The College Hill Independent — Vol. 46 Issue 1

the

Volume

46

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10 February 2023

03 REMAINS, UNRETURNED 08 PREOCCUPATIONS & REVELATIONS 11 MOSHI CAPITALISM

THE RECALCITRANT ISSUE

* The College Hill Independent

46 01 02.10

This Issue 00 “REFLECTION ON ME” Olivia Springberg

02 WEEK IN EATING POETRY Eva Kappas

03 REMAINS, UNRETURNED Keelin Gaughan & Sacha Sloan

06 “PAL OF MINE” Charlie Medeiros

07 ON RESTING IN THE KITCHEN Abani Neferkara

08 ON STAYING HOME Jane Wang

09 SUNSHINE TEN TIMES OVER Jesse Gallant

11 MOSHI CAPITALISM Angela Qian

14 ANIMATION FOR ZOETROPE Sam Stewart

15 DIAMOND OF THE SEASON Navya Sahay

Masthead* MANAGING EDITORS Zachary Braner Lucia Kan-Sperling Ella Spungen WEEK IN REVIEW Karlos Bautista Morgan Varnado ARTS Kian Braulik Corinne Leong Charlie Medeiros EPHEMERA Ayça Ülgen Livia Weiner FEATURES MadelineCanfield Jane Wang LITERARY Ryan Chuang Evan Donnachie Anabelle Johnston METRO Mark Buckley Jack Doughty Rose Houglet Sacha Sloan SCIENCE + TECH Eric Guo Angela Qian Katherine Xiong WORLD Everest Maya-Tudor Lily Seltz X Claire Chasse DEAR INDY Annie Stein

17 VALENTINE’S DAY RIDDLES

BULLETIN BOARD SofiaBarnett Kayla Morrison

18 HE’S JUST NOT THAT INDIE YOU

SENIOR EDITORS Sage Jennings Anabelle Johnston Corinne Leong Isaac McKenna Sacha Sloan Jane Wang

Alyscia Batista & Anna Wang Annie Stein

19 BULLETIN

From the Editors

STAFF WRITERS Tanvi Anand Cecilia Barron Graciela Bautista Mariana Fajnzylber Saraphina Forman Keelin Gaughan Sarah Goldman Jonathan Green Sarah Holloway Anushka Kataruka Roza Kavak Nicole Konecke Cameron Leo Abani Neferkara Justin Scheer Julia Vaz Kathy/Siqi Wang Madeleine Young COPY CHIEF Addie Allen COPY EDITORS / FACT-CHECKERS Qiaoying Chen Veronica Dickstein Eleanor Dushin Aidan Harbison Doren Hsiao-Wecksler Jasmine Li Rebecca Martin-Welp Kabir Narayanan Eleanor Peters Angelina Rios-Galindo Taleen Sample Angela Sha Jean Wanlass Michelle Yuan DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Angela Lian SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM Kian Braulik Angela Lian Natalie Mitchell Chinmayi Rajaram WEB MANAGER Isaac McKenna WEB EDITORS Hadley Dalton Arman Deendar Ash Ma GAMEMAKERS Alyscia Batista Anna Wang

COVER COORDINATOR Zora Gamberg DESIGN EDITORS Anna Brinkhuis Sam Stewart DESIGNERS Nicole Ban Brianna Cheng Ri Choi Ashley Guo Kira Held Xinyu/Sara Hu Gina Kang Amy/Youjin Lim Andrew Liu Ash Ma Jaesun Myung Tanya Qu Zoe Rudolph-Larrea Floria Tsui Anna Wang ILLUSTRATION EDITORS Sophie Foulkes Izzy Roth-Dishy ILLUSTRATORS Sylvie Bartusek Lucy Carpenter Bethenie Carriaga Julia/Shuo Yun Cheng Avanee Dalmia Michelle Ding Nicholas Edwards Jameson Enriquez Lillyanne Fisher Haimeng Ge Jacob Gong Ned Kennedy Elisa Kim Sarosh Nadeem Hannah Park Luca Suarez Yanning Sun Anna Wang Camilla Watson Iris Wright Nor Wu Celine Yeh Jane Zhou MVP Metro <3 — The College Hill Independent is printed

by TCI in Seekonk, MA

*Our Beloved Staff

Inthelate20s,I’dkickoreachwintermorningbywhippingbackmy curtains, hoping to conjure snow on rooftops. Every third week or so, there it was: proof of my psychic capacities. I fear now that my powers are waning. In negative degrees, I stir soup (heavy on the dill) with my roommates and pretend there’s something besides wind to trek through The College Hill Independent is a Providence-based publication written, illustrated, out there. I write in circles around February, but at the center of it all is and edited by students from Brown University and the Rhode Island School Conmag,itssurplusandyetinsuqcientseatingmarvelouslyidenticaldesigned, to of Design.

