22 West Magazine - February 2020

Issue 86.01

February 3, 2020 www.22WestMedia.com

A First Look at the New ’20s

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Issue 86.01 February 3, 2020 www.22WestMedia.com

Magazine Staff

Letter from the Editor Production day, the day where the magazine gets realized into a fully-formed entity, happens on the last Thursday of every month. This Production Thursday was probably the most lively and collaborative I have seen in the last three and a half years I’ve been working here. This issue throws down a new level of custom artwork, quality content and team spirit. Starting off 2020 with a bang is the biggest gift I could have received after a rocky 2019, and I have hopes that 22 West Magazine will only move forward from here.

At first I was planning to apologize for the various typos and AP formatting mistakes we’ve made in the past, but to be honest, those were all part of the learning process. We’re all students here and that’s the goal right? To learn through practice. It’s time to look forward.

I am particularly looking forward to the year ‘22. I expect it to be the biggest this company has seen. We have to do right for our namesake (the 22 West freeway) and live up to its legacy as a household name in the Long Beach community.

But that can only happen if we have dedicated readers like you. And I guess we also need writers, and artists, and editors — which is why I began a brand new staff writing internship! It looks like the final number is four lucky contestants who will gain experience writing, editing, creating page layouts and generally working at a real-life magazine. If you are interested in taking part in that whole business, internships are now closed but the time to volunteer is now! Many of our staff will be graduating in the spring, and if we hope to uphold the legacy we need to train generations to come. So yeah, meetings are on Tuesdays. :) - Tara

Volunteer Meetings: Tuesdays @ 3:30pm USU 112 Disclaimer and Publication Information: 22 West Magazine is published using ad money and partial funding provided by the Associated Students, Inc. All Editorials are the opinions of their individual authors, not the magazine, ASI nor LBSU. All students are welcome and encouraged to be a part of the staff. All letters to the editor will be considered for publication. However, LBSU students will have precedence. Please include name and major for all submissions. They are subject to editing and will not be returned. Letters may or may not be edited for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and length. 22 West Magazine will publish anonymous letters, articles, editorials, and illustration, but must have your name and information attached for our records. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 500 words. 22 West Magazine assumes no responsibility, nor is it liable, for claims of its advertisers. Grievance procedures are available in the Associated Students business office.

Tara Thomas, Editor-in-Chief editorinchief@22westmedia.com Joel Vaughn, Managing Editor managingeditor@22westmedia.com Marissa Espiritu, Art Director artdirector@22westmedia.com Bria Manning, Lead Copy Editor Enacio Diaz, Distribution Manager Kaleen Luu, Staff Writing Intern Erin Haworth, Staff Writing Intern Janna Wolf, Staff Writing Intern

Contributors Shruthi Anand, Writer Xochilt Andrade, Writer & Photographer Dominic Hure, Writer Brandon Kheang, Writer Moises Marquez, Writer Cassandra Puentes, Artist Cindy Sanchez, Artist Erin Thompson, Artist Teresa Villalobos, Artist Anthony Volzage, Artist Gerell Wilson, Writer & Artist

Cover Design Marissa Espiritu, Art Director

Contact Us Phone: (562) 985-4867 Mail: 1212 Bellflower Blvd. Suite 112 Long Beach, CA 90815

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Contents Entertainment 5

Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian Name a more iconic duo. We’ll wait.

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The Power of Storytelling Indie game developer gives us a peek inside the industry.

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Big Pictures of 2019 150 word reviews on the latest movies.

Culture 10

The 21st Century in Retrospective Have we progressed or only gotten stupider?

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The Color of Love Reflections on love from Long Beach students.

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Pawties for Furiends Getting to know Instagram’s fluffiest influencers.

Music 16

Collective Effervescence The intersection of sociology and music.

Arts 18

A Tribute to My Father A short poem.

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Cactus Boy A comic.

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Flight 4692 Catching flights and feelings.

Grunion 22 4

Thicc Flappers We ask modern-day flappers what it takes.

Entertainment

Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian What happens when a bounty hunter becomes a stepdad.

By Erin Haworth

Art by Anthony Volzage

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of “The Mandalorian,” or at least of Baby Yoda. So I’m here to give you my completely unwarranted take on the first season of everyone’s favorite mistaken characters, the Mandalorian (not Boba Fett) and The Child aka Baby Yoda (not actually Yoda).

It’s established early in the first episode that the series is exploring the time span between “Return of the Jedi” and “The Force Awakens,” specifically five years after the fall of the empire. This decision allows the creators to explore a completely new aspect of the canon. They give it the same style as beloved space westerns “Firefly” and “Cowboy Bebop” with the added haunting visuals of a decrepit empire struggling to regain power in the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

The show follows our titular Mandalorian as he struggles to protect The Child from the remains of a dying empire. Throughout these adventures, the audience gets to learn more about Mandalorian culture with just a sprinkling of revelations about The Child’s species, something the main series of films has yet to dive into. The show also includes many hidden Easter eggs for the Star Wars superfan without being distracting for the average watcher.

