Post- 3 /16 /17

MAR 16 – VOL 19 – ISSUE 18

In this issue...

Dreams, Dragons, Divide

Editor’s Note Dear Readers,

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I am unaware of anything pertaining to popular culture. Every year when the spring weekend lineup comes up, I know approximately one of the artists because of one popular song, and then I go back to my life. Last year, I didn’t even know when Spring Weekend happened. It’s apparently a proud Brown tradition that I am not even marginally a part of.

FEATURES The Rock’s Strange Beauty

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The Misprint Multiverse

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5 LIFESTYLE The One Who Dreams 5 An Elegy

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I Don’t Make Waves

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I feel slightly guilty about this, and I wonder if I should be sad, as a graduating senior who has never attended the big party that gets my roommates riled up every year. I wonder if I should be sad, and then proceed not to be, becausethe idea of sweating in a massive throng of sweaty, drunk people for hours on end while an artist I’ve never heard of plays on a stage very far away continues not to appeal to me. I seem to have skipped the famous stage of (im)maturity at which letting loose is all the rage. For all four years of college, I’ve much preferred to sit in my bed and scroll through Facebook, the height of restraint.

That said, I’ve asked around the newsroom for predictions of the nature of this lineup. Among the favorites are Lil Dicky, Car Seat Headrest, J. Cole, and Lorde.

The last one, I think, is just wishful thinking. Kind of like my attitude towards enjoying Spring Weekend.

Happy lineup-betting!

Best,

Monica editor - in - chief

Post- Board Editor-in-Chief Monica Chin Managing Editor, Arts & Culture Joshua Lu

Managing Editor, Features Saanya Jain

Arts & Culture Editors Taylor Michael Josh Wartel

Features Editors Claribel Wu Kathy Luo

Managing Editor, Lifestyle Annabelle Woodward

Copy Chief Alicia DeVos

Lifestyle Editors Jennifer Osborne Celina Sun Creative Director Grace Yoon Art Director Katie Cafaro

Assistant Copy Editors Zander Kim Alexandra Walsh Layout Chief Livia Mucciolo Layout Assistants Yamini Mandava Elizabeth Toledano Cover Katie Cafaro

7 ARTS & CULTURE “Divide” and Conquer?

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The Case for Movie Scores 7 Horror During Wartime

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The Rock’s Strange Beauty Just before dusk, the Rock rises up like an awkwardly-layered cake, its vertical windows mismatched and its stories unevenly stacked. Along with its dingy concrete walls, the Rock is— let’s face it—not one of Brown’s great architectural beauties. But through the slitted windows leaks a warm yellow glow and, if you stop for a moment before continuing up the steps, bookshelves and wooden study tables appear like pieces of a mosaic.

I was well into my Brown career before I began to meander through the Rock’s labyrinthine corridors. Comb through a few of the aisles, pause to look at the titles, and some are sure to beg the question: has anyone read ever read these? There is an entire treasury of forgotten and bizarre knowledge to be discovered.

On Level B, there’s a shelf with books that look like they’ve come from a Harry Potter movie. They are beautifully bound, intricate golden patterns tattooing their spines. The titles range from Oeuvres Complète de Gustave Flaubert to Affairs of the Levant, Vol. 2, 1840-1841, to Journal of the Statistical Society.

Four rows past this one, Aisle 51 transports you back to medieval Britain, where Chaucer’s works lie. One aisle later lurches forward to Shakespeare; two more and there’s Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre resting on the top shelf.

At Aisle 60, things get weird.

There’s a whole section of books, organized not by country, not by language, not by time period, but by United State. When I first stumbled upon this bizarre

What You Wouldn’t Expect to Find in this Concrete Monolith

gem, I realized that there is an entire subgenre of literature centered around the Ozarks—a mountain region in the central U.S.—whose books boast titles like Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales. There’s also an entire book dedicated to the pioneering literature of Kentucky, and it wears the title proudly: Bluegrass Cavalcade (a cavalcade, which I’m not sure anyone except whoever edited the book has ever heard of, is “a procession of riders or carriages,” according to Merriam Webster). A couple shelves below sits Island on Fire: An Anthology of Literature from Hawaii.

Over at 64B, one shelf sports a little bit of extra space between bookends. Someone’s checked out Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, a charming little tale about Tristran Thorn, a protagonist who, in a fantastical coming-ofage tale, sets out on a quest to find a fallen star--which turns out to be not a ball of fire at all but a spunky young woman. Go figure.

To the right of the floor door, a metallic bookshelf rests against the wall, face open to the room. It holds books that don’t necessarily fit in the regularly-sized stacks, and their titles juxtapose in funny ways: there’s one that is simply called Google It—which begs the question of why the publishers printed this particular book at all— and another has a much longer title, A Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts of the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, I. At the end of the aisles, there’s a series of journals labelled “World Futures,” a num-

ber of whose volumes date back to the 1980s. Which brings up the inevitable question: how accurate were these histories of the future, anyway? In one 1983 journal, someone named John Dryzek wrote this: “In recent decades we have made great strides in our capacity to eradicate ourselves from the planet Earth.” It’s strange to find this in an essay that’s actually meant to guide policy decisions and, although Dryzek is not exactly wrong, it still seems possible that he is currently holed up in a bomb shelter somewhere, sitting among decades-worth of canned soup.