Our paper is distributed throughout the East Side, Downtown, and online. The howIfirstfounditthreeyearsago.Seasonalrhythmsmayfail,buthere Indy also functions as an open, leftist, consciousness-raising workshop for writers and we are, again. -ES artists, and from this collaborative space we publish 20 pages of politically-engaged and thoughtful content once a week. We want to create work that is generative for and Today I’d rather dream of mild afternoons 12,000 years ago. A two-ton accountable to the Providence community—a commitment that needs consistent and armadillo lumbering around. The four fossilized skulls of Doedicurus persistent attention. that researchers in South America have found were caved in; they think While the Indy is predominantly financed by Brown, we independently fundraise to humans stunned the Volkswagen Beetle-sized creatures with hard blows support a stipend program to compensate staff who need financial support, which to the head before they rushed in and tipped them over. They may have the University refuses to provide. Beyond making both the spaces we occupy and the sheltered in the cavernous carapaces when the weather turned ugly. When creation process more accessible, we must also work to make our writing legible and Providence gets too cold, I follow a long path made by a tree-trunk-sized relevant to our readers. tailthroughanancientmeadowandfindthelivingdomemunchingits The Indy strives to disrupt dominant narratives of power. due. -ZB We reject content that perpetuates homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, misogyny, ableism and/or classism. We aim to Earlythismorning,stillhalf-asleep,comingoranightofunsettling produce work that is abolitionist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, dreams (spilled printer ink, syntactical errors, a mysterious chill spreading and anti-imperialist, and we want to generate spaces for through Conmag...), I saw a shadow near my dresser, somewhere between radical thought, care, and futures. Though these lists are not piles of winter clothing and my stack of new books. It faced me in what I exhaustive, we challenge each other to be intentional and selfimagined was a sort of benevolent greeting. Hours later, I found a photo critical within and beyond the workshop setting, and to find in my camera roll I have no memory of taking: Today, 07:39. View from beauty and sustenance in creating and working together. my bed. Empty room: dresser, sweaters, books. I’ve never been haunted

Mission Statement

before. I think he’s my special Indy ghost. I think he’s friendly. Wish me luck! Happy Valentine’s Day <3 -LKS

01

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

Letters to the editor are welcome; scan the QR code here or email us at theindy@gmail.com!

WEEK IN REVIEW

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.

There is no happiness like mine.

I have been eating poetry.

-Mark Strand

WEEK IN EATING POETRY APPETIZER:

through the heart / it will weep blood. / Treat it delicately with respect.” And in exquisite It’s thirty minutes before the performance and mourning, Sherba plucks notes on the viola in the devourers and devout are already trickling Danzas Latino Americanas. These singular globes in. They populate the pews: gunmetal hair; of sound echo like knocks on doors, steps earth-tonedscarvesandhats;purerjackets, pattering L.L. up dark stairs, drops of lemon essence Bean; the occasional cane and vest; two berets. detonating on a wooden tabletop.

From the pew in front of me, I hear people asking each other’s names; I gather that some of them SECOND COURSE: have been coming to these performances for What does one expect when invited to dine on twenty years. Almost 70 people have arrived The harmonica improvisations of Turner have poetry? Lustrous clamshells leaking lyrics? A before Turner takes a deep breath and jubilantly sizzled with the attitude of spices. The tender sandwich of chewy syllables and soft lettuce releases, “From the doorsill of heaven comes the spoken word poetry constituted the meat of letters? Salmon stanzas steeped in a broth of word: WELCOME!” the performance. Now, the string duet and thoughts and sprinkled with zested verse?

“Welcome!” the performers repeat one trio provide the thick-cut bread of this meal.

This week, instead of submitting myself to by one. Then Turner launches into a fervid, Traditional and spongy, the melodies of Mozart the whims of the dining hall gods, I’ve decided passionately seasoned solo, wielding his and José Elizondo rise under the strings of to feed my soul. At 4 p.m., the hour of sustenance harmonica with an expertise I have never Sherba, Alexey Shabalin on the violin, and for the disorganized, I embark on a profound witnessed. The harmony shakes and trembles; Emmanuel Feldman on the cello. In Serenade in C culinary journey to discover if I, like a starving notes pop like onions in a pan. His hands major, Op. 10, the high violin of Shabalin stands artist, can substitute art for protein. contort like he’s producing complicated bird out, skipping along golden scales, leading the What’s on the menu? Eating Poetry by the calls, and despite the dangerous freedom that piece to climaxes and then dissolving them into Aurea Ensemble, a Providence-based group of improvisation provides, his refrains repeat, small cubes of notes that melt in the mouth. fivemusicians,orators,andharmonicaplayers. unwinding and zipping back up. Loud as a The cello plucks a steady march as violin and They promise a performance that blends “the trumpet, warbling like a jazz solo, the piece viola twine together. Fingers dart over strings absolute essentialness of art, from ancient times climbs up and back down, at times squawking with streamlined, oiled dexterity; heads tilt in and distant cultures to the present and their like a golden-beaked duck, at others, lowering tandem with the saw of bows. The music ripples great overarching connections,” as my dinner and warping into an alien echo that calls to in the air like a ribbon undulating. As a previous invitation—aflierstapledtoabulletinmind board— underground raves. Better than any EDM participant in a quartet whose performances proclaims. In practice, this consists of a 30-piece DJ,Turnerexpandsandsurocateshissound, had the quality of a slow-motion landslide, I am lineup alternating between authoritative, stretching the last harmonic echoes into the air impressed. Both duet and trio are a soothing compelling poetry readings and a spirited like a note bellowed through picture of mastery on the altar, tapestry-framed, harmonica improvisation or a classical string a horn. Then, without a tableau of intelligent and liquid instrument piece. hesitation, Turner movements.

