Cover by Chris Mok
lunar recession
on loving, waxing, waning
by Alissa Simon Illustrated by Emilie Guan
I think I owe the moon a love letter. This love, this debt, is no surprise to anyone who knows me well. I point out the moon almost every time I see it, compelled by the split second of delight that catches in my throat on repeat. But to explain it, to put this loving in words, feels impossible. Still, I want to try.
One of my earliest memories is milky: riding in the backseat as a little girl while the moon, chalky-white in the blue of the daytime, kept pace on my left side, skimming treetops and rooftops, never falling behind. Mama My juicebox, sweet. The moon is following us. How was it possible?
I don’t remember my mother’s explanation, and it ended up mattering little. Whatever the science was, the moon could do fantastic things—that much I understood. Even then, I think I sensed some great and
Letter from the Editor
Dear Readers,
For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with the perfect goodbye. I was consumed by Siena’s goodbye the first time I read it; I cried when I came across my own name in Aditi’s piece. I was in awe of their ability to perfectly capture what graduating seniors feel every spring—exactly how I am feeling right now. I have struggled more than I would like to admit to write this short editor’s note, starting and restarting drafts to find a way to express both the grief and the gratitude I feel right now. See, I have spent one evening every week for the last four years huddled around this tiny table with far too few chairs in the upstairs of 88 Benevolent Street, surrounded by people who are nothing short of pure joy. There have been nights that I thought I physically could not laugh any harder, incapacitated over the dumbest Top Tens or meme formats, when editing felt like an impossible task to ask of me. Goodbyes are hard, and even harder when you are as lucky as I am to have a place like post- to call home.
beautiful power; I read Goodnight Moon with the smallest bit of apprehension at the sight of that stark white circle, peering into an endlessly green bedroom from behind the window frame.
It’s easy to understand why the moon was worshipped, why it is still. Before humans could see other planets or far-flung stars through telescopes, all they knew was moonlight. Today, in the smoggiest city, where even the North Star is washed out by street lamps, the moon is a constant, the one thing that we can count on no matter how much light we pump back into the sky.
Unlike the sun, the moon doesn’t warm us or poison us or grow our food or burn our skin. All it does is drag gently at our waters, inspire our poetry. It makes faces at us: the sliver of a nail, the round-cheeked bowl of light.
We give each of its full faces their
This week in post-, two of my very best friends say their goodbyes too. In Feature, Alissa muses on the presence of the moon in different phases of her life, and in Lifestyle, Katherine writes a time capsule of memories for herself and future Brown students, reflecting on her four years at Brown. In the second Feature, Ayoola also speaks to endings, writing about learning to be present as someone who likes to plan ahead. In Narrative, Ana similarly ruminates on living in the moment, considering the time and patience she has learned through her darkroom photography class. Lynn, our second Narrative writer, speaks to how food can preserve family traditions and bring people together. In A&C this week, Jamie writes about meeting one of her favorite poets, and AJ reflects on Farewell My Concubine 22 years after its release. In our second Lifestyle piece, Chelsea compiles a list of poem suggestions, pondering their meaning in relation to each month of her freshman year at Brown. Finally, to top it off, a big crossword this week by Lily is filled with Brown-inspired clues.
I write this in Rhode Island Hall, having finally come inside after one of those idyllic Main Green days that is
own names in our folklore and almanacs: Strawberry Moon, Wolf Moon, Hunter Moon. The Worm Moon in March is also known as the Sore Eyes Moon because of how its blinding light radiates off the early spring snow. The Pink Moon emerges just as the magnolias on the Main Green reach their first rosy bloom. Despite its coldness, its distance, the moon draws us ever closer to the wet and growing things that crowd with us under its gaze.
It is this act of noticing, more than anything else, that has oriented me to a certain kind of faith, one that has buoyed me across the phases I have been moving through. ***
Once, during a spell of bone-aching boredom during the COVID lockdown, I filled a glass jar with tap water and left it on my porch overnight underneath the Flower Moon. I had read somewhere online that water charged with the light of the full moon has the power to manifest my desires, to cure illnesses, to make good things happen, and to stop bad things from happening.
I did not entirely believe in what I was doing, but I was lonely and more than a little unnerved by the silence that had descended on my city. The jar collected dust as I worked, miserably, on my college applications, clicking through digital maps and trying to imagine a future whose shape and color I could not figure.
Despite my growing fascination with the moon during these years, I spent little time with it. There was nothing much to see or do in the dark. Instead, I wore myself out worrying in front of my phone, clicking long, looping paths under the hot sun on a broken bike chain. I slept early and long, my body blooming over a mattress that was too small to contain me. My dreams were bleached from my mind before I woke up.
Now, the jar of moon water still rests on the corner of my desk, an afterthought. I ended up never taking it with me to college, never even touching it on my many visits home. I think I already knew that whatever magic I found in the moon could not be bottled. More and more over these last four years, I have instead begun to shake my body awake in the night.
***
I am starting to remember things that
almost impossible to tear yourself away from. Today, I stayed longer than I needed to, lingering in the last drops of the day’s sunshine. In these final weeks, I hope you will take the time to appreciate the people and the places that make you whole—to linger, to drag out moments at doorsteps and lunches and late nights. In these final weeks, I will prolong my goodbyes.
As I write this, I can’t help but notice how similar it is to other last editor’s notes—other seniors saying their goodbyes to post- and to Brown. Just as they always have, the traditions that I have fallen in love with will continue on, and in another four years, someone I have never met may be writing a variation of these same words for post-. I will read them with nostalgia for the past and all that I cannot return to, but most of all, with gratitude for the privilege of having been a small part of what makes this magazine so special.
Reading future issues of post—,
are not yet finished: my college years, moonsoaked.
At eighteen, I arrived on campus and learned with delight that the boundaries between night and day were easily degraded, or discarded entirely. I remember that first uneasy September feeling new-born in my body, trampling over one green, then another. There was newness everywhere I looked: unfamiliar voices and elbows scraping into one another and laughter splattering over everything. Stars. A smear of white. Moon , I remember delighting, silent, inebriated, my legs spurred into a gallop over Wriston. Moon, moon, moon.
I started spending long amounts of time moving at night, taking walks, only sometimes with a destination in mind. Sometimes I went alone, earbuds in and learning my new city on foot: the sweet, creaking houses, the golden lamps, and the faint smell of the ocean. Sometimes I was accompanied by other people, friends who were new until they weren’t. Our hands scampered ahead of our bodies as we talked. Our voices bounced off of flagstones, scattered by a wind that blew down to the Providence River with a force I had never felt before.
The whole time, the moon has kept its promise, kept its watch over me, a crescent over my shoulder, a spotlight at my back, or a beacon before me. It followed me on those long treks back North from Keeney, on winter afternoons emerging from 88 Benevolent when the dark was already pulled so tight that even a lukewarm Ratty meal and cup of tea felt like a harbor from the cold. It looked after me on pale spring mornings as I shook out the soreness from a run. Again and again, it has spilled through my window, whose blinds I leave open, just like in Goodnight Moon, so it can play with light and shadow on my covers. ***
At the end of freshman year, some friends of mine had the idea to pull an all-nighter for no other reason than our tenderness at the thought of pulling away from each other for a few short months. It was the first time I had seen the sun move under and over the horizon uninterrupted, running black to blue to pink and blue again, like peeling a fruit in one long pull. We emerged rumpled and slightly nauseous, swearing we would never do it again. I remember the moon, a white coin against the
sunrise over the bridge. It has whipped around us dozens of times since then and suddenly, I have loved these people and places for years.
It’s a tale as old as time; you grow up, you graduate. My sadness, it’s not proportionate. It bloats me, distracts me from my work. It nags at me as I move through my cycles of studying, cooking, and sleeping that propel me from Hope to Benefit to Benevolent to George and Brook, again and again, like a satellite.
So close to being ejected from this orbit, I do not know how to measure any change in myself, nothing besides the clothing acquired and discarded from my closet. Or the things I have read and remembered. Or the fact that I am happier, or maybe more afraid of unhappiness, than I was under that first September moon. None of it feels adequate as proof of what I have tried to find in this particular piece of sky.
I need to turn to other words instead. After all, I am only one of the many who have fallen in love with the moon, saturated it with dreams and desire, poured into it what is too much to carry down here:
In poetry by Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson, the moon is savage and then silver— “bald and wild,” in one moment, a “stemless flower” in the next. Phoebe Bridgers, staring upwards into the night, confesses in the lyrics to “moon song”: whatever you want me to do, I will do. Mitski asks: tell me if I could, send up my heart to you?
