Post- Oct. 22, 2015

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UME L O V 22 -

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upfront

Editor-in-Chief Yidi Wu Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Abby Muller Managing Editor of Features Monica Chin Managing Editor of Lifestyle Cissy Yu Managing Editor of Online Amy Andrews Arts & Culture Editors Liz Studlick Mollie Forman Features Editors Lauren Sukin Nate Shames Lifestyle Editor Corinne Sejourne

contents 3 upfront an assortment of disney movies Monica Chin

4 features

improv?

Katherine Chavez

5 lifestyle

chocolate, chai, and croissants Loren Dowd my backbone Sara Al-Salem

6 arts & culture swiftest of the swifties Jaclyn Torres

jackson, vonnegut, and garcía márquez Emma Murray

Copy Chiefs Lena Bohman Alicia DeVos

7 arts & culture

Serif Sheriffs Logan Dreher Ellen Taylor Kate Webb

8 lifestyle

Her Grey Eminence Clara Beyer Head Illustratrix Katie Cafaro

mcdreamy and me Hazem Abbas

top ten overheard at brown seven Lauren Sukin

editor’s note Dear Readers, My friend and I have a running shtick where, occasionally, when we come across something wilfully abstruse, or something trite and banal, or something complex and satisfying and good, or really anything that could possibly be subject to interpretation at all, one of us will look at the other and say, “Do you know what this means?” and the other will reply, “Man’s inhumanity to man!” What does the redness of the October moon signify?

Man’s inhumanity to man! What is a single tear in the eye of a lonely child? Man’s inhumanity to man! (What is the basis of our friendship? No. That would be too real.)

You, too, might have on occasion come to the sentiment that “Man’s inhumanity to man” could be a fairly decent interpretation of wide swaths of literature. In fact, you might have also come to think “the inexorable gulf of misunderstanding that separates us all” and “the pain of shared ignorance” might also be equally reasonable interpretations. At least, I suspect you would be amenable to such tracks of thought if you’ve taken a poststructuralist literary theory class at Brown, read Lacan, or paid a visit to certain sections of the Met. But jokes aside, I do not mean that there is no use in seeking meaning in or forming robust and honest interpretations of pieces of art. I only mean that, in all seriousness, one should not pretend to have understanding of a text when one has none; I would like it best if you yelled “Man’s inhumanity to man!” and then returned to the text instead. As you’ll see if you flip through our issue, art can speak quite compellingly if you let it.

Best,

Yidi

Staff Writers Sara Al-Salem Kalie Boyne Loren Dowd Rebecca Forman Joseph Frankel Devika Girish Gabrielle Hick Anne-Marie Kommers Joshua Lu Hannah Maier-Katkin Caitlin Meuser Emma Murray Jaclyn Torres Ryan Walsh Staff Illustrators Yoo Jin Shin Alice Cao Emily Reif Beverly Johnson Michelle Ng Peter Herrara Mary O’Connor Emma Margulies Jenice Kim Cover Jenice Kim From right to left: Yidi Wu ‘17, Abby Muller ‘16, Monica Chin ‘17, Cissy Yu ‘17, Amy Andrews ‘16, Liz Studlick ‘16, Mollie Forman ‘16, Lauren Sukin ‘16, Nate Shames ‘17, Corinne Sejourne ‘16, Lena Bohman ‘18, Alicia Devos ‘18, Logan Dreher ‘19, Ellen Taylor ‘16, Kate Webb ‘19, Katie Cafaro ‘17

upfront

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an assortment of disney movies according to someone who has never seen them MONICA CHIN managing editor of features Brace yourself: I have never seen a Disney movie.

Yes, commence very loud, aghast incredulity. Yes, I am a real human. No, I do not live under a rock. No, I did not have a morose childhood plagued with malady and woe. Don’t worry, I’m very, very used to it. Are you quite finished?

Good, let’s carry on.

The explanation for this phenomenon is relatively clear—my parents never really got around to showing them to me, and, by the time I reached the age where I knew of the magic of online pirating and could initiate such watchings myself, my signature cynicism was just starting to bud, and they—brace yourself again—didn’t look like very good movies.

So, I’ve decided that the time has come to investigate these mediocrelooking films to which everyone around me seems to have some deep nostalgic attachment. To do this, I have chosen an assortment of Disney movies, based on recommendations from militant Disney-fan friends (seriously, guys, calm down). I am going to watch the trailer for each of them and, to the best of my ability, summarize what I think they’re about (Thanks to Dan O’Brien for the inspiration for this idea).

The Little Mermaid The trailer opens with some woman with a tail swimming around. My exceptional powers of deduction inform me that this is the Little Mermaid. Said mermaid clearly lives in a community of anthropomorphic sea creatures: a perpetually skeptical lobster-thing, a flounder that seems far too happy to be dwelling in a dark and morose underwater cave, and a seagull who is almost certainly stoned. Wait, so why does she have to wear clothing? None of her sea creature friends are wearing clothing, and given that any sort of intercourse between any of them is anatomically inconceivable, from where would such a social convention even arise? Anyway.

We meet a terrifying, like, female…thing in a black dress, who seems to be offering the Little Mermaid a deal.

Given that she is the least trustworthylooking individual I have ever seen in a movie ever, I’m crossing my fingers that the mermaid turns down this deal and that the movie ends here.

Ah, wishful thinking. Apparently, she now has legs.

