VOL. CLXXVIII NO. 11
FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2021
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
‘He was the hardest working guy Students left confused I’ve ever known’: Professor B. Stuart by delay in announcing Trembly remembered fondly Lively’s resignation B Y LAUREN ADLER The Dartmouth Staff
COURTESY OF MARK TREMBLY
BY EMILY LU The Dartmouth Staff
SEE TREMBLY PAGE 2
PARTLY CLOUDY HIGH 69 LOW 50
‘First-Generation Office’ will oversee expanded FYSEP, King Scholars BY PIERCE WILSON The Dartmouth Staff
This summer, the College is establishing the First-Generation
OPINION
MOORE: OFF TO A BAD START PAGE 3
ARTS
REVIEW: TYLER, THE CREATOR’S ‘CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST’ PAGE 4
SPORTS
STUDENT-ATHLETE SUMMER TRAINING PAGE 5
MIRROR
GERBER: REFLECTION ON SOPHOMORE SUMMER PAGE 6 FOLLOW US ON
@thedartmouth COPYRIGHT © 2021 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.
SEE FIRST-GEN PAGE 2
KYLE SPENCER/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
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FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2021
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
‘Intelligent and dedicated’: Trembly inspired students and colleagues FROM TREMBLY PAGE 1
Four-week FYSEP program to be in person for first time this year FROM FIRST-GEN PAGE 1
someone who is a woman, who is
KYLE MULLINS, Editor-in-Chief THOMAS BROWN, News Executive Editor CARIS WHITE, Production Executive Editor
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250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com. For any content that an author or artist submits and that The Dartmouth agrees to publish, the author or artist grants The Dartmouth a royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide and exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish and create derivative works from such content. CORRECTION (July 23 issue): The article titled “EKT sees online threat after Office of Greek Life cancels Masters pong tournament” incorrectly described Dartmouth’s hazing policy, based on New Hampshire law, as barring “any act directed toward a student, or any coercion or intimidation of a student to act or to participate in an act” when the act may cause physical or psychological injury or is a condition of admission to or association with any organization. The policy bars such acts when the act may cause physical or psychological injury and — not or — is a condition of admission to or association with any organization. CORRECTION (July 23 issue): The courtesy photo associated with the article “Student bands back in action, played live at WoodstocKDE” should have been attributed to photographer Julia Levine, as agreed upon before its use. It was not credited properly, and should not have been used without proper credit. The Dartmouth regrets the error.
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2021
STAFF COLUMNIST CHELSEA MOORE ’22
STAFF COLUMNIST SHEEN KIM ’23
Off to a Bad Start
The myriad of injustices against women at the Tokyo Olympics undermine the games’ commitment to promoting gender equality and detract from the competition. The International Olympic Committee claims that sport is “one of the most powerful platforms for promoting gender equality and empowering women and girls.” Yet in the past few weeks, at least three notable injustices against women have occurred at the Tokyo Olympics, calling into question the IOC’s commitment to those goals. On July 19, the Norwegian women’s beach handball team was fined for not playing in bikinis. On July 20, blind and deaf American swimmer Becca Myers had to withdraw from the games after the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee denied her request to bring her mother, who serves as her personal care assistant. And on June 28, U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was suspended for marijuna use in a state where it was legal, barring her from even attending the Tokyo games. Although each of these events is troubling due to the sexism, racism and ableism that underpins them, they are also troubling as they detract from what is supposed to be the main attraction of the Olympics: the competition. The IOC must follow through on its promise to promote gender equality, or fans and athletes alike will concentrate more on the injustices than the competition itself. In Norway, male beach handball players are allowed to choose their outfit and are allowed to play in tank tops and shorts if they so desire. Women are required to wear bikini bottoms “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle” — a very skimpy and sexualized outfit for the dynamic sport. When the Norwegian women’s team protested the “embarrassing” bikini bottom design by wearing thigh-length elastic shorts during their bronze medal match against Spain, the team was fined 1,500 euros on the grounds of “improper clothing” from the European Handball Association’s Disciplinary Commission. In the 20th century, women who wished to compete in sports had to wear long skirts in tennis matches and full body suits in swimming races to preserve their modesty. Today, women are required to bare their abs and cheeks. The circularity of this progression lies in the fact that women are repeatedly deemed incapable of deciding for themselves what to wear within the bounds of fair competition. The power — in a field dominated by men — lies in policing women’s bodies to increase athletic viewership. Another incident, concerning 26-year-old six-time paralympian medalist Becca Myers, is problematic in terms of its discrimination against sex and disability. Since the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, where she won three gold medals, she’s been training hard to reach the podium in 2020. Myers wrote to the USOPC requesting that her mother, who has acted as her personal care assistant at all her international meetings, serve in this capacity again in Tokyo. The USOPC refused her request due to COVID-19 restrictions, knowing full well that Becca would not be able to compete without her mother’s help. Meyers noted in a public statement that the
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USOPC is only providing one PCA to assist the entire 33-member Paralympic swim team, which includes nine members who are visually impaired. The final incident, which has garnered much interest around the blurred line of substance use, lies with Sha’Carri Richardson. She finished first in the Olympic trials heats for the women’s 100m dash, making her the fastest woman in America. Despite these victories, Richardson did not make the United States team roster due to a 30-day suspension after she tested positive for THC, the intoxicant found in marijuana. Richardson confirmed that she used marijuana to cope with overwhelming emotional turmoil following her mother’s death mere days before the trials. Yes, THC is a banned substance by the World Anti-Doping Agency, whose rules set the standards for competition at the Olympics. However, Richardson used the drug before she left for Tokyo in Oregon — a state that legalized marijuna use in 2015. Why should the rules that regulate the Olympics be used to police her behavior before she even left the country? Moreover, why should these rules punish her for using a drug that was legal in the state she utilized it in when the drug doesn’t provide any competitive advantages? To me, Richardson’s case, wherein she received a lifealtering sanction for a substance unrelated to her performance, highlights the work that still needs to be done to improve anti-doping rules and make them more fair. Based on these events, the Olympics are off to a bad start; however, change may be in motion. Even though “great progress has been made in terms of gender equality,” the IOC acknowledges that “many other challenges and gaps remain.” Since 2006, Norway has been campaigning for shorts to be officially considered acceptable in beach handball, and the country’s sporting council plans to submit a motion to change the rules of the International Handball Federation in November. In Congress last week, New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, spoke up for Meyers in a hearing for the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. She stated that she wants the USOPC “to work immediately to address this issue… to ensure that all of our athletes are able to compete safely at this summer’s games, including by providing them the basic support that they need just to navigate the world.” Nonetheless, the supposed goal of the Olympics and elite athletic competition is to empower people through sport, practiced “without discrimination of any kind.” The Olympic movement advertises a mutual understanding of solidarity, friendship and fair play for all international competitors. If rules barring our nation’s best paralympic athletes from competing, or a team’s decision to wear more modest clothing earns them a fine, then the Olympic spirit, which seeks to instill and develop the values of tolerance and understanding in extreme competition, is really just a sham.
