11.13. 19

November 13, 2019 | 34st.com

November13 13,,2019 NOVEMBER 3 WORD ON THE STREET

Annabelle Williams, Editor–in–Chief Dalton DeStefano, Managing Editor Daniel Bulpitt, Audience Engagement Director Lily Snider, Assignments Editor Ethan Wu, Media Director

4 EGO

Sophie Burkholder, Special Issues Editor Allison Wu, Long–Term Features Editor Ryan McLaughlin, Word on the Street Editor Katie Bontje, Ego Editor Sam Kesler, Music Editor Srinidhi Ramakrishna, Developing Features Editor Bea Forman, Style Editor Shannon Zhang, Film & TV Editor Sophia DuRose, Arts Editor Sophia Dai & Eleanor Shemtov, Photo Editors Tahira Islam & Katie Steele, Copy Editors Kira Horowitz & Sarah Poss: Copy Editors

Why the Best Ships Are Friendships

Ego of the Week: Vignesh Valliyur, John Pollack

Alice Heyeh, Print Director

6 MUSIC

Amazon Intercept, Caroline Polacheck, Emo Bands, Lula Wiles

10 STYLE

Emmy Squared, Tik Tok, 69th Street

LOL

12 FEATURE Test Banks

LOL 17 FILM & TV

Doctor Sleep, Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival

20 ARTS

30 Americans, Killijoy's Castle, YA LGBT Novels

LOL 23 OVERHEARDS 2

Ego Beats: Amanpreet Singh, Sonali Deliwala, Katie Farrell, Amy Xiang, Ananya Muthukrishnan, Margaret Dunn, Fernanda Brizuela

Sagner, Chris Schiller Style Beats: Diya Sethi, Karin Hananel, Sofia Heller, Mark Pino, Hannah Lonser, Hannah Gross Film & TV Beats: Shriya Beesam, Samantha Sanders, Anna Collins, Jonah Charlton, Aashray Khanna, Deren Alanay Arts Beats: Rema Hort, Sarah Yoon, Tsemone Ogbemi Design Editors: Gillian Diebold, Lucy Ferry, Jess Tan, Tamsyn Brann Design Associates: Isabel Liang, Ava Cruz, Joy Lee, Sofia Heller, Gebran Abulhai, Sudeep Bhargava, Rhys Floyd, Felicity Yick Staff Writers: Ana Hallman, Arjun Swaminathan, Tara OʼBrien, Hannah Yusuf, Jordan Waschman, Jessica Bao, Quinn Robinson, Layla Murphy, Anya Tullan, Hannah Sanders, Julia Esposito, Avery Johnston, Harshita Gupta

Music Beats: Mehek Boparai, Melannie Jay, Teresa Xie, Petyon Toups, Julia Davies, Keely Douglas

Illustrators: Brad Hong, Jake Lem, Christopher Kwok, Diane Lin, Jacqueline Lou, Isabel Liang, Sammie Yoon, Felicity Yick, Brandon Li, Allison Chen, Madonna Nisha Miranda, Cloe Cho, Sriya Choppara

Features Staff: Zoe Young, Hailey Noh, Katrina Janco, Chelsey Zhu, Katie Bontje, Isabella Simonetti, Denali

Staff Photographers: Hoyt Gong, Sophia Zhu, Diya Sethi, Adiel Izilov, Sally Chen, Mona Lee, Emma Boey,

Amanda Shen, Sudeep Bhargava, Adrianna Brusie, Kelly Chen, Eli Cohen Video Staff: Sam Lee, Megan Kyne, Morgan Jones, Mikayla Golub Copy Associates: Kate Poole, Serena Miniter, Erin Liebenberg, Lexie Shah, Carmina Hachenburg, Luisa Healey, Agatha Advincula Audience Engagment Associates: McKay Norton, Rachel Markowitz, Kat Ulich, Brittany Levy, Jessica Bachner, Maya Berardi, Stephanie Nam Cover by Ethan Wu and Jess Tan What's a "meat-cube"?

Contacting 34th Street Magazine: If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Annabelle Williams, Editor–in–Chief, at williams@34st.com. You can also call us at (215) 422–4640. www.34st.com ©2019 34th Street Magazine, The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. No part may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express, written consent of the editors (but I bet we will give you the a–okay.) All rights reserved. 34th Street Magazine is published by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc., 4015 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa., 19104, every Wednesday.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR A

llow me to set the scene. It's November 2017. Hamilton Court's renovations haven't yet started. I'm a sophomore, it's my first semester editing for Street, and I walk into William Street Common (RIP) for 34th Street's first Battle of the Bands.

Angela Huang emcees, Katherine Ross signs us in at the door, bands perform, people mingle, and the winner gets a piece written about them in Street.

But what happened wasn't as important as the fact that I remember it, years later, as one of the most fun events I've attended at Penn. Battle of the Bands is a night to see people doing what they love.

It's less about competition and more about camaraderie and genuinely having fun.

And now after a year off, we're having another one.

Thursday of this week, at Smokey Joe's, we'll be hosting four bands for some friendly competition and great music. Writers, editors, photographers, and Street staffers will be there, and we hope to see some of the Penn community that we cover there as well. There'll be giveaways, great live music, drink specials, and more.

It would mean the world to me if you could come; bring your friends, Romans, countrymen. Hell, bring your mom—that reminds me, I need to invite mine.

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At our first Battle of the Bands, I was new(ish) to Street. I was unsure of my place here, thinking about running for the board, and wondering where I might fit in. Now I write this from the editor–in–chief's desk and feel a certain cyclicality; I'm proud of how Street has grown, what we've cast off and what we've held close.

And I'm deeply sad that soon this won't be our magazine to run anymore, that in less than a month, my time in this desk is up.

But I'm also hopeful that Street's next editors–in–chief and leaders are out there, and that they'll Battle of the Bands as much as I did.

WORD ON THE STREET

August 28, 2018: Sitting on the concrete bleachers overlooking Sheerr Pool in Pottruck, I was more nervous than I wanted to admit to myself. I was a freshman surrounded by about 40 other strangers, many of whom were pulling swim caps and goggles out of their bags and chatting with friends they hadn’t seen all summer. I introduced myself to the people around me, whose quiet demeanors suggested that they were freshmen, too. As always when I meet new people, I was much more focused on making sure the words coming out of my mouth were coherent English rather than actually learning names. I remembered maybe one person, but I figured it was a problem for later.

Practice got underway, with

Why the Best Ships Are Friendships

referring to both the fact that I joined Penn Club Swim and that I decided on lane four (to my fellow lane four swimmers: I am forever loyal).

When I started at Penn, I knew that I wanted to be part of a club sport. I am by no means an extraordinary athlete, but I had been swimming since I was eight and wasn’t ready to give up the sport just yet. In high school, I loved the camaraderie on my swim team and wanted to experience something similar in college. Not to mention, the exercise aspect of doing a club sport seemed like a plus in face of the “freshman fifteen.” As I made my way around the many tables on Franklin Field one afternoon during NSO, I gravitated toward the energetic group of

to the welcome-back barbecue where I took a shot out of a pull buoy (who knew that was even possible?), I realized I had made a life-changing decision joining PCS. There was something about being with the team, this contagious happy energy of sorts, that immediately spread to me when I was around them. So, as the fall semester picked up, I eagerly looked forward to practice, using it as a break from my writing sem and Math 104 homework to spend an hour and a half with an amazing group of people.

Although, the 9:15 p.m. practice start time on Tuesday was a bit late for the old lady in me if I’m being completely honest.

I quickly got to know everyone through “set 1.5” where we all introduced ourselves, saying

year I would have already made some of my best friends in college. The rest of the fall semester went swimmingly, and I can attribute much of that to PCS.

people jumping up and down at the club swim table. I picked up a flyer with some info about practice and the upcoming barbecue. “Come get wet with us!” it read at the top, and well, I just had to go see what PCS was all about.

From the first practice trying to remember everyone’s name,

where we’re from and answering a question of the day (and yes, we do this every practice).

Soon enough, I was considering PCS my family, and Sheerr Pool my home … well, maybe not exactly my home, but you get the point.

I could never have imagined that a month into my freshman

I had truly hit the jackpot: a group of people who were beyond welcoming, driven, down-to-earth, fun, and definitely a little crazy. With them, I could break out of my shell and be 100 percent me, including (but not limited to) dancing and singing like a lunatic at our meets and social events.

I couldn't imagine what my life would be like at Penn without club swimming, and I never plan on finding out.

Katelyn Masse

Felicity Yick | Illustrator

introductions from the current board members, and then all the newbies and I were split into two groups: the swimming group and the “dryland” group. I headed down onto the pool deck and over to lane four, unaware of the fact that I just made one of the best decisions of college. And yes, I am

Now, this semester as a sophomore, it hasn’t been the easiest, with so many ups and downs I can hardly keep track of them all. But what I’ve realized is that PCS has been my constant. It’s the group of people I go to when I’m down because I know with certainty that I’ll end up with a smile on my face. I know it sounds dramatic, but I truly couldn’t imagine what Penn would be like if I hadn’t joined Club Swim. We’re a hodgepodge of people of all different years, coming from different backgrounds, yet all supporting one another, whether it’s swimming-related or not. Yes, the exercise is nice (though whether or not it kept off the freshman fifteen is questionable). But it’s the people — my best friends and role models — who make me so happy that I picked up that flyer last year and decided to give PCS a try.

The list of reasons as to why I love club swim and am so grateful for it could go on and on, so I’ll end with a chant that may be the cheesiest yet most telling reason as to why I will always be thankful for joining club swim: “There are tall ships And small ships And ships that sail the sea But the best ships Are friendships So here’s to you and me.”

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EGO

Ego of the Week: Vignesh Valliyur Meet the Penn senior who's half of the third-best debate duo in the country, and a card shark on the side.

Quinn Robinson Street: How did you end up choosing both Computer Science and PPE as majors?

