Glitch

GLITCH

DIRECTORS Sama Al-Zanoon // Politics Editor, Design Director Nara Monteiro // Creative Writing Editor Diyana Noory // Culture Editor, Design Director GRAPHIC DESIGN Valentina Caballero Sissi Chen Edward Kim Evan Simpson FRONT COVER IMAGE Max Mao FRONT + BACK COVER DESIGN Sissi Chen

photo by Alex Lam

Editors’ Editors’ Letter Letter Glitches are inevitable, whether they’re literal or figurative. We don’t have control over all of the variables in our lives, and so invariably, the plans we’ve formulated will be thrown off kilter.

The gray area between events going well or going poorly can be transformed by our perspectives and reactions. This collection has been moulded by the many glitches in our own system. We’ve had to adapt to unpredictable changes in the university and within our team. The process is not always clean, but here we are, with a magazine before you. Sometimes it takes a few special hacks to unlock new levels of potential.

This publication’s works center around the disharmonies of life. Sofia Berger’s piece inserts war images into a place of manufactured happiness, using collage to emphasize the coexistence of suffering and contentment. The warm tones of Derek Boswell’s film photos transform banal locations into places worth visiting.

In writing, “Show (String) and Tell (Theories)” by Nicole Manfredi explores neurodivergence through the flexible mind of a child. Levi Hord’s piece confronts societal conceptions of gender binaries, highlighting the fluidity of who we are.

Hord and Manfredi show that these identities aren’t a malfunction to be Ho mended.

The presentation of GLITCH vibes with nostalgic elements of the 90s/00s tech era. It’s a throwback to the time of constant snags in the systems of our Windows dinosaurs and OG PlayStations. We’re channeling trippy, accidentally amazing, “I messed up but it still looks dope” art in all its grainy, colourful, pixel-inspired glory. Take inspiration from these pages into the third dimension.

Welcome to GLITCH. Love, Sama Al-Zanoon, Nara Monteiro, and Diyana Noory

Table of Contents 4

Photos

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Art by Sofia Berger Photos by Evan Simpson + Diyana Noory

by Tara Magloire

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Text + Art

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Show (String) and Tell (Theories) by Nicole Manfredi Art by Sofia Berger

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Art

Text + Art

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Photos

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Text + Art

You Will Find Me Right Where I Fell by Becca Serena Art by Stephanie Helen Amatori

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Text

Night Light by Nara Monteiro

Text + Photos Tokens of the Age by Emma Cohen Photos by Diyana Noory

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Text + Art Glitches in Transition by Levi Hord Cup of Binary by Andrew Fraser

by Diyana Noory

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Photos

by Derek Boswell + Abigail Tung

Fandom by Jill O’Craven Art by Sama Al-Zanoon

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Text + Art Contract and Control by Savanna Lee Art by Jordan Kaminski

by Sofia Berger + Liam Creed

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Art + Photos

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On the Web

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photos by Tara Magloire

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SHOW (STRING) AND TELL (THEORIES) photo by Sofia Berger text by Nicole Manfredi

I take pieces of you with me wherever I go. It seems you just have this way of getting under my skin.

Or rather, my fingernails. Your skin has this way of getting under my fingernails.

I take pieces of you with me because…because last week you had chickenpox and there were spots where your spine jut out but your arms couldn’t reach. Because your cat scratched me when you brought him in for Show and Tell and well, I only brought my brother. I remember because Whiskers didn’t make anyone have hives like your chicken pox but when Charlie talked, I wondered if people could be allergic to autism.

Do you remember? He spoke about science. He 6

said that we are all made up of systems. And in those systems are organs and those organs are made up of cells and those cells have strands of chromosomes and DNA. Charlie is really good with this stuff but I don’t know why he calls them chromosomes instead of “some chromo.” So he told us we have some chromo and some veins in our bodies and these chromo are so tiny that we can’t see them with our eyes but we know they are there. That’s like my brother’s friend, George, who always comes over for dinner but never eats the food on his plate… so you would think he’s not there but no one ever sits in the chair on Charlie’s right side. I guess he is. I guess he is made up of more chromo than I am or we are.

That happens, you know. Like Jake. Do you think if I let Jake scratch me, I could give him

one my chromos so he isn’t missing one anymore? Wait. I should scratch him because he has one extra, not less, right? I always forget. Anyway, that way he could learn with us instead of by himself. I don’t know how or why the teachers make someone with something more stay inside at recess.

My brother also talked about “string theory”. He said that the entire world is made up of strands and strings that are invisible. All I thought was: what if this whole world is actually just a big ball of yarn and there are “fat cats” out there like Whiskers who like to unravel it? There must be invisible strings tied to us then too. They are probably like my grandfather’s phantom limb after he lost his real leg in the war: we feel them sometimes. Maybe we just have two strings, one on each wrist. We are like Hansel and Gretel and their breadcrumbs: we leave ourselves something to find our way back.

