Post- 04/06/18

Issue

In This

@MikesIceTruck

Anita Sheih 3

Spirit of Brown

Chanel Johnson 2 SONYA BUI 4

Scraps JOSHUA LU 5

Country Music's High Horse James Feinberg 6

Animal Instinct

postCover by Clarisse Angkasa

APRIL 6

VOL 21 —

ISSUE 9

FEATURES

Spirit of Brown

The Eccentricities of Brown Campus Tours

I

written By Chanel johnson – illustrated by ella rosenblatt

only went

on one campus tour during the college application season. I don’t remember much from it except the humid heat of mid-July and how our tour guide managed to mention at every stop how amazing the school’s Greek life was. “I never saw myself being part of a sorority, but now I can’t imagine myself without it,” she said as I rolled my eyes. It goes without saying that I wasn't impressed with the school and did not apply. My decision shows just how impactful a campus tour can be to prospective students. Brown campus tours are getting increasingly busy with the beginning of spring and the admittance of 2,566 students to the Class of 2022, and tour guides are tasked with highlighting the implicit qualities of its campus atmosphere and attract prospective students.

There are currently four different types of tours that Brown provides for prospective students: the general campus tour, the engineering tour, the physical sciences tour, and the sustainability tour. The campus tour is managed by the Brown Bruin Club, a student organization associated with the Office of College Admission that oversees all prospective students’ needs.

The engineering tour is managed by the Department of Engineering and gives an overview of what it’s like to study engineering at Brown, allowing prospective students to talk to current engineering concentrators and visit classrooms and lab spaces. The physical sciences tour visits similar spaces, but highlights computer science, chemistry, physics, engineering, math, applied math, geology, and environmental science. The sustainability

Letter from the Editor

Dear Readers,

tour is the newest offering: Provided by the Brown Office of Energy and Environmental Initiatives, it shows prospective students the sustainability initiatives at Brown, including compost and recycling, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) buildings, and alternative living options.

Every university has a unique approach for how it presents its campus on tours. Brown’s approach begins with the competitive application process for tour guides. Aspiring and returning tour guides must be interviewed at the beginning of every semester. In the interview, each applicant gives a mock tour guide introduction and answers a few situational questions that could come up on tour. Interestingly, while most schools pay their students to be tour guides, Brown students volunteer about an hour of their time each week to lead tours. “I think it speaks to how Brown students are genuinely interested in talking about the school and genuinely love Brown,” explains Cindy Zeng ’20, who has been a tour guide for two semesters. “I think it’s nice that students care so much about the school, and they want to do it anyway because they think it’s really fun.”

The distinctive aspects of Brown campus tours don’t stop with its competitive application process. Ben Ahmad ’20, who has been a tour guide for two semesters, explains that prospective students are not assigned a tour guide when they visit. Instead, families hear the tour guides’ intros and choose whom to follow: “Basically, we say that it’s in the ‘spirit of Brown’ because you have freedom of choice.” In addition, Ahmad also describes how campus tours

playing at the Avon this week, and Anita

National Holidays to Celebrate After the Holiday Season

Sheih's investigation of the secret behind Ever since I returned from Ireland last

Mike’s Ice.

week, I have to remind myself a few times a day that I’m not going to stumble on a

If you want to go to another planet

random statue of Oscar Wilde, pass another

altogether, Sonya Bui’s poem will do the job.

pub named Murphy’s, or turn the corner

We also have a review of Kacey Musgraves’s

on another building that’s a thousand years

1.

Fruitcake Toss Day (Jan 3)

new album, which Joshua Lu, former

2.

Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day (Jan 17)

old. But it has also meant that I see Brown

Post- Managing Editor, compares to early

with new eyes: the trees! the red brick! the

Taylor Swift—and knowing the Post- staff

3.

OK Day (Mar 23)

random mix of snow/sun/rain in one day!

(we dedicated an entire issue to her last

4.

National Something on a Stick Day (Mar 28)

semester), it is high praise indeed.

5.

Be Kind to Lawyers Day (Apr 10)

6.

Lima Bean Respect Day (Apr 20)

7.

World Naked Gardening Day (May 5, right after

Chanel Johnson has written the perfect piece for my frame of my mind: a feature on

Predictions for when Mike’s Ice will return

campus tour guides, whose very job is to sell

to campus? Ideas for thesis topics? You

naive high schoolers and their unsuspecting

know how to get in touch. (It’s post@

parents on this school.

browndailyherald.com).

