February 2022 by The Boomerang

The

Boomerang February 2022

Skateboarders: the Pawns of Gentrification

Illustration © Annelise van den Akker

by Jonathan Hidma and Moritz Hake As our reality becomes more and more interconnected through advancements pushed by globalization, city planners deal with pressures in creating appropriate spaces. With that in consideration, planners are particularly wary when dealing with skateparks and skate-spots.

the future? Of course, we’ve heard it before, “Jaarbeurs is closing!”, and then it doesn’t. While it seems more certain now, skaters are kept out of the conversation, why? Once again, because such tactics allow the municipality to mobilize the benefits skateboarding provides for urban development.

ers take over such spaces, homelessness in the area decreases, rates of crime decrease, and the area becomes more economically stable. Clearly, there is a societal benefit to skateboarding, one which hopefully strikes some soul and life into Leidsche Rijn. This should act as an incentive for the municipality to develop and maintain urban skating spots rather than destroying and relocating them like they have been doing.

As any Utrechter, we’ve seen spaces change as time passes: roads changing to bike paths or skate-spots popping up out of nowhere. Such processes are necessary for economic and social stability, and in doing so, municipalities create partnerships with private investors to satisfy its inhabitants. However, it is unclear whether private companies take the interest and needs of the public into account or if they are motivated by their own profitability. For skaters, a result of this public-private partnership is the destruction of OG spots, mobilizing skaters towards spaces like Jaarbeursplein, or now Liedsche Rijn, to meet the municipalities needs. As Leidsche Rijn has seen significant growth in the past couple of years, the planned construction of a skatepark could bring further commercial development and economic opportunity to the area.

For skateboarders, the idea of cities weaponizing skateboarding in the name of gentrification is something we should be collectively aware of. Especially since gentrification is "If skateboarders are swept out of some not always a good thing. It can lead to things places, they are used as a broom in such as the forced displacement of low income other places" groups or discriminatory behavior by those in power. So, to back track, what the hell does Consider Jaarbeurs and Utrecht Centraal, skateboarding really have to do with this? not long ago, before the developments of the Hoog Catherijne, and the new Centraal StaThe activity of skating is, on an individual tion, the area was somewhat infamous for its level, highly beneficial, but the benefits of loiterers, junkies, homeless, etc. Whether this skating go beyond that. While the Nether- change is good or bad is up to you, but clearly lands doesn’t have a bad homelessness prob- a lot of thought was put into mobilizing the lolem, planned skate-spots in the outskirts of cal skaters of Utrecht away from de Yard and cities in Europe or the U.S have become im- to Jaarbeursplein. As the O.G in skate-urportant aspects in city planning. When skat- banism Ocean Howell put it “If skateboarders are swept out of some places, they are used as a broom in other places”.

So what will the future of skating look like in Utrecht? While it is unclear exactly how the next few months will play out, we do know that the city has been working on constructing a new skatepark in the Leidsche Rijn area. The construction of this skatepark is a good sign that the municipality is finally catering to the needs of its inhabitants and recognising the benefits that skating can have on urban spaces. Thus, with the help of several important figures in the Utrecht skating community and the municipality, the fringes of Utrecht expand. As the new skatepark is not nearly as accessible as Jaarbeurs or de Yard, it’ll be interesting to see the shift in identity that Leidsche Rijn may experience, with skateboarders providing an unknowing helping hand.

"the idea of cities weaponizing skateboarding in the name of gentrification is something we should be collectively aware of" This month, the Jaarbeurs skatepark that sits right at the doorstep of the Utrecht Central station is set to be closed down. The closure and relocation of this skatepark is not the first time in Utrecht that the fate of a cherished skating spot has been determined by private interest. Previously, a popular skating spot known as “de Yard” was also shut down leaving the skating community in disarray. Its closure meant that there was no longer a conveniently placed skating spot that was built and upheld by the community. So how will the closure of Jaarbeurs influence the skating community in

Happy New Year

Ladprao 106

Drexciya's Subaquatic Underworld

The Puppets of the Culture Wars

Anti-Racist Interventions

Monkey Brain

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The Boomerang | February 2022

Happy New Year by Giulia Martinez-Brenner

There’s the premature genesis of the special Whatsapp group, made and remade every single year even though there will always be the same people added and you already have at least fifteen other groups with exactly the same friends, but okay. People need to compartmentalize when organizing things, I get it. So you’re scrolling through the messages, party here, party there, wondering what the compromise will be, and absentmindedly going through your wardrobe because you know exactly what is coming next. There, just like clockwork,“So what are you going to wear??!” There is not just one problem with this question, there are many. The answer involves a complex process of deconstructing a number of multidimensional factors, ranging from the more accessible issues like average nightly temperature to the speculation regarding the potential attendance of certain persons of significance. Like I said, it is a complex operation. And it is not to be taken lightly, it is a delicate balance of interest, for on each wrong side of ‘revealing’ you are either prudish or you catch hypothermia. Both equally terrible fates. Or worse, you could commit the greatest sacrilege of history, and wear something you

have already worn. Because even though exactly 365 days have passed and you could not remember your friends’ outfits if your life depended on it, you actually would bet your life on someone noticing your same dress and banishing you from the respectable sphere of Italian femininity. The texts continue throughout the whole month. Instead of reading them all, you make the smart choice of agreeing with anything anyone says. This is how you find yourself forced to cash out fifty euros between dinner and alcohol. It’s New Year's Eve. If you don’t have a six course meal and enough liquor to send you and your whole pubescent group of friends to the hospital with cirrhosis, it doesn’t count. The 31st finally arrives. It’s the night of the year, literally. Inflated expectations and the pressure of forced fun. You need to squeeze all the life and joy into those dark hours, as much as you can - quickly! Before the clock strikes twelve! I’ve never been kissed at the stroke of midnight. I’m not sorry about it, not at all. You see, when everyone else closes their eyes, and the face of another takes up their vision, my eyes remain open. And although fireworks may burst and explosions go off and cheers may erupt from all over, I have clarity. I see a crowd of drunk, hormonal teenagers. I see them sweating and disgusting, charging blindly and beautifully towards an unfinished beginning. I see them clinging to each other, and then letting go. They do it so easily. Prosecco pops and sprays - oh please get it on my dress,

Illustration © Vivian Liang

I did not celebrate New Year's Eve this time. Not because Covid made partying impossible; not because human time is a construct that only has meaning within our own mortality, making the difference between a night in December and a morning in January absolutely pointless. Good argument, but no. The reason I did not celebrate is because since I turned fourteen, it’s always been the same. Winter break has not even started yet, and it all tumbles forth, breaking backwards through the dam that is the last day of school and flooding the early weeks of December.

I definitely didn’t care about it anyway. The moment ends, music starts up again, and it’s officially tomorrow. This year I stayed at home. I ignored the messages on the group chat, made up some excuses, and when the explosions went off outside my window, I was alone in my room. Maybe I’m getting old. The next day when I saw my friends I asked them about their night. “Nothing special,” they shrugged. “Honestly you were smart to stay warm in your bed.” Perhaps they wanted to reassure me. Or perhaps we’re all getting, not old, but older. Perhaps every new year's eve can only be as fun as the last one. And yes, we’ve certainly played quite a few rounds, but does that have to mean anything? It’s all just a game in the end. Just a short dash across the checkerboard. So why not go crazy at every opportunity? I don’t know, I guess I’ll have to wait for the next celebration now. What is that, Valentine’s Day? Ugh fuck me, nevermind.

