting under the tree in front of the Union League Café, one of her favorite places—to advertise the Echo, that is. The spot is right across the street from my dorm, within sight of my third-floor window.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says. “I ran into someone.”

She guides me around the side of the café into an alley labeled “The Shops at Yale,” onto a bench barely large enough for two. She adjusts the two bags criss-crossing her body and sits down. I sit, too.

The Elm City Echo is a publication edited by Yale students in conjunction with the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project (YHHAP), featuring the voices of unhoused New Haveners—and for the past four years, Carolyn has sold it. “The Elm City Echo provides a medium for personal expression for those experiencing hunger and homelessness as well as an economic opportunity for those that sell the Echo,” said Jackson Willis, BK ’19, Executive Director of YHHAP. A state-conducted inquiry in 2016 found that on any given night in late January, 520 individuals are living in New Haven’s homeless shelters and transitional housing facilities.

Nineteen percent of adults in this situation are veterans, 14.9 percent have a severe mental illness, and 12.8 percent are survivors of domestic violence. An additional 105 unsheltered people call the Elm City home.

“Echo vendors are members of the transient New Haven community, many having experienced different degrees of hunger and homelessness,” explained Willis. “Usually, they have been identified for their commitment to the Echo’s cause and their enthusiasm to participate as vendors.”

Carolyn has a home of her own, although she is friends with many members of New Haven’s community, sheltered and unsheltered. Each week, she picks up copies of the Echo in packages of 24 or 48 from Dwight Hall, paying fifty cents per copy. She sells each one for two dollars, making a profit of $1.50. *** Carolyn enjoys every minute of her work, especially because she gets to be outdoors. “When you’re in a building, closed in, it’s like you’ve got no freedom,” she says. She emphasizes

1616 THE THEYALE YALE HERALD HERALD

this because she has spent most of her adult life working in buildings. First, there was the factory (“we used to make stitches—sutures—it was surgical”); then there was a stint at school to become a nursing aide. Later, she worked as an in-home assistant for an elderly woman, coordinated by the state-run personal care assistance program Allied Community Resources. But none of these arrangements worked out. The surgical company changed owners, and Carolyn, unwilling to ride out the uncertainty of possible layoffs, took a buyout. She left nursing school after four months, disenchanted by the structural rigidity. And though the in-home job might have been more Carolyn’s speed, the elderly woman she cared for was manipulative. “She took advantage of me,” Carolyn describes. “She was docking me [pay], charging me fees, and having me work overtime and not paying me for overtime.” So one day, she left.

Her new job with the Echo has no factory floor supervisor and no scheming boss; it allows her to be adventurous, and leaves her speech unfettered. Her voice is free to reverberate down the street, across campus, through my open window. Her current life contains echoes of her past; she still advocates and cares for others, but does so on her own schedule, following her own route.

According to Khush Dhaliwal, MC ’19, one of the Editorsin-Chief of the Echo, Carolyn has been the publication’s most consistent vendor for years. “Carolyn has recruited several other vendors,” Dhaliwal said. “She has really good relationships with a lot of different people in New Haven. A number of people have been her regular customers over the past couple years.” *** From her sidewalk vantage, Carolyn can watch residents, students, and tourists as they move through New Haven.

Often, she pays close attention to the dynamics of the couples that pass her by. She tells me that sometimes, a woman will want to listen to her sales pitch and buy a copy of the Echo, but her male partner will pull her away or say no. Carolyn tells me that she knows from experience that this can indicate an abusive relationship. “Sometimes I see guys controlling their women,” she says. “When they close that door, you never know what happens. I was in an abusive relationship, and I know what it feels like. I was strong enough to pull away from it.”

She’s been out of that relationship for more than a decade.

She does not share her current apartment; she loves living alone because it allows her to stay organized and clean.

Her past relationships have been messy, she says. By this, she means both physical disorder as well as the dysfunction brought by alcohol and drug abuse. I ask her where she lives, and she points down the street. Her home is about six blocks down Chapel, near a branch of the hospital.

Carolyn is optimistic. She has moved beyond her past jobs and coworkers, and now, she has bigger things in mind.

Someday, she plans to buy a car to distribute food to people

who need it. “I want to let them know that I do care,” she explains. “We have to have more consideration for others, because we don’t know their background and their situation.

