September 2023 Pine Press

P e r n e i s s P September 2023

To my fellow co-opers, Sometimes, I get to the point of writing this letter and I have lots of interesting updates and things to say. Other times, I have just finished writing an extensive entry on which bear is the best type of bear and I am very tired. Today is the latter.

If you’d like to submit to the Pine Press, you can send your entries to education@spartan.coop! You can submit pretty much anything (with some limitations related to other people’s work and not being an asshole).

Yours in cooperation, Lucinda Gleespen Vice President of Education Cover Photo Credit: Riley (Bowie)

Go Grace and Kaumyar for getting the dressers out of the second-floor hallway! and thank you Phoenix haus for taking them!! (Mckenzee, New Community)

You are doing great all of raft always (Anna, Raft Hill) thx sky for going out to the woods in the pitch black and helping me film a project. luv u (Bella, Orion) pinecones to joseph for helping me string my ethernet cable and pinecones to jake for teaching me how to be a sober monitor and being a great example of one!

(Sonny, Phoenix) Would submit pinecones to fixing the dryer in the basement. (Noah, Harambee) pinecones to beal haus for having the coolest people and the best cats :) (Annika, Beal) Pinecones to the hooligans who took down our greenhouse (Jonathan, Phoenix) pinecones to the new orionites for doing such an amazing job at keeping the house clean! (Sky, Orion) Kat's meal planning is excellent! (Shannon, Raft Hill) Jonathan, Charles, and whoever else helped to tear down the broken greenhouse. (Jake, Phoenix)

What is the best type of bear?

Gleespen, Lucinda September 27, 2023 You know it, I know it, we all know it: bears are great (Gleespen et al., 2023). But one question remains that has haunted our world for generations: which bear is best? Today, using extremely professional research methods (a Google Forms survey), a not at all biased sample (the only people bored enough to fill out my survey), and carefully designed metrics (personal taste), I will answer that question once and for all. It would be really fun if I had a hypothesis but given that I have already read all the results that seems like cheating.

METHODS I already told you my methods in the abstract. Go read that again if you are unsure.

RESULTS -

Pandas, they’re cute (Justin, Vesta)

-

the polar bear in the natural science building! polar bears are very baller. (Mckenzee, New Community)

-

A Care Bear (Zea, Bowie)

-

Chinese Sun Bear. It looks suspiciously like a human and I respect how stupid it is (Rebecca, Howland)

-

Grizzly Bear, efficient, effective, powerful. Ursus arctos horibilis is an incredible beast the might of which can only be appreciated in the wild when you know the only thing standing between you and never being seen ever again is a can of pepper spray and the fact that you aren’t berries. (Zack, Howland)

-

SUNBEAR (Trixie, Bower)

-

Polar Bear (Jane, Toad Lane)

-

Paddington bear - He's sweet and like marmalade (Nina, Howland)

-

boog from open season (the mighty grizzly) (Bella, Orion)

-

Rilakkuma (Anna, Raft Hill)

-

Polar Bear (?, The Shire)

-

Smokey Bear (Ethan, Orion)

-

Black bear (Noah, Harambee)

-

Definitely the bear that shut down part of Disney (anti-capitalist queen) (Annika, Beal)

-

There are two schools of thought to this question, and I choose the school that says that the panda bear is the best bear, because it is the best adapted to its environment with no natural predators and an abundant source of food. (Jake, Phoenix)

-

A gummy bear (Nicholas, Phoenix)

-

polar bears, but specifically Ice Bear from We Bare Bears <3 (Abby, Orion)\

-

Stoney the Bear (Smokey the Bear's cousin) (Jonathan, Phoenix)

-

brown bears FUCKING RULE (Ana, Ferency)

-

cocaine bear (Sky, Orion)

-

Smokey. Only you can prevent forest fires. Or cocaine bear (Imogen, Apollo)

-

A specific bear I saw on a mug in Nepal that told me "bear is our good friend" (Shannon, Raft Hill)

-

brown bear (Alex W, Orion)

-

otis of fat bear week fame (Nat, New Community)