Something that really struck me about this series

was how the individual voices of the different directors shine through each episode. Over eight episodes, five different directors take on the challenge, including notable names like Bryce Dallas Howard and Taika Waititi, and even though most episodes were written by Jon Favreau, each one feels unique. Overall, the show does an excellent job at giving meaning to each side adventure while maintaining cohesion across the series. The only exception being episode five, “The Gunslinger,” which ends up feeling underdeveloped and a little soulless. Over the course of this first season, we get to explore who the Mandalorian is and how these events change him — and it’s a total delight to watch.

But for all the brilliance of the show, Baby Yoda has enraptured even the most cold-hearted of people. When the first episode premiered on Nov. 12, no one was expecting such an adorable surprise. The show’s marketing prior to its premiere was completely absent of Baby Yoda and when he first appeared at the end of episode one, it caused a complete social media firestorm.

Overnight, Baby Yoda became the hottest topic and newest meme, leading to the best free marketing Disney could have hoped for. All in all, “The Mandalorian” is well worth your time, even if you only watch it to bathe in Baby Yoda’s cuteness.

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Entertainment

The Power of Storytelling Indie game developer gives us a peek inside the industry.

By Joel Vaughn From a small ski town to Sony Playstation and starting an independent studio, Johnnemann Nordhagen has developed a passion for games, observed changes in how the game industry treats narrative and expressed a need for worker protections.

Nordhagen finds that describing his career is a “harder question than you would know.”

Nordhagen’s career in games began in quality assurance at Sony Playstation before moving on to program for the Bioshock series at 2K Marin, after which he moved on to co-found Fullbright Games which released Gone Home to critical praise in 2013. Currently, Nordhagen is the head creative director as well as the sole employee at his own game development studio, Dim Bulb Games, which released Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, an American folktalebased narrative adventure game, in 2018.

Nordhagen grew up in Snowmass, Colorado, a small ski town. Like many who grew up in the late eighties and early nineties, Nordhagen describes his passion for games, particularly role playing and narrative-based games, starting in basements with childhood friends over Dungeons and Dragons handbooks and stacks

Art by Erin Thompson of Magic cards. For Nordhagen, D&D and other table-top games were a means to create worlds, maps and adventures.

Games continued to develop into a childhood pastime for Nordhagen when he was gifted a Windows computer at 10 years old and then later, a Nintendo Entertainment System.

“Video games at the time were certainly very mechanically focused,” Nordhagen said. “There was the narrative in many games, of course, but there wasn’t the sort of pure narrative game that we see today.”

Outside of games, Nordhagen also made a point of learning how to program in DOS, Shell Script and other basic coding languages on his home computer. For Nordhagen, this made games a more tangible product and the experience of interacting with a computer more concrete through customization.

Being in a small town, Nordhagen wasn’t able to grow up around other computer geeks, which in turn made programming and playing games on his computer a very personal experience.

Nordhagen had grown up enmeshed in games and working with computers, but it wasn’t until he joined a video game club in college that he realized that his childhood passion could turn into a career.

After college, Nordhagen assumed that he

For Nordhagen, D&D and other table-top games were a means to create worlds, maps and adventures.

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would have the standard trajectory in triple-A game development: move from developer to developer up the company ladder until becoming a senior lead. Things didn’t turn out like that though. When he left 2K Marin and helped found Fullbright early in 2010, the indie gaming scene was experiencing a popular boom, allowing Nordhagen to consider going independent as a viable career path.

Nordhagen attributes part of Gone Homes’ success to the resurging indie market and the absence of narrative-driven games coming out of bigger studios. Gone Home also served as an early example of small, personal stories in video games. “[Gone Home] was a story about two young women falling in love, and that’s not the sort of thing that any triple-A studio would touch with a 10-foot pole in 2012,” Nordhagen said. “Just being able to tell the kind of stories that were important to us and also do them in a way that didn’t have to follow the patterns of accepted game design was really incredibly freeing.”

While Nordhagen sings the praises of the indie scene, he is also intimately aware of the drawbacks of not having a steady stream of income, health insurance or guarantee of financial returns after the project is finished. Even with the instant success of Gone Home, Nordhagen explains that the team at

Fullbright had to pour all of their savings into a project they wouldn’t see returns on until after Steam sales were processed.

But financial security in the indie scene certainly isn’t the only issue currently facing the games industry. Nordhagen characterizes one of the major downfalls of game development as a lack of diverse representation.