It’s All Stacking Up
When a school is making this much, it is unconscionable for students to constantly be left out to dry. “This too shall pass.” So seems to be the logic of the institution: if you leave students in a constant state of limbo, they will forget what has already passed. But students see this and resist: calling on President Hanlon to resign, demanding compassionate mental health policies and stressing the need for an expansion of the housing supply. And as some students have noted in these opinion pages, this problem goes far, far deeper than the surface relief that changes in both administrative policies and personnel can provide. These problems are rooted in the historical, callous indifference of the College and the institution itself — its austere policies and the choices it makes — or refuses to make. Observe the sheer amount of money the College gained during the pandemic, all while it instituted cost-cutting measures for its losses. When the pandemic was at its worst, the College’s endowment “grew to a record high of $5.98 billion” and its “investments yielded a 7.6% return, up slightly from [2019’s] 7.5% return.” Despite the circumstances, the Board of Trustees chose not to change its meagre 4% distribution rate — the amount of money taken out of the endowment to be used for operational expenses, still a hefty $240 million — for this fiscal year. Furthermore, the gain from the endowment does not include capital from large donors, such as the $2.89 billion brought in by President Hanlon’s “Call to Lead” campaign. Despite these returns and a switch to online learning, Dartmouth refused to decrease its tuition. In fact, tuition increased by 3.9% percent, bringing it to $57,796. Meanwhile, students reported reductions in their financial aid. Dartmouth cites budget shortfalls as the reason for its austerity, claiming its strategy hinges on long-term returns — but for what? For whom? A long-term strategy may benefit the future of the College, but it leaves current students to be forgotten, collateral to profit. In the face of this gain, it is unconscionable for Dartmouth students to be left houseless. Over 200 students received only a couple months’ notice that they would not be granted housing on campus this fall, and even after lotteries and other band-aid fixes to a longstanding housing problem, 93 students remain in the dark about their return to campus. But, lest we fall into the trap of the numbers game, it is not just 93 students lacking housing. It is also international students who have had their status in the U.S. threatened due to visa issues caused by having to take a fall term off; students who do not have the means to drive to campus and would have to rely on a bus that does not run on weekends or after 6:30 PM; low- and middle-income students who cannot get walkable housing when prices are $2,350 a month for a single-occupancy studio a 10-minute walking distance to the Green; and students who may be unable to graduate
on time due to major requirements and no remote class offerings. It is 93 students who find their plans and livelihoods derailed by the school yet again. The College recently announced plans to have a new undergraduate residential hall open by the fall of 2023, but it remains to be seen if the College will renege as it did in 2018. Even worse, the $5,000 housing lottery payouts that incentivized 200 students to withdraw their fall housing request impacted students’ financial aid and effectively did not give students any financial recompense — yet another example of the school’s disregard. Housing is just one such immediate example of the stunning normalization of the College’s failure of individual students. There is so much more, much of which has been the focus of students’ experiences and writings for the past weeks. This is a history of systematic neglect that seems to repeat itself again and again. It is not normal for students to die by suicide, influenced by the school’s callous policies and lack of care and resources. It is unconscionable for student workers to go largely ignored and for wages to stagnate as tuition and board costs continue to rise — working 20 hours a week at $15/hour for a term makes around $3,000, not even enough for a ~$3,523 dorm room. It is absurd that students must advocate for compensation for lost income during mandatory quarantines, and that Dartmouth employees received a mere $1,000 bonus before taxes in lieu of an annual merit increase. This is a stark contrast to the gains of other students and workers around the nation, such as the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers, which won wage increases to a minimum $10.00 an hour — as compared to Dartmouth’s $7.25 minimum wage — and bonuses of up to $1.25 an hour and just cause employment. And once again, it is not conscionable for tuition to have increased throughout all this, as a withdrawn lawsuit argued. If you see demands from students for their humanity to be recognized as the complaints of entitled students, you have already fallen into the trap. When administrative officers are making upwards of seven figures and major initiatives are bringing in ten figures, it is unconscionable to claim that even a single student can go ignored. Alongside the criticism of the College, there have also been arguments in its defense: that the school is limited in what it can do, that the school suffered losses that it is repaying gradually, etc. Is it really? Much of what has happened is a result of Dartmouth’s inaction and pennypinching, and so we land squarely in the multiple crises that we are in now. Perhaps it is time to stop waiting. To continue defending the College’s inaction is to invalidate those who have gone too long ignored while the College gains. This too shall pass, perhaps, but we cannot let it.