A few months ago, I hummed along to one or two of these songs in the kitchen of a friend who loves all the same music I do. We swaddled a hot loaf of challah in layers of tinfoil before I lit for home like a comet. Something about that night, the proportions of my body in relation to the clapboard houses and the warm food and drink swilling in my stomach, made me feel a love of my particular place and time so vigorous that it rocked me to a halt at the corner of Arnold and Thayer.
It was only the bread, steaming in my hands, and the promise I made to share it that spurred me back into motion, with Gregory Alan Isakov’s “That Moon Song” crooning through my AirPods.
***
Underneath a lunar eclipse, I told another friend of mine I was thinking of writing about the moon. She saw through me immediately, to the heart of my obsession, the lexicon of my
gratitude. Is it about how you looked at the moon years ago and look at the moon now, and it’s the same moon?
Her voice was warm with good humor; it was all true—I was embarrassed all the same at how simple and melodramatic it sounded, said aloud. We kept looking for the signs of the eclipse, catching glimpses of rust-colored light refracted against the clouds.
I could envision the coming hours clearly. If I stood still, I would witness the blue witching hour, the pink lightening of dawn, and then the greys and whites of the sky sharpening into focus. I had seen it before.
You know what, maybe I won’t do it. I lied to her, knowing immediately I would anyway.
***
The moon is moving on from us. Bit by bit, it is drifting by about four centimeters a year away from the gravitational pull of the Earth. Lunar recession, they call it. It won’t make it far enough to leave our orbit before the sun swallows us, planet and satellite both, but I hate the thought of it all the same.
Grief comes in all colors, pulling like a tide. I feel its sweetness: at the sound of his birdsong voice and the sight of her long, long hair on the bathroom floor. At her laughter diffusing up through the floorboards, his sarcastic, sideways smile, and her careful eye for blue and lovely things.
I feel it in the tug of my book bag slung over my right shoulder, the soreness in my calves straining to make it to class, or as the heft of the shirts and shoes I know I will sell or give away— it is all too much to carry with me.
It wasn’t until I was on a plane, the Narragansett Bay sparkling beneath me with three full moons until graduation, that I finally, finally, knew what to call the lurch in my stomach that would not abate. It was not the fear of flying. Let me talk about the moon.
With the same certainty I felt in that car seat, when I first understood just how far it would follow me, I know that I will spend the rest of my twenties craning my neck upwards at night, nearly slamming into telephone poles. I will wait for the pink flowers to bud as sweet and shy as they do in Providence, for the tomatoes to come to fruit in July, for my loved ones to cycle in and out of new cities.
When I see them in the dark, I will wish them goodnight, I will use old words: Do you see how bright the moon is?
“The straw that broke the camel’s toe.”
“You bitches did not have daily grammar, I can tell.”
“E se ibi ti e ti bere, ese ibi ti e ba de, a dupe ore re, e se ibi te mu wa lo.”
This Yoruba gospel hymn has filled my ears since childhood, reminding me to be consumed with gratitude and anticipation. Translated, this song means, “I give thanks for where we began, I give thanks for where we have come, and I give thanks for where we are yet to go.”
Yet
1. In addition, in a continuing or repeating sequence; further, furthermore, moreover.
on endings and
what is yet to come
by Ayoola Fadahunsi Illustrated by Junyue Ma
2. Still; even (used to emphasize increase or repetition)
Synonyms: so far, further, additionally Further. Further. Further. There is always further to go, there is always next.
At the age of 11, I planned out my entire life. I was always a forward-thinking child, restless with sitting in the present. After seeing a presentation about a local magnet high school in my community, I decided it was time to solidify my future. That evening, in the comfort of my room, I chose my middle
and high school, solidified my career plans, and envisioned my future to come. There was no time to waste at 11—there was only further to go. There were only the many things I had yet to do.
I decided that I would apply to the pre-IB middle school, also known as the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program. Then, for high school, I would attend the Legal Studies Academy at First Colonial High, which had a model courtroom which I had seen in their presentation. The mahogany wood made an impression on
my young mind. Then, after high school, I would go to a good university and eventually become a lawyer!
Now, at 21, when I share with friends my thoughts at 11 years old, they are shocked by my younger self’s devotion to planning. But in reality, my mind ran a thousand miles a minute—it always has. To be in my mind is to be on a sugar rush at an amusement park. It is chaotic but mostly fun—at times, you go on a ride and it makes you nauseous, but you recover quickly and get on the next roller coaster.
Overplanning
1. To plan excessively or in more detail than necessary
Synonyms: over-organizing, overparticular
Since I can remember, I’ve had a plan for what is next. Overplanning has become my comfort zone. It cocoons my mind, which is often chaotic and ever-racing. I have learned to dwell and thrive in this fast-paced environment, but throughout my years at
Brown, I began to notice that with my eyes forever fixed on the future, I was struggling to sit in the present. With a schedule filled to the brim, racing from one thing to the next, I did not have time to simply be. Ashley Janssen, in her article “Why Overplanning is a Trap…” suggests that overplanning is a symptom of perfectionism. She describes overplanning as a “desire to control the outcomes.” Control.
Control
1. To exercise restraining or directing influence over
2. To have power over
Synonyms: constrain, govern, regulate
Being the daughter of Nigerian migrants, there has been an unspoken expectation that I needed to succeed in all things, and at 11 years old, there were few things I had complete agency over. But in the one place I had complete control, my academics, I found my strength. I found joy in micromanaging my future. I felt the ultimate agency. Elevenyear-old me came up with a wonderful plan
that became reality as I worked to fulfill my pre-written life map. I attended the pre-selected middle and high school, went to a good college, and am now working to be a lawyer. In fact, I have spent my entire education post-elementary school preparing for a career in law. Overplanning, control, and always thinking of what is yet to come have guided me for as long as I can remember, but as I reflect on the endings that accompany my senior year, I fear that I might have missed the present.
In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Forever is Composed of Now (690),” she presents the importance of being in the moment. When I hear forever, I think of what is yet to come, yet to be realized, I think of a future I need to get control of, get ahead of, so that I can do it well. But Dickinson notes that “Forever is composed of now/ tis not a different time…/ from this experience Here.” As an English concentrator, I spent nearly a semester dissecting Dickinson’s work, and in analyzing this poem, I am reminded of here . Here is the now, the present, and forever. In fact, the word “here” is capitalized in the poem, which draws additional emphasis to the word.
Ese ibi ti e ba de
The middle of the Yoruba gospel song that I love so dearly is Ese ibi ti e ba de , which translates to “thank you for where we have come.” I have always failed to remember the middle of this song, similarly to my approach on life, I dwelled on the ending, on what came next.
As a senior on the brink of new beginnings, I have decided to focus on here. And while yet granted me agency when I needed it most, I now want to embrace the future’s unknown and allow it to meet me. I want to be in the moment, even if I have not prepared extensively for it. I have learned, and hope to continue learning, that sometimes the unknown present and future are just as fulfilling. With graduation drawing near, I am ready to dive headfirst into new beginnings. Instead of looking further and further and further ahead, I want to redirect my energy further and further and further to the present.
“E se ibi ti e ti bere, ese ibi ti e ba de, a dupe ore re, e se ibi te mu wa lo.”
When I sing and recognize this song in its entirety, I am transported on a full circle journey of where I once was, where I am now, and the future that I will release control of. In sitting with this song, I am reminded of the wide-eyed and jubilant first-year I once was, enthralled by the Ratty’s endless options. In sitting with this song, I am filled with bittersweet glee that I will soon be wearing a cap and gown, a symbol of an ending. Sitting with this song, I feel confident that I can let go of the comfort of overplanning and control, and finally find comfort that I am prepared for the unknown to come.
So, as I walk down College Hill one last time, I will soak in the feeling of passing through the Van Wickle gates and let the world ahead of me meet me where I am. All the while, I will be filled not with an overwhelming desire to control, but an allconsuming sense of gratitude and patience to receive what is yet to come.
developing learning to slow down
by Ana Vissicchio
Illustrated by Emilie Guan
I dip a tiny strip of photographic paper into a vat of developer and I watch it sink. Tapping it gently with popsicle-stick prongs, I let my mind wander for two whole minutes. I’ll stop the developing process by running it into the “stop bath” for half a minute, then into the fixer solution for three.