VV: It’s super interesting.

So, initially, when I came into Penn, I was very, very social sciences and humanities focused, so I came in as a pure PPE major. And all through high school I had been very focused on political science—like I didn’t take physics or chemistry in high school. When I got to Penn, first semester I took CIS110, and the next semester I took CIS120. I was just feeling it out, and then, I don’t know, some point along the way I realized I really enjoyed Computer Science, and I loved how it taught me to think in a very different way, so some point along the way I decided “alright, let’s go with it.” But I also think there are a lot of interesting applications for these fields, a lot of stuff about fairness in machine learning models, for example, where you talk about how algorithms will systematically discriminate, for example, against people of color. And there are a lot of other interesting applications, like wrongful convictions in that space—legal tech as an industry is growing. So, I could see myself in that general intersection at some point.

Street: Have you personally done anything in the field of law or tech?

VV: So, I worked as a paralegal at a small law firm that only handles capital death penalty cases for indigent cases, … the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center. So all the people they are representing risk facing the death penalty. So that was a very interesting experience, it was interesting going down to the South, to have that experi4

Hometown: Hyderabad, India Major: Computer Science, PPE Activities: Penn Debate Society, CIT 593 TA, Penn Poker Club, Penn Club Tennis, Penn Nataak (global contemporary theater group), Penn Effective Altruism, Undergraduate Economics Society, Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity

ence, because statistically that’s one of the places where you have the most executions per capita, or something like that. And yeah, it was a really interesting experience, working in purely grassroots-level law as a legal intern. It ranged from doing investigative work—talking to witnesses, filing reports, going through crime scene photos; then there was a research project I was working on in regards to the Louisiana Pardon Parole Board, and I tried to do all sorts of frameworks in order to understand how often they gave pardons to people; and there was also some very basic legal research as well. Going through motions, compiling motions, looking at all the motions from past cases. So yeah, it was great, a really holistic experience. I didn’t really use tech or coding there, but the project I worked on with regards to the Department Board and the Parole Board involved a lot of statistics, basically just going through a lot of data, trying to understand what that space looked like—how many people were pardoned, what was their background, what were the crimes they were convicted of.

And which patterns. It was a lot of subjecting my tasks to a lot of, like, analytical rigor, and I thought that was very interesting. And I mean, of course, that was my first tiptoes—the summer after I worked at Amazon, so I got a very huge tech exposure there. Obviously I’m still sort of finding my way, with regards to all that. But I can definitely see myself working in some sort of intersection.

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Street: What’s your most memorable experience with debate?

VV: I think it’s the community. It’s a very lovely community, and the team has grown so much over my four years here.

It’s really great to spend time with them. It’s nice to be—I guess it’s not really a specific memory or moment—I think that’s the highlight of it for me, at least. Just running really funny cases and troll cases, as well.

That’s fun, that’s always fun.

It’s hard—I’ve been through so many rounds over the years.

Street: How was it moving from India to Penn?

VV: It wasn’t—I mean, full disclosure, I was born in Boston, I spent about eight years in Boston, and then my family moved to India, where I spent the rest of my childhood growing up, but it wasn’t as much of a culture shock as I thought it would be. I’m fortunate enough that I can pull a pretty decent American accent, so no one can really tell, but—I think it wasn’t a very rough transition. I was able to come in and amalgamate very quickly. I guess it sucks taking all those flights back and forth, but, other than that, it’s all good.

Street: What do you do as part of Penn Nataak, and what got you interested in contemporary theatre?

VV: So, I was always very fascinated by theater in different forms, whether it be voice acting or stage acting or shooting short films, things like that, it was always an artistic passion of mine. And when I came to

Sally Chen | Photographer

Penn, I felt I’d like to be part of the theater scene, at least for a little bit, so I joined Penn Nataak because I really like the global contemporary theme to it, and there were a lot of plays that are about Asia, which I had a personal connection to, so I think my second semester freshman year I acted in a production and really enjoyed that, and went on to be a director as part of it and organized shows. It was a great learning experience, it was very eye–opening in terms of what it takes to run these shows, how to set up lights, for example, and other technical aspects. But yeah, it was just one of those things I wanted to experiment with, and I was so glad I got to come to Penn to be able to do that.

Street: What kinds of things does Penn Poker Club do, besides host games?

VV: So, they have a nickname for me, which is Viggy Value.

There are games that are hosted almost several times a week— someone will post in the group, and we’ll get together, and we play different kinds of games— like sometimes you play Hold ‘Em, sometimes Omaha. And we’ll occasionally make a run to the casino together, or sometimes there are tournaments.

Street: How successful are you, in general?

VV: I do okay, I do okay. This semester I’m up, like, $2700. playing poker.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

LIGHTNING ROUND Street: Favorite class at Penn?

VV: CIS240.

Street: Favorite tennis player?

VV: Roger Federer.

Street: What song have you listened to most in the past week?

VV: Bohemian Rhapsody.

Street: There are two types of people at Penn…

VV: Chill and unchill.

EGO

“So I’m a caretaker—we are caretakers,” says John Pollack, leaning forward in his cushioned chair. The grandfather clock that sits among the stacks of papers in his sixth floor office seems to stare as he raves about all the library has to offer, and explains his fascination with old books.

Pollack is a curator at the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, and more specifically, in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts.

Though Pollack has been working in the library for over two decades, he didn’t expect to end up at Van Pelt when he first began his academic career. It was his curiosity and inquisitive nature that lead him to the profession.

“I found that the questions that I could ask by seeing the original materials, original primary sources, just sort of changed the way I thought about what I was studying … and I became very interested in how the libraries take care of this material.”

He focuses specifically in Early American Literature, though he loves old books in general.

We sit down on some chairs at his desk. Posters advertising upcoming events at the library plaster his walls, and many sheaves of paper and books are heaped on his shelves. His office is something out of a movie—exactly how you might imagine the office of a library curator to look like. Its idiosyncrasies reflect his own.

It is clear that Pollack has no shortage of work to keep track of.

As a curator of the Kislak Center and the Horace Howard Furness Shakespeare Library, he is responsible for taking care of books and the special collections, assisting students and faculty with research and finding the materials they need, helping to acquire new collections and new components of already existing collections, and a slew of other oddball responsibilities.

He explains the Kislak Center as a library within the Penn

library system that serves as a place where Penn keeps rare books. This can mean a variety of different things, including books from the Middle Ages all the way up to books from the 21st century. Special Collections, however, is its own complex entity within the center. Pollack expounds on this thought, listing some possible inclusions in the collections: “archives, photographs, ephemera, someone’s collection of cinema material or postcards … almost anything really.”

Van Pelt's sixth floor houses a range of all types of mate-

How John Pollack Cares for the Library's Rarest Books Library curator and manuscript enthusiast John Pollack spends his days taking care of every oddity on Van Pelt's sixth floor.

Avery Johnston care of”—as a description of he and his colleagues’ jobs.

As we discuss the library’s upcoming programs and new collections, Dr. Pollack crosses his legs, uncrosses them, and gets up to remove one of his posters from

dows, and spaces to study.

As we walk through the floor, Pollack greets colleagues and students at almost every turn. He continues to stress the necessity of these spaces being open to students, “I don’t want students to

Ethan Wu | Media Director

rial “stretching across the globe, across languages, and across time–periods.”

Pollack’s explanation of all that his floor has to offer accentuates his dedication to his work, but despite his aptitude for balancing all of his responsibilities, he would rather credit the contributions of he and his colleagues as a unit rather than just highlighting his own accomplishments.

After all, it is a curator’s job to caretake for the library—an incredibly complex network of collections—and it is truly a team effort to run such an apparatus.

Pollack cites the Latin root of “caretaker”—cararae or “to take

the wall. The poster describes the new archive coming to Van Pelt on December 5, 2019. He points to all of the other imminent events and exhibits, and suggests a tour of the floor.

The sixth floor has all the eccentricity a university library should have—a model of the solar system graces the main hall, ready for curious eyes, and students lounge on the couches of Moelis Reading Terrace looking out onto the green. Next to the Terrace is the Furness Shakespeare Library, a room housing rare copies of the Bard's many works. The room, open to students, has two full walls of win-

be intimidated by what’s going on here at the library.” He points out that his job is to help students quench their thirst for knowledge—and for books.

Past the Class of ‘78 Pavilion is the Goldstein Family Gallery, which currently houses “The Bibliophile as Bookbinder,” an exhibit displaying “the angling bindings" of S.A. Neff, Jr., a fisher, and later a bookbinder. Pollack walks us through the exhibit, taking care to point out the intricacies and beauty of the bindings.

The crown jewel of the sixth floor is, by a landslide, the Lea Library. Pollack unlocks the doors and ushers us into the personal

library of Henry Charles Lea. The soaring ceiling encloses tall, wall–to–wall shelves, a portrait of Lea, several ornate busts, and a balcony upon which even more books are kept. Pollack explains that classes are sometimes held in this room, and that it was originally elsewhere in Philadelphia.

Following our tour, Pollack hands me several pamphlets containing information on the library’s programs, shaking my hand and smiling. He asks if all the opportunities and the openness of the library was highlighted to freshmen during orientation.

Students can be more involved than they may think—for example, some students will soon be publishing a previously unpublished notebook of Walt Whitman, which the library helped them accomplish. There was also recently a “Music in the Pavilion” performance of Whitman’s poetry through voice and piano, accompanied by a brief lecture contextualizing the music and an exhibition of the Kislak Center’s collections.

Although many of the Kislak Center's books are available online, the charm and importance of the physical copies will never fade thanks to libraries and their curators. Pollack articulates this perfectly: “A lot of the books are way older than you and me both.

We’re both young in this world of what’s around us, you know.

We’re just passing through."

Penn students should ensure that they take full advantage of the library system and the passion of curators like John Pollack, a true steward of ancient knowledge and worldly wisdom.