STAFF COLUMNIST SPENCER ALLEN ’23
Students Live Here Too
Hanover must treat Dartmouth students and non-student residents equally. The recent campaign for a seat on the Hanover Selectboard by David Millman ’23 has shed light on the tensions between student and non-student residents of Hanover. Exhausted by years of name-calling and othering by non-student residents — including prominent residents like Hanover town manager Julia Griffin — Millman’s campaign promised students a seat at the table where decisions impacting their lives are made. Though his campaign was unsuccessful, its underlying message does not have to face the same fate. Dartmouth students have long been treated like second-class citizens in Hanover politics; it is long overdue for the town to treat us as equals in the community. Dartmouth students are undeniably important to Hanover. In normal times, the College’s more than 4,000 undergraduates live in Hanover at various points throughout the year, totaling about 35% of the town’s roughly 11,500 residents. Even during the pandemic, most students returned to Hanover to live either on or off campus. Like the rest of the population, Dartmouth students frequent Hanover’s shops, eat at its restaurants and benefit from its public services. Why, then, is the local government so insistent on alienating students? Many can remember
when Griffin called students “selfish” for allegedly violating COVID-19 health guidance and told them to “smarten up” in a guest column in The Dartmouth. While Griffin’s argument was based on the health and safety of the entire Hanover community, her argument was shortsighted and her language was too divisive for that of a governing official. Yes, some Dartmouth students broke COVID-19 rules last year. But as I wrote last summer, so too did some Hanover residents — just with far less backlash. Singling out Dartmouth students without demanding that non-student residents follow the same rules creates a double standard, sending the message that students are of lesser status than non-students. The anti-student stance of the town government has also permeated the lives of many non-student residents. As many students struggle to find housing for the fall — including off-campus, where they must compete in a tight housing market with exorbitant rent — Hanover residents recently voted against changing local laws to expand housing capacity in the region. In a recent interview with The Dartmouth, Hanover Selectboard member Joanna Whitcomb advocated against the housing changes, arguing that they would
“change the character” of town residences. Hanover is a college town, and college towns and their housing units confer with them a certain character that differs from other towns. If Hanover was truly set on preserving its status as a college community, they would support efforts to make it easier for students to take up housing within Hanover. Unfortunately, that did not happen. By forcing students into oncampus housing siloed away from the town, it is non-student residents that are attempting to change the “character” of Hanover, not students. Some may argue that Dartmouth students lack the ties to the community necessary for them to be established residents. Sure, most Dartmouth students only stay in Hanover for their undergraduate career — typically four years — before leaving. It’s also true that the “Dartmouth bubble” encourages students to interact mostly with individuals holding some sort of institutional affiliation. However, that does not make students undeserving of the legal and social benefits of Hanover residency. For example, I grew up in a town with a large military presence, where many families lived for two to four years before moving. Those families often lived on the military base but left the base to partake
in local commerce and cultural activities. My community treated service members and their families as we would anyone else, even though those families had not “established ties.” Why? Because we saw more value in welcoming newcomers into my town than we did in judging who had lived there long enough not to face the ire of “established” residents. It’s long past time that non-student residents and the government of Hanover treat Dartmouth students like equals. Students are one of the largest and most influential constituencies in Hanover; it is easy to see that when 730 people — most of whom are likely students — voted for Millman, compared to around 1,000 people for each of the other two candidates. The town’s treatment of students has historically ignored the group’s importance. That treatment must end. While Millman hoped to correct these divisions by installing a student on the Selectboard, the entire community cannot wait for the next student to follow in Millman’s footsteps. Instead, we all must begin working together as a community — student and non-student residents alike — to repair our relationship and build a better Hanover for everyone.
THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
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FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2021
Q&A:Torrey Peters GR’13 on her debut novel ‘Detransition, Baby’ BY Angelina Scarlotta The Dartmouth Staff
“Detransition, Baby,” Torrey Peters GR’13’s debut novel, has been making waves in the publishing industry. It was longlisted for The Women’s Prize and honored as a New York Times Editors Choice. Notably, it is one of the first novels by a transgender person to be published by a big five publishing house — in this case, One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House. “Detransition, Baby” follows Reese, a transgender woman living in Brooklyn who, as she approaches middle age and tries to find meaning in her life, begins to think more about having a child. The chance to be a mother presents itself when Ames — Reese’s ex, who has detransitioned to a man and gotten his boss, Katrina, pregnant — suddenly asks if she wants to help raise the baby. The book follows their untraditional family through the complexities of womanhood, relationships, age, gender and sex. A soapy, gossipy domestic novel with self-aware ties to the popular series “Sex and the City,” showrunners Joahn Rater and Tony Phelan have plans to adapt “Detransition, Baby” into a television show — with Peters writing the pilot episode and serving as an executive producer. The adaptation is not yet connected to a network and no release date has been set. In an interview with T he Dartmouth, Peters discussed her experience writing “Detransition, Baby,” her approach to the novel’s television adaptation and her perspective on diversity in the publishing industry. What inspired “Detransition, Baby”? TP: I was in my early thirties, and
I was on the far side of transition. I was basically looking around for how people were making meaning in their life, especially women. There were a lot of cis women who I knew made meaning through work, through relationships, through making art, and especially through having families and becoming mothers. And my question began to be, well, what would that mean, for a trans woman? If this is how women make meaning in their thirties and in life, where do trans women fit into that? As I began to think about it, the novel sort of took shape.