A lot of them lived a brutal life.”

When I open my copy of the Elm City Echo, I read the stories of their lives. According to Maddy Batt, ES ’19, the Echo’s other Editor-in-Chief, student volunteers spend multiple weeks working with residents at local shelters like Columbus House or Fellowship Place to develop these pieces. Many are brutal, as Carolyn described, but they are also tinged with hopefulness.

In one short story, “Living by Rules and Regulations,” a woman named Mary narrates her life, recounting her upbringing as a cotton- and tobacco-picker in North Carolina and her abrupt, impersonal eviction in January 2016 from her New Haven apartment. In an essay titled “The Hood,” an anonymous contributor recounts her aborted pregnancy at 14 and the fatal shooting of her son, but concludes by looking forward to the futures of her three surviving children—all working, independent adults.

In another moving piece, “The True Story of a Tranny,” Monique, a black trans woman, shares her heartbreaking narrative. She tells of her molestation as a child, her transition at 18, the deaths of close friends, her struggles with depression. “Then I start prostituting,” she writes. “I tried to sleep with people who had AIDS to kill myself.” Monique is now 45. She wants to inspire others to appreciate life and to get to know God better. She is HIV-free; she is close to her family; she is resilient.

Every day, Carolyn provides these otherwise-inaccessible stories with a platform. She politely demands attention; she stands respectfully at the sidewalk’s edge, but works to make eye contact with passersby. This is a tactic she learned early on in this job, she explains.

Carolyn has faced difficulties from Yale Security staff members who confront and misunderstand her, according to Dhaliwal.

“One time, she was trying to sell issues of the Echo, but Yale Security … assumed that she was just soliciting money for her own purposes,” she says. “I don’t’ think [the officer] actually understood what the Echo did. Carolyn just moved to a different area.”

Despite her efforts to connect with passersby, Carolyn says she is often ignored, especially by people not used to being in a diverse city with a predominantly black population. Often, these people are Yale students told to stay within campus’ bounds, wary of certain members of the New Haven community. Sometimes, people laugh at her, but even more just stare straight ahead. In both cases, she keeps her head high, continuing to make her sales pitch, maintaining its volume. She believes in the Echo’s mission, and she won’t be silenced.

***

17 Since my interview with Carolyn, I know to look for her during my daily routines—and start noticing her more often, realizing that she has always been at the periphery of my interactions. In the morning, she stands outside Union League under the tree and then moves through campus in the afternoon, vocal but largely unacknowledged. A few hours after our meeting, I walk by her as she is describing the Echo to a student leaning against a tree on Cross Campus.

I try to catch her eye, but she is intent on making her sale.

On Saturday morning, she suddenly appears outside my window as I sit down for my cereal, her announcement of “Yale Hunger Homeless Project!” echoing off of the brick buildings. I watch for five minutes, but all the pedestrians, mostly white business-people and couples out for a stroll, ignore her. Her eyes patiently track them as they walk by, some of them passing less than a foot away, others moving to be on the opposite side of the sidewalk. Carolyn’s gaze does not linger; she quickly moves on to the next person coming down the street. ***

HER VOICE IS FREE TO REVERBERATE DOWN THE STREET, ACROSS CAMPUS, THROUGH MY OPEN WINDOW.

An untitled poem by Carolyn is on the back cover of the Echo—she gets the page to herself. Notably, her piece is the only contribution that’s handwritten. Her penmanship is triangular, jaunty. Her poem ends: Because I’m out their selling books doesn’t exclude me from society. I’m faced with alot of negative remarks but it’s OK. I’m that woman that ignores negativity and goes on with my days with plenty of smiles and happiness.

At the bottom of the page sits her signature: elegant, effortless. Next to it, a tree with six leaves grows from the paper’s edge, reaching upwards.

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Clt Jan.26.2017

Two N.E.R.Ds of a Feather SIDNEY SAINT-HILAIRE, BF ’20 In triumphant fashion, N.E.R.D (No One Ever Really Dies) returns after a nearly decade long hiatus with a self-titled album: a splice of samples, voices, and stories tied together with thoughtful, expert producing. To those unfamiliar with N.E.R.D’s signature sound, the newest installment from this reborn group is spellbinding.