But never mind Dryzek’s fate. Back into the elevator and up on Level 3, the metal doors slide open to reveal a floor set up in much the same way as Level B. Around the corner and against the wall is a hidden gem: a series of thin, horizontal shelves, each holding one book that is roughly the size of a small bulletin board. This is the atlas section, and it has everything from the National Atlas of India I--with pages and pages of colorful, detailed maps—to the U.S. War Department’s Union and Confederate Armies Official Records Atlas, v. 2. Flip through the latter and you’ ll find maps of Civil War battle sites and defenses, as well as sketches of batteries and forts. There’s also a big folder labelled Olympische Forschungen, which translates roughly to “Olympic Sciences”— inside are drawings that appear to be based on Greek architecture.

One more stop: taking a right after the atlas section

and walking a short ways down the aisle leads to a section that abounds with Arabic literature. Unless you can read Arabic, many of the titles here are incomprehensible, but there are translated editions. There’s one particular shelf with works by the revered Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who was an important literary and political figure in the second half of the 20th century. In one of his collections, Why did you leave the horse alone?, his words brim with themes of love, exile, myth, war: “Your poetry has no homeland. The wind has no home. I have no / Ceiling in the chandelier of your heart. / From a smiling lilac around your night / I find my way alone through alleys as thin as hair.” (from “For the Gypsy, and Experienced Sky”).

Having inhaled Darwish’s delicate words, you can now find your way through the alleys of the Rock and back to the exit on the first floor. As you step outside and breathe in the air, the fresh emptiness cuts your lungs—because you’ve just stumbled through the beautiful clutter of Everything and held in your hands a very few dusty pieces of the world.

That about sums up why I love the Rock. There’s an extraordinary library at your fingertips. Go explore it.

Meghan Friedmann s taff writer

Soco Fernandez Garcia illus tr ator

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The Misprint Multiverse The rhyme I went throat shopping Inspired by Brenda Miller’s “ Typos,” a piece that explores the alternate realities that live in our misspellings and misunderstandings.

“G od donut.”

Do you know about the origin of donuts? (Cue: “I donut.”) T he y are the fallen halos of gods and angels and holy aliens, doughy rings of divinity that tumble through dimensions, passing through cosmic cream coatings and s tardus t sprinkles and toas ty high heat supernovas to arrive on Ear th as the s teaming image of the heavens: per fec tly circ ular, to demons trate the c yclic nature of all that was, is, and will be, and punched through the middle, to commemorate its whole-y his tor y. Consume a G od donut and you will unders tand the yeas ty truths of the universe.

“Can you help?? There’s a black window spider next to my desk.”

An arachnid spreads eight knobby, mullion legs across the cinderblock wall, the ebony varnish a s tark contras t agains t the drab white paint.

Its cr ys talline abdomen and glassy spinnere ts are unwelcome here––these par ts are alien, utterly re volting, in fac t. For the pas t two days, the black window spider had quie tly nes tled in the far wes t-facing corner of this eg gshell dorm room. It emerged early this morning to spin a web, to catch some sunshine sustenance. Af ter nailing se veral anchor points and es tablishing an auxiliar y spiral, it began its me thodical ar t, moving me ticulously around the web until a delicate glass window adorned the far wes t-facing corner. T he spider released a s tream of des truc tive enzymes that melted a tiny hole in the wall––a swarm of light passed through, bits and frac tals of luminescence suspended on the gauzy predator y panes. With care ful ears you could hear the muted squeaks of eight hinged legs as it crept across the fibers and inges ted the glints and glimmers and glis tens that quivered with each subtle move-

ment or gus t. T his vocation continued undis turbed, until the room’s inhabitant discovered the plurality of presences and frantically aler ted his friend of the unsolicited visitor. A knock at the door: help has arrived, and with a broom!

T he young men wield the cleaning tool and invade, unraveling the spider ’s creation.

If the y ’d thought to pause their irre verent shouts of triumph, jus t for a momentous second, the y might not have missed the gentle shimmering sound of the black window spider reaching its shattered end.

“I went throat shopping the other day.”

I’d been meaning to. You’ ve seen it right, that ne w throat shop? It opened up a couple blocks over. I tried on a well-loved windpipe, and the neat thing is that each produc t had a little folded taffe ta tag se wn into the lining, with de tails about its pas t life (or lives). Usually these shops have s tandardized color-coded tags––barcode beings rooted in a s terile anonymity to give the illusion that these are novel produc ts, ones without conte xt outside of your personal shopping e xperience. It ’s nice to see a place that has a more intimate approach to the process.