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MUSIC

AMAZON'S INTERSECT FESTIVAL:

battle for indie artists' integrity

THE

Musicians and festivals rely on big sponsors, but where do we draw the line? JULIA DAVIES

On Oct. 17, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Intersect, a festival that will take place on Dec. 6 and 7 at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. Described as a place where “music, technology, and art converge,” Intersect’s lineup brings together top musicians from across several genres with headliners Kacey Musgraves, Beck, Foo Fighters, and Anderson.Paak & The Free Nationals. In the days following the announcement of this festival, musicians expressed outrage over Amazon’s involvement in the music festival due the company’s contracts with companies such as Palantir that provide the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), and the Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) with software and other forms of technical support.

In response to Amazon’s Intersect Festival, several artists organized together to form No Music For ICE! and penned an open letter to formally express their concerns. More than 1,000 artists have now signed on to this letter pledging to not participate in Amazon–sponsored events and partnerships until Amazon commits to “terminate existing contracts with military, law enforcement, and government agencies that commit human rights abuses” and to “stop providing Cloud services & tools to organizations that power the US government’s deportation machine.” The letter also condemns work on “projects that encourage racial profiling and discrimination, such as Amazon’s facial 6

recognition product.”

Drawing inspiration from similar causes including No Tech for ICE and Cartoonists Against Amazon, Sadie Dupuis, frontwoman of the Philly band Speedy Ortiz, reached out to

her anger and that Amazon’s name was not on any of the offers or paperwork. Amazon Web Services went on to release The Black Madonna from their contract.

Although many artists have

comes to branded content feels a bit unclear to me when operating in an industry that relies on a lot of branded content and working within the systemic confines of tech companies being in control of a majority of

signed on to this boycott, some artists plan to continue to perform at Amazon–sponsored events. Independent artists like Snail Mail and Japanese Breakfast have been placed under particular scrutiny for their involvements with Amazon.

In response to backlash for playing at Intersect, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner wrote on Twitter, “Everyone has a right to be upset. I will say like The Black Madonna it was brought to my attention this was an AWS event. But the line to draw in the sand when it

our royalties.”

Many musicians are navigating difficult terrain when it comes to signing onto contracts and partnerships. Often, artists sign on to a lineup for a festival before the sponsor is revealed, and they later may realize that the sponsoring corporation practices do not align with their beliefs. Given this ambiguity, the goal of No Music For ICE! is not to single out specific artists to drop the Intersect Festival, but rather to express growing concerns over Amazon’s practices. In one tweet by No

Brad Hong | Illustrator

Evan Greer, the Deputy Director of Fight For the Future, to organize musicians and raise concerns about working with Amazon. From there, Dupuis reached out to more artists to create an open letter that would more effectively voice musicians' views on this issue. In just a few days, the letter had accrued 1,000 signatures.

Some artists included in the line–up claimed that they were unaware of Amazon’s involvement in the music festival. The Black Madonna, one of these artists, took to Twitter to express

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Music For ICE!, the organization called on musicians who had collaborated with Amazon in the past to sign the pledge, stating “it is not too late to join us & say NO to future engagements with Amazon.”

When asked where artists should draw the line with their involvements with Amazon, considering that many artists have their music available for streaming on Amazon Music, Dupuis responded, “It was something we are looking into and this [boycott] was the first step in clarifying artists’ viewpoints on what they are willing to do in support of Amazon.

What we have chosen to focus on are explicit partnerships with Amazon.” One of these partnerships is Amazon Originals, singles produced exclusively for Amazon Music subscribers to draw in more customers to the streaming service.

Currently AWS is the world’s leading public cloud service, controlling nearly 40 percent of the cloud service market.

Among contracts with governmental agencies and companies like Palantir are customers including Netflix, Verizon, and Apple. The reach of AWS in entertainment and music streaming services is nearly unavoidable, making it difficult for musicians and consumers alike to stop interacting and supporting the company in some way.

Despite the company's massive scale, No Music For ICE! will continue to work against musicians' involvements with Amazon.

MUSIC

ON 'PANG,' CAROLINE POLACHEK PROVES SHE CAN MAKE IT ON HER OWN The veteran singer–songwriter stakes a claim for herself as a pop star.

PEYTON TOUPS

Caroline Polachek's new album, Pang, has been a long time coming. Having cut her teeth in the music industry as one half of the indie pop duo Chairlift (with Patrick Wimberly), Polachek has hidden in the shadows of bigger stars as a veteran singer–songwriter until now. Most people unwittingly know her voice from the infamous commercial for the iPod nano–chromatic all the way back in 2008.

The song in the ad, "Bruises," was the closest the act ever came to a mainstream hit, unless you include the demo Polachek sent to Beyoncé which became "No Angel." Chairlift's following two albums, 2012's Something and 2016's Moth, were enough to garner a small but devoted fan base.

Still, Wimberly and Polachek parted ways in 2017, both pursuing solo efforts. Though Pang isn't Polachek's first studio album, it is the first under her own name. She released Arcadia in 2014 as Romona Lisa and Drawing the Target Around the Arrow under her initials, CEP, in 2017.

Pang, made in collaboration with PC Music producer Danny L Harle, is romantic indie pop like the kind Polachek used to make with Chairlift, yet the production here is sharper and the emotions clearer. Pang is horny, lonely, heartbroken, and in love, sometimes all at once. It's an album that, at its core, is about romance.

Polachek began making Pang with the end of her former career as a pop songwriter. In interviews, she's said that she began writing with Harle for Katy Perry. During a mushroom trip, she told The Guardian in an interview,

she began to realize that she "shouldn't be wasting [...] time on things [she] didn't passionately care about." Thus, Harle suggested they start writing for Polachek instead. That collaboration blossomed into Pang.

However, it wasn't just her professional life that was turned upside down in the process of making this album. Her personal life experienced a great change as well—Polachek divorced her spouse of two years. "All these structures that seemed essential to my identity and my time fell away," she says.

Perhaps "Parachute" exemplifies this losing and regaining of identity best on Pang. "It's giving up to life—and that's the scariest thing," Polachek says of the song.

Mimicking the pacing of the album, the song slowly builds to a breathtaking crescendo as Polachek sings about a dream she had once. The album follows a similar pace, with its first half sounding, for the most part, like a sinking feeling of guilt or shame towards something you want, as heard in "I Give Up" and "Ocean of Tears." The second half of the album, in turn, feels like the release of steam, as heard in "Parachute" and "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings."

The latter song is one of the most addictive and lecherous pop songs of this year, cementing Polachek's reputation as one of the most sophisticated and dexterous singer–songwriters working in the music industry today. As one Youtube commenter put it: "The production is '80s, the visuals are '90s, her voice is early 2000s, and the overall thing somehow still sounds incredibly 2019."

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MUSIC

WHAT THE BREAK–UPS OF

philly's BIGGEST emo bands MEANS FOR THE SCENE MELANNIE JAY

On Oct. 20, 2019, Philadelphia local experimental rock band mewithoutYou announced via Facebook that 2020 would be their last year as an active band. As fans waited for more details to emerge, it was difficult not to draw comparisons to the recent breakup of local post–hardcore giants Balance and Composure, who performed their final show in May, and Modern Baseball, whose 2017 breakup was one of the first casualties of the emo revival. With three giants of the Philly scene falling in recent years, who will step up to take their place? mewithoutYou released a longer statement the next day, describing that there were "numerous" reasons for their disbandment, but saying that "the decision was collectively born out of honesty, respect, and love for one another."

Further, the breakup would be prolonged—the band is scheduled to open for Thrice this coming winter, and are planning a farewell tour later in the fall that will likely end in the city of their origin, Philadelphia.

Doylestown local post– hardcore band Balance and Composure followed a similar 8

track to mewithoutYou—they announced via Instagram this January that they would perform six final shows in the spring and then go their separate ways. The decision was rumored after their ten–year anniversary tour in 2017, as vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons said in an interview with podcast Strange Nerve that they had just completed their "last tour." Their final performance as a band was a sold– out show at the Fillmore on May 11, 2019.

In contrast to mewithoutYou and Balance and Composure, Philly emo band Modern Baseball ended without fanfare. In January 2017, guitarist and vocalist Brendan Lukans announced he would be staying at home for the band's upcoming European tour to focus on his physical and mental health. Less than a month later, the band cancelled their United States tour so that all the members could focus on their mental health.

Co–frontman Jake Ewald said in an interview with The Fader, "We just said, let's not call it a breakup and make a huge deal about it and have a 'Last Show Ever' or anything like that. Let's just take it easy for

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Photo by dotAlexX // CC

By 2.0

With mewithoutYou, Mo dern Baseball, and Balanc e and Composure gone, who is left to take their place?

now, and if we wake up and want to do it again, then let's do it."

All three bands were critical to the development of the emo and post–hardcore scenes, specifically in Philadelphia. mewithoutYou's spoken–word vocals, jazzy instrumentation, and knack for storytelling predate acts like La Dispute by year. Balance and Composure, along with acts like The Wonder Years, Tigers Jaw, and Title Fight, helped to generate a new scene of what Stereogum called "suburban Keystone Staters" performing a combination of "pop-punk, hardcore, emo, 'soft grunge,' and plain ol’ altrock." Yardbarker, meanwhile, called Modern Baseball one of the best pop punk bands of all time and credited them with helping revive the scene.

These bands rarely reached "fame," but that was to be expected—they were emo, post– hardcore, grunge, alt–rock, where the greatest achievement you can possess is a cult following, much like local trio Algernon Cadwallader, who Stereogum referred to as "the starting point for the entire emo revival."

All three of these Philly bands reached that level of cult

following and elevated the city in the process, to the point where VICE released a somewhat tongue–in–cheek article, proclaiming in no uncertain terms that "Philadelphia Has the Best Punk Scene in the Country Right Now." In the absence of these giants, new and established acts have to step up to keep the scene alive.