As neither a music critic (unfortunately, inhales once deeply Spotify labeled me as a “Top Charter” this and turns to his DESSERT: year) nor a gastronomist, I enter St. Martin’s firstreading: Episcopal Church through the side door and “Why did they The last note shivers triumphantly; end up directly next to the altar. A warm voice shut me out we drink it up until the bowl of the rosins the air; Nigel Gore, award-winning actor of heaven? arched ceiling is emptied of sound. and Pawtucket native, pauses his practicing and Did I play too Parishioners rise in applause. Next behind him, a harmonica strikes up a melody, loud?” Candor and to me, a woman in an orange jacket tune swelling like a sea shanty. The inside of the reflectionreign moves to speak with the cellist. A church is warm brown wood and arching stones. in his kingdom of violist herself, she has been coming Candelabras and gold-threaded tapestries gild poetic delivery. for years, she tells me, which seems to the walls behind the performers. Consuelo be the norm. Was her appetite for poetry Sherba, violist and artistic director of Aurea, FIRST COURSE: satisfiedtonight?Sheshares:“Ilovetheway tunes her instrument, while next to the pulpit, the literature and the music was woven together.

Chris Turner, the tweed-jacketed and necktied But as Sherba tells me, “it’s not a funny program, And it was with music that came from so many harmonica virtuoso, pulls a green brush through necessarily…it’s about life, basically. It does have deep sources.” And about the harmonica? “I’ve his surprisingly full silver hair. a trajectory; I feel it makes sense. You hear the heard [Turner] play for a number of years,” she Sitting in the pew, strings straining melodic words repeating. You’ll hear something repeat says, smiling. “Every time I hear him play I just arcs up through the ceiling, I wonder how to laterinadirerentpoem,inadirerentguise. feel ” so hopeful, and so happy, like there’s hope translate the waves of silver sound into words.

Into the soaring harmonica improvisations for the future.”

Upon receiving my invitation to dine, I had and reverberating string pieces, notes of red, of Cue immediate seizure of harmonica, skimmed over Aurea’s motivations, unconcerned longing and stillness, of ink bleeding joyfully frenzied and jumping, launching us from our by the prospect of establishing the connection from mouths, seep like syrup into a sponge. As place in the church back out into the night. between music and language which constitutes Turner reads, we see a daughter become a night Strung together like a necklace of pomegranate the group’s secret spice. Now, faced with the woman of sharp taste. Life evaporates like an seeds, we reenter the world, glazed in melodies, challengemyself,Irealizethediqcultyandessence. The afternoon arrives mournful and sated with words. nobility of their goal. How to describe a melody? dusty. When Gore picks up the poetry, Turner How to describe a soup of notes, thinning and returns to his instrument, harmonica blooming thickening, spilling over the edge of the pulpit and retreating back into silence beneath the ILLUSTRATION JANE ZHOU andfloatinglightly,aromatically,toourears? voice imploring, “Don’t gossip about my dreams!

DESIGN ANDREW LIU I had arrived cloistered in earbuds with tinny Without them, how could I admire you?” Rather TEXT EVA KAPPAS speakers. Now, in contrast, the living presence of than rendering them cliché, the sincerity and the music in the room is palpable and palatable: viscerality of the readings establish a connection full-bodied instruments, strings and curves, a between art and sustenance, consumption and stream of sound that gushes thick like molasses. emotion, the immersion that “eating poetry” I’d forgotten music could be cooked up and entails. Gore reads from How to Cut a Pomegranate served in front of you.

by Imtiaz Dharker: “Never cut a pomegranate

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METRO

REMAINS, UNRETURNED

TEXT KEELIN GAUGHAN & SACHA SLOAN

DESIGN AMY LIM

ILLUSTRATION SOPHIE FOULKES

NARRAGANSETT INDIAN TRIBE WAS CHRONICALLY EXCLUDED FROM HAFFENREFFER’S REPATRIATION PROCESS, TRIBAL OFFICIAL SAYS

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content warning: historical violence and Indigenous erasure

legislation was passed, the nation’s most prominent museums and universities have failed to return the remains of over 100,000 people, The late Narragansett ethnohistorian Ella +++ according to a database published in January by Sekatau, mother of John Brown, taught native nonprofitnewsroomProPublica. studies at Plimoth Patuxet’s 17th-century homeSimmons is one of a long line of Brown Today,theHarenrererMuseumcontains site. She had built the recreated Narragansett University anthropologists who have had an unknown amount of Native American village from memory, constructing the wigwams ties with and published research on the remains. Professor Robert Preucel, director of and vegetable gardens that today line the centulocal Narragansett tribe. The university’s theHarenrererMuseum,toldIndy the that the ries-old oaks. These days, John Brown, 64, is ownHarenrererMuseumofAnthropology museum is in possession of “10 Narragansett the Tribal Medicine Man and the founder and was named for one of these men, Rudolf F. ancestors [human remains] and 24 associated headoftheOqceofHistoricPreservationof Harenrerer the Jr.BuiltonMountHopeinwhat funerary objects.”