I found the wilted thing behind an antique esophagus on

the clearance shelf. T he windpipe was in casually coarse condition, with sof t rips at the seams and light fleshy bruising, but you see, it had this de vas tating dus ty rose, deep plum comple xion—a beautiful finish. I paused and lif ted it, with the utmos t care of course, and smoothed out the crinkled tag: Date: 2011 Augus t 13th Person: T heresa Young Info: “ Treat with soft voices and soothing tones. Aggressive coughing fits, impassioned monologues, heated debates, and other activities of the sort are not recommended. Wash down with white grape juice at least once a week.”

I was at the throat shop to find, coincidentally, a windpipe replacement––I’ ve had my c urrent model for the pas t two years, the one I got from grandmother at graduation. It came wrapped in parchment paper, on which she’d written promises with a shaky hand.

Grandmother assured me that this gif t would have a 14-hour batter y life, keep my voice within a confident but non-offensive decibel range, and direc t e ver y “hi”, “he y ”, and “hello” to its intended audience (to pre vent the massive embarrassment of an unheard gree ting). But two years has taken its toll. It overheats of-

ten af ter intensive use, choking up in uncomfor table situations, lag ging during lec ture disc ussions, and pe tering out to a murmur af ter about 12 hours––maybe e ven less on the more vigorously social days.

I decided to tr y on the windpipe for the hell of it, par tly because the shopkeeper was e yeing me suspiciously and I felt I had some consumeris t commitment to prove, par tly because I was intrigued. It slid into place lis tlessly. Didn’ t have much give. My voice was tuned to a le vel below the socially-desirable frequenc y, faltering and cracking at inoppor tune moments. Dismayed, but not necessarily surprised, I de tached the pipe and se t it back in its dus ty domain. I looked through the aisles for a while longer be fore I le f t, finger tips skipping over the supple sur face of the other vocal mechanisms, compar tmentalized by e ffec t (persuasion, charisma, authority, e tc.).

I wonder what T heresa Young sounds like now.

Claribel Wu

fe atures editor

Natasha Sharpe illustr ator

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The One Who Dreams

I can’t remember when or where exactly, perhaps it was during a comedic program or on an entertainment website, but I once came across this figure or cliché of “the kind of person who talks about their dreams.”

One website I found that discusses this figure is Cracked.com. An article called “5 Things You Love to Discuss That Nobody Else Cares About” states, “There is no greater gap than the one between how fascinating dreams are to the dreamer and how fascinating they are to literally anyone else in the world,” and, “Unfortunately, having an interesting dream makes it impossible for the dreamer to talk about anything else, so they have to tell you all about it, beat for pointless beat.”

This figure is portrayed as annoying and self-indulgent, possessing a pretentious sense of self-importance.

And I agree that this can be true of people who talk about their dreams, just as it can be true of people who talk about their experiences in the physical world. Why is the simple fact that people would give voice to what happens inside their sleeping minds enough for us to deem them annoying? Are dreams thought to be completely useless and insignificant?

According to WebMD, “There are many theories about why we dream, but no one knows for sure. Some researchers say dreams have no purpose or meaning and are nonsensical activities of the sleeping brain.” Sure, WebMD might not be known for its reliability, but I did also learn about this theory in a class I took. When I learned that factoid, I felt silly and foolish for paying any consideration to what I thought must have been meaningless by-products of my brain’s

My Journeys from Wake to Sleep

biological processes. Now, though, I want to push back on that feeling I once had and the theory that dreams are purposeless and nonsensical. I’m not saying that we should always worry about or pore over the strange images and experiences that we encounter while we sleep. But I do think that we should pay some attention to our dreams because they can serve as important food for thought and as useful fodder for art.

I’m not a psychologist. I’m a writer. Therefore, I often think about about how images, metaphors, symbols, and other related figures can convey meaning.

In works of literature, including drama and film, dream sequences are used to indirectly illustrate the inner workings of a character’s mind. A character will often enter a dream and witness people, situations, and images that represent ideas or emotions that the sleeper might not be fully conscious of. For example, for a course I’m taking, I recently watched Ingmar Bergman’s film, Wild Strawberries.

Early in the film, the main character, an old man named Isak, has a dream in which he is walking through an empty city and a horse-drawn hearse passes by him. The wheel of the hearse gets stuck against a lamppost, and the hearse is only able to break free when the coffin inside slips out and falls on the ground near Isak. When it hits the ground, the lid opens and an arm sticks out. Isak walks closer to the coffin, and the arm suddenly comes to life and grabs him by the wrist. Isak tries to pull away, but cannot escape the firm grip, and ends up pulling the body out of the coffin. Then, Isak sees that the person from the coffin is him.

This particular dream sequence, the first of many throughout the film, illustrates that Isak is intensely afraid of death. Even if this fear is not always consciously in his mind, it is still inside him, and the dream sequence allows the audience access into his unconscious.