“From the very beginning of the industry it’s been a white male dominated field that glamorizes working very hard and just not treating oneself or others well,” Nordhagen said. “In general people need to hire more marginalized folks and make more content about people that don’t look like your standard game developer.”

One of the examples Nordhagen points to is Riot Games’, the developer for League of Legends, recent bath in hot water over sexual harassment and gender discrimination. A possible solution to this is an organized push for workers rights in the game industry. Nordhagen finds some hope in The Communication Workers of America’s efforts to unionize the game and tech industries.

Nordhagen wants to be clear that the indie space isn’t bereft of its own issues with inclusivity and working conditions. “They don’t solve the problem of power differentials and pushing, the kind of weaponized passion of the game industry,” Nordhagen said.

That being said, Nordhagen has seen video games, both in terms of the industry and the games themselves, change significantly since he has become involved, so maybe there’s some hope for the future.

Both Gone Home and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine can be found on Steam.

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Entertainment

Big Pictures of 2019 150 word reviews on the latest movies.

2019 was quite the year, huh?

Despite all of the clutter and shenanigans, last year was a good time for film. We’ve seen a resurging interest in indie films through the evergrowing popularity of production companies like A24 and Neon.

An increasingly diverse range of films are being played in theaters, bringing new faces and stories to the big screen. And of course, big name movie franchises are as entertaining and prevalent as ever.

There’s definitely something for everyone to enjoy, so here are some of our friendly neighborhood video staff’s top film picks for 2019.

What should you do when told to keep your grandma’s cancer diagnosis a secret from her? This is the central conundrum that “The Farewell,” directed by Lulu Wang, explores.

It is a witty, uplifting, family drama based on an actual lie from Wang’s childhood. Billi, played by Awkwafina, is a Chinese American who returns to her hometown of Changchun to find that her entire family is keeping their grandma’s terminal cancer a secret so that she may enjoy what could be her final family reunion.

What draws me so much towards “The Farewell” is the nuance it brings to portraying the Asian American experience.

Billi is a character who finds herself stuck between two worlds.

She wants to hold dear to her Chinese heritage which often comes into conflict with her American ideals.

The film explores what it is to navigate through family expectations and the different ways we show love for each other. Ultimately, “The Farewell” is a celebration of what makes family, well, family.

By Brandon Kheang

By Dominic Hure When I tell people that I’m a film student they always ask, “What kind of movies do you want to make?” and I always have a really difficult time answering.

I stumble over my words saying something like: “Ya know, I want to make like a witty comedy that’s like kinda dumb, but also serious, but like in a quirky way but will make ya cry, ya know?!?”

Then they look kinda confused, they smile, nod politely and usually slowly back away.

But now I can just say that I want to make movies like “Jojo Rabbit.” Taika Waititi’s film is about a dedicated Hitler Youth boy whose priorities are called into question when he finds out his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their house.

Extremely goofy humor usually takes all the dramatic weight out of a movie.

However, “Jojo Rabbit” switches seamlessly back-and-forth between humor and drama to get your guard down and then punch you in the face with sadness, in a good way. Go see it. Movies are great.

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The dead speak! J.J. Abrams has finally released the long anticipated ending to the Skywalker saga.

Full disclosure, I love “The Force Awakens” and I think “The Last Jedi” took almost everything that film set up and disregarded all of it to subvert expectations in some of the worst ways possible.

Coming into “Rise of Skywalker,” I was extremely excited since Abrams had come to finish what he started, and I loved it.

It felt the most quintessential out of the Sequel Trilogy because it included sith lore like the wayfinders, alluding to the world between worlds, characters across the cartoons and films and the struggle between the Skywalkers and the Palpatines.

The lightsaber battles have never been better and the new uses of the force are a great addition to the lore.

It was an epic, thrilling adventure from beginning to end that reminds me why I loved Star Wars.

By Moises Marquez

By Shruthi Anand

Adam Sandler will blow your mind.

“Uncut Gems” follows Howard Ratner, a jeweler in the Diamond District, as he puts his job, family and reputation on the line to achieve the lifestyle of his dreams. Sandler delivers an unforgettable, award-winning performance as a character that you will despise, but also care for.

This film is like nothing you have seen before. It’s an experience. “Uncut Gems” dives head first into its thrilling narrative with such extreme anxiety that it forces you to the edge of your seat. You’ll want to leave just to escape the tension, but your eyes will stay glued to the screen.

“Uncut Gems” is a cinematic roller coaster of intense emotional conflict that you won’t want to miss. Just walk into the theater, don’t watch any trailers or read any reviews, and enjoy the ride.

