The Georgetown Voice, APRIL FOOLS' ISSUE

Contents

April Fools' Issue 2022 Volume 54 | Issue 13

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Editor-In-Chief Sarah Watson Managing Editor Max Zhang

editorial

An Editorial to The Hoya: We miss you. Let's get back together

internal resources Editor for RDI Darren Jian Editor for Sexual Sophie Tafazzoli Violence Coverage Service Chair Annemarie Cuccia Social Chair Alice Gao

EDITORIAL BOARD

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editorial

On the acquisition of a sugar daddy EDITORIAL BOARD

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news

Executive Editor Features Editor News Editor Assistant News Editors

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features

18 hours with Georgetown Radio ANNABELLA HOGE AND CAROLINE HAMILTON

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16

16

news

GRAHAM KREWINGHAUS

Weekly List: The top five underground clothing brands you need to check out

A Swift conversion

CHETAN DOKKU

The Hoyas Georgetown won't tell you about

The real Lord of the Flies experiment at Georgetown is the Vil A laundry room

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Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Candice. Candice who?

sports feature

CHRISTINE JI

on the cover

JOANNA LI

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halftime leisure

The misunderstood masterpiece of The Emoji Movie

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voices

features

Ask Voices

opinion Executive Editor Annette Hasnas Voices Editor Sarah Craig Assistant Voices Editors James Garrow, Kulsum Gulamhusein, Lou Jacquin Editorial Board Chair Advait Arun Editorial Board Annemarie Cuccia, William Hammond, Annabella Hoge, Jupiter Huang, Paul James, Darren Jian, Allison O’Donnell, Sarah Watson, Alec Weiker, John Woolley, Max Zhang leisure Executive Editor Olivia Martin Leisure Editor Lucy Cook Assistant Editors Pierson Cohen, Maya Kominsky, Alexandra Lenehan Halftime Editor Chetan Dokku Assistant Halftime Editors Adora Adeyemi, Ajani Jones, Gokul Sivakumar sports Executive Editor Tim Tan Sports Editor Hayley Salvatore Assistant Editors Andrew Arnold, Lucie Peyrebrune, Thomas Fischbeck Halftime Editor Carlos Rueda Assistant Halftime Editors Langston Lee, Natalia Porras, Dylan Vasan Executive Editor Spread Editors Cover Editor Assistant Design Editors

Inside the mind of the art world's most enigmatic rat

VOICES EDITORS

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19

A letter from the Georgetown Egger

halftime leisure

ANONYMOUS

13

“april fools”

DEBORAH HAN

news

Ask not what the rat ring can do for you

design Allison DeRose Alex Giorno, Connor Martin Deborah Han Insha Momin, Sabrina Shaffer, Dane Tedder, Sean Ye

copy Copy Chief Maya Knepp Assistant Copy Editors Kenny Boggess, Maanasi Chintamani, Julia Rahimzadeh Editors Donovan Barnes, Christopher Boose, Jennifer Guo, Ian Tracy, Anna Vernacchio

ANNETTE HASNAS

voices

ALEX DERAMO

EMMA CHUCK

AJANI JONES

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Historic university defaced by public displays of affection in Lauinger Library

halftime leisure

halftime leisure

news Nora Scully Annabella Hoge Paul James Margaret Hartigan, Jupiter Huang, Graham Krewinghaus

multimedia Executive Editor John Woolley Podcast Editor Jillian Seitz Assistant Podcast Editor Alexes Merritt Photo Editor Annemarie Cuccia online Website Editor Tyler Salensky Social Media Editor Emma Chuck Assistant Social Media Editor Franzi Wild

LUCY COOK

“Hundreds arrive each night, swarming from their Georgetown dorms, eyes glazed with drunkenness, pockets full of trust fund money, and hearts devoid of feeling, eager to watch my rats go at it.”

PG. 19

business General Manager Megan O’Malley Assistant Manager of Akshadha Lagisetti Accounts & Sales Assistant Manager of Abby Smith Alumni Outreach support Contributing Editors Sarina Dev, Ethan Greer, Caroline Hamilton,

Josh Klein, Roman Peregrino, Orly Salik, Sophie Tafazzoli, Abby Webster

Staff Contributors Nathan Barber, Nicholas Budler, Cecilia Cassidy,

contact us

editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University 3700 O St. NW Washington, DC 20057

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The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty, or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated.

Columns, advertisements, cartoons, and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright The Georgetown Voice, unless otherwise indicated.

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

photo courtesy of annabella hoge

Natalie Chaudhuri, Romita Chattaraj, Erin Ducharme, Panna Gattyan, Andrea Ho, Christine Ji, Julia Kelly, Steven Kingkiner, Lily Kissinger, Ashley Kulberg, David McDaniels, Amelia Myre, Anna Sofia Neil, Owen Posnett, Omar Rahim, Brett Rauch, Nicholas Riccio, Caroline Samoluk, Ryan Samway, Michelle Serban, Isabel Shepherd, Amelia Shotwell, Jo Stephens, Isabelle Stratta, Francesca Theofilou, Diego Ventero, Amelia Wanamaker, Hailey Wharram, Katie Woodhouse, Jina Zhao

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ACROSS 1. Sicken with sweetness 5. Part of speech modifying a v.

8. “Give ___ rest!”

11. Sri Lankan “orange” drink 13. Disruptive UNO card 15. Bubbly prank?

16. Pong producer 18. Individual match-up, spelled out 21. Sushi order

24. Old-sounding verb suffix 25. Slalom participant 26. Kathmandu native 30. 2,000 pounds 32. “I wanna go ___, boom boom!”: viral sorority chant 33. Toothless and Smaug, e.g.

36. Sault ___ Marie 37. Villain in Othello and Aladdin (1992) 38. Raised

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43. What you might beg of someone you’ve wronged 48. Famously meek Michael 50. Presidential initials directly preceding JFK 51. Puts into effect 52. Saudis, e.g.

54. Cornell’s regional airport code 56. World Cup chant 57. Line in an athletic contract stating the fees required to move a player 62. Acknowledgement of 63. Skin soothing salve 67. Small candy piece, usually pink or purple 68. What boys become when they go to Jupiter 69. Down in the dumps 70. Iconic Tiny or Tebow 71. Country singer ____ Keith

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9. Character in Shakespeare and Kimmy Schmidt 10. Iditarod state

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Back cover text by and photos courtesy of Roman Peregrino and Edward Wu; Design by Max Zhang

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LMNOP

— Sarah Watson, Spring 2022

1. Cut out the smaller ring and place in the larger ring 2. Line up the triangles 3. Rotate the middle ring according to the offset value (counterclockwise for negative values) 4. Decode the secret message!

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Stay forever silly Voice, and have a grand old time until at least 2069.

G H I E F J

It’s an important day in our history—in 2012, we put out an April Fools’ issue entirely about sharks. It is our priority to uplift voices and hold Georgetown accountable, but also, in Voice fashion, never take ourselves too seriously. As such, we present you with the goofiest little issue—some satirical, some irreverent, all foolish.

TO USE:

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Happy April Fools’ Day from the Voice!

→ DECODING FUN! An article in this issue has a secret message you must decode with this cipher. Keep an eye out as you read for these symbols to find what you have to decipher. Cut it out, assemble, and use an offset of -8 to reveal this exclusive content!

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→ NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

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An eclectic collection of jokes, puns, doodles, playlists, and news clips from the collective mind of the Voice staff.

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12. South or East suffix 14. Clone foes, in Star Wars prequels 17. Incapable or oafish 19. Off-kilter squares 20. Underrated Great Lake 21. Moreover 22. Joaquin Phoenix movie 23. Pub offering 27. Form 1040 fig.

28. Bakery item 29. Coin’s “_______ we trust” 31. What you’ve got a lot of, comin’ round these parts 34. Scandinavian 35. Observed 39. Genetic info 40. Hail _____, validly 41. Second showing 42. Wax coloring stick 44. “Leave,” colorfully 45. Environmental prefix 46. Missouri city, for short 47. Toronto-to-D.C. direction 49. Humble homes 53. Kama ____ 55. D.R. neighbor 58. Sweeney ____ 59. Coin’s “E pluribus ____” 60. Mpls neighbor 61. Radiate 64. Former name for Tokyo 65. Wyo. neighbor 66. ____, ____ again

APRIL 1, 2022

3

EDITORIALS

AN EDITORIAL TO

:

We miss you. Let’s get back together H

ey, The Hoya. It’s been a while.

It’s hard to know how to begin. After 53 years since we broke up on that cloudy 1969 day, when a handful of The Hoya editors split off to form the Voice, we’ve both evolved so much.

We’ve grown more than we could have imagined when we were last together. After five long decades, the Voice is more than just a rebellious offshoot of a larger, established newspaper.

Now, we both are robust publications with accomplishments in our own rights.

Yet, we can’t help but wonder what we could have been. Could we, now matured, remain healthy if we got back together?

Of course, the Voice’s Editorial Board is well aware of the usual pitfalls of getting back together with an ex: Divorce usually happens for a good reason, and such a decision is not to be reversed lightly. In fact, it is for this very reason that we rejected The Hoya’s Nov. 12, 1970 merger proposal the day after receiving it. The Voice needed time to find itself, to truly love itself, outside any partner. Although we, of course, missed you dearly, we knew better than to jump back into a relationship so hastily.

It was important, we knew, to forge our own sense of identity.

Now, however, enough time has passed that we feel this split is no longer necessary. You have grown a lot since we broke up, too; no longer does The Hoya seem sort of generally to be in

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

favor of the Nixon administration, just as we no longer think that The Beatles are a boring band that won’t go anywhere (see our 1969 review of Abbey Road). As distinct publications—not even quite in the same medium anymore, as we are a magazine and The Hoya is a newspaper—we have created our own separate niches in the Georgetown community. We have no reason to believe that we would encounter the same toxic cycles and ruts of internal editorial disagreements we knew in our history.

We know that we two publications have not been the best of friends these past years and have instead created something of a rivalry, but this should not dissuade us from reuniting.

Chalk it up to the sexual tension. It was only natural that we should feel a need to exert our independence by pushing The Hoya away.

In the same way, of course, The Hoya would feel the sting of rejection our very existence implies. But this conflict of the past is just hiding the truth—our very real feelings for each other that we never got over. We can overcome our limitations and challenges if we both acknowledge that we were wrong to judge each other so harshly and move forward with forgiveness in our hearts.

With these obstacles removed, the upsides of getting back together are innumerable. For one thing, pooling our budgets and moving to a shared account would increase both our

disposable incomes. If FinApp won’t give us enough money to function, we can just add ours together and see if that’s enough to get by.