I think the dreams we have in our own lives can often tell us about things buried in our subconscious, things which we might not be consciously aware of. For example, I remember once having a dream in which I was fighting with someone, someone whom I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. They were trying to enter a room I was in, a room that seemed to be in a public building, but I would not let them in. I kept pushing them out the door. Whenever they managed to get near me, I knocked them down. I decided upon waking up that, despite what I wished, I hadn’t completely gotten passed the unpleasant experiences I had faced involving this person. I didn’t do anything so drastic as calling this person out of the blue to try to bury the hatchet, but I realized that more mental and emotional work was most likely required on my own part to arrive at forgiveness.

On a similar note, in the weeks after the presidential election, I frequently had nightmares. I remember one in particular in which I was forced to witness something horrific happening to people I knew. These dreams compelled me to reflect further on my feelings after the election, on my sense of powerlessness and vulnerability.

As a writer, I often turn to my dreams as fodder for my art. At least one poem I wrote for a class last semester and two more poems I wrote

during winter break were based off of dreams I had. One involved a substitute teacher forcing students, including me, to participate in a weird, nonsensical quiz game, in which the loser would get stabbed through the hand.

The short fictional piece I recently wrote for this magazine was based off of a nightmare I had. While I often dream up symbols that are utterly silly, or stories that are very incoherent, I sometimes find a seed for what becomes a focused, deliberate project from my dreams.

That reason is why, in my writer’s journal, I often record dreams that I’ve had. I hope to turn all of them into interesting works, eventually. I advise people to keep dream journals and write about what they see and experience in their dreams. There are websites that suggest certain interpretations to common images in experiences in dreams, but I like trying to interpret my dreams by myself. Either method is totally fine. Dreams are a record of how our minds can excite and surprise us, and why let that slip away.

Ameer Malik staff writer

Michelle Ng illustr ator

An Elegy

My Violin and Me

My violin hasn’t left my dorm room closet since October. It’s sitting there right now, untouched and unplayed, only visible when I dig around for a lost pair of shoes. I can’t help but feel conflicted every time I see it, like it’s begging for a breath of fresh air.

Violin has been a major part of my identity for most of my life. I started playing Twinkle, Twinkle when I was four, painstakingly worked my way through Book Six of the Suzuki Method (if you’ve never heard of it, consider yourself lucky), joined orchestra in sixth grade, and competed in Texas-style fiddle contests during high school. I took weekly lessons for over a decade, frequently accompanied the children’s choir at my church, and performed “Wagon Wheel” and “Orange Blossom Special” at talent shows.

If playing violin is such an integral part of who I am, how do I explain why I haven’t so much as pulled a bow across its strings in months? Partly, it’s just stereotypical college student laziness. It’s so much easier to go out to dinner or hang with friends than

confine myself to my dorm room and practice in solitude. The brutal hours I used to spend repeating the same measures over and over in an attempt to perfect my tunes for an upcoming fiddle contest are not exactly fond memories. And my mom’s pestering (“Eliza, tune up your violin and practice!”) isn’t quite as effective over the phone as it is in person.

But I think there’s another reason for my hiatus from violin. As I transition from high school to college, I’m forced to reconsider the significance of my extracurriculars and hobbies. Do I truly love the things I’ve spent the greater part of my life doing? Or were they simply the most convenient, the most prestigious, or maybe the ones I’d grown comfortable with? I wasn’t even in kindergarten when I picked out my first instrument—it might not have been love at first sight at all. Maybe the violin was just the easiest instrument for my small hands to manage.

So perhaps my unwillingness to excavate my violin from the closet is due, in part, to a desire to reassess who

Eliza Cain

staff writer

Clarisse Angkasa illustr ator

I am. I didn’t just let go of my music—I let go of the majority of what made up my high school resume. I was on the newspaper staff for three years, serving as both News Editor and Commentary Editor, but upon arriving at Brown, I intentionally made no effort to join a university publication. I played basketball for 14 years, during which time I never missed a varsity game or even those rough 8 a.m. Saturday morning practices. But neither my skills nor my height measures up to varsity or even club basketball at Brown, and I was too overwhelmed last semester to find or form an intramural team.

While journalism and basketball undeniably played large roles in my life (I have newspaper to thank for any writing, interview, and design skills and basketball for any athleticism I

might still possess), I don’t remember anything but complete relief when I graduated and waved goodbye to these activities. And I’ve been content, more or less, to substitute ultimate frisbee for basketball and other types of writing for journalism.

And I’ll admit that when I left for college, I felt unburdened by the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to compete in any fiddle contests for at least a year. Fiddle festivals can be excruciating ordeals. For each one, I would perform two to three complicated tunes on stage with unfamiliar backup guitarists behind me and a row of unforgiving judges and a large audience in front. The competition was stiff; several of the other contestants were former fiddle champions more than 15 years older than me. At more

I Don’t Make Waves

pursue violin in college. There isn’t a whole lot of Texas-style fiddling taking place in Rhode Island, and I’m not sure my tunes would get the same reaction on Thayer as they did in Austin, the “Live Music Capital of the World.” But I don’t want to give up, and I certainly don’t want to lose a skill that I spent so many years trying to master. Maybe I’ll start a band, one where I can play fiddle and sing vocals. Whatever I end up doing, it’s finally time for me to give my violin that much needed breath of fresh air.