We are now treated to a series of humdrum human things—she flounces around in a dress (wait, she’s been swimming her whole life. How can she suddenly walk?), bounces on

a bed, tries and fails to smoke a pipe, and seems to have a sore throat. An average-looking male always seems to be hovering in the background of these escapades. He seems spectacularly boring, but since he is clearly the only man in this movie, I assume he will be nailing the mermaid at some point.

My best guess: Angsty teenage mermaid is quite sexually frustrated, given the impracticalities of lobster-banging. Pays visit to shady underwater drug dealer for tailto-leg drug, then goes off to stalk some rich guy until he, erm, shows her the ropes. Wait a minute, do humans still eat fish in this world? Like, what’s going to happen between this mermaid and her new soulmate when she finds out that he regularly slaughters her fully sentient sea friends and gobbles them up for his own pleasure?

Speaking of sentient animals, does this mean the dude’s clearly nonverbal dog is actually—I know, I know, I’ve overstayed my welcome.

Pinocchio Sentimental violins and a flock of doves (really?) usher in a comatose-looking little boy, a quite seductive female goldfish, some cat thing that we never see again, and a lady in a blue dress with the magic wand. I’m assuming that the little kid is a Pinocchio—ah, yes, a talking cricket dressed like William Howard Taft has just confirmed (seriously, where are they drawing this bright line about which animals have to wear clothing?).

And apparently Pinocchio’s nose gets bigger unintentionally and fairly regularly. Wait, is that a euphemism? Guys, is this really a kids’ movie?

Ah, but finally some action! Pinocchio’s in Magic Disney Boy Jail! Someone screams at a really creepy carnival!

A ship crashes! A raft is tossed to and fro on the high seas! A giant whale does a thing! An old guy prays really hard! Pinocchio wakes up on a bed and the old guy is really really really happy. Cricket Howard Taft assures me that if I wish upon a star, my dreams will come true.

Seems legit.

My best guess: Pinocchio, an innocent little boy cursed with a terribly

long and hard, erm, nose, and Cricket Howard Taft must embark on a series of swashbuckling magical adventures to save the world from the evil whale and his sidekick the harlot fish. They almost drown, but are saved when an old sorcerer invokes the Dark Lord Cthulu to return them safely (not in the trailer, but that’d be sick).

Frozen Some city looks very pretty, until some clearly evil chick in a blue dress makes it, oh no, god forbid…snow?

Man, my New Englander’s heart is bleeding for them. A horse, like, kicks someone or whatever and, wait, is that Kristen Bell? Kristen Bell’s in this movie?

The Gossip Girl, guys! Wait, I need a minute to go re-watch that heart-wrenching Chuck/Blair scene from season five.

Okay, I’m back. Kristen talks to some guy with a bowl cut, and apparently snowmen can talk in this movie.

Kristen and Prince Bowl Cut ride in a sleigh that some wolves want to destroy for some reason, the snowman does some unintuitive things with his snow body that I just cannot imagine add to the plot of this movie, Kristen throws snowballs at some evil snow creatures (I’m no expert, but I can’t imagine balls of snow are overly useful against that particular demographic), and, wow, this snowman is really intolerable. The evil chick in the blue dress does a lot of glaring. Seriously, she is so blatantly evil, I am sure she’s responsible for these non-ideal weather conditions that everyone seems to be fighting against in this movie. Why hasn’t anyone arrested her yet?

My best guess: A snowman interrupts Kristen’s and Prince Bowl Cut’s royal weather-related moping to invite them to Netflix and Chill. They’re only about half-way back to Snowman’s place, however, when—PSYCH! Turns out Snowman and evil blue dress chick have been in cahoots this whole time, and have combined powers to create an army of Evil Magic Disney Snow People. I’m assuming these Snow People destroy Kristen, Prince Bowl Cut, and everything they know and go on to rule as humanity’s new chilly overlords, condemning us to a dismal eternity of slippery roads and North Face.

High School Musical It seems that The Big Basketball Game is coming up, and Zac Efron really needs to win. Oh god, I forgot that Zac Efron used to have his hair like that. Oh no, and he’s angsty and antisocial. I need to take a shot of something.

Okay, much better. So we see him singing very soulfully about love and lust at what sounds like a piano, except now apparently he’s singing about how badly he needs to score in basketball. It’s unclear to me why he can’t express these sentiments infinitely more succinctly in a few spoken sentences, but what do I know?

Zac’s (presumably) basketball coach and teammates seem really upset about the fact that he’s dating a girl.

Wait, is he the only one on his team who’s dating someone? Does this men’s high school basketball team enforce a policy of celibacy? Now they seem to be put off by the fact that he’s involved in musical theater—oh dear, two extracurriculars? God forbid. Ashley Tisdale is livid because Zac’s name is on some list for something that her name is also

4

features

on—man, I retract my earlier comments, this kid clearly just can’t catch a break.

Zac dumps his girlfriend, it appears, and the two of them sing about their feelings for the rest of the trailer, and some fireworks light up the sky and oh my god why haven’t I seen this movie yet?

My best guess: Zac Efron High is preparing for their final basketball game against Other Basketball Team, and also both of these teams exist in an alternate universe where people actually care about high school basketball. Ashley Tisdale, Head Theater Person of Other

Basketball Team’s school, is determined to humiliate their rival Zac Efron by accidentally getting him a part in the school play. It turns out, however, that in a completely unforeseen plot twist, basketball players can actually carry notes sometimes, and oh my god I am down-

loading this movie right now.