What if the rope on my right leads to the future and the string tied on my left is my past? People always cling to timelines. What if bad guys are put in handcuffs to show them that they only have themselves left in this life? And maybe people tie a rope around themselves and the other end to a branch because it’s one of the biggest strings you can find, when they feel like their strings are cut, and they just want to be tied back together. I think that makes sense because “gravity” seems to only work when we are all tied down. What if we are all helium balloons?

My brother says that the strings make vibrations.

I decided to test this the day I pulled your hair in math class but the strands just came away in my fingers. I want to play music with the world but I didn’t even hear a hum. Is that why we make wishes on fallen lashes? We are wishing they stay in long enough to grow long enough so that every time we close our eyes, lullabies sing us to sleep.

My brother told our class that scientists realized the electrons inside of us could be a looped string and not some ball with nothing in it. What if you can “realize” the strings inside people and see their loops from the inside, out? I know what

runs through my Grandmother. It was hard for them to stick a needle in her arm because her veins ran the length of the room. She was lying in a white dress that was not her own in a white bed that was not her own in a room so unlike her house. Just I had expected, sugar runs through her vessels.

Transparent tubes linked her body to this world and a machine mapped the lines of her heart. It was a symphony. If everyone didn’t have to be quiet, I know those strings would have vibrated until they sung. How boring would it have been if the machine showed her aged lines, her flat lines? These were not mere wrinkles on the screen.

text bymyNICOLE MANFRED What if I am what brother calls a galaxy? What if our umbilical cords were portals between our worlds photos by SOPHIA BERGER and we were supposed to live inside of ourselves?

What if inside our hearts are more galaxies and that is why people keep things in, because we are all just like the Russian nesting dolls my mother keeps on the mantle?

See, my brother told me all these things and it has got me wondering things like: what if the lint from sweater strands plugs up my belly button so that my soul doesn’t fall out? Or what if I leak sand from this hole in me and we are all just seeking an hourglass figure so we know when our time is about to run out?

And do you think that if I’m careful when I wash my hands tonight that your skin won’t wash away? My skin doesn’t seem to when I wash real hard but then again, my mother is a seamstress. She knit me to my bones when I was younger. I figure that the seeds of your skin will grow to strings and I want to be tied to your DNA. We’d have to be careful that we wouldn’t catch our string on a branch at recess but we could have a tug-of-war game anywhere, our own personal skipping rope, a friend at dinner, and music strings to pluck. It would make the world feel less like science and more importantly, less like an electron: some ball with nothing in it.

I will listen to my mother when she says no running with scissors. It all makes sense.

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art by Liam Creed 8

art by Sofia Berger 9

FANDOM text by Jill O’Craven

art by Sama Al-Zanoon

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I was afraid to write this article. I was afraid to have it published. I was afraid to have my name attached to it.

But I also hated that I was afraid.

So instead of listening to that fear, I chose to write about it. See, what I’m afraid of is admitting that I… like stuff.

That shouldn’t be so scary, should it? It doesn’t sound so bad when I put it like that. But if I expand to say that I’m a fan of One Direction… suddenly, I’m terrified that I will plummet in people’s esteem, from educated and intellectual university student to stupid and obsessive fangirl.

I could discuss the positive messages in One Direction songs, or the numerous misconceptions that so many people seem to have about both the band and its fandom. I could tell you about the fan-organized charity drives that have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for important causes. I could tell you about the dozens of interesting and intelligent people from all across the world who I’ve met through this fandom. But that wouldn’t address the ageism and sexism which are the root causes of the negative perception of the teenaged fangirl.

I shouldn’t be afraid of admitting to being a fan of these people. The media I consume does not dictate who I am, and neither is the quality of media dependent on those who consume it. However, media with a target demographic of teen or tween girls is often derided by those outside that demographic – as if a young female couldn’t possibly like anything worthy of praise.

Take the Beatles, for example. Today, they’re iconic – everyone knows who they are, and they’re widely considered to be some of the best musicians the world has seen. However in their heyday, many of their fans were teenaged girls whose passion for the band was widely frowned upon. The female fanbase was scorned, and the Beatles with them. Only now that they have received the approval of adult men are they allowed to have cultural value. Justin Bieber is a modern example of such an evolution. If you want to criticize Bieber for breaking the law, or being disrespectful to fans, or because his songs have concerning messages, that’s totally valid. But to criticize him because young girls like him is unfair to both them and him. Recently, Bieber has evolved to appeal to a wider audience that includes young adult men and as such it is no longer as shameful to be a fan of his.

These critical judgments can have very concerning results. One of the complaints leveled against the Beatles was that under their influence, girls broke from traditionally held roles. Girls were supposed to be sweet and meek and pure, growing into conventional housewives, but the sexual energy that the Beatles inspired were counter to these designs. In many ways, the widespread scorn of what became known as “Beatlemania” was used to dismiss the enthusiasm and dedication of millions, and push them back into line. The same can be said of the treatment of fandom today – if girls and women can be portrayed as overly emotional and irrational, until even they begin to believe it, then it is that much harder for them to gain respect.