Taking five minutes total, this is just one step of the extensive process of printing a black-and-white film photo by hand. Classmates gather in the darkroom, surrounded by stinky chemicals and dull, orange-red lamps, patiently trial-and-erroring to reach as close to perfection as they can while the clock inches closer to midnight.
Printing takes patience. My friends often ask me why I’m even taking this class—six hours weekly in class and sometimes eight or ten outside of that, for a credit that doesn’t go toward my concentration or graduation requirements. If someone told me last year that my biggest commitment at school would be a photography class, I probably wouldn’t have believed them.
Monitor hours go late into the night, starting at 7 p.m. and ending at midnight. Five hours to get as much work done as possible, and often even less—as dinner plans and meetings run late, and I can’t get to the darkroom as early as I’d like. I test one strip of a photo, then two, then three, getting teeny-tiny peeks of what the final print will look like. At each dip, I think, I could stop here , or I could just print one more. It’s only five more minutes. As I drown my strips in the developer again and again, I try to find the balance between taking too much time, straining towards perfection, and not enough, running out of patience.
–
I have always tried to live as if I am going to die tomorrow. “She lived every day as if it was her last on Earth,” I’d hear people say when they talk about those whom they truly, deeply admired, like my grandmother reflected about
her mom, my dad about his late best friend. I live like I’m going to die tomorrow, but I’m afraid I’ve been interpreting that saying the wrong way.
Minds cope with the unexpectedness of life in different ways. Maybe it’s a form of control, a way to create structure where there is none. I think I cope by trying to fit as much as possible into my life, squeezing building blocks of tasks into my brain, obsessed with trying to fill my plate, maximizing time and productivity as much as I can.
That “one more” feels familiar—not just in the darkroom, but in how I fill my days. I’ve been worrying recently that I move through life in too much of a hurry, always trying to squeeze in another task, another meeting, another moment of productivity. I crave results, outcomes, the sharp and instant relief of a finished product.
At times like these—when I have homework pressing on the backside of my mind and I’m tired, frustrated, and restless—I can’t be patient. I don’t want to develop another test strip; I never wanted to do it in the first place. I miss the immediate gratification of a digital camera, seeing the colors and light in perfect tone and depth on a tiny screen in front of me.
Printing teaches you otherwise: You can’t rush it, can’t cheat it, can’t bend it to your will. It demands presence.
So sometimes, I will myself to relax, focus, and try my best for one good photo. It then becomes easy to understand the satisfaction and thrill of film photography. Each picture takes time, care, and effort, all visible once the photographic paper has rinsed and dried.
In the darkroom, no settings are ever the same—temperature and chemical ratios change day to day, preventing you from simply remembering your settings and printing the same photo the same way as before. Even
when I follow all the same steps, the outcome shifts. A degree warmer, a second longer, and the image changes. No formula guarantees consistency. I’m learning to see the beauty in the process, not just the print. I always have to test, adjust, and figure out what works, trial-and-error style. –
We all are forced to account for change from time to time, but more often than not, I’m incapable of adapting without stress and worry. Like a game of Tetris, I keep trying to reorganize my life to see how best it works—testing new arrangements, not to find balance, but to see how much I can cram into every corner.
I’m learning that this method often brings more harm than good.
Like the patience and care it takes to print one photograph and print it well, I want to bring that same intention into every part of my life. To slow down. Focus on and prioritize the people and things that matter to me. I know I’ll be happier with how I use my time if I do.
Life is unpredictable. When things change, something shifts, and my busy, carefully built schedule topples over and collapses like a line of dominoes—my mind works in weird, stressful ways to scramble and rebuild. I rush, I panic, I shut down. I try to skip steps, cut corners.
But I’m realizing change doesn’t have to feel like a crisis; I can let myself ebb and flow with the rhythm of life, oscillating between one normal and the next. Change is good, change is natural, and change requires patience.
–
In photography class, I’m not perfect—I skip steps and give up and say point-blank that I don’t have the effort to reprint or start anew. But being in a dimly lit room with no tactile distractions like doom scrolling to keep me company, there’s a lot of room for thinking.
Each photo is a small lesson in letting go, in slowness, in accepting unpredictability. I didn’t expect a class I took for fun to reframe how I think about living.
I want to go slower. Not because I’ll miss something if I rush, but because I’ll feel more if I don’t. I haven’t just been moving fast, but sprinting, cramming, optimizing. And when I ask myself why, I can’t come up with a good answer.
The best last day on earth isn’t packed edge to edge with work shifts and classes, activities, meetings. It’s quiet. It’s the small buds in the cracks on the sidewalk I notice on my walk to work—a conversation with a friend I have before class begins. It’s enjoying a wait, letting my eyes linger on the way light catches dust in the air, and taking the time to write a card for a friend for no specific reason. Our minds cope with unpredictability in weird ways, but life is never what you expect, and I won’t keep forcing myself to keep up in the most perfect way possible.
I want to focus on one photo—taking my time, never skipping a step or rushing to get someplace faster than I should. Moving slowly.
I’m trying to stop treating life like Tetris. I want to take the time to live it—strip by strip, print by print.
what brings you joy? food together
by Lynn Nguyen Illustrated by Emilie Guan
Mama Instant Noodles Shrimp Flavor (Tom Yum) . That squeaky wrinkle sound became pleasing when I tore open the foil packaging. I dumped the brick of ramen and the powder of spices into a bowl, and my fingers darted to the switch on my electric kettle. I now had only a minute to get everything ready.
I scurried from the counter to the stove, cranking my head right over the pot with gray veils of air and bursting bubbles. As I lifted the lid, the steam shot out at my face. I flinched before remembering someone saying that steam is good for the pores. I soaked my face in the sauna, until it suddenly hit me that my whole meal would be ruined if I overcooked this.
I snatched the ladle and scooped out the egg, rushing to the sink and taking a breath as a stream of cool water cascaded over the white oval. I needed to peel off the shell without burning my fingers. Once I peeled the egg down to its glossy bareness, I juggled it to my cutting board, pushed aside the shredded lettuce, and cut it in half. The knife sliced through clean, unleashing the egg’s glory of trickling gold.
A click sounded from the kettle. I hurried to pour the hot water over the ramen, watching with wide eyes as the noodles melted and glimmered and drifted in the water. I gave the noodles a quick swirl and plopped in some Vienna sausages, then topped the ramen off with a garnish of crisp lettuce and the gorgeous runny egg. Instant ramen made gourmet. Well, instant ramen that isn’t sad, but a little bit beautiful.
I rested the bowl of ramen on the dining table, where Modern Family awaited me on my iPad. Dipping my spoon into the broth, gathering the fitting amount of noodles, and holding a sausage or piece of egg with my chopsticks, I stuffed my mouth with the different ingredients that would meet and whose diverse flavors would marry—all while keeping an eye on the Dunphy family’s antics. In a matter of minutes, I scarfed down the entire bowl. It took much more time to prepare the ramen than to eat it.
My family and I sat down together for dinner on some Sundays, when my dad was off and my mom came home at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. Freshly-cooked meals were a rare occasion in my family.
There were multiple announcements from my parents and grandma that dinner was ready. The aroma of smoked barbecue that wafted into my room dragged me out, where I was intent on seeing what exactly was for dinner. My brother and I met at the table, hastily sitting down to revel in baby back ribs, steamed rice fresh out of the cooker, and damp emerald cucumbers. My grandma was already nibbling her food, eyes held on us chomping away. The horrific sight
of our feast actually put a smile on her face. My parents took advantage of this time together to exchange news or stories, with my grandma’s input here and there. Perhaps it was the food that comforted them just enough to open up, or the family surrounding them, or how food gathered everyone together. Often, they told of their pasts in Vietnamese, trying to shield my non-speaking self and brother from their sadnesses. I focused on discerning the words. While I was secured by my privileges in America and would never fully fathom their stories, I wanted to hear their voices— the vessels of my community, my culture, my heritage. I never felt more attuned to my surroundings than during these moments of full attention and vulnerability.
I hold myself to a commitment in college: At least once a day, make sure that you spare time to sit down in a dining hall and enjoy a meal with others. Be engrossed in dialogue, when eating requires everyone to pay attention. Let the act of eating bring you all together to feel at ease with each other and talk with eagerness. Remember the memories and stories borne by food and eating together. If the food is good, savor the flavors. If it’s not, humble yourself knowing that you will always be able to satiate your hunger. Stay grounded in the world around
you.