Illustration by Mary O’ Connor

improv? a spooky show KATHERINE CHAVEZ contributing writer

When a friend of mine invited me to an improv show off campus a couple weeks ago, I didn’t have to think twice before I said yes. The description said it would be an “improvised thriller,” a description that’s almost repetitive, since any good improv show is thrilling. But strange things started happening before the show had even started. We could not find the parking lot behind the theater, so we parked illegally in a McDonald’s parking lot and walked over to the show.

There were no lights coming from inside the building, and we tried to open at least three doors before we discovered the back entrance (and the parking lot that we could have used without breaking the law).

We got there slightly late, so when we got to the door, we were informed that the show was sold out for the night… but they let us in anyway. The women we paid made a comment about my “sketchy unsigned card” (I’d recently replaced my debit card and had forgotten to sign it), but she still charged it, and then told us to head downstairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, we were greeted with a musky, waiting-room aura. People sat in chairs anxiously as a girl with a solemn expression stood near the door holding papers and pens.

I looked questioningly at my friend who had suggested we check out the show.

“This looks like an audition…” I said.

We were promptly handed papers and pens. On the paper was a series of odd questions, including, “How do you feel right now?” (I chose “scared.”) “If there was a closed door in front of you, what would you do?” (The options were try the doorknob, knock, or both. I said knock.) “What do you see when you close your eyes?” The survey concluded with an elaborate question about a bird changing colors.

Every once in awhile, someone would come out of the door and call a few people inside at a time. Then each person was directed to a room, but they were not confined there. The rooms included a waiting room for a job interview from a man with bandaged, bloody wrists who yelled a lot, a seemingly from-anotherdecade party hosted by a woman with rosy cheeks and a plastered-on smile, a

room where you could get your bones read by a mysterious man in all black, and a room with a pile of chairs and a singing girl with a guitar. People could also stand in the hallway connecting all of these rooms.

Within the rooms and mingling in between them were various characters.

At first it was hard to tell which people were actors and which people were part of the audience.

I was first placed in the party room, where the hostess would ask people a series of questions, then give them a pipe-cleaner with beads spelling out their name and tell them to put the beads on the pipe-cleaner, and, when they were finished, she would take the completed project and place it on an altar-like display with deranged Barbie dolls. One of my friends went through this ritual while I ate a cookie that was sitting on the table, and our third friend was given something similar to a tarot card containing an image of dolls. The actor who gave it to her told her to give it to the hostess, and not long after seeing the card, she erupted with anger and kicked everyone out of her party for no clear reason. When our friend tried to explain to a different actor where she had gotten the card, the man who had given it to her was seemingly invisible to all the other characters.

My friends and I then talked to a character named Isabelle, who claimed that she and the other actors could not leave. Or, actually, they could leave, but if they left, they would forever look the way they looked at that moment. And their looks had changed since they had come to this place.

Another character, Adley, asked for our names and how many stars we’d seen last time we looked at the sky. Then he asked us to sing with him, and he started to sing a song that repeated, “No more stars/No more stars/No more stars in Katherine’s sky.” You could say that that freaked me out.

Later, I was subjected to a job interview from the man with bloody wrists and a broken mug. His name was Dawkins. He asked me what I was afraid of, since I had put that I was “scared” on my questionnaire. After an extensive discussion, he wrote something on my questionnaire, handed it to me, and told me to give it to “the professor,” another character. When I did so, the professor said that Dawkins thought I was the “most imaginative one of the bunch.”

The singing girl with a guitar, who was extremely sweet, sang to us about how we should run with the wolves when we want to, and she told us to keep that in mind. She seemed sad.

Near the end of the show, I had my bones read, but I won’t go into that. Let’s just say that what was said was particularly, and eerily, accurate.

The performance ended with everyone in a single room, where all the actors began to chant, “Any choice is the right choice as long as it’s yours,” over and over and over. Then they opened the door and told us that we could stay if we thought we had great potential, and otherwise we could leave. A woman who did not seem to be an actor got up to leave and started to shout to the rest of us, “Come with me!” My friend and I got up and left out of fear, but our third friend stayed, because he had been sucked into a circle in the middle of the room and was holding hands with the others. He mouthed, “Don’t leave me,” as we left.

When we came outside, a stack of blank questionnaires was thrown at us, along with pens, and we were told to “start over.” We all stared blankly at each other for awhile, hoping it was a joke, until the rest of the audience who had stayed in the other room were released, and it was clear that we could finally go home. Our third friend said nothing special had happened after we’d left.

And that was the end of the show. I wouldn’t say I disliked it. In fact, it was quite intriguing. I almost want to go again to try and figure out the mystery, if there’s even a mystery to figure out.

As we were leaving, a fire truck pulled up by a bus station as we walked by. We all couldn’t help but fear that the show was still going on.

If you don’t believe me, or if you simply want to experience this for yourself, tickets are $5-$10 at http://improvpig. com/. But just keep in mind, it could end up being a completely different show. No promises.