So perhaps it was love at first sight between five-year-old me and my very first violin. Perhaps it wasn’t. But taking a break was just the thing I needed to realize that we’ve built a life-long relationship regardless.

On Writing as a “Token Minority”

Anisha Dias Bandaraike staff writer

Jenice Kim

illustr ator

I was walking into Faunce, planning to get a sandwich from the Blue Room, when a student approached me, “Excuse me, would you like to fill out a survey for the BDH?” “Sure, why not,” I replied, and was handed a clipboard with a piece of paper on it.

Checking boxes can be hard when you don’t know who you are. You can’t write in “maybe,” “sort of, “I think”.

They can’t quantify in-betweens—it’s just not an option. When confronted with questions like these, you are forced to self-reflect and take a definitive stand.

“I am definitely, 100 percent, this, that, bisexual, other, and I definitely, 100 percent strongly agree/ neither agree nor disagree/somewhat disagree with this definitive statement you have made.”

How can you know how informed you are on a given subject when you don’t know what you don’t know?

How can you have an opinion and commit it to perpetuity when you might change your mind tomorrow?

Circle an option, circle two, hell, circle

than one contest I attended, I felt so overwhelmed by nerves that I stopped cold in the middle of a tune.

But now that I’ve gone almost five months without it, I’m beginning to understand that violin wasn’t something I did just out of habit or a sense of commitment. I was passionate about the music; I must have been.

I miss playing the fiddle. I miss the ear-splitting squeal when I clean the strings with a rag. I miss busking out on the pedestrian bridge in downtown Austin with my case wide open for tips.

I miss hearing my teacher, Jimmie Don, tell me in his gruff way that my performance was “decent” (his sincerest form of praise). I even miss watching my dad dance around the kitchen while I played “Black and White Rag.” I haven’t yet discovered a way to

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all of them, because you are in constant flux, and there’s no telling when or how you will stabilize.

There are a lot of people in this world who are secure in their knowledge of themselves. They start their lives fully formed, never wavering in their sense of self. I envy them. I tend to define myself by the things that I enjoy, by the people I love, by the choices I’ve made. There are words that are supposed to write us—Sri Lankan, female, queer—but I’ve never felt a strong tie to them.

They exist, sure, but they’ve never grounded me, the way they do for some people.

My best friend writes; she once wrote for a program, Write to Reconcile, that brought authors of different ethnicities and backgrounds together to create a collaborative work, aimed to support reconciliation at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. I read her work, steeped in conflict and tension, and thought, “I will never be able to feel this deeply.”

Growing up, I never had to think about my identity. Even in a country in the midst of a war fueled

by ethnic tension, I never felt connected to my own race. Perhaps it was because of my mixed heritage; perhaps it was because, as one of the privileged majority, it didn’t matter as much as it would if I were a minority. I have never questioned the gender assigned to me, I went to an all girls’ school, and everyone was the same, so I never felt the need to assert it. After I came out, my sexuality was the one factor that came the closest to defining me; I joke that I have this haircut to appear as bisexual as possible. But even that feels like it’s something tangential.

In movies, TV, and most media, there’s the trope of the token minority. It’s that one person in a group of straight, white, cis people who happens to not be one or more of those things, a racial or sexual minority, like Zoe from Firefly, or Danny from Teen Wolf. They never really talk about or invest in their minority identity, it just is. They exist to say “look, look at this casual diversity.” I sometimes think that’s a role I fit into. In my mind, I am the perfect token minority. I don’t make waves.

I’m a passionate person. I throw myself into the things I care about, I let them consume me. So why am I not making waves? There are people who feel strongly, who care enough to fight, to write, to change things. I view myself as an empathetic person, but I don’t know how to feel fire. I shouldn’t resign myself to the mindset of a token minority, but it’s lack of care, not resignation, that synthesizes it.

I think it comes from a place of privilege. Most people at first glance wouldn’t associate me with privilege, especially not in this country, but it’s true. I may be a POC, bisexual, female, whatever, but context is important. POC is just an American term; where I’m from, I am the majority—I’ve never had to face racial oppression. Even here, the fact that

I can leave this system affords me some privilege. I can go back to an easy life.

I am now more aware that I live within the framework of greater society, a framework determined by people’s need to identify and categorize so as to better understand. I too am guilty of this. We want to understand people, so we divide them into groups, believing that membership in specific groups can immediately tell us something meaningful, like those single descriptive adjectives of gender or nationality will encompass their whole identity. I don’t know if that works for anyone, I just know that it doesn’t for me. Who I am is not dependent on the groups I belong to, not unless I chose the group.