-

Cinnamon bears (Kenny, Phoenix)

-

Polar bears! -Lucinda

-

Panda bear-especially as babies (Lily, Beal)

DISCUSSION Now that we have collected the data, it’s time to decide what the fuck it means in terms of bear superiority. The most intuitive way to go about this would be to compare how often each type of bear was mentioned. The current study finds that sample participants were most likely to list polar bears as their favorite bears. The fact that polar bears are my favorite bears and the fact that I produced this study are entirely coincidental. This aligns with previous research that found polar bears to be particularly lovely bears: Gleespen (2010) found that the best animal at the Toledo Zoo was by far the polar bears, and a study by the same researcher in 2007 found that the best Ikea stuffed animal was the one designed to look like a polar bear. This could be due to the fact that polar bears are really fucking cool. Using this metric, the study finds that panda bears were the second most popular type of bear. Brown bears were the third most popular. This is in spite of the fact that naming an entire species of bears “brown bears” when most bears are brown is stupid as hell.

It is also important to consider the passion with which each sample participant reported their answers. Some respondents, like Ana from Ferency (a brown bear aficionado) and Trixie from Bower (a sun bear supporter), typed their answers in all caps to indicate their love for their chosen bear. Ana from Ferency went above and beyond by incorporating foul language, professing that “brown bears FUCKING RULE”. Perhaps this warrants extra points. Others felt so passionately about their bear of choice that they gave detailed explanations for why their bear was best. Jake from Phoenix’s answer in support of panda bears and Zack from Howland’s

answer in support of grizzly bears were so well thought out that they almost made me reconsider my own choices. Almost.

Interestingly, some of the survey responses collected in this study broke the boundaries of what can be considered a bear. Some of the responses included fictional bears. One bear was so fictional that we theorize that it is actually Jonathan from Phoenix in a bear hoodie. This raises a new question: is there something so wrong with the state of bears in 2023 that a fictional bear could be better than any real bear? Given that the picture of Paddington attached by Nina from Howland is the cutest bear pictured in the data (Gleespen, 2023), this is possible; thus, more research into this topic is necessary. Shannon from Raft Hill’s bear was actually a mug, but it said “bear is okay” on it, so we’re chill with it.

Another interesting finding was the number of bears pictured that were smoking: both of the bears provided by Jonathan and Kenny from Phoenix were smoking. Jonathan’s bear appeared to be smoking weed (we think, our researchers are bong fans and don’t necessarily know how to tell the difference between joints, blunts, spliffs, and cigars). Some may find this concerning, as a bear with the munchies is many people’s worst fear, but we would like to remind readers that bears generally do not eat people and when they do it’s okay. Kenny’s bear appeared to be smoking a cigarette. This raises a new question: do cigarettes increase the risk of lung cancer in bears? We reached out to The Real Cost to learn more but they asked us to please stop calling them with questions about bears (also we were vaping while on the phone with them and we’re scared that they could tell and are going to send us scary human lung cancer facts).

These findings become more confusing when we take into account the fact that Jonathan’s bear really looks like Jonathan in a hoodie and the fact that the cigarette in Kenny’s photo appears to be hand drawn.

This study has no limitations that need to be taken into consideration. It was conducted perfectly and its results can certainly be applied to the general population. This study was not peer reviewed because Marty was busy.

Grim Reality N.J. I am not yet dead Sentient marble remains Slowly rotting away With memories in my veins They lay flowers at my grave To forgive me for their sins Vines entwine my ribs Keep my lungs from caving in Shadowy hands around my throat Stars in my eyes The secrets of the universe Or devilish lies All your screws are loose While mine are rusted shut Which has it worse Who will make the cut Sleep escapes my bones Skin begging for the blade The wheel decides When the debt is paid

Snubs Jesse - Raft Hill

The book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is an excellent compendium of, well, exactly that-- albums you should probably give your time for at some point in your life. However, there’s a stunning amount of glaring omissions and puzzling inclusions, and there’s as many ways you can be disappointed as you can be pleasantly surprised.