Illustration by Bev Johnson

lifestyle

chocolate, chai, and croissants

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navigating coffee shops when you don’t like coffee LOREN DOWD staff writer “How are you surviving college?” is a question I get asked at least once a week, usually when people find out I don’t drink coffee. I know it’s hard to believe, especially in a world that runs on coffee. Anyone who knows me by now understands that I’m very specific when it comes to beverages and knows how difficult it is to explain, especially since I’m often found in Blue State. Aside from my general dislike of plain coffee or espresso, I’ve never wanted to start drinking coffee because I know once I start, there will be no going back.

Many people are confused because I love the smell of coffee. It reminds me of early mornings in my kitchen at home, eating breakfast with my dad and his cup of freshly brewed Kona Coffee.

Growing up around the iconic dripping sounds of a coffee maker probably should have predisposed me to become a young coffee drinker. Though I inherited a love of coffee ice cream from my parents, and I come from a state that is known for its coffee production, the taste of black coffee is too bitter and overwhelming for me. Coffee in chocolate, coffee in desserts, and even coffee-marinated steak are all right up my alley, because my sweet tooth insists that the coffee flavor be mixed with lots of cream and sugar.

I can’t remember the first time I tried coffee, but it was most likely at some point during high school. When the lists of homework assignments grew longer and my time spent sleeping became shorter, many of my peers turned to coffee. Both my determination to avoid coffee dependency and my childhood of only drinking water helped deter me from coffee drinking. I slept—and got less work done—instead of turning to coffee. The summer after freshman year of college, my family went on a trip to Michigan and spent one day on a series of farm tours. One stop was a local coffee roaster, where we learned about the different fla-

vors that showed up in different coffee beans and sampled many cups of black coffee. A few sips in, and I was done. As amazing as our tour leader and my dad were making it sound (coffee that tasted like green tea!) the taste was simply not appealing.

I couldn’t fathom drinking a whole cup of it; I would be so tired of the taste.

Ironically, I’m writing these words while in a coffee shop, one of the few places where my friends know to look for me on campus. I do well in coffee shop environments; the atmosphere is less stifling than a library, and there’s a constant supply of food—what could be better? Freshman year was the start of my coffee shop affinity, because I lived above Blue State, and I pretty much haven’t left since. Perhaps it is the writer in me that feels comfortable in the chatter, laptops, and mugs of coffee shops. For someone who doesn’t like coffee, it’s been an interesting three years of writing, socializing, and meeting in cafés. It’s like going to a carnival when you hate crowds or going to an aquarium even though fish freak you out.

For the first couple of years, hot chocolate was my standard coffee shop order because that was the only thing I knew I liked for sure. I felt a bit like a child amongst my peers, ordering hot chocolate in stark contrast to their artsy mochas and cappuccinos and iced coffees. It was a bit like ordering a grilled cheese at a sandwich shop. Always afraid of what people might think of me, I hesitated to order something that would mark me as unsophisticated because I was a college student.

Despite the self-consciousness that filled me each time they called out my order at the counter, I wasn’t willing to give up the sweet coziness of hot chocolate.

When self-consciousness gets in the way of my drink order, I go for the more calorie-filled,

but also more delicious, option of baked goods.

Coffee shops, unless they’re the purist ones, usually have a great selection of pastries. And I’m not talking Starbucks’s case of pre-made and shipped ones, though I break down and buy those occasionally. I’m talking the at-least-mostlyhomemade treats at smaller coffee shops. I would say I’ve devoted a good part of my life to baking and consuming sweet treats, so it’s no surprise that I would gravitate towards the pastry cases and artfully arranged displays in every bakery and café I visit. It certainly provides much more entertainment than a cup of coffee. Blue State changes out their pastries daily, with different flavor variations on cookies, muffins, scones, tea breads, and croissants, all of which I’ve tried by now in my attempt to avoid coffee. Chai also became a goto, because it had the perfect combination of tolerable flavor and sophistication. It was an adult drink and much cozier than coffee ever would be.

I stuck with what I knew: hot chocolate, chai, and pastries. This is the scale with which I measure the quality of coffee shops—not by their coffee. Coffee lovers and experts will probably cringe to hear this, but I can’t help it. It’s like my propensity to choose restaurants based on their dessert menu: My sweet tooth starts talking and I can’t stop listening.

It’s not easy disliking one of the most popular beverages in the world, especially on a campus full of coffee lovers in a town that has no shortage of

cozy coffee shops for doing work. Each one has its own vibe, differently sourced and produced coffee, and a variety of pastries to choose from. You can’t go wrong with an apple cider doughnut or amazingly giant bear claw from Coffee Exchange, and if you can only enjoy coffee when it’s disguised, their mochas are perfectly chocolaty. At The Shop, an apple cornbread muffin or toast plate is the way to go. The chai lattes at Blue State are the best I’ve tried on College Hill, and their pastry case is all too appetizing for my shrinking wallet. Dave’s Coffee is known for the pastries, especially the scones and chocolate chunk cookies.

So really, there is a lot to enjoy aside from coffee in this college town and coffee-milk-drinking state.

My coffee-drinking habits, or lack thereof, are not going to get any easier to explain. But for anyone else out there who also doesn’t like caffeine or coffee, there’s still hope of fulfilling your visions of comfy armchairs and wooden tables at which to write your next novel with dim chatter in the background. Perhaps it’s only my vision, but I believe that the coffee shop can be for anyone.