(That’s what young couples do, right?)

Additionally, a merger would do wonders for both of our reputations. The Voice would, of course, benefit from the prestige and recognition that comes from The Hoya’s name (and their Wikipedia page, which is, like, three times longer than ours), just as The Hoya would enjoy being implicitly absolved of some of their worst takes (still looking at you, coverage of Vietnam War protests) by joining a publication that disagreed with them. Also, we just miss you guys. We’ll even be the little spoon.

Hoya, we understand that you’ve always been a bit stubborn. It’s a character trait, we get it! Don’t worry—we actually find it quite endearing, hot even. The Voice was founded because we disagreed with you guys over there.

Sure, for us to get back together, you’d have to admit that you’ve been wrong, which we get is difficult for you. But we’ve been wrong too! So, we can compromise, and we’ll be happy to meet you halfway. We’re prepared to be The Voya. Or the Hoice, I guess, if you want that one instead.

Either way, it’s time to put our differences aside and move forward. Babe, we still love you—let’s get back together.

(But you can’t share our Bunn Awards.

Those are ours.) G

design by insha momin

EDITORIALS

On the acquisition of a sugar daddy

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

T

he Voice’s Editorial Board knew that Spring 2022 was going to be a tough semester. In December, we predicted that this would be our seventh semester in a row of declining revenues from print, on top of cookie advertising errors and the hefty price of Graham’s crossword—not to mention ruinous competition with the Stall Seat Journal. Still, we never dreamed we might consider selling our newsmagazine. But a recent look at our financial situation has shown us that something needs to change. There goes old Georgetown indeed.

Our response to declining revenues has always been to innovate. We brought on The Hoya’s former cartoonist as our Editorial Board chair, were plagiarized by a local politician, and even chose to argue against a resolution that would abolish GUSA. But these innovations, though high quality, have not translated into the cash flow we need. If our finances keep declining, we’ll have no choice but to cut funding for our IM basketball team.

And we don’t want to do that. It’s not like we can count on the new GUSA Exec for kickbacks, either, after we called them “actively unsafe for students.”

So, after weighing our options, we have made the decision to look for a financial backer who could keep the Voice successful.

In January, we set out to find a buyer who could give shareholders a fair deal and make the Voice newsmagazine brand stronger. We solicited over a dozen private equity buyers, but they were only interested if we agreed to cut costs and trim our staff—which is what GUSA has already been asking for years—so we said no. We wanted something different, something better.

Through all of that, though, one sharpeyed investor stood out as someone we believe has the experience, drive, and commitment to protect the Voice from the storms of austerity.

Jeffrey Preston Bezos has already prevented our peer D.C. publication, The Washington Post, from fading into irrelevance, and we need him to do the same for us. Only he can

guide us through the journalism industry’s uncertain future.

Mr. Bezos could help us grow from an organization that exhaustively reports on the students who fund us (conflict of interest, amiright) to being an international news publication that people would take seriously when we endorse presidential candidates. We have a great name like the Voice, which he can leverage into a national brand, unlike a lot of other publications’ names on this campus, such as Dr. Ranit Mishori’s illtimed but well-read “Public Health Update.”

And we already have a clear identity, considering our ambitious reporting—from the ranking of Sebastian Stan haircuts to the infamous antiChunky piece—so Mr. Bezos need not worry about helping us figure out who we are as a publication.

Also, the Amazon Bookstore on M Street would make a great new office.

You have to be impressed by the business Mr. Bezos built, the way Amazon takes care of its customers and permanently ruined so many of its smaller competitors. We need that kind of strength in leadership, as well as access to drones, which would make our distribution, currently done solely by the three Voice writers who care, much easier. It would also be cool to get invited to parties at his newly-renovated place in Kalorama and mingle with D.C.’s upper crust. Our Henle socials aren’t the networking events they used to be.

Mr. Bezos has already demonstrated a desire to support youth exclusively in the area: donations to libraries, programming classes for kids, sweet stuff like that. He’s so committed to supporting only our city that he doesn’t pay the federal income taxes that would help fund programs for anyone else elsewhere in the country. We want an owner with that level of devotion to our home city. Mr. Bezos is that owner.

What would Mr. Bezos have to gain from taking a student newsmagazine under his wing? First and foremost, it would put him far ahead of his closest rivals. We don’t see any evidence his fellow tech

photo courtesy of jd lasica (cc by 2.0); design by alex giorno

titans are even thinking about the troubles facing student journalists. While Elon Musk tweets and gets in trouble with the government, Mr. Bezos has the chance to tangibly support the next generation of Bunn Award-winning student journalists, many of whose tweets are also funnier than Musk’s, for a fraction of the investment risk.

And his respect for journalism cannot be understated: He already knows that making journalism succeed is hard. Making underfunded student journalism succeed will be the perfect opportunity for Daddy Bezos: We think paying us minimum wage through university bureaucracy could be the most complex strategic problem he’s ever had to crack—even more complex than paying his Amazon workforce a living wage. But we know he’s not someone who shies away from a challenge.

We think Mr. Bezos’ ownership of yet another promising journalistic establishment underscores his commitment to the promise of student journalism.

As The Washington Post made clear, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”—Mr. Bezos, your management could help our little school find the light. Because on our own, we’re not sure that we can really count on our student leaders to give us the resources we’re going to need to reach all our readers.

But the Voice has always prided itself on its ability to adapt. A complete transfer of ownership that puts our beloved newsmagazine in the hands of one of the world’s richest white men is exactly the kind of progressive change that this Editorial Board would enthusiastically support. It could also mean the Voice goes to space. Halftime Mars section, anybody?

Jeffrey Preston Bezos did not respond to a request for comment on this article.

— Correction: An earlier version of this piece failed to disclose that one Editorial Board member writing this piece purchased “Powerstep unisex adult Boosters Arch Support, Gray, Regular Regular US” with an Amazon Prime Student account two days before this piece was published. G APRIL 1, 2022

5

FEATURES

“T

hat’s the thing about 100 gecs, it weeds out the normies,” Sara Amar (COL ’24), said of the glitchy, maximalist hyperpop duo, waving her hands around the microphone in the WGTB studio to emphasize the point.

Connor Lammas, co-host of Amar’s Friday night student radio show “Spilling Tea and Music History,” jumped in to agree. “If it doesn’t make my brain go brrr, I don’t want it.”

“If I ever hear Mitt Romney go, ‘Damn, I was bumping 100 gecs last night,’ I’ll jump off a cliff,” he added.

After 16 consecutive hours and counting with WGTB, Georgetown’s student-run radio station, this was the kind of musical commentary we were accustomed to. As the high-octane “stupid horse” took off, neon lights blinking on the control panel, the pair turned to each other, bantering with an easy rapport that we had come to recognize as routine among co-hosts since arriving at WGTB’s Leavey Center studio at 7:30 a.m. that day.

In an effort to document the entirety of WGTB’s Friday setlist—which ranged from shows focused purely on music to topical conversation hours— we hunkered down in the studio’s adjoining, poster-plastered lounge some DJs call “the womb.”

Founded in 1946, the station has moved from 90.1 FM to an exclusively online broadcast and has

undergone several transformations in both style and form over the last 75 years.

Today, student DJs have complete control over their weekly 90-minute slot (two exceptions: no dead air and no swearing). Listeners who tune in between 7:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. by visiting the WGTB website or scanning the QR code posted on the studio window can hear everything from a recording of the Kill Bill whistle to debates over whether FIJI Water is bottled at the source, and the Voice sat down determined to hear it all.

For Anya Gizis (COL ’23), one of WGTB’s general managers, the station’s ridiculousness is part of its appeal. When asked for a rundown of the radio’s lore and an explanation of the “womb” nickname, her eyes lit up. “Where ideas are born,” she explained. “You’re sitting and waiting for your show, waiting to go out.”

Allegedly, the lounge contains a copy of Maggie Rogers’ first single—which she mailed to the station for airplay and review—and a rare WuTang Clan record “that we could sell for, like, 400 dollars.” The walls are covered with years of flyers and graffiti, signatures of DJs past, and invitations to open mic nights and air band competitions.

Besides serving as an unofficial archive for the station and the art it celebrates, the WGTB studio also offers students like Aman Bains (MSB ’22) a

18 HOURs WITH

GEORGETOWN

RADIO

BY CAROLINE HAMILTON AND ANNABELLA HOGE

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

dedicated place to share music, both with and for friends. Since launching it freshman year, his show “Music Map” has evolved from a deep dive into a particular region and genre to an excuse to catch up with friends.

“I would choose a genre and choose a region, and the playlist would be based on that. So I would choose, like, Cali hip-hop,” Bains said. “Now, since I’m a senior and I have one semester left, the goal is just to have my friends come, and based on whatever friend comes, I curate a playlist for them.”

Unlike some hosts, Bains rarely talks on air, and as the session veered from Fateh and Diddy to the authors’ own indie rock favorites of Japanese Breakfast and MGMT, we wondered whether he had any particular audience in mind for the set.

“It is 100 percent for me,” he said. “To have this whole place to just listen to music? My own space? It’s pretty cool.”

Gizis echoed Bains’ appreciation for the creative freedom the studio space seems to encourage.

“That’s the fun part of radio: You get to have this cool, weird platform even if no one’s listening.”

Even though every rustle and snort from our side of the radio room was broadcast to an invisible audience, we never felt that we, or the hosts, were exposed. The ease with which DJs conversed, and their seeming lack of concern for whomever might be tuning in, makes it so that a casual WGTB listener might feel like an eavesdropper. The hosts don’t care about an audience of strangers; instead, most play for an audience of friends, if anyone at all.

Even for student artists like Malachi Quarles (COL ’23) and Jabari Butler (MSB ’22), two of the most popular acts at Georgetown open mic nights and battles of the bands, radio still reserves the intimacy of a jam session between friends.

Their show, “Dusty Skin,” airs from 10:30 p.m. to midnight on Fridays and runs the gamut from techno to early Atlanta hip-hop. Quarles said neither host arrives at the studio with a theme in mind, just an ear for grooving bass lines and a mutual appreciation for the other’s art.

“We don’t know if anybody listens to it, but it’s sick,” he said. “When we did the show last semester, we didn’t even tell nobody about it.”

Since Butler lives off-campus, the pair rarely cross paths during the week. Hosting a radio show together, Quarles explained, gives them a treasured opportunity to catch up, share inspiration, and workshop new ideas for their own music. “While we’re playing the songs, we’re talking to ourselves mostly. We’re like, ‘Oh, that bridge is cool. Let’s find another song that makes me feel that way or makes me feel these colors,’ and it just works from there.”