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Culture

The 21st Century in Retrospective An assessment of our modern-day progression and regression.

By Bria Manning

Art by Cassandra Puentes

We have finally reached the second decade of the 21st century where, instead of zooming around the open sky in zero carbon emission vehicles, we are enlarging our carbon footprint every minute we sit in traffic on the 605. Although it may seem easier to dive into the reflecting pool of the shortcomings of humankind, there are still a few things worth patting ourselves on the back for. There is no denying we’ve done some good in the past two decades; the question then becomes how much have we managed to accomplish with all we’ve been given?

Assessing the pessimistic (though some may call it realistic) aspect of events, we were supposed to have accomplished so much more by 2020 — and the U.S. was supposed to be at the forefront of that change. Yet we have found ourselves with Donald Trump as our impeached president, high homelessness rates in major metropolitan cities and mass shootings at an alltime high. At the end of last year, the Program for International Student Assessment released its results, revealing disparities among U.S. students on local, national and global levels.

On an international scale, the U.S. saw a major shift in its foreign policy during this decade, moving from containing communism to combating terrorism. Facebook grows more nefarious with every update and Google continues to sow the seeds of distrust deeper

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into our private lives. Climate change is well on its way to hitting the roof and, when it does, not even Greta Thunberg’s activism nor Elon Musk’s ambitions to colonize Mars will save us.

In short, the world was supposed to be on its way towards progressivism, freedom and equality. Though not all of these ambitions have been exactly short-sighted, how much of it has actually backfired on humanity?

Nicholas Kristof, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote a piece titled, “This Has Been the Best Year Ever.” He gives escaping extreme poverty, reduction in child

mortality and increase in literacy as three main reasons why “for humanity over all, life just keeps getting better.”

“As recently as 1981, 42 percent of the planet’s population endured ‘extreme poverty,’ defined by the United Nations as living on less than about $2 a day,” Kristof writes. “That portion has plunged to less than 10 percent of the world’s population now.” Hurray for the children and increased literacy rates, but it’s still worth noting that, although it’s great that the general population living in poverty has decreased significantly, it’s not clear if this is merely due to billionaires becoming increasingly richer and the poor remaining stagnant.

Perhaps the reason why dwelling on the bad seems to be automatically effortless is because the situations seem truly dire. Cybercrime, climate change, poverty, corrupt politicians, terrorism and more? Although it may appear we are absolutely fucked, we’ve achieved some admirable things in this century too.

For all of the controversies and incidents that have indubiously become more apparent in recent years, technology has overall made life more efficient and enjoyable. Public consumers became acquainted with WiFi, Apple and Bluetooth. Tesla Motors began developing its first electric vehicle in 2004 and, with improvements in battery technologies, the automobile industry has only been increasing its manufacturing of clean energy vehicles.

Estonia, a country in Northern Europe, has become a “digital republic” in which citizens have access to public services, from voting to health care, “linked across one platform,

wiring up the nation.” What’s more, since 2014, anyone can apply for e-residency and even have digital access to the country’s services from their own home.

Some positive momentum has even begun to pick up in Hollywood and the entertainment industry as well. The Oscars have become — just slightly — less white and male, and the #MeToo movement empowered women to speak up and deliver justice against their abusers. Other movements such as Black Lives Matter, the yellow vests, and the Hong Kong protests exhibited the voices of those disenchanted with their countries’ racial, social, economic and political states and their refusal to let their governments slide on these issues.

Unfortunately, some displays of violence have been resorted to in order to make people pay attention and take action.

If there is one thing that the last two decades have taught us, it’s that so much can happen in such a short amount of time.

Given all the follies we’ve accumulated over the last twenty years, it is sufficient to say that there is substantial room for improvement. Not only that, but we have the resources to make efficient, beneficial and progressive change. As Estonia’s national digital advisor, Marten Kaevats, told the New Yorker in 2017: “‘It’s about the mind-set. It’s about the culture. It’s about the human relations — what it enables us to do.’”

In summation, we can either live in distrust and squander, hiding behind the stickers covering our laptop cameras and remaining discouraged to vote, or we can use the tools we’ve produced ourselves to rise above and strive to be better in this new decade of the twenty-first century.

If there is one thing that the last two decades have taught us, it’s that so much can happen in such a short amount of time.

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Culture

The Color of Love Hailey Detterich, 23, English Education Q: Have you ever received a Valentine’s Day gift?

In middle school when you had those little plastic bags and you had to put the little Valentine’s in, with those sweethearts — the conversation heart things. Oh man, those were the times.

Q: What color do you think love is?

I think most people would traditionally say red, but I mostly associate it with green because forest-y green is kind of like where I spend a lot of my time and where I spend a lot of time with my partner. So that’s what I associate with them and with my family too.