The Place to Pee by Nina Alberti

It's eight thirty on the last day of the yearly Amsterdam Light Festival and everywhere I look, people are queuing up for warm beverages. I myself came prepared, my bag heavy with a cocoa-filled thermos and a small bottle of rum. As a jumble of people moves past me towards a big blue ball in front of the Hermitage, I suddenly realize that I need to pee. But where to go? In hindsight, all that hot cocoa was probably a bad decision.

My friend wanders on to the next art installation and I follow blindly, leaving the cafes and restaurants behind. Now there are no toilets in sight and it’s nine o'clock, only one hour left until the lights dim. Why did we go on the very last day of the festival? Why didn’t I pee at the station, where peeing costs only seventy cents and leaves me with my dignity intact. I know that if I start on the restroom quest now, I will miss out on most of the art.

While we strategize and try to decide on our next move, I hear the sound of streaming water hitting the canal. I look over to see a guy quickly zipping up his fly. This bothers me. Not just because I don’t want to see some random guy peeing into a canal, but because I envy him. I know that I could never pull that off. The fine for urinating in public is 140 euros, and even worse, I’m wearing a jumpsuit. article continues on page 3

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Instead, I have to rely on the municipality’s map of public toilets. The map shows Amsterdam covered with promising symbols: purple circles, green triangles, red squares. In total there are six types of (semi)public toilets to be found in and around the city. I locate myself on the map and spot a number of green dots near me. But what does a green dot mean? According to legend it’s an ‘Amsterdamse krul’, a type of urinal. Well, great.

Illustration © Nina Alberti

"Not just because I don’t want to see some random guy peeing into a canal, but because I envy him" I grudgingly unselect the ‘standing’ option and refresh the page. A small number of red and orange squares remain. I click on an orange square that is relatively close by. ‘Toilet in a parking garage, only for car park users’. So it’s not a map of public toilets then? I unselect the orange square. All that remains are two bright, red squares situated in the city centre, close to the station, but far away from me. Finally, the green triangles are the only option left to select.

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These disabled-friendly restrooms are open 24/7, cost 50 cents and are every claustrophobic person’s worst nightmare as they open and close automatically. But not to worry, the maximum amount of time you can be locked inside is just 15 minutes, as the description reassures me. The nearest green triangle is located in a park. My gut tells me to avoid parks when it’s dark, but my bladder disagrees. So we abandon the festival and rush towards our new destination. The park seems to be straight out of a horror movie. The kind of scene where you would yell “Nooo, are you stupid?!” at the main character when they decide to go in. So we go in. In the shadows cast by trees and the dim light of street lanterns everything seems suspicious. The park is largely deserted, except for two guys smoking on a bench and an old man walking his dog. But the toilet is on the other side, past the pond and shrouded in fog. Or am I now imagining things? As we approach the stall, I see

that the door is already open. It’s a small grey room, but not a restroom. It is completely empty, there is no toilet there.

"It is completely empty, there is no toilet there" Another setback. Why did we walk this far for nothing? Why is this toilet, which is clearly not a toilet anymore, even on the map? I consider peeing behind the stall, but as I approach the bushes a group of guys settles on the bench opposite. I give up. It’s past ten, the festival is over and we still haven’t found a toilet. Defeated, we walk to the metro. Let’s go back and pee at Amsterdam CS. As we enter the station I’m reminded of another toilet quest a year earlier, when I jumped a barricade at Utrecht CS to use their restrooms. My reasons back then were quite valid: it was the middle of the night, I did not have my OV-card on me, and all other toilets were closed because of covid. Still, I got fined 90 euros. But rebelling against the lack of accessible and free toilets for those who can’t pee standing up, is hard when you need to pee really badly. So even though it felt unfair, I abandoned the festival, took a metro and paid the 70 cents… just to have a place to pee.

Save Lives with Sanquin by Liselore Tap

"only 22.5% of Dutch citizens are registered blood donors"

desk and pointed towards the waiting room with a clipboard. Fill in the medical history form and a doctor will come collect you for an intake interview. Three vials of 6ml will be drawn, and you are free to leave. Two weeks later you will hear whether or not you are eligible to donate blood and will receive a notice to please come in. At the actual donation appointment, you will donate 500ml, and you are asked to stay for 15 minutes after the donation to make sure you don’t become unwell. You are given a cute keychain with your blood type on it, free stickers, and encouraged to take drinks and snacks – all to incite people to donate.

The only official blood bank in the Netherlands is Sanquin, and anybody between the ages of 18 and 65 is eligible for an evaluation appointment. It is wise to take the online questionnaire on the website beforehand to rule out any reasons for not being eligible. Passed the questionnaire? Sign up, and head to your first appointment. Here, you will be welcomed by a smiling face at the reception

Blood donations are important. The doctor at my intake interview mentioned that just last year the blood bank suffered a shortage of donors. I have donated myself, and am always greeted with warmth and an abundance of gratitude, yet the donation process is so short and uncomplicated I am always left to wonder how a shortage ever occurred in the first place.

We don’t need donation trucks and we don’t need blood drives – individuals must step up and look into that which so many promise they will do. Blood drives are expensive and consume resources that would be wasted on a campus like UCU, as the nearest blood donation center is literally 10 minutes of cycling away from campus at the Wilhelmina Kinderziekenhuis. With public transport it takes 20 minutes to get there. By complying with the already existing framework surrounding blood donation, you can ensure that the process goes safely and efficiently.

"Blood drives are expensive and consume resources that would be wasted on a campus like UCU" Every time I mention blood donation I hear responses similar to “I’ve always wanted to do that”. May this serve as your push: go to www.sanquin.nl/en and sign up to become a donor. Sign up to save lives.

Illustration © Nina Alberti

According to the Red Cross, “blood is essential to help patients survive surgeries, cancer treatment, chronic illnesses, and traumatic injuries”. More than 300,000 people require a blood transfusion every year, in the Netherlands alone. Blood donation literally saves lives. The large majority of people are aware of this, yet not nearly all eligible blood donors are registered for donation at the Dutch blood bank, Sanquin. In fact, only 22.5% of Dutch citizens are registered blood donors. A shame, considering how easy blood donation is in this country. Although you cannot entirely blame the un-registered, few people realize just how easy it is to donate blood. Let us set that straight.

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The Boomerang | February 2022

Drexciya's Subaquatic Otherworld by Tarah Lips

“Are Drexciyans water breathing, aquatically mutated descendants of those unfortunate victims of human greed? Have they been spared by God to teach us or terrorise us? Did they migrate from the Gulf of Mexico to the Mississippi river basin and on to the great lakes of Michigan? Do they walk among us? Are they more advanced than us and why do they make their strange music? What is their Quest? These are many of the questions that you don’t know and never will. The end of one thing...and the beginning of another. Out -” - The Unknown Writer

their album by calling on Charles Gibson for creative direction about the cover design. The vinyl’s liner notes paint the story of an underwater civilization, born from pregnant America-bound African slaves who were thrown overboard during the crossing of the Middle Passage. These women would have given birth to children with the ability to breathe underwater, forming a society uncumbered by slavery, oppression and torture, in which the Black person could roam free. And with that, the Drexciyan Empire was born.