The encyclopedic music knowledge Amar and Lammas bring to their own late-night show (each week is meticulously documented in its own Spotify playlist) is part of what makes “Spilling Tea and Music History” a compelling listen. On the night we interviewed them, the two friends had compiled a list of their favorite samples, spinning the original song before walking listeners through how another artist had chopped, screwed, or otherwise repurposed it.

“Who better to play with tempo than the villain himself, MF DOOM?” Lammas asked, introducing a song that warps the eerie outro of The Beatles’ “Glass Onion” in a way that left the four of us speechless when it ended. The silence fizzed; it felt like they’d struck gold.

Most of the night was chock full of energy: Each of Friday’s shows felt contained in its own comic and cultural universe, full of obscure Gen Z internet lingo and inside jokes that could leave even the most TikTok-savvy listener reeling.

Nowhere was the flavor of the zeitgeist more apparent to us than in “Outrageous Acts,” hosted

by Anya Caraiani (SFS ’24) and Olivia D’Angelo (COL ’24) from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.

A gossip and advice show with a self-professed feminist edge, “Outrageous Acts” follows in the footsteps of Barstool Sports spinoff “Call Her Daddy.” “In our Tinder bios we literally say, ‘We’ll talk about you on our podcast,’” D’Angelo laughed.

She and Caraiani trade hookup stories and thoughts on Slavoj Žižek essays in bitterly funny conversations they edit and publish on Spotify each week. According to Caraiani, the podcast

strives for a kind of radical transparency that other women in college will find relatable.

“We want to be a sounding board for other girls here and make sure they know that other people are going through it too,” Caraiani said. “Even though everyone seems to be perfect here at all times, we’re all going through it in the same way.”

Unpacking the messiness of college life is also at the heart of Sofia Mahairas (COL ’24) and Sylvie Buckalew’s (COL ’24) afternoon show, “BRAINFOG.” Airing from 1:30 to 3:0o p.m., the program’s woozy name belies its hosts’ sharp sense of humor.

Buckalew turned to us during a Kendrick Lamar interlude at the top of the show and explained her and Mahairas’ motivation for joining WGTB. “We like to talk, we talk a lot of shit,” she said simply. “It doesn’t really matter if anyone’s listening. It’s an hour and a half where I can just chill and just relax and do something I enjoy with someone I enjoy.”

“This is the most sentimental you’ll ever hear us be about each other,” Buckalew chided.

Over the next 90 minutes, the conversation veered from shrimp to marriage to whether men should wear open-toed shoes in March (short answer, no). Buckalew and Mahairas flagged down classmates through the studio’s dim window and texted friends they knew were tuning in, soliciting hot takes and the latest in pop culture news.

For the hosts of “Exile on M. Street”—a play on The Rolling Stones’ studio album Exile on Main St. (1972)—audience involvement is crucial to the show that runs from 12:00 to 1:30 a.m. While Rush’s “Circumstances” played, Nick Vianna (COL ’25) looked through his Instagram story for the next question he’d ask his co-host James Dolan (COL ’25). Earlier in the day, Vianna had posted a poll asking whether one microwaves or thaws Smucker’s Uncrustables.

“I think you thaw,” Vianna said. “I think you thaw,” Dolan repeated.

The two roommates see their show as a chance to talk about rock music—and peanut butter and jelly—and whatever else they find deserving of the same loving attention they devote to Keith Richards. Their elevator pitch? “Friends having fun on the radio,” Dolan said. “It has a lot more to do with those that listen than the actual content.

We exist basically to have fun for ourselves and for our friends to have fun because they all love coming on the radio show, they like listening, they like asking questions.”

On “Exile on M. Street,” Vianna and Dolan spin rock records that take them back to when they took AP Music Theory together in high school, and between songs and Uncrustables debate the musical peak of Jimi Hendrix. For the most part, the two stay true to playing classic rock and prog rock, but they will always take requests from friends (Taylor Swift has slipped in on occasion).

WGTB provides as much of an auditory

photos courtesy of annabella hoge; spread by max zhang

playspace connecting hosts and their listeners as it does a platform for other types of content. The club slot on Fridays from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. allows student groups on campus to talk about their work, and this Friday, H*yas for Choice (HFC) talked about their upcoming programming between spins of Chaka Khan and SZA. “We definitely feel like coming back from COVID and everything, we don’t have the same kind of presence with the student body that we used to have,” HFC Vice President Nina Yee (COL ’23) said. “Exploring other avenues to make our presence known, make our resources available, is huge for us.”

Between the conversations and songs, the radio room brought out new sides in the hosts and in us. Leaned back in leather swivel chairs with our feet kicked up on desks cluttered with old WGTB zines, we greeted each new DJ like an old friend. Playing unofficial host for 18 hours of airwaves, we learned a remarkable amount about the lives, passions, and fears of each DJ in the 90 minutes they kept the air alive.

And the later it got, the more intimate the space became. When the death of Foo Fighters’ drummer, Taylor Hawkins, broke, Vianna and Dolan, who both grew up adoring the band, processed the loss together on air.

But they weren’t alone on their broadcast. Friends called in to talk about how much the drummer meant to them. “There’s nothing like falling in love with a band,” Dolan said. “He had more to give to the world. I expected that to happen and the fact that he didn’t is horrible. It’s heartbreaking.”

Even then they were able to find some laughs, getting through the rest of their set dedicated to the drummer, together.

The radio room supports those conversations as much as it does any other— that’s the beauty of it. Whether it’s Caraiai and D’Angelo’s discussion of plastic surgery or Amar and Lammas’ insight into bees, the radio gives these hosts unfettered access to the most free self-expression.

“I really like radio because it’s like, into the ether,” Amar said.

And into that ether, for 90 minutes a week, WGTB hosts share their favorite tracks in the entire world that disappear as soon as they are broadcast. The exchange of music between hosts—between friends—provides an excuse for people to bring something they love to others and express vulnerability in an environment that invites a weirdness and sincerity not often found at Georgetown.

And, with or without an audience, WGTB is a haven for students: the long-time best friends, the music geeks, the callers from home, and two very tired Voice reporters. After 18 hours surrounded by walls of beat-up cassette tapes and illuminated by the dim sparkle of a disco ball overhead, we couldn’t help but feel a little at home. G APRIL 1, 2022

7

NEWS

The real Lord of the Flies experiment at Georgetown is the Vil A laundry room

BY CHETAN DOKKU

W

hen Village A (Vil A) residents moved back into their rooms for the spring semester, they could not have expected their already chronic laundry room issues to intensify.

Of the 12 washers and 10 dryers meant to serve a community of up to 456 people, two dryers were moved, covered in a translucent tarp, and declared out of order by Residential Services in January. Vil A residents have since listed a further five washers and five dryers as out of order. For the past three months, poor conditions in the laundry room have accumulated, and community members have become increasingly desperate.

“There’s a crazy number of clothes piles in the laundry room, and like half the dryers are broken so please come get your laundry,” Jess East (COL ’23) wrote in the “Vil A!” GroupMe on Feb. 1.

East was not the only student to face an excess of decrepit equipment and mountains of neglected, soaked clothes piling up in the damp room.

Over the next few weeks, as more residents returned, the sorry state of the remaining machines, and soon the room itself, became evident. Reports of more broken machines started to appear alongside the usual reminders to remove clothes from washers and dryers in the group chat.

“Whoever has stuff in washer 21, it's overflowing with water,” Dante Schorge (MSB ’23) said on Feb. 9. The chat is riddled with similarly dire warnings over the state of residents’ garments.

Facilities issues are nothing new at Georgetown, but the scale and duration of the laundry room problems and their impact on virtually every Vil A resident are particularly unique. Reports of more flagrant issues like ratinfested dorms and flooded toilets swiftly make their way around campus through group chats, Instagram accounts like @georgetown.hotmess, and word of mouth. The concealed nature of the Vil A laundry room’s dysfunction—few outside the community know of its plight— seems to have allowed it to elude such scrutiny.

Someone unfamiliar with the unpredictability of the Vil A laundry room machines would be easily fooled by their seeming innocuousness: 8

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

only two dryers have out-of-order signs on them.

“Tip! If you’re really into the distressed look there’s a chance dryer 3 adds some natural holes to your clothes during the drying process,” Brett Guessford (COL ’23) said on Feb. 28. “My lord avoid washer 17 like the plague.”

As the list of offending machines grew, the tenuous balance residents established among themselves to manage the already-inadequate laundry room last semester descended into chaos. “That was horrifying,” Francis Antonyraj (COL ’23), a Vil A resident, said in an interview with the Voice about the initial shock of seeing the tarp-covered dryers.

When asked about their least favorite machine, Antonyraj said, “Oh god. There’s one, I think it’s dryer 4 or dryer 2 that either doesn’t work or makes your clothes smell like they’ve burnt. It’s one or the other. It’s just a binary. It’s a flip of the coin. And I hate that.”

The lack of machines has forced some residents to make lifestyle modifications.

“Most of the time I have to do laundry at odd hours, like, you have to catch it off peak for sure.”

Antonyraj said, explaining that weekends are a no-go for laundry. “Honestly, most normal times during the day I end up not doing my laundry.

Then I usually wait until it's super late and there’s no chance of anything happening. That’ll fuck up my sleep schedule.”

Another issue for residents has been the lack of communication about laundry equipment issues from both the Planning and Facilities Department and Residential Living.

Antonyraj talked about their frustration with poor university communication about the tarp-covered dryers.

“They haven’t told us what that project is or when it’s going to end,” Antonyraj explained.

“So we just had the amount of dryers we had halved which made everything much more intense in general.”

Resident Assistants (RAs) and residents have filed work orders with Facilities and service requests with Caldwell & Gregory, the commercial laundry service that manages Georgetown’s machines—to no avail. “I think about a month ago, someone put in the group

chat that the work orders have been accepted, but nothing’s happened and they’ve received no other communication,” Antonyraj said.

“It’s sort of been an expectation that Facilities is not gonna return to the project.”

Abandoned amidst flooding and busted machines, residents have tried to collectively manage the issue. Antonyraj created a shared Google document in which residents can report broken machines to warn students of the perils that will greet them in the laundry room.

The laundry room tensions also seem to have also led to a breakdown in civility between residents. Indiscriminate piles of clothes placed on the dirty, wet laundry room floor are common. Residents have started throwing masks, used dryer sheets, lint, and Chick-fil-A waffle fries on the floor.