As a writer, or someone who aspires to that title, I have a responsibility to represent myself. If you don’t put a part of yourself in your work, it doesn’t really feel like yours. If I struggle to define myself, how can I ever represent that self to others? I want to be able to write something that people relate to, that feels authentic, but I don’t know what that means with respect to myself. Do I have an obligation to represent those groups that I am a part of? I would feel inauthentic doing so; I look into those groups from the fringes. How can I represent an experience I’ve never had or noticed? I should make waves but I don’t write to change the world; I write to convey some truth of experience.

Writers exist between two poles, between the groups we are inextricably linked to and the groups we are drawn to, between truly representing ourselves and being engaging and empathizable. Sometimes, we must make compromises. All we can do is hold on to the hope that with time, we will find the balance between the words we want to write, and the words that want to write us.

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“Divide” and Conquer?

Last year, ahead of the release of Adele’s latest album 25, I wrote a piece explaining how her previous effort 21 was, by the numbers, arguably the biggest album of all time in terms of sales and how inimitable all of her success had become. There is one artist, however, who fancies himself as Adele’s competitor: Ed Sheeran. In late January, Sheeran stated in an interview, “Adele is the one person who’s sold more records than me in the past 10 years. She’s the only person I need to sell more records than.” He later went on to specify that such a feat would be incredibly difficult but that a goal post any lower than Adele’s chart-history-defining commercial success would be “selling [himself] short.”

Nevermind the fact that numerous artists have outsold Sheeran in the past 10 years, artists ranging from Eminem to Taylor Swift; the notion that he can outsell Adele is certainly a bold one, even if he’s enjoying success at the moment. I don’t mean to downplay his success, though: Sheeran’s latest album Divide (stylized as ÷) dropped on Friday and sold 230,000 copies on the first day in the U.K. alone, and he is likely to cement himself in the top 10 biggest debuts in his home country. In the United States, Billboard has a conservative projection of sales upwards of 325,000. But to compare this to Adele, who holds the records for biggest debut weeks in both countries, is still ludicrous: 800,000 copies sold in the U.K. and a whopping 3.38 million in the United States. Of course, these debuts are the biggest of all time. It’s Adele, after all.

Sheeran’s appeal as an artist is contin-

gent not only on his ability to craft seemingly heartfelt and authentic songs, but also on his likeability as a person. Lately, however, he seems to have developed a bit of an ego. Another interview from late January showcases Sheeran blithely stating that he’s happy that there are so many popular singer-songwriters nowadays “even if they copy every single thing [he’s] done,” a statement that’s a tad ridiculous considering how little of his work can be construed as original or innovative. While he may have a point that other artists of his caliber take influence from him— Shawn Mendes ended his set at my stop of the 1989 tour with a cover of “Thinking Out Loud”—Sheeran seems to be equally guilty of taking inspiration from others.

“Shape of You,” for instance, sounds like a diluted version of Sia’s “Cheap Thrills”. Besides, Mendes got to the trop-pop nice-guy anthem first, with his snivelling hit single “Treat You Better” last year.

Questions of originality aside, “Shape of You” is an expertly crafted pop song, and its chart success speaks to that effect. However, it does not necessarily make “Shape of You” a good song, considering Sheeran somehow finds it noteworthy that he’d rather pick up girls from the bar and where the odor of a hook-up on your bedsheets is somehow construed as endearing. The song has all the attributes of a generic pop song: references to the radio, references to how horny the protagonist is, references to drinking, a bridge that consists of five words repeated ad nauseum. I don’t believe it’s the kind of song Sheeran would make if he were intent on creating

Music of Emotion I get a fair share of funny looks when I say my favorite song of all time is “Test Drive” from the How To Train Your Dragon score. It’s a far cry from the genres typically associated with one’s favorite music, but something about this John Powell masterpiece struck me the first time I heard it, and the 2,000 times I have listened to it since. It encapsulates all aspects of human emotion: anticipation, fear, triumph, relief, happiness, and everything in-between.

Simply put, it is a perfect song, with a keychange that has made me cry more times than I care to admit.

My love affair with this song began about two years ago. While perusing 8tracks internet radio, I stumbled upon a study playlist composed of random instrumental songs, one of which was the introductory song, “This Is Berk,” from HTTYD. It was mesmerizing and enticing—wholly unlike any other instrumental songs I listened to. Being an avid playlist maker myself, I decided to make a compilation of songs from animated movies, just for the hell of it.

Upon discovering the How To Train Your Dragon score, and frankly the whole world of movie scores, my entire motive for listening to music changed. I stopped listening to music because of its objective worth, but instead I started listening for a certain emotion. When I needed my sadness reflected, “Reunion of Friends” by John Williams from the second Harry Potter film comforted me. If I was entering a difficult test, the triumphant tone of “Battle Finale” by Brian Tyler from Iron Man 3 encouraged me. And when I felt in

Ed Sheeran Wants to Rule the World a good song; it’s the kind of song Sheeran would make if he were intent on chart dominance.