The map on the vinyl cover etches onto colDrexciya was founded in 1992, composed lective memory the largest slave routes at of duo James Stinson and Gerald Donald. the time, making Drexciya one of the many The Detroit-based musicians came together artists who use their musical voice for pofor their first EP release, Deep Sea Dwell- litical awareness and resistance. As their er, whose electro, underwater, speedy beats releases evolve, so does Drexciyan civilizacreate the foundation for an aquatic under- tion, with albums like Neptune’s Lair and world. Depressurization is one of my fa- Grava 4 propelling the underwater socievourite tracks; with hyperactive basslines ty to the skies and beyond. The synth riffs and chunky 909 drums, it’s the Detroit tech- expand to create an interstellar ambiance. no lover’s dream. The chunky, spasmodic basslines of earlier albums morph into acidy techno beats that "the erasure of this art is an erasure of were influenced by the band’s transition to the Berlin-based record label, Trésor. The context and ultimately, an erasure of release of Grava 4 was revealed to be acthe duo’s artistic identity" companied by the duo’s purchase of a star The artists refused interviews, and other in space, whose name coincidentally carries than their minimalist watery artwork fans the album’s namesake. Grava 4, and consedid not have any clues about the story be- quently Drexciyan civilization, is inscribed hind the duo. Their first album, Drexciya into space, into reality. 2 - Bubble metropolis, built on the aquatic society of Deep Sea Dweller, and its release Unfortunately, shortly after the release of under the Underground Resistance label this last album in 2002, Stinson passed away lent notoriety to the mysteriously quiet duo. from an underlying heart condition. Clone Cut Records, a Dutch record label, jumped With The Quest in 1997, Drexciya lets their on the opportunity to buy all the music royfans peek behind the curtain shrouding alties and proceeded to re-release all tracks

in a rearranged four-part series entitled Journey Of The Deep Sea Dweller. With the rights to the music fully in their hands, Clone Records removed all previous political artwork, and sold the vinyls in blank, white covers that no longer show the rich backstory Drexciya had spent over 10 years weaving. The original pressings are almost impossible to find nowadays, and all pressings are now released under Clone. Despite the label manager’s justification for stripping down the background, arguing that the musical genius of the tracks speak for themselves, I believe that the erasure of this art is an erasure of context and ultimately, an erasure of the duo’s artistic identity.

"The chunky, spasmodic basslines of earlier albums morph into acidy techno beats" The Afrofuturistic undertones of Drexciya, the creativity of their backstory, and most importantly the mind-blowing tracks of these fragmented years of releases make the duo one of my favourite Detroit artists. As part of Black History Month, I wanted to share the origins of one of the pioneers of the Detroit electro scene. The context and artistry of this group emphasise their creative talent, and place focus on what I believe to be a cornerstone of dance music: the expansion of consciousness and freedom of mind. Although Drexciya dreamed of a free world, the cogs of oppression are still in motion, and we have a responsibility to appreciate the history that had to unfurl for their music to reach our ears.

Dearest Campus, A (belated) welcome back! Only a month of spring semester has gone by and it already feels like years, Covid doesn’t seem to exist anymore, yet other horrifying world events permeate our lives, three full storms have come and gone. I do hope you are all hanging in there through the SAD. Perhaps you have found Valentines to hold close, or perhaps you just need a little something to read as these days finally grow longer, and hopefully, brighter… In these pages read about the future of skateboarding, about how puppets can be political, and one of the many examples of how Black history has been erased from the music scene. I am also happy to announce collaborations with other committees, LogiCo, GastronomyCo, and UCURadio, who have brought fun recipes, puzzles, and insights to our newspaper. I’d like to thank our wonderful board, which now also includes another member! A warm welcome to Mats, one of our talented columnists, who has become our new executive editor. And of course, a special thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue. Enjoy! Yours always, Giulia Martinez-Brenner Editor-in-Chief

A University College Student Association Magazine

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Anti-Racist Interventions

by Rafaella Karadsheh & Dušan Janković On June 16, 2021, the Anti-Racist Action (ARA) Group organised UCU’s first anti-racism protest. It was a long time coming; the UCU institution and community has a long history of enabling racism on campus both in social and academic contexts. There have been countless instances, from calling the HumCo charity auction a ‘slave auction’ until just a few years ago, to banning students from using the term ‘settler colonialism’ in class when talking about Israeli apartheid, and even campus-wide discontent at the proposal of social spaces for students of colour. Discussions of racial injustices at UCU gained traction among small groups of passionate students in late 2020. In early 2021, these groups merged to form the UCU Anti-Racist Action Group. Composed of students from different ethnicities, disciplines, cohorts, and ages, weekly ARA group discussions shed light on students’ varying experiences with racism on campus and the severity of the situation. While smaller anti-racism initiatives, such as anti-racism reading groups, were created and implemented, the ultimate goal was to initiate institutional change to create lasting impacts. And what better way for UCU's administration to recognise the necessity of change than a protest? The Make UCU Anti-Racist protest resembled a beacon of hope – the urgency of the message seemed to resonate with almost two hundred protestors. There, the UCU institution was not seen as an otherworldly harmony of multiculturalism, a site of profound cultural and knowledge exchange bestowed with racial and national ‘diversity’, or an exception to the otherwise “tolerant” but “not so progressive” Dutch university culture. It was an example of the long and racist history that many Dutch institutions lived and practiced, an epitome of racist

Western epistemology anchored into Voltaire, Locke, and Newton. How could a brown student discuss the ‘inevitable doom’ of the Middle East as a matter of pure geopolitical reasoning, separated from the same brown body situated in a building named after a ‘man of knowledge’ that coincidentally owned stocks in a slave trade company? How could any student further develop the overly-emphasized critical thinking skills as an academic practice with syllabi, at best, throwing together all the ‘other’ non-white, queer, female writing in the last week of the course under the umbrella of ‘decolonization’? Would it even be possible to create the “safe” space for learning where nobody fears marginalization, and where nobody is labeled racist for simply asking questions or providing an opinion concerning the non-white world? Our demands and actions both raised and addressed these questions from a student, hierarchically subordinate, position: the pedagogical and social practices of our campus had to change. With our amplified voices getting a seat at the table in College Hall, The Anti-Racist Action Group established its position as a radical student-led group working towards a socially-just campus beyond institutional delineation. This, however, didn’t only take the form of calling out the structural racism and racist complicity of the institution we were all part of. In the Fall semester of 2021, ARA organized a learning-and-reflection-focused reading group of Saad’s Me and White Supremacy. This decision was informed by the White Focus Group held after the protest, where the attending students expressed not being fully familiar with the vocabulary necessary to discuss race and racism in a nuanced manner. Seeing the importance of such reading groups, another reading group, on

Dabiri's What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition, is in the plans for this Spring semester. The results of the reading group were insightful. It was difficult discussing the group’s racist thoughts and actions, our exceptionalism, tone policing, white silence, and it was especially difficult for the white majority speaking about the complexity of white supremacy and racism around fellow students of color. It often felt humiliating vocalizing all of the internalized racism – how could this constructed identity of a cosmopolitan, an open-minded free-spirited world-loving individual, a perception of self so common among the UCU community, be so fragile when confronted with the most basic of instincts and assumptions about those of a different skin tone? What our experience running the reading group informed us of, was that campus was in dire need of an anti-racist intervention: understanding campus not as a “melting pot” of skin colors – definitely leaning to the white hue in numbers – but as a dynamic space of interacting with privilege, histories of colonialism and domination, and as the self situated in positions benefitting from racist structures, with isolation, latently, cunningly. This is what the Anti-Racist Action Group aims to do, along with other informal student-led groups on campus such as Utrecht in Solidarity with Palestine: challenging the seemingly innocent (in)formal structures we inhabit, and confronting the individually internalized, deep-seated, and overt racism on our campus. If you are interested in our activities and want to help organize anti-racist work on our campus, look out for upcoming posts on UCU Students and UCU Events!