“First of all there are students that don’t take out their laundry at the appropriate time and they leave their stuff in the dryer, which is kind of gross and inconsiderate,” resident Gina Joon Park-Loughlin (SFS ’22) said, explaining the dual causes of the mess.

“On the other hand, there are students that take those clothes out of the dryers and then put them on the table or put them on the floor because there’s not enough space and just leave it there,” Park-Loughlin added.

Antonyraj agrees that the laundry room unrest has incited a decline in basic etiquette.

“There’s some level of this which is on personal responsibility. People should be able to move their stuff out of their washers and dryers pretty quickly, that’s just a reasonable thing and respectable.”

The larger tension, however, Antonyraj explained, is the lack of enough working dryers to support hundreds of students.

“I think the fact that there’s that general tension means that people place blame on each other.”

With no communication from the university and no work in sight, however, the only viable solution for Vil A residents’ laundry woes seems to be crowd-sourced warnings shared via the Google Doc. Either that, or just go to Jes Res. G

layout by graham krewinghaus; photos courtesy of chetan dokku, gina joon park-loughlin, and lucy sonsalla

NEWS

Knock knock. Who's there?

Candice. Candice who?

BY JOANNA LI

A

lexander Graham Bell famously said, “When one door closes, another opens.”

But Hoyas know how to spot a fallacy. Of Georgetown's top attractions—large-scale norovirus research, a clean slate of academic scandals and lawsuits, and an undefeated men’s basketball team—Georgetown’s intricately designed system of doorways serves as a stimulating puzzle to holistically enrich the bodies and minds of students.

Campus is rife with doorways constructed to delude unsuspecting entrants. On the first floor of Regents Hall, just before reaching the elevator, is an automatic door. The left side of the door opens outwards and the right side inwards, creating a sweeper that can only be dodged through superb reflex and kinesthetic sense.

Courageous students attempt this obstacle on a daily basis. While not all of them survive this effective weed-out system, this Regents door cultivates resilience and prepares Georgetown students for the unpredictability of the real world.

Those who make it past the Regents door may arrive in front of the Leavey Center, facing yet another set of haunting, yet inviting, glass doors. While they each have a wide, beaming handlebar synonymous with every pull door you have ever encountered, do not be fooled.

Nothing is quite as it seems. Push, and the worldrenowned bookstore and Corp coffee awaits, but pull, and risk public embarrassment right outside Sellinger Lounge. Someone will laugh at you. Probably many.

“Every day, I have to open doors,” Elizabeth Ledwith (MSB ’24), a frequenter of the Leavey Center, said. “Every day, I have to guess: push or pull? That’s a lot of pressure to know which way it opens. Get it? Pressure? Because you have to put pressure on the door?” The Voice is relieved

design by cecilia cassidy

to report that Ledwith is not considering a career in stand-up.

But Regents and Leavey are only two of the many exhilarating doors on campus that cause a daily quandary for the hundreds of students that pass through. “The Leo’s doors are by far the most difficult to open,” Daisy O’Brien (COL ’24) said. “I’ve been trapped inside for a while now, actually going on week four. Still no progress on making it out.”

O’Brien isn’t sure how much longer she can avoid confronting the doors, notorious for their unexplained weight. “I’ve made friends with all the Leo’s workers, but they’re starting to get suspicious. Sometimes I have to fight the rats and cockroaches for food and it gets pretty brutal.”

“I’ve been trying to rescue my friend from Leo’s for weeks,” Bianca Bozzo (COL ’23) told the Voice, when we reached out to students concerned about O’Brien’s situation. “I’m going to Yates every day to bulk up. Cardio, arms, legs, I do it all. I also drink a lot of muscle milk. Hopefully, I’ll be able to open the doors to Leo’s one day.”

Other students had different thoughts.

“I’m much more of a Bud Light guy myself,” said Andrew Mazzola (COL ’23). “Oh, doors,” Mazzola said. “I thought you were talking about Coors. Don’t quote me on this. I’m underage.”

While most doors on campus are infrastructural, some of them are emotional.

“The hardest door to open is the door to my exgirlfriend's heart,” Ryan Williams (SFS ’22) said.

“Jessica, please answer my texts. I miss you.”

The Voice reached out to Jessica, who declined to comment on the piece, or Ryan.

While romance may be dead, chivalry is not. The legacy of cura personalis stands strong in the Georgetown community, and it isn’t rare to witness one Hoya holding the door open for another. But while field reporting, the Voice observed multiple instances of awkward sprints to the door when that second Hoya was just a bit too far away.

This normative exchange then becomes a calculated act Georgetown students know all too well: Getting to the door too slowly seems rude to the person holding it with all their strength; getting to the door too fast heightens the risk of incurring a debilitating leg cramp, especially after climbing up the VCE steps.

This dilemma is no small feat for the doorholder, either. Once their hand lands on the door and eye contact is made with another student from 20 feet away, their fate is sealed.

They are the designated door opener now; there is no turning back, unless they want to be that asshole.

In a traditional sense, doors mark both the physical and metaphysical establishment of boundaries. The Healey Family Student Center, as one of the newest establishments on campus, refutes this outdated label. As the only study space on campus with sufficient natural light, it is often packed with students.

Yet its study rooms have no doors. As a result, students are forced to oscillate between finishing overdue assignments and listening to Hilltoss’ obsession with Today’s Top Hits.

Lauinger Library (Lau), another popular study space, takes a different approach.

While some Hoyas argue Lau has too many doors, some key features of its intricately designed floor plan go underappreciated. Lau 2, where students often gather to rejoice in their robust social lives, has two-step authentication bathrooms: Enter one door, and another awaits before proceeding to the stalls. This five-by-five enclosure between the two doors may seem ambiguous at first, but after surveying various students at Lau, the Voice concluded that this space is specially designed to serve as a cry closet as a new addition to its abundant mental health services. And it should always be difficult to get to a bathroom. The obstacles build character and a strong bladder for wholesome nights out at Church Hall.

Withstanding door puzzles offers Georgetown students the opportunity to cultivate resilience and growth as they traverse through campus life. Over the course of their college careers, Hoyas have learned better than to ask amateur questions like “How does this door open?” or “Why does this door open?” Instead, they have mastered the core of critical thinking by considering, first and foremost, “Candice door open?” G APRIL 1, 2022

9

VOICES

Ask Voices

Voices, My best friend called me a “cheugy basic fugly bitch who slept with my brother and I hate you” for wearing the same dress as her to an IRC party.

I love my friend and I don’t want to stop going to her beach house every summer with her, her parents, and her brother, but she seems really mad at me about this for some reason. All over a silly little dress!

— Has Never Done Anything Wrong In My Life, Ever Never Done Anything Wrong, Did you ever consider that maybe you ARE a cheugy basic fugly bitch? Anyway, that shouldn’t stop you from continuing to sleep with the brother. Plus, if the sex is good enough, you’ll become his plus one to the beach house.

— Voices

BY SARAH CRAIG, SARINA DEV, JAMES GARROW, KULSUM GULAMHUSEIN, ANNETTE HASNAS, AND LOU JACQUIN

Voices, My friend who is literal Eur to understand opean royalt y doesn’t seem that I do, in fa ct, have a fini He keeps in te bank acco viting me to unt. go skiing in quick weeke Switzerland nd trip and as for a king why I ne my flight hom ed to rush to e for break w make hen I could ju a cool guy no st rmally, but I need him to un fly private. He’s not wipe my derstand that ass with hund I do red dollar bi through his he lls. How do I ad? get it — Non-royal Normie Normie, We hate to sa y it, but it mig friend is rich ht be Anna D enough anyw elvey time. Yo ay; there’s no ur little “Oh, my reason not to sister trashed pull a he r room at the stayed there so Ritz last time they don’t like she my family, do the suite for m you mind book e?” After all, he ing ’s the one who wealthy, so it’ ’s assuming yo s not really ly u’re ing so much truthing, which as it’s simply isn’t really that not bad. ­— Voices

Voices, I’m anxious about atten now that C ding social OVID-19 ca events ses are dro wardrobe is pping! My n’t up to dat e and I wan Vil A roofto t it to be p party read y, which is ju to my alread st adding y existing an xiety! Help!

— Anxiousl y Awaiting Anxious, Since Vil A rooftop part y wardrobes changed sinc e the 70s, so haven’t met never actual ly been to on hing tells me you’ve e. It’s probab give up on an ly time to actual social life, so we su check out M ggest you ax Zhang’s gu ide on “How digital best fr to grow a iend.”

— Voices

10

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

Voices, Help, I’m lost.

— Lost turn as if you’re Lost, r a second and fo e ar u yo a little, re he No, to your left Okay, so. Stay w ction of Healy. re utalist di br e sit te po re op nc that big co , walking in the ah ye u— one yo c behind sorta Gothi st Lau should be you see that big So no, y.

— ly ka O ct . re tly di ac ahead, just ht rig building, yes, ex , ah Ye u?

La ead of yo away from u, building right ah if you’re facing d ea alk ah ht rig said left. Okay, so w that’s Copley, I yeah, it’s to your ft, it— le d at ea th ah t ht no ig o, ra ur first left. N yo Copley’s not st ke ta e en th , th d ah ilding an the point. Ye towards that bu ey, Copley’s not pl ay Co w to ch in hi s w r air e st matte that left is up th t? No it doesn’t , the stairs. Wha wide open—yeah s it’ re ua sq g left that’s not up bi a in ld re ou u’ sh yo u e, e tre ay, now yo you go around th don’t care–anyw it on the left, I ld on, what? How nd ho ou ar d— an go g e, fin archway thin ick br g bi is atue on Copley st th y at be looking ly placed Mar ib rr ho . I’m e th at you u’re impossible the HELL are there yourself, yo ay w ur yo d fin , lawn? I’m done hanging up.

—Voices

the summer Voices, salary from t ea gr ould a e I mak got me and sh g job my dad ble in ou nk tr ba t ng en vi m ha invest lls. But I am bi g. y in m y ow gr pa debt is be able to ding, and my ts en gh sp ni y 0 m 00 g $1 those managin osed to know pp su I as w How n I do? d up? What ca out would ad ed — MissManag , it prevent MissManaged ly budget. Will th on m e a g in t you from th Start by mak Will it protec o.