Divide is full of these moments. “Castle on the Hill,” released at the same time as “Shape of You,” uses specific details from Sheeran’s childhood and an acoustic sound to create an illusion of authenticity. But its lyrics are still awkward and stumbling, and its reliance on nostalgia as a driving factor is made all the weaker by the popularity of other popular, nostalgia-heavy songs (see: “Closer,” “Paris, “7 Years”). This commentary on Sheeran’s play on authenticity isn’t meant to imply that Sheeran himself isn’t authentic, at least in this song. Rather, it means to suggest that as a marketable individual, Sheeran relies on these overt cues in order to gain the general public’s adoration. His performance at the Grammys, similarly, showcased him toying with recording gear to generate a backing track live; the audience at home, I’m sure, marvelled at his ability to use basic studio equipment. The artists who sell the most tend to be ones the general public assume to be authentic (see: Adele, once again), and Sheeran seems acutely aware of this factor.

Several songs feel like assignments from a music composition course. Make an acoustic version of Shakira’s “Waka Waka”: Ed Sheeran makes “Bibia Be Ye Ye.” Compose an Irish jig: Sheeran responds with “Galway Girl.” Release a horrendously whitewashed take on hip hop music: Sheeran enthusiastically unleashes “Eraser” upon the world. Incorporating a smorgasbord of genres isn’t necessarily a bad

Joshua Lu

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Megan Tresca

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thing (Beyonce’s Lemonade did it to great effect), but Sheeran fails to engage with these genres in meaningful ways. It feels gimmicky, like he’s using them to showcase his apparent versatility instead of focusing on crafting unique, complex music.

Adele, in the weeks leading up to the release of “Hello,” would say in interviews that everything she’d ever release would be compared to the success of 21, and that she wasn’t really interested in the numbers anymore.

Sheeran’s main fault in Divide is his focus on attaining commercial success at the expense of his actual music. While albums can be both excellent and commercial smashes, they tend to be remembered down the line for the former, not the latter. I don’t doubt that the majority of popular artists concern themselves with their numbers, but for all the talk Sheeran does about the charts, he should try to back it up with quality work as well.

The Case for Movie Scores

love, completely content with life, “Romantic Flight” from How To Train Your Dragon played in my head instantaneously. I had discovered a soundtrack for my life, and I wanted nothing more than to share it with people.

With my newfound love of movie scores fully formed, I began to wonder: What was it that caused this rift between the general public and music from movies? I was the only person I knew who listened to movie soundtracks recreationally, and even I had only stumbled upon it by accident. Even classical music, while not mainstream, had its niche corner in the music world. So why did a corner not exist for movie scores (except when students have a test to cram for and just play whatever nine hour YouTube compilation they can find)?

While I have no concrete answers, I do have a theory, and that is that movie soundtracks, as a whole, do not have enough variety. Modern movie scores tend to be recycled and clichéd, often times doing nothing other than lending themselves to the background. Many filmmakers want the music to go unnoticed, as an enhancement of the visuals as opposed to a purely creative aspect itself. This is a disservice to the art, to the composers, and to the audience, who are missing out on what could have otherwise been a real musical experience. What struck me about HTTYD was that it was unlike anything I had ever heard. It had that Viking flair, the hint of bagpipes, and the complexities of both classical music and of the range of human emotion.

It felt new and fresh and exciting, but not all movie scores are like that.

A phenomenon that has been hurting movie scoring (or helping, depending on how you look at it) is the technique of using temp music. This is when a director and editor use another composer’s song to underscore a scene in the first stages of editing, so the team can get a feel for what the scene will end up sounding like. Often times, directors become so attached to the temp music that they ask a composer for something extremely similar, bordering on identical.

I didn’t know the name for this at the time, but I knew this was happening the second I saw Big Hero 6 for the first time. In the scene where Hero and Baymax have their first flight together, a song aptly named “First Flight” underlays the action. It felt eerily familiar, like I had heard it before. After a quick Google search, I discovered that it was being compared to “Test Drive” in YouTube comments, and suddenly everything made sense.

This song follows almost all the exact same beats, had the exact same vibe, and has almost an identical moment of orchestral struggle.

While I cannot say for certain that “Test Drive” was used as a temp song for this scene, I can say that many movies nowadays do this. An excellent YouTube video called “The Marvel Symphonic Universe” discusses this topic at length and explains why music from Marvel movies in particular is so unmemorable. There is a lowest common denominator – an expected set of musical moments that do not challenge the mind. Sad moments have high pitched orchestra notes, moments of triumph have large crescendos, and if there’s

a chase scene, I’d be willing to bet you there is a fierce drum rhythm backing it. Because we have heard these clichés so often, the mind doesn’t even recognize them.

Any aspect of film can go unnoticed.

Most modern movies have effective but uninteresting lighting, a not-thought-out color scheme and, of course, music that exists solely in the background. But sometimes a movie hits you, challenging everything you know about the technical aspects of film. Wes Anderson makes sure you notice his pastel color schemes. The dark and colorful tone of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is so palpable you can almost feel it. And John Powell makes his music a key player in the How to Train Your Dragon series. In the moments when I listen to his music on the sidewalk in-between classes, I can’t help but feel what the characters felt in the moment: invincibility, happiness, and love.