Sports is another instance of fandom being accepted because of the adult male demographic – and yes, sports is absolutely a fandom. It is a group of people who care passionately about something and want to engage with it, and with others who also care about it. It is no different from any other fandom, and yet it has a completely different perception because its audience is largely associated with masculinity. Consider some of the many actions of passionate fans -- learning every detail about the people involved, rewatching videos, paying hundreds of dollars to attend live events, getting into heated debates with those who insult your favourites, seeking autographs or memorabilia, getting tattoos – I could go on. From the list, you might think I’m describing the actions of girls in music or television fandoms, but adult men’s passion for sports often mirrors that of how girls relate to their favourite content.

When a sports team loses, the reaction of their supporters can be dramatic – some expressions of anger have escalated to riots in the streets. But when Zayn Malik announced his departure from One Direction, teen girls were viciously mocked for being upset. I’ll repeat that: the media made fun of millions of young women for grieving the loss of something that meant a lot to them, something that had brought them comfort, happiness, and a sense of community. If Cristiano Ronaldo transferred from Real Madrid to rival team Barcelona, wouldn’t that cause tremendous upheaval among soccer fans?

So why is it that the same passion, manifested in many of the same ways, is perceived and treated so entirely differently in different demographics? There is no legitimate reason that I can find why passion should be accepted and encouraged in one form, and mocked in another, and the differentiating factors seem to be almost exclusively based on sex and age.

Even when girls enjoy “guy things” (be it sports, video games, science fiction), they are often still criticized for being “fake”, or only pretending to like the thing to get the attention of guys. If these things truly are so great, why would interest in them need to be feigned? The only reason I can see to be so affronted by a girl liking something generally seen as male-oriented, is because of the nonsensical belief that if a girl likes it, it can’t possibly be any good.

So this is my confession: I am a female, and I like stuff. Some of the stuff I like is often liked by many other females as well, but quality is not determined by demographics. It is determined by content, actions, people, and facts.

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styling + photos by Diyana Noory

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styling + photos by Diyana Noory

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text by

I can walk this street in New Skin and hit the bridge on Honey Stride staring back, pretend we don’t exist He tunnelled to the centre of my Brain! questioning coding, false constructions Do I believe what I believe?

I love to tear shit down, pull their hardwire from my arms Snagging tendons, screaming — glitch, blood, metal, motor oil Install spigots on my metal wrists, He twists the taps to pour me out like lemonade Moan bliss released, drink from the cups of my bones

I don’t remember seeing the sky, I’m falling straight into the void of my core God, what a lovely rush I mourn and fight, cauterize my eyes, I tumble through a rain cloud looking for an ethical hope I no longer believe— How much do we sacrifice to store sto our cars, motor dreams and techno deities Oh, America! When will I be free?

Unplug me from th—

art by Stephanie Amatori 16

night light text by I go out like a light in an era of light-switches: flutter me strobe-like, flicker me lightning.

Put me in fishnet tights made of wires and zap me til I dance on the grid.

Ricochet on beat to the techno-paced pulse on the insides of my eyelids.

Listen to it pushing the silence: eclectic and electric, frazzled and in my veins and tugging me by the standing hairs in my open pores po

Date/Time Properties

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photo by Abigail Tung 22

photos by Derek Boswell 23

TOKENS text by Emma Cohen

No matter where you look there’s a count down.

No one at this age knows exactly what they’re waiting for (but it’s big, trust me, it’s big).

Sitting in new rooms passing chapstick, touching knees, trying on each other’s shirts: instinct #1: throw up instinct #2: cry instinct #3: document The corners of the buildings look sharp and warped, thin and slanted.

In the right lighting, though, they become backdrops that facilitate something? something good?

Split ends and long distances are things you don’t want to fuck with.

Without a prayer or a bang the internet is slow and he in the boredom of waiting for it and maybe also because of the smoothness of the after shower glow - slides slippery into a deep blue slumber.

I am quiet, I creep, exist with subtlety I don’t want to wake him up.

(I do.)

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OF THE AGE photo by Sofia Berger

Outside the room there are two boys with faces that slide on and off, their faces split right where the mouths are and each tooth is like a shiny precious pill, a drug, one they can pop back anytime they want.

They stand in the kitchen with their arms moving just so and their hair sticky everywhere like honey jack. Dark blues and greens of beer cans and the lickable red of blood on their fingers.

I like the way they wear turtlenecks, I like the way they have ugly palm tree tattoos.

They listen to trap music. Then Otis Redding.

Exiting the doorframe of the bedroom I see them and they are watching a trailer for a movie from the nineteen thirties that they are never going to watch.

I’m not sure how long to talk before pulling juice from the fridge and pouring and pouring and pouring and sipping, then more, just to keep my mouth busy.

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Videos by Max Mao

“Self Control� film by Adam Ibrahim

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