Your book carries a g reat message with it, centering around a transgender woman in a context that we don’t often see in modern mainstream media. How would you say the current social climate and politics influence your writing? TP: I have opinions about politics, but generally what I have, instead of specific opinions on specific issues, is a worldview. It’s the worldview that I apply to my novel on a longer timeline than individual news items, and that same worldview is what I apply to politics. There’s a shared analysis of how this stuff works in the sort of ethics of my fiction and the ethics that I bring to the world, but I try to make a hard line where I’m not necessarily bringing in the most recent legislation. I don’t bring that into the novels because it’s too reactive. I’m not going to let politics set the agenda for what I want to write. In an interview with Rolling Stone, you mentioned that the soapy, domestic novel functions as a kind of “Trojan horse” for more political messages in “Detransition, Baby”. How do you see this “Trojan horse”
working in the upcoming television adaptation of your novel? TP: It’s not the same Trojan horse, but it’s still a Trojan horse. So, in this case, I think that I’m looking for the beats of comfortable television — the way that late at night, you turn on “Sex in the City,” “30 Rock” or one of these shows that has really comfortable beats. What you really want when you turn on one of these shows late at night is to just want to hang out with these characters. The Trojan horse here is that I want to create a show where the beats are comfortable, where you want to hang out with a character, and where it’s very satisfying to watch — but the people you’re hanging out with are trans women. I think that most people expect trans content to be sad, edgy or gritty. I think that one of the most subversive things you can do is make people comfortable hanging out with trans women and want to be friends with trans women without realizing exactly how and why that happened. The form does that work for you. What do you hope that your readers and viewers take away from your novel, whether or not they directly relate to the characters? TP: One of the things I hope is that they see commonalities across differences. I think that there are a lot of ways in which people read books by marginalized writers, whether those of writers of color, gay writers or trans writers. If they’re reading it to be educated about an “other,” somebody who’s not like them, it’s like, “Oh, I’ll read this book, and I’ll learn about trans women.” But when I read books by really great writers, I don’t learn about someone other than myself. I learn about myself if I read Toni Morrison. I
learn about myself if I read James Baldwin. I learn about myself from Elena Ferrante. I think that the trick of really good writing, the trick of empathy, is that instead of seeing it as an educational experience or an opportunity to learn about somebody else, it’s an opportunity to see yourself in somebody else. I think that’s a kind of emotional work that fiction does that almost no other category of writing or of art really does. You create an emotional closeness through fiction that’s unique. “Detransition, Baby” is one of the first novels by a transgender woman to be published by a big five publishing house. How have you navigated the publishing industr y as a transgender woman and what do you anticipate for the future of publishing? TP: I think trans women are part of a larger reckoning in publishing, where it’s becoming more well known the ways that publishing has favored certain voices over others — especially voices of white men, historically — and I think we’re in a moment of correction. So you can say that there’s the question of how I individually navigated it. I started self-publishing, built up my own audience and brought my audience to publishing, to the larger presses, and I showed up with a bit of power that I developed outside the system. But I think one reason that was effective is that I was approaching publishing during a moment of larger reckoning for many different groups, trans women being one of them. I think that the future of publishing isn’t just about giving contracts to diverse writers, but about fostering relationships within the company with those writers. So
that when a trans writer, for instance, comes to a press, there’s somebody trans in that press who knows what that writer is talking about, and also knows when that writer is cutting corners or kind of saying some bullshit that otherwise they might get away with. What advice would you give t o a s p i r i n g a u t h o rs wh o wish to tell stories that push boundaries in the publishing industry? TP: It goes back to urgency. If you really have a story that feels like it needs to be told, you will find people who want to read it. More important than any sort of industry approval, or getting a book contract or any of those things, is finding those readers who really need to hear your story, and those people will do the work for you. That’s what happened in my case. My initial forays into the publishing world were met with rejection; people did not want to hear these stories. What ended up happening is I went off on my own. I told the stories that felt urgent and I found readers. Three or four years later, the publishing industry was looking for other voices, and they heard that there was this trans woman who had an audience that they had no idea how to reach because I built that audience on my own. I think a lot of that is unique to my own case, but I also think it’s replicable for other people. If you don’t get institutional approval right away, that doesn’t mean your writing is bad, it means that the institution is wrong. So long as there are readers who are interested in what you’re saying, that institution will come around to you. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
On ‘Call Me If You Get Lost,’ Tyler, the Creator takes a victory lap BY GRIFFIN KOZLOW The Dartmouth
When Tyler, the Creator released his album’s new single, “Lumberjack,” on June 16, it was unclear which version of him we would get on “Call Me If You Get Lost,” his sixth studio album. Tyler’s discography has seen a major swing from aggressive and alienating lyrics to exploring introspective, vulnerable themes. The album’s first single gave us the old, aggressive Tyler; it boasted of wealth over an abrasive sample from the pioneering horrorcore group Gravediggaz, but with humor and grace infusing the lyrics. Its sound is comparable to his earlier albums, but in a way that is more mature and secure, foreshadowing the feeling of the album that would follow. Tyler, the Creator released his debut mixtape “Bastard” in 2009, which told the story of Tyler’s tortured soul through the lens of a session with his therapist. It was controversial, and for good reason: The lyrics screamed with homophobia and threats of sexual assault. Lyrics aside, Tyler’s flow was unique and his beats were courageous, but his production skills were clearly unrefined. Over his next 6 studio albums, Tyler polished his skills as a producer, rapper, singer and artist. Tyler’s 2017 album, “Flower Boy,” marked the beginning of a new era — a complete departure from the wildly offensive lyrics and dark themes that defined his previous works. “Flower Boy” painted an intimate portrait of a confused artist, unsure of his sexuality but consumed with the idea of a beautiful love. On 2019’s “Igor,” Tyler further developed these themes, the result of which was a criticallyacclaimed album exploring Tyler’s sexuality through the story of his love affair with a man who was in a relationship with a woman. After the release of “Igor,” it was hard to imagine where Tyler would go next — his production was near-flawless, his lyrics were heartfelt and he had just about run the gamut from aggressive to vulnerable. Well, Tyler went back to his roots. “Call Me If You Get Lost” is Tyler’s most masterful album yet. Whereas “Igor” is deeply personal and explores bravely intimate themes, “Call Me If You Get Lost” demonstrates Tyler’s command of just about every aspect of the creation process. And he knows