Things Keeping Me Sane, or How to Enjoy Life by Cici Zhong In the face of the recent national lockdown and uncertain Covid regulations, frustration with campus culture and the Dreary Dutch Weather, starting to think about the future and homesickness really hitting on top of trying to keep up with academia, it’s needless to say things started to get a bit overwhelming. When the going got tough, I found it harder to enjoy life like the care-free and

wide-eyed first year I was way back when. I have been actively trying to take better care of myself, mentally, and tend to my emotional and wellbeing needs. The practice of mindfulness has been something I have been trying to cultivate, learning to really live in the present, turning inward and recognising what I as an individual need

without being influenced by what everyone else is doing. In an environment like this, unapologetically prioritising self-care can feel revolutionary. It is so easy to be swept away by everything going on, and, trust me, it hasn’t been easy to take a step back and really focus on myself and reassess my priorities. article continues on page 6

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No matter if you personally believe in all this mindfulness yada yada or just rolled your eyes at the idea (which has indeed turned into a bit of a self-help cliché), I think everyone can benefit from learning to be more mindful of that which makes you feel good and treasuring the little pleasures of everyday life. With that said, here are some things I have been enjoying over the past few weeks, keeping me sane in spite of everything going on: 1. Taking some time in the morning to collect myself: take a breather, do some yoga, eat a wholesome breakfast, pick out a nice outfit and get ready for the day

The Boomerang | February 2022

8. Listening to podcasts! The Happiness Lab and The Moth are two I particularly enjoy 9. Calling an old friend, or calling home 10. Taking my weekends off: deciding to not work on school over the weekend has been a huge sigh of relief, to allow myself to do nothing and rest my brain without feeling guilty about it

2. Going on walks and exploring the city, (re)discovering all that made me fall in love with this fairy-tale city we live in

There is nothing quite like escaping campus, seeing something new and different and being a bit overwhelmed and having so much process in the best ways possible. Yet, romanticising the idea of adventure and excitement accompanying the extraordinary tend to be accompanied by the tendency to be dissatisfied with day-to-day life.

"In an environment like this, unapologetically prioritising self-care can feel revolutionary"

3.Cooking an elaborate recipe and sharing it with friends

5. Running until I can feel my chest hurtnothing like this to remind me I’m alive! 6. Journaling: I like to keep a list of 3 things for feelings that I am grateful for every day I hope that this brightens up your day or makes you smile, inspires you to take a little bit of time and space to tend to yourself, or come to the realisation that you really do not

This is especially relevant now, with uncertainty and covid anxieties tainting everything we do. The pandemic has been a trigger for me to realise how crucially I needed an intervention and reassessment of such internalised beliefs. I have used this as an opportunity to unlearn the idea that I had to do something new every week, constantly making elaborate plans to have fun and enjoy life. Even after things “return to normal”, I want to hold on to the feeling of finding joy in the little things, not just counting down to the next big thing and having life slip by.

Illustration © Cici Zhong

4. Going out into the forest, noticing the wonders of nature and get out of my head a bit

7. Spending evenings in, watching a nature documentary with friends or getting swept away in a good book, like I did when I was a kid

need to spend a lot of money, travel or get drunk out of your mind to really live life. Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting to live lavishly and making the most out of weekends, holidays or special occasions. I myself have had plenty of fun exploring the country on the weekends, armed with my trusty museum card and a weekend-free OV.

Friday Morning Truths I woke up Friday noon, eyes crusted shut with mascara, creased cheeks, and greasy bangs… and yet, this was not the most repulsive image in my unit that day. The night before I had hosted a mixed frat party - voluntarily, I swear. After two years of a frozen party life, I was more than happy to open my doors to the sweet chaos I had so missed. Everything went smoothly, at least, as smoothly as a depraved frat party can go. Not every beer bottle was broken, and I didn’t black out the entire night, so it really went well. However, that changed when I left and came back to my living room filled with strangers. This was not a problem per se. I am well aware of the responsibilities that come with having a loud speaker on a Thursday, and I am not so naive to think that others will not show up. On the contrary, it is rather a pleasure to see crowds joined in drunken joy under my roof. I love afterparties and seeing new beaming faces, if that was the full extent of it, however sadly, it is not.

it. The stench permeated my entire unit, along with whiffs of ash and stale beer that coated every single stair. Mud and trash were the least of it, I could hardly recognize my home. Most disturbingly, things had been moved, my unit mate’s perfume had obviously been used, rooms seemed to have been entered, and food had been eaten. After checking with some friends, I realized that this could not have been my frat’s doing. I’m no detective, but when almost all of campus was in your house, it makes it hard to point fingers, so I won’t, but allow me to make a few points.

Not many of you will remember this now, but before Covid, borrels and house parties would always end up at the bar. The party crowd of campus would join there, all the mixing would happen there, and when the bar would close at 4 am, groups would tend to go their own ways. Now, things have changed. Various units are hosting parties, a fact that I am frankly so grateful for after years of fear, curfew, and isolation. Yet let’s not forget That Friday noon I went to the bathroom that these are people’s homes. Your fellow to find the floor covered in hardened vom- students live here and pay for your damage.

Illustration © Vivian Liang

by Giulia Martinez-Brenner

Frat policy coordinates organizers and cleaners for every week, so I was lucky. Although it was my unit, I was not the one who had to take on the bulk of the work, but I was the one who had to apologize to all my unitmates. I was accountable for that Thursday, without a doubt, but I just wonder if I must be accountable for the entire campus. I know, our executive functioning is highly impaired on these nights. Really, I understand. But for the love of God, at least clean up your own puke.

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GastronomyCo Monthly Recipe

Ladprao 106

Isabella Grasso, Winning Team UCU Master Chefs 2021-2022 ‘I did not have a name for the dish, but this is the street where I used to live in Bangkok’ Instructions 1.

Ingredients

Marinate the chicken in soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika and let it sit for 1-2 hours

Pickle: cut cucumber, red onion and carrots in strips and add hot water, sugar and vinegar and let it sit for 1-2 hours

To make the Nam jim sauce, mix fish sauce, sugar, fresh lime juice, garlic, shallots and shrimp paste

Pan fry the chicken while you boil water in a pot

When that water boils, add a pack of rice noodles (no need to stir)

Chop coriander and spring onions, and peel half a carrot

Drain the noodles with a strainer and put them back into the pot

Add the chopped ingredients to the pot and mix well

Add 5 teaspoons of your Namjim sauce and taste, add more as you wish

10.