If you’re still very much in a spring break

Happy Friday!

state of mind, however, we have you covered with a review of Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs,

2 post–

Saanya - editor in chief

May 4’s No Pants Day) 8.

Herb Day (also May 5, so pants are optional)

9.

Sauntering Day (Jun 19)

10.

Pluto Demoted Day (Aug 24)

NARRATIVE do not focus on the history of Brown: “I’ve noticed that when I went on other tours at other schools, they spent a lot of time on that. And I don’t really think we do because honestly people can get really bored by it."

This non-traditional approach to campus

the school culture. Additionally, students this year will be placed into “units” for the weekend so that they can develop a network even before they begin their first semester.

Through non-traditional approaches, Brown has allowed prospective students to

While tour guides may struggle to navigate new situations on the spot, each tour session also comes with pleasant surprises.

On one of Ahmad’s tours, Harrison Ford made an unexpected appearance, while one of Zeng’s tours was thrown off by something much more ordinary. tours has an impact on not only the prospective students but also the tour guides. For Zeng, she loves how campus tours give her the chance to take a break from her work and to walk around campus.

The relaxed atmosphere also allows her to tell a few jokes and get a few laughs out of the audience.

For example, she tells her tour groups, “The urban legend of the Soldier’s Arch is that if you kiss your partner underneath it, you will both be married.

But the legend doesn’t specify who you will be married to.” Zeng says, “At that point everyone laughs, and it’s really great.” For other guides, leading campus tours can be a humbling learning experience. Ahmad says, “It makes me realize how privileged I am to be here because I really think you can take that for granted, and it also makes me love Brown more every time I talk about it.”

While campus tours can be refreshing for both prospective students and tour guides, they do come with a few challenges. One is how to handle tricky questions that prospective students ask, like what current students typically do on the weekends.

“What I found is that you want to be honest,” Ahmad explained. “But the best way to frame the honesty is to give a balanced perspective.”

While tour guides may struggle to navigate new situations on the spot, each tour session also comes with pleasant surprises. On one of Ahmad’s tours, Harrison Ford made an unexpected appearance, while one of Zeng’s tours was thrown off by something much more ordinary. “One time, I was giving a segment outside of the Ratty,” Zeng described, “And one of my friends was with her friends, and they all started cheering, so I got pretty flustered.”

Furthermore, prospective students can get a more in-depth experience at Brown with A Day On College Hill (ADOCH), and this year’s new policies have made the atmosphere even more welcoming than in the past. Instead of hosting admitted students for just one weekend, ADOCH will be offered twice in order to allow more flexibility for admitted students’ schedules and give more people the chance to see the campus. In addition, Early Decision admitted students are allowed to come to ADOCH this year, which allows everyone to have the chance to gain a sense of how they will fit with

comprehensively experience student culture and imagine themselves on campus. Brown’s campus tours, online resources, and events allow current students to reach out to prospective students and reflect on how their time at Brown has impacted them.

@MikesIceTruck Straying from the Obvious

By Anita Sheih "I don't even know, if I’m gonna be honest.”

Major walks around to the front of the truck, his black aviators glinting in the setting sun, heavyduty brown boots thudding against the cool pavement. “I don’t know what kind of truck this is. But I can tell you some fun facts about it. The guy we bought it from brought it up from Florida.

It used to be a flower truck at Disney World; it had never left Disney property, the mileage was low, and it was in great shape. He wanted to make it into an ice cream truck too, but he had to give up that dream when he got injured. So he sold it to us.”

6:31 p.m., and the post-dinner rush is just beginning: a line of people waiting at the passengerseat window to order and a blob of others waiting at the back window for their orders. The logos of Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram cover the truck, complementing the bold, blue slogan, “Roll With Us,” above the windshield. The truck’s mascot is a cartoon boy sporting a brown snow suit, a gleeful smile, and comically triangular brown hair.

“We had an idea of what we wanted it to look like—a cozy guy eating ice cream. I contacted a branding consultant, and he just came up with the idea. I think the little guy looks happy.”

From the homepage: “Mike’s Ice is Rhode Island's first Thaiinspired ice cream company.”

“The most awesome rolled ice cream in town, made fresh to order.”

“Help us help veterans.”

Mike explains this last slogan: “Mike’s Ice is dedicated to our friend Mike, who passed away a couple years ago. It’s a veteran-owned business.