N at ? lp ng di he it en ill excessive sp sharks? No. W . u by the loan art somewhere st to hits put on yo ed ne u yo t Bu s . e’ no er th so ard all? Probably al ate, we’ve he t really desper that can get a re Ko And if you ge h ut So mpetition in hing about an a fantastic co ht away. Somet rig et fe ur yo you back on k? octopus, I thin — Voices

design by allison derose and sabrina shaffer

ving been ha ’m e v a h , I s e. I and Voice peratur mmate My roo s over the tem Arctic, but ement be the th-floordisagre g it needs to four in d a ping it not say e is kee e help me fin to t a m m o s e o a v r le a y h P m . to h warm ; I don’t want t of-Wals u talk it o e else. am way to er Instagr omewh s (not the s move s t Me — Ho ) t accoun ? g anemic ecomin b ss, e d e M r t e o H u consid Have yo s e ic — Vo

Voices, I sit next to that person from the GroupMe. Yes, that person. In a three hour seminar, no breaks. HELP. — Stranded Seatmate22

Voices, My roommate is largely noc turnal, writes ciphers in his free time, and has a growin g collection of human teet h. He also won’t let me look inside our refrigerator even though it smells like formaldehyde. I brought a girl over last wee k and she left as soon as she took a whiff. He’s ruining my sex life.

What do I do?

— Brad (recently demoted from Chad) Brad, First of all, we want to affirm that you’re absolutely right to be worried about your sex life in light of this behavior and not hing else. There are no other pos sible problems with your roo mmate except for that one, so, way to prioritize.

Second, it sounds like your best bet is to just try to mak e hookups happen elsewhere, just not at yours. Sure, not every girl’s gonna want to take you to hers, and of course it’s nice r to keep your condoms in a draw er than in your pocket, but if your roommate won’t change his (tot ally valid) lifestyle habits, it mig ht be your best bet. Not to men tion, the HFSC music rooms are finally open, yeah? Sing on, sail or!

— Voices

Voices, My friend has been lon g-enamored with D.C.'s rat population. She has created some sort of rat mafia ring in Georgeto wn’s underground tunnel s.

Apparently there are cas inos run by rat bookie s?

And house rats that are “beefed up on steroids? ” How can I encourage her to develop a health ier hobby?

— RATtled RATtled, The only way out is throug h, as they say. It sounds like a good first step would be to gamble with the rats yourself to really understan d your friend’s investment in this business; think of it as an exercise in empat hy.

Maybe then you can point her towards more virtuou s pursuits, like dog fighting or book burning.

— Voices

Stranded Seatmate, Obviously your only choice is to take that person’s laptop and smash it over that useless little table attached to the ICC Auditorium seats.

It’s your moral duty. They’re way too small to serve as actual desks, so I can only assume this is the purpose they were built for, and you wouldn’t want the resources spent installing them to go to waste, would you? Of course not. You know what you have to do.

— Voices

Voices, Everyone thin ks they know does. Even th me, but nobo ough people ac dy really t like they love I walk around me whenever campus, they name. How can I build m still don’t know my real ore meaning with my peer ful connection s? s — John F. Car roll John, baby, yo u’re a player. climbing over You’ve got th themselves to e freshmen sit on your lap deepest secret and whisper th s in your very eir problematic ea worry about bu r. We wouldn’ ilding meaning t ful connections about quantit y, not quality, . After all, it’s right? Just try the big (I wan to be happy be t to say about ing 14 feet?) man on — Voices campus.

(We were rece ntly informed bulldog, whose that this writein is from the full name is Jo hn F. Carroll, no which case we t the statue. In give the same ad vi quality. Who ce—it’s about needs meaning quantity, not ful connections skateboarding when you’re a social media st ar?)

Voices, My roommate recently got permission to have an emotional support animal in our dorm. Although I was initially excited, I discovered that rather than being a cat or a dog, it was an ancient many-eyed Lovecraftian atrocity he keeps under his bed. And apparently it’s also capable of bringing about an apocalypse the likes of which no human mind can comprehend, so that’s something I have to keep in mind now. I don’t want to seem disrespectful of my roommate’s anxiety, but this feels like crossing a boundary, if not many. How do I talk about this with him?

— Pet Peeved Pet Peeved, I understand why you’d feel uncomfortable in your situation, but perhaps you should have asked follow up questions. Your roommate might have good reasons for wanting to avoid the standard furry friend—one of my housemates for next year, for example, is allergic to cats, so we all decided we’d adopt an Unthinkable Ancient Evil Born Of Woman’s Flesh In The Form of Man But Somehow Other, For There Is No Soul, No Human Understanding, Behind His Strange And Fishlike Eyes as a group instead. Just accept the situation and make the best of it. Even with the pet living with you, there will be those moments when it has slipped through the nearly imperceptible cracks in the walls that can only be seen out of the corner of one’s eyes for they exist on a plane all but divorced from our own in order to feed, so you’ll still get your pet-free alone time. And who knows, it may still like cuddles!

— Voices APRIL 1, 2022

11

VOICES

A letter from the Georgetown Egger

T

his week, The Voice received an anonymous letter, apparently handdelivered. In the interest of avoiding angering the author further, we have elected to publish a copy of this letter below.

BY ANONYMOUS

Note: The Voice does not condone violence or salmonella.

12

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

design by lou jacquin

NEWS

Historic university defaced by public displays of affection in Lauinger Library

BY ALEX DERAMO

G

eorgetown’s Jesuit values and commitment to cultivating knowledge are being threatened by public displays of affection (PDA) by couples in Lauinger Library (Lau), according to disapproving students, who claim the displays disrupt the ethos of work in a historic center of higher learning.

Up-and-coming Instagram account @couplesatlau uploads student photo submissions of these incidents of PDA with clever and sarcastic captions. This publicity, however, has only shaped featured couples into quasi-celebrities, further validated their actions, and normalized PDA on the Georgetown campus, spotted couples have reported.

One of many Instagram accounts showcasing the affection shown by Hoyas in on-campus public spaces—including the original @couplesatleos and @couplesatmsb, which capture PDA at Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall and the Rafik B. Hariri Building for the McDonough School of Business—@couplesatlau has been posting pictures since September of last year. The return to campus, and ending mask mandate, seems to have bolstered couples to express their affection in physical—and highly public—terms.

“The work started with @couplesatleos then when we saw a couple being particularly affectionate in lau, the idea hit us, we snapped a pic, and that’s the story of our first post!” the @couplesatlau account owners anonymously wrote in a direct message to the Voice about their inspiration for the page.

Lau has become a central arena for Georgetown couples to publicly display affection for each other amidst their diligently studious peers. Hannah Adler (COL ’24) and Charlie Sewell (NHS ’23), who form the self-proclaimed power couple “Channah,” recently (and controversially) ascended to fame on campus on the back of a @couplesatlau feature.

“We can’t walk down the street together or individually without being stopped. I’ve had to give many autographs. People keep asking to recreate the photo with me which is really awkward,” Adler said.

“People have told me I’m really down-to-earth for the context of what’s happened.”

The couple is still learning to cope with the spotlight and resulting astonishment from their friends and peers. “A couple people in my frat have come up to me. They were all really jealous, I think,” Sewell said. “A lot of them are single. They just said, ‘You know, congrats!’”

Both members of the duo agree that PDA in Lau is a natural expression of love and should absolutely have a place on campus.

“I think when you go into Lau you have to expect couples are going to be showing affection towards each other. That's just a given. Everywhere

in public you go you just have to accept that,” Adler said, explaining that the Instagram account actually encourages couples’ public affection.

According to Adler, no space on campus is offlimits for “Channah’s” PDA. “Dahlgren Chapel is one of our favorite places,” she said.

Despite the struggles of immense public visibility, the couple expressed no plans to slow down their habits. “I feel like I’m Peeta and you’re Katniss. The whole world wants to see us together,” Sewell gushed as he took Adler’s hand.

“We’re really excited for the mask mandate to end so we can make out more.”

“Channah’s” excitement is not spoiled by heavy backlash from a few students who oppose the frequent flirting and kissing in Lau and believe that these shows of affection should require a non-public room. Alexa King (COL ’24), a strong believer in Georgetown’s commitment to education and Jesuit values, admitted to concerns about Georgetown’s couple scene affecting her academic progress.

“I’m trying to write about the Problem of God, but the real problem is the PDA at Lau,” she said.

Rebecca El Choueiry (COL ’24) recalled a similar experience of couples at Lau disrupting her revision for an organic chemistry exam. “I look back and they’re having some sort of battle with water bottles or umbrellas,” El Choueiry said. “I hear giggling and stuff, but I’m trying to do my own work. Mind you, I have my headphones blasting, but I turn and see him carrying her into the study room.”

King cited Georgetown’s residential resources as helpful in coping with what she considers immoral behavior. “I live directly across from a residential minister and I often find myself so distraught

graphic by annette hasnas; layout by alex giorno

by the couples at Lau that I have to confide in her,” she said. “I definitely see Georgetown couples as an invasive species that has infiltrated our campus.”

According to King, @couplesatlau represents behavior antithetical to Georgetown’s mission statement and status as a Jesuit institution. “I think it’s really inappropriate that any form of social media is perpetuating these displays, especially given that we go to a Catholic school,” she said.

Rather than being horrified or disgusted by it, however, @couplesatlau finds creative inspiration in the vulgarity of Lau’s culture of PDA. “Our biggest inspiration is all the Hoya couples that have absolutely no shame. It’s amazing all the public spaces that you can gross people out at,” @couplesatlau wrote.

The anonymous moderators of the account believe that jealousy and loneliness are likely the central reasons for backlash but also express empathy for insecure students.

“We get it, the last thing you want to see after being in Lau for eight hours straight is freshmen making out but hey, it’s ok. You’re lonely and bitter. We are too,” the moderators wrote.

Although Lau-frequenting couples like “Channah” are empowered and encouraged by their feature on the page, @couplesatlau says that their intention with the page is not to encourage further affectionate behavior, but to shame the couples.

“You’re supposed to sexile your roommate, not the group project sitting right next to you.” G

APRIL 1, 2022

13

SPORTS

BY GRAHAM KREWINGHAUS

O

n Jan. 12, 1992, some 3,100 years after the sacking of ancient Troy, a new odyssey was taking place somewhere along U.S. Interstate 85.

After a basketball game that literally broke the scoreboard, the Hoyas were on a bus home from Troy (Alabama), where the Troy State Trojans had defeated them by an unbelievable 258 points.

You read that right. Two hundred and fifty eight.

But Georgetown didn’t play that storied day.

DeVry Institute of Technology's Decatur campus did. The DeVry Hoyas.

The DeVry … Hoyas.