Every time I eat instant ramen, my mom’s story pops into my mind: When she made a little extra money from selling food in the street market, she would buy a packet of instant noodles. That was her childhood splurge. I no longer think that instant ramen can be sad. It can be quite beautiful.
I ask my mom for her family recipes; I want to have mementos of my family and preserve my favorites from childhood. But she shrugs her shoulders, revealing that she doesn’t follow instructions but instead, her memories of making a dish. Even more reason for me to record the recipes.
The ingredients she uses can leave a funny smell in the house, so she cooks in our outdoor kitchen. When the heat beats at my forehead and the single slice of toast doesn’t help my dizziness, I fall back inside and collapse onto a chair. But I remember that, to my mom, a daughter’s pursuit of her mother’s recipes is an utter delight. I think about how I will commemorate her as I cook these meals, to share with others not only a wonderful taste, but also a slice of my story with food. And even when my family cannot be there, their presence can be found in the recipes. I can be with both family and friends through food. I remember, so I lift myself up and go to her.
meeting your heroes a rant
by Jamie Jung
Illustrated by Emilie Guan
When a poet meets their hero, they are left frank and unpoetic. I had rehearsed every moment, every word, every gesture for years. I promised my poise would be practiced to perfection. I would impress her with my words, speak naturally in metaphor and alliteration— prove that I was a poet in practice and in habit. I wanted her to be proud of who I had become without knowing who I was before. Yet, the saying goes: Never meet your heroes. Because once I saw the doors of Symposium Books swing open, words spawned uncontrollably from my frontal lobe, racing to slip off my tongue and ravaging my brain with raw excitement. The moment I had dreamed of for years was falling apart: In the middle of the bookstore, I stood in front of Sarah Kay, hand clasped over my mouth, and breathed, “You’re the reason I do this in the first place.”
Ten years ago, @DreadHeadFinay posted a YouTube video of 18-year-old Sarah Kay performing her poem, “Hands.” The ends of her hair are bleached with teenage curiosity, and young adrenaline pushes her on her toes with every crescendo of a line. Every wave of a hand is precise, every joke received with chuckled laughter. The comments section is a yearbook of passing students who give a moment to point out that they have all
been assigned this video. I silently remember sitting in my middle school classroom, watching Sarah Kay perform, learning about poetry for the first time.
Sarah Kay is the root of my poetry fanaticism. Since this discovery, I have spiraled through performances of Franny Choi, Emily Jungmin Yoon, Ocean Vuong, and Rudy Francisco. I have scribbled responses in the margins of Date & Time and The World Keeps Ending , and The World Goes On . I have watched every Button Poetry video, every Brave New Voices performance posted online. I have listened to Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye explain how they met for the first time in orientation week at Brown University, so much so that I now find myself enrolled at Brown.
Now, Sarah Kay is two books older, and I am the age she was in that video. Two weeks ago, she visited Providence while on tour for her new book, A Little Daylight Left . While I have met her in every poem I have read and written, she met me for the first time as her student volunteer. I stood there, swallowing my awe behind a mask of futile nonchalance, as she smiled at my immature adulthood. I hope she does not remember me. Instead, I hope she remembers the factory line of books and shuffling of pages and blue post-it notes I handed out for people to write their names on. I hope she remembers calling out a name she can’t grasp. I hope I remain a blurred memory, another vague emotion. This is how I return my gratitude for her.
A Little Daylight Left is Sarah Kay’s second full-length poetry collection, published 10 years after her first book, No Matter the Wreckage. Time is not linear within these pages. Each transition between poems is a couple of years’ worth, a jump or a
loop-de-loop backward, or a leapfrog into the next. There is a decade’s worth of Sarah Kay amalgamated into 42 poems, and on every page, her evolution is evident.
Sarah Kay converses in poetry. As she melted into her first poem, “Rare,” I felt the rumble of a circle closing and a 13-year-old girl let go of my hand. Beside me, I saw the chronically shy, middle school Jamie catching every word with a smile, gold dripping from her eyes. Spoken word poetry is modern storytelling, an inheritance of experiences buried in metaphor. Humor in our everyday tragedies. A collection of small appreciations that reveal the mundane quirks of our lives. Tiny kitchens and the color orange and jello cups and waking up in a cold sweat.
Perhaps these lists are also special to Kay. In her poems “Raccoon,” “Jakarta, January,” and “New Year’s Eve,” Kay values the repetition of the shortened “&.” A collection of observations, her words are an index finger pointing to different corners of a painting. The simplicity of a list and the familiarity of its rhythm are poetic in their own digestion. Meanwhile, “Orange” and “The Minister of Loneliness” are stories to be shared—loaves to be split, tendons of wheat steaming as they stretch tender.
I read poems to remind myself where I am. From “Hands” to “Repetition” to “Hangul Abecedarian,” I find certain poems connected with red string to certain stages of my life. I’m not sure if the heroes are the poems or the poets themselves, but I’m grateful to be able to thank both. Now, despite the whirlwind of the world, I somehow find myself having landed on two feet with a pencil in my hand. So, “No, I don’t think poems will save us. And yet, and yet...”
twenty-two years after
reflections on Farewell My Concubine, Beijing opera, Leslie Cheung, and the end of Hong Kong’s “Golden Era”
by AJ wu Illustrated by coco zhu
"哥哥的黄金时代也就我们黄金的时代... 后来我知道，我们的时代纯属偶然”
His golden era was our golden era… Later, I understood that our era was purely coincidental.
Ng Chun-hung, Hong Kong Economic Journal (August 17, 2004)
Farewell My Concubine begins at the end: In its opening shot, two figures stand in full opera dress in the middle of an empty theater, bathed in dusty light. A disembodied voice calls out from off-screen, It’s been over 20 years since you two have performed together, right? One of the performers answers falteringly, twenty-two. And it’s been 11 years since we last saw each other . The voice follows up, It’s the fault of the Gang of Four, isn’t it? A lengthy silence, and then the answer, Isn’t everything?
The voice exits, and a harsh blue spotlight settles on the two performers center stage. A single drum rattles and they begin their last rehearsal.
Farewell My Concubine is set against the turbulent history and political upheaval of 20th-century China. It tells the five-decadelong epic of two men who meet in childhood at a Beijing opera training school and have their fates inseparably intertwined throughout their lives. Douzi is abandoned at the opera troupe as a timid young boy and finds kindness in the bigger and brasher Shitou, the boys’ de facto leader, who shields Douzi from their masters’ cruelties and becomes his closest friend—and later, unrequited love interest. As they grow up, Douzi is trained to play dan (female) roles while Shitou is trained in jing (rough male hero) roles. In adulthood, they are famous and perform under stage names: Douzi has become “Cheng Dieyi” and Shitou “Duan Xiaolou.” In a blur of fiction and reality, their stage lives and their personal lives shift as political power over China changes hands rapidly—the warlords of the 1920s give way to Japanese occupiers, then comes a brief period of Kuomintang control in the 1940s,
and finally the grip of the People’s Republic.
Released in 1993, Farewell entered theaters on the precipice of another historical power shift. On the horizon—just four years away—is a looming expiration date. On July 1, 1997, the United Kingdom is set to hand over sovereignty of Hong Kong back to China, transferring Hong Kong from one imperial power to another.
In the context of its trans-Chinese influences, Farewell is thoroughly bizarre. With film markets in mainland China and Taiwan opening up after significant economic and political shifts, and the prominence of Hong Kong artists rising throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Farewell was made just in time to experiment with a bold new co-production model between mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. It was produced and directed by a mainland studio and director, financially backed by a Hong Kong subsidiary of a Taiwanese investment group, and cast in the lead role of Cheng Dieyi was Hong Kong’s biggest star of the 1990s—Leslie Cheung. Cheung rose to prominence as a pioneer of Cantopop in the ’80s. As a performer, he was known for his queer and androgynous aesthetic and stage presence. Like over 200,000 other Hong Kongers in the decade leading up to the 1997 handover, Cheung emigrated to Canada in the late ’80s and announced his retirement from singing. He returned to Hong Kong screens, however, in a series of highly celebrated film roles in the ’90s, gaining international acclaim for Farewell
The art form at the film’s center, Beijing opera, is characterized by its use of colorful face paint, elaborate costuming, and daring acrobatics to stage tales typically based on Chinese history or mythology (this is a seriously impressive and fun example I recommend watching). In Chinese performance tradition, operas are very rarely performed all the way through as written. Rather, troupes cycle through scenes from a repertoire of different works. As a duo,
Dieyi and Xiaolou’s signature performance is a scene from the titular historical opera, Farewell My Concubine: The Chu king, played by Xiaolou, is surrounded by his enemies and begs his concubine, played by Dieyi, to abandon him. She refuses and commits suicide with his sword in order to die beside him.