I was in the Marine Corps, and in March of 2014, coming home from Afghanistan, I wanted to dedicate something to him. So we had this dream of a frozen yogurt place. But I just decided, ‘Let’s transition.’”

He’d been watching a Muay Thai kickboxing fight, a sport of which he is both an avid fan and participant, and saw an ad for Thai rolled ice cream.

“Ice cream is a staple in American cuisine.

And we wanted to do something a little different to diversify and add to the food scene here. This type of ice cream was first introduced to the United States in New York City last summer, and we are the first to bring it to Providence.”

I notice the round emblem on the side of the truck displaying the silhouette of a saluting man in uniform set on a background of the US flag, with a caption that reads, “Support Our Veterans.”

Walking closer to the window, I see the menu. The sizes offered are “#selfie” for a single serving or “#icecreamandchill” for a double serving. All of the orders have trending hashtags for names, such as “#merica,” “#instagood,” “#keytosuccess,” and “#yolo”.

“We wanted to stray from the obvious. When someone looks at a menu, they expect the cookies and cream flavor to just be called “Cookies and Cream.” We wanted to try something else, to combine something people are familiar with, ice cream, and something new that they like, social media.” 16,800 Instagram users follow Mike’s Ice, a stable fan base for a constantly moving business.

One, two, one, one, and one make six total people waiting in line to order. They either have soft bodies and big bellies or lean bodies and active social media accounts. They all have their phones out and heads down until they arrive at the window. For a few moments, their faces lift to say a few words, and then back down they go. No one chats in line, not even the two people who came together, who are on their own respective newsfeeds, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling…And when an order finally comes out, one of two things happens. The customer either immediately scarfs it down or immediately snaps a picture of it. Click, and mimi122 captions the Snap with three big, red, emoji hearts. She taps the blue arrow, checks “My Story,” and clicks another arrow to post.

I walk up to Major, my heeled boots clicking along the dark, evening pavement. I introduce myself as “Anita, the girl on the phone earlier.” He says, “Hi, just give me a second. I’m just updating the social media real quick…I’m Major.” He grins widely, and his chest puffs up a little with pride.

A few minutes into our conversation, he notices a woman standing behind him, patiently waiting.

“Hello, ma’am. We just have to wait for the machines to get frosted, ma’am.” The white panel on the outside of the truck flips up to create a little makeshift sheet-metal roof. I notice two apronwearing young workers—maybe my age—sitting in the driver’s and passenger’s seats of the truck, relaxing before their shift and scrolling, tapping,

“My grandma apologized for forgetting to wish me happy birthday by venmoing me a hundred bucks for beer money.”

"I don’t like tomatoes in my tuna."

“Does anyone have an Overheard we can use? We need two more.”

- Saanya Jain april 5, 2018 3

NARRATIVE swiping, typing away on their phones.

The tape on the menu sign suddenly falls off, and the menu flaps in the breeze, barely hanging on by the pieces of tape on the bottom. In a matter of seconds, Major whips in and out of the truck again with a roll of packing tape. Evidently experienced in dealing with rebellious signs, he sticks it back up using the taping method everyone learns in middle school—rolling up the tape in a little loop and sticking it between the surface and the back side of the paper.

“The machines are ready, ma’am! What’s your order and your name? …Oh, Carrie! I remember you! Nice to see you again.” Major beams at her through his close-shaven beard, his sunglasshidden eyes crinkling up a bit at the edge with smile lines, his buzz-cut head bobbing in acknowledgment and recognition.

The two younger workers move from the front of the truck to the kitchen area and start working with the machines, pulling levers, pressing buttons, cranking dials. I ask Major about the rest of his team. He counts off people on his right hand, starting with his thumb. He loses count and starts over. Finally, “We have a solid team of five fulltime and three part-time workers. As of now, we are only hiring family and friends of mine or my partner, Sadam Salas, who was in the Navy.”

Another man comes up, and Major takes his order. “Thank you, sir, that’ll be coming right up.”

I’ve had this type of ice cream twice before in my life, once at a night market in Vancouver and once in Thailand. Inspired by the traditional street foods of Thailand, Major and his partner introduced rolled ice cream to Providence through the opening of Mike’s Ice Truck on July 1, 2016.