How did it come to be that Georgetown shared its supposedly unique name with a forprofit computing college near Atlanta? Why should we care? As it turns out, this bizarre DeVry team has a rightful claim to a spot in the Hoya record books. Not only were the nonGeorgetown Hoyas on the losing side of the highest-scoring basketball game of all time, but a DeVry Hoya scored more that game than all but three Georgetown Hoyas in history.

It’s past time we understood what happened on Jan. 12, 1992, and rewrote the history of “Hoya basketball,” inducting our Hoya brethren into our records.

The DeVry Hoyas made history, but only because they were not very good. And the Troy State Trojans were really, really good.

“We had guys that could run, jump, dunk with the best of 'em,” Terry McCord, a Troy State forward and the only All-American in the team’s history, recalled about the one-of-a-kind game in an interview with the Voice. “You look at games that you know you should win. Like, this should be a walk-over.”

How the ’91-’92 Trojans “walked over” their competition bore little resemblance

14

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

to how traditional college basketball teams typically do. These Trojans were Division II, but the NCAA had them slated to move up to Division I in 1993. They played run-andgun, meaning they sprinted up the floor and chucked up the first shot they could. Their coach had no playbook, and their shot clocks didn’t run out. On average, Troy State scored 111.1 points per game.

“We were a fast-paced team,” McCord said. “The track at Troy, we completely wore it out, we practiced sprints so much. Speed and conditioning.”

It worked for them: The Trojans went 27-5 that season, eventually falling in the Division II National Championship.

So when the Trojans went up against the DeVry Hoyas, a conference-less team that played literally anybody who’d play them, Troy State knew they could go for a record. The Trojans had hit an astounding 187 points when they played the Hoyas the year before, and they had only gotten better.

The Trojans had a very clear goal for this game: 200 points. But no team at any level of the sport had ever gotten close to 200, even in the NBA, which has the world’s best players and eight more minutes than college play. Their task was nothing short of Herculean. I don’t know enough Greek mythology to tell you whether that’s apt for a team named the Trojans, but it sounds nice.

Herculean, shmerculean. Troy State scored 123 by halftime. “Everybody was hot that day,” McCord said. “Everybody was hitting.”

They passed their previous record of 187 at the ten-minute mark of the second half.

With almost eight whole minutes to go, Mac McCarroll, the play-by-play commentator, made the call and the crowd went wild.

“Steve Hunt will stop and pop … YES!” McCord, who assisted the 200th point, raised his arms in exaltation. And the Trojans kept up their pace even after passing 200, ending the game with 258.

The Hoyas kept up their pace, too. They ended the game with 141 of their own, way more than most teams score in a game, more than most teams have ever scored—including the Georgetown Hoyas.

The DeVry Hoyas could have easily given up.

They could have succumbed to the overwhelming efforts of the Trojans, who played as if they were driven by the god of war. But they didn’t give up.

They didn’t even falter.

They didn’t fight for the purpose of winning—DeVry entered the game knowing they weren’t going to win. The Hoyas were already down by double digits before they scored a single point, and they spent a majority of the game with less than half the number of points the Trojans had.

But they did it to have fun, and they did it for Hoya glory. For that, they should be heralded.

Starting in the ’80s, not 10 years before DeVry’s Hoyas would be entered into the record books, this question hit sports sections across the country. One paper remarked: “Patrick Ewing is a Hoya. Michael Jackson is a Hoya... But what is a Hoya? Really.”

As the story goes, Georgetown’s teams were referred to as the Stonewalls, referencing the stone wall lining the front lawn where games were held. All students were required to learn Greek and Latin then, and invented a chant that combined the two, “Hoya” from Ancient Greek and “Saxa” from Latin. The translation: “what rocks.” The

design by graham krewinghaus

chant stuck, then was shortened to name the school newspaper, then was passed on to the athletes. That’s how Georgetown became the Hoyas: a prominent stone wall, mandatory classical language instruction, and a student newspaper.

But DeVry didn’t have any of those things: no stone wall, no Greek classes, no newspaper of any kind that I could find. While we can speculate, it should be noted that there are no complete and surviving answers. Anything that resembled one, should it have ever existed, has been lost to the sands of time.

There’s no connection between Georgetown and DeVry, nor between Georgetown and coach George Trawick, whose idea it was for DeVry to have a basketball team in the first place. In a 1989 Atlanta Constitution article, Trawick is quoted saying, “I went to the folks at DeVry, told them my plans and here I am.” And DeVry clearly left him to run the show with little institutional involvement.

The Hoyas practiced off campus, they washed their own jerseys, and often had to find their own means of transportation to games.

The athletic budget in 1990-91 was reported to have been just $1,000.

So if anyone were to give DeVry their name, it’d have been George Trawick. I could not find any contact information for Trawick, but Tim Young, a starter for DeVry that fateful day, said that if Trawick had a particular reason, he never shared it.

“Maybe it was because he was a Georgetown fan when they created the team. And we needed a mascot,” Young said in an interview with the Voice. “I remember I had shirts, shorts that had the Hoyas on them.”

The Georgetown Hoyas were everywhere in that era, known to some as “Black America’s team,” so it would have been impossible for Trawick to not have known of them. Whatever the case, he went full steam ahead with the name, using blue and gray jerseys and putting a bulldog on the warmup pullovers. They were Hoyas, and there was no mistaking it—rich linguistic history behind the name or not.

The DeVry Hoyas’ devastating loss brought them more publicity than ever before. Columns appeared in papers across the country noting the shattered records, and DeVry shared the spotlight with Troy State. After all, some columns alleged bitterly, it took some cooperation on the part of DeVry to let this disastrous result happen.

“There were all these reporters trying to talk to us, get us to say it was rigged because we didn’t play defense,” Young recalled. “We didn’t plan it like that, we just knew that they were gonna score a lot, we wanted to score a lot.”

Some papers snidely pointed out the Georgetown connection. “The Hoyas—a nickname borrowed from a team known for defense—lost to Troy State 258-141,” a columnist for the Atlanta Constitution wrote.

In fact, earlier in the season, the Tampa Tribune pointed out the shared name when they came to play their hometown team: “The DeVry Institute Hoyas wear the same style and color uniforms as the more popular Hoya team from Georgetown. But against Florida Southern College Saturday night their performance wasn’t quite up to par with their outfits or nickname.”

Being known for a brutal loss made it easy to contrast DeVry and the Georgetown Hoyas, who at the time were still big-time contenders with players like Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo. Dick Vitale, poking fun at John Thompson’s notoriously easy non-conference games, asked if Thompson had “phoned down to DeVry Institute to schedule them next year.”

“Hoyas against Hoyas,” Trawick mused in response, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. “Sure, we’d do it. Why not?”

Tragically, the two groups of Hoyas never did cross paths. At the end of the ’91-’92 season, DeVry announced that they’d be taking a season off due to financial considerations. They would never return from that hiatus.

In their three seasons of basketball, DeVry played 81 games. They won just 15 of them.

And somewhere in those 66 losses lies the 1992 masterpiece that we examine today, the only game the DeVry Hoyas played that we have record of. A 1 hour, 20 minute, 40 secondlong, record, uploaded to Youtube in glorious 480p by documentarian “kip SMITHERS.” It’s a treasure trove—but for our purposes, one gem stands out.

Hoya was the best defender, as none of them played any defense.)

Daniel had a fantastic game that day. He shot .667 from the field, .500 from three, and notched 11 rebounds. He hit a three at the final buzzer, bringing his total to a whopping 42 points, giving him the title of the highest scorer in the highestscoring game ever.

42 points in a game is more points than I could find for any other DeVry Hoya. It’s also more points—make sure you’re sitting down for this—than all but three Georgetown Hoyas have ever scored.

Let that sink in. Jim Barry on Feb. 27, 1965: 46 points. Jim Christy, on Feb. 25, 1964: 44 points. Jake Gibbons on Dec. 19, 1964: 42 points. Dartez Daniel on Jan. 12, 1992: 42 points.

A DeVry Hoya, up there on the shortlist. Who would’ve thunk it?

For too long we’ve left him out of our history books glamorizing “Hoya history.” But now, after three decades of ignorance, it’s time to wake up.

The administration can no longer sit idle and leave the fourth-highest single-game scoring Hoya unrecognized. kip SMITHERS and I must not be ignored.

His recording shows the DeVry Hoyas take the court and get walloped. But walloped or not, they were unmistakably, undeniably Hoyas.

And Daniel unmistakably, undeniably scored 42 points. The commentators got it wrong the entire game, probably having missed a layup or two, but I counted out his points. You can too, I guess, if you’re some kind of masochist.

I don’t know what Dartez Daniel is up to now. He won’t respond to my DMs, and I don’t know where he lives, what he does, or if he even remembers that day. All I know is that 30 years ago, somewhere out there in rural Alabama, amidst utter, incomprehensible chaos, a Hoya dropped more points than any Hoya has since the ’60s.

Put him in the record books. G

Sure, the Trojans broke more than a dozen records. Sure, the Hoyas lost by more points than any team has ever lost by. But they still scored 141 points of their own. And they were led, spiritually and statistically, by one undervalued man—Dartez Daniel, a 6’9” junior from Sandersville, Georgia. Daniel was their best scorer, as well as their best ball handler. (It could not be determined which

above photo courtesy of tim young; game photos courtesy of kip smithers; newspaper clippings courtesy of newspapers.com

APRIL 1, 2022

15

HALFTIME LEISURE

Weekly List: The top five underground clothing brands you need to check out 3. sublime

BY CHRISTINE JI

T

he quest for individuality is more important than ever. What better way to discover yourself than by engaging in some good-old fastfashion consumerism? We’ve got the scoop for you on the next big thing—the never-before-seen trend all the it-girls are going to be raving about soon. Enjoy curating your totally unique and quirky, not-likeother-girls look with the indie brands below.

Are you into astrology? Psychedelics? Macabre graphics? If so, Sublime is the brand for you. The intricately designed sun logo is definitely a head-turner. You’ll be forgiven if you get lost in the striking blue eyes on this anthropomorphic blazing ball of fire. They’ll go crazy for the blue mushroom etched into the sun’s forehead, as well as the skeletons embedded within its cheeks. Its acid wash and tie-dye fabrics are perfect for sporting that hippy Californian vibe. Consider adding Sublime to your wardrobe for an instant dash of edginess.

5. Red Hot Chili Peppers

Starting off the list at number five, we have the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Display your love for the spicy vegetable with an article of clothing from this designer’s line. We’re talking circle text and good vibes. With a simple logo featuring a neutral sans serif font and an asterisk graphic, Red Hot Chili Peppers is definitely a straightforward, sleek, and safe choice for those who are just beginning to dabble in high fashion.