The majority of the album is built on a heartbeat of repetitive, invigorating lyrics. The rousing pound of bass lining each track is hypnotizing. The work of the visual artist, Nina Chanel Abney, is just as defiant and inviting. Abney’s style strikes me as the love child of what I thought were irreconcilable voices: her works retain the terse, ALL-CAPS text style that was popularized by artists like Barbara Kruger while still managing to craft quiet, if not contemplative, scenes and moods reminiscent of Jacob Lawrence. Both N.E.R.D and Nina Chanel Abney have created works with particular popculture savvy and chromatic intensity. But what’s more is that both have succeeded in creating art that doesn’t sacrifice clarity of message for the sake of aesthetics.

Abney as well as N.E.R.D have used their works as proof that resistance can be nothing short of commanding even if it’s eccentric: especially if it’s eccentric. After listening through N.E.R.D’s latest release and looking at some of Abney’s newest works, it seems like they really are two sides of the same canvas.

Since N.E.R.D’s birth in 1999, Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, and Shay Haley have put their fingers in just about every high energy genre. Their music blends R&B, House, Rock, and, in this newest album, hints of Bounce: a southern blend of Hip Hop native to New Orleans.

N.E.R.D’s entire discography is colored with the telltale rebelliousness of punk and rap. Bars styled with the brevity and wisdom of motivational speakers sprout from the spacey funk ballads. “Lemon,” the track that revs up the N.E.R.D joyride, begins with a frank message: “The truth will set you free. But first, it’ll piss you off.” From there on, the album launches into an entrancing blend of psychadelictronic-punk-rap: genre-fusing, hair-raising, and never failing to pull you into a body-rolling groove with an unrelenting beat.

“SOON OR LATER SIDES GON’ SWITCH YOU KNOW JOHNNY GOT THAT ITCH HOW MANY MORE OF US GOTTA SEE THE CORONER? SLAIN BY THE SAME BADGE, STOP, WAIT, BRAKE, FAST!” Nina Chanel Abney, Why, 2015. Acrylic on canvas.

roundhouse kick, aimed at the police state, Trump, sexism, homophobia, and other threats to artistic and physical identity alike. In the words of Travis Scott on his own rowdy, rapturous 2016 work Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight: “We ain’t sendin’ shots, we launchin’ missiles.” Tucked in the carefree progressions of block party melodies are razor sharp criticisms of a variety of topics. Caught in the thick of “Lemon”’s “bouncin’ around, bouncin around bouncin’,” I missed the dead-serious lines “Hunt me down like the CIA” and “Hate! Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, my friends.

Hate! I tried to tell y’all about this dude” until my third and fourth listens. Nina Chanel Abney is no more keen on mincing words. Her works are stamped with candid truisms and responses: “FUCK THE COP,” “TWERK, NO” or “SHIT HAPPENS”. Halfway through N.E.R.D’s album, I started to think of the group as Afrofuturism’s electronic cousin. Time and again, I noticed that cosmic calls to “Contemplat[e] time and space” were paired with reflections on black self-determination, such as Pharrell insisting: “It’s what possessed the slave to look in the river, Then he saw his true master, fuck is a mister? (He was always master, hey).”

While Abney lacks N.E.R.D’s obvious cosmic references, her deliberate references to blackness in the digital age of Trump make a convincing companion to N.E.R.D in its on-the-pulse commentaries.

What impresses me the most is the sense of youthfulness both artists maintain amidst the turmoil that runs amok in their work. Abney juxtaposes childlike geometries and technicolor hues with jarring images of police brutality in her piece Why (2015). Additionally, she employs a similar contrast between childhood aesthetics and scenes of misogynoir in Whooty (2013). N.E.R.D makes inventive use of childlike voices throughout their album. This is

Similarly, Nina Chanel Abney’s works cover a range of themes and mix artistic styles. The cartoonish aesthetic of her work (often murals or comic-like panels) masters a sense of earnest storytelling. Abney creates diverse narratives that are visceral and clear while using very little text. It’s hard to find a theme Abney hasn’t captured; her art covers religion, sex, racism, gender, love. What’s even more difficult is figuring out how exactly she manages to paint these images with equal parts brashness and affection. Perhaps in the candor of it all, the beautiful and unsettling become one and the same.

