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upfront

contents

editor's note Dear Readers,

upfront features 3 • on bffs (bread friends forever)

Claribel Wu 4 • do you?

Yamini Mandava

I don’t know about you, but I’ve walked through September quickly with my head down, just trying to keep on top of things. And now, the blink of an eye, October has come upon us.

Perhaps, October is a time of transitions and uncertainty for you, and you feel out of sorts: you should make plans with Yamini, who wrote “Do you hate yourself ” for just this situation. Or perhaps October is your month to just lay around and catch up on reading, in which case our A&C writers have excellent pieces for you. (Be sure to read the new Ta-Nehisi Coates comics.) Perhaps you’re very into the spirit of things, in which case Spencer’s reflections on our cultural obsession with scary movies might snap you out of it. Or perhaps it is a time for carbs. Because it is always a time for carbs. Claribel can help you categorize all of your BFF’s (Best Friends Forever) into BFF’s (Bread Friends Forever).

For my part, I will be going apple-picking and seeing the fall foliage.

Have a great week,

Yidi

lifestyle

SWALLOW MONTANA FOWLER

5 • so call me, maybe

Colette Bertschy 5 • making enough money to eat

Yidi Wu 8 • end of virginity

Kayla

arts & culture 6 • hail jane, full of grace Daniella Balarezo 6 • nothing can go wrong Spencer Roth-Rose 7 • kingdom come Ameer Malik

staff

Editor-in-Chief Yidi Wu Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Ryan Walsh Managing Editor of Features Monica Chin Managing Editor of Lifestyle Rebecca Ellis Arts & Culture Editors Joshua Lu Anne-Marie Kommers

Bring back the naked photo.

Send us your nudes (to put in the magazine) at alicia_devos@brown.edu.

Features Editors Saanya Jain Claribel Wu

Serif Sheriffs Logan Dreher Kate Webb

Lifestyle Editors Claire Sapan Alicia DeVos

Head Illustratrix Katie Cafaro

Creative Director Grace Yoon Copy Chiefs Alicia DeVos

Staff Writers Sara Al-Salem Daniella Balarezo Tushar Bhargava Kalie Boyne Pia Ceres Katherine Chavez Rebecca Forman

Joseph Frankel Devika Girish Lucia Iglesias Ameer Malik Chantal Marauta Aubrey McDonough Caitlin Meuser Emma Murray Jennifer Osborne Spencer Roth-Rose Celina Sun Anany Shah Annabelle Woodward Alex Walsh Joshua Wartel

Staff Illustrators Alice Cao Peter Herrara Jason Hu Beverly Johnson Jenice Kim Emma Margulies Michelle Ng Mary O’Connor Yoo Jin Shin

Cover Jenice Kim

features

3

on bffs (bread friends forever) no bun intended

CLARIBEL WU features section editor illustrator SOCO FERNANDEZ GARCIA

We all have friends that fall into a certain archetype. In the spirit of Tumblr “tag yourself ” memes, I’d like to present these archetypes through some carby characters.

Baguette. Baguettes are the friends that go to Europe for, like, one summer and therefore think they are oh-socultured. They also like things neat and tidy, and jump at the opportunity to point out how much of a mess you are.

Baguettes find the pile of clothes on your bed personally offensive. Of course, you can’t help but admire them for being superb at adulting. After making the requisite snarky comments, they always show their love by helping you get your act together. Baguettes don’t mean any harm, really. They’re just particular people.

Bagel. Everyone has the bagel friend, the one they can count on in any instance. They’re supportive, universally loved, and w(hole)some. Bagels will be there for you at 5:30 AM, after a tough all-nighter, to let you know that you’re doing great. They are endlessly considerate and selfless, but they need affirmation to assure them that their efforts are recognized. If you leave a bagel hanging, they turn hard and tough. Don’t let that happen. Keep your precious bagel friend warm and soft by showering them with affirmation. They are always trying their best.

Croissant. Croissants are notoriously flaky, devoted to showing up at least five minutes late to everything. It’s gotten to a point where they don’t bother apologizing for it anymore, it’s just who they are as a person. Despite this, you still love your croissant friend because they don’t take life too seriously. They are full of buttery, fluffy ideals that you can’t help but appreciate, but you still wish they’d show up on time. There is always a croissant in your friend group. If you don’t know who it is, it’s probably you.

Pretzel. This friend always seems to be a bit salty. You don’t like bringing up any recent accomplishments because you know what kind of reaction they will have. They’re the type of friend to subtweet you, and then deny it when you bring it up. Although pretzels always have their knickers in a twist, treat them delicately. They just have low self-esteem and can be sweet if you give them the chance. Auntie Anne’s, anyone?

Toast. Toast is your most popular friend, the one everyone knows and loves. They just seem to be good at everything. You can’t efficiently walk anywhere with your toast friend because they run into an acquaintance about every five steps. When you think about it, though, they’re kind of one-dimensional (this is the pretzel side of you speaking).

Toast is someone who can easily assimilate into any friend group. One week, it’s peanut butter and jelly, and another, it’s ham and cheese. What is the truth?