4. AC/DC

If you’re feeling a bit international, may I suggest the brand AC/DC? Don’t be down bad, be down under with this stylish Australian designer.

Drawing inspiration from the two types of electricity, alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC), AC/DC will allow you to show off your engineering expertise. An especially powerful statement piece for any woman in STEM!

A swift conversion

BY EMMA CHUCK 14

J

ust the other day, I gave a start upon seeing the figure looking back in the mirror. Of course, it was me. But she felt different.

Unbeknownst to her, a change had been festering, a fearsome and fecund ivy.

This new woman, person, entity, realized she was finally one of them. Those who had accepted the Gift—sacred knowledge that a certain discography reigned supreme. The artist, the witch, had snatched yet another innocent yet again, as swiftly as her name.

It’s taken a few moons to process, but now I know for sure. And the affliction will come for you, too. Once you’re in her Nation, there’s no escape.

The symptoms, at first, begin mildly.

16

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

2. Pink Floyd

If Sublime’s graphic sun imagery is too counterculture for you, try out Pink Floyd instead. Pink Floyd offers a similar astrological aura without the outright implications of being a recreational drug user. Despite the word “pink” in the name, Pink Floyd’s best is a black t-shirt emblazoned with a triangular prism and a rainbow beam, inspired by the dark side of the moon. In other words, a win for geometry and science fans alike, not to mention queer people!

1. nirvana

The number one spot is reserved for none other than Nirvana. This Asian-inspired fashion line gets its name from the Sanskrit word for “becoming extinguished,” and that’s exactly what you’ll be doing to the competition once you pull up to the function dripped out in this brand.

The yellow smiley face and bold logotype are always a hit. More classiclooking pieces will have the yellow logo imposed on a black background, but if you want to switch it up, you can find rarer pieces with swimming babies or angels. Whatever design you choose, you can’t go wrong with this band—uh, I mean—brand. Founded in 1987, it’s still perennially in fashion. In fact, it even inspired the soundtrack of The Batman (2022) movie. Just be prepared for the “name three songs” question. G

“Blank Space,” once enjoyed in passing, now turns you feral from the beginning of its spacey, beckoning open notes. “Nice to meet you, where you been? I could show you incredible things.” Just the first lines induce a frenzy (think screaming, crying, perfect storms).

Then, you find yourself unabashedly adopting a country twang whenever “Our Song” or “I Bet You Think About Me” arrives in the queue. But you’re from an island in the Pacific, cries a voice in the back of your mind. Time dulls it… there is only Accent.

And most dastardly, the casually cruel trick that hounds you as all your fellow year 2000-born companions celebrate their birthdays, month after month: suddenly you’re infested with earworms whenever the number 22 arises.

In true Georgetown fashion, your email will light up with a GCal notification. And there it stands. It feels like a perfect night, you find yourself whispering, alone in a room. Without fail, you’ll hear out of the empty, slightly chilly air a response: To dress up like hipsters, and make fun of our exes.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh…

“It’ll never catch me,” you might say smugly. “I could never

get into her.” She’s so mainstream, you’ve protested. What is it about her that has the populace tripping over themselves for her time and time again? You comfort yourself with lies, staving off the tide. Feebly.

I, too, once tried to resist the cult, joining in the stale tradition of judgment surrounding the buzz of her music. Why her? But it does you no good; rather, it holds you back from becoming your most charged and cosmic self.

Soon the facts will catch up to you: tThe pristine bridges. The stunning lyricism. The sheer range of her catalog, each album a distinct magnet in its own right (with the exception of the siren sister albums). The quicker you give in, the better. Recognize the pull of her genius. The transcendence of her tokens: salt, air, the rust on your door.

Eventually you’ll find yourself where I am. Come to terms with its inevitability. Struggle and resist as I might, I’ve become one of them now. In front of the mirror today, I glimpsed the Creature lurking within—and Enjoy our faves: smiled back.

Soon you’ll be with us, too. Behold the Tay-Lord.

See you at the next gathering … Are you ready for it? G

design by connor martin; photos courtesy of eva rinaldi (cc by-sa 2.0)

HALFTIME LEISURE

The misunderstood masterpiece of The Emoji Movie

BY AJANI JONES

W

hat makes great cinema? Must it move the masses? Need it withstand the test of time?

To these questions and more, I proclaim yes. In a cultural milieu so saturated with cash-grabs and uninspired drivel, it saddens me that the few truly brilliant works of modern filmmaking go woefully unrecognized.

As such, today, I stand behind a wrongfullypersecuted modern masterpiece, ready to defend the principles of artistic cinema. I stand against its critics, who shamefully fail to see its magnificence. I stand to recognize the gem that is The Emoji Movie (2017).

Behold the pinwnacle of cinema. Though far surpassing beloved classics like Titanic (1997) and The Godfather (1972), The Emoji Movie was greatly underappreciated at the time of its release. The Emoji Movie is this generation’s Van Gogh.

The film follows Gene Meh (T.J. Miller), a meh emoji, as he struggles to find acceptance in a digital world due to his use of a wide array of expressions beyond his predestined emotion. As Gene journeys to fit into the rigid expectations of his artificial society with his friends Hi-5 (James Corden) and Jailbreak (Anna Faris), he comes to accept his wonderfully unique role within Textopolis, one of the many sublocations within the digital space.

This 90-minute emotional rollercoaster is not limited to a single plotline. This narratively complex story also features a heartfelt adventure outside the digital space in a world much like our own. Alex (Jake T. Austin), the owner of the phone in which Gene and friends reside, struggles to win the affections of Addie (Tati Gabrielle), his longtime crush. His efforts, however, are only complicated by the emojis’ many shenanigans, along with the impending divorce of Gene’s parents, Mel (Steven Wright) and Mary (Jennifer Coolidge). The film’s branching storyline follows a philosophy of maximalism, much like emojis are at their core: brash and melodramatic. In order to capture all

graphic by sean ye; layout by connor martin

the stories it hopes to tell, the film keeps up a no-holds-barred pace for its entirety. Many have cited complaints about the film’s ostentatious speed; however, the constant flux between plots and subplots keeps the audience on their toes, ensuring there is never a dull moment.

The Emoji Movie perfectly encapsulates the core theme of self-acceptance and cherishing one’s differences—key in a world that asks us to be more homogenous. This is largely due to director Tony Leondis allowing the story to take inspiration from his own childhood growing up gay, as he revealed in an interview with Screenrant. As a result, The Emoji Movie is able to build a relatable and relevant, though underappreciated, emotional core.

The Emoji Movie’s appeal also stems from its star-studded cast of voice actors, which undeniably adds a layer of legitimacy to the film. With stars like the distinguished Sir Patrick Stewart and Sofía Vergara among its lineup, the emojis burst with life and feeling (Stewart, for context, voices the illustrious poop emoji). Each voice actor perfectly translates their represented emotion into speech throughout the dialogue, a tonal consistency often missed in other films with stock characters. Maya Rudolph’s Smiler, the film’s main antagonist, is an especially fantastic example: Though her brilliant smile and cheery tone never drop, her every word drips with a visceral condescension. The remaining emojis were also excellently portrayed, from Corden’s charming performance as the loveable Hi-5 to the highly emotional voice-acting behind Gene’s parents. This just goes to show that a cast of this caliber was ultimately fitting for a film as grand and ambitious as The Emoji Movie.

The cast was almost joined by Jordan Peele, who was originally slated to voice Stewart’s role as the poop emoji. However, Peele declined the role, catalyzing the end of his acting career, which demonstrates how truly influential this film was in the grand scheme of things.

For a film as controversially impactful as The Emoji Movie, it is no surprise that it also features a stellar soundtrack: An original score by composer Patrick Doyle is interwoven with modern hits and beloved classics to emphasize each mood the film invoked. Christina Aguilera’s “Feel This Moment” and Rihanna’s “Diamonds” perfectly pair with the development of Gene and Jailbreak’s relationship, for one. Even iconic songs such as “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps and the internet classic “Pen Pineapple Apple Pen (PPAP)” by Pikotaro are seamlessly aligned with the plot. A timeless soundtrack in every conception.

Even one of the biggest criticisms of the film—its abundance of product placement— works well given its context: a phone, where everything is branded in real life. It is evident that Leondis and the rest of the film’s crew had a vast creative vision and needed the product placement to accomplish this. Furthermore, the integration of apps like Facebook and Candy Crush, alongside Instagram and Twitch, shows the filmmakers’ keen attention to detail and understanding of current youth culture as they accurately recreated the world within a teenage boy’s smartphone.

Though initially (and incorrectly) hailed a flop on Sony Pictures’ part, The Emoji Movie is instead indicative of what true quality looks like within cinema—a crowning achievement for a studio behind other gems like The Smurfs (2011) and Surf’s Up 2 (2017). Despite its misled critics, this film was able to combine a stellar plot, carefully crafted soundtrack, and star-studded cast into a wonderful work of fiction that for one reason or another, brought millions of viewers to tears.

In decades to come, many will give this film its rightful praise, showing that the past five years of criticism have been nothing but ignorance. As with the fates of all transformative art, soon the world will realize its error. Emoji is DaVinci; it is Shakespeare; it is Picasso. G APRIL 1, 2022

17

FEATURES

Inside the mind of the art world's most enigmatic rat

BY ANNETTE HASNAS

W

hen I meet him for the first time, he is standing in the corner of Henle’s most distant courtyard, chewing on a scrap of chocolate left on a discarded candy wrapper. Sure, we’ve interacted before in passing, but formally meeting him is a different experience. He gestures around, showing off his surroundings—scuffed concrete, scattered mulch, and two stiff plastic deck chairs. From the casual design of his abode, his artistic mind is impossible to miss.

He is wary of me, at first, and seems unwilling to verbally introduce himself. But, when I offer him use of my keyboard, he condescends to type out his name: HdsLKJbj3p. Finishing his chocolate, he throws his candy wrapper aside and turns to me, daring me to ask what’s on my mind. He’s had a long and secretive career, and his distrust of the press before this moment weighs heavy on both of our minds.

“Skcherisqueek,” he says to me, and I can’t help but agree. …

HdsLKJbj3p was born in this courtyard, and, he confesses, hopes to die here. It’s not that he hasn’t been elsewhere—as far as rats go, he’s done a remarkable amount of traveling. But from the way he talks about these places, I get the feeling he never really thought of any other corner of the world as home. He’d like to travel even more in his life, he tells me when I raise the subject, but for now, he’s happy in the domesticity of Henle life.