Scranton–based Tigers Jaw seems the most poised to take the title of Philly's emo kings—between the release of the Eyes Shut EP last month and their current tour supporting local punk legends The Menzingers, the band shows little sign of slowing down. Additionally, Lansdale locals The Wonder Years just completed their third annual Halloween tour, and Hop Along lead singer Frances Quinlan recently announced both a solo album and a small tour. As for Circa Survive, the behemoth of the harder side of Philly post–hardcore, the recently–announced Blue Sky Noise tenth anniversary tour will conclude at Union Transfer in June.

At the same time as established bands fill the void left by their peers, new bands spring up in basements and

garages every day, especially in cities like Philly that cater to the DIY punk scene. The fifth wave of emo, should it come, will be those who were raised on the fourth, who absorbed Algernon Cadwallader and Title Fight, used it as a blueprint, and tweaked the aspects they didn't like. They will eventually create their own spin on the scene, and will fully take over once Tigers Jaw and The Wonder Years take their final bows.

One of the issues with bands like mewithoutYou, Balance and Composure, or Modern Baseball is the skew towards a cult following. All bands are temporary, and whether they end in a farewell tour, a spontaneous breakup, or under other circumstances, the end will always be mourned. Crowning Tigers Jaw as the official successor to Balance and Composure, or The Wonder Years as the kings of Philly emo, will only put more pressure on those remaining bands, speeding up their eventual breakup. Instead, the old bands of the scene should be fondly remembered, the present appreciated while they last, and the future embraced when it comes.

MUSIC

lula

by MELANNIE JAY

Photo provided by Smithsonian Folkways

When I first saw Lula Wiles perform at World Cafe Live, they made a point of the fact that no one in the band is named Lula Wiles. According to a video put together by their label Smithsonian Folkways, they used to go by their full names on stage (Isa Burke, Eleanor Buckland, and Mali Obomsawin) but decided that was a mouthful. They went

by The Wiles for some time, citing their own "feminine wiles," but when threatened with emails from another band with the same name, they added the Lula.

This came from the Carter Family's "Lula Walls," a song about an "aggravating beauty, who, when the narrator asks her to marry him, she simply does not respond," recounts Mali.

This story could not encapsulate the sound of Lula Wiles more perfectly—a name formed out of serendipity and a combination of the old and new, some tradition infused with new zeal. As Eleanor tells me over the phone just as the band is about to board a plane home from Denver, they still get "a lot of people saying, 'Which one of you is named Lula?' Either sincerely or as a joke, and I always want to be like, ‘Dude, you’re the fourth person this week to make that joke. Has it not occurred to you that this is not an original thought you’ve had?'"

The folk roots band came together at Maine Fiddle Camp, where they practiced their instruments and harmonies together, and they later attended Berklee College of Music at separate times. Eleanor dropped out, Mali transferred to Dartmouth College, and Isa graduated. They remained based in Boston af-

ter they were done with college, however, with Eleanor and Isa playing as a duo for a time.

"That was sort of built off the vocal chemistry [Eleanor] and I had as singers," Isa says. "There was this late–night jam at fiddle camp where we felt there was this really instant vocal blend, and we realized that we loved singing together. Once we started playing with Mali, and realized that we had become a band and wanted to be more serious in our pursuit of sound. Then we started singing in three–part harmony and that felt pretty intuitive, too."

Their 2019 album, What Will We Do?, makes good use of that harmony, all three singing on every track, with Mali on the upright double bass and Eleanor and Isa on guitar and fiddle.

The name for their album comes from a traditional Irish folk ballad, revamped for three parts and performed a cappella, the three of them exchanging vocals throughout in glorious tandem.

Although fairly authentic to the original song, the band added a verse wondering what they would do if they married a banker, singing, "Only take all we can, share the money 'cross the land/ And we'll yodel it over again," referencing modern sensibilities.

Bringing those 21st–century ideas into traditional forms has been part of Lula Wiles from the start. Mali is an Odanak Abenaki, and brings her views on Native rights into the band's songs, such as in "Shaking as it Turns," which begins with the lyric "Is this land yours? Is this land mine?/ The fault lines crack and the fists they fly" in response to Woody Guthrie's classic "This

wiles is

REDESIGNING THE PROTEST SONG

The trio challenges the conventions of folk music, Native rights, and modern relationships.

Land Is Your Land." In an essay for Smithsonian Folklife, Mali addresses her concerns with this song head-on.

"Woody Guthrie’s protest anthem exemplifies the particular blind spot that Americans have in regard to Natives," she writes, "American patriotism erases us, even if it comes in the form of a leftist protest song. Why? Because this land 'was' our land."

When asked if the troubling sentiment of this song ruins the folk icon for her, Mali responds, "I definitely want to push back against the cancelling culture of like, 'Oh, he wrote this one song that’s anti–Native, so therefore he’s cancelled.' That’s not really what we’re about, and for me, not really effective activism."

Instead of vehemently calling others out for sharing ideas like this, though, Mali instead suggests stopping to remind people of how their language can erase Indigenous peoples from American culture. A more contemporary example of this erasure comes from the common phrase "nation of immigrants" in response to the border control and anti–immigration reform.

"It’s so annoying when people say ‘nation of immigrants,’" says Mali, "because it erases the right to exist, of this land’s original people, who were not immigrants."

"That really speaks to basically the white European experience," says Mali, "because most other groups that immigrated, or were brought here from other places, had a lot of pushback from the American government."

Mali is a strong advocate for reminding others of Native

Americans' continued existence, and acknowledging that this land was inhabited before colonizers arrived. It can be difficult at times because Native American erasure remains an issue in even progressive circles. Eleanor adds to this, that "certain things we recognize as anti–black or misogynist or homophobic, [but] anti–Native isn’t as close to the forefront of our minds as other kinds of discrimination."

They address this erasure of Native Americans in their song, "Good Old American Values," with verses like, "Good old American cartoons/Indians and cowboys and saloons/It's all history by now and we hold the pen anyhow/Drawing good old American cartoons," which references the caricaturization of Native Americans in pop culture.

However, not all their songs handle such politicized topics.

Their song "Hometown," describes a vignette of going back home and seeing your house in a whole new light, and "Bad Guy" is a new take on the murder ballad, about a narrator taking revenge on her sister's abusive husband. Eleanor sings with an animalistic growl, "If I was the bad guy, would you love me less?"

One of their more up–tempo songs, "Nashville, Man," details the desire for a response from the narrator's distant lover with an urgent tone in Mali's voice.

That loneliness can also be found on the band's two new singles, although both are of vastly different sounds. "It's Cool (We're Cool, Everything's Cool)" is an eccentric song featuring electric guitar and cantankerous drums, based on an on–again,

off–again relationship Eleanor had. It was written during what the band calls a "song lodge," where they challenge themselves to write as many songs in one day as possible.

"I was scrolling back through my texts with this guy and I came across a text that said, 'It’s cool, we’re cool, everything’s cool,'" Eleanor laughs. "And I realized that is, just, a song! So I wrote a bunch of lyrics, and I was like, 'Maybe this is dumb, and maybe it's cool, I don’t know.' I brought it to the band, and was like, 'Okay, this is either the stupidest song I’ve ever written, or maybe the most brilliant?'"

"You Only Want Me When You Need Me," the B–side to "It's Cool," is a slow, end–of– the–night country ballad that could've been penned by Willie Nelson. The band handles the languor here with just as much grace as they do their folk–rock jams. From sad songs about emotionally distant partners to indictments of American colonialism, the band brings their traditional upbringing to it all, but add their distinct voices to make something original.

"Yeah, What Will We Do has really political songs on it, but we’re also women in our 20s trying to figure out what is going on with our dating lives," says Eleanor. "We don’t wanna be limited by music that we’ve made before or by the label that we are signed to, we wanna make music that is true to our experiences, whether that's songs protesting the erasure of Indigenous people, or protesting boys."

Lula Wiles will be stopping through Philly on Nov. 19, 2019.

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ST YLE

Emmy Squared's Detroit–Style Pizza and Burgers Hit Queen Village

Street spoke with founder Emily Hyland and sampled some of the hip new spot's most popular eats.

Hannah Gross In restaurant scene news you might have missed, Emmy Squared just opened its fifth location in Queen Village, bringing its highly–regarded Detroit–style pizza and double–stacked burger to Philly.

What started out as a neighborhood restaurant and passion project for founder Emily Hyland and her husband and head chef Matt has transitioned into a blossoming restaurant group with plans to expand across the country.

Their new Philadelphia location is the latest installment, located at the corner of 5th and Bainbridge.

The restaurant has a quaint, homey feel, achieved through exposed brick walls, succulents behind the bar, and some teal accents peppered throughout the space.

Floor to ceiling windows provide a peek onto a charming block, slotting Emmy Squared into an area known for quirky coffee shops and speciality stores.

“We are in our heart, even though we’re growing, a neighborhood restaurant and [Queen Village]

really feels like the type of neighborhood that made sense for us to land in,” said Hyland.

In addition to all of their staples, the Queen Village location has two specials that are unique to Philly—the Tony Luke Jr. pizza and the Chopped Cheese Fries.

The Tony Luke Jr. is a tribute to cheesesteak pioneer Tony Luke topped with broccoli rabe, roasted garlic, bacon, hot peppers, and provolone. Although it might appear crowded and heavy, each flavors feels distinct, creating laying spice and salt on top of cheesy goodness in every bite.

As a girl who grew up on New York–style pizza, I didn’t realize what I was missing until I bit into my first slice of the over–the–top pie. The crust was delicious—the perfect balance of cheesy and crunchy. The four corner pieces were worth fighting over, as the crust made the Tony Luke far better than it would have been on a traditional circular pie. It gave it a new character, elevating it over the other pizzas Philadelphians order regularly.