it, too — with the help of mixtapeaficionado DJ Drama as his hype-man sidekick, Tyler takes on the persona of “Tyler Baudelaire,” a suave, welltraveled gentleman with a sophisticated taste for high art. From start to finish, Tyler is flaunting everything about his life — and he’s having a good time doing it, managing to create a unique portrait of the rich life without leaning on stereotypical rap lyrics about money, sex and fame. The album opens with a split second of Tyler’s voice alone — “The sun beamin’” — immediately followed by the introduction of a beachy, laid-back instrumental, atop which a picture is painted of an average day for Tyler Baudelaire: “Cookie crumbs in the Rolls / Jet fuel scented vest.” Baudelaire is riding in his Rolls Royce, having just hopped off a private jet, without a care in the world. Tyler tells us that he’s got “a mansion on that USB,” claiming that if he released all the music he has sitting on his drives, he’d make enough money to buy a mansion. Tyler has matured lifetimes as both a person and an artist, and this opening track shows him reaping the rewards. He’s living the sweet life and he knows he deserves it. Two songs later, on the equally braggadocious “Lemonhead,” Baudelaire, with the help of up-andcoming rapper 42 Dugg, once again flaunts his opulence on top of a reverbsoaked, horn-filled beat. After some hilariously self-obsessed ad-libs from DJ Drama, Tyler opens his verse by flexing his house: “I don’t lean, but my house do / Off the hill with the mean view / Nice house, if you look out / You can see some eagles and a few yachts” — a perfect embodiment of the boujee lifestyle Tyler boasts throughout the album. Tyler welcomes Lil Wayne onto “Hot Wind Blows,” who delivers one of his best verses in years over a chopped-up, old-timey soul sample. Wayne finishes off his verse with a line that fits beautifully into the elevated language that Tyler has been nurturing throughout the project: “The wind beneath my wings / Desert Eagle underneath my coat.” On “Juggernaut,” he teams up with Lil Uzi Vert and Pharrell Williams, the latter of whom gives us what might be the most deliciously shameless couplet on the album: “They just got the closest picture of the fuckin’ sun surface, that
ANNIE QIU/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
was us / Got the LaFerrari, park that bitch just for one purpose, catchin’ dust.” Tyler and all of his collaborators embody Tyler Baudelaire throughout this project, reveling in the ridiculous as they tell us about their fancy cars collecting dust in their garages. Every line on this album appears to be about hyping up Tyler’s decadence, but beneath the constant ad-libs from DJ Drama and the not-so-subtle flexes from Tyler and his collaborators, there lies an artist who is thinking deeply about who he is and where he came from. “Massa” begins with a spoken interlude, abruptly cut off as Tyler takes on a laid-back flow and the song turns into a shockingly honest reflection of his career thus far. He admits that he didn’t start to mature until he was 23, which was around the time he was working on “Cherry Bomb.” This project was met with mixed reviews, and it was the last album before Tyler’s career took a drastic turn with “Flower Boy.” In “Massa,” he reflects on this past, admitting that the album’s faults were due to his liminal state of maturity: “I was shiftin’ / That’s really why ‘Cherry Bomb’ sounded so shifty.” Over the next three minutes, Tyler takes us on a journey through some of the most impactful events of his career, including the release of his breakout hit “Yonkers” and his transformation into a “butterfly” on “Flower Boy.”
But like Wayne was “in need of a flaw” on “Hot Wind Blows,” this album can’t be all riches and success. The album’s conflict finally arrives through the theme Tyler explored so deeply on his past two albums but had seemingly dropped thus far on “Call Me If You Get Lost”: love. The first mention of Tyler’s love life appears in the last verse of the album’s second track, “Corso.” Tyler tells us that he “tried to take somebody bitch ’cause [he’s] a bad person.” This “somebody,” it’s later revealed, is one of Tyler’s good friends. He then decides that he doesn’t feel bad for what he did, because he’s the one that’s alone now: “Hope y’all shit working / I’m a psycho, huh? Don’t give a fuck, you left my heart twerking!” On the album’s mammoth 10-minute centerpiece, “Sweet / I Thought You Wanted To Dance,” Tyler’s love for this girl reaches its peak as he raps that “the cosmos’ only mistake is what they named you / They should call you sugar, you’re so sweet.” The song features an extremely lush instrumental, with synth bridges, background vocals and new sound effects which seem to reveal themselves on each listen. The second half of the song, “I Thought You Wanted To Dance,” leaves Tyler lost as the girl chooses her boyfriend over him. He wallows in despair over a fresh reggae-
inspired instrumental, trying to figure out where he went wrong: “Why am I here / Standing alone? / Because I thought you wanted to dance with me.” While most of the album serves to show us how perfect Tyler’s life is, these telling lyrics serve as a window into some of the pitfalls in the life of a young, successful artist. The album’s only blip comes in the form of an awful bit of mixing on the right channel of “Wilshire,” a song which builds off of the love affair presented in previous songs, but now tells the story from start to finish. Satisfyingly, however, this single flaw reflects the album’s theme of Tyler’s life as near-perfect, save for the dissonance of his love life. Tyler is taking a victory lap with “Call Me If You Get Lost.” His bars boast the most illustrious language of his career and DJ Drama’s overpowering ad-libs give the project a raw, mixtape-like energy that embodies the shameless swagger in the lyrics. But if you pull back the curtain on these songs, you find that Tyler doesn’t let go of any depth. He has found the perfect balance between lavish brags and heartfelt stories, finding vulnerability in the album’s boisterous energy. It seems that Tyler can’t go up from here — but he’s proved us wrong in the past. Rating:
FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2021
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THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS
SPORTS
Midsummer Musings: Simone Biles is the G.O.A.T. BY WILL ENNIS
The Dartmouth Staff
S i m o n e B i l e s h a s a n e a runassailable record as the greatest gymnast of all time. With six Olympic medals (four gold), 25 World Championship medals (19 g o ld ) a n d va r i o u s oth er championships to her name, the hardware that the 24-year-old has stacked up over her career speaks for itself. Moreover, her dominance shines through in the manner by which she’s earned those accolades. Biles has four skills named after her — in the floor, beam, and vault events — simply because she is the only person alive known to be capable of performing them. Judges have responded to her unprecedented ability by intentionally rewarding points inconsistent with the difficulty of those skills in order to dissuade lesser athletes from even attempting moves of such difficulty. With that track record, you would be hard-pressed to make a case for any other gymnast as the greatest in the sport, or, honestly, for any athlete to be as individually dominant in their sport as Biles has been. Still, Biles found herself the