Casandra Aguilera, 22, Studio Art Q: What is the perfect Valentine’s Day gift?

I’m not really about the whole typical flowers and chocolates.

I prefer something more creative and personal, so maybe something handmade or something a little more thoughtful.

Q: What color do you think love is?

I think red. Whenever I think of love I just think red, and I’m an art major so I’m super into the meanings of colors, and red is THE definition of passion.

Alejandro Lopez, 25, Environmental Science and Policy Q: What would you say is the perfect Valentine’s Day gift?

I’m not into gifts. I feel like we don’t need that much, a lot of people have what they need. But I would say something simple, it doesn’t have to be something big.

Q: What color do you think love is?

I would say gold just because it’s bright.

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Reflections on love from Long Beach students.

Interviews and Photos by Xochilt Andrade

Abigail Rollins, 22, English Literature Q: What does Valentine’s Day mean to you?

Valentine’s Day is just another day like any other, but it’s one where you have the opportunity to be especially kind and communicative with people in your life.

Q: What do you think is the color of love?

I’m going to go ahead and say purple. As much as I do love colors like red and pink and all the ones that are traditional, I feel like purple is a very deep color and it doesn’t seem to be overused, which I really like. I like the idea of love being special in particular.

Fernando Ramirez Bello, 23, Mechanical Engineering Q: Do you think Valentine’s Day is a holiday solely meant for companies to make money?

I mean yeah, if anything there’s nothing wrong with that. You like giving? Take the discounts that they’re offering.

Q: What color do you think love is?

I think blue.

Manny Mora, 24, Environmental Science and Policy Q: Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day or do you choose not to celebrate at all?

I do celebrate Valentine’s Day because my girlfriend would be upset if we didn’t. So for the past few years we’ve gone to the same small restaurant that’s in our neighborhood. It’s a small local restaurant that we like to support but that’s what we do.

Q: What color do you think love is?

I think love is a spectrum of colors, not just red and pink but bright colors that make you happy.

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Culture

Pawties for Furiends Getting to know Instagram’s fluffiest influencers.

By Janna Wolf He elegantly balances over the tree trunk and presents his hairy butt confidently to the camera.

The post has almost 5,000 likes on Instagram and the influencer gets a lot of compliments for his backside in the comments. Before the image in your head becomes too vivid, this story is about a dog—a corgi to be exact. Aqua is a socalled “petfluencer.” It may be hard to understand the enthusiasm for a dog’s butt, but the universe of petfluencers has its own rules and the furry backside of a corgi can be quite popular according to #corgibutt.

Aqua does not seem to care that he has over 144,000 followers on Instagram and is a small celebrity. His owner, Kay Morikawa, talks about the fluffy herd dog’s career while he snoozes under the table.

“All my friends started to have babies and they started to post their babies’ pictures on Facebook. I got annoyed,” Morikawa said. “That’s

why I started an account for my dog.”

She uses the publicity of the account for her work as a photographer. “Half of my account is for my satisfaction,” Morikawa said.

“And the other half is to get connections for my photography business. When Aqua gets some jobs, that is great too.” Her four-legged friend has his own merchandise and hashtags for special characteristics like his love of balls, #AquaAndAYellowBall and his aversion to water, #NoAquaForAqua.

This corgi belongs to the first generation of Los Angeles’ petfluencers. Aqua’s Instagram account was started seven years ago. According to Morikawa, it was much easier back then because there was no competition. Today there are many more petfluencers, and puppies are especially popular.

This is proven by Mortimer, an English bulldog from Long Beach, whose owner Wendy Healy started their Instagram account when he was eight weeks old. In the past one and a half years, Healy has documented Mortimer’s growth in pictures and videos.

Today he has 25,000 followers.

“It’s more than a fullMortimer is also sponsored time job” by several companies and, amongst other things, she is - Kay Morikawa also doing a photoshoot for dog clothing in January. “We are still getting a name out there,” Healy said. While Mortimer enjoys his lazy dog life, his owner has to work Photo by Kay Morikawa hard for the success. Healy reports that in

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Photo by Wendy Healy

addition to the everyday posting, she has to do stories and engage with her followers and other influencers.

She is working fulltime and Instagram is supposed to be a hobby for her, but still sometimes feels pressured. “If I go for a couple of days without posting, I get messages like ‘is everything okay?’” Healy said.

“It’s more than a full-time job,” Morikawa said.

Interacting with other influencers is particularly important. Not the number of followers, but the engagement—the likes and comments—is what matters in the end.