Scraps

By Sonya bui illustrated by Miranda Villanueva Clogged in my sleep-deprived brain are crumpled scraps of paper i’ve been meaning to unscramble. scrap one. “let’s go outside.” something-something about blackened grid-like sidewalks and noiseless streets roaming freely out of sheer post-midnight curiosity then melting into firm grounded steps steered by puddles and mushy dewy grass. scrap two. “talk to me.” something-something about filters and defenses simultaneously rendering erroneous or pathological lies being cornered into the waters down the riverside then drowned by weighty gaps and breaks of comfortable silence. scrap three. “please?” something-something about making room for a temporary lodger pretending the expiry date doesn’t exist and turning “scoot over?” into “move in?” in half-assed fits of delirium. i still don’t know what to make of these scraps and perhaps my brain will declutter itself in waking hours.

4 post–

While their business is fairly westernized, with its social media references and active online marketing, their ice cream is pretty authentic.

Standing a few feet from the kitchen area, I watch the now-familiar process. First, they put all the ingredients onto the cold plate and use flat, metal spatulas to chop it all up. The instruments make short, sharp clangs as they are scraped and stabbed repeatedly against the plate. Clang! Kchhh, kchhh, clang. Klik klik, klik, klik, clang! The mixture of cream, milk, and sugar blends together and simultaneously freezes on the chilled metal slab, resulting in a light-colored, thick-textured blob.

The blades slowly smoothe the ice cream into thin layers, pushing down and outward from the middle of the plate, over and over in an almost-hypnotic motion. The ice cream, sufficiently flattened, begins to spiral up and inward, above the spatulas, off the icy surface of the frozen block. Finally, the addition of a bright red cherry, black Oreo cookie, and brown wooden spoon makes for a perfect Instagram picture.

“We just started researching online to learn how to make the rolls. One of our team members, Zuliana Bedel, who is very passionate about cuisine, developed our recipes and flavors. We YouTubed the process, watched videos, and practiced, practiced, practiced…” With each “practiced,” Major hits the back of one hand against the palm of the other.

“We’re gonna open up a real shop in downtown Providence soon, in the next six months. It’s the next step. We’re gonna build our franchise and take the region, then the nation, then the globe, by storm.” Passion pours from his words. “We’re looking to be the next Ben & Jerry’s. The next Cold

Stone Creamery.”

“I’m actually writing a book.” Major lingers in the doorway of the truck, as if unsure of whether he wants to come outside. After I give him an encouraging look and warm half-smile, he steps forward to join me on the sidewalk and continues to speak. He tells me about how he started learning “sales skills, customer service, and business savvy” at the young age of 11 while working at his father’s food truck. Though he is following in his father’s footsteps, he still feels like his story is unique. His whole business is focused on being different. Now he wants to teach millenials the new business skills necessary for entrepreneurship, such as taking advantage of of social media. “The book’s gonna be called How to Date a Girl from Work,” he says with a chuckle. “It’ll come out sometime next year.”

I would love to unpack the title and learn more about the book, but Major chose not to elaborate.

As I wait for my order, Major tells me that he dreams of moving to Thailand one day. His eyes light up, and his voice thickens with determination.

“I’m definitely gonna be spending some time there. I’ll eat, train, and maybe even fight some Muay Thai fights.”

As I walk back to my room, I follow both the business’s account and Major’s personal account on Instagram, as Major suggested several times throughout our conversation. I glance at my cup and see my order and my name, which Major carefully wrote in dark blue Sharpie 20 minutes ago. “#mikesice” (the Thai-iced-tea flavor) “C” (for cherry) “@anita” (to me: the ice cream, his message.)

LIFESTYLE

ARTS&CULTURE

Country Music's High Horse Kacey Musgraves Returns

By Joshua Lu illustrated by Miranda Villanueva In 2012, recent The Voice alum RaeLynn premiered her debut single, questionably titled “God Made Girls,” which to a liberal ear praises women for serving their husbands. “Somebody's gotta wear a pretty skirt / Somebody's gotta be the one to flirt / Somebody's gotta wanna hold his hand / So God made girls,” she sings without a hint of irony; less “Gunpowder & Lead” by Miranda Lambert and more “Stand By Your Man” by Tammy Wynette.

Material, which was more or less a rehash of the same concepts and sounds from Same Trailer, Different Park, came and went. She consistently flirted with a more pop-oriented, un-country audience, touring with Katy Perry and, more recently, Harry Styles, even lending her vocals to a remix of a Miguel single, “Waves.” She released two songs a month or so ago to promote her third album, Golden Hour: “Butterflies,” a twee statement of affection with a predictable metaphor, and “Space Cowboy,” a ballad about letting a disquieted lover leave. They were classic Kacey songs, being wistful, casual, and country through-and-through.

