Brain Stew '17 / '18- Issue 2

Emma keeps showing up Zach and Nicole with her bombass art and snarky articles. Soon she will eclipse them both and take her rightful place on the Game of Thrones throne. (is that how the show works? iʻve never seen it.) Thereʻs some advice for new folks, a recap of honors orientation, an explanation of the lgbtqialmnop acronym, a Real Good Horoscope (tm), our usual plea for more submissions from yʻall, and a smattering of memes here and there. Soups on, yʻall!

Why weren’t you at PLHCSA’s award-winning, back-to-school blast, Paintapalooza???

Boo you and your unobservant ass-hat-ery! I was there! I may not have actually thrown any paint—I was afraid I’d get it on my brand new knock off Keds, or worse, in my beard. That shit never comes out once it’s in. I was fooled 68 years ago in my undergrad to do one of these blasted events, and you can still see the evidence here in the bottom strands of my beard.

It doesn’t go away! Boo! Boo you and your darn unremovable paint! Boo! Besides, I saw all of the recipts from PLHCSA’s order, and even though they thought the paint was certified non-toxic and safe for your eyes, it was not.

Bully to you and you now toxified bodies!

Oh my gosh, did I miss Paintapalooza???

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOO!!!!! Ugh well clearly all of those flyers all over the honors college weren’t enough for me to notice. Or the ENORMOUS sprinkle chef/salt bae meme at the entrance near the common room. Or the large amount of social media presence for the event. Or even Nicole and Zach constantly talking about it to everyone they see. Clearly they’re to blame. They should be impeached. Shame on them.

I wish I could’ve attended, but I was too busy enjoying a nice Chardonnay while paging through Butler’s Gender Trouble for the twelfth time. I would’ve been writing for my literary fanfic blog, but I was just wasn’t feeling like pitting Enkidu against Gilgamesh in the mud pit again, his wild self slowly sinking in the wet earth as he locks grips and gazes with royalty, his toes clasping at the moist clay of the arena, the supple ground accepting his body as Gilgy briefly subdues him. (The stuff really writes itself, doesn’t it?)

WHAT YOU MISSED AT HONORS ORIENTATION President Choi becomes part of the Honors College cult family after being forced into a Honors College T-Shirt while Chancellor George flaunts his Residential Life gear.

Meanwhile, Dean Gerth sports white socks with off-brand Keds.

A photo of Thomas Poon prior to his death. He choked on a kernel.

Poor kid never saw it coming.

RIP. 1996-2017.

Sara Hilpert leads a group of new students down the main stairwell.

Some students got lost along the wayhopefully we find them soon.

New Honors students exchange their happiness and souls for bags full of orientation goodies.

Top: Zach Lee talks to freshmen about submitting to the World’s Greatest Publication™ , Brain Stew. Did you submit? No? Boo!! Listen to Zach! Submit!

Middle: Nancy Gleason supervises the popcorn table. “Only 12 pieces of popcorn per student.

We are on a tight budget these days. And use your PLHCSA frisbee as a plate and your Honors handbook as a napkin. Paper plates and napkins don’t grow on trees,” Gleason said.

Bottom: “To your left is the LeGras classroom, and straight ahead are the portraits of the souls who haunt this building. Restrooms are down the hall and to the left.”

Top: Adam Thompson talks with students about involvement oncampus. “You all should get involved with Pre-Dental Society! We will be providing free tooth extractions and surgeries in the Villa Courtyard free for Honors students! No experience necessary! Each extraction comes with a free t-shirt too, by the way.”

Bottom: Dean Dan Gerth leads the freshman class in the tradition of reciting the Honors Creed. “I solemnly swear I will read Dan’s emails and will submit to my writing portfolio. I will refill the common room coffee pot and I will honor PLHCSA events and keep them holy”

Top: Honors Orientation quickly transforms into something like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The first step is admitting you have a problem, and let me tell you, we have a lot of them.

Bottom: Students involve themselves in Honors College gossip.

“Did you hear about Nancy’s dog Perry? I heard he is a smol fluffer. Sounds like a good boi.”

The Honors Orientation afterparty. I don’t remember much of it. What happens at the after-party stays at the after-party.

GOOD LUCK TO OUR NEW STUDENTS!

ver the years, I have observed that the UMSL community really likes their abbreviations.