It’s no wonder that petfluencers are closely networked with each other. In the community, there is not only a widespread passion for corgi butts, but they have also developed their own language for their postings; the words “fur” and “paw” are frequently used. Instead of friends, “furiends” are coming to a “pawty.” Humans are called “hoomans”. Of course, there are special events and meetings for the animal internet celebrities—just like for “hooman” bloggers.

For Matt Elias, owner of the French bulldog petfluencer Pierre, this is going too far. “Some of those people they think they are famous, but it’s just their dog. That is really weird.”

His Instagram account has almost 17,000 followers. Nevertheless, it is still a fun hobby for him. Sponsored partnerships are too much work.

He doesn’t feel the pressure and posts whenever it works for him. He also loves to dress Pierre to match his favorite movie characters. For “Back to the Future” Day in 2015, he even built a small DeLorean for the bulldog. Pierre is a “serial chiller” and used to costumes. But unlike Mortimer or

“Some of those people they think they are famous, but it’s just their dog. That is really weird.”

- Matt Elias Aqua, Pierre really is a working dog. In addition to his petfluencer existence, he is also a therapy dog, who helps people to relax at LAX and the Children’s Hospital.

“Anywhere he is getting attention, he likes,” Elias said. This attribute not only makes him a good therapy dog, but also the perfect influencer.

Pierre is already used to being on camera.

That’s simply a part of life for an animal influencer. Every owner has their own trick to get a good shot of their canine protégé. For Pierre, a squeaky toy mostly works out, Mortimer’s attention can be caught with a treat and Aqua’s attention always gets caught by his beloved ball. Morikawa even trained Aqua to look into the camera on command. She shows how well this works on the spot: with the commands “stay” and “back” she brings Aqua in front of the scenery in position. At first the corgi is distracted, but the moment Morikawa lifts the phone, the experienced petfluencer knows what to do and looks purposefully into the lens. As soon as he hears the click of the camera, he scurries on. Photo is shot – job is done.

Photo by Matt Elias

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Music

Collective Effervescence Dr. Oliver Wang on the intersection of sociology and music.

By Joel Vaughn Cal State Long Beach sociology professor and former host on KPCC’s Take Two for Tuesday Reviewsday, Oliver Wang, fuses his background in academia with his passion for hip hop in his and Morgan Rhode’s podcast, Heat Rocks.

Dr. Wang’s passion for music and music criticism started with hip hop during his sociology undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley in the early to mid-nineties. Wang describes heatrocks the likes of Ice Cube’s “Death Certificate,” De La Soul’s “3 Feet High and Rising” and Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation to Hold Us Back” as his awakening to a critical consciousness through the political content of hip hop combined with the content of his sociology and ethnic studies classes.

“I think hip hop really helped to inform a lot of the stuff that I was learning in the classroom and also the other way around as well,” Wang said.

Outside of the lyrical content, Wang sings the praises of sampling in hip hop and how it broadened his musical experience to include soul, R&B, jazz, Latin and African music. This confluence of music and collegiate pursuits

Art by Cindy Sanchez led Wang to pursue music criticism and DJing for KALX, UC Berkeley’s college radio station.

“Like I said, hip hop was that gateway for all of my interests as a writer, as a DJ, as a record collector, and as a scholar, and as a podcaster, et cetera,” Wang said. “All of these things really do date back to now we’re talking about 30 plus years ago.”

One PhD in ethnic studies and career as a music critic later, Wang now emphasizes to his students that the experience of music works on two distinct levels: contemplativeness felt when sitting at home with a turntable and headphones, versus the synergistic harmony from hitting up the club, trekking out to a festival or just seeing a friend play a backyard show.

“One of the things about music that’s so powerful is that it is simultaneously a deeply individual and personal thing in terms of the songs, artists or albums that we love feeling extremely intimate and personal to us,” Wang said. “And at the same time, there’s also this very powerful social dynamic to music, in that one of the ways in which we connect to other people is that we might have very different backgrounds, but if you like the same album or you like the same artist,

...when the beat is just right and all the elements align there’s a higher power connecting those participating in the ritual of music.

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this already creates a basic level of connection between people.”

Relating particularly to the group experience of music, Dr. Wang emphasizes that collective effervescence—a sociological concept of simultaneous oneness coined by Émile Durkheim—occurs not just in the religious or ritual experience but also in boogying down the dance floor. This goes back to the point of ritual, or hitting up the club, being a mass bonding mechanism, a sense that when the beat is just right and all the elements align there’s a higher power connecting those participating in the ritual of music.

“It might seem completely ordinary, millions of people go out dancing every single day. They can dance in their bedroom but they don’t, they’re going out to do it,” Wang said. “They’re doing it with other people because what they’re seeking, whether they know it or not, is that high of collective effervescence you get from participating in this ritual with one another. And music is what makes that possible.”