Add a couple drops of fish sauce

11.

Chop the fried chicken

12.

Plate the noodles mixed with the chopped veggies in a bowl and add the chicken, some fried onion and some coriander

The Dish

A Love for Cooking

How did you get the recipe? Does it have a special story to it?

When did you start cooking?

- Chicken or replace with kai jiew* - 1 ½ Carrots - Soy and oyster sauce - ½ cup hot water - 1 stock spring onion - 2 tablespoons sugar, more for Nam jim - Garlic and onion powder - 2 tablespoons vinegar - Paprika powder - 1 fresh lime, squeezed - Cucumber - Garlic and shallot, minced - Red onion - 1 pack rice noodles - Coriander - Fish sauce * kai jiew (egg omelette with added fish sauce and sugar and whip it, fry at high heat)

‘My mom is a baker so I have always been ‘I kind of improvised it, but the inspiration in the kitchen doing something or trying comes from missing home, the dishes and to put different foods and things togethflavours. My aunt makes the best Nam Jim er, but I properly started learning recisauce and during the break when my mom pes and actually cooking at the age of 12.’ visited she gave me a jar of Nam jim my aunt had made. I decided to kind of mix all the Do you have any food traditions? flavours I was missing from home into one dish. That is how Ladprao 106 was born.’ ‘When I am sick, my favourite food to eat is tortellini soup. I also like eating What is the best part of the recipe? Makkai jiew which is what my mom used to ing it? Eating it? Or both? make for me when I’m sick, but I don’t try to cook it because hers is a lot better.’ ‘I prefer making it because I think cooking is one of my favourite hobbies. I love Cooking tip of the month: a secret from trying out new techniques and I find fun Isabella trying out new things like pickling foods or trying new flavours/combinations.’ ‘I don’t like adding salt to things, instead I use bouillon powder. It adds saltiness but also more flavour and depth.’

Do you have a memorable story related to cooking? ‘One of my favourite things my dad makes is this tuna pasta sauce with anchovies and capers. So when I first arrived here at UCU, my dad made a little package of all the ingredients he uses to make the sauce so that I could make it for myself since he wouldn’t be able to do it for me anymore.’ Are there any people that inspire you to cook? ‘My parents, because they are the ones who taught me how to cook, and they are always trying new recipes, which inspires me to try them too. But also when I watch things on Youtube, they’re almost always about food or cooking. I like to watch shows from Epicurious and channels like that, so I get a lot of inspiration from there.’ ’ With

whom

you

cook?

‘I know I like weird combinations of flavours so sometimes it’s easier to cook on my own. However, if I do cook with someone it usually is Sterre Hoogerbeets, with whom I won Masterchef, or Sam Hofman.’

8 CULTURE

The Boomerang | February 2022

The Puppets of the Culture Wars: How Characters like Big Bird and Gritty Became the Faces of Social Movements by Monserrat Martinez Medellin "My wing is feeling a little sore, but it'll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy," read a recent tweet by Sesame Street’s Big Bird, announcing that he had gotten vaccinated against Covid-19. Some Republican personalities condemned the tweet. Senator Ted Cruz called it “government propaganda,” Fox News’ Lisa Boothe denounced it for “brainwashing children,” and former Trump advisor Steve Cortes described it as “evil.” For Sesame Street, the phenomenon is not new. Since its first broadcast in 1969, its storylines have explored heavy socio-political issues – world hunger, poverty, substance abuse and even HIV. Episodes have condemned the racism targeted at African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Characters Bert and Ernie — who former Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman confirmed were based on himself and his partner Arnold Glassman — and Julia — the first puppet on the autism spectrum — have made strides for representation of marginalized groups within popular culture. With progressive plotlines and characters, the show has rarely been apolitical. As strange as the following notion will sound, however, Big Bird has not been the only puppet who has garnered a political connotation and turned into a politicized figure at the centre of heated partisan discourse.

ground as he turned into an ally, a communist, and an antifa icon. One Gritty meme reads “How the Grit Stole Christmas… from the Capitalist Pigs!”. Another, captioned “Good night, alt-right", shows him beating up Pepe the Frog, or even shockingly decapitating Pepe with a guillotine – something Horgan calls a form of “online justice, rather than a suggestion for offline action.”

puppets’ purpose became. The internet’s affinity and ability for creating ludicrous content turned them into perfectly mouldable media. Plus, their familiarity among internet users and humoristic design pose endless possibilities for them to be transformed, edited, and over-imposed to promote any agenda in eye-catching ways. Admittedly, Big Bird’s trajectory was different. While he was no symbol appropriated for factions to grow their online presence, Sesame Street has traditionally not shied away from educating its young audiences about different realities, inherently planting leftwing undertones into storylines and turning Big Bird into an politicized figure by default.

"The more memes spread, the more new forms, templates and captions they inspired, and the less relevant the original puppets’ purpose became"

Photograph: Daniel Morsing / @DanielMorsing

Pepe the (Alt-right) Frog, and the Appropriation of Internet Culture

So, why Pepe? See, the phenomenon is not exclusive to the left wing. In 2015, alt-right The Rise of Gritty, an Antifa Hero users of 4chan and Reddit began using Pepe the Frog (an anthropomorphic frog illustrated by Matt Furie in 2005) in bigoted An ambiguous, furry orange creature, Gritmemes. The cartoons’ content was often ty — Philadelphia Flyers hockey team’s racist, sexist, antisemitic and Islamophobic. mascot — was unveiled in September 2018 In 2016, the Anti-Defamation League added and quickly gained popularity for his subPepe to its online database of hate symbols. stantial “memeability.” His unhinged appearance and ominous tweets amused neti"how big of an impact one-note inzens, like his introductory “it me” or his clapback at the Pittsburgh Penguins “sleep stances of pop culture could be moulded with one eye open tonight, bird.” Most re- and used to shape movements in themselves" cently, the alt-right had tried to appropriate Gritty's image for their memes but failed. As The Guardian’s Colin Horgan explains, Though evidently enemies in the virtual a Jacobin publication claimed Gritty as political realm, Gritty and Pepe’s popular“a worker ” shortly after his introduction, ity grew in similar ways. Such rebranding prompting links to the political left first. was a matter of time after their appropriAfter the Jacobins’ tweet, Gritty became ations. The more memes spread, the more a staple of left-wing memes. His role as new forms, templates and captions they a hockey mascot receded into the back- inspired, and the less relevant the original

Present in all three cases, however, is the ease with which simplistic, innocuous figures become appropriated by partisans, or inversely, how big of an impact one-note instances of pop culture could be moulded and used to shape movements in themselves. What Happens to the Puppets Now? Distinguishing whether these characters have furthered tension between the left and right, or if their memes are mere manifestations of a timeless rivalry, as Horgan suggests, is tricky. Does partisan discourse appropriate internet culture as means to diversify the channels through which it unfolds, or is the appropriation a surface-level sign of a much more convoluted picture? One risks falling into a rabbit hole trying to understand the purpose behind hijacking these figures. Thanks to the cemented connotations, some puppets are no longer able to exist in a vacuum, as just TV show characters, sport mascots, or memes. While one might encounter memes of Pepe or Gritty that are purely entertainment, a backstory shall follow – unbeknownst or not – forever woven into the fabric of online political wars.