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When asked what drew her and her husband to Detroit–style pizza, Emily said, “One of our favorite pastimes has been eating pizza together over the years and our favorite style of pizza to eat at home together has always been square pizza cooked in a pan, so it felt like a natural gravitation.”

The Chopped Cheese Fries, a quintessentially Philly take on New York City's signature sandwich, was equally delicious.

They featured Emmy Squared’s classic waffle fries, whose crisp edges and seasoning are powerful enough for a stand–alone side, which were topped with grass– fed chopped beef, red onion, bell pepper, pickles, and smokey queso. Together, these ingredients were reminiscent of a dependable cheesesteak.

Admittedly, the mountain of toppings made the fries difficult to attack, but it was most definitely worth it—mess and all. Each bite packed a punch thanks to a vibrant combination of flavors that rendered ketchup unnecessary. For fans of the Philly's staple

Sophia Dai | Photographer

sandwich, this fun spin on your favorite classic might make you rethink the whole Pat’s vs. Geno’s debate. Maybe one of the best cheesesteaks in the city is slathered on a pile of fries.

“In terms of making our restaurants unique, I think that it’s been really successful that we have regional specials that are unique to each location,” Hyland explained.

At their Nashville location, two of the regional specials were so popular that they added them to all of their menus.

One of those items is the Huge Hot Chicken Wedge which features Nashville hot chicken, ‘Bama white sauce, chopped pickles, blue cheese, olive, cherry tomato, and ranch dressing. After just one taste, it was easy to understand what had the masses craving more. The chicken was tender, doused in buffalo sauce with a heat that was inviting, not overbearing. For people with more sensitive taste buds, the flavor could be mellowed by adding some cabbage and ranch to your bite.

Despite serving some buzzworthy pizza, Emmy Squared is probably best known for their award–winning “Le Big Matt” burger. The double–stacked Pat LaFrieda burger comes served on a pretzel bun with Sammy Sauce—a

mix of mayonnaise and Indonesian pepper paste—and a side of waffle fries. From top to bottom, the burger is stuffed with pickles, American cheese, one beef patty, more cheese, another beef patty, and lettuce.

At first glance, the burger is a bit daunting, but once you get past the first bite there's no going back. The burgers are cooked to perfection and full of flavor, especially with the mayonnaise–based and slightly spicy Sammy Sauce providing the perfect touch.

The pretzel bun is a perfect final touch—not too doughy, and far less prone to sogginess than the traditional burger bun.

Since coming to Queen Village, it is no surprise that, according to Hyland, “Everyone has been so warm and friendly and welcoming.” She continued, “Those are the kinds of vibes that we like to see in hospitality so it made sense that [Queen Village] is where we opened up.”

Following their Queen Village opening, Emmy Squared will soon be opening its doors in the Upper East Side in NYC and Washington DC, with plans to expand across the country.

“I never thought this would happen. The way things have changed has been like a dream come true,” said Hyland.

ST YLE

Our Obsession With TikTok, And Why It's Here To Stay Breaking down the video app's popularity, and how it gets to know its users.

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Karin Hananel

Every night, I fall into a deep slumber after scrolling through bite–sized videos. Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed” runs on a hamster wheel in my mind after my phone screen shows a loop of videos of people dancing to it. I can recite some very important rules: “Rule number one if it’s about me, @ me so I can see it. Rule number two if you heard shit that ain’t come from me then don’t believe it." This is the world of TikTok. Rules, songs, jokes, and pranks— all of which are chaotic, unapologetic, and captivating.

While most people associate the app with pre–teen and teenage girls, people of all ages partake in the madness that is TikTok, which is often positioned as the follow– up to Vine. And while I can’t say I expected to get knee–deep in the world of TikTok as a nearly–20 year old, here I am. Admittedly, I joined as a joke, desperate to know what all the hype was about and why my little brother was so obsessed with deep–fried audio for all of fall break. Flash forward to now: I'm obsessed with the informality and creativity of the app.

It’s nothing like Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram. For one, it’s less manicured. Instead of photoshopping for the sake of looking hot, it emphasizes warped faces and bodies for laughs. While there are people that take it so seriously that they emulate the same traits as Instagram influencers, it’s still an informal and fast–paced way to express yourself. Additionally, the creativity exhibited on TikTok is endless. From voice dubs and original pranks to POV skits, people use the app to showcase whatever talent (or lack thereof) they want to. It encompasses all generations, with everyone from toddlers to elders using the app.

However, it’s not just the creativ-

ity or fast–paced nature that sets TikTok apart. After all, that’s built into the framework of any app these days. What sets it apart from its peers or predecessors in short–form video, like Vine and even YouTube, is its addictive nature. No one truly knows how it works—and trust me, there are a lot of theories out there—but it still follows a basic framework.

The more you interact with the app, the better it knows you. It can detect how many times you watched a looped video, which sounds are most appealing to you, and which TikTokers you like the most—even if all you do is watch and barely like. It’s constantly refreshing as well, meaning that whenever a user clicks the home button, a new crop of videos pops up on the "For You" page, burying the old queue.

While most people trying to crack the algorithm cite the use of hashtags as the best way to get on a user’s "For You" page, there’s still no real proof as to how it works.

There’s also the question of where everyone’s data gets stored and how it’s used, with concerns over the app’s connections to the Chinese government being cited and even investigated.

While TikTok's novelty certainly doesn’t come without controversy, that hasn’t stopped people all around the world from lurking, watching, and uploading. In a world as tumultuous and scary as today's, TikTok is one of the few apps that gives millions of users a platform to escape and connect with others in a way that doesn’t require any soul searching, high– quality equipment, or effort. The simplicity of uploading or liking a video that makes you laugh is sorely missed in today’s ultra–polished social media landscape, and, in that way, TikTok serves as a true respite.

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F E AT U R E

F E AT U R E

Access Denied: A Closer Look at Test Banks

?

Test banks—and the policies that govern them—are a ubiquitous part of Penn, but they aren't equally accessible to all students.

Sophie Burkholder | Photos by Ethan Wu

PDF

Daniel Gonzalez

B

en Habermeyer (E ’20) looked at the Statistical Inference (STAT–431) exam in front of him with a sense of mild panic. Not one of the textbook practice problems recommended by the professor looked anything like the questions on the page in front of him. He looked around. No one else seemed to be struggling nearly as much as he was. As the clock ticked away, he scribbled in what he could and turned in his exam feeling decimated.

“I hadn’t been destroyed by a test like that since freshman year,” he says.

A week later, Ben got his exam back. He scored a mere 56 points out of 100. The class average was 80.

He wondered if he still had time to drop the course. But on his way out of the classroom that day, he asked around about other people’s scores and study methods. All of his questions were met with the same answer: “Oh, you didn’t have access to the Google drive?”

This Google drive was an example of an academic archive, more commonly referred to as a test bank. Loosely defined, academic archives are logs—digital or physical—of old 1 2 3 4 T H S T R E E T M A G A Z I N E N O V E M B E R 1 3 , 2 01 9

exams, homework assignments, and study materials for a given class over a period of time. Sometimes these archives contain only materials already provided by professors. But other times, they hold previous years’ worth of exams, assignments, and solutions that professors don’t release. For instance, a professor may provide students with one exam from the previous year as practice, but a test bank might hold exams from the past several years, giving those with access to these banks more study material.

Ben had never used an academic archive for a class before. So when he asked his classmates for help in studying, he was astounded at what they sent him. “I was only asking for old exams, but what I got was a whole drive of years’ worth of tests, as well as every single homework solution and all kinds of study materials for the class,” he says.

Most shocking of all was that the practice midterms contained the exact same questions from the exam he’d just taken, only with slightly different numbers. “That’s when I realized that everyone else knew ahead of time exactly what was going to be on the test.”

Stories like Ben’s are ones that the Office

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Kevin Meyer

of Student Conduct (OSC) and the University Honors Council (UHC) hope to someday eliminate. Executive members of the UHC spent the last year and a half drafting an Academic Archives Report based on a 2018 spring school–wide survey of 301 students, conversations with professors, and advice from academic administration committees. Nearly a quarter of students admitted to having access to academic archives, though the report acknowledges that this number is most likely an undercount, as students may be reluctant to admit to having that access.

One reason that students are so hesitant to admit to having access to academic archives is because the policies regarding them make the situation blurry. “Most students are afraid to come forward because they just don’t know what might happen,” says current president of the UHC, Jesse Liu (C '21). “And to be frank, most students at Penn don’t know the rules.”

Max Grove (W '20) agrees. After serving as the Academic Initiatives Director on Student Government during his junior year, he witnessed meetings on test banks between OSC, UHC, and the deans of all four undergraduate schools.

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Nakia Rimmer

"It's not that test banks are unethical, but I wouldn't say that they're ethical either ... It's a very gray area, and gray areas are scary."

Max Grove (W '20) “The problem with trying to codify what a test bank is, is that it’s so broad and so far– reaching, which makes it harder to define whether it’s fair or not,” says Max. These vague definitions and unclear policies prevent students from being able to make an educated decision about whether or not they want to use test banks for a given class. “It’s not that

test banks are unethical, but I wouldn’t say they’re ethical either,” Max remarks. “It’s a very gray area, and gray areas are scary.”

This gray area isn’t isolated to students. Julie Nettleton, the director of OSC, says that students are technically only allowed to use test banks if professors officially grant permission to do so. Though the Code of Academic Integrity doesn’t define what academic archives are or how to address them, Nettleton says that the issue falls under the jurisdiction of individual faculty members.

“Class by class, there are different policies, and the Code of Academic Integrity requires students to follow the policies of their class,” she says. “If a faculty member doesn’t address it specifically however, students sort of fill in the gaps in terms of what they think is appropriate or not.”

Kevin Myers (C ’19), a former president of UHC who helped spearhead the council’s initiative on addressing academic archives, knows that some professors are still unaware of how extensive the issue is on Penn’s campus.