Outside of his academic work, Wang is also a noted author and podcast host. Wang started his current podcast, Heat Rocks, back in 2016 with Morgan Rhodes. Wang and Rhodes’ partnership goes all the way back to their days co-hosting Tuesday Reviewsday at KPPC. “And very soon into that partnership, I think Morgan and I realized that yeah, our tastes are very simpatico and that we were constantly turning each other on to new music,” Wang said.

The move from written music criticism to podcasting about music is a significant one for Wang. He notes that though both modes of music criticism involve scripting out and following an idea. Writing is much more contained. The emphasis is on how a turn of phrase or prose will come off of the page, whereas hosting and interviewing becomes a game of coaxing a guest into sharing their

insights.

“When I write, I’m the person who’s now tasked with coming up with insights and there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that. And I think at a certain point it can be kind of tiring to try to constantly come up with a lot of insight,” Wang said. “Versus as an interviewer, my job is to get someone else to say something really smart and insightful. And when you do so, there’s a great sense of accomplishment.”

One example Wang gives is when he and Rhodes interviewed recording duo and Prince collaborators Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman about Prince’s “Around the World.”

“There were so many points in that interview where I kept thinking to myself, ‘This is so great, like they’re just dropping these nuggets of anecdotes,’” Wang said. “The accomplishment I feel is simply that having them in studio allows for these things that our listeners get to absorb.”

Check out 22westmedia.com for an extended version of our feature on Oliver Wang. You can listen to Heat Rocks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcasting platforms.

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Arts

Desert Boy

By Enacio Refugio

A Tribute to My Father Poem and Art by Gerell Wilson I always wanted him to be proud of me, To prove to the world I deserved to be his legacy, I failed to live up to his expectations on a daily, He died when he was 60 and I was only 23, But today I will prove to him what his strength has always meant to me

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Fiction

Flight 4629 Catching flights and feelings.

By Marissa Espiritu Art by Teresa Villalobos

She was trying very hard to find something wrong in this undeniably flawless face. He was your classic long, tan and handsome, tied up in a fitted raincoat and a pair of earbuds.

Under the plane’s uncomfortably white lights she had the perfect view. She wondered if the delay was a blessing or a curse considering she either got to bask in the face of beauty or marinate in every reason this will never work.

For one, all he could possibly be for her was a view. There was no way she could reach him, no conversation, not even a reason for him to accidentally glance in her direction. She was an aisle and two seats away, backed into the corner of a window seat, hidden behind girls that dressed just like her. And it was the other girls that began her spiral from pride to disappointment when she realized she was “cool� like everyone else and therefore simply unoriginal. Not unique, unsubstantial. Because no one ever wants to be like other girls. But while searching for any one detail to distance her from the masses, she found herself a poor, disheveled, anxiety-ridden excuse of a girl to begin with. Not interesting enough to grab your attention. Not interesting enough to talk to. Not someone to even accidentally bump into. Nothing ever happened to her.

And even if something had happened to her with this boy, what would it actually be?

The unacquirable Hallmark-level of chemistry so apparent that the other girls would willingly

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Arts give up their seats to give love a chance?

A safer, more realistic scenario was maybe some cutesy eye contact, a wave and an opportunity to reconvene when they landed. But realistically, no one was ever going to look at her, and this plane might never take off.

Forty minutes after its scheduled departure, the plane finally reversed out of the terminal. The lights went out so the passengers could watch the plane make it to the runway and wait. Not even a plane taking off could happen to her. She sat in her own darkness, accepting the idea that this is where she belonged anyway. The girl in the window seat waited for something to happen. Some sort of story to tell, a noteworthy moment in the night, a boy to turn around, a plane to take off.

And then it did. It was nothing, and then it was everything. A full hour behind schedule, the plane rushed into the sky like that was going to make up for wasted time. She could feel the plane fumbling on ascension. Racing blindly through the darkness, fighting past the glare of clouds, screaming in horizontal rain. She watched the chaos unfold and silently hoped for disaster.

Turbulence was sort of exciting. She started writing narratives in her head of everything that could possibly go wrong.

They could be struck by lightning, lose half of the plane and land somewhere in the ocean on a tropical island being forced to work together and survive. Or the plane could at least rattle enough to drop the air masks.

Because if anything happened, maybe she’d have an interesting story and a meaningful conversation and a reason for someone to keep talking to her. But instead, the seatbelt

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sign turned off and the craft eventually leveled out for another unsubstantial story.

The lights came back on and she could see the boy again. She wanted to hear his voice as drink service came around. Or catch his attention with her own order as if there was something utterly profound about ordering a water. But her voice disappeared in the vacuum and he never looked her way. He was just a mumble, nod and Pepsi with no ice.