A University College Student Association Magazine

CULTURE

A Critique of Not-so-supermarkets by Ida van Zwetselaar

Am I the only one who feels like supermarkets are the epitome of keuzestress (yes, the Dutch actually have a term for the anxiety derived from an abundance of choice) and establishments that turn their customers into the actual product? Don’t get me wrong, I secretly love to go grocery shopping, but whenever I step into an Albert Heijn, Lidl, Plus or Jumbo in this country, I feel like I’ve landed in my crazy-creative child-self’s imagination back when I used to play pretend to own a shop or restaurant. The displays are overwhelmingly synchronised and all the themed colours and animations get on my nerves. There seems to be a new prize to collect tokens for every month. To block out the bleeps and bloops, announcements, and stupid shoppy boppy pop music playing in the background, I put on my headphones. The atmosphere reeks of plastic, carbon footprints and food waste. Oh, and don’t forget to connect your Appie-app to everything you purchase so an algorithm can custom-design discounts based on your tracked consumption patterns, unknowingly generated by your happy ass clicking on all those exciting offers, which makes shopping even easier!

"The atmosphere reeks of plastic, carbon footprints and food waste"

thers literally needed to “go for groceries” in the wilderness in order to survive, and now all the hunting we do is for the lowest discounts, and gathering has been simplified to within arm’s reach. I know I should probably consider myself lucky for even having the option to walk into these stores and exit with anything I may desire at that moment. And I realise that complaining about something we are trapped in will not get us very far, but perhaps reflecting on the absurdity of this privilege is exactly what we need. Let me just finish my rant and you’ll see where I’m getting at…

"I realise that complaining about something we are trapped in will not get us very far, but perhaps reflecting on the absurdity of this privilege is exactly what we need" In supermarkets, there’s no negotiation, no positive human interactions, and absolute alienation from the items on the shelves; it’s every person for themselves on a personal quest to conquer their shopping list. Now, what if I told you there’s a magical place, outside, with people that are actually happy to speak to you about your day and the recipes you intend to concoct, where

Okay okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, or simply hypersensitive to such a stimulating environment, but I believe I’m allergic to areas that attempt to achieve extreme efficiency and that’s why supermarkets make me feel claustrophobic. Sometimes I think about the fact that our hunter-gatherer forefa-

By buying almost directly from the source, you support farmers and their families, not the stakeholders of big corporations. And above all, this all sustains a social synergy crucial to human beings. And of course the market has its disadvantages: imperfect fruits and vegetables, exposure to February’s disgusting weather, the handful of weirdos that are more than happy to start a random uncomfortable conversation with you, limited choice, not-so-student-friendly prices and more. But imagine the relief your senses, psyche and mind would undergo if you were to switch their weekly trip from what I described earlier to an actual market: it may not be “super”, but in our ever-optimising, consumerist society, it may be the step back we all need. So, that being said, I encourage you all to get off campus and go to the market (or at least try it once; it’s certainly not everyone’s vibe but worth the experience)! If not for groceries, I would definitely recommend going there and eating kibbeling (fried fish), poffertjes (tiny blown up pancakes with powdered sugar), a hotdog, or warm giant stroopwafels someday.

you can get fresh, often locally produced food? The only sacrifice you’d have to make is a 15-minute bike or tram ride into the city centre and the initial awkwardness of asking the seller to speak English to you.

Hi! We are Town & Gown, the committee that helps you burst the UCU bubble and get to know your surroundings. We publish personal experiences and suggestions in and around the city of Utrecht in the Boomerang in order to inspire you. If you have a place, story or event to share, please contact us on Instagram (@town_and_gown)

Illustration © Jana Fragoulis

I’ve also never not had to make way for a bunch of gossipping, far-too-young employees rushing around with wheelie crates in there. Everything is perfectly thought through, but still hard to find. I enter a state of “Buy more! Check this out! Bet you didn’t know you needed this!” getting drilled through my head. And, worst of all, half a shopping cart full of food costs more than a month worth of groceries for my eight-member family back home.

Many stands at the market that get built up every Wednesday, Friday (remember: organic farmers bring their produce only on this day), Saturday and sometimes Sunday on the Vredenburgplein have discounts if you ask with a smile. Certain veggies, bread, cheese, dips and fish are much cheaper than in the supermarket, and I can guarantee you that everything is far more tasty as well.

10 CULTURE

The Boomerang | February 2022

Spider-men, Ghostbusters, and the Nostalgia Boom by Monserrat Martinez Medellin

Spoiler alert: this article contains spoilers for Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Spider-man: No Way Home.

“Had a feeling you’d turn up,” says Peter Venkman — a visibly aged Bill Murray in a scraggly khaki suit — to the ghost of deceased fellow Ghostbuster Egon Spengler, played by the late Harold Ramis, in the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The cameo of Ramis, who passed away in 2014, was achieved through the use of computer graphics and visual effects. Spengler’s ghost smiles back at the other characters before hugging his on-screen family members. He then fades into the air, rising up into the sky to form a constellation. It wasn’t surprising how heavily Afterlife leaned into emotive callbacks. Every other plot point referenced the original Ghostbusters movies. The protagonists end up battling the same villains again. There’s the iconic “who you gonna call?”, the Ecto-1 Cadillac, and during one scene, the miniature Stay Puft marshmallow men (marshmallow… babies?) even chase each other down a Walmart aisle on a Roomba. Cinema has long exploited it in storytelling — think of the Some time after that, there is anoth- thread connecting Stand By Me, Good Bye, er familiar face appearing in our midst Lenin! and 13 Going on 30’s plotlines. As sending “ooh”s and even more excit- another implication, No Way Home and ed “ah!”’s out of cinema-goers’ mouths. Afterlife are not the first movies to incorporate fan-favourite cameos, and certainly won’t be the last: the trailer for the upcomOf course, I am talking about the new Spiing Jurassic Park film shows icons Lauder-man movie. ra Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill all Another metaphorical tear of joy slid making reappearances — a case in point. down my face, this time as childhood heroes Toby Maguire and Andrew Gar- So… is nostalgia evil? Its early definitions field popped out of a portal in Spider-man: definitely characterised it as such - a deNo Way Home. The movie warmed up mentia-like byproduct of eardrum damthe audience by reintroducing familiar age, a compulsive disorder, even a deadly villains, but frankly, no amount of Doc illness. It wasn't until 1999 when Dr. ConOck or Green Goblin prepares you enough. stantine Sedikides’ pioneering research helped perceive nostalgia as a potentialWhy was seeing Andrew Garfield and ly soothing – rather than debilitating – a fake CGI’d Harold Ramis such a big experience to help process major life events. deal? I think of Venkman’s quote, and the nostalgia — that mix of comfort, The cinematic nostalgia filter may not be sentimentality, and melancholy for earlier, unabashedly heinous, though. While farelatively-blissful times — it encapsulates. vouring deliberate choices like old actors’ casting or referencing the source material Is nostalgia inherently bad? In roman- may make us more susceptible to media’s ticising the past (even if said past nev- use of smoke and mirrors, it does not mean er actually happened as we think), it we cease to be critical cultural consumers, does away with the negative aspects of or that we align ourselves with the agenda earlier times – like pain, hardship and grief. It of intimidating entertainment conglomermechanically crafts the appeal for what once ates. Nostalgia can be healing, and even inwas over what will be, and the question at its spiring. Not only has research shown that core becomes a morbid one – what if what it helps boost creativity, but also think of lies ahead is never as good as what’s past? how it has inspired the premise of exciting new content. The allure is timeless, solidifying collective memory and fostering ideas that transcend the individual self.