Narragansett Indian Tribe. isnowthetownofBristol,theHarenrerer According to the ProPublica database, which Upon returning from school one afternoon in MuseumatfirstexhibitedonlyHarenrerer aggregates institution-reported public records, 1974, Mr. Brown told the College Hill Independent, Jr.’s ethnographic collections. After his death in theHarenrererMuseumisstillinpossession he walked past his mother’s workstation and the1950s,theHarenrererfamilydonatedthe of at least 99 Native American remains. This encountered a man on his knees before her. The museum and its contents to Brown University— number includes the 10 remains that Preucel strangerwas“genuflectingandrollingaround in direct opposition to the demands of the mentioned;thissubsetiswhattheHarenrerer on the ground,” claiming that spirits were after Indigenous community. “made available for return” in a Notice of him. Mr. Brown grabbed hold of a large stick, but The Native American Graves Protection and InventoryCompletionfiledwiththegovernment when she saw her son, Dr. Sekatau just held up Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), passed in 1990, in 2018. Under NAGPRA, when an institution her hand. provided a framework for federally-funded instimakes items “available for return,” it is supposed That man—former Brown University Provost tutionstoerectivelyrepatriateNative toAmerican meanthattheinstitutionhas-filedaninven William S. Simmons—stood up and shook Mr. cultural items to their lineal descendants. But tory notice that viably associates the listed items Brown’s hand before introducing himself. “From three decades after this landmark human rights withspecificIndigenouscommunities.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

the instant I saw that man,” Brown said, “I never liked him.”

METRO

But this bureaucratic process doesn’t always asked for Mr. Brown’s “advice on how best to telling anybody anything about us.” result in a successful repatriation. “Made availproceed” with the “NAGPRA case,” which had Later in his life, Mr. Brown said he met able?” Mr. Brown said. “I’ve never seen them.” been open since 2018. But Mr. Brown told the Simmons again, when he was an administrator, And the numbers presented by the ProPublica Indy that he missed the email in his packed inhisuniversityoqce.“Iaskedhimwhenhewas tool are, at best, a minimum estimate, as some inbox, and Mr. Preucel did not follow up. going to do the right thing,” Mr. Brown said. “He institutions have failed to report remains in their “Because we received no response to either thought it was funny.” possession. communication,” Mr. Preucel wrote in an email “[Simmons] was a thief, a liar, a purveyor of “Who knows where the rest of the bones to the Indy, “our understanding was that they falsities, a prevaricator, and a robber of graves,” are,Cora ” Peirce,afieldinvestigatorforMr. were not yet ready to proceed.” he continued. “That’s the man that Thierry Brown’soqceandamemberofthePocasset After receiving a list of questions from Gentis and Russell Carey and all those other Wampanoag Tribe of Massachusetts and Rhode the Indy this week, Mr. Preucel reached out people followed. I don’t have a golden review for Island, told the Indy. toMr.Browntoapologizeandreaqrmthe menwhodothatkindofsturandthenlieabout Asked about the estimated 90 percent Harenrerer’sdesiretomeetwithhim. it. But they were shielded by the power and the of Native American human remains that the Brown University has repatriated items to prestige of Brown University.”

Harenrererhasstillnot“madeavailable”other for tribes. For example, in February 2022, Mr. NAGPRA was intended to compel instirepatriation, Mr. Preucel said, “I don’t know why Gentisfileda“NoticeofIntenttoRepatriate tutions to repatriate their stolen belongings they frame it that way because that’s not correct, CulturalItems”thatdescribedtheHarenrerer in consultation with Native American tribes. at least in our case. We are happy to repatriate Museum’s successful consultation over a Butthelegislation’sbiggestflawisthat and are working right now to repatriate all of our “catlinite pipe bowl and wood pipe” with the museums and academic institutions have the Native American human remains.”

Stockbridge-Munsee Community of Shawano finalauthorityto“decideculturalaqliation,” But John Brown told the Indy that Thierry County, Wisconsin.

Dr. Donna Rae Gould—the Nipmuc Nation of Gentis,theHarenrererMuseum’sheadcurator Massachusetts’s repatriation representative and and NAGPRA coordinator, has refused to executive director of Brown University’s Native meet with Mr. Brown for nearly three decades.

American and Indigenous Studies Initiative— Apart from an attempted consultation in the told the Indy in an email. mid-90s that Mr. Brown left in frustration “Too many institutions have used this to after 15 minutes, Mr. Brown says he has “had determine that ancestors are ‘culturally unidenno meaningful contact with anyone” from the tifiable’toresistrepatriation,she ” wrote.“Inmy Harenrerer.Healsosaidthathewasunaware opinion, this was the biggest compromise made of the 2018 inventory notice, and was never when the Act was initially passed in 1990.” consulted—despite the notice’s claim that its NAGPRA’s verbiage provides institutions inventory was made “in consultation with reprewith a rationalization for keeping remains and sentatives of the Narragansett Indian Tribe.” cultural items on the shelves. Institutions are Mr. Gentis declined to comment for this not required to begin the repatriation process article, instead referring the Indy to Mr. Preucel. for collections designated as “culturally Mr. Preucel told the Indy in an email that unidentifiable.”

Thierry Gentis “consulted with Mr. Brown” at “multiple points in the years prior to publi+++ cation” of the 2018 inventory notice. But Mr. Preucel declined to provide evidence of these NAGPRA’s deference to institutional decipre-publicationconsultations,citing confidenti sion-making also means that the institutions ality requirements he said are part of the invenalonedetermineaqliationwhenconflicting tories section of NAGPRA (an Indy review of the +++ claims arise. In multiple interviews with the statutefoundnoconfidentialityrequirementfor Indy, Mr. Brown alleged that Brown University private institutions).