Jelly Donut. Unlike toast, the jelly donut is hard to read. Some people might think jelly donuts are quiet and unassuming, but you know that they’re gushing with interesting ideas and thoughts.

The jelly donut prefers to spend Fridays inside, invested in a Netflix binge and some leftover Thai food. They’ll agree to

go to a party with you just to be a good friend, but might subtly slink away some time in the course of the night if they aren’t feeling it. Don’t leave Jelly Donuts alone at a party—they hate that. If you happen to see a Jelly Donut at a party, engage them in conversation, it’ll be a good talk guaranteed.

Grilled Cheese. The Grilled Cheese friend is a serial punner, and is often the only one amused at the joke they made.

They rejoice in all things cheesy, and are constantly looking for a way to make a dad joke, even in highly inappropriate situations (like that one time your cat Mango died, and they patted your back, solemnly saying that “her heart will mango on”). Their awkward timing always seems to work out, though. You can always count on them to make you smile.

Bread from that meme where you put sliced bread around your dog’s face. This friend is the memer, and is probably best friends with Grilled Cheese. The doge bread friend is always tapping into their archival Reddit and Tumblr meme knowledge base. Often, you don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s as if they’re speaking some alien language. When you don’t get their meme reference, they sigh and say, “You don’t understand.” If you try to relate to them by tagging them in a Facebook

meme, they’ll tell you they already saw it five months ago.

Gluten-free Bread. This bread is your group’s token vegan/vocal environmentalist. If GF catches you brushing your teeth with running water, getting beef with your Andrews pho, or throwing recyclables into the trash, they give you some serious shade. GF is just looking out for this world, though. They try hard because they genuinely care. It’s not easy being that friend. Listen to their spiel, because in fifty years, we might have to evacuate this joint.

Brioche Sandwich. This friend is trendy and spendy. If they ask you to hang out, it will most likely be a brunch date or shopping trip. Brioches pout a little when you say you don’t want to eat out, but they probably use their parent’s credit card. Even if this friend is a little extra, they’re willing to put their highmaintenance lifestyle aside to spend time with thrifty friends like you.

French Toast. Why is everyone obsessed with French Toast? This is the friend that seems to attract a lot of attention, but you aren’t exactly sure why. To you, French Toast is just soggy bread that tastes like eggs. They somehow come up in every conversation, and you are eternally bewildered about what I like to call the “French Toast phenomenon.”

Pound Cake. “What?” Pound cake

pals are the ones that never seem to understand what’s going on. You have to explain something about five or six times before you get through to them. If you make plans to meet up at Blue State Coffee, they’ll probably mishear you and end up at the Blue Room. Although they are a bit dense, you appreciate their pureness and good nature. Pound cakes keep you grounded with their ability to roll with the punches.

Whole Wheat Bread. They’re always around, but they bring some bad vibes.

They always have an artillery of problematic, snarky comments that kill the mood. Your group roasts Whole Wheat behind their back because everyone is afraid of confrontation. Instead of calling Wheat out, you just slip them some daily passive aggression and form a separate group chat.

End Piece of Loaf. You feel bad, because you always forget about the loaf fri(end). They somehow slip everyone’s mind when the group is making plans.

These are the friends that make a comment that nobody hears and/or acknowledges. But hey, loaf ends are important, they hold the group together. Once you notice their absence, you’ll miss them.

Show your loaf end friend some love over the long weekend!

4 features

do you? a young woman’s lament

YAMINI MANDAVA contributing editor illustrator CLARISSE ANGKASA

Do you love walnut pie, even though you’re allergic to walnuts and eating them gives you a terrible headache?

Do you watch films and decide they’re stupid because you understood and enjoyed them?

Do you blow off plans with people because they’re lame enough to have time for you?

Do you contribute to a conversation and then spend hours agonizing over how stupid you sounded? You almost definitely either made an irrelevant point or said it in a voice that was too deep or too squeaky or maybe you were both too deep and too squeaky.

Do you chastise yourself for crying because you don’t deserve feelings?

Do you decide that your favorite band is really an aimless bunch of bathroom singers once you fall in love with them?

Do you suspect that every airport employee you’ve said, “You too” to when they said, “Have a pleasant journey” remembers your name and face?

Do you hesitate to learn French because you find yourself unworthy of Baudelire?

Do you have travel anxiety because of this?

Do you think people who smile at you are actually smiling at someone more attractive behind you?

Do you dislike the way you look but make no effort to change the way you eat or how much you exercise, because what’s the point?

Do you regularly rethink the stickers on your laptop? Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman deserve better.

Do you twist your fingers together before flights take off even though you’ve been studying physics for six years? (You know how Bernoulli’s principle works.

It doesn’t depend on you squeezing your eyes shut and praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)

Do you not speak to your best friend for months because she definitely has better things to do with her time? She obviously hasn’t called you because school has caused her to realise you’re an

overly-attached emotional leech.

Do you have a single room and feel like you’re not worthy of the luxury of walking around in your underwear but also feel like no one should have to endure you as a roommate?

Do you leave lunch dates early because you’re scared you’re wasting the other person’s time and they’re too polite to tell you?

Do you accuse people who find you interesting of being dullards?