In the end, it’s not too surprising to see familiar faces reprising roles that we marvelled at as kids. I doubt either director devised the cameos to selflessly replenish our post-Covid serotonin reserves (admittedly, that appearances like Garfield and Maguire’s are just fan-service to recoup isn’t fully off the table). Still, I can’t deny the impression the cameos and callbacks had on me, given movies’ significance during my upbringing, but mainly because of the emotional strain of the pandemic and an anxious-depressive period that preceded it. When the present and the future appear dire, wanting to indulge in old sources of comfort is inevitable. Cinema becomes a haven in the face of hopelessness and stress, and the familiarity it depicts becomes affirmative of the sought-after simplistic and relatively innocent emotional reassurance. As I sit down to watch three guys in CGI’d red-and-blue spandexs shooting webs around for the third time, I notice myself feeling, even if momentarily, at ease. Nostalgia’s impact on popular culture remains thanks to it being a valuable coping mechanism. Indeed, there’s some solace granted in revisiting joys past. At the end of a harsh day, even if it’s on a screen and comes off as entirely anticlimactic, recognizing an old face is a perfectly decent source of bliss.

A University College Student Association Magazine

CULTURE

Pondering with Jane

What Is the Value of Things? by Jane Cole It’s winter break and you are finally going home - your non-UCU-home that is. Into your suitcase go some sweaters, shirts, jeans, sweatpants, underwear, the few pairs of socks you have without holes… and an extra pair of underwear just in case (what if you get your period and poop your pants twice?) The bag looks too full, and you wish you could learn to pack light, but you ultimately decide that you really want to take three flannels. Why does packing take up so much headspace? Does the worry lie in forgetting something or overpacking? Into your backpack go your devices, your charger, your other charger, and your other other charger (can’t go a week without it), a sketchbook you might use, and a book you won’t read. On the road, you realize you forgot your toothbrush, but that worries you much less than the gifts you still have to buy. What do people want? What things do people need? A very privileged ponder, but nonetheless, recently I’ve been pondering about the value of things.

At home, special Christmas dishes are used - you haven’t seen them for a year. In your parent’s cabinet there are new mugs. Or maybe you just never knew they existed. There are many books, many pictures in picture frames, many candles, baskets, and even some candles in baskets. A deck of cards falls out when you open a cabinet. The utensil drawer is so packed you can’t close it. Your own room is full of your things. You forgot you had so many things… but you are excited to see them. Why are you excited to see them? You don’t plan to use them, you just like knowing your things are there. On a certain celebratory day, you get gifts from your family and friends. Do you leave them in your room? Or do you take them back to UCU? What does it mean for something to belong to me anyway? Using, keeping, carrying, or storing? Why do little ones respond to other little ones with “no! this toy is mine!”? If we are not using something, why would it

matter if someone else used it? Perhaps we are scared it could become damaged or lost and we couldn’t use it in the future when we might want to. But is this concern really worth the worry? Is having to keep track of your things worth possibly being able to use them one day? Is it worth it to store things just for the sake of having them? Is taking the extra clothes on your trip worth the weight of your bag and the scatteredness of your mind? I don’t just ponder about the value of things, but what’s the value of having things if you don’t use them? The break is over and the Christmas dishes are packed back into a box. You pack your clothes back into your suitcase: flannels, shirts, and underwear you never used, a pair of jeans you wore every day. Now back in Utrecht you dump your heavy suitcase in your room and walk into the common room. You let out a breath of relief as you open the utensil drawer to a single spoon.

Unfiltered by Elisa Uccello My father is a poet. I love saying that because it is the only thing I can say about him in the present tense. Well, I can also say “my father is gone” (people are more comfortable with such euphemisms than ‘dead’). But anything else I tell you about him must come after the verb ‘was’, and that’s a verb that carries a lot of weight. I figure most of us would agree that ten years is a long time, but doesn’t relativity have the power to make anything subjective? My father died at 53. My wishful thinking infers that I will live past that. But ten years was the time we simultaneously breathed for. A long time? Not nearly enough. Perhaps saying that he breathed for these ten years is a bit of an overstatement. After he walked home with the diagnosis of an irremediable disease, when I was only three years old, his world started spinning at quite a unique pace. Soon, the air flowing through his lungs was mediated by tubes and machines. Not sure if we can consider that breathing.

Some years later, I poured a bucket of ice water onto my head to participate in the viral challenge that began with the intention of raising money and awareness for the inscrutable thing that was killing my dad. People didn’t learn much about it, but at least now, when asked what happened to him, I can just say, “he had the ice-bucket challenge disease”. The day my mother told me his heart was no longer beating, it felt as if someone had locked me in a dark room before I had time to see where the light switch was. I felt lost and hopeless. At ten, I was too young to deal with grief. It took me years to realize that he was already gone long before that day. Being alive, as one of his poems says, is not the same as living. After almost a decade since his funeral one would expect me to be fine. And I am, for most of the time. I don’t think about his death as often; I try to think more about his life. That’s what disconcerts me the most: how can I hold such dear memories of a

person I never met? Is any of it real, or did I make it up so I would have something to hold on to? Do I think of who he was or of who I want him to have been? How much of it is projection, a collage of pictures and stories that never belonged to me? I’m not sure if the answer matters. Ultimately, even an atheist like me needs a saint to believe in. Nevertheless, my father is a poet. His words are still alive. And although the disease took him way too soon for me to remember his voice, I can see the world through his eyes when I read the verses he left behind. I sit down, open the pages, and let him tell me about his loves and fears. I get to know him through the study of stanzas that reveal more than he ever had time to. I can look for comfort or advice in the dried ink, and I can astound myself with his talent or be inspired by his mettle. My father is gone, but he is still a poet, for writing grants one the ability to live way beyond their death.

12 CULTURE

The Boomerang | February 2022

Monkey Brain by Mats Meeus

A friend of mine recently tried MDMA for the first time. Although she was pretty adamant about it being the best thing she’d ever done (‘orgasmic,’ ‘pure love,’ ‘I spent forty-five minutes rubbing my face against the carpet’ etc. etc.), she found recounting the experience extremely distressing, almost embarrassing. It had thrown her into what was beginning to look like an existential crisis: how could this feeling that completely blew everything else out of the water come from a pink pill in the shape of a Tesla logo cooked up by some junkie in a barn in Brabant? Here, finally, was the secret to human fulfillment, and they didn’t even bother to get the color of the logo right!