Farewell is a groundbreaking and visually stunning work of queer Asian cinema, intimately intricate in its portrayal of Chinese opera, and also probably the most upsetting movie I’ve ever seen.
The film is saturated in the violence of its historical injustices and it doesn’t let you forget it for one second. In the first five minutes, a young Dieyi’s mother chops off his extra finger with a meat cleaver to make him acceptable to the troupe. The tone is set brutally and irrevocably for the next two hours and 46 minutes.
Its first act is unrelenting in portraying the abuses suffered by Dieyi and Xiaolou as they’re groomed for stardom. For much of its history, Beijing opera training was known for its brutal teaching practices. A life as an opera performer was for children from poor and working-class families, and there was a notion of “beating the opera into” trainees. In its early years, it followed older opera traditions in frequently sexually exploiting its dan actors, who in their feminine roles were expected to prostitute themselves to their patrons.
But for a select few who could weather the harsh training, stardom awaited. Well into the tail end of the 20th century, Beijing opera schools were producing some of the greatest action stars and martial artists to come out of mainland China and Hong Kong, with pupils like Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and Jackie Chan.
In his memoir, Jackie Chan describes being sold to China Drama Academy on a decade-long contract at the age of seven. Training began at 5 a.m. and lasted until midnight, beatings were frequent and severe, and a strict hierarchical system encouraged older boys to terrorize younger ones. Chan writes that the practices he trained under are illegal today, and he doesn’t “regret the end of that era.” However, he reflects with complicated nostalgia, “As harsh as it may have seemed, it was a system that had worked for decades, even centuries…and to tell the truth, younger generations of performers aren't as good as we were.”
Chan espouses a common sentiment among appreciators of Beijing opera: acknowledgement of the antiquated and violent training practices, yet mourning of the period that originated them. Critic Helen Hok-Sze Leung writes, “The ambivalent feelings invoked—disgust at the abusive violence on the one hand and admiration for its end results on the other—illustrate a common cultural response to a historical irony.” It’s cultural reckoning is wrapped up in nostalgia; for better or for worse, nothing portrayed in Farewell , from the shifting political reigns to the beauty and cruelties of Beijing opera at its peak, can last forever.
Another wonder of Farewell is that it’s an astonishingly queer film for its time, and (somewhat unfortunately as it’s been three
decades since its release) still easily the most famous and impactful queer film to come out of mainland China.
Cheng Dieyi lays eyes on Duan Xiaolou when they are children and never stops looking at him. As their adult lives and ideals tear them apart—Xiaolou marries a courtesan and refuses to take opera as seriously as Dieyi—Dieyi stays hopelessly jealous and becomes more and more obsessed with his operatic role. On the stage, at least, they can act at being in love.
At one of the most brazenly gay and iconic moments in the film, Dieyi grabs Xiaolou and shakes him hard as desperate romantic music plays in the background. Leslie Cheung is radiantly devastating as Dieyi, exclaiming that he wants to spend the rest of his life together with Xiaolou on stage—“I’m talking about a lifetime! One year, one month, one day, even one second less makes it less than a lifetime!”
Xiaolou continues refusing to understand him, and the years pass anyway. Dieyi settles into a relationship of convenience with his patron, the weaselly opera connoisseur Mister Yuan, and takes to dressing him up in Xiaolou’s stage costume as a crude imitation of the real thing.
The 20th century roars by. Towards the film’s end, the CCP has come to power and the Cultural Revolution is fully underway. Opera is set aflame as one of the Four Olds; Dieyi and Xiaolou, disgraced pre-revolutionary performers, are dragged out into the streets in a struggle session. (It’s hard to overemphasize the magnitude of betrayal and paranoia in filmic portrayals of the Cultural Revolution; director Chen Kaige drew on his own experience and shame denouncing his father.) In the film’s climax, Xiaolou and Dieyi are pressured into mutually betraying and denouncing one another in front of a crowd, signifying the fiery demolition of the old world.
The film’s final act takes place eleven years later, at the two’s first meeting since the struggle session’s aftermath, and their final performance together. They rehearse their signature scene and—like many times before— Dieyi, the concubine, takes the sword of Xiaolou, the king, and brings it to his throat. I don’t have moral qualms really about spoiling the ending of Farewell My Concubine because it’s not so much a spoiler as an inevitability (like how I don’t think you can meaningfully spoil Titanic or Hadestown ). It’s clear even before the movie starts—and reiterated by Dieyi several times throughout—that the concubine must die, by the king’s sword, but by her own hand. This last time, Dieyi makes the story real.
It’s spring now and it’s ending soon. This month marks twenty-two years since Cantonese superstar and Hong Kong golden boy Leslie Cheung jumped from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong after a long struggle with depression. If you ask any Chinese person from my parents’ generation, they turn deeply regretful when talking about him. They also, without fail, will mention that they thought it was a joke at first since the news broke on April Fools’ Day.
Leslie Cheung’s death was one in a line of catastrophes that hit Hong Kong in 2003.
A combination of the SARS epidemic, uproar over proposed anti-sedition law, and political and economic unease that had been building since the 1997 handover had bubbled to a boiling point of weariness and frustration. For many, Cheung’s meteoric rise to stardom in the ’80s and ’90s paralleled Hong Kong’s cultural and economic prosperity, and his death was a symptom of the city’s decline.
Afterwards, sociologist Ng Chun-Hung reflected, “Our era has officially ended and a new uncertain one has begun. Hong Kongers are set to stumble and crawl.”
Besides sounding the death toll of an era, Leslie Cheung’s suicide drastically recolored viewings of Farewell and drew inevitable comparisons to Dieyi’s on-screen suicide. It seemed that life had imitated art: Like the film’s protagonist, he was too much for the present time. Even in life, he had already become anachronistic. His reallife sexuality—which for years had ranged from wide speculation to open secret to coyly confirmed fact—could now also be superimposed over the tragic image of Dieyi. It’s somewhat troublesome but also inescapable, and not at all unique to Hong Kong iconicity, that when an artist dies tragically young, their art is reinterrogated and reframed in the context of their death. I wonder now how much of the meaning behind Farewell has become inseparable from Leslie Cheung’s ghost.
In director Chen Kaige’s memorial of his star, he says that he once had a dream where he spoke to him and was unable to differentiate him from Cheng Dieyi. He exclaims, “Indeed, Leslie Cheung is Cheng Dieyi.”
With Cheung’s death, his legacy as a “queer icon” was quickly solidified by queer organizations and mainstream media alike. While I don’t disagree with this classification, I have generally complicated feelings about the romanticization of his death and the oversimplification of his queer persona.
In life, Cheung cultivated a thoroughly queer performance aesthetic but simultaneously shied away from explicitly labelling himself for much of his career.
In Undercurrents: Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong , Helen Hok-Sze Leung analyzes his ambivalence around publicly acknowledging his queerness: In addition to his established visually queer stage persona as a singer, in the 1990s, he took on a succession of high-profile gay roles in films from Farewell (1993) to He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (1994) and Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together (1997). When interviewed, he discussed their queer themes seriously and compassionately, but from a distance. In his 1997 concert tour, he dedicated a love song to his lover of 20 years, Daffy Tong, but referred to him only as his “mother’s godson.” He addressed his own sexuality only once, in a newspaper interview where he pushes back against a claim that he’s gay by making the correction that, rather, he’s bisexual.
In an old interview, Cheung says with a laugh, “I don’t wish to be Cheng Dieyi. As a person, I’m much luckier than him…but I do love playing tragic characters.”
For years since, Leslie Cheung’s death has been wrapped up with Hong Kong’s transition to Chinese authority and its
gradual decline, as well as the strangulation of queer film and art due to mainland influences. It’s conflated with its particular time, and Cheung is transfigured into an icon of Hong Kong’s golden era, and a queer one at that. His plight, in life and on screen, becomes Hong Kong’s. In “Changes Manifest,” Emma Tipson analyzes a selection of Hong Kong films from just pre- and post-handover, writing that they echo “fears that the Hong Kong identity is one that is destined to be forgotten…a cultural autonomy which is feared to be consigned to the past unless preserved through filmic devices.”