More often thantnot, things are referred to by initials or shortened forms -- such as buildings (SSB, MSC, TJ), organizations (UPB, SGA, PLHCSA), heck, even calling the place UMSL is an acronym. I’ve got no problem with this, as long as I stay on top of things and know what’s what. (This is unfortunately not always the case; I once had to go to a meeting in AAB (Arts Administration Building) and ended up missing the meeting because I thought I was supposed to go to ABA (Anheuser Busch Auditorium). Keep your wits about you, kiddos, or you end up making a fool of yourself.)

The weirdest one out of all of these shortenings[1] is “ProHo”. Obviously, the phrase stands for Provincial House. One would assume that it is used to reference that one weird, old building on South Campus with the same name. And it does…..sometimes.

This is where things get tricky. In the Honors College vernacular, “ProHo” can mean one of two things: the actual Provincial House building, or the Provincial House Dining Hall. It can get confusing working through the subtle differences between these two meanings, and frankly, it is all about the context. In an effort to make life a little more coherent, I’ve attempted to give you some examples of the P-word being used and interpreted their meanings for you!

If someone says: “My class is in ProHo.” They mean: Provincial House proper. Usually if going to class is mentioned in the sentence, then the building is the thing they’re talking about. No Honors classes ever meet in the dining hall, unless you’re taking HON 3420 - Learning to Barbecue Roadkill with Dan off of the secret course description list.

If someone says: “ProHo is closed.” / “ProHo is open right now.”

They mean: Provincial House Dining Hall. The Provincial House building is pretty much always open; it’s the food place that keeps wild, frustrating hours which I keep forgetting.[2] If someone says: “Let’s go to ProHo” They mean: Provincial House Dining Hall. Usually if someone asks you to go to ProHo with them, they mean to go eat, not just to...hang out in the building. If they wanted to simply hang out, they’d probably specify a certain room, like the Common Room, Basement, or Small Library.[3] If someone says: “Let’s meet at ProHo.” They mean: Provincial house proper. While going to ProHo usually implies going to eat, meet

ing at ProHo usually just implies using the building as a landmark. It’s a subtle difference.

If someone says: “I’m on my way to ProHo.” They mean: If they’re already inside the Provincial[4] House building, they probably mean the dining hall. If they’re somewhere else on campus, they probably mean the building.

If someone says: “I’m at ProHo.” They mean: This is the most ambiguous of them all. If you’re trying to locate someone and they tell you they’re ‘at ProHo’, it could basically mean either one. If it’s during dinner or late-night hours, it’s likely that they are in the dining hall. But even if you’re not sure, you at least have a jumping-off point to start searching since the dining hall is situated inside the ProHo building.

Use your newfound knowledge to slang with confidence!

[1] Remember to grease the bottom and sides of your pans when baking brownies.

[2] On a side note: Why doesn’t the dining hall do breakfast? Like, I would kill for the convenience of walking down a floor still in my pajamas and getting some good ol’ eggs n’ hashbrowns in the morning. What happened to ‘most important meal of the day’?

[3] If someone wants to ‘hang out in the Small Library’ with you, DO NOT accept. This is an Honors College euphemism for having sex, similar to the phrase ‘Netflix & chill’.

[4] I swear to Christ I mistyped the word ‘Provin cial’ like 12 times when writing this article and had to go back and fix them all.

Letter to the editors: Dear BS Editors: HEY! Guess who just had to file for disability?!

ME! You know why?!? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't those damn glasses from the back of your last issue (although, they did compound the problems!)!

What physically damaged me the most was those disgusting normie memes that you slapped into "le meme corner"! They were hardly curated at all, memes are supposed to be an art form, not a bureaucratic abomination that treats memes as tools to convey messages! Let me know when you get a competent curator!

-Papí

Dear Papí, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Love and kissies,

inqueeries

a column for exploring the intersections of sex, gender, and sexuality

by zachary j. lee

the lgbtqia+ acronym Hey folks, and welcome to a new semester with inqueeries, a column about sex, gender, sexuality, and the intersections therein! Last semester, someone asked me if I could quickly explain what each letter in the LGBTQIA+ acronym stands for, and I think that this is a great place to start for the new academic year. A quick reminder: I am not an degree-carrying expert on these topics, but I do have a little bit of knowledge (and the internet) to help me explain these (mostly the internet).