Both N.E.R.D’s newest album, and Nina Chanel Abney’s most recent works are unapologetic declarations of dissent. Nina Chanel Abney’s first solo exhibition in the Nasher Museum, Royal Flush, primarily relied on spray paint as a medium, a clear nod to the rebellious culture of Graffiti artists. Similarly, N.E.R.D is a work of protest. Nearly every song packs a jab, or rather, a

18 THE YALE HERALD

Nina Chanel Abney, Untitled (FUCK T*E *OP), 2014

Don’t, Don’t Do it, N.E.R.D 2017

best heard in “Lightning Fire Magic Prayer,” where Pharrell begins the song by asking his nine-year-old son Rocket to “sing the letter g,” and then stretches that note across the entire track. “Secret Life of Tigers” has a theatrical level of energy; its melodic build-ups seem to be pulled straight out of High School Musical. M.I.A, a featured artist on the album, peppers “Kites” with her “millennial whoops,” giving the song an unmistakable Kidz Bop vibe. The short, quippy refrains throughout N.E.R.D could have easily be plucked from the text on Abney’s canvases, which are dabbed with onomatopoeias: “POW, OW, YO, OINK.” By incorporating these expressions of innocence, both artists tap into a compelling sincerity. Considering the weight of the artists’ subject matter, the use of seemingly naive perspectives further imbues their work with clarity and honesty Listening to this album, it’s almost hard to believe that Pharrell hadn’t simply just sang the images he saw in Abney’s works into lyrics. N.E.R.D’s songs match Abney’s vibrant collages with an uncanny likeness, fitting together more like twins than a lock and key. Both artists’ works are imbued with prismatic energy: they colorfully disregard realism and can hurdle listeners and watchers from scene to scene like a kaleidoscope. The takeaway for me, after enjoying both artists’ work separately and then in tandem, is a new appreciation for what resistance can look like. Willful joy makes protest no less potent, makes rejections no less firm. In fact, being able to use bright colors and major chords to make art that resists can feel even more powerful. I listen and watch and feel them avowing “I can protest and fight back and still not let you take these things from me.” The best kind of subversion is the type that doesn’t look over its shoulder to make sure it’s being watched: it celebrates itself. I’m happy to celebrate with them.

“ILLUMINATE THE CORNER, CELEBRATE HUMANITY SCREAM AND BACK AT ME IN THE MORNING EVERY FIELD IN MISSISSIPPI, EVERY STREET IN CALIFORNIA KNOW THE DEVIL IS A LIAR, IT’S THE TIME TO BE ANOINTED” Kites, N.E.R.D 2017

A Moment with Afrofuturism

Jefferson Pinder: Lazarus DAVID HURTADO, BF ‘20 Jefferson Pinder is a Chicago-based multimedia and performance artist. His work explores the racial history of the United States by incorporating elements of Afrofuturism and experimental film. He is a recipient of the 2017 John S. Guggenheim Fellowship. The Yale University Art Gallery is currently exhibiting his 2009 short film, Lazarus. This exhibition will be open through February 18th.

He will be speaking at the Yale University Art Gallery February 8th at 5:30 pm.

Next to the ongoing construction on the fourth floor of the YUAG, a surreal 3-minute short film explores community and motion. The rhythmic beat of a drum, an endless loop, and a brief moment of dazed reflection—Jefferson Pinder’s film Lazarus is a meditation. The film blurs the line between still image and video, and utilizes music— not dialogue—to move its minimal plot forward. The viewer watches as a small crowd of individuals labor to push an antique Volvo through an unnamed Midwestern town. The emotionless man at the wheel stares ahead indefinitely as the newfound community pushes endlessly.

This minimalist experience hints at elements of Afrofuturism—an artistic movement characterized by its incorporation of black history and culture into futuristic images and science-fiction: in popular culture, Black Panther is an archetypal example. Although, as Elizabeth Reich writes for the Los Angeles Review of books, “Afrofuturism is not a new phenomenon, but arguably as old as black American culture itself.

Speculative fictions of slaves traveling home and the technology of drums sounding out stories of freedom are its early manifestations.”