target of derision among some Olympics viewers following her decision to pull out of the United States’ team final. After performing one rotation on vault, she left the competition, citing mental health concerns. During that vault attempt, Biles experienced something she and other gymnasts call the “twisties.” In gymnastics, this refers to a mental phenomenon: A gymnast is suddenly unable to perform a twist they may have done a thousand times before. While in midair, they lose track of the ground, often only finding out where it is when they slam into it. It’s a terrifying possibility, as being only an inch off of your rotation during a gymnastics skill can lead to very serious injury, or even death. The backlash levied against Biles is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of her decision, what lay behind it and the situation in which she made it. When people heard the term “mental illness” with regard to her decision, one example brought up often was the story of Kerri Strug, a U.S. gymnast in the 1996 Olympics. After under-rotating on one of her vaults, Strug suffered a third-degree
ankle sprain and tendon damage. But she still had to perform one more vault to secure a win over the Russian team. Strug pulled it off, eventually being carried to the medal podium by her teammates to receive their gold medals. Many of those looking to tear down Biles over the last few days have used Strug’s story as an example of what a true team player looks like — someone fighting through a debilitating injury to perform for their team. Those commenters, however, are willfully ignoring the reality of Biles’s situation. Biles intended her first and only vault attempt to be an Amanar, one of the most difficult vaults in gymnastics and one containing two and a half twists. As viewers saw, she lost her bearings in the air, completed only one and a half twists, landed (albeit shakily), and ended up putting up the lowest vault score on the U.S. team before recusing herself from the following events. The United States, thanks to some big-time performances from the other gymnasts, still secured a silver medal in the team competition. If Biles had continued to perform
on the level that she did on that first vault, to say nothing of the risk of injury she would have been taking on, it is likely that the U.S. team would have finished worse than second place. Even the G.O.A.T. is permitted an off day now and again, and Biles made the right decision for herself and her team, even though she must have fully understood the type of public backlash she would receive. Since that event, Biles also pulled out of the all-around competition, leaving the gold in that event up for grabs for the first time in almost who also filled in admirably for Biles during the team competition, showed her mettle and grace under pressure in this event as well, nabbing the gold for the United States in Biles’s absence. It is still unknown whether Biles will compete in the individual events in a week. Whether or not she does, though, Simone Biles has nothing left to prove. Based exclusively on her accolades and visible ability, she is the greatest gymnast of all time. And still, that is only half of the story. This is the same woman who
competed at the highest level for the United States while battling broken toes in both feet (at Nationals) and kidney stones (at Worlds), both in 2018. The same woman who revealed in 2016, after her medical records were leaked on the Internet, that she competed on Ritalin to combat her ADHD. The same woman who was sexually assaulted by former U.S. team physician Gymnastics as the organization attempted to cover it up and has since taken on the weighty responsibility of being a public face for activism against sexual assault. Nobody, in good faith, can question Biles’s competitive drive or commitment to gymnastics. To work through the pain and adversity that she has suffered in her career and still amass her all-time-great record is nothing short of remarkable. The fortitude it took to make a difficult decision for the benefit of herself as well as her team is similarly impressive, and takes absolutely nothing away from an athlete who owed nothing to anybody anyway. Biles was the G.O.A.T. before these Olympics, and no matter what happens next, she will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Summer Shape-up: How Student-Athletes are Training BY BRIAN ZHENG
The Dartmouth Staff
For most Dartmouth student-athletes, summer is a time to rest and recharge from the previous season while preparing for the next. This summer, instead of recovering from the knocks and bruises of the past year, athletes are focusing on getting ready for the upcoming fall, since early 2020. Athletic preparation for women’s volleyball player Karen Murphy ’24 included competing in the 16th Annual Global Challenge Tournament in Pula, Croatia and a weeks-long exhibition tour through Europe. Along with Dartmouth teammate Natalie Grover ’24, Murphy honed her skills by playing with women from across the United States against teams from countries like the Czech Republic, Israel and Hungary. “[My Dartmouth coaches] were like ‘Hey, if you want to go play in Europe for two weeks, go for it,’” Murphy said. “We were like, ‘We can’t really turn this down.’” a continent away to prepare for their upcoming volleyball season, other athletes have been training a little closer to home. For baseball players, whose seasons are in the spring, the summer is a perfect time to “keep our arms hot,” according to men’s baseball pitcher Clark Gilmore ’24. As a result, many Big Green players, including Gilmore ’24, are playing in collegiate summer baseball leagues across the nation. Gilmore, a Connecticut native, spent a few days at home after the spring term before heading down to Southampton, New York, to play with Robinson on the Southampton Breakers in the Hamptons
league based in the Hamptons. The Breakers have had a successful summer season, going 18-12 to top the league in the 30-game regular season. They are currently in the midst of a three-game series to decide the league championship against the Riverhead live competitive baseball in two years was exactly what he needed. “I’ve really gained another love for baseball this summer, getting to be back Gilmore said. For both Gilmore and Murphy, who is now back in Idaho and training individually for the season, summer than the constant rhythm of in-season preparation. the gym and baseball as opposed to the gym, baseball, a social life, schoolwork and all of that that comes with being at Dartmouth,” Gilmore said. “But we’re all living with host families, so you have to balance other real things in life.” Arranging travel to games, preparing meals and time management around self-scheduled lifts are just a few of the baseball from training during the school year. Murphy echoed Gilmore’s sentiment, noting that when she is inseason, her daily routine is stretched to the maximum with scheduled lifts and classes. “In the summer, you have a lot more free time, so it’s kind of up to you to go get that workout in,” Murphy said. “When you’re in season, you have no free time, which I kind of prefer, honestly.” For incoming Dartmouth students, like Maeve Conneely ’25 — a new team — the work begins even before stepping foot onto Dartmouth’s campus.