Then “High Horse” dropped. Essentially a disco track about telling someone to fuck off, the song was nothing like what Kacey had released before, being a predominately pop song. The critics salivated; Pitchfork awarded the song the Best New Music

It’s wonderful to see a talented artist receive the accolades she deserves. But it’s similarly difficult to not be cynical and consider the factors that have contributed to Musgraves’ critical acclaim, especially from people who will likely never willingly listen to another country album this year.

The thinkpieces responded accordingly (read: obnoxiously), decrying it for its un-feminist politics that one Jezebel article described as “outright Victorian,” “blasphemous,” and “a sign that Pinterest achieved sentience.” The Guardian referred to it as “a sexist mess that paints women as nothing but pretty little objects, just as much as Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line’s records do.”

Nevermind that RaeLynn, in an interview shortly after the Jezebel article ran, defended herself as a feminist whose own career was proof that the lyrics were not meant to wholly encompass the role of the female sex. Nevermind how the song’s values do resonate with a large number of women in America, for whom the song was written. The song did not match with what critics expected in their music, and “God Made Girls” became a joke in the critical landscape.

Kacey Musgraves’s music, since her major label debut in 2013, has always received at least a modicum of critical praise. Same Trailer, Different Park was recognized for its cynical and casual lyricism; in lead single “Merry Go ‘Round,” for example, she sings about the toxic circularity of small-town life, never upbraiding this lifestyle but merely looking on with a sigh. The country music industry extolled her regularly, awarding her CMAs and putting her on their biggest stages.

But to liberal critic-land as a whole, like Spin and Pitchfork and Time, Kacey’s best song was really “Follow Your Arrow,” a good song that was recognized more for its politics: Kacey sings about smoking weed, kissing girls, and living your own life all over a catchy guitar melody.

The underlying argument is that country music, at its core, is bad; country music that serves as a rebuff to country music is therefore good.

Kacey’s second album, Pageant

label, and other publications gave it more attention than they would have any other release by a country artist. Kacey acknowledged these awards, but part of her charm is how genuine her liberal appeal manifests. Just a few days before the album release, she wrote a Facebook post about how she was inspired to write an interlude about her mom while she was on LSD—not quite the image a country artist tends to carry.

T h e release o f

Golden Hour last week only added onto the acclaim; Pitchfork doled out Kacey her second Best New Music sticker, and the album currently has a score of 90 on Metacritic. Part of her success must be attributed to the merits of the album, with layered, experimental instrumentals and witty lyrics tied together with Kacey’s melodious voice. Part of it must also be the pop landscape it is being released in, where artists like Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, and Miley Cyrus here promised hybrids of country and pop that failed to excite upon release. But part of it must be because much of the album does not feel like country music; I’ve seen the vocoder used on “Oh, What a World” compared to those on songs

by All Saints, MIKA, and Daft Punk, and Pitchfork could not help but compare the record as a whole to releases by Beck and Sufjan Stevens. Pop music fans were similarly engaged, and Kacey tweeted a meme showcasing a man labelled “The Gays” turning away from Carly Rae Jepsen’s record Emotion and facing Golden Hour instead. Kacey later deleted the tweet, perhaps not used to the vitriol that pop music fans on Twitter often carry, especially toward a country artist.

It’s wonderful to see a talented artist receive the accolades she deserves. But it’s similarly difficult to not be cynical and consider the factors that have contributed to Musgraves’s critical acclaim, especially from people who will likely never willingly listen to another country album this year. The country music scene has largely gone unaffected by the critics, whose old biases are still evident even when they’re silent. RaeLynn released her latest single “Queen’s Dont” a few weeks ago to not much of a hullabaloo. “Queens don't hate, queens don't fight / Queens don't stay unless their king treats her right,” she sings, echoing her debut track but with reversed politics. One has to notice how, despite being similarly prescriptivist about the roles girls must play in their lives, “Queens Don’t” escaped the scorn of critics.

april 5, 2018 5

ARTS&CULTURE

Animal Instinct At the Movies: Isle of Dogs

Written by James Feinberg Illustrated By Miranda Villanueva Wes Anderson can milk the hell out of a dead dog. In the director’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012), Snoopy, the trusty pooch belonging to the boys

delves into the non-space of a fictionl quirk-ified Japan just Showtimes as Tenebaums did New York 2:00 4:10 and The Grand Budapest Hotel 6:20 8:30 (2015) did Middle Europe.