Jefferson Pinder’s films are excellent examples of the various ways this movement takes form. Lazarus exists somewhere between the sleek blockbuster futurism of Black Panther and the earliest expressions of this movement. From an initial viewing of Lazarus, one can identify various key visual cues: bodies at work, the importance of fashion, and depictions of the urban environment—subtle expressions of futurism.

Through Lazarus, we see the larger artistic movement that it is a part of, and how these racial nuances are everywhere.

Lazarus is one of many in Pinder’s Inertia Cycle, a series of films that explore physical acts as a way of decoding the experiences of oppressed groups. The complex language that Pinder has developed spans across video art, installations made of neon and glitter, and performance.

Equally layered, his plastic works play off of traditional visual tropes in fine art. Onyx Odyssey, a collection of fine arts objects, uses minimal color and neon lights, juxtaposed by traditional African masks and earthen materials to present a black vision for the future. The visual elements of these static works align more closely with Afrofuturistic elements in hip-hop culture—like the album art of Childish Gambino’s 2016 album Awaken, My Love! In a mystical space journey titled AfroCosmonaut/Alien, Pinder employs whiteface and a traditional Japanese dancing ritual to create a beautiful and unsettling experience. Pinder’s films often use music as a cultural critique, exploring contemporary pop and traditional African music, demonstrating a continuation of these cultural nuances.

The artist describes the physical effect of his video work as, “an abstract metaphor for social struggle.” In Lazarus, there is a tension in the agency of the individuals. Lazarus appears to depict voluntary participation in pushing oneself to exhaustion, and the societal implications of the black body at work are deeply embedded into this film. While some works by Pinder are much more explicit about this connection, Lazarus explores this tension by introducing a community.

“My work is about blackness, and through this, I hope that it will

be about humanity as well...we don’t live in a post racial society. We can’t separate race from our work,” says Pinder in an interview. The labor of the black body in Lazarus as voluntary and communal comes into conflict with the legacy of slavery and forced servitude in the United States. The loop of Lazarus invokes a Sisyphean commentary on endurance and the nature of oppression.

Playing with elements of science fiction, mythology, and experimental filmmaking techniques, his reflections on black identity place Pinder’s work among contemporaries like Kehinde Wiley, Rashid Johnson, and Titus Kaphar, ART ’06. His minimal Afrofuturism creates a direct dialogue with the stimulating works of these painters, but also with musicians like Frank Ocean and Beyoncé. Lazarus, presented as a loop in the YUAG is reminiscent of Endless, Frank Ocean’s 2016 visual album. Although these artists are very different, their minimal approach relies on repetition and cycles to create a surreal environment through which they can explore self-identity. Endless documents the meticulous construction of a spiral staircase. While Ocean’s work is typically associated with pop music and culture, it is not unlike Pinder’s intellectual and mixed media approach to similar themes of identity and time. Pinder and Ocean confront our notions of time by stretching and pulling it. This experimentation works on various levels; examining the creative process or the pace of social progress in a racially divided nation.

Afro-futurism, with its science-fiction and musical roots is deeply connected to the experience of time. The looping in the small silent room makes it unclear how much time has passed. Similarly, the curator of Pinder’s exhibition writes, “The subjects in his videos do not speak, but their actions resonate with the frustrations of everyday life.” Perhaps this video is a break from everyday experiences to empathize with those of other individuals.

Pinder’s work is nostalgic, surreal, black, and nuanced. Lazarus, as an experience in the YUAG is ephemeral; and the work feels incomplete without deeper investigation into the relevance of Afrofuturism and Pinder’s

THE RHYTHMIC BEAT OF A DRUM, AN ENDLESS LOOP, AND A BRIEF MOMENT OF DAZED REFLECTION— JEFFERSON PINDER’S FILM LAZARUS IS A MEDITATION.

other works. It does not necessarily depend on its sister works, but like all good art is enriched by the dialogue it creates among other works and artists.

Something is lost in the isolation of this film but the brief experience in the gallery is powerful. Lazarus’ colorful and musical examination of community resonates deeply with other works on the third floor—from El Anatsui to Barkley Hendricks there are endless connections to be drawn between works of cultural criticism or beautiful celebrations of blackness. This exhibit can be the jumping off point for participation in a powerful artistic movement.

Watch Lazarus. The ambiguities and the discourse surrounding Afro-futurism are fascinating.