ANNIE QIU/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Conneely, who is working full-time at a construction company, is also diligently following the summer workout sent to her by jumps coach Tim Wunderlich. Given her hectic schedule, she wakes up at 5:00 a.m. every day to complete the workout. “I’m a morning person, so I don’t 5:00 a.m.,” Conneely said. “When I’m on the roads at 5:00 a.m., there’s nobody Conneely, whose high school junior outdoor season was cancelled due to the pandemic, says that she is working hard because she feels like she missed out on a quintessential part of the high school track experience. “I’m just really excited to get back to it because I feel like I never really got to said. “Even though I had my senior season, and I’m really lucky to have had
it, it didn’t feel like a real season.” The lack of indoor competition and a pandemic-shortened outdoor season during her senior year has Conneely I level. Older Dartmouth athletes like Evan Hecimovich ’21 are yearning for one lineman who was an integral member of a member of the 2019 All-Ivy Second Team, said that the desire for one last term last winter term in order to return for another season with his teammates in the fall. championship the last time we were out there, and obviously, when you’re playing, you never know when your last play is going to be,” Hecimovich said.
Brown [during the last game of 2019], it didn’t even cross my mind that there was a possibility that that would be my last game.” To get back into playing shape, work and hitting the gym in his home state of Illinois, focusing on mastering his technique and hitting his goal weight before returning to campus for emphasized that he was excited about finally returning to the live-action version of his sport. But for Hecimovich, Murphy, Gilmore and Conneely, all their is leading to the same ultimate goal. “The goal is to win another Ivy said. “That’s what I would be most excited about, the opportunity to go out there and defend our title.”
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MIRROR THE DARTMOUTH MIRROR
FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2021
Reflection: Snapshots from Sophomore Summer STORY
By George Gerber
Before I came to campus this term, I was haunted by several “What if ?” questions. What if sophomore summer doesn’t live up to my expectations? What if my course load is unmanageable? What if there’s another outbreak like in the winter? What if I’m alone? When I was a freshman, it seemed as though nearly all upperclassmen talked about their legendary sophomore summers. Sophomore summer is one of the most cherished parts of the D-Plan, where halfway through your Dartmouth experience, you get to take classes with everyone in your class year. Those who said that it didn’t live up to their expectations regretted taking extremely hard classes or getting too mentally drained from recruiting. The general advice regarding sophomore summer was this: Live free or die. I wanted to follow this advice, but summer term in two years and COVID-19 restrictions lingering, the guidance of past classes didn’t seem like it would hold. Then, early on in the term, we got an email telling us that COVID-19 restrictions were loosening and that vaccinated students didn’t need to wear masks anymore. Instantly, most of my fears dissipated, and I haven’t looked back since. sophomore summer, I realized how few of my peers I really know. It’s crazy to think that I know probably less than half of the students in my roughly 1200-person class because we’ve been scattered across the globe for the past year. To be sure, many of my classmates are still taking classes remotely, but I’m grateful to be able to get to know at least some of them in person. There’s just connection face-to-face rather than in a Zoom room. I’m also glad that I don’t have to live in fear of being sent home after being “caught” talking with friends in my dorm. There’s
ANNIE QIU/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
certainly something freeing about being comfortable in my own room. Being here this summer has also made me realize how adventurous I am. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really been able to try anything this past year, but now I want to try everything. Whatever the reason, I’m glad that I can make memories at college rather than in my childhood swimming across the Connecticut River or cartwheeling down Blobby in the middle of the night as a study break. I’m also cherishing the simple joys here, like getting late night with friends, chatting in Novack or reading in the silence of the East Reading Room — though Sanborn and the Tower Room are dearly missed.