Do you regularly wonder why you make the choice to use words like “dullards”?

Do you find yourself attracted to people who don’t know you exist and then lose interest when they showing the faintest signs of potentially reciprocating your interest?

Do you wonder why members of your family invest time and energy into their relationships with you?

Do you think your friends are idiots because they’re friends with you?

Do you wish you knew more people, but make the choice not to talk to people on an hourly basis?

Do you find yourself constantly agreeing with people who are inconsiderate of what you want? “You’re right! It is insane for me to want to spend my life teaching just because education is the one thing in the world I really care about.”

Do you realize that this is the first time you’ve written about disliking yourself? Are you crushingly disappointed that it’s a string of questions?

Do you disappoint yourself in questioning your creative choices? (*Don’t cry! the salt and water in your body deserve better, you meaningless congregate of atoms!*) Are you looking for a community filled to the brim with the self-loathing you often find your loved ones lacking?

Join me for dinner on Thursdays to discuss how fine we both are, 20 minutes before which we can both bail on each other.

lifestyle

5

so call me, maybe the double standard of communication and connection COLETTE BERTSCHY contributing writer illustrator JULIE BENBASSAT Living in this era where technological innovations enable nearly constant, instantaneous communication is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, we have the unprecedented ability to connect with our friends and family the very instant the desire to do so strikes us. A quick text, a couple buttons pushed to place a call, a post on their Facebook wall, or a short recording added to an ongoing Snap-story. It’s so incredibly easy to reach out that we have begun to connect for the most mundane of events, sharing the intricacies of our lives that honestly fail to captivate even the people living them.

Frankly, no one cares what color the spoon was that you ate breakfast with this morning, or that you figured out how to fix that broken zipper on your favorite sweater.

Communication fizzles—becoming dulled and polluted by the inane and unnecessary, upheld by a growing cultural need for continuous external validation. We begin to question every move, seeking the perfect camera angle rather than the perfect memory. We search for the perfect picture instead of emotional satisfaction. We desire popular acclaim instead of aiming to accomplish personal growth.

The ability to share our adventures and communicate when you find yourself half-way across the globe from your loved ones is an incredible gift, one that has been commodified to the point that most of us take the technology for granted. Worse, though, is when this approach overflows its designated arena, leeching into and tainting the quality of our relationships.

Physical distance between people creates

problems. It divides—there’s no way around that in any long-distance relationship, be it romantic or platonic. Even a temporary distance, like taking a term to study abroad from Brown, can generate enough stress to form a fracture.

Perhaps it is our fear of this distance that can incite an overcompensating string of incessant “communication” when we encounter change. Our messages are increasingly composed of inane conversation starters and very little actual substance; broken records constantly doomed to repeat, unable to play past the first verse. Aside from quickly devolving into the mundane, meaningless conversation will give you very little to show for your efforts. The silences during Skype calls will begin to stretch as you run out of stories to share, since you don’t have the time to actually go do much during the day—you’ve just been so busy trying to stay in touch. You will fail to form new lasting relationships, or gain a true understanding and appreciation of the new environment you’re in. You will keep looking over your shoulder, constantly lonely and wishing for what was, so afraid to lose what you had that you smother it by holding on too tightly.

Eventually, you will feel as though you’ve lost, rather than appreciating what you have gained.

I am nomadic at heart and by habit, well entrenched into the cyclic lifestyle of meeting new people and then leaving them behind. I have watched too many friends and freshlyminted travelers fall into the traps of overcommunication, suffering painful bouts of homesickness, unable to fully commit to new friendships and opportunities, only to wind up

heartbroken as their best intentions backfire.

The overwhelming, irrational impression of loneliness is the worst part. I do not pretend to have found that perfect balance—personally I fall towards the opposite end of the spectrum, perfectly content with Skyping my family a mere five times in the past three months.

I can vouch for the fact that it is possible to maintain many relationships without constantly being in touch, provided the arrangement is understood by both parties and no one ends up feeling slighted. It enables me to actually settle anew with every fresh move. It allows me to move forwards, without constantly worrying over what I have lost or am losing. Some relationships actually become stronger, secure with the practical evidence that no matter how much time passes between contact, the essence of the friendship will remain. Unfortunately, there are many relationships that cannot weather what many consider such a tenuous connection.

Somewhere, there is a happy medium that our society somehow overshot. Loved ones, no matter their physical location, can be a remarkable source of strength. They are the invaluable network there to hold you up when you’re about to fall, and to pick up the pieces when you do trip up—even though you thought no one was there to see you crumble.

Despite what some people would like to think, each relationship is unique. Irreplaceable. Yet change is the one true constant in this universe; the key to retaining your sanity is to allow what you cherish to mutate and grow

instead of letting it inevitably shatter because you were fighting too hard to keep it inside its tidy little box. Even when it’s killing you to let go, constantly pushing against the inevitable is exhausting and only tarnishes the memories of what once was.

There is no universal solution, and I will be the first to pounce on a strategy guaranteed to work. Yet I can guarantee that the common response to separation can become more destructive than anyone likes to contemplate.