I think that I do understand the compulsion to conflate. When I’m watching his movies, old concert footage, listening to his music, digging through old news articles, I feel a deep enamoration with a time and place, or rather, his time and place. I’m not from Hong Kong and I was never alive at the same time as Leslie Cheung, but I miss him a lot. Is that alright to say?
Like how Beijing opera, in all its complexities, will never exist as it did a century or two prior, I don’t think there will be a Chinese movie like Farewell My Concubine again, at least in the foreseeable future. It’s epic, it’s violent, it’s fragile—it’s history. It’s about Hong Kong even when it’s about Beijing. It’s about art. It’s about trying and failing to hold on to a time and a place that’s already gone.
How do you hold on anyway? What’s real, what’s fiction? The film ends back at its opening shot: Cheng Dieyi rehearses with Duan Xiaolou for the last time, eyes trained on his sword, saying with everything but his voice, The sword is real. I can raise it to my own throat and have it be real—and by doing so I can make us real.
When is it time for the opera to end? Look, it already has.
and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness a year in poems
by Chelsea Long Illustrated by Ellie Kang
My first year at Brown passed by like a speeding train. I remember it only in images— snapshots, swathes of color, moments. I went to a lot of places. I said a lot of things, some of which were true and some of which were not untrue. And I read a lot of poems. Here, I’ve compiled some of my favorites, along with brief explanations of the meaning I find in them and how they helped me get through each month of the year. I hope you like them.
September: “Scintilla, Star” by Jameson Fitzpatrick
“How embarrassing / to have been fourteen” My first month of college made me into an actor. I memorized lines— hi I’m Chelsea I’m from California I live in Champlin I want to study English and math —and picked up my props from the bookstore. I studied and went to parties and talked to strangers in the lounge until midnight, and I did it all with the sense that I was performing for an invisible audience, trying not to tremble or flinch under their piercing gaze. It was a middleschoolish anxiety, a nervous voice in the back of my head always whispering Do they like me and Is this right?
“Scintilla, Star” speaks to this panopticon-like fear in short, enjambed lines: “there was no place / that did not see me.” It’s a lonely poem—its queer, teenage speaker faces gossip and social isolation—and in September, I was lonely too, lonely even when I was surrounded by people. It was still a good month. I made a lot of friends and discovered new ways of speaking and being. And when I felt a bit too perceived and a bit too nervous, “Scintilla, Star” reminded me that I wasn’t the only one.
October: “Black Stone on a White Stone” by Cesar Vallejo
“I will die in Paris with a rainstorm / on a day I already remember”
“Black Stone on a White Stone” is a fascinating poem that constantly shifts, moving back and forth between present and past tense and first and third person. The poem’s translation in English is unrhymed and unmetered, but its original Spanish text holds rich sound devices. “Me moriré en París—y no me corro,” the speaker announces. “Tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.” After taking a semester of Spanish at Brown, reading the translation of “Black Stone” beside its original version was illuminating—I felt like I was seeing the poem through a new pair of glasses. After months of stumbling through grammar exercises and conversation sections, I could tangibly point to what I had learned.
November: “Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World” by Katie Farris
“To train myself, in the midst of a burning world / to offer poems of love to a burning world.”
Hypothetically, if there were some hypothetical student in her first year at college who was hypothetically having some thoughts about the hypothetical presidential election while also hypothetically debating between hypothetically studying the humanities or the sciences and hypothetically losing it and hypothetically doubting her choices and hypothetically questioning the
value of language and the purpose of poetry— this would be a good poem for her to read.
December: “All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs” by Christian Wiman “...and my friends, / my beautiful, credible friends.”
In the pictures from December, I’m walking through the streets of Providence with my friends. I’m describing the state fish of California in the Ratty. I’m gesturing to the screen at slideshow night. I’m grinning at the camera. In the pictures from December, I’m overwhelmingly happy—happy to be done with classwork, happy to be turning 19, happy to have found friends who laugh with me and tell me stories about their lives. “All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs” is a poem about loving your friends unwaveringly, across time and space, even as they grow and change and die. The speaker’s friends remain “credible” even as their beliefs change—the speaker is telling them I will believe what you believe simply because you believe it . In the pictures from December, you can see me beaming in a crowd of people. I’m thinking about spending the next four years laughing with them. I’m thinking that I’ll love them through anything.
January: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
“In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
This is my favorite 110-year-old poem. There’s not much I can say about it that hasn’t already been said—the Poetry Foundation calls it “one of the most famous poems” in the English language. The poem sings its reader a melancholy song of doubt and hesitation in scattered, interlocking rhymes. The best lines ring in the reader’s head like a bell for days. In January, I saw my family and my high school friends; I slept and read and walked for miles up and down the beach. Time seemed to slow down, stretching out in front of me like a deserted highway. “And indeed there will be time,” says Eliot’s speaker, and for a month, I believed it. But then, in a flash, I was packing my bags. I was on the plane, and the plane was on the runway, and as we accelerated I felt a clock wind itself up in my chest. Countdown to the next round. Three-two-one. Go.
February: “UDFJ-39546284” by Rick Barot “...something that…has nothing / to do with what you know about distance and time.”
We read “UDFJ-39546284” at the start of my English class one day. It’s a tricky poem to read aloud, mostly because you have to say a lot of numbers—take a moment to whisper the title, or the line “the farthest galaxy / we know of … / is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away,” and you’ll see what I mean. The poem talks about art and class and history, questioning which narratives we bring into focus and which ones are left to blur into the background. There were parts that I understood and parts that I didn’t understand but loved anyway. I came away from the poem with new ideas and lots of questions and a voice in my head saying you don’t have to know what it means to know that it matters.
March: “Female CEO”
“My colleagues asked me to unionize but I love the female CEO.”
It is 9 p.m. and my friends are watching Severance. It is 10 p.m. on a different day and my friends are watching Severance . The sky is black, the temperature is in the single digits, I have a problem set due in 55 minutes, and I am sitting on the floor of a lecture hall with my friends, who are watching Severance . I don’t know any of the characters’ names. They’re all wearing business casual and walking with purpose down never-ending hallways. Severance , to the best of my knowledge, is a weird show. “Female CEO” is a weird poem. The speaker holds a cup of tea in their hands and it “boil[s] in seconds from the love in my heart.” The female CEO gives the speaker a “small limestone horse statue.” It’s funny, it’s absurd, it’s a reimagining of what a poem can be and how a poem can sound.
April: “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas “Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”
I’m writing this on April 15, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that April 1 was yesterday. Two weeks slipped through my hands like water, and I know the rest of the month will pass just as quickly. I’m wondering where the year went. I’m unsettled, just a bit, when I see groups of high schoolers passing through the campus center for ADOCH. I’m thinking about graduation—I know in my bones that it’ll come before I’m ready. The cherry blossoms bloom. The sun comes out. The world is green and dying, and I’m running out of time.
May: “Movement Song” by Audre Lorde “we were always saying goodbye / in the blood in the bone over coffee”
“Movement Song” is a poem about saying goodbye. “The sands have run out against us,” the speaker declares. For the next four years, May will be a month of goodbyes for me— saying so long, I’ll miss you, see you next fall until eventually there is no more next fall and no more see you . When I think about this year, I think about all the words I have learned. I can say things in new and interesting ways, I can define a vector space and compute the line integral along a curve, and I can tell you the middle names of a handful of people who I didn’t know at all before September. The clock in my chest ticks faster and faster. “Movement Song” ends with the statement that “we cannot waste time / only ourselves.” I say it to myself, feel the shape of the words in my mouth. Let’s run out of time together.
April 25, 2025 11
by Jackie Sabbagh
The thing about starting over is that it feels like uprooting the past—like leaving behind fragments of everything you once knew, just to stand before a canvas that’s untouched, a map that’s uncharted.
It’s only been four years, yet there are so many details about my time at Brown that I’m already starting to forget. In 10, 20, 30 years, what will I still hold on to?
To my future self, I hope this capsule of memories reminds you of all of the people, places, and experiences that you once held so dear. I hope you have found plenty more of it wherever you are now. I hope you know that Providence will always be home.
I hope you remember the chaos and exhilaration of shopping period— spontaneously walking in on lectures you’d only just discovered, running into people you hadn’t seen in ages, debriefing at the end of the day to gush about the coolest classes everyone had found.