to pop the so-called “Dartmouth Bubble.” The borders of campus seem to be dissolving more and With access to a car this term, I can surrounding area and see what makes Dartmouth’s location so special. To get a better sense of the beauty of the Upper Valley and New England, my friends and I have been taking day trips on the weekends. So far, we’ve gone as far as Montpelier and Burlington. We’ve tried new restaurants, gone thrifting, and perused the shelves of used bookstores. I’ve sung along to Joni Mitchell and the Beach Boys on the long car rides and — fueled by a 9 p.m. latte — debated philosophy until
dawn. think I understand what it’s like to be a college student. This summer has shown me what it means to enjoy Dartmouth, my classes and new connections. I’ve been able to pursue my passions in earnest and engage with the material in my classes with newfound excitement. I know what I’m saying sounds cliché, but in all sincerity, the joy this term has brought me was much needed, especially after box on my professors’ and peers’ computer screens. I didn’t quite realize how deprived of the Dartmouth experience I was — it’s startling to think that a majority of my college education
Though I’m a junior on paper, I still feel like a freshman. Dartmouth shut its doors and imposed COVID-19 restrictions after my freshman winter, — whatever that means. My sophomore summer has truly been a wonderful experience thus far, and I’m so thankful for the memories. Though it’s only been six weeks, I can term will feature some of my best memories from Dartmouth. Looking more closely to the future, however, I hope that this is a transitory term that will lead to an even more “normal” fall term and that I’ll remember this summer as the auspicious beginning to the second half of my Dartmouth years.
‘Conform Just Enough’: Reflections on Fast Fashion STORY
By Solenne Wolfe
The Dartmouth closet seems to fall easily into a few sartorial aesthetics. The standard prepster: Sperrys, loafers or beat Nike tennis shoes; khaki shorts slightly above the knees; Polos on good days and t-shirts on bad days; the ubiquitous quarter zip. The athlete and athlete-adjacent: for girls, leggings, strappy sports bras, team shirts, Lululemon sports wicking, performance material in green, anything Dartmouth Peak Performance and sports shorts with clean (but overworn) Nike sneakers. Then there is the ever-widening “alt” umbrella. “Alt girls” can sport anything from a long black— corduroys and a tight tank. The general binary of athlete and prepster leaves plenty of room for the urban expats and generally-imageconscious dressers to experiment in the “alt” category. Then there are the handful of tops that we’ve all seen, which cross boundaries into every aesthetic. The top is colorful, bright, skintight — it sparkles in TikToks and carefully-curated vacation photos, it’s a halter neck around sun-kissed the top is that it is cheaply made. It is presented to the masses in YouTube only slight variation in color, pattern or material. What’s interesting about the top is that it is popular because it is popular. In a strange tautology, people want the shirt because other people have several versions, colors and simulacra of the shirt. Stores like SHEIN price at unbelievable lows because they can, with the cost of labor subsidized by sweatshops and outsourcing to circumvent livable wages. Tank tops in packs of four cost $19.00,
a blouse costs less than ten dollars and a swimsuit set goes for less than what a pack of cigarettes costs in most states. It doesn’t really matter how nice the shirt is, how long it will last or how it will wash. The purpose of the top is not to stand in for a memory of a trip or a gift. It is a membership card for a set of twenty-something college girls who never have to be seen wearing the same thing twice. Fashion becomes about an individual’s assertion of belonging — but maybe it has always been about that. Each article of clothing or pairing of pieces displays a choice that the consumer has made. The shirt is a gesture toward a life spent clubbing, nights out at hotels and bars and frat basements. Famously and all over the Internet, Louis Vuitton has been accused of burning bags that did not sell at the end of the season because the excess of goods would be detrimental to the illusion. If there were extra, then how could the brand charge such exorbitant prices for a brown, monogrammed bag? Most status symbols, unlike the top, are priced at points out of reach for the average consumer — certainly the average consumer in college. A tiny round Versace medallion on a pair of sunglasses skyrockets the price of the shades, and in some ways, fast fashion is a shortcut to the aesthetic. Veblen goods are described as a set of goods that seem to contradict the laws of the supply and demand curve; as the price for these goods increases, so does demand for the goods. This is the category of luxury goods that Louis Vuitton bags and Gucci sunglasses fall into. The more these bags and sunglasses and lipsticks cost, the more consumers want them. Is fast fashion at the other end of this spectrum? Valued for how
cheap they are, the shirts and swim sets are rendered individually
they come in and out of style. There is nothing personal about the top, except for the fact that it is one of those tops. Fashion trends, typically intellectualized into a series of cycles, are growing faster and faster. So-called “micro-trends” rise to popularity and fall from it in a manner of months. With desirable aesthetics like “coconut girl” and “tennis prep” circulating online, these trends seem to cast incredibly the size of one potential image of a girl and projecting it for as long as it can sustain itself — which isn’t long. post their SHEIN hauls, though, or even Instagram itself. These two
have been railed against as the key agents of the attention economy, but
their prices by sidestepping ethical questions is not a new game. Before there was SHEIN or ZAFUL, there was Forever 21, Claire’s and the desire for “new things” as a way to have a sense of control over our style and identity. The question is whether clothing is still a way to express ourselves, or if it has become a way to express our conformity. Expressing ourselves would likely quirky, strange visual fascinations we might have, rather than trying to limit our sense of what is “cute” to what is “trendy.” Still, the ubiquity of the top
is an indication of how little the ultimate goals of getting dressed have changed from high school to Dartmouth. Whether you identify with the preppy, athletic or alternative crowd, we all have an idea of what we want to see in the mirror, and the accessibility of clothing like the $10 top makes that feel achievable. Fast fashion makes an appeal to the fantasy of quick, ready and cyclical assimilation — at Dartmouth and virtually everywhere else. The idea is to conform just enough without losing our sense of individuality: to dip our toes in the with the Bermuda length denim Levi’s — but ultimately buy them secondhand — without succumbing Renewal version.
Museum Reopening August 4 W 11–5 • Th 11–8 F 11–8 • Sat 1–5 See old friends and discover new ones! Check our website for updates.
View of the exhibition Drawing Lines located in Lathrop Gallery. Photo by Rob Strong.