Snubs was formerly part of a listening log for the book, however… it’s become much more interesting to write for than the main article. Here’s a collection of albums you should definitely listen to that, for one reason or another, were snubbed from the 1001.

J Dilla - Donuts (2006) Instrumental hip hop, plunderphonics The final masterwork of a life unfortunately cut short, Donuts was recorded in a hospital room during the final year in the life of James Yancey, known across the world of hip-hop as the producer J Dilla. In spite of a rare blood disease and lupus, Dilla managed to put together this jam-packed, colorful box of 31 “donuts” -- short beats, all sampled, no rapped vocals on top, assembled chiefly on his trusty MPC3000. This album is alive and loving it, always willing to grab you by the wrist and drag you to places you never thought could exist. Donuts redefined how beats were produced and changed the course of hip-hop-- this is definitely your favorite beatmaker’s favorite album. Even Adult Swim made its brand off Donuts-- do you remember all those old bumpers with the super cool beats? A lot of them were taken straight from here.

Gustavo Cerati - Bocanada (1999) Downtempo, art pop How the hell are you supposed to follow up being a part of your country’s most popular band ever? This was the question following Argentina’s patron saint of rock music, Gustavo Cerati, after the massively popular Soda Stereo broke up in 1997. Turns out that, for Cerati, the answer was to dive headlong into electronic trip-hop and downtempo influences, returning with Bocanada just before the new millennium, and in the process crafting quite possibly one of the best pop albums ever made. I’m not kidding. From the moment “Tabu” kicks off, it’s an hour-long trip through a flat-out utopian slice of smooth, soul-rending musical perfection. You’d think an album this imbued with obvious late-90s and Y2K aesthetics would show its age, but no-- it’s transcendental and utterly timeless.

Snubs

Grace Jones - Nightclubbing (1981) Art pop, new wave I don’t care if the 1001 was decided by a bunch of British dudes, Nightclubbing’s exclusion as a cultural moment (and a fucking good album at that) is puzzling at best and a damning indication of some serious biases going on in the list at worst. Everything about this album feeds into each other, from the painting-like photography to the sparse, nocturnal beats, establishing Grace Jones as an utterly smoking androgynous legend of 1980s New York. It’s sleek, stylish, utterly confident, bringing out all the tropes of that early-80s pop you kinda forgot were really good, actually, and making you feel like that should be you out there, finally slipping past the bouncer-- not into Harper’s, no, but into what you can already tell is going to be the best night of your life.

Primal Scream - XTRMNTR (2000) Alternative dance, electro-industrial, big beat If you ask any particularly boring British-leaning critic about essential albums, one of the first they’d provide is this very band’s Screamadelica, which was the nationally recognized excuse to do LSD at the time. They might not mention what is by far the more interesting album of Primal Scream’s, though. Eight years later, they traded out the LSD for PCP, became PRMLSCRM because vowels are fascist (no joke), and put out this solid hour of big, adrenaline-pumping dance floor beats designed to be played loud to the point of deafness. So what are you doing?

Listen to it loud and PROUD! And listen to Accelerator at max volume. Trust me. :)

Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling (2018) Neo-psychedelia, folktronica, magic There’s albums that live and breathe, and then there’s whatever this is. Crumbling is a mythical beast, seemingly undiscovered except by you, showing off its full beauty. How the hell does all of this fit in 44 minutes? It ebbs and flows with the tides, leads you to glory and then backs off into gently rippling chaos. Its highs are like you just comprehended the full scale of the sky for the first time. Folky, dancing guitar intertwines with lush and vibrantly colorful synthlines to leave you glued to the couch cushion, looking up at the ceiling with nary a thought but what in the hell?

No, really, sometimes it’s still a shock that this album was made by humans at all, much less one guy with guest vocals, fiddling away anonymously in a studio in Seoul.