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Rv Oct.13.2017

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME BLEU WELLS, ES ’21 Recall your simplest, fondest memory. Maybe it’s an afternoon spent driving with your dad, or a sticky summer evening on the parking deck of your hometown. Remember what the air felt like, what hushed sounds filled out the buzzing background, how it felt to exist in a moment so lived in that it seemed to spread infinitely.

This is what Call Me by Your Name evokes, as it offers its viewers beautiful bits of summer bliss shot on 35mm film. Set in Italy during the summer of 1983, the motion picture stars Timothée Chalamet as Elio Perlman, the pensive piano-playing son of an archaeologist (Michael Stuhlbarg), and Armie Hammer as Oliver, an exuberant American graduate student studying under Elio’s father. Oliver disturbs the serenity of Elio’s summer home, carrying an abrasive overconfidence which can sharpen at a moment’s notice. But Elio and Oliver’s relationship evolves from one of tension to one of romance, and Oliver’s nonchalance toward Elio gradually transforms into deep caring.

Chalamet plays off of Hammer’s suave demeanor with his best impression of what one would call a 1980s sadboi. The film captures both the nuances of this blossoming intimacy and of each character’s personal growth. This narrative of elegant simplicity and teenage tragedy quickly made Call Me by Your Name my favorite film of 2017.

Visually, the film beams with stunning reality. At a family dinner, Elio’s grandfather makes a subtle claim which reveals the film’s artistic intent: “Cinema should be a mirror for reality.” This reality is depicted by an honest reflection of time as subject to the biases of human memory Certain moments are extended

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for what seems like blissful eternities, while weeks pass without mention. Warmth emanates from every corner of Call Me by Your Name, and the sweetness of summer is not dissuaded by its equally as-evident stickiness. These moments serve as the truest representations of what it is to love and live I have seen in film.

The film is undeniably one of sexual exploration, from men to women to fruit. If you haven’t already heard, I’ll tell you now—things get steamy between Elio and a peach. However, the frequent scenes depicting intimacy often averting from the sexual act itself. This sense of privacy allows for the focus of the film’s physicality to reflect on its emotional impact on the characters. While the plot’s nominal centerpiece is of a gay romance, the film is as much about the nature of Elio and Oliver’s relationship as it is its impact on Elio. This conscious choice works to both normalize gay romance and sexual experimentation in mainstream cinema. The joy, love, and heartbreak of Call Me by Your Name can occur between any two people, regardless of gender. This allows for the film to explore Elio’s emotional maturation—with and separated from Oliver.

The complex nature of Oliver and Elio’s relationship is met with profound understanding from Elio’s father. At the end of the film, Stuhlbarg delivers a striking monologue that provides one of its most tender moments. It’s a powerful encouragement of owning emotions, warning against the suppression of identity in the name of easing pain. He advises Elio to fully feel the love and loss of Oliver in his claim: “We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of 30 and have less to offer each time

we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!”

I remember sitting in the textured red seats of my hometown’s cinema and weeping.

The simplicity of the soundtrack reinforces the elegance that sweeps viewers off their feet. Piano notes sprinkle the background of transpiring events, a fitting motif given Elio’s love of the instrument. The pieces recorded for Call Me by Your Name run with the same summery grace that the film works to uphold. This music is broken only by Sufjan Stevens’ voice.

In addition to a new arrangement of his 2010 song, “Futile Devices,” he composed two new original tracks: “Mystery of Love”, which has since been nominated for an Oscar for Best Song, and “Visions of Gideon.” Stevens’s gentle vocals and cryptic lyrics perfectly complement the tenderness of the film.

Watching Elio and Oliver interact almost feels like a privilege, as the film fosters the sensation of steep intimacy. Call Me by Your Name depicts emotional and sexual maturation in a way that evoked a considerable amount of self reflection in me. In the context of my own current state as a university student, it is incredibly easy to become engulfed in the desire to discover yourself immediately—to understand exactly who you are and what you’re doing while always attempting to land on your feet.