Every situation is slightly different, each bond has different sources, strengths and tethers. All healthy relationships, however, require maintenance—and it’s no secret that communication is key.

Communication: a concept that society sought to trade up, and ended up swapping quality for quantity.

making enough money to eat and other things on my to-do list

YIDI WU editor-in-chief illustrator YIDI WU

I’ve spent the past nine weeks thinking about what I’ll do when I graduate. I began thinking about it on the third of August, when I received a job offer from Unnamed Large Telecommunications Company. I asked when they wanted my response, and they said they wanted it immediately. I said no, and then they gave me until December.

I’ve been trying to convince myself not to take the job ever since.

I decided to apply to other companies, since I’m not deeply committed to telecoms.

(I suspect consultants, for the most part, aren’t deeply committed to anything.) As a consequence, I haven’t been thinking about my future so much as been constantly immersed in the awesome realm of all possible outcomes. The weeks since I got back to Brown have been like one longer fever dream. I could work for Simon-Kucher! I could work for small proprietary trading firms that specialize in the electricity market!

Or perhaps I’ll never get hired again, ever, and this job I have is all that’s left.

First, there are the information sessions, no fewer than two per day. There are the big companies, then the small companies, and then it hardly matters who comes next— there’s just some company with some combination of Key-Clear-Water-Bridge-Smart in its name. Most of the companies will claim that their firms have the best people

on earth. All of them tell you that you’re going to be very useful. They’re all looking for “smart,” “driven,” “independent,” “collaborative” young people, like you—except for the quantitative trading firms and the tech firms.

You need skills to work at those companies.

Then, you write your bevy of thank-you notes and edit your cover letters. You get your nice clothes dry-cleaned. You send out your applications. You get interviews for some places and rejections from others, and then you do the same thing again next week.

Meanwhile, all of your friends are doing the same thing. What’s more, they’re all talking about it. They’re discussing whether they’re getting or not getting jobs or internships. They’re either depressed about rejection or subtly glowing about validation. They want to talk about career paths and trade tips about networking and find out how to ask how shit the hours are going to be.

The point is, you’re not exactly spending every moment between information sessions thinking about your future. But you’re not exactly doing anything else.

Don’t mistake what I am trying to convey.

This entire process of information sessions, applications, and interviews is immensely helpful and informative. But it is overwhelming, and I’m fairly sure it is intended to be overwhelming. Understand what you’re getting into.

When you sign that job offer, don’t be fooled. You didn’t decide right then to take the job, and you didn’t decide last night, and you didn’t decide two weeks ago. You decided when the mere mention of your job offer changed how a friend looked at you. You decided when you started looking at apartments in New York. You decided when you started planning out your impromptu vacations to Paraguay and India and Havana and Santiago, just checking out the airplane tickets, for fun. You decided when you looked up your college debt, then looked up your first month’s salary. You decided when you remembered the lovely blue veins and the golden bracelet on the girl who shook your hand and looked into your eyes, and you decided when the wolfish young analyst handed you his index card with (what you thought was) a hint of suggestion, and you decided when you slipped on your nice flats and interview dress to go to all those sessions, day after day. You decided when you wondered what it would be like to never have to worry about money again. You decided when you looked up the salary. You decided when you applied.

We do not make our decisions piecemeal.

We do not make our decisions by writing lists, counting up factors in the “good” and “bad” columns, and then choosing a side.

Those are actions we might take before we

sign the papers, but they are mere formalities. When you look at the lists you’ve made, you choose to weigh up the good and the bad based on decisions you’ve already made.

And by the way, this decision isn’t even that important. You could fall in love with this job, meet your life partner, find the person who promotes you to glory and beyond.

Or you could decide you don’t like what you’re doing all that much and go back to school after two years and do something else with your life.

But you want to be sure, if you’re making this choice, that you are in fact choosing.

That is, that you are making the choice you would if you weren’t awed by the money and exhausted from the process. Be sure that it’s not the glamour or the nametag that’s making the choice for you. Don’t tell yourself that you can jump through all the hoops just to see whether you want the job once it’s offered to you. If you want to tell yourself that you can step up to the edge and step away—be sure that you can.

For my part, I’ve already decided.

6

arts & culture

hail jane, full of grace the cw’s jane the virgin heads into its third season

DANIELLA BALAREZO staff writer illustrator NATASHA SHARPE

“What are examples of positive representation on TV right now?” Professor Elizabeth Hoover asks her Intro to Ethnic Studies class. “Black-ish!” one student yells. Silence.

“Fresh Off the Boat!” shouts another. A few murmurs. “Jane the Virgin!” someone cries out. Immediately, the packed lecture room fills up with the sounds of hoots, claps, and classic Brunonian snaps.

Talking about Jane during class isn’t a rare occurrence. Throughout shopping period, the show was mentioned in five out of the thirteen classes I visited.

Jane is, according to Wikipedia, a “satirical romantic comedy-drama telenovela” that airs on the CW network. You remember The CW. It’s the mastermind network behind hit series like Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, One Tree Hill, and Veronica Mars, amongst many, many others. Starring Gina Rodriguez as the titular character, Jane the Virgin focuses on the lives of three Latina women living in Miami, Florida. The premise of the show is nearly inconceivable (pun half intended): Jane Villanueva, who as a devout Catholic promised at a young age to abstain from sex until marriage, is accidentally artificially inseminated during a routine OB-GYN visit.