Snubs

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf (2002) Desert rock I need a saga. What’s the saga? How about one of the biggest, greatest rock albums of the 2000s? After the great but decidedly loose collection of songs that was Rated R, QOTSA decided the best course of action was to take their listeners on a road trip. Specifically, one from the smog-choked afternoon highways of Los Angeles to the open night skies at Joshua Tree National Park, fiddling with the radio the whole way through. Along the way, you’re given one of the most remarkably consistent and annoyingly catchy lineups of modern hard rock classics ever-- every hook makes you feel like a millionaire and every riff sends your brain rattling. If, at the end, you find yourself with a broken-down car in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night, just remember that it’s been one hell of a ride to get there.

The Microphones - The Glow, Pt. 2 (2001) Indie folk We are approaching the perfect time to listen to this album-- so don’t delay. Don’t listen to your friend who really loves Neutral Milk Hotel, either. This is the best indie folk album of its era. The first three songs are, combined, possibly the greatest first impression you could have with any album, and the rest of it more than carries its weight. It’s warm and fuzzy like a campfire. It’s filled simultaneously with electric energy, a sweet intimacy that wraps around you like a weighted blanket, and a weird, longing coldness that leaves you empty and unable to fully describe what made you full in the first place. The recording is so lo-fi that its louder moments feel like they’re shredding the tape, but it’s so present that Phil Elverum may as well be playing right next to you-- and I promise that you will be enraptured the whole way through.

Ulver - Perdition City (2000) Trip hop Ulver made their bones off of being one of the most interesting black metal bands of the 1990s in Norway, so of course it makes sense that with the new millennium, they’d accidentally become too interesting and turn in what proved to be an incredibly polarizing… trip hop album? Huh? All those blast beats and growls are replaced with clear vocals, noir-like urban soundscapes and some seriously haunting meditations on death and non-existence. It’s cheesy at times, sparse at others, yes-- but when that sweet, ghostly saxophone rolls in, or when “The Future Sound of Music” finally explodes into noise, are you really going to be the one to complain?

Snubs

A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service (2016) East coast hip-hop (whatever that means now), jazz rap It’s not often that a group realizes its own impending mortality and decides to really go out with a bang. Thank you, Tribe for not letting The Love Movement be your final album. What we get instead is the last full hour of music anyone expected in 2016: the Tribe, back again in full like they never left (or made The Love Movement). There are no lost steps, either, speaking on the utter chaos of 2016 politics and all the ugly, thorny side effects of 20 more years of decadent, racist capitalism like they were right back at home in the 90s. All the while, Q-Tip’s production remains at its usual legendary quality, the beats staying just as crips and jazzy as ever and allowing an otherwise imposing hour of music to glide down smoother than ever before. Also rare: your belated final comeback album possibly being the best thing you ever put out.

Dean Blunt- Black Metal (2014) Art pop, the rot consumes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As the seasons change, here’s one more album to consider.

Something to put on while you’re walking out in the dark. Forget Ulver, who knew it took until 2014 for some actual black metal?

Jokes aside, while you’re walking, just look out along the barely-lit path, defined only by the streetlights. Maybe you’ll come across Dean, alone, playing these songs into the cool night. Awkward vocals that somehow magically fit these cold yet lush, beautiful instrumentals, echoing off into the abyss above. Don’t take it from me, of course. I could be a small dog with a pair of backscratchers slamming at a keyboard for all you know, but what I know is that it’s way too easy to put on “100” and immediately feel the temperature of the room around me drop by 10 degrees as I melt away into my bed.

None of these albums, according to the 1001, *must* be listened to before you die. But hopefully some of them are able to color your October rather well.

To Dilla, Gustavo, Mark and Phife: I hope you’re doing well, wherever you are.

The Snubs Canon (previous selections, see August 2023 PP - listen to these, too!)