I hope you remember skipping and dancing to “Perfect Places” by Lorde down Brown Street at 1 a.m. together because there were no parents or teachers or curfews to tell you otherwise. So this is freedom. But don’t worry, you spent a fair amount of time in the SciLi too, even if you needed to “power nap” before you started. Remember when you were struck with that mysterious sickness while working in the Hay? Immediately afterwards, you were bedridden on her twin XL as you took the MATH0100 midterm, asynchronously of course.
Dance shows, sports games, music performances, thesis presentations, marathons. You attended each and every one. You cheered their names from the top of your lungs, clapped as loud as you could, and beamed with pride. Your heart stretched a little wider to make room for their joy, their accomplishments, and their passions.
You learned to forgo the formalities of “my brother” or “my sister,” and addressed each other’s siblings in conversation by their first names. It felt strange at first—to introduce your home life to new people this way, when for so long, these had been basic facts that didn't need explanation. You welcomed them home for Thanksgiving because their own homes were mountains and rivers and oceans away. Your mom was overjoyed to have three more daughters to call her own. She knew that one studied IAPA, one studied engineering, and one studied comp bio. She’d ask about them regularly and brought them food when she visited. They called her “East Coast mom,” “American mom” (she’s not American), “second mom.”
Remember your first visit to Steinert? How you rediscovered the art of piano, how it reached you somewhere that was both healing and rejuvenating. You trusted in muscle memory to guide you, but it was sharing the beauty with others that brought you back completely, to the Yamaha in your childhood
time capsule open in ten years
bY Katherine Mao Illustrated by Junyue Ma
home. Remember when you heard her sing and harmonize with the piano for the first time in Alumnae Hall? You were instantly entranced. Two2 years later, you went back to Alumnae again after she returned from her semester abroad, but this time you were in a private room upstairs where the lights were off and the area felt more enclosed. You had the whole space to yourselves. She pulled out the sheet music on her phone and asked you to record her on yours. Her angelic voice cut through the silence—the piano accompaniment brightened the room with delicate, graceful notes. She told you that you could delete the clips from your camera roll after you AirDropped them to her. But you never did. I hope you keep them forever.
I hope there’s a balcony on the house you live in now. And a nook for a library corner like you used to all dream about together. A long porch, too, but not a wraparound because that would leave you too exposed. Remember the blue house on the corner of Angell and Brook where you had your end-of-year Chinese class potluck? Remember sitting on the balcony in a circle (more like an amalgamated mass of bodies attempting to make a circle), sharing your rose-bud-thorns? A senior at the time reflected on her quiet sorrow as the final weeks before graduation drew near, and old memories seemed to resurface in every corner of campus. At the time, all of that felt so distant. At the time, you said you were glad to have taken the class and to have met so many new people. Even though you knew each other before the class, you always felt at ease meeting new people when she was there. I hope you have someone like her—a reassuring presence, a familiar face to find in the crowd.
If you have friendly neighbors, I hope you’ll bring them Jeni’s ice cream in exchange for Jersey bagels. I hope you’ll memorize the passcode to her apartment and welcome yourself inside freely. I hope that when the new season of Severance comes out, you’ll still be watching. You’ll have Chipotle, too, more out of habit than preference. I hope that every Halloween, you’ll remember the
time you went to the Halfway to Halloween Market together in the middle of April. I hope you still have impromptu car chats that extend into late hours instead of going inside. Like you used to do in front of Hegeman, Chen, Williams, and Preston—when everyone was a neighbor to you.
I know they won’t be strangers, but I hope they’re more than someone you sporadically FaceTime to catch up. I hope you go to T.J. Maxx together, not with a particular checklist in mind, but simply to cure boredom. I hope you take long walks and stumble upon playgrounds and drive around aimlessly, simply to have company. But hopefully you don’t amass parking tickets as often anymore. I hope she’ll always be one door away for you to ramble and pour out your thoughts to until you bring up the same topic over and over, until it’s been analyzed from every angle. Or until a new thread unravels it all once again. I hope you have a communal supply of jeans and dresses and shoes and jewelry that flow in and out of each other’s possession. You’ll leave the door open and let them rummage in your room for the drying rack or eye drop solution or dumbbells. Maybe you’ll make a megabed and watch The Great British Baking Show: Holidays even though they’ll both fall asleep 10ten minutes in. I hope you can sit in silence and nap on the couch and do nothing together. I hope the new people learn this language too—that they come to read stillness not as neglect or distance, but as a sign of closeness and comfort. And I hope they don’t need translation.
I hope you still wear the sweater you bought from the F@B fair. I hope it’s perfect weather for napping on the Main Green. I hope you remember the school spirit that comes out on April 20. I hope you’re dancing and singing in the rain to Ethel Cain’s “American Teenager,” and the mosh pit turns into a mudslide. A drizzle turns into a downpour as the rain comes down harder and harder until you can’t make out the faces in front of you. But you don’t need to see to feel the love.
POST-POURRI
BEFOR E YOU GO
minimal effort spaghetti sauce
a recipe straight from the minden kitchen
by Angel Benjamin | Illustrated by Koji Hellman
When I first went off meal plan junior year, I was 90 percent certain that it wouldn’t be a big deal. I was one of those kids who was obsessed with Gordon Ramsay’s cooking videos in middle school. I grew up critiquing and brainstorming revisions for recipes on the Food Network shows with my grandmother, and judging the meals on MasterChef as if I could do better. Growing up with a mother, grandparents, great aunts, great uncles, and extended cousins who somehow could never make a bad meal, food naturally became a haven and a hobby for me.
Then, junior year hit me like a brick, and food became another item on the to-do list. I didn’t expect all of the stress and overthinking that sapped my energy away, the assignments and club obligations that piled up. Thankfully, the first semester, my friends would swipe me into the dining hall, and my stomach motivated me to exhibit better time management in the second semester. Yet, by the end of the year, I was still eating mostly Chef Boyardee and Shin ramen—just enough.
I know as college students we sometimes forget to eat, or we lose our appetites from the stress of our everyday lives. For me, food can often be a good relief from those worries. Whether it was getting out of work at 10 p.m. on a school night or struggling to prepare for an AP exam, food was a good excuse for motivation in high school. A meal always gave me something to look forward to—perhaps delayed gratification. I won’t parrot the ageold advice of how important it is to eat for survival, but it’s a nice feeling when you can enjoy a fulfilling meal—even just a quick one, even if it’s the only peace you’ll have that day. And when you eat with friends? You’re just making memories, and you can never have enough of those.
When I could find the time and energy to go to Eastside Marketplace (rest in peace), my shopping cart would always have a pack of long noodles and Prego sauce (or Hunt’s, if I wanted to save money). This recipe emerged from being tired of the boring spaghetti noodles and sauce. I drew upon the random Gordon Ramsay cooking tips I had stored, and added seasonings, meat, and an onion to liven up my spaghetti. While I did become a huge proponent of eating basic or cheap meals, I felt happier and more motivated to eat when the meal was flavorful. So hopefully, whether you’re going through a stressful finals period or you’re tired of the Ratty’s pasta, you can try this out and substitute whatever you have or don’t have.
Spaghetti Sauce
Can serve 1-4 people
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10-15 minutes
Total Time: 15-20 minutes
Ingredients:
• 2 jars of marinara pasta sauce Garlic powder (or real garlic if you’re feeling it)
• Onion powder
• 1/2 of an onion (sliced or diced)
• A little over half a pack (or more if you want) of pork bacon: Cut into squares, or smaller if you like
• Season-All seasoning (or something akin to it)
• Chili oil (I recommend Lao Gan Ma) or chili powder (optional)
Directions:
1. Cut the bacon into squares. Slice or dice the onion. Set these ingredients aside.
2. Heat a frying pan on medium heat. Add the bacon to the pan.
3. Once you see the bacon fat/grease appear, add onions and mix, making sure the onions are covered in the bacon grease.
4. Add garlic powder and onion powder directly into the pan to lightly season the bacon and onions. Stir well.
5. As the bacon and onions cook, place a large pot on the stove on medium heat.
6. Add both jars of marinara sauce to the pot.
7. Mix in some more garlic powder, onion powder, and season—all seasoning to taste.
8. Let the sauce simmer. In the meantime, check on the bacon and onions. Once the bacon is cooked and the onions are caramelized, pour these contents into the sauce.