William Simmons, who died in 2018, was a pillar has relied on counterclaims from groups with no However, Mr. Preucel did provide the Indy of Brown University: once an undergraduate, he credibleconnectiontoitemsintheHarenrerer withtwoemailsfromtheHarenrerer:onesent eventually became an anthropology professor, in order to delay repatriation. By creating a to Narragansett Tribe Chief Sachem Anthony a department chair, and even a provost and conflictofinterest,hesaid,certainremainsand Dean Stanton in September 2018, and the other executive vice president. He earned his master’s objectscanbeheldindefinitelyinthemuseum’s senttoJohnBrowninOctoberThe 201. first and doctoral degrees from Harvard University in collection. email,sentbyMr.Gentistwodaysafterhefiled the 1960s, centering his research on the Native The university’s acceptance of such countheinventorynotice,brieflynotifiedthechief American communities of New England. His terclaimsisalsobeneficialtothegroupsbecaus ofthefilingandoreredMr.Gentis’sphone 1989 book, The Narragansett (Indians of North the badge of institutional recognition can make number. Half an hour later, an email sent from America), was celebrated as an accomplishment it easier to obtain land trusts from the state, Mr. ChiefStanton’saccountacknowledgedthe in filing, anthropology and historical scholarship. The Brown suggested. “They served one another’s though Mr. Brown told the Indy that the chief information used to write his book largely came purpose.” does not remember sending this email. from the Narragansett people themselves— Harenrereranthropologists“helpedcreate The second email, sent by Mr. Preucel to Mr. specifically,JohnBrown’sfamily. these people,” he said. “They gave them life Brown, thanked him for meeting with Brown “He took that knowledge from my mother and gave them substance. If they were a historic University’s land acknowledgment group, and put it in his book,” Mr. Brown said. “It Indian tribe, we would have backed them. But expressed hope for future collaborations, and became his knowledge. By that time, we stopped

“Too many institutions have used this to determine that ancestors are ‘culturally unidentifiable’ to resist repatriation,” she wrote. “In my opinion, this was the biggest compromise made when the Act was initially passed in 1990.”

-Dr. Donna Rae Gould

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METRO ILLUSTRATION SOPHIE FOULKES DESIGN AMY LIM TEXT KEELIN GAUGHAN & SACHA SLOAN 05

“

I’VE YET TO SEE AN ARCHAEOLOGIST OR ANTHROPOLOGIST OR SO-CALLED HISTORIAN HAVE MORE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE TRIBAL PEOPLE IN THIS AREA THAN THE TRIBAL PEOPLE IN THIS AREA. - JOHN BROWN

”

they are people of unknown origin. Why do Asked about the decades-long delay in in order to disregard and discredit the rights of people want to be tribal or Indigenous when attempting to reach Mr. Brown, Mr. Preucel told Indigenous people. they’re not?” Mr. Brown believes the university the Indy that the repatriation process has been This past year, in response to feedback isawareofthefictitiousnatureofsomeofthese stalledbystaqngissuesattheHarenrerer from numerous Indigenous communities, the claims. “They would have to be. Brown is this Museum. Currently, Thierry Gentis acts as both Department of the Interior proposed a series of institution of great learning. You mean to tell me the NAGPRA coordinator and head curator, revisions to streamline the repatriation process. they don’t know the law? Or the history? There’s limiting the time he can spend on repatriation These revisions would prompt more transparno history there. None.” work, Mr. Preucel said. (On the federal level, ency from institutions about their collections Mr. Preucel did not respond to questions theU.S.Congressneversuqcientlyfundedthe and emphasize Indigenous groups as the authorabout the counter-claims. “We greatly value our oqceresponsibleforoverseeingNAGPRA’s ities on cultural heritage. relationship with the Narragansett Tribe,” he implementation.) said. “We remain ready and eager to work with “We are hoping to make another hire,” Mr. +++ the tribe to complete repatriation.”

Preucel continued. “I am speaking to the adminWhat’s more, Mr. Brown explained, instiistration right now as we speak.” He added Thevisibilityofrepatriationerortsintherec tutionsdeterminingculturalaqliation that often the university has hired a consultant, Jan past has helped expose the violent history of consult item catalogs that are based on skewed Bernstein, of the Colorado-based NAGPRA some of the country’s most powerful and presmethodologies.Documentedrecordsreflect consulting a firmBernsteinAssociates, & tohelp tigious institutions. “This is less about recoglargely European colonial perspective, leaving guide the process of repatriation. According nizing or understanding heritage as it is about out oral histories and archaeological links used toitswebsite,BernsteinAssociates & in201recognizing human rights violations,” said Dr.

by Indigenous communities. “The catalogs are worked with the University of California, Rae Gould. arbitrary,” Mr. Brown said. “I’ve yet to see an Berkeley, which has yet to return at least 9,000 TheHarenrerer’srelationshipwiththe archaeologist or anthropologist or so-called Native American human remains, as well as over Narragansett community serves as a reminder historian have more knowledge about the tribal 200,000 associated funerary objects, according to that museums and academic institutions are not people in this area than the tribal people in this the ProPublica database. neutral. The desecration of Indigenous people’s area.” resting places has created a deep cultural pain The Ivy League as a whole is built upon lega+++ that will only continue until the foundations of cies of stolen land and stolen labor; Mr. Brown these institutions are rewritten. reflectedontheproclaimed‘civilizing’logic In the of state of Rhode Island, there is no admin“We are a patient people,” Mr. Brown said. higher education that was designed not only istrative or legislative process for the acknowl“We were here when the people came over and to educate but to institutionalize Indigenous edgment of historical Indigenous tribes. The last we’ll be here when they leave.” people. The erasure of Indigenous identities and piece of legislation referencing tribal recognition dispossession of Native American land has been was passed in 1983, when the Narragansett +++ continually perpetuated and protected under the Indian Tribe received federal recognition and veil of academia. The lack of action on Brown began working to claim their land under a trust.