In one of the several meetings Kevin had with professors in the early days of drafting the council’s official recommendation, he remem-

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Ben Habermeyer

bers one stubborn professor who insisted there was no way his class had been affected by students’ use of academic archives.

“This professor told us, ‘I keep my exams under lock and key. There’s no way anybody has them. This can’t be a problem,’” Kevin recounts. “Then, during that meeting, he looked up his exams, and found them posted on a site like Course Hero within five minutes.”

While Nettleton thinks this story is an anomaly and that many professors do have a sense of the prevalence of academic archives, this instance illustrates a gap in communication between students and teachers.

She says that professors increasingly understand that when they hand out an assignment or post something on Canvas, these files will probably be collected into some kind of drive on the Internet somewhere. “Now, does this mean that it’s okay for students to access those? No, that’s not what it means,” says Nettleton. “But does that conversation always happen between students and faculty members? No, it doesn’t.”

Nettleton and Jesse both think this lack of communication is what puts students at greater risk of discipline when they choose to ac-

cess and use academic archives. According to Jesse, the current proposed solution is to mandate that all professors make a statement in their syllabi regarding individual class policy on the use of academic archives.

“We want to codify a policy in the Code of Academic Integrity thats says, ‘You’re allowed to use academic archives, but it’s completely up to professors’ discretion,’” he says. “That’s our recommendation for now.”

But Jesse acknowledges that this solution might seem too simple. While this policy might be useful as something concrete for OSC and UHC to refer to in disciplinary hearings involving academic archives, this new codification doesn’t do much to address the equity issues behind access to academic archives.

One proposed solution to the problem would be to create a universal test bank—a place where professors could upload every old exam, assignment, or solution so that every Penn student could have equal access to them.

Some students are calling for this universal test bank across all schools and classes at Penn to allow everyone the same access to different archives.

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Jessie Liu

But Jesse and Nettleton think students often underestimate the difficulty of that solution. “I hear and understand the equity challenge of how things are today,” says Nettleton. “But the challenge I can’t seem to wrap my head around is how to actually change it, if that makes sense.”

It’s hard to picture what a universal academic archive would look like. “Who’s overseeing this bank? Where is this bank? What goes in the bank?” she asks. “I feel like an entire department would need to be created to handle this.”

While the vision some students have for a universal academic archive might be impossible, Jesse hopes that there are smaller ways of achieving equity through department–wide or class–specific archives. “The economics department has a rough universal test bank on their website,” he says, “but the tests aren’t always consistent.”

Some years in the economics bank are missing solutions, or only have one midterm instead of two.

Though the UHC’s first goal is to roll out the mandated syllabus statement policy on academic archives, Jesse also thinks a good next step

might be to work on establishing archives at the departmental level.

Professor Nakia Rimmer, a senior lecturer in Penn’s math department, already does something similar for his introductory math courses.

Rimmer, who began working at Penn in 2006, remembers the first time he realized academic archives presented an educational issue.

“When I first started, I gave an exam for one course, and then the next semester, I gave a similar exam,” he recalls.

“The results were much better the second time I gave it."

This slip–up was an awakening. Penn’s math department already posts a log of old finals, but from that moment, Rimmer wanted to give more.

“I made a conscious choice not to reuse exams, and to give my old exams away to students as practice ones,” he says. He soon created workbooks of old problems with full solutions for his introductory calculus courses.

But he acknowledges that a large academic archive might not make sense for upper– level courses.

“In lower division courses, the purpose of this is to provide students with more resources to help them make

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it through the course,” he remarks. “But as they move on to the upper level, students shouldn’t need as much.”

But according to some, even departmental test banks like what Rimmer suggests wouldn’t fully solve the unfairness issue. Max openly discusses the advantages he’s received from academic archives. Through his membership in business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi and friendships with students in programs like the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology, he says that he can access multiple test banks.

Max thinks he would’ve had to work a lot harder for some grades without this access. And when Ben retells the story of his STAT–431 class, he says that if not for his friendships with people in M&T or professional fraternities, he would have had to drop the course.

“The first time I heard about test banks was through my roommate in M&T,” Max says. “We were really close, and he was like ‘Oh, you’re taking ECON–001 right now? Let me send you this collection of old exams.’”

Max says the trend continued for other exams, and that every time he needed help in a certain class, his roommate gave him files from the M&T drive.

Ben, too, says he became familiar with parts of the M&T drive in his statistics class.

He says he was lucky to have friends in the program. “If you didn’t have that drive, you were just so unprepared,” he says. “You were at such a disadvantage.”

Four students from the M&T program were unresponsive to requests to comment, and five students, in-

cluding the president of the program’s student board, declined to comment. Professor Gad Allon, the director of the program, also declined to comment.

Both Ben and Max acknowledge that there can be social and economic barriers to accessing test banks.

“If you’re not part of a fraternity or student program that’s pretty large, then you probably won’t have access to a full test bank,” says Ben. Even though he says he’s never been a part of an organization with a test bank, he knew who to talk to in order to gain access to one. “I know people in the right positions,” he recalls, “but I think there is a barrier if you’re not a part of that scene.”

Daniel Gonzalez (C ’20) sees this barrier all the time.

As a former peer mentor for the Penn College Achievement Program (PennCAP), he has firsthand experience with the academic disadvantages that come from limited access to test banks for first– generation, low–income students.

Gonzalez says that students from these backgrounds have limitations in their ability to join social groups like fraternities that come with expensive dues, even though they could benefit from the access to test banks these groups provide.

Beyond financial limitations for joining social groups, though, Daniel thinks there are also limitations on low–income students being accepted into prestigious academic programs like M&T, as they couldn’t easily afford the tutoring sessions or Advanced Placement (AP) courses that others could in high school.

Originally a pre–med student, Daniel says a big factor

in his choice to pursue a different career path was the academic pressure and of pre– med majors. “When I was a sophomore and junior, I had to work 20 hours a week to get the money that I use to provide for myself,” he says. “If I didn’t have to work, I could’ve spent more time studying.”

Daniel had access to what some students might refer to as test banks through a minority pre–med group, but he says these test banks “weren’t the most helpful, as they typically provided what the professor already gave you in class.”

He realized that if he wanted to stay on the pre–med track, he would need to find time for more tutoring and study sessions, since he didn’t have access to the kinds of test banks other pre–med students might. “I can only imagine how much easier all of those classes would’ve been for me if I’d had access to these resources that people with fewer barriers can have.”

Daniel thinks that if students have connections that get them a test bank, they might not have to worry about developing new skills for classes or fitting a study schedule around a part–time job. But he says test banks are only one example of the way socioeconomic advantages can give way to academic ones. “I don’t think test banks solve all of the problems for people, but they definitely help.”

To him, the presence of test banks points to the fact that students are looking for academic help, and that some of this help isn’t available to everyone. “We need to give people more access to resources, and people who have access need to be more willing to share.”

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ST YLE

69th Street : The New Meet–Cute I n t he wa ke o f m o d er n d a t i n g a p p s , i s fa ce – t o – fa ce ro ma n ce d e a d ?

Sophie Burkholder I’m a sucker for romance.

I recently binge–watched the entire Modern Love series on Amazon in one sitting. I have Dinah Washington, Ann Peebles, and Patsy Cline records looming over my dresser. I tear up nearly every time I read a John Keats poem. And I love romantic comedies.

Maybe (undoubtedly) it’s the white suburban girl in me—the one who also loves Panera, seasonal coffee, and American malls—but especially during this time of year, I can’t get enough rom– coms. As much as I now take issue with the amount of heteronormativity and predominantly white casts in these genres, there are times when I simply can’t resist a rotation of my high school favorites like 10 Things I Hate About You, Before Sunrise, Notting Hill, and, yes, The Princess Diaries. Because beyond their limited scope in representation is another common thread, the one scene that always brings me back to even the most mediocre movies: the meet–cute.

I live for those totally unrealistic spontaneous moments that are almost laughable in their contrived nature, and I’m not ashamed to say I still spend way too much time daydreaming about my own versions of them. Embarrassing as it is, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped my pen in class near a hot guy. Strangely enough, they never ask me out, let alone pick it up.

I’m not afraid of talking

to strangers or asking people out, but somehow my own efforts to forge connections at concerts or coffee shops or parties never go as smoothly as they do in the movies.

Usually, I meet someone, have a slight interest, go on a couple dates with them, and realize it’s a dud.

As of late however, these attempts at a meet–cute feel even more few and far between than they did before.

Call it my washed–up senioritis or a refusal to spend my nights sifting through Tinder, but the opportunity for these meet–cutes seems to have evaporated from my life. Am I becoming too lazy? Too picky? Or has the modern meet–cute simply changed?

It’s a question I’m afraid to answer. In a world that’s shifting more towards digital communication, is face–to– face romance dead? I hope not. I’ve had a few success stories with online dating apps, but frankly, it makes me more tired than meeting someone organically. When I meet someone in person, I feel more committed to keep a date or to follow up with them, probably because these real–life interactions make me less suspicious that they’re editing their personalities to get laid.

I often wonder if I’m the only one suffering from a boring senior year sex life, and whether everyone else simply knows how to use Tinder better than me.

Maybe my version of a good meet–cute is with someone

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who already graduated college. Maybe I still need to remedy my affinity for “alt” guys.

I downloaded Hinge a few weeks ago, and asked three people out within a day before promptly deleting the app. This can’t be the new meet–cute. I won’t let it be.

Penn is a place that time and time again has crushed my belief in love, but I refuse to let it win. From this article on, I vow to be more proactive in initiating the meet– cutes I deserve.

Yes, the meet–cutes of movies will never perfectly translate to reality, but that’s

sort of the fun in reenacting them. I know they will be messy and corny and cringey and probably a complete embarrassment, but I also think they help keep the possibility of true love alive, whether these random connections ever evolve into it or not.

While an Instagram DM can apparently lead to marriage for some people, let’s not allow the modern meet– cute to fully push out the old.