When pressed about his career, HdsLKJbj3p is wary. He’s committed to his decision to finally come on the record about himself, but I can tell he only chose to do so now that he’s entering the autumn of his life at the ripe old age of 19 months.

For years (well, year), he has closely guarded his anonymity, known only by the individual achievements of his striking career, such as “the rat that scared my roommate and made her cry that one time” and “the noise in the bushes that always makes the dogs people walk in Henle courtyard go crazy.” Though performance art pieces such as these have touched the hearts of their audiences, HdsLKJbj3p has always been careful to keep his own identity separate from them.

Throughout our interview, HdsLKJbj3p seems on the verge of calling it off and scurrying back under the loose brick from which he came. Only through frequent offers of bits of cat food can I build the trust necessary to keep the interview going.

I ask HdsLKJbj3p why, after all this time, he’s finally decided to come forward. He must have known the question would be coming, and at first he only sighs. I offer him a spoonful of Kitty Meals brand classic Oceans of Delight Tuna and Whitefish Paté and, as he cautiously accepts it, he begins.

18

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

“Cheesqueechkchsh,” he tells me, confirming a suspicion I had secretly been nursing since he had first agreed to meet with me. “Squeaeechkishchu eeks.”

When HdsLKJbj3p had started his career as a Georgetown rat, it was only a passion project. He never saw himself having any real impact on the world. It was pure art, made for the joy of expression, without agenda. But HdsLKJbj3p has noticed the increased attention his work has received. People have been talking all across the Henles about his hijinks, warning each other to watch out for the rat before they leave their homes. The maintenance call that my downstairs neighbor made just the week prior, he confides to me, had been prompted by her discovery of a hole in her wall behind the fridge—a hole which he, in his frequent trips in and out of her Henle in search of food, had noticeably widened.

With an increased platform and ability to influence the world, he feels, it’s only right that he be prepared to take personal responsibility for any harm or terror he might cause students. “Squeeksh chrksquek,” he says. “Squacheeksh.”

It’s hard to hold these mistakes against HdsLKJbj3p, though, especially in light of the recent and unexpected changes to his living situation.

“Queek skcherisk,” he tells me, referencing the influx of students this year following Georgetown’s return to in-person learning, a change of which he, being neither literate nor in possession of a Georgetown email address, had no foreknowledge.

The few students living on campus during the 20202021 school year were reasonably used to rats such as himself, and the relative degree of emptiness on campus allowed him ample opportunity to explore his art without consequences. Now, the amount of feet around Henle is cramping his active hours. It has been hard for him, in the midst of such major lifestyle changes, to make his transition to new habits as seamless as he wishes it had been. …

At one point during the interview, a group of people pass by on their way into the Henle tower nearest us. I recognize them as neighbors and wave, and HdsLKJbj3p shoots them a nervous glance. They respond with a look that might be read as, “Why are you sitting on the concrete next to a rat and giving it spoonfuls of paté?” But, given the weight of this interview with such an enigmatic artist, I know what the look actually means—and the malice and judgment it entails.

HdsLKJbj3p never uses the word “canceled” during our talk, but it seems to be on his mind. Once the campus darling, having been featured more than once on Instagram pages like @georgetown.hotmess and running across the feet of local celebrities, his recent fall from public grace has been hard for him.

Pictured: HdsLKJbj3p outside his Washington, D.C. home

His anonymity has helped him manage the bad press, of course, but hearing the euphemistic complaints made about “that rat” have always been hard for him to stomach. At first he laughed it off, but over time years, the scars of public commentary and rejection have accumulated. “Chrksquek squacheek,” he says, mirroring comments of other public figures whose supporters have publicly turned on them.

Though HdsLKJbj3p’s first public statement may seem too little too late now, after having interrupted so many students’ walks home from Lau with moments of fear as he scurries past, he hopes there is still time to make amends. He’s stepped back from his art in recent weeks, taking the time to reflect on how his actions impact the world around him and what responsibility he may bear for the rat-related fear Georgetown’s humans harbor. His career, however, is far from over. “Ksheesqueech cherisqueek keeptch,” he tells me, and he seems to mean it.

He knows he is getting old, and that making it past two years would be a remarkable feat for a wild rat. He feels, though, that he has a responsibility to ensure that Georgetown’s campus is a safe place for those who will come after him. His most recent daughter, who, he types out on the keyboard, is named KjcuNJhmM4joi, deserves to feel safe and comfortable in the Henle courtyard where the family has lived for so long, rather than bearing the weight of her father’s notoriety. So, too, do her 1,254 older full and half-siblings.

When the interview comes to a close, HdsLKJbj3p seems satisfied. He has far more personal work to do, he knows, but coming forward publicly to take credit for what he has done has been a major first step. To him, accountability is of the utmost importance, and it’s long past time he apply that to himself as well. “Skcheris squeak squochsk,” he tells me before he goes, with a melancholy but hopeful look in his eye.

“Chrksquek squacheek squeechkchsh kshee eek squeaeechkishchu.” G

illustration by annette hasnas; layout by allison derose

HALFTIME LEISURE

Ask not what the rat ring can do for you

BY LUCY COOK

S

ince childhood, I have often considered villainy a viable occupational pursuit. I don’t mean the real-world war-crime-committing-systemicracism-upholding-book-burning villainy we see perpetuated on the daily. I mean cartoon villainy.

Drop an anvil on an unsuspecting roadrunner villainy. “The Metropolis is mine” villainy. Having a henchman to say, “Good one, bawse!” villainy.

This seemed like the good life to a young, deranged child who sought to commit acts of chaos and oddity. As such, I began scheming.

It all began one pale spring morning in 10th grade. I lined up with my first-period gym class on the soccer field. The air was clear and cool, and the verdancy of the equinox was ripe before us. Unbeknownst to me, this beautiful morning was about to come crashing down around my feet, bringing with it my innocence and desire for goodwill. Midway through a sluggish game of half-hearted 8 a.m. soccer, I slipped. Too much dew for those gripless ASICS. I found myself tumbling sideways out of bounds and into the row of bushes lining the far end of the field. I shot out my arm to brace my fall, and instead felt it slither down an unexpected, dirty crevice.

A rat hole. From that point of contact onwards, nothing could be the same. Into the darkness I had reached, and the darkness had grasped desperately back. My hands shook for a week following the incident, my eyes glazed over in horror. Yet, still.

A seed had been planted. I now knew the lair of a key demographic in my despotic plans.

If you grew up around Georgetown’s campus as I did, you are bound to hear of the tunnels. Unfortunately, I acquired knowledge of their origin and entrance points right at the point in my adolescence when I had developed a deep fascination with gangster films. Suddenly, nefarious ideas clicked into place. Gone were the days of vague evil and abstract bullying. It was as if, after sixteen years of mischief and brigandry, I found a purpose. It came to me like a dream, twisted with horror and glory, and I recount it to you, dear reader, so that you may come to understand the sickeningly beautiful world that could have been.

“Entice rats with grains and seeds.” This eldritch knowledge is hidden among the varied advice in wikiHow’s forbidden guide, “How to Attract Rats.” In my vision, I do just that. I approach the rat holes that pepper Georgetown

design by dane tedder

like Swiss cheese as if I am a door-to-door salesman. I am smarmy and indirect, offering these comely rats obscene amounts of grain and seeds for … just a little favor. An evening’s work, that’s all.

I lure them to the tunnels, which I have outfitted with a meager—but sufficient—fighting ring. It’s like underground boxing, except tiny. An observant viewer might even say, rat-sized. The tables are made of plastic and the bookies’ sign is written in crayon, Peanuts-style—they will soon be upgraded, I am told by our possum donors. I lead the rats to a back room I have furnished with luxurious, or so I tell them, rat cages. I teach them to fight. It turns out that two wild rats in an enclosed space become vicious. It’s perfect.

The first few nights are rough.

The high school friends that I have let in on the job work as security; a few bus tables and serve drinks.

Only my closest

confidant, whom I will refer to here as Blombo for anonymity’s sake, is allowed to take bets. Attendance is bleak.

But those that do attend come back. You see, we have good odds at our bookies and our Arnold Palmer isn’t half bad. But that’s not the real reason these college students I’ve coaxed down into the gaping maw of the tunnels watch illegal rat fighting. I can see it in their eyes: They live for the bloodshed. They like the red gleam in a rat’s eye when it’s about to tear its brother limb from limb. Sick freaks.

But they could be sicker, I think. I stay up into the early hours every night, pacing.

After a week or so, I steal the extra EpiPens from my high school nurse’s office. Fuck kids with peanut allergies. That night I shave numbers into the side of each rat. Number Seven gets a shot of adrenaline. Seven was always my favorite number.

I name her Beef Burrito. She rips six rats to pieces and eats the seventh for dessert. Beef Burrito becomes the House Rat. The audience doesn’t know what to do with themselves, gripping their plastic folding chairs in white-knuckled disgust. I tell them to bring their friends next time.

In mere weeks business is booming. Hundreds arrive each night, swarming from their Georgetown dorms, eyes glazed with drunkenness, pockets full of trust fund money, and hearts devoid of feeling, eager to watch my rats go at it. Beef Burrito is always the closer. The tunnels, redubbed the Rat Ring, have been upholstered in velvet, hardwood, and gold.

A live band plays every night. I am the Ratman. I only wear three-piece suits and have picked up a love of Cuban cigars, at the tender age of 16. Somehow I have developed a fluency in badItalian (a language of its own).

Blombo is my consigliere, handling my accounts and running fixed bets. Yeah, we cheat. Obviously.

The money is good, but the notoriety is better. I show up to class half-asleep, my family can’t look me in the eyes, my hands shake a little when I hear a chair leg squeak—just like my rats.

Things have never been better. I think I’m losing myself.

One night, Beef Burrito, sleeker and beefier than ever, takes a fall.

And not an intentional fall. A pathetic little flop of rodent meat onto the mat. I send everyone away. She looks up at me with her ugly, beautiful, tear-filled ratty little eyes.

This isn’t what I wanted. My girl, my House Rat. My goddamn fucking money. Blombo places a hand on my shoulder and I look up, catching my reflection in their corny sunglasses. I don’t recognize myself.

It is there that the vision ends, receding out of existence just as life drained out of Beef Burrito’s eyes. It serves as a cautionary tale, dear reader, of the pitfalls of following your mobster dreams all for the sake of rat-fighting glory. Ask not what the rat ring can do for you, but what it will do to you. G UPDATE APRIL PUB1,DATE 2022

19 15

TROUBLE

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