Nicole Fegan staff writer

Doris Liou

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Horror During Wartime I am fascinated by the horror genre. I read scary stories, watch horror films, and listen to creepy podcasts. My favorite works in this genre don’t just thrill me. They also rattle my mind and push me to grapple with heavy questions about human nature: about how humans react to threat or danger, or about how humans can be capable of committing horrific actions.

This is why Babak Anvari’s 2016 film Under the Shadow is among my favorites in the genre. The movie tells the story of a family living in post-revolution Iran during the IranIraq War in the 1980s. Shideh (Narges Rashidi), her husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi), and their daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) have to grapple with the conditions of these chaotic times. Shideh is prohibited from resuming her medical studies at the university because of her political activities during the revolution, and this causes her to worry about her uncertain future. While at home, alarms for bombings often go off, causing the family and their neighbors in the apartment building to rush to the lowest level of the building for safety. Rumours spread about missile strikes targeting Tehran, where the family lives. One character explains that alarms would not be able to provide warnings for missile strikes fast enough. Soon, Iraj is drafted and must serve in an area where the fighting is heavy, leaving Shideh and Dorsa.

The film’s atmosphere is already tense, ominous, and filled with dread. In these early scenes, the foreboding music expresses to us viewers that we are watching a horror film, but we do not see the typical figures associat-

8 Thoughts on Babak Anvarir’s Film “Under the Shadow”

ed with the horror genre, such as ghosts and creepy creatures, in the first act. The movie instead takes its time to show the terror and anxiety civilians face during wartime, suggesting that the dangers of war and the uncertainties of the future are frightening enough for the movie to be a horror film. This reminds us of an important lesson: Human beings are capable of doing horrible things.

Monstrosity is not reserved for supernatural beings. To me, this reminder of humans’ capacity for committing atrocities is real horror. Thus, the title, Under the Shadow, on one level, refers to the looming threat of harm during wartime. During war, lives are destroyed, families are torn apart, towns and cities are reduced to rubble, and the people who survive suffer from trauma and often also have to bear horrible injuries. These dangers cast a shadow over all of the characters in the movie.

But, after the film’s first act, supernatural occurrences begin. And the tension and terror only escalate from there.

Something significant happens at the apartment building, after which it is believed that djinn have arrived to haunt the place.

A little bit of background info: According to Encyclopedia Britannica, djinn are supernatural beings from Arabian mythology. Djinn are also mentioned in the Qur’an and are featured in works such as The Thousand and One Nights. As someone who heard stories of djinn during his childhood, I thought it was awesome seeing djinn included in a horror movie. Because I was familiar with tales about these beings, I felt a deep-rooted fear

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They had a car The kid Same housing group The cute couple name your friends gave you You’re Leo and they’re Libra They had a single They took you for a ride on their big green tractor You lived on the same bench in the CIT You agreed to meet in Vienna in six months Their roommate was cute

during parts of the movie. But this does not mean that familiarity with djinn is required for the film to be scary. For viewers unfamiliar with these figures, the supernatural threats perhaps become more ominous than they are for viewers who know about djinn. Also, the movie does an excellent job of explaining djinn just enough for the plot to make sense without diminishing the eeriness and mystery surrounding the paranormal beings.

While Shideh and Dorsa try to grapple with the supernatural horror that has invaded their home, the real-life horrors do not cease. The bombing alarms still go off. By placing real-life and supernatural horrors side-by-side, the film diminishes neither. Instead, the movie pushes us viewers to contend with questions about danger and safety. Where can the film’s characters find safety? During one powerful scene, Shideh and Dorsa flee their home in the middle of the night due to supernatural occurrences there, only to find a real-life threat on the streets outside. The film’s inclusion of supernatural phenomena also adds other layers of meaning. In my interpretation of the film, the djinn have metaphorical resonances related to the experiences of people during times of crisis.

Execution is key for a horror film. A scare can fall flat if it’s poorly shot, or it can feel cheap if there is not enough tension or suspense leading up to it. I remember one horror film I saw one or two years ago that was so poorly executed, it was not scary or suspenseful at all. There was no tension. There was no terror. The entire movie was just a series of

grotesque images and off-putting scenes.

Under the Shadow is the exact opposite of that poorly-made horror film. It is skillfully executed. The camera angles keep me on the edge as I anticipate what might or might not appear in the background of a shot. When the camera shifts during certain scenes, I feel scared about what might be lurking just beyond the frame. Furthermore, Anvari’s script fleshes out the characters very well.

They are flawed and complex and immensely sympathetic. The performances from all the actors are excellent. The characters feel like real people, and while watching, I was deeply invested in their struggles.

Under the Shadow is both scary and meaningful. It is currently available to stream on Netflix. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a compelling movie to watch at home, as well as to fellow fans of the horror genre.

Ameer Mailk staff writer

Ruth Han

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