Illustration by Yoo Jin Shin

my backbone

shaped in the mold of my family

SARA AL-SALEM staff writer Family. It’s a subject, out of many, that I can never seem to put into words. It’s as hard as trying to put themes like “love” and “fear” into words that express their real magnitude. If I searched through both the English and Arabic languages for a way to explain the importance of family to me, I’d still be left speechless. Because when I think about family, I think about everything that I am today. Without my family, I wouldn’t be the person I have grown to become.

Through his larger-than-life voice, my father taught me that the only person you should impress is yourself. When I was in fourth grade and I had been shunned by the cool elite group of other nine-year-olds, he put me on his lap and taught me a lesson. He said, “Sara, you will never be what other people want you to be. The greatest disservice you can do to yourself is try to mold yourself to other people’s standards.” The little nine-year-old version of me still reminds me of this fact today.

My eldest brother, Ahmed, is the definition of the phrase “fighting for your dreams.” In him, I find the goals I have dreamed about since I was a child. In him, I am invincible, and I am worth feeling invincible. I aspire every moment to be a little more fearless, the way he always is.

Rasha, my older sister, was my idol growing up. Everyone who knew me knew I wanted to be just like Rasha. From the day she cut her hair and I came running to my parents demanding I

get a haircut just like hers, I have aspired to reach her level. Because as she glides through life always seeming like she knows exactly what she’s doing, she helps me find my strength.

But then we have my brother Ibrahim, whom I have always seen a lot of myself in. The stark difference between us, however, is his unbelievable kindness. Anyone who knows my brother knows he is too kind for his own good. He teaches me what it means to genuinely want only the best for someone.

My little sister Nouf is my best friend. She teaches me what it means to live life to the absolute fullest because she takes after my dad: She is who she is, and anyone who has a problem with that is irrelevant. The way she thinks of me is the way I aspire to be because in her, I am the best and brightest version of myself.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned from my aunt Salma is what it means to persevere.

When she lost her husband in 2011, I saw what strength looked like. There was a moment one day when I looked at her, carrying heartbreak for herself and her family, and I saw what it looked like to carry on with a smile because it is the only way to live. I realized that if she can persevere in full force despite odds, then I can hope to be as ready she is to meet life’s challenges.

reminds me of what it means to be a sibling in the way he tucks his sister in at night. Reem, his vivacious two-yearold sister, reminds me with her glitterpolished nails that if you don’t want to eat broccoli, then you don’t have to succumb to the healthy food normative ways of the world.

I leave my mother for last because I cannot talk about my mother without feeling emotional. If I were to take all the times and ways everyone has expressed their love to their moms and wrap it with my own love—I still would not be able to explain my love.

Because my mother is everything I aspire to be. My mother is the collective of all of us combined into one person. She is kindness, she is honesty, she is integrity, she is strength—she is every word there is to explain all the good of humanity. She is the Simon, Piggy, and Ralph in a “Lord of the Flies” universe. Those who know my mother know she puts others’ needs and wants before she will ever put herself, even if it’s to a fault. My mother is the kind of person who would cure human hunger without telling anyone, and she is the kind of person who wouldn’t even think about why she would want that fame. She would only see that people needed help, and help them.

Even her children teach me a little about what it means to be a human. Ahmed, five years old,

My mother is my backbone, my heart, my very self—she is the clearest definition of love I

know, and I feel like every day I live is a day I live to be the kind of daughter she deserves. If there were only person I could alleviate all pain and sorrow from, I would choose to alleviate my mother’s. I would happily take all her hurt onto me because I know that every day, she takes everyone else’s. I love my mother more than my mind and heart know how to, and it is because of the love she has always given me.

As I wrote this piece on my family, it was easier than I thought. It is easy for me to write about the greatness of each of these individuals.

The difficulty comes in trying to express how their magnificence has dug itself into my vertebrae and formed the way I act and breathe. I don’t think I will ever be able to fully comprehend and practice the values and lessons they have given me, but I know that when I think about family, I think about how hard I try every day to be more like them.

Illustration by Emily Reif

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arts & culture

swiftest of the swifties coming to terms with fangirling

JACLYN TORRES staff writer It all started back in 2010.

Her “Speak Now” album had just been released and all my friends couldn’t stop listening to it. At this point, I was anti-Swift, because she was too flawless. I mean, how could anyone be that beautiful, talented, and smart? It wasn’t even fair. Begrudgingly, I listened to a few songs.

Slightly less begrudgingly, but a little ashamed, I went out and bought the “Speak Now” CD. My friends kept telling me I needed to fully experience the album, so I thought I’d get the CD and learn a little bit of background information on Taylor as well. I put the CD in the boom box I still used and let it play all the way through. Then I restarted it. Then I restarted it

again. I could feel my opinion change.

“Last Kiss,” “Enchanted,” “Dear John,” “Speak Now”—those songs became my anthems. At this point in my life, I had never been in a relationship, nor was I even close to one, so as I belted out the lyrics I just pretended that I knew what she was singing about. Over the next year, I listened to Taylor Swift quite a bit but did not considered myself a diehard fan. I listened more because all my friends liked her music (and because—I wasn’t going to lie—some of her songs were so damn catchy!).

The following year, something changed within me. I started listening to all of her old music from when she first became famous in 2006.

I quickly became obsessed with her first hit single “Our Song” off her debut album and all the songs off her second album “Fearless.” By the time “Red” hit stores in 2012, I was a super fan: I downloaded the entire album within minutes of its release and listened to it on the way to a field hockey game. Thanks to that album, I was more pumped up for that game than I had ever been before. Damn, Taylor Swift had done it again!