This film is an imposing force which reminds me to indulge my emotions, to feel misfortunes fully and to learn from them. And in a sea of contemporary coming-of-age stories, this is what has made Call Me By Your Name resonate so deeply and universally.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI LINUS LU, DC ’19

After making fans wait for two years after the release of The Force Awakens, the Star Wars saga returns with raised expectations and higher stakes. The Last Jedi delivers with a bold new take on the 40-year-old franchise, and while the film may leave some unsatisfied with its unorthodoxy, it still manages to be both engaging and engrossing.

The film resumes the bitter conflict between the embattled Resistance, led by General Leia (Carrie Fisher), against the evil First Order. Our young heroes Poe (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), must devise a convoluted plan to save the remaining Resistance fleet. In the meantime, Rey (Daisy Ridley) tries to convince the selfexiled Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to return to the fight and train her in the Jedi arts.

Full of beautiful effects and great acting from its ensemble cast, The Last Jedi is certainly a memorable film, if not one worth pondering afterwards. Hamill’s reprisal of

THE POST

Luke Skywalker was perhaps the best part of the film.

His convincing portrayal of Luke is both tortured and sympathetic, serious and humorous. Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and newcomer Kelly Marie Tran all provide strong performances as the franchise’s new cohort of young heroes. Adam Driver, playing the hot-tempered and occasionally shirtless Kylo Ren, also makes for a powerful portrayal of anger and inner conflict. Additionally, composer John Williams’ iconic and enduring score, along with the film’s brilliant sound design, make The Last Jedi as much an auditory spectacle as it was a visual one.

Director Rian Johnson, whose previous work includes 2012’s Looper and several episodes of the TV series Breaking Bad, takes bold risks with the franchise. Unlike J.J. Abram’s 2015 film, The Force Awakens, whose storyline paralleled that of A New Hope too closely for many people’s liking, The Last Jedi firmly forges its own path. A recurring comment about how The Last Jedi feels the least Star Wars-y of the series

rang true for me. The number of plot twists and subversive turns makes the film both gripping and unfamiliar. And with a runtime of over two-and-a-half hours, the movie had plenty of time to wade through unexpected waters.

Unfortunately, in part due to the unconventional and complicated storyline, The Last Jedi manages to feel both too long and too short. The film stretches to explore so many different themes and set up numerous surprises that the pacing feels uneven or underdeveloped at times. Ultimately, despite the many moments that took my breath away, The Last Jedi felt just a bit unfulfilling as the credits rolled. That feeling might’ve been compounded by the fact that as I walked out of the theater at 1:30am the night before my art history final. Regardless, the movie was a vastly delightful experience, one whose more baffling moments became insightful with time and discussion. It might have taken two years, but The Last Jedi was worth the wait.

MADELINE HUTCHINS, BR ’19

The Post promised a gripping account of a tumultuous historical moment told by a star-studded cast. As a sucker for historical docudrama and anything with Meryl Streep, I waited anxiously for its release. Though it delivered on some counts, my anticipation of an instant classic in the genre was unwarranted.

In the early 1970s, the New York Times began exposing the content of the Pentagon Papers and was subsequently sued by the federal government when they refused to cease doing so. The Washington Post, at this point a small family paper, gets its hands on the Pentagon Papers, and must make a choice about whether to go to press with them.

The story is gripping and historically significant, particularly in our era of political unrest. Though you know perfectly well that the Washington Post will eventually publish the papers and go on to become more than a local family paper, the storytelling and acting are so engaging that you still

want to watch it all play out.

Streep’s performance as Katherine “Kay” Graham, the publisher of the Post, presents a character grappling with self-doubt as she tries to save her family’s paper. The character provides a compelling shift from her usual, selfassured roles. Kay’s growth from a timid to authoritative force in her business might seem sudden, but Streep’s expert negotiation of that transition is a joy. If nothing else compels you to see this film, let this be the reason.

The Post is timely: in a world where media is constantly under fire from government officials and attempts at censorship are hardly far-fetched, it resonates with the audience, pointing to a time in our nation’s not-so-distant past where the role and responsibility of the media came into question and, thankfully, emerged stronger.