The sperm belongs to Rafael, a rich hotel owner who also happens to be the man Jane once shared a wildly romantic (sexless) afternoon with, years before the insemination.

Jane’s pregnancy occurs at an inopportune time. She is (recently) engaged to Michael, a sweet detective who accepts the whole incident quite graciously. Jane still lives with her very young mother Xiomara, an aspiring singer, and her very devout Catholic grandmother Alba, an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant.

That’s not even the half of it.

Amongst this already complex plot, Jane is brimming with absolutely stellar secondary characters. A fan favorite is Rogelio, Jane’s estranged father, who also happens to be a successful international telenovela star.

Then there’s Luisa, Rafael’s sister, and the doctor who impregnated Jane. There’s Petra, Rafael’s ex-wife, whose character is one for the books. Jane’s friend Lina, played by Diane Guerrero from Orange Is the New Black, provides great comic relief. And then there’s

a multiplicity of international drug lords who may or may not be running operations from Rafael’s hotel, The Marvella.

Jane has it all—comedy, romance, mystery, irony, and, yes, representation.

Last year, Gina Rodriguez won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, beating out Lena Dunham (Girls), Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep), and Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black). In her speech, which went viral, she said the prestigious award was “so much more” than herself and that “it represents a culture that wants to see themselves as heroes.” Latinx media sites spread the quote like wildfire, and since then, Rodriguez has become the icon for young Latinas. Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, Sofia Vergara, and America Ferrera seem like the predecessors to Rodriguez. The torch has passed on. And currently, there are few who share the Latinx spotlight with the woman who made Jane come to life.

But the show is not just about one Latina star. The whole cast is unapologetically Latinx. Though Jane is our contact point into the Villanuevas’ sunshiny Miami world, the story focuses just as much on her older counterparts. The viewer cares deeply about Xiomara, who got pregnant with Jane as a teenager and never really grew up or out of her haphazard ways. We cheer Xo on as she teaches dance to young children while pursuing a singing career on the side. Alba, on the other hand, has been conservative most of her life. Only now is she trying to make some lifestyle changes after years of being a widow in mourning and living a fear-filled life as an undocumented immigrant.

The rest of the ensemble is also clearly meant to be Latinx; if not in real life, they are at least in the Jane canon. Jaime Camil, the actor who plays Jane’s father, is a real life international telenovela star from Mexico.

Rafael, though not Latino in real life, is definitely Latino in the show. Even white-passing characters such as Jane’s fiance Michael are presented as Latinx, sporting last names like Cordero or De La Vega.

This is not to say that the pan-Latinx vibes alienate anyone. On the contrary, perhaps most of the people I know who watch Jane do not identify as Latinx. This is more

than likely because of the amazing writers behind the show, who make Jane a truly special TV event. Wikipedia is not wrong when it chooses five genres to describe this show. The satire is hilarious and spot-on. The romance, breathtaking. The comedy is energetic and entertaining, while the drama is hair-raising.

And the telenovela—well, that’s where Jane becomes unique.

Previous Latinx shows like George Lopez and Ugly Betty molded well with other mainstream TV genres. Lopez was a classic sitcom, its style rendered not unlike Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, or Roseanne. Ugly Betty, on the other hand, read much more like other shows on ABC, the network on which it aired. It’s not difficult, for example, to imagine some sort of crossover episode between Betty and Modern Family. These shows grew—and excelled—within their genres.

Jane is making its own. And people are enjoying it.

Most critiques of Jane are based off of one thing: it’s ridiculous. Note: SPOILERS SECTION AHEAD. Every single plot twist on this show is absolutely absurd, starting with Jane’s insemination. But there are also murders galore, including one death caused by ice impalement and another by entrapment in cement.

There are evil twins all around. Babies being kidnapped. Drug lords having eerily convincing masks to fool people FOR ENTIRE SEASONS that they are the good guy. Russian mobsters. Mothers who fake paralysis for years. Stalkers who kidnap international telenovela stars’ estranged fathers. And then there’s the fact that even though she’s had so many opportunities to sleep with really, really attractive men, Jane hasn’t had sex. (OK, so that’s not absurd, but it also kind of is, because have you seen the cast?)

OK, SPOILERS OVER. This ridiculousness is all intrinsic to the nature of the telenovela genre, something most American viewers are still not used to seeing. And though the show spends a good portion of its time making fun of telenovela tropes, it also uses the storytelling techniques of the genre to create an addicting, interesting, and charming story. So yes, these things are ludicrous and would never happen in real life. But suspension of disbelief can take you

a long way, folks. Once you get into Jane, it’s hard to believe you ever restrained from watching it because you thought of it as silly.

You end up loving it because it’s silly.