This story comprises the preliminary results of an University’s part to acknowledge this history In 2007, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ongoing Indy investigation into the relationship belies its proclaimed commitment to “strengthruledthattheBureauofIndianArairscould between Brown University and the Narragansett Indian ening relationships with Indigenous peoples of place a 31-acre parcel of land in trust for the Tribe. We expect to report further on this topic in the this region,” as stated in the university’s 2022 Narragansett nation. In response, the state future.

Land Acknowledgement Commitments. of Rhode Island sued the Department of the In a statement, the student organization Interior, seeking to maintain control of these KEELIN GAUGHAN B’25 doesn’t want to Natives@Brown said they “support the ongoing tribal lands—and lost. Indigenous commubecome part of the problem. erortsbytheNarragansettTribe.” nities around the country had supported the “Invariably, this work doesn’t change,” Mr. Narragansett’s acquisition of the land trust; SACHA SLOAN B’23.5 hopes for a stronger, Brown said. “The people change. They retire, so thecourt’sdecisiontoaqrmIndigenousrights moreerectiveNAGPRA. forth. But the messaging and the methodology, under federal law was an important step in that has not changed.” reinterpreting statutory language to include native sovereignty. However, it also illuminated +++ the lengths to which state authorities will go

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

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home. We t n e w e w , k a Over the bre ced—and then we turned fa e confronted—w nd. Now we reflect on u nes right back aro in just left, the o ys a g a ve a h e w o alwa those wh ed us and are is ra d n a s u ve who lo occupied with re P . rn tu re to ch waiting for us s, we asked ea g in tt e s ld o f o time, new visions lations of this ve re te a id c lu e other to on the world d re te n e c ly b a it ones which inev question of home. In its e of family and th er remains elusive. sw absence, the an

FEATS

ON G N I T S RE IN THE N E H C KIT

ILLUSTRATION LUCA SUAREZ DESIGN ZOE RUDOLPH-LARREA TEXT ABANI NEFERKARA 07

REVELATIONS

S& N IO T A P U C C O PRE

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y mother cried in the kitchen, crumpling acne-faced the dish towel on the counter as quiet tears high school freshman snuck down her cheeks. I almost didn’t notice, before her eyes. Watching too busy placing each dish and utensil where they movies on a lazy Sunday, my mother and belonged among the shelves. The dishwasher I sinking into the couch side by side, she told me doorhungopen,stillhalffull—Ifilledthesilence she couldn’t stand the possibility of me being why, I felt like I could already understand. with a hug. Soon after, her tears faded to laughter bullied in school. How she worried when she Looking back, for most of my life it has been the and with the dishwasher empty, we loitered in sentmeortoPre-Ktofendformyselfallthosetwo of us. Her days were full of early morning the kitchen before saying goodnight. What stuck yearsago!Itcaughtmeorguardinbetweenthe starts and late nights packed with emails. with me nights later wasn’t what had upset her, lines of the Hallmark movie that droned on in Business trips pulled her far from home and but that she had let herself show it. the background. I never knew she had felt that even moved us abroad. A single mother, she had My mom has been a woman of composure way, a big smile and too many kisses on the to manage it all, manage herself, too. To lead for as long as I have known her. Her father was a cheek never betrayed her disquiet. Her excitethrough example, to keep composure, and, of militaryman,commandingoqcerofahouseof mentforeachoneofmyfirstdaysofschoolnever course, to shield her child from the hardships of eight. He showed kindness, but not weakness, dwindled, despite the unknowns. life. and I found my mother walking in his footsteps.