Also, a quick note: The LGBTQIA+ acronym seems to grow every day, and while some folks see this as a great way continually accept new people into the Queer community, others see this “alphabet soup” as another display of disunityin the community—kind of ironic that an acronym that intends to accept more people into the family can by its nautre except others who haven’t become a part of acronymical canon, huh? Because of this, I’ve adopted the acronym GSM, which stands for Gender and Sexual Minorites. This isn’t really mainstream yet, but it is inclusive of (almost) everyone under the LGBTQIA+ acronym. (I say almost because it doesn’t really have space for, for example, the aromantic community.) TL;DR: There’s still a long way to go before the Queer community settles on a name for itself.

Anyway, here’s as much of the acronym as I can name. If you know more about the acronym or want to know more about a particular identity, send me an email and we can explore this in another issue of inqueeries!

L: Lesbian: a woman who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to other women.

G: Gay: (typically) a man who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to other men, though this term is sometimes used as an umbrella term for people of all genders.

B: Bisexual: a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to people of the same or of a different gender. Some other related terms are pansexual, omnisexual, and nonmonosexual, though each of these have their own slightly different connotations.

T: Transgender: describes a person who does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. For more on the concept of gender, see last year’s inqueeries column on gender in issue 9!

Q: Queer/Questioning: alright, now’s about where the acronym gets a little tricky. Some folks argue whether the Q stands for Queer or Questioning, and frankly, I don’t see why it can’t stand for both? For more on Queer, see the inqueeries column in issue 8 from last year!

I: Intersex: describes an person whose physical sex characteristics do not neatly fit into the binary of male or female. For more on intersex individuals, see my interview with my friend Leon in issue 10 from last year!

A: Asexual, Agender, Aromantic: much like the Q, the A in the acronym can stand for any number of things. The asexual

and aromantic spectrums are themselves different from those of gender, sex, and sexual orientation, but are still linked to the way that an individual experiences attraction. In a nutshell, asexual individuals generally do not experience sexual attraction; similarly, aromantic folks do not generally experience romantic attraction. For more on agender, check out my interview with Zoë in issue 13 from last year! +: Most folks put the plus at the end of the acronym to represent all of the other identities that can’t fit into so many syllables. Among these could be identities on the asexual spectrum (demisexual, sapiosexual, etc), the romantic spectrum (lithromantic, gray-romantic, etc), the gender spectrum (demi-boy/demi-girl, genderqueer, etc), or any other spectrum of identity. Some folks place the + after the T, after the Q, or after the I, though generally folks will use at least the “LGBT” part of the acronym.

As you may be wondering, will there ever be an end to the parsing of identities for the LGBTQIA+ community? Maybe yes, and maybe no. While I have no empirical evidence to back up this claim (if you know of any, send me an email!) I see more and more people in the community simply using “Queer” to describe how they differ from heteronormative society.

Personally, I prefer to use Queer as my sexual identity, even though by most textbooks I’m labeled gay. More and more, Queer is becoming an umbrella term, reclaimed from its derogatory use in the mid-to-late twentieth century. (Like I said, more on Queer in issue 8 from last spring.)

Anywho, that’s all for now! Do you have a question about gender, sex, or sexuality—Queer or otherwise? If so, don’t be ashamed! Send me an email at zjlmr5@mail.umsl.edu, and we can learn together!

First I’d like to say: honestly, it doesn’t really matter if you’re a doe-eyed infant freshman who doesn’t know what the heck you’re doing. As you’ll soon learn, no one in college cares. Literally no one. But, if for some reason you want to uphold an image that you’ve got everything together, here are a few tips: #1: Walk with Purpose You can pretty much spot who’s new right away by seeing who does what I like to call the “freshman shuffle”. Nothing says “NOOB” more than slowly shuffling your way around places, looking left and right. Walk quickly and deliberately, and you instantly look like you’ve got places to be and things to do. If you can, try to figure out where you need to go first before you set off on your journey. If you don’t know where you’re going, follow your instinct, pick a random direction, and walk there while trying to find your bearings along the way.