Arthur Russell - World of Echo (1987) De La Soul - De La Soul Is Dead (1991) Frank Ocean - Blonde (2016) Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden (1988) and Laughing Stock (1991) Unwound - Repetition (1996)

Sounds of the SHC -

Galaxy Express 999 (Justin, Vesta)

-

anything by no doubt (specifically it's my life and i'm just a a girl)- young gwen stefani is everything I aspire to be (Mckenzee, New Community)

-

Songs by Hippie Sabotage (Zea, Bowie)

-

anything by Good Kid! (they’re also incredible live) (Rebecca, Howland)

-

Coming Soon -Annie DiRusso (Zack, Howland)

-

Noah Kahan (Trixie, Bower)

-

Country (Jane, Toad Lane)

-

Nietzsche (?, The Shire)

-

Show Tunes (Nina, Howland)

-

synthwave lofi from lofi girl :p (Anna, Raft Hill)

-

Can't Get It Out - Brand New (Bella, Orion)

-

ダンスホール by Mrs. GREEN APPLE (Sonny, Phoenix)

-

Dang!-Mac Miller (Ethan, Orion)

-

16 Horsepower-Black Soul Choir (Noah, Harambee)

-

Ethel Cain on repeat!! (highlights: Michelle Pfieffer ft. lil aaron, American Teenager, Thoroughfare) (Annika, Beal)

-

Albums : NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK, Microphone Fiend by Zelooperz, and Bryter Layter by Nick Drake (Nicholas, Phoenix)

-

Fleetwood Mac! (happy fall) (Abby, Orion)

-

the album "Bangs" by Brick + Mortar (Jonathan, Phoenix)

-

new Baroness album, new Doja Cat, xWeaponx (Ana, Ferency)

-

all american bitch - olivia rodrigo (Sky, Orion)

-

The King - Anjimile (Imogen, Apollo)

-

The Front Bottoms, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New- I'm on an emo kick (Shannon, Raft Hill)

-

ABBA (Jake, Phoenix)

-

Prada - cassö, RAYE (Alex W, Orion)

-

simulation swarm by big thief (Nat, New Community)

-

The mint that grows behind the dumpster - Heccra (idk what this would be called but it's rad) (Kenny, Phoenix)

What would you tell your past self about co-ops having lived in one?

-

It's definitely a good idea and everyone is reeeeally cool (Zea, Bowie)

-

You do not have to like everything about everyone, just find the little things (Jane, Toad Lane)

-

Living with new people isn't as scary as you think it will be. (Nina, Howland)

-

member owned means member owned. u have the power! also stop parking at raft hill randoms!!!! we will tow u

😡 (Anna, Raft Hill)

-

"clean" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone (Bella, Orion)

-

you won't regret it (Sonny, Phoenix)

-

That it’s not just a place to be social, but also to collectively co-own a home.

(Noah, Harambee)

-

It's more than just sharing a house! (Annika, Beal)

-

They are the best! You should join one instead of getting an apartment.

(Nicholas, Phoenix)

-

Things are pretty chill, sign. (Jonathan, Phoenix)

-

start researching the solution to dish mountains asap (Sky, Orion)

-

There’s so many cool people living in your haus that sometimes you forget about the other people in your life. (Jake, Phoenix)

-

Yes parties are fun but that's just part of the experience as you will learn that your true favorite part of being in a community like the co-ops is kitchen chats, staying up too late chatting with people, big house dinners, movie nights, and just all those little interactions that feel normal to me now but would really excite lil Lily (Lily, Beal)

Party themes you’d like to see?

-

Steampunk (Justin, Vesta)

-

Boston Tea Party (Mckenzee, New Community)

-

Persona theme night (Music artist, Band, Celeberity, alter-ego) (Zea, Bowie)

-

Cowboy or Pirate (Zack, Howland)

-

Outer space (Jane, Toad Lane)

-

sanrio/sanx (Anna, Raft Hill)

-

career fair (everyone comes dressed up as someone of the profession they wish they could be) (Sonny, Phoenix)

-

Disco (Annika, Beal)

-

Dress up as your favorite album cover (Nicholas, Phoenix)

-

60s/70s/80s/90s/2000s/2010s/etc. (Jonathan, Phoenix)

-

ke$ha !! (Sky, Orion)

-

Anything but cups (Shannon, Raft Hill)

-

Grease (Jake, Phoenix)

-

super smash bros/video game party, historical figures party, salem witch trials party-ends with a witch burning (jk) (Lily, Beal)

Thanks for reading!