Fireworks bloomed in the night sky on New I’m sure that some part of my speculation is She plans ahead, arrives in advance, and is Year’s Eve. I had grown a bit more then, counting true, that she concealed those emotions in the seldom caught unprepared for the task at hand. down the days till I left for college. Our balcony way that every parent protects their child. In It’s the example she set for me, as it had been set felt like it hung in the air, frozen mid-fall with the kitchen, I believe, she let herself cry because for her. That composure also meant, when I was no start or end. It’s hard to say why the moment my childhood was ending. It really already has. young, she rarely let anything that bothered her felt timeless, with the new year looming to When I was young, it felt like everything would slip through. I hardly ever knew when she was symbolize the opposite. We found ourselves in last forever, but that illusion of permanence upset. Only after I was tucked into bed or on the a bubble, the hazy in-between of one year and wouldeventuallyslipthroughmyfingers,and bus to school, I imagine, would those tears show. another. Our faces, lit by bursts of shimmering naturally, my mother knew that as well. Those When I was newly born, as my mother light, peered out from behind that gap. moments of hiding her tears weren’t to protect cradled me in her arms, she gave me my name so There, my mother told me how she didn’t me from earth-shaking secrets or insurmountI would know that my history is more than what like to cry in front of me. That she wouldn’t show able struggles, things so scary they begged to they would tell me. That, in my mother’s dreams, it when she was upset or bothered, whether by be shut away. She hid her tears to prolong the when I met her 6th grade history teacher, I could bigthingsorsmall.Ididn’tgetitatfirst.Itold fleetingmomentofmychildhoodbliss,forjust cite my name and tell her that our history is so her there was no need, that of course I would a little bit longer. In the kitchen, standing at the much more than the period of enslavement. I wanttoknowifshewasupset.Thefireworks end of childhood, my mother’s head rests on my can only imagine how my mother worried when continued to fade in and out of existence as we shoulder as she cries. She rests from a struggle she held me. Looking back on all the world had watched, their distant drumming her only reply. inevitablylosttotime.Herbabyboy,whosefirst thrown at her, and how its eyes would now be My hands were going numb on the metal railing, tool she gave him to protect himself was a name, set on me. With me swaddled in a blanket under and when I went back inside to warm them, the now comforts her quietly. the dimmed lights of the hospital room, she felt a glareonthewindowshidthefireworksbehind sense of duty, as I imagine all parents do. the glass. They would be over soon anyway.

ABANI NEFERKARA B’24 wants to cry more Then, I grew up a little, shape-shifted into an In time, I felt like I didn’t need to ask her often.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

FEATS

DESIGN ZOE RUDOLPH-LARREA ILLUSTRATION LUCA SUAREZ

t’s an old revelation for a new year. The precursor is that I cried in the days leading up tomyflighthomebecauseIwasn’tsurewhat to expect when I got back. I had spent a long time thinking about my consumerist habits, my dreams, and the way my insatiability followed me everywhere, like it does us all. A few classic examples: At home, wanting to be anywhere else Anywhere else, missing the comforts of home Having bought the “last coat I would ever need,finding ” anotherone I arrived home feeling a lot of guilt and trepidation. My mother was angry with me, she thought I hadn’t been treating her well, I thought I was doing my best. I had tacked Applied Math, that last minute decision, onto my Literary Arts concentration, and I was ready to cut through my insurerablyhumanisticeducationwithconcerns revolving around numbers, things I didn’t really believe in, to turn my mother’s tireless erorts,heryouth,andheremotionalupheaval into things well spent. I knew she was unhappy with me, and I wasn’t ready to seek forgiveness without action.

Strangely, unexpectedly, on one of our routine morning runs, with the triangular formation of my mother at the head and my sister and I tailing, each footfall drummed into me the feeling that this little world containing my family had healed while I was gone. It was raining, and we stopped periodically on the way back to our house because the dandelions on the side of the road were in violent bloom, and my mother said that our pet rabbit enjoyed eating them, roots especially. This from the same mother who, in the months before I left, had developed a kind of jealousy complex regarding the rabbit, to whom shefeltmysisterandIoreredmorearection than we did her. We ordered Japanese for dinner, and my sister mentioned how they hadn’t eaten out since I went to school. “We should go to the mall before you leave,” my mother said. Of course they hadn’t been back there in the length of a semester.

I began to imagine myself as a black hole.

Craving restaurant food, clothing, understanding, closure, and always to leave, everything slipping down the gullet. The suitcase I packed for wintering the break was certainly enough for four weeks away from my new “school home,” but I was surprised, met with an entire forgotten wardrobe when I got back. Barely space in the closet for that coat and then the other. How had I accumulated so much, and how had it slid past me, and why, in my absence, had that accumulation slowed to a trickle, how had my mother and rise above into the annals of constellations. sister learned to love each other and the rabbit Each mistake was related. I wanted more, at the same time, and how had the morning runs thought I deserved more. Who was it that stopped being something my sister and I faked tricked me into believing there was more than my sickness to get out of and turned into a treasured mother, my sister, the home she cultivated for little meditation, from where did this harmony us, the dailiness, what we owed to each other? In descend, or resume? truth, the grandest thing I can give to anyone is “I’m trying,” I told my mother. my love. I owe her everything.

“It’s not about that,” she said. “What you I ran in circles around myself. This home owe me is love.” and then the “other.” In mornings, I woke up in That month was the most peaceful I had my old bed, a hallway away from the people who ever felt at home. After the breakdown on the love me even more than I love myself, who are firstnight,therewerenomorefights,onlysoftthinking of me always. I used to think that was requests—come to the grocery store with me? aburden,tobethoughtof.WhenIfirstleft,it shall we take a walk together?—and soft acquiput me into a sour mood to be reminded that my escence. I thought about what made this kind of sister wanted me to text her, that these relationassentsodiqcultbefore,whythepressureships ofa were to be maintained, “I have a problem schedule upended by a grocery outing had made with object permanence,” I said. How callous of mesoangryandresistant,whyIcouldn’tfindit me. in myself to call my mother during the months Now I am back at school. In the wee hours I was away unless impatiently prompted. I was onmyfirstnightback,Icriedagain.Iunpacked too busy cooking with friends, making schemes, and shifted my things from drawer to drawer, planning out my grandiose future where I would searching for the best way to position them, I

TEXT JANE WANG

I

ON STAYING HOME

wanted to approximate the love I felt when I firstunwrappedtheboxandcutorthetags.Or the love from down that hall. I couldn’t sleep, so I turned the lights back on. My room in the apartment, its robin’s-egg walls that hold so little. I am mourning this distance from home, which is unlivable.