Riding high on my enthusiasm for

“Red,” that year I began to stalk Taylor’s life.

Who she was dating, where she was living, what she was doing in between concert dates— I knew it all. It became an obsession, googling her every day to learn a tidbit of information.

When my family vacationed in Newport in 2013, I knew that we weren’t too far from her house in Watch Hill, so I subtly asked my family if we could “go over and check out the area—I hear it’s really pretty.” Armed with specific directions from my best friend on how to find the right house, I took the lead and drove the car past the mansion. “Oh my god, no way, that’s Taylor Swift’s house!” I said to my family, brimming with feigned surprise. Unfortunately my phone was dead, so I couldn’t take a picture, and since no one else thought seeing Taylor’s house was cool, there is no photo evidence. Oh well. I guess mental pictures still count.

About a year ago, in October 2014, Taylor released her newest album “1989”, titled after the year she was born. Having become a “Swiftie,” the name of Taylor’s diehard fans, I had preordered the album and received it the day before it hit stores nationwide. I will readily admit that it was only about a week or so ago that I finally stopped listening to the album multiple times a day, every day.

This past summer, my status of “Swiftie” reached a whole new level. I had an internship, but there was a lot of downtime in which I could do whatever I pleased. Naturally, I turned to surfing the internet to learn more intimate details about Taylor’s life. I focused primarily on her personal life away from the music.

Here’s a quick summary: From the time Taylor became famous in 2006, she was considered a serial dater. Things changed in 2012, and until 2014, Taylor was single and enjoying hanging out with the girls. When she released “1989” on October 27, 2014, she preached the mantra

of celebrating female friendships and enjoying life as an independent, single artist. Soon after the New Year, Taylor began dating (and continues to date) Calvin Harris, world-famous DJ. There have been rumors that Taylor broke up with Calvin after he frequented a Thai massage parlor, but these are not true. Taylor and Calvin are still together, as cute as ever. However, there are also rumors that Calvin is going to pop the question of marriage to Taylor. This seems unlikely, since she’s still touring the world until mid-December. She’s also most likely working on another album—based on her trajectory as an artist, it seems probable that Taylor will release another album in the fall of 2016.

Her success is soaring higher every day, and she keeps breaking the glass ceiling as one of the most powerful women in the world.

This past July, Taylor came to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, and my best friend got us tickets. Taylor’s performance was incredible. She rose onto the stage through a trap door, wearing a glittery green and purple jacket, black leather skirt, and white sunglasses.

Throughout her two and a half hour performance, I never looked away. There were multiple costume changes, talented back-up dancers, and inspirational interludes where Taylor gave unsolicited advice on love, relationships, and the power of a girl squad. Towards the end of the show, she walked down the catwalk and slowly rose above the crowd. It was a magical moment. There is something about her that is mesmerizing. At the end of the show, I wasn’t ready to leave; I couldn’t get enough of her. I wanted to continue to bask in her effervescence.

From my 2010 skepticism, I had changed: I’d become the Swiftest of the Swifties.

Illustration by Emma Marguiles

jackson, vonnegut, and garcía márquez literary masterminds in the short story landscape EMMA MURRAY staff writer As short stories, these pieces of literature are quick, one-sitting reads. Their succinct styles embody all the intensity of larger works of writing, but pack a quick and very effective punch that drives points home in hugely effective ways. Carefully and artfully crafted, every word in a short story counts and every sentence carries meaning. These three stories all inspire reflection on who we are and what we do.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson Written in the late 40s, this story initially received negative responses; it disturbed people enough for them to send hate mail and even unsubscribe from “The New Yorker”, where the piece was first published. Since then, however, it has become a classic American short story, a piece everyone should read and think about.

“The Lottery” takes place over a matter of hours on a clear, sunny June day, in the

middle of small town America. On this day, all 300 residents of the town gather in the main square to perform their annual inauguration ceremony to welcome the upcoming harvest season. This traditionsoaked event is referred to as “the lottery.”

Families take turns drawing numbers from a large black box on the main stage in the plaza and tension builds as rumors spread about other communities nearby.

People question whether or not the other towns might be giving up the lottery, a tradition that has been around for as long as the last living memory can recount.

Jackson frames this mysterious lottery as an intense ritualistic performance. Yet soon it becomes obvious that the townspeople are simply following through the process of the lottery without truly thinking about their actions. When the announcer says it’s time to grab stones, they grab stones because their parents

grabbed stones. They yell because their grandparents yelled. They throw because everyone throws. Through the story, Jackson shows the danger of mindless acceptance of tradition. She reminds you to think about what you do and why you do it.

“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Vonnegut’s satirical short story, written in 1961, is laden with a heavy dose of subliminal criticism towards egalitarian policy and authoritative governments.

He crafted a story to spotlight the dangers of total social equality and highlight the risks that emerge when measures are taken to actively level society. The story is as extreme as it is stirring, with action, thought, allure, and everything in between.

In the eerie future of 2081, everyone is equal. Literally equal. Because of amend-

ments passed to the American constitution, no one is smarter, no one is uglier, no one is weaker, or faster, or happier, or more interesting. To attain this physical and mental equality, the government uses various techniques invariably amounting to torture: radio blasting the minds of those with “above-average” intelligence, weight bags around the necks of those “too strong,” and face masks on those “disturbingly pretty.” As for people that are too far above average, the government doesn’t hesitate to kill, all in the name of equality.