The lights turned off again, trapping her and her complimentary napkin to the sounds of her thoughts. She marinated in her mood, staring at the seat back tray table, upset about the solitude of her window seat.

Switching on the lights to diffuse her angst, she fussed with the napkin to distract herself from herself. She folded it into a crane and asked herself if this made her interesting, the “not like the other girls� type. The kind you took a second glance at and reconsidered.

The substantial type.

Then she almost missed it. He was gone and then he was there. Left his seat for a restroom break and returned down the aisle staring straight at the girl who gave herself a spotlight. Tall and dark, framed by the ambiance of the cabin, she almost couldn’t believe that they were finally face to face. He looked at her, out of all the other girls, like she was something special.

She made eye contact. Tried to smile.

Panicked. Looked away before she can even see his reaction. And he returned to his seat before he could even register her full face.

It was everything and then it was nothing.

She looked out the window as they made their final descent on another unsubstantial flight home.

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Thicc Flappers We ask modern-day flappers what it takes.

By Thom Joe Von & Beatrice Vega Art by Ronald A A Dec. 31, 2019 — LONG BEACH. “Say ya goof, who’s this skinny broad on the cover?” Lacey Ellington asked, a self-described classy bitch and twenty-first century thick flapper.

Ellington and the rest of the iced-out, lace slip dress-wearing crowd are here, lined up outside of the 44 E. Speakeasy and Opium Den, to pulsate with anticipation for the strike of the clock, the bell of the ball to drop and the roar of the new year, 2020, to be heard.

“Oh, flapping’s just the cat’s meow, doll,” Ellington said. “It’s all about being a Zelda, slinging hooch, twerking the Charleston and all that jazz.”

Ellington’s Insta, @CanCanAndJiggleWatts, focuses on burlesque dancing, self-care and how to make it as a flapper in the 2020s.

Her key piece of advice is being scrappy, becoming the big cheese and having a hop of a time.

On the other hand, Ellington’s silk kimono and red cloche hat-donning compadre, Dorris

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Daly, sees being a flapper as all about landing a daddy, a dudded-up dapper, being a regular don out for monied dongs.

“Not to be a gimlet, Lacey, but what good is hopping and hooching if you ain’t in it for the greenbacks?” Daly said. “These lips are sealed ‘less you so happen to be a 49er that struck it rich.”

Daly—an heiress to Gould, Hearse and Koch fortunes — has gained quite a following as a “classical liberal” crypto-facist beauty vlogger and emphasizes the importance of purity, property and liberty as core values for the contemporary flapper.

Lastly, the tuxedo and fedora-clad Rosa Amador-Suarez, a latinx small business owner, bases their flapology on inclusivity, body positivity and just being the cat’s pajamas.

“It don’t take a gumshoe to figure that flapping ain’t just for dolls, dames and bean pickers,” Amador-Suarez said. “Listen babe,

Disclaimer: The Grunion is a work of satire. It in no way reflects the views of 22 West Magazine or Associated Students, Inc. blah blah legal shit...

“Oh, flapping’s just the cat’s meow, doll,” Ellington said. “It’s all about being a Zelda, slinging hooch, twerking the Charleston and all that jazz.”

I’m absolutely ducky over anyone calling themselves a flapper. He’s a flapper, she’s a flapper, they’re a flapper. It’s 2020 bitch, we all flappers.”

With the new year being just around the corner, our trio of dudded-up flappers mull over their hopes, dreams and resolutions for the new decade.

Ellington and Amador-Suarez specifically are looking to turn their craft bathtub gin hustle into a legit, tax paying enterprise while also breaking into the black market vape pen business in the new year.

“After getting chewed out by them temperance Trotskies, me and Rosa decided that maybe it’s time to diversify outta the hooch game,” Ellington said.

“And vape pens are the cat’s meow right now,” Amador-Saurez added.

“Lace by Lacey,” Ellington said. “They’re laced, like Lacey. Oh babe, ain’t that catch phrase the bee’s knees.”

Yes, it is quite the bee with knees. [Disclaimer: bathtub hooch causes blindness and black market vape pens are linked to exploding lung.]

But it isn’t going to be all martinis and Manhattans in 2020 for Daly. The facist fashionista made her worries about the upcoming election clear.

“One of my family friends, who we’ll just say is the big cheese of this fine republic, might be outta a job and, hon, that just takes the pep right outta my step,” Daly said. “It’s a real tragedy fam.

I gotta reconsider this whole arranged marriage business with Barron.”

All of that said, Daly hopes for a Joe Biden nomination since, “that dandy Hunter kid, ya see, is quite the snack. I’d happily invite that Biden boy back to my boudoir for some booger sugar and to eat my cake any time.”

High hopes for the new year indeed.

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