JANE WANG B’24 lives for love.

VOLUME 46 ISSUE 01

08

Sunshine Ten Times Over

TEXT JESSE GALLANT

DESIGN ASH MA

ILLUSTRATION NOR WU

LIT

content warning: death, abuse, alcoholism, family estrangement

09

I saw sunshine ten times over last week. It was while I was watching Shrek. I was sitting and watching Shrek and Donkey and the way they conquer the challenges and fall in love with the enemy—then all of a sudden my doorbell rang.

I brought the remote to my chin and pressed ortheboxwithmeandShrekandDonkey and their enemies inside. Around me hung my drapes and my droves of loose cables and dust.

I stood and began the walk to Door. I pushed through couches and grapes and Legos and photos. Door stood nervous but strong.

“Who’s there?” I asked.

“It’s the Salesman, Dave,” Door responded.

I peeked through the peephole and saw the Salesman who looked drowsy and heavy. He was a skinny man who was drowsy and heavy.

“Hello?” I asked through Door. There was no

pressed. She is okay. She’s older now with a “You sound upset Dave.” boyfriend and a job. A house and a dog also. I “YousoundfinetomeDave,Door ” rarely see her though. She must be doing okay. I whispered. saw her for her birthday—I went and surprised “Do you feel guilty Dave?” her at her apartment in the city. But that was “I’mfine.The ” Salesmancametomefive a few years ago now. Julia didn’t seem to need years ago presumably when he had heard of my much of a connection. That is probably best for troubles with Larry. Five years ago I was drunk her. I think that is best for her. Things did get and I was tired. And angry most of all. It was the hardforusafterLarrypassed.AtfirstIthought things must get easier—but I got distant. Julia grew up and I got distant and I rarely see her.

“Dave…don’t,” Door said calmly.

“How’s Julia, Dave?” the Salesman persisted.

“She’s okay.” I remember when Julia was a kid she would make Larry and me cookies.

Sometimes they were salty, and sometimes they were chocolatey, and sometimes they tasted of rosemary and time with wind in my hair as a kid on the beach with the warm sand on my hands.

“How old are you now Dave? You’re getting old, aren’t you Dave?” the Salesman prodded.

“Good Dave—keep him out.” Door reassured me.

“I’m 70.” Things have begun to slow down.

The long wait seems to be coming to an end. I didn’t want to think of it too much. I did think of it sometimes. All my memories taste so good and salty and wet and aged. I missed Larry and Julia. We used to be so nice and all together. In the warm sun on the ice skating rink in our cozy socks on the bed. In the cold winter months on thesledsinthegrassnexttothebutterfliesand the roses in our cozy socks on the bed. And the picnic blanket with my back on it with Larry’s head on my chest and Julia in my arm in our cozy socks on the bed. Watching Shrek in our cozy socks on the bed— “So a few more years left?” the Salesman asked. response. The Salesman looked up and through “Probably,” I said, with a hint of something the peephole and smiled at me with a wide smile. sour on my tongue.

His eyes were glossed over and wanting. His “Don’t give in, Dave,” Door said, still calm. teeth were yellow and brown. The Salesman Door knew this all. He’d known me so well ever picked up his heavy knuckle and knocked on since I was a kid. I remember him helping me Door. Door stood strong. with my Legos. He would help me put them “How are things going for you Dave?” the together and place them around. When I grew Salesman asked, staring through Door’s up he would help me organize the cables and peephole. sweep the dust. Door was here when I met “Thingsarefine,thankyou,I” responded.

Larry. Door was here when we had Julia. Door “It’s been a while, hasn’t it Dave,” the was here when she moved out. Door was here Salesman continued. “Five years?” when I would go out onto the porch and watch “Don’t let him in, Dave,” Door whispered. thesailboatsandnewspaperswithacoreein “Five years. Yes.” hand. Feeling the wind on my skin and the sun “Can I come in?” in my hair. But Door was also here for tigers all “Dave—do not,” Door whispered aggressively. between.

“Why are you here?” Door was right, I didn’t Door was here when Larry grew twisted and want the Salesman to come in. He is always up to began to grumble. He was here when the roars something. grew too loud and the claws grew too sharp. He “I’m here to check in on you Dave.” was here when Julia grew up and got hurt and “He’s here to sell you something Dave—don’t cold. He was here when Julia left. He was here trust him,” Door said. when I was alone, on the porch, in the cold. And “I’mdoingfine—thankyou.I” amdoingfine. he would comfort me and tell me about how I took the dog on a walk yesterday. And I went Larry didn’t mean it. tothebakeryandhadacoreeontheporch.And I enjoyed it. I watched the sailboats wander the firsttimeIhadseenhimsinceIhadbeenateen. bay and I was calm. I felt the way it was when the When he knocked I was drunk and tired. wind and sun went through my hair and on my Door was asleep. I let him in and he had me skin.Iglancedatthenewspaperandhadacoree get a new product he was selling—he called it ontheporch.Iamdoingfine.

The Stroke. I wasn’t sure what it was but he said “How have things been since Larry?” the itwouldfixallmyproblems.Iwasdrunkand Salesman asked. Door looked at me worried. tired and angry. And the tigers all between were