You can turn around/backtrack at any point, as long as you don’t stop moving in a purposeful manner. Smiling at people you pass also helps, as it really makes you look like you know exactly what you’re doing. #2: Don’t Fear Being Alone Being alone is actually nice! You get a break from all the craziness and just get some time to sit with you and your thoughts! Don’t fret about sitting by yourself in the MSC or ProHo*, just own it! If you’re worried about looking awkward, keep a small notebook to write/doodle in while you at. It makes you look busy, like you are purposefully sitting alone to get shit done! Meanwhile, you could be writing about flowers or drawing dicks for all I care. #3: Business Casual or Better Nerdy graphic t-shirts are fun, I know. But they have a time and place, and if you really want to not look like you stepped off the Baby Boat, get yourself some nice polos and slacks! Or maybe a knee skirt if you’re so inclined! (I like knee skirts.) Honestly you can make a huge impression on people by the way you dress, and no better time than college to experiment with your style! #4: Know What to Say to the Shuttle Driver I see this every year: a noob gets on, and asks the person driving the shuttle what stop they should get off at. It’s not really that annoying, but I can also see it being a quite inefficient way to get your information. There are plenty of resources that tell you when and where the shuttle goes at every time of day (the UMSL app has a live shuttle map that’s s-w-e-e-t). If you take time to study them, then really the only question you need to ask the driver is if they’re going north or south. (And really, that question is only necessary if you’re getting on at the Main Circle) Also, it is very important to thank your shuttle driver when you leave!!! Don’t be a #RudeBoi. #5: Be Buddies with your Honors Professors I can’t vouch for the rest of the university (especially Computer Science), but the Honors College professors do not bite. If you’re gonna be friends with any sort of teacher here, it’s with these people. Don’t be afraid to talk to them about anything! (Unless it’s during class, then it’s best to stick to the topic.) Befriending teachers is honestly a big confidence-booster, and it’s nice to have an adult-ier adult that you know has got your back. #6: Just Don’t Care Like I said above, no one honestly cares in college. Practice your best tired, blasé face as a reaction to awkward or surprising situations, and soon you’ll fit right in. If you take early morning classes, reaching peak “meh” should be even easier! If you’re having trouble not caring about things, repeat the mantra, “we’re all gonna die eventually” to yourself at least 5 times a day, and let that existential nihilism set in! #7: Submit to Brain Stew Only the coolest of cool people submit to Brain Stew. Think about it: don’t you look like you’re owning your life if you can say you are a ~published author~? What a great way to wow your friends and impress your peers. Yeah, she submits to Brain Stew, she obviously has got everything together. Also it gives you a little bit of writing practice before you have to write all those scaaaary essays for Cultural Traditions (Bah, none of you ever had Rebecca Schuman for CulTrad. You’ll never know real fear.)

Now you can tread campus with a little bit more confidence! Also now you know my secret and that deep down I have no freaking idea what I'm doing, just like you babbys. *By ProHo, we mean the Dining Hall, but you knew that already, didn’t you?

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Put on your eclipse glasses, Emma Daues is about to heat up the issue!

THE PROG CORNER! --A music column-Hello, hello, hello, everyone! Hope you all out in the PLHC-verse didn’t miss me too much! I know that you all are DYING to get back to listening to some good ol’ progressive rock, so here I am to deliver!

I know I’m still in an eclipse-y mood from Monday, so let’s talk about a pretty sweet prog album that’s (sort of) related to eclipses!

Dark Side of the Moon -- Pink Floyd (1975) If you’ve never heard of any of the artists I’ve talked about before in my prog articles, that’s….fair. But I’m guessing you may have heard of this li’l buddy right here. It’s Dark Side of the Moon, one of the most iconic albums in the universe! Look at that pretty, minimalistic album art that is on like, 50% of tshirts I see in public! Ooh, so sleek, so shiny!

What? You didn’t know that Pink Floyd was Progressive Rock? They very much are, especially the stuff they released in the 70’s. Concept albums with long songs broken into multiple parts, displays of outstanding technical skill with instruments, wibbly-wobbly synths, sci-fi themes...they’re checking off all the right proggy boxes it seems.

Even though this album is pretty much everywhere, I actually never listened to it until recently, when I heard a cover of some songs that piqued my interest. Overall, it has a nice, melancholy feel, with lyrics that have a very poetic but cynical feel. I like to say that Pink Floyd is music you listen to when you’re depressed, but still want to feel groovy about it.

At the time of this album’s release, the band’s lineup had been well-established as David Gilmour (vocals, guitar), Roger Waters (vocals, bass), Nick Mason (drums), and Richard Wright (keyboards, occasional vocals). Waters, working as the band’s frontman, came up with the idea of their album having themes of death and madness, and a more direct tone in their lyrics. Thus Dark Side of the Moon was born, and subsequently became loved by all.