9. Stir well and let the sauce simmer for at least 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. (My grandmother simmers her sauce for two hours with the logic that time builds more flavor. However, I make this sauce in 10-15 minutes, so do whatever works for you or is most convenient.)
10. After the sauce has cooked down, ladle it over some pasta (no matter the noodle).*
11. Enjoy!
*If you are using chili oil like I did, stir it directly into each bowl of pasta before eating so the flavor pops more. If you are using chili powder, you can add it during the bacon/ onion seasoning stage or the sauce seasoning stage. Trust your instincts.
Let's Learn About Brown! (& other things)
By Lily Coffman
“Magnolias, cherry blossoms, and daisies are everywhere. Signs of rejuvenation. In the past few weeks, I’ve spent hours basking in the sun, pondering the ubiquitous joy felt around campus.”
— Katherine Mao, “Lawn People” 04.25.24
1. Brown-nose (the actual definition, no relation to Brown's satirical newspaper the Brown Noser)
1. Socially reject
Across
6. Issa who played 'President Barbie'
9. 5280 feet
1. Annual poker championship held in Nevada, abbr.
13. Southeast Asian capital known for its Chinese and French influences
5. Assert, without proof
14. Public univ. in the Tar Heel state
15. Spice found in the cuisine of 66-Across
16. Remove one's friendship, as on Snapchat
11. Data visualization technique with varying degrees of color intensity
17. Partner to neither
14. Bits and ____
18. Counterparts to bases
15. Latin for "from what is earlier"
19. Brown finals activity that puts the n, u, d, & e in "student"
16. Unit of seasons
22. Snowy sidekick in "Frozen"
17. *Spicy capsicums who sang "Californication"
23. Something one might bat
19. "Let's make like an orange and ____"
20. Words of reassurance
24. Bay Area agency responsible for BART and Muni
27. Shroud, as in silence
21. Danish composer of The Witch
30. David known for his gun control activism
25. Govt.-issued ID
26. Where you might let him cook
33. Like a spoiled child (or the name of a Brown dining hall + one letter)
27. *Bakery item who sang "Baby I'm-A Want You"
28. Sheer soft fabric for curtains
35. Famed Brown professor of psychoceramics, which includes the study of pots and heads (and also probably potheads)
29. 1995 hit by Alanis Morissette, "You ___ Know"
37. Avoided on moral grounds
38. Cash grab machine
39. Distributor of media, such as a TV show or radio program
30. Description of music in a quote by Arthur Schopenhaeur...or a hint to 5-Down and 17-, 27and 43- Across
40. Brown has the highest number of this type of group per capita
42. Steep-sided gully
33. Yummy sauce to put on your Cantonese BBQ pork
34. Gave five stars
35. Prefix with pot, gram, or cart
43. Button that you might have to press when connecting your phone to a speaker
36. What a Brit calls algebra or geometry, etc.
44. Unwavering stability, unlike the walls of the ArchBron basement when it rains
37. Heads of corn
46. Web feed often used in podcast production
47. [Excuse me]
40. Word to describe the South Asian diaspora
49. It means nothing to the French
41. Wish granter
42. ____, a-two, ____, two, three, four
51. It is said that if you step on a north campus seal, you will be struck with this affliction
43. *Multicolored legume who sang "My Humps"
57. Lit. genre with tractor beams and aliens
46. Largest American cactus
59. Vessel often associated with Grecian potter
60. WWII fleet weapon
49. Rhode Island's is Reed or Whitehouse
61. Mini version of a McDonald's classic
50. Small, spotted wild cat
51. Sunbathers on a beach, perhaps
62. Cold, solid substance found in the base of Del's lemonade
63. One of America's most renowned film critics
52. Elephant-headed Hindu god of wisdom
53. Front's counterpart
64. Place sung about by the Beatles on their White album... definitely not known for anything else
65. Archaic denial
66. Middle Eastern country
Down
2. Spiritual life force in Polynesian mythology
3. Biblical father of giants
1. Prison employee
4. Cowboy competition
2. Tree tool and chainsaw company
5. You might use it to flip someone off while your hands are preoccupied
3. Herman Melville sequel to Typee
6. Re-vote after an inconclusive election, such as in the battle for UCS president
4. Screen or separation
7. Soon, to Shakespeare
5. *Piece of produce who sang "Paper Bag"
8. Hue of unbleached linen
9. Receiver of someone else's snot?
6. Super Bowl in which Maroon 5 was the halftime show, abbr.
10. [Gasp! I am filled with fear!]
11. Gent
7. Minor deity
8. Green prefix
12. Clubs/orgs. that one participates in outside of class, like the Crosswording Club!
9. HS diploma equivalent
15. Bareilles of "Brave"
10. Opposite of WNW
20. Mom of dragons in GOT
11. Talks persistently (on a particular topic)
21. Abbrev. often found at the end of a long email or Reddit thread
12. Fencing swords
13. Highest woodwind
24. Trains that go to Boston, with a station just a 20 minute walk from campus
16. Galway land
25. Chapman whose car is definitely not slow
18. Did consume a beverage
26. Photos of a beachy tent, on a hotel listing perhaps?
22. Hawaiian anchovy
23. First word in NASA, abbr.
28. Relating to 8, like a standard academic year with 8 courses over 2 semesters
24. Civil Rights law of 1990
29. Bonnie and Clyde were famously on it
26. "Modern Family" actress Vergara
“Against all odds, the time has elapsed. The months passed even when you didn’t believe they would. The stories played out, and then got told over, and over, and over. You’ve lived it, it’s been so full of knowing, and you’ve been so, so lucky. Everyone you’ve learnt and loved is yours to keep.”
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Emilie Guan
FEATURE
Managing Editor Klara Davidson-Schmich
Section Editors Gabi Yuan
Chelsea Long
LIFESTYLE
Managing Editor
Tabitha Lynn
COPY CHIEF
Jessica Lee
Copy Editors
Indigo Mudhbary
Anika Kotapally
Lindsey Nguyen
Irene Park
STAFF WRITERS Nina Lidar Gabi Yuan Lynn Nguyen Ben Herdeg
SOCIAL MEDIA
Section Editors
Section Editors
Daphne Cao Indigo Mudbhary
27. School transportation methods
31. Short title for a medical drama that has been on TV for a long time
30. Former Lakers center Shaquille
28. A small room which opens into a larger one
32. Greek pita sandwiches
29. Words following song, artist, and rookie in awards
30. Quality of sound
34. Youth spinoff of a popular elimination style cooking show
36. Outdoor meaty meals
31. Cat's expression of warning
38. Swiss mountain
41. White, fluffy quadraped
32. Superlative for a cookie most likely to contain raisins, as compared to other cookies
Daphne Cao Elaina Bayard
ARTS & CULTURE
Managing Editor Elijah Puente
Daniella Coyle Hallel Abrams Gerber
POST-POURRI
Managing Editor
Susanne Kowalska
Managing Editor
Tabitha Grandolfo
Section Editors Eliot Geer
Chloe Ovbiagele
Ishan Khurana
Sofie Zeruto
Sydney Pearson Ayoola Fadahunsi Samira Lakhiani
Ellyse Givens
CROSSWORD AJ Wu
LAYOUT CHIEF
33. Concealed
42. French girlfriend
Section Editors Lizzy Bazldjoo AJ Wu
Ishan Khurana
Gray Martens
45. Scottish island recognized by UNESCO for its neolithic sites
36. "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" artist
48. Arab ruler
37. Heli______
38. ____ the other
50. Coarse, like the carpets found in many Brown dorms
39. Brown mascots
52. Destroy
41. Country music singer Brooks
53. Certain "murderous" marine mammal
42. In modern-day Cilicia
54. South African long-barreled gun
44. Home of Vientiane
55. South Asian garment known for its versatility
56. James of "At Last"
45. French-derived feminine noun ending
NARRATIVE
Managing Editor Katheryne Gonzalez
Section Editor Olivia Stacey
HEAD ILLUSTRATORS
Junyue Ma Kaitlyn Stanton
Layout Designers Amber Zhao
Alexa Gay
James Farrington
Lily Coffman
57. Texas sch. located in one of the richest cities in the US
46. A piece of wet, soft land
58. ___ in Christina Paxson
47. Health care reform law under Obama, abbr. 48. Like
or X
— Aditi Marshan, “A Chronological Guide to Endless Joy” 04.28.23