I was beginning to suspect I was depressed, but then again, so was everyone else. The psychologist’s waiting list was so long that I didn’t bother putting myself on it. What was the point? Even after a two month wait, all you’d ever get was a med school flunkie making you fill out Likert scales so they could calculate your ‘likelihood of offing self’ score. And I certainly felt more complex than that.

that St. John’s wort works as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, which means it stops your body from breaking down dopamine and serotonin quite as quickly as it normally does - basically just a plant-based antidepressant. After three days on it, I had more energy, and I felt like my movements were getting snappier. After a week, I was feeling noticeably less gloomy. And after two weeks, I felt almost like a normal person again.

"your state of mind has for months been determined entirely by poorly balanced chemicals within the lump of flesh between your ears"

At the end of my second semester at UCU, I was feeling pretty terrible. My college experience had ended up consisting mainly of me sitting in Teams meetings with my camera off, tapping through clubbing videos from my friends who were studying abroad. I was spending much of my time ruminating about the Wretched State Of The World and how the government was Destroying My Formative Years.

Eventually, I got around to googling 'depression tips.' Most of the articles started by suggesting healthy eating and exercise, which seemed like insultingly unactionable advice. Nevertheless, one of them mentioned an herbal supplement charmingly named St. John’s wort. I popped into Trekpleister and bought a month’s supply for €3. The scientific community’s best guess is

I’ve heard a few stories about people who were debilitatingly depressed, only to find out that their affliction was caused by something completely banal: anticonception, hypothyroidism, iron deficiency, that kind of stuff. This means that your state of mind has for months been determined entirely by poorly balanced chemicals within the lump of flesh between your ears - a lump of flesh for which eating spinach and taking plant pills seem to matter just as much as being a generally fulfilled and well-rounded human being.

I think it’s the same kind of discomfort my friend felt - the sudden realization that most of the things going on inside your head are caused by chemicals you can fiddle with. Doing this with fish oil is probably a bit more sustainable than taking MDMA all the time, but it comes down to the same idea: your brain is part of your body, and you can put things in your body.

A University College Student Association Magazine

CULTURE

Cinematic Waffle

by Yağmur Zubaroğlu Wanna become an actor? Wanna be famous?

Your dreams are now just a click away with David Lynch’s freshly served Hollywood nightmare, Mulholland Drive (2001). The film starts with a car crash on the remote highway Mulholland Drive, giving a woman amnesia. She finds herself on Sunset Boulevard, where her path would cross with the hopeful Hollywood actress-to-be, Betty. Together they try to solve the mystery surrounding the car crash by following clues and looking for answers all around Los Angeles. A few words for the David Lynch freshman – don’t panic if you don’t understand what’s going on at first glance. Learning how to read his work might be hard if you are not used to it. The first rule is to leave behind the urge to look for causation. Regarding his cinema, Lynch says, “I don’t know why people expect art to make sense when they accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.” And I, of course, agree with him. In the first two hours of the film, we wander through the pastel-coloured streets of Los Angeles. Betty is talented, kind, smart, naive, and the industry loves her. Everything works out; climbing the ladder of success

is easy for beautiful blonde Betty. While we already start questioning this part, the last half hour of the film hits with a tsunami of confusion. We watch the perfect dream fall apart as the pastel colours leave their place to unsettling bits of reality. It’s not easy to keep track of the events anymore. Where did we come from? Where did we go? There is no linear timeline anymore. Just like in a dream, common sense disappears. Lynch uses Hollywood’s own weapon against itself; while dreams are shown within pitch-perfect classical Hollywood style, the reality is depicted just like a dream. Mulholland Drive is a collection of Hollywood exposés. The beautiful brunette amnesic lady panics when Betty asks her name. She shouts “Rita!” as she sees a Rita Hayworth poster on the wall. Rita Hayworth is a film noir actress from 50’s classic Hollywood. Born as Margarita Carmen Cansino, her Hollywood career started with her being cast exclusively as “exotic foreigners.” Taking advice from studios, she changed her hair colour from dark brown to dark red and raised her hairline with electrolysis to have a broader forehead. Finally changing her name to Rita Hayworth, she became a Hollywood icon. It’s not a coincidence that the Hispanic amnesiac lady decided to introduce herself as Rita. Throughout the film

we see how Rita turns into another Betty. We meet Adam in a meeting room where he’s sitting with a bunch of men with briefcases. Adam is a director, and these men are said to be his producers. “This is the girl”, they say, showing a photo. The producer mafia already chose the lead actress for Adam’s film. Regardless of how furious he is, he doesn’t have a chance to go against them. You can’t fight with money, ehm, I mean, the industry. What is Lynch trying to tell us with these stories? Nothing is what it seems. The classical Hollywood that shapes everyone’s dreams is an illusion. Fame and fortune are not served on a golden plate in Hollywood. No one’s waiting with open arms for a beautiful talented person to show up. The pastel-coloured Hollywood dream is just a disguise of the uncanny reality. Don’t believe everything you see! There is no orchestra! It’s an illusion! If you get instantly addicted to David Lynch, like I did, I further recommend Blue Velvet (1989) for Freudian fantasies, Lost Highway (1997) for self-confrontation, and Twin Peaks (1990) for a deep dive into ungodly mysteries.

Agony Aunt "I think I kind of have a thing for my unit mate... how do I flirt with them without making things too weird? Or should I just try and forget about it?" The most important part is to gauge whether it is mutual. You don’t want to make the other person uncomfortable in what is also their own home. If it’s clear that they don’t feel the same way, drop it and find a way to move on. However, if you think the feeling may indeed be mutual, put out some feelers: are they in a relationship already? Subtly ask if they’re looking for anything. Figure out what you want out of the situation - a relationship? A hook-up? Ask a unit mate you trust for a second opinion. If they agree that the feelings may be reciprocal, make a move! If they don’t see it, maybe mull it over a bit longer. In the end, you’ll have to live with them until the end of the year, so do what will make that the most comfortable it can be, for you and them.

CULTURE

SUDOKU

A University College Student Association Magazine

CROSSWORD

Across: 1. Prancing stage dance with backwards tilt. 4. What gets wet when drying? 5. Exists in a song. What word rhymes with "Pegasus" 8. Delicate, choosy. Hint: Combination of Latin word "fastus (arrogance)" and "teaedium (irksome)" 9. I can be cracked, I can be made. I can be told, I can be played... What am I?

2. Grovel. Act of deep respect by prostration. 3. Release from slavery 6. I can only live where there is light, but I die if the light shines on me.... What am I? 7. What must take a bow before it can speak? 10. I have no mouth but I always reply when you speak to me. What am I?

Down

15 QUAD QUERIES

The Boomerang | February 2022

What is the weirdest thing a White person has ever said to you?

thank you in "Isn’t namaste language"

yoga

- Avantika

l I ever

ir Asian g t s r fi e be th date ” “You'd n – Vivia

"Do they speak Colum bian in Colombia?" - Monse

“You sound like Soph – Sophia

ia Vergara”

"Where are you from? Mexico Aaaaaa.... puta" –

Lalo

" I don’t t

rust you beca race" use of your –

Ash

Boomerang uses wind energy printers The Boomerang is a periodical newspaper. It comes out eight times a year. This is the fourth edition of the academic year.