The problem now is that, as Jane prepares for its third season, it’s difficult to imagine where else the plot can go. The stakes, we can imagine, can’t get too much higher without being too erratic. So many crazy things have happened on the show, and viewers have accepted it all. But is it possible that the telenovela narrative could begin to get old for viewers whose first and only telenovela experience is Jane? And, on the flip side, can Jane keep up a compelling storyline while staying true to its Latinx and telenovela roots?

Personally, I think the writers will slow down in terms of pushing the boundaries of premise in the upcoming season. Seasons 1 and 2 were built on enough crazy premises.

To name a few: a virgin gets pregnant by the (millionaire) owner of the hotel where she works (a hottie she also happened to have crushed on once), his hotel may or may not be a giant drug front, and the pregnant virgin’s estranged father is somehow revealed to be the star of her favorite telenovela. That’s enough to last a whole standard ten seasons.

(Okay maybe not, but it is a lot!) It may be time to begin to gradually decrease the oncebooming expansion of this crazy universe in which anything can happen and to try to start pulling loose ends so we don’t have an unsatisfying series finale à la How I Met Your Mother. That being said, it is crucial to the series’ identity that the fun, quirky telenovela trope stay centric to the show as a whole, and it just so happens that a crazy premise is thus imperative in this regard.

I trust the writers can find a good balance in all of this, because the best part about Jane for many, including yours truly, is that no matter how nuts it all gets, the characters always ring true. They’re real. And that’s what makes for good TV. If we can see these characters face the newest wild situations they are in with the complexity they have always shown, then I don’t see why Season 3 will be any less successful than its predecessors, and I don’t see what would stop Jane from joining the ranks of The CW’s greatest hits.

nothing can go wrong our obsession with theme park disasters

SPENCER ROTH-ROSE staff writer illustrator MICHELLE NG

I’ve never been a thrill-seeker. I’ve gone skiing the same number of times I’ve gone on a loop-de-loop rollercoaster: a white-knuckled once. But our culture has a fascination with being thrilled.

We tiptoe through haunted houses, peer through our fingers at scary movies, and strap ourselves onto parachutes and jump out of airplanes.

We get a thrill from the idea that we are cheating death. Humans shouldn’t know the experience of dropping at terminal velocity, of staring a lion in the face, or, hell, of traveling at 60 miles per hour. These things are, by nature, un-

natural. And unnatural things are always thrilling.

So it’s no surprise that our pop culture has a similar fetish for thrills. Action movies and disaster movies are huge components of Hollywood, and just about every popular movie at some point places its characters in some kind of physical danger (seriously, try to name an exception). But what happens when you combine our love of thrills with our love of getting thrills from watching people in danger?

You get theme park disaster movies.

There’s the Jurassic Park series, sure, but

the genre really dates back to the 1970s, with Westworld (1973), Rollercoaster (1977), Jaws 3-D (1983), and others from the era that birthed the disaster movie as we know it. In all of those films, regular folks like you and me flock to a theme park with the expectation of flirting with danger from a position of immutable safety. But things, obviously, don’t go as planned.

What happens is that the very attractions set to amaze and astound the guests wind up being their demise. Through some technical malfunction or unhappy error, the dangerous elements that were

supposedly neutralized reveal themselves not to be so neutralized after all. In Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs escape their cages. In Rollercoaster, a bomb is planted on a speeding you-know-what. In Jaws 3-D, a shark sneaks into SeaWorld and starts doing what sharks do best. The list goes on.

And we, the viewers, see our own worst fears gratified. Since our anxieties about riding on rollercoasters are, in effect, irrational (the Consumer Product Safety Commission wrote in 2005 that there had been 52 amusement park deaths nationwide in the 14 years prior),

arts & culture there’s something morbidly satisfying about seeing those fears proven rational after all: “See, I told you I was right to be scared!” It doesn’t hurt, either, that we’ve survived all our own rollercoaster rides, giving us a sort of battle-tested arrogance about the whole affair.

Westworld is another, earlier example of Jurassic Park writer Michael Crichton wishing ill upon amusement park guests.

“Nothing can go wrong,” the loudspeaker intones as guests enter West World, a futuristic theme park populated by robots, for the first time. It’s as close to Chekhov’s loudspeaker as we’ll ever see on film.

The park is a place designed purely for hedonism. Guests pay exorbitant sums to run amok in a recreated Wild West town, fighting and fucking and doing whatever else they feel like to the android inhabitants, which are repaired nightly. It’s meant to give guests experiences that should be unknowable to them, not the least of which is killing without consequence. It’s unnatural not to morally struggle with murder, argues writer/director Crichton, who came to a similar conclusion in Jurassic Park: Humans shouldn’t play God. West World is essentially Grand Theft Auto come alive: Since the victims aren’t

technically human, no moral issues arise from their slaughter. It’s thrilling to the guests—and gratifying to viewers when order as we know it is restored, when the debaucherous guests receive their comeuppance for killing beings that look and act pretty damn human. A bug makes all the robots malfunction, and a park-wide massacre (of guests this time) ensues.

The guests’ hubris is consistent throughout the films of this genre, and it is essentially what marks them for death.

After all, who are they to defy death?