One of these days, I’m sure I’ll

hop back on a dating app or two. But for now, as I begin to feel the first symptoms of cuffing season, I’ll continue to strive for the unachievable rendezvous of Hollywood romance. So if you ever witness me attempting my own semblance of a meet–cute in public, please, for the sake of my fragile ego, humor me.

FILM & TV

'Doctor Sleep' Doesn't Quite Capture The Magic of 'The Shining' This sequel isn't as good as Kubrick's classic, but it's made with love.

Anna Collins Maybe following up Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is impossible. The Shining is not just an important aspect of film canon—it is an icon, a constantly referenced piece of work, and a culmination of an amazing director’s talents.

Doctor Sleep understands all of this. It is certainly a sequel to The Shining, focusing on the young son of the original film named Danny, who's now going by Dan (Ewan McGregor) and is far from the bright–eyed, slightly terrifying kid that we saw all those years ago at the Overlook Hotel. He is a depressed alcoholic, scarred from the events of the first film, and drinks himself into a stupor in order to both remember and forget his father. He moves from New Jersey to a little town in New Hampshire to start fresh, and from there gets tangled into a much larger plot involving the True Knot, a group of powerful bounty–hunters led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) who are killing children to harvest their “shine.” They specifically seek to target Abra (Kyleigh Curran), a young girl with immense power, just like Danny used to have.

The problem with Doctor Sleep is that it doesn't understand how Kubrick adapted the plot of Stephen King's novel so well—by cutting some of it out. King notoriously hated Kubrick’s adaptation, claiming that it wasn’t “warm enough” and failed to understand his novel. Doctor Sleep, on the other hand, seeks to put the two great minds together—Kubrick and King—to form a scary, suspenseful horror that closely follows its source material. This entails treks across the large, vast continent of North America, three separate concurrent plotlines, gory torture, and silly CGI eyes.

In sticking to King’s text, the universe becomes too large and is far from frightening. In fact,

Doctor Sleep is not so much a horror movie as it is a thriller with an action plot—much of the film is about a physical race against the bad guys. What made The Shining so scary was its confined nature—the suffocating feeling of being in the Overlook with no one to hear you or save you. The greatest frights of the original are not about how spooky a corpse looks when it’s half–decomposed. They’re about the uncanny—things appearing where they shouldn’t, your own mind turning against you, and those you trust no longer seeming so trustworthy. In this new movie, with a vast expanse of land to run away in and real, physical villains, the psychological horror just isn't there.

This problem of the great big world and the cheesy villains is solved by the third act, where our heroes return to the Overlook hotel of The Shining. Director Mike Flanagan reveals himself to be a devoted fan of The Shining—every set, every carpet tile, and every camera shot is a perfect mirror of Kubrick’s original. The iconic scene where Jack (Jack Nicholson) swings an axe into the bathroom where Wendy (Shelley Duvall) is hiding is redone, but with Henry Thomas as Jack and Alex Essoe as Wendy instead. A famous scene in the Gold Room is revamped, but with Danny in the place of his crazed father. Shockingly, instead of just regurgitating what made The Shining famous, Doctor Sleep actually contributes original content to the story. Danny’s fear of becoming like his dad, Danny’s trauma from having witnessed the bath woman at age five, and Danny’s desire to become better while struggling with loving his father deep down. Doctor Sleep introduces new themes to its source material and does so with incredible care, inter-

weaving the old with the new.

Flanagan throws little Easter eggs into Doctor Sleep—a house has the address “1980,” in reference to the year The Shining came

out; the transitions are done in the slow–fade style that was peppered throughout Kubrick’s masterpiece. Doctor Sleep, like The Shining, is a movie meant

to be watched more than once.

If you liked The Shining enough to care about where its characters ended up, then Doctor Sleep is here for you.

Distinguished Jurist Lecture with JAY CLAYTON Chairman U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Modernizing Our Regulatory Framework: Focus on Authority, Expertise and Long-Term Investor Interests Thursday, November 14 4:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Silverman 245A, Penn Law Reception to follow lecture - all are welcome.

Information: http://www.law.upenn.edu/ile

The Institute for Law and Economics is a joint research center of the Law School, the Wharton School, and the Department of Economics in the School of Arts and Sciences.

This program has been approved for 1.0 substantive law credit hour for Pennsylvania lawyers. CLE credits may be available in other jurisdictions as well. Attendees seeking CLE credit should bring separate payment in the amount of $40.00 ($20.00 public interest/non-profit attorneys) cash or check made payable to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania.

This event is sponsored by the Institute for Law and Economics, a joint research center of the Law School, the Wharton School, and the Department of Economics in the School of Arts and Sciences.

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FILM & TV

Still from Chewdaism. Courtesy of Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion

SEE These Five Films at the Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival These are the must–see movies showing at Philadelphia's oldest film festival.

Jordan Wachsman The Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, Philadelphia’s first ever film festival and the second oldest Jewish film fest in the country, kicked off on November 9.

The festival was founded to, “educate and engage diverse Philadelphia communities, Jewish and non–Jewish alike, by presenting world–class film premieres, repertory cinema, and associated programs that are inspired by Jewish history,

heritage, and values.”It will be taking place through November 23.

A total of 33 films will show in Center City, University City, Old City, and Suburban venues, with some even on Penn’s campus. There will also be talks with directors, producers, and film subjects such as Dani Menkin, director of Picture of His Life, and Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Pictures. While there are

a plethora of award–winning films being shown at the festival, these five stand out as must–sees.

The Passengers The Passengers follows the story of two young Ethiopian Jewish men, Demoz and Gezi, as they immigrate to Israel.

While according to Israeli law every person with a Jewish grandparent can become a citizen, equal funding is not

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The two men are tasked with representing the group of just 9,000 jews left in their home country as they search for a community in Israel and attempt to achieve change on behalf of black Jews.

Director: Ryan S. Porush Showing information: 7 p.m. on Monday, November 18, at the Lightbox Film Center.

Chewdaism: A Taste of Jewish Montreal Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman, creators of YidLife Crisis, decide to return to their hometown of Montreal to learn about the city’s Jewish history through food. The comedy duo savors dishes at Montreal’s best Jewish food spots throughout this hour– long documentary.

Director: Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman Showing information: 11 a.m. on Sunday, November 17, at the National Museum of American Jewish History.

The Keeper The Keeper is a biographical film about Bert Trautmann, a German soldier who becomes a Goalkeeper in England.

Throughout this experience he struggles to achieve acceptance from those view him as the enemy and falls in love with an Englishwoman who helps him along the way. The

film tells a heartwarming story about overcoming adversity and finding hope after war.

Director: Marcus H. Rosenmüller Showing information: 7 p.m. on Wednesday, November 20, at Reel Cinemas Narberth 2.

Good Morning Son Good Morning Son is the story of a Israeli Defense Forces soldier named Ori, who is badly injured after a military operation in Gaza.

As he lies in a coma, his family and friends come together to cope and hold out hope for a recovery.

Director: Sharon Bar–Ziv Showing information: 7 p.m. on Thursday, November 14, at Landmark Theaters Ritz East.

The Mamboniks The word “mamboniks” was used to describe Jewish and Puerto Rican dancers from New York City who loved the mambo, a dance originating in Havana. This documentary showcases the marriage of Jewish and Latin cultures in the 1950s among mamboniks, during a time when racism and anti–semitism was common in America.

Director: Lex Gillespie Showing information: 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 17, at the National Museum of American Jewish History.

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ARTS

Photo from Barnes Foundation, Courtesy of Rubell Family Collection, Miami

‘30 Americans’ Brings Visions of a New Artistic Future to Philadelphia The latest special exhibition at the Barnes Foundation commemorates the 10th anniversary of this travelling art collection.

Sophie Burkholder To say the political climate at the inception of the travelling art exhibition 30 Americans was different from that of today would be an understatement. When the Rubell family first premiered the exhibition of contemporary art

by African American artists in 2008, reviews of that first show glimmered with the shiny hope of an Obama presidency. In today’s context, the show holds simmering undertones of protest.

30 Americans is a travelling exhibition that began its journey at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami in 2008. Since its debut, the exhibition has made appearances in Raleigh, Washington D.C., Milwaukee, New Orleans, Detroit, and Cincinnati, among other places. Now, at the Barnes Foundation of Philadelphia, 30 Americans returns to the northeastern United States for the first time since 2011, when it made a stop at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. Including over 60 works of video, sculpture, painting, photography, and drawing, 30 Americans brings

fresh perspectives of American identity to the Barnes.

Exhibitions like 30 Americans can be puzzling to the white art establishment. Previous reviews of the show have questioned “why, aside from the color of their skin, any of these artists belong in a room together,” or criticized it as being “an exhibition tailored to leftist sentiments”—a remark overheard from a fellow patron. But by imposing these political limits on the exhibition, critics often fail to understand the way each piece explores a facet of American identity that many museums have yet to include in their own permanent collections.

Some of the most remarkable pieces in the Barnes’ version of 30 Americans are three of Nick Cave’s famous Soundsuits, full body costumes meant to be worn, that Cave created as a response to racial profiling by police. Notably, these Soundsuits cover the entire body, suggesting that Cave sees covering his body as the only way to avoid this profiling.

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These Soundsuits are in communication with several of the other pieces in the exhibition, even those radically different from them in medium and presentation. One of Glenn Ligon’s famous oil stick works, Stranger #21, hangs on a wall nearby.

Stranger #21 takes its inspiration from a James Baldwin story entitled “Stranger in the Village,” which navigates Baldwin’s experience in an all–white Swiss town in the 1950s.

Known for his play with text, Ligon makes quotes from Baldwin’s story completely illegible in this piece, by covering the canvas with coal dust. This material is both dark and sparkling in a way that reminds viewers that coal, under pressure, becomes a diamond. In tandem with Baldwin’s words, Ligon comments on his own identity by meeting the story of overwhelming whiteness with a black surface that tempts prolonged examination into what’s hidden beneath it.