The album starts with “Speak to Me”, an intro that it’s only several seconds long. We hear the sound of a heartbeat, then slowly an array of additional sounds fade in alongside it, each a reference to future tracks in the album. Then the first lyrical song begins, “Breathe”. The song is relaxed and makes use of some really nice slide guitars. The vocals are floaty and layered, giving the song an ethereal quality. But this ends at the start if the next song, “On the Run”. The tempo picks up and we’re treated to an instrumental chase. This song is filled with fast, arpeggiating synths, a punchy drum line, quick footsteps, and helicopter sounds. It seems to simulate someone, well, on the run. A cool feature of this track is how stereophonic the noises get. If you listen with headphones, it feels like the different instrumental bits are moving around from ear to ear. The track ends with an explosion, and you can hear the faint sound of footsteps continue, implying that the subject of the story was able to get away.

Next is a really funky song, “Time”. Slowly the sound of ticking clocks fades in, and in one cacopho

nous moment they all chime and alarm together. There was a point during the summer where I used the introduction to “Time” as my wake-up alarm; it’s very jarring, I highly recommend it. After the ticking and the ringing comes an extended instrumental big with a steady drum beat and some scary melodies. These suddenly give way to a funky beat as the lyrics come in, talking of the depressing fact that people waste their lives away. The song’s funky beat is very similar to “Breathe”, which makes sense because the song transitions to an additional verse of “Breathe” at the end.

Then it’s time for my favorite track on the album, “Great Gig in the Sky”. It starts simply enough with a soulful piano riff, but soon the song explodes into a passionate, jazzy number with wailing female vocals. Wait, did you say...female vocals? Yeah, Pink Floyd brought in singer Clare Torry in to improvise over their song, and wow, she really packs a punch! I love it! It’s not often I get to talk about women in Progressive Rock. The song talks a calmer turn and then “Money” is up next, heralded by the rhythmic sounds of a cash register. This song is honestly so iconic and I love the quirkiness that the cash register sounds provide. There’s some cynical, wailing vocals about the dangers of greed, and a fast-paced saxophone/guitar solo thrown in the middle for good measure. (That sax is sooooo sassy and soooooo gooood.)

The song smoothly fades into a slower beat for the ext track, “Us and Them”. The tone of this song is very similar to “Breathe”, except the chorus is a bit more soulful and dramatic. A cool bit of this song if the pretty echo effect used on the vocals. This song transitions straight into “Any Colour You Like”, a psychedelic instrumental track that has a weird, syncopated beat. This flows into “Brain Damage”, which takes a slower look at the effects of madness on a person. The chorus in this song is a particularly powerful bit, including the line “I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon”, a place that is possibly only accessible by the insane. The song then transitions into the final track, “Eclipse”. Everything culminates in this last song, including vocals that keep building and building until the final line, “the sun is eclipsed by the moon”. If there’s one way to end an album with a bang, it’s with an eclipse.

(Honestly this would have been the best song to witness the eclipse to. Too bad I didn’t talk about it sooner...) The song quickly peters out until all you can hear is the heartbeat, parallelling the beginning of the album.

One notable part that occurs throughout the album is bits of spoken word that weave their way throughout each song. Pink Floyd actually rounded up people working in the same studio and recorded interview with them, asking deep questions about death, violence, and madness. Then they used pieces of these recordings in their songs. It’s a bit chilling if you pay attention to what they are saying, with lines about getting into fights at the end of “Money” or the slightly unhinged laugh in the middle of “Brain Damage”. A favorite line of mine is the calm statement of “I’m not afraid of dying...” found in “Great Gig in the Sky”. It sets a very poignant mood throughout the album, and makes each song feel more human.

Overall, this album is a trip; one big, groovy, jazzy trip. It’s pretty apparent why so many people like it, as it deals with large, universal concepts while still being super poetic and ethereal. Is this what it sounds like when you die? I’ve never thought to ask a dead person, so I guess I’ll only found out when it happens. I definitely could have worse things blasting in the background while I shuffled off my mortal coil. Pink Floyd: songs to die to!

What a bizarre note to end on. I hope to see you next time for another great little snippet of prog!

Seeee ya!

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