Anderson seems intoxicated, as he did in his last animated feature, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), by the possibilities of stop-motion, and fills the frame with exquisite color and detail, which is delightful. No director since Kubrick, in 2001: A Avon Cinema

There’s too much going on on the surface and not so much under, with the net result being that [Isle of Dogs], despite being aesthetically beautiful, seems to end before it begins. from Camp Ivanhoe, is impaled by a stray arrow, making him the one fatality in a movie that includes devastating floods, a troop of preteens armed with axes, and a child being struck by lightning. In The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), the youngest Tenenbaums’ dog is crushed by a car and almost immediately replaced by the Dalmatian of the firefighter crew that arrives to assess the situation. (Yeesh.) But fittingly, Anderson’s newest film, Isle of Dogs, a stop-motion-animated visual extravaganza that’s nonetheless his weakest effort, leans the hardest on the trope. A particular dog skeleton is the source of much of the pathos early in the film, and later, during a dream sequence, our hero, Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin), visualizes an army of dog skeletons melting into thin air. Call it a memento mori for the canine set.

There’s almost too much to see and hear in the film, which is infused with the spirit of one of Anderson's admitted influences, Kurosawa, and

Space Odyssey (1968), has utilized blinding white more effectively, and one shot, in which Chief (Bryan Cranston), a stray, is oriented against an illuminated cave of discarded bottles, could be the most beautiful thing Anderson’s ever composed.

The voice cast, again traditionally for Anderson, is stacked: Aside from Cranston, there’s Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Jeff Goldblum (who gives the best delivery in the film, no surprise), Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand—there are more, but there’s limited space in this magazine.

I almost missed Bob Balaban until I really started to pay attention. Also, strangely, Yoko Ono is in it, playing a scientist named Yoko Ono. Fair enough.

This is all well and good, but the storyline—in which Atari travels to the titular isle, where all dogs in the city of Megasaki, have been banished, to find his own lost pup—runs out of steam around the time the quest comes to fruition, which is not so

“Ahh, I should have guessed he was American from those non-fitted pants.” —Spencer Roth-Rose, The Game of Language 4.14.16

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Saanya Jain

ARTS & CULTURE

LAYOUT

a

Managing Editor

Chief Livia Mucciolo

FEATURE

Josh Wartel

Ro Antia

Managing Editor

Section Editors

Nina Yuchi

Jennifer Osborne

Celina Sun

Jacob Lee

Section Editors

Marly Toledano

Anita Sheih

Julian Castronovo

Kathy Luo

MEDIA Claribel Wu

DESIGN

Samantha Haigood

Sarah Saxe

Anita Sheih

Annabelle Wood-

COPY

ILLUSTRATION

ward

Chief Alicia DeVos

Miranda Villanueva

Pia Mileaf-Patel

Zander Kim

Phoebe Ayres

Section Editors

Amanda Ngo

Divya Santhanam

Want to be involved? Email: post@browndailyherald.com!

NARRATIVE Managing Editors

“Behind the family-friendly mask of boy-band-hood, Zayn and Louis were, in fact, 20-something-year-old dudes.”

—Joshua Lu, Zayn-Mind of Mine 4.14.16

6 post–

deep into the film as one might suspect. Anderson, who penned the script, allows his usually helpful narrative economy to run away with him here.

Gerwig’s foreign exchange student, a distraction, takes up far too much of the plot for my taste, and prevents us from spending more time with dogs who, under their gorgeously articulated skin, might be more than one-joke characters. (Tilda Swinton’s Oracle, a “clairvoyant” pug, receives her cosmic wisdom by “understanding TV,” which is funny, but maybe not funny enough for Tilda Swinton.)

There’s too much going on on the surface and not so much under, with the net result being that the movie, despite being aesthetically beautiful, seems to end before it begins.

What Anderson is trying to do here, it becomes increasingly clear, is make an actual children’s movie—albeit one with his customary minor acts of bloody violence—as opposed to Fox, which had a complex emotionality and a keen sense of family dysfunction that lumped it more comfortably in his ouevre. In Isle of Dogs: Big-city child loses pet.

Pet falls in with pack of ragtag strays. Powerful criminal organization prevents child from getting to pet. Child finds pet after action-heavy chase sequence. Child is reunited with pet, and criminals are suitably punished. This is the exact plot of Disney’s Oliver and Company (1988), which is not nearly so nice to look at as Isle of Dogs, but has the distinct advantage of co-starring Billy Joel. Eat your heart out, Yoko.