Why should they get to see a dinosaur or go on a loop-de-loop, when those unnatural acts were never supposed to be done in this world? Their ever-awaiting comeuppance can be seen as karmic. No film illustrates this as well as Final Destination 3 (2006), which follows a group of teens who narrowly escape a rollercoaster disaster, only to be methodically tracked down and killed by a bitter and vengeful Death itself.

When we’re at a theme park, there’s a tiny, irrational part of us that believes we won’t make it out alive—that this rollercoaster is going too fast to stay on the tracks, or that this robotic gunslinger is going to pull out his robotic six-shooter and blow us all to pieces. “Many of the elements of the resort are danger-

ous. That’s part of the appeal,” explains the head engineer of West World when evidence of the malfunction begins showing. But it’s the second part of his statement that captures our interest as viewers: “But should they become truly dangerous…” Here his voice trails off, leaving us to grab our popcorn and fill in what we know to be true. Should they become truly dangerous, that’s when the fun can really start.

And we keep going back for more. Jurassic World 2 director J.A. Bayona confirmed last month that 2015’s (abysmal yet maddeningly successful) reboot was intended to kick off a new (hopefully less abysmal) trilogy, and an HBO reboot of Westworld premiered on October 2. Created by Christopher Nolan’s brother and collaborator Jonathan, it stars Ed Harris as a fail-proof robot cowboy who will eventually, and I’m just spit-balling here, fail and go berserk on some guests.

Roughly 3.3 million people watched the pilot last week, matching True Detective’s previous record for the network’s highest-rated series premiere.

Despite growing up as a non-daredevil kid, instead of strapping myself into a rollercoaster, I found my thrills in Zoo Tycoon. I’d fill a virtual zoo with attractions and animals, even splurging

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for the “Dinosaur Digs” bonus pack so I could pretend I was Dr. Ian Malcolm, and make sure it was popular and teeming with people. Guests would crowd around the velociraptor cage, eyes wide open as they watched the terrifying reptiles stalking around, knowing deep down that, even though that irrational part of their brain was frightened, they were safe in the face of danger.

Then I’d remove all the fences.

Thrilling, isn’t it?

kingdom come in praise of the new black panther comic series

AMEER MALIK staff writer illustrator MICHELLE NG

When I was younger, I loved reading comic books. However, I stopped reading them a long time ago since keeping up was getting difficult. I’m therefore thankful that I recently came across the wonderful world of digital comics and grateful that my return has occurred in time to read the new series “Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet,” written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and illustrated

by Brian Stelfreeze. I’ve been wanting to read it ever since I heard that Ta-Nehisi Coates was the author. His writing for The Atlantic is insightful and precise, and his book Between the World and Me is one of my favorites. I was also excited to see Black Panther again after his appearance in the movie “Captain America: Civil War.” The comic book is a monthly series that started last April, but the first collected edition (which includes the first

four issues) just came out a few weeks ago. I enjoy reading collected editions because of their quick pacing. Unfortunately, that also meant that when I finished reading, I was wishing that it hadn’t ended so soon.

“Black Panther” is an excellent comic book that I think a lot of people, even people who don’t read comics often, would enjoy. It presents a compelling story that is both an exciting superhero tale and a profound and thoughtful political drama. I’m eagerly waiting the next collected edition.

Quick plot synopsis: T’Challa, through his ancestry, is the Black Panther, the king of Wakanda, which is the most technologically advanced nation in the world. However, his rule over Wakanda is in danger. The country’s people are upset after a recent series of catastrophes.

Two superpowered individuals, Tetu and

Zenzi, are channeling the anger of the people to spur violent confrontations with T’Challa. Their goal is to overthrow the king. Meanwhile, Aneka, a former member of the Dora Milaje, the royal guard, is rescued from her death sentence by her lover Ayo, also a former member of the Dora Milaje. The two women don stolen high-tech armor to become the Midnight Angels, who rescue oppressed people in Wakanda who have not been helped by the royal government. The Midnight Angels oppose the monarchy, but do not exactly share the same goals, and definitely not the same methods, as Tetu and Zenzi.

One of the great things about the series is the fact that the characters and themes are more complex than readers might expect from a superhero comic book. T’Challa is the hero at the center, but he is also more than that. He is a king who loves his people and wants to protect them, but he has failed in the past and continues to make mistakes. He is still affected by recent tragedies, which makes him multi-dimensional and human. I never liked reading about flawless superheroes (which is why I didn’t really read Superman comics when I was younger). T’Challa is a compelling character, and even though I wonder if Wakanda might be better with a different type of government, I’m rooting for him.

These somewhat conflicted feelings are the result of superb storytelling, which continues through the characterization of the people who oppose T’Challa. Tetu, though his tactics are cruel, has an admirable goal in mind: a better country. His animosity toward T’Challa for failing the country can be justified. Ayo and Aneka also add to the complexity. They are not on T’Challa’s side, but they are heroes and have saved people who T’Challa hadn’t helped. In these ways, the people opposing T’Challa

are also multi-dimensional. Mixed in with the major conflicts are interesting discussions about how governments should function and what type of governments are preferable to others, which add weight to the events that take place.