Every piece in 30 Americans brings up complex questions of American identity, sexuality and violence, power and status. The exhibition’s curator and Associate Professor of History of Art, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, said that “wherever it has traveled, 30 Americans has changed things, in the art world and in the community,” at a press preview for the show. And in an essay Shaw wrote for the exhibition’s latest catalogue, she elaborates on this, naming its impacts on the Detroit Institute of Art and the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, where the permanent collections have since evolved to

represent more African American art.

Shaw said she can’t wait to see “the phenomenal impact this exhibition will have.” President of the Barnes Foundation Thom Collins added that “30 Americans resonates with the Barnes’ mission and history,” as Dr. Albert C. Barnes once established a scholarship for young Black artists. But while 30 Americans is undoubtedly tied in some ways to the Barnes’ history, this exhibition also finds ways of challenging it.

With works by renowned, record–breaking artists like Jean– Michel Basquiat, Kerry James Marshall, Lorna Simpson, David Hammons, and Kara Walker, 30 Americans pushes against the limitations of the identity purported by the predominantly white collection of the Barnes. Yes, these artists are all Black, but to leave their commonality at that would be a misunderstanding of the power of this exhibition.

As Shaw remarks in her catalogue essay, 30 Americans is an exhibition that is not only important for what it tells us, but for what it can inspire. She recounts the story of a photo of a young girl admiring Michelle Obama’s portrait by Amy Sherald, closing with a quote from

Shinique Smith, whose mixed– media piece Crone–Huntress stands tall in a room of the exhibition that also includes works by Xaviera Simmons, Lorna Simpson, and Mickalene Thomas.

In regards to when the exhibition made its stop in Washington D.C. in 2011, Smith remarked, “I just realized that when young people like me come to the museum to see the show, there will be kids like me... seeing Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weems, and thinking ‘I could be in this museum.’”

30 Americans is a show that is shocking and sad and loving, each piece shining in its confrontation with traditional notions of American identity in the art world. But today especially, these confrontations gleam with a resolve and inspiration that may be more pronounced than it was at its debut.

In part inspired by the progress of the first Black presidency, this exhibition now stands in a much darker social context under the looming shadow of rampant white supremacy. Now, more than ever, this vision of a culturally diverse future seems harder and harder to picture.

But 30 Americans is here to remind us of its possibility.

ARTS

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Quinn Robinson When you entered Killjoy’s Kastle, you walked through a rainbow arch, with letters spelling out “LESBIAN RULE” emblazoned on it. This is one of the more understated parts of the exhibit–meets–haunted– house. Inside, you’ll find an insane women’s studies professor, sex–positive and polyamorous vampire grandmothers, and more. Killjoy’s Kastle was marketed with the tagline “A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House,” and consisted of a performance and visual art installation on display at the Icebox Project Space from Oct. 16 to Oct. 27. Given its recent media attention, the exhibit might open elsewhere in the near future.

The exhibit is made up of a variety of sculptural objects and environments, along with a series of artists who play “monsters.” But while the “Haunted House” tagline may imply that this place is meant to scare you, Killjoy’s Kastle doesn’t. It’s an LGBTQ–inclusive educational space, meant to give historical and political context. And, it’s not even a haunted house—it’s a hell house.

Hell houses—an Evangelical Protestant tradition that mixes the fright of a secular haunted house with the religious beliefs of the owner—are yearly fixtures in some churches across the United States. They often focus on real–life situations and the consequences of sinful actions, with a fundamentalist Christian outlook.

With this in mind, Killjoy’s Kastle is a reclamation. It takes spaces built to cast LGBTQ in-

dividuals as sinners and figures them as welcoming and fun.

Killjoy’s Kastle opened in 2015 at the University of Southern California and recently moved to the Icebox Project Space to open a second time. The first opening offered queer and feminist critique through sections like the “straw feminist gallery” and the graveyard of dead lesbian feminist ideas. This exhibition in Philadelphia featured components created by local artists. This allowed Deirdre Logue and Allyson Mitchell, the creators, to display their work in a way that emphasized and responded to the political landscape of the community.

In the exhibit, your guide—either a deranged women’s studies professor or her TA—explains the complications behind each stop, but it never feels heavy– handed. Logue and Mitchell describe it as a “place of queer intersection, that is not exclusionary or separatist”—they’ve built the experience to educate people about the history of lesbian and queer feminism. The final section involves sitting down with "feminist killjoys"to discuss people's experiences.

The entire building is lit, and nothing in the space is particularly scary. It doesn’t need to be: The purpose of the exhibit isn’t just to make a haunted house with LGBTQ themes and artists. If Logue and Mitchell did that, it would run the risk of being kitschy. The nudity, profanity, and sexual innuendos aren’t here for scares— they’re here to depict the reality of our current politics regarding gender and sexuality.

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ARTS

The Best Young Adult LGBT Novels I've Read During College The YA section is full of hidden gems, and we picked some out for you.

Harshita Gupta

Red, White, and Royal Blue (2019) by Casey McQuiston The newest novel on this list, Red, White and Royal Blue is a lovely book that I practically inhaled in one night. Though it initially seems to have a cliché romance novel plot—the First Son of the United States falls in love with the Prince of England—it is more profound than it seems. With pop culture references and slang perfectly tailored to a college audience, the characters read as real, modern twenty–somethings in an Austensian love story. It is their love for each other that elevates this novel from saccharine and light to heart–wrenching. My favorite parts of the novel were the emails exchanged between the two protagonists: love letters filled with poetry and excerpts from historical queer love letters. Issues of sexuality, home,

grief, queer history, and politics pepper the novel and add a cerebral dimension to an already well–crafted, funny read about two men falling in love despite the odds.

Carry On (2015) by Rainbow Rowell Carry On is Rowell’s love letter to Harry Potter, and its influence on this work is obvious. Set in a fantastical world, Carry On is a compelling magical mystery. However, for me, one of the best parts of the novel is the burgeoning relationship between protagonist Simon, and his vampire roommate Baz. A traditional enemies–to–lovers relationship turned queer adds a quirky romantic element amid discussions of class, power, and identity in a bright and charming magical world. As an avid fan of both magic and fan fiction, I admire Rowell's unique yet nostalgic take on a magical world like the one we all loved—though my time at Hogwarts had to end, I found a new home in the Watford School of Magicks.

The Captive Prince (2012) trilogy by C.S. Pacat The Captive Prince has inspired its fair share of controversy, but I would step up to defend this series to anyone.

This is one of the most political, well–plotted, and complex series I have ever read. At its core, it's about two leaders who must win back control of their countries through sub-

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Photo by by caligula1995 | CC BY 2.0

I’ve always kept an eye out for LGBT literature when I’m choosing what book to read next, and I’m always drawn to the Young Adult section. Not only because so many LGBT novels about people my age end up in YA, but also because I am yearning for the deep romantic plot and happy endings heterosexual couples take for granted in nearly all media. Though YA is often looked down upon, especially for college students who may be pressured to read more "serious" literature, I've found many beautiful works of art in this section. These are my five favorite YA LGBT novels.

terfuge and violence. Though the series has been criticized for the initial power imbalance between its protagonists and the inclusion of slavery, it allows both the reader and the characters a chance to learn about why these power systems are violent and morally wrong. Captive Prince is so well–written that you will find yourself rooting for the love between two diametrically opposed characters—its protagonists initially hate each other, but as they work together to overcome both enemies and deeply–rooted traumas, they become devoted to each other.

The plot and character growth are impeccable, and the series boasts one of the most despicable, realistic villains I’ve ever read about.

A warning for those who want to read this book: it is the most sexually explicit of the bunch, and has significant themes related to child abuse.

The Song of Achilles (2012)

by Madeline Miller Inspired by the Greek classic

The Iliad, The Song of Achilles is one of those books that you have to be ready to cry over.

On the surface, this is the reinterpreted story of Achilles, the famed war hero of the Trojan War. However, at its heart, it is about the love between Achilles and Patroclus, his lover and the narrator of the novel.

Though historians debate whether Achilles and Patroclus were lovers or simply best friends, this novel hinges on a deep romantic relationship spanning all the way from childhood to adulthood. The novel spirals toward tragedy as the Greek classics often do, but Patroclus’ pure love for Achilles soothes the novel’s inevitable heartbreak. This is not only a heartbreaking love story but an easy way for modern readers to enter the world of classical Greek epics.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (2012) by Benjamin Alire Sáenz If you only choose one novel

on this list, choose the story of Aristotle and Dante. This is my favorite novel, a subtle love story between two Mexican– American boys in 1987 Texas.

The gorgeous desert setting beneath a starry sky is absolutely beautiful to read about.

The protagonists struggle with themes of sexual and ethnic identity, family dynamics, the meaning of art, and the reconciliation of your past with the future. I recommend this novel for any college–age student because it is the perfect rumination on teenage uncertainty.

Aristotle’s pondering about his future, his place in the world, the type of person he's supposed to be, and who he's supposed to love are the universal questions that we must all grapple with, especially as we're entering adulthood.

Above all, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a story about the deep, enduring nature of love, and about how love can make you vulnerable, but when practiced without shame and secrecy, it can also save you.

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4040 locust street (215)$116.99 387-7433

Regular: SALE:

$105.29

save while in school!

faculty gets 10% OFF non-sale bicycles and accessories with valid I.D. Students and Faculty sale

4040 Locust Street (at the end of locust walk)

get 10% OFF non-sale bicycles and accessories with valid school I.D.

$ 2 9 9 . 9 9@KeswickCycle (215) 387-7433

PattayaRestaruant.com | 215.387.8533 4006 Chestnut Street

Dine-in, Catering & Delivery

Happy Hour: Mon-Fri 5-7 Lunch Special: Mon-Fri $9.95 Early Bird: Sun-Thur $11.95

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Filling fast A P P LY TO DAY

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