The story follows the parents of young Harrison, who is thrown in jail for his “above average” intelligence, looks, and demeanor. His father has been severely handicapped with weights and a radio noise system blasting his thoughts every couple minutes, but his mother, on the other hand, is essentially left as she was

arts & culture born, largely air-headed and flighty. They spend an afternoon together watching the breaking news of a day in “equalized” society unfold.

Vonnegut makes a strong case with this story. He shows that as “equality” is achieved, it comes at a great cost: Society spirals down into a community of slow and bullheaded people who are scared of themselves and the government. Vonnegut proposes that such equality, in both process and outcome, resembles danger more than any other kind of ideal. He turns the idea of perfect utopian equality into a scary dystopia, forcing us to ask what the world would be like if everyone was rendered equal. Is total equality really what we want? Where would our freedom go? Where would individual achievement go? Where would we go? Vonnegut drives these hard, albeit important, questions into the open so the reader can’t escape without first addressing them.

“A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez published “Leaf Storm”, a collection of short stories, in 1955.

With this compilation he laid one of the first foundational stones for the magical realism genre that changed the literary landscape in Latin America and rapidly proliferated throughout the world.

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In one story, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,” García Márquez sets up a picturesque seaside town where, one day, a villager finds a washed up old man lying on the beach. The man is weathered and appears senile, and the villager discovers that the man has long wings sprouting from his back. The villager runs to his wife and they decide to bring the old man in, identifying him as possibly an angel. They keep him out in their chicken coop until further notice. Soon, as word spreads of this mysterious man, crowds draw from around the world to examine the new creature. The town is challenged by the presence of the old man with wings and they are forced to respond to take a stand on how they want to treat outsiders within the community.

García Márquez showcases the rare coexistence of cruelty and compassion that subsists in human nature. With his signature magical flair, he uses careful and exquisite imaginative detail to dig even deeper into the human psyche and extrapolates conditions of humanity that can leave us with a potent concoction of guilt, admiration, and thankfulness.

Illustration by Jake Reeves

mcdreamy and me

learning about more than anatomy on grey’s anatomy

HAZEM ABBAS contributing writer “Do you know who you are? Do you understand what has happened to you? Do you want to live this way?”

I began binge-watching “Grey’s Anatomy” last summer. Praised highly by a friend, the show was first just a summertime interlude. But it quickly evolved into a strong personal connection. After watching 11 seasons back-to-back on Netflix, a sort of dynamic between the show and me developed that gave some insight into my life. The opening quotation comes from the show’s tenth season and delightfully sums up what I have learned from the show’s current run.

Derek Shepherd, a series regular, has had the greatest impact on me since starting this show. I aspire to become a neurosurgeon one day—his profession on “Grey’s Anatomy.” Other than having taught me myriad medical terminology and neurological diseases, Derek connected with me on a deeper, personal level. Although his life events are comparably more intense than mine, it’s the way in which he attempts to repair his life that I find engaging. What this show does the best is that it clearly lays out a series of events and explains what the characters do to move on from them, much like what we do when such severe events happen to us. The show provides a blueprint for how to handle trauma.

Neurosurgeon Derek Shepherd met his wife, then-intern Meredith Grey, who also serves as the show’s narrator, at the beginning of the series. His relationship with her was bumpy at first, with problems as major as Derek’s hidden (and cheating) wife and as banal as the ceaseless fights that evolve between the two. Nevertheless, the two are always able to find compatibility despite their differences to help solve their conflicts; Derek assists in easing the transition from hos-

tility to compassion in most circumstances.

Even though I haven’t nearly reached marriage level, his link with Meredith has had an influence on how I have relationships with other people.

Derek is a very calm and collected man.

He’s documented as a world-class neurosurgeon, but through the events of the series is able to acknowledge himself when he missteps. At first he was seen as slightly arrogant, but now is able to branch out from his old ways and become a humble, modest man. He knows how to make his point while respecting the others’ opinions as well as being able to agree on a solution to the issue. By season 10, Derek was able to leave a once-in-a-lifetime brain mapping job in DC in order to stay back in Seattle when Meredith refused to leave. I’m usually the sort of person that thinks I’m always right and that my way is the only way. Now I look at things twice just as Derek does: how will this affect me, and how will this affect the person in the situation with me?

Derek has also been shot on this series.

No, I have not been shot before, but I have lived through the trauma-filled revolution in Egypt four years ago. Gun shots flew all around me, and I witnessed horrendous things happen to people. The show in its middle-run had a gunman enter the hospital and attack multiple people—including Derek. But before being shot, he was able to make sure everyone else was safe and that those who weren’t wounded remained that way, including his wife. I also endeavored to make sure my mom and little brother remained safe since my father wasn’t in Egypt at the time. The situations were obviously different, but I believe that how we both responded resembled one another.

Trauma in “Grey’s Anatomy” isn’t limited

to shootings; the cast was also in a major plane crash. Many were injured and many died. Derek, however, did not. Instead, he damaged his hand, and it seemed that he could not perform surgery anymore. I can identify: I recently fractured my leg. I play basketball—scratch that, I eat, sleep, and breathe basketball. So when I discovered that I may not be able to play, it was one of the most fearful moments I had to face, just like it was for Derek when he recognized he may have to abandon his profession and passion.