In the first issue’s letters page, the section that features letters from readers, Ta-Nehisi Coates explains that this series is his first time writing a comic book. A reader who didn’t know that wouldn’t be able to tell. The multiple plotlines are well-balanced and skillfully spun. And Coates has a strong command of language, evidenced by the powerful first lines of narration: “I am the orphanking. Who defied the blood… Who defied his country… And was divided from you.” The dialogue throughout is rich with powerful imagery, electrifying metaphors, and poetic cadences.

Brian Stelfreeze, the illustrator of the book, is a veteran of comic book art, and his illustrations in this series are stunningly detailed and stylish. The settings are vivid, and the characters appear nothing short of badass. The muscular Black Panther suit captures T’Challa’s incredible power as a hero and as a king. The Midnight Angel armor suits, with their smooth blue plates and retractable wings, radiate a sense of speed and flight.

The color artist of the book, Laura Martin, also does fantastic work. The colors are bold and wonderfully comicbook-y. She doesn’t stick to one color palette, but rather uses different schemes depending on the scene. A night scene is dark green and blue. A daytime scene shines with sky blue and white. Her versatility adds more fuel to the already high-octane book.

“Black Panther” did a great job bringing me back to comics, and I hope that its thrills will attract fellow veterans, as well as many first timers, too.

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lifestyle

topten most cliched phrases

In the restaurant of life I am the persistent, no-nonsense waiter.

A: Did you hear a professor from Brown won the Nobel prize?

B: He doesn’t even go here...

1. burning passion 2. sly as a snake 3. tired as a dog/dog-tired 4. eyes like blue sea (hate it) 5. cuts like a knife 6. flies like a brick doesn’t 7. tall as a six-foot-tree 8. snug as a bug (in a rug) (in an infested house) 9. quick/sly as a fox?

10. smooth as a baby’s bottom

“

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hot post time machine

Focaccia Sandwiches: Not so much for what they were, but for what they represented: Overpricing, underbaking, long lines, foreign languages, student-faculty commingling, order gerrymandering (see: tomato-basil-mozzarella on tuna), Ray-Bans, the bourgeoisie, liberty. In a nutshell, Brown University.

blue moon, byob... • 10/16/09

end of virginity how to stop feeling pure and innocent

KAYLA contributing writer illustrator CLARIBEL WU

I was lying in bed, naked, with a 33-year-old man sobbing into my chest.

In all likelihood, I would never be able to get this moment out of my head.

It would come back to me so many times in the future, as frequently as I used to

imagine my first sexual experience. The only difference between my vivid imagination and reality was that now I was the one patting and soothing him as gently as possible, trying every way to ease the audible pain away. Though I thought I definitely deserved to be comforted as much as he did, it couldn’t hurt to play Saint Maria for now.

I used to think about sex a lot. I listened to my friends talking about sex with insatiable eagerness: what would it be like to have such a mysterious sensation on my body part? Being a virgin—a rare identity on an American campus— constantly reminded me of my lack of this prevalent enjoyment.

However, I don’t know if I would have labeled this moment as enjoyable, although he kept repeating that he had never been this happy before, that I was the first woman who had ever truly loved him, and the first virgin he had ever slept with. He wept for his pathetic past, his fleeting joy, and his dead-end future.

I felt bad for him. I felt bad for myself. Who would have imagined that my “first love” would be a married man with a two-year-old kid and an abusive wife? That I would lose my virginity on his bed in his home, while his wife was

out on a business trip? As far as I knew, this wasn’t a typical start to a sex life.

While I was deep in thought, a cracking sound woke me up.

It sounded like someone had put a key into the keyhole.

In that split second, my pulse raced to 200, and I heard his breath stop, his body tense and still.

Everything froze for a while.

“Could that be your wife?” I muffled, my voice as quiet as possible.

“No… It’s probably just the plastic bag.” He softened a bit.

“Oh, good… I mean, this could be a really gross scene for her to see.” I looked down on his undressed body.

He chuckled and relaxed. So did I. He had an app to locate his wife. I was surprised that his wife would even let him do that. Now we knew that his wife was in another city, three hours away.

But I still didn’t feel safe in his house, with an open door; It was an open door to reality. I looked right into the pale living room light, and remembered I was staying with a man in his house, waiting for his wife to come home and expose us, probably. I felt as if there were an eye looking at me through that open door, judging me.

What was I afraid of? No one was going to find out, except my conscience—I was afraid I might wake it up some day.

I knew it was wrong to sleep with a married man, even without the preaching voice of my superego. Does this make me a shameless woman who steals husbands and ruins families?

Strangely, I felt more like a virgin when I was walking with him afterwards, outside under the sunlight. I tried to look pure and innocent to people we passed, those hidden eyes following us.

To be honest, I wasn’t faking that innocence—I didn’t think that I was doing something intolerable and sinful; I still viewed myself as a virgin.

Of course, I didn’t have any of these thoughts when I stared into the cold light coming from the door. Naturally nearsighted, I merely managed to figure out the blurred lines of tables and chairs, the sofa, and the floor pattern. I felt like I was getting to know this house better.

My vision went blurry and I gradually fell into a deep slumber. Before unconsciousness hit me, a voice whispered in my head: I… I wish I could be a virgin again.