Even with these strengths and the high production value,

I am not sure I would see it again. The movie’s historical inaccuracy was hard to get over, particularly in the weight given to Streep’s character over the actual whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), who is rarely present in the film. Granted, the publisher took a risk in publishing the papers. But the focus on this resulted in the near exclusion of the man who risked his life to get the papers and felt disingenuous, like a cheapening of what was a monumental story. Though the storytelling was generally good at creating a consistent narrative and giving the viewer all the necessary information to appreciate what was going on, the way in which conflict and suspense were presented differed from that of other truly gripping newsroom docudramas like Spotlight—here, they somehow always seemed a bit hollow. What makes a historical docudrama worth a second (or third, or more) view is its ability to create real tension and danger despite our knowledge of how it resolves, and The Post did not do that for me.

PEAKY BLINDERS

The verdict: worth a watch, but not a re-watch.

Fans of Netflix’s original series Peaky Blinders will be happy to know that the rugged gangster drama is back for another thrilling season of vengeance, peril, and individual growth.

New foes emerge and new alliances are forged, but what has always driven the show is family—the Shelby family— and how that often-precarious entity struggles against those who would see it crumble. Whereas the family rose to incredible wealth and power in season three, season four brings the Shelbys back to their humble beginnings in the manufacturing town of Birmingham, England. Though short, season four of Peaky Blinders is nonetheless a riveting continuation of the rollicking and bloody Netflix series.

Anderson). In addition to being the cause of season four’s vendetta, Arthur is also an absolutely lovable maniac, who one anxiously hopes will go berserk again without destroying himself or his loved ones. The other older players are back as well, but one of the more intriguing character developments is in Finn (Harry Kirton), the youngest of the four Shelby brothers. Finn’s innocence contrasts the moral complexity of his relatives, and it is captivating to see how he navigates the sordidness that encapsulates the Shelby underground business.

NIC HARRIS, BR ’18 YH STAFF

The show picks up in 1926 with Michael, Polly, John and Arthur Shelby serving prison time as part of a deal patriarch Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) strikes with the British government. In the past, each jailed Shelby avoided criminal charges by virtue of being members of the powerful Peaky Blinders gang. But season three saw the family outstrip the limits of its immunity, and ultimately Tommy trades his relatives’ freedom for the preservation of Shelby Company Ltd. Without spoiling anything, the Shelbys’ jail-stay is cut short, and upon release, they scatter across the British countryside, each falling into a life of varying degrees of

normalcy. This relative peace shatters when an old vendetta with the Italian-American Mafia is resurrected by new character Luca Changretta, played by Adrien Brody. Each Shelby understands the danger the Mafia poses, and must decide whether or not to forgive Tommy and rejoin the family for mutual protection.

This brings the viewer to Tommy, the family’s smooth, cunning, yet deeply troubled leader. Still mourning the loss of his wife, and grappling with questionable life choices, season four finds Tommy in a state of deadness, routinely paying for sex and mechanically pulling the strings of the Company. If this sounds familiar, yes—you should take that as a Godfather II reference. Tommy decidedly serves as the Peaky Blinders version of the hardened Don Michael Corleone. Murphy’s acting is as cool as ever, his voice made even more gravelly by Tommy’s constant smoking. But what makes the Irish actor’s performance special is his ability to convey the storm beneath Tommy’s outward calm—from his private moments of sorrow, to the rare yet poignant ones where he shares his pain with others.

Not to be outdone, however, is the show’s supporting cast, beginning with my favorite character, Arthur (Paul

Season four consciously embodies the cliche, “The more things change the more they stay the same.” The growth of characters like Finn and Tommy’s young son Charlie creates a sense of progress and change. On the other hand, the Shelbys’ return to Birmingham shows that they are fundamentally the same people they have always been. The Shelbys are still gritty, funny, and fiercely loyal, which serves to unite them and to endear viewers to them. This balance of the new with the familiar keeps the show fresh, creating drama while invoking a sense of nostalgia in both its characters and viewers. So if you haven’t seen seasons one through three, catch up and then strap in for an absolutely wild ride.

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THE BLACK LIST23 CANCELLING THE FAMILY CROSSWORD SUBSCRIPTION I do have time for the Sunday puzzle, Mom! ALMOND MILK 1 almond = 1 gallon of water :( “MYRIAD” Runner up: “plethora” WIND CHILL

skch skchhcchhch sckchhskh MY CARBON FOOTPRINT Too much almond milk :(

THE SILENCE SURROUNDING HERPES Who? EXTREME OSCARS OPINIONS “The Shape of Water was hot.”

Wind, chill STATIC

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