He managed to push through and was able to do surgery after countless rehab sessions, just as I did. We both are now able to do

what we love the most.

This show, analogous to our lives, recycles. Damage is inflicted, and we personally have to uncover a way to mend ourselves. In doing this, we echo back on who we are and how we manage our lives. The show urges us to reason: “Do you know who you are? Do you understand what has happened to you? Do you want to live this way?”

Illustration by Michelle Ng

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lifestyle

That is one jacked up pumpkin.

I’m not a huge germaphobe; it’s just that you stuck your entire finger in it.

You can put people’s fingers in your mouth. You can do a lot of things with fingers.

Tolkien is all about racialized Jesus time.

Can we cut the head off the chicken and see if it lives?

There’s nothing I would sell my soul for because I don’t like being beholden to people. Or demons.

I do like Taylor Swift, but not that much.

You can’t exactly kill for people; you just kill people.

We talked about poop as erotic.

Notation is a choice.

You can feed two birds with one scone. No birds have to die in this class.

hot post time machine “You could never call us the Peacocks, or the Labradoodles, and definitely not the Bunny Rabbits.

But someone—many moons ago—hit the nail smack on the head when they called us the Brown Bears. We’ve transformed into a school of treescratching, honey-eating, fish-snatching, hibernating brown bears.”

animal style -04/11/2014

topten

things we should have by now in our futuristic time of 2015

1. hoverboards 2. equality and justice for all (you know, 200 years later) 3. holograms (coachella doesn’t count) 4. a solution to global warming 5. flying cars 6. calorie-free pizza 7. self-lacing shoes 8. President Lin-Manuel Miranda­—cabinet meetings would be so much more rhythmic

9. brain downloads so we can sleep through class 10. post-graduation plans

seven

a short story

LAUREN SUKIN section editor of features For my next illusion, I will use gravity. Watch! The knees will buckle, the eyes water. Limbs once held upright by tightened muscles will collapse as if atrophy was a momentary process. The storylines of each of my bones will pause and groan in the extension of a moment. Wait! The oracles say each of my freckles will drip off my skin like a crayon held to fire. Is it not impressive to behold the mechanics of a rotating soul? There is something curious in my settling of scores. Do you not revel in the yellowing of my teeth, in the softening of my belly, the loss of each singular hair?

There is a much simpler explanation, and it has something to do with the absolute rekindling of seasonal affectations: You and I dozed more soundly in the echoes of the fall. I am but sleeping, though. I am but dreaming. I always order my eggs hard-boiled, but I only like the yolks.

Where are all the good folks? Let us get to the good questions. When did stealing milk crates become a crime?

When did loving you become a crime? When did I? Since when may I not open the mail of the bodies that I have loved? Since when is a Tom Collins served without ice? When I order bourbon it comes to me in no uncertain qualms that alcohol is a poison. Here are all the things in my body that are poison: acetic acid, every memory I have between the ages of fifteen and sixteen-point-six, trace amounts of formaldehyde, the smells of yeast, blackberries, Old Spice, nicotine—but only from tomatoes—and my disintegrating belief in the one true God. In my basement there is a cat. In my attic there is a woman in white. Beneath my floorboards there is the truth. In my bedroom there is

nothing or there is a bed.

Listen! I have come back from the dead to turn off my alarm. I have come back from the afterlife to tell you all about the seductive powers of my neighbors’ trash cans. I fell in love with the sinews of the curtain in the window. I fell out of the trees and didn’t even feel it, much less stick the landing. I fell in love using tarot cards. I do not believe in fate. I fell in love at first sight, and I do not even have eyes. One of these things is a lie.

I will admit something if you will.

It has been lifetimes since I have done anything that humans do, so please forgive me if I do not believe in God, if I do not remember how peaches taste, if I cannot recall each periodic element and the orbicular shape of my name. I wash every piece of laundry as a ritual act. I wring each towel with two hands.

There is something curious in my settling of scores. I have never shown a predilection for guinea pigs. Let Jesus eat them in Cusco. Let me bare my lies in peace. Sometimes there is a man. Sometimes there is a man in the shadows. Sometimes there is a man who cannot love. Sometimes there are jellyfish in the ocean; sometimes jellyfish glow in the moonlight. Sometimes there is no man at all. Someone please tell me that the things that

rattle inside of me are imaginary; someone please inform me that the things that I recall never happened; someone please affirm my faith in the everlasting deity by consoling me with the reality that I am still pure of heart and body.

Someone make my knees buckle, my eyes water. I don’t do drugs; I just see faces in my cereal. I don’t do romance; I just dissect automata. Here is the sandman, come to take my eyes away. Here is the spoon, the knife, the sack. Promise me one thing: Bring me no dreams back. Here is the priest, come to bury me. Here is the spoon, here is the thistle, here is a bit of my blood and the remainders of my freckles. I promise that I never put a tattoo on the back of my ear or I did and have since lost it. I promise I can hear you through the ink of it anyway. I can feel the grit on my tongue; I can taste the fog in my head; I can slip between the walls of your imagination, and you won’t even feel it.

Watch! For my next illusion, you will see my teeth. I will disappear. Then I will be here, or there is nothing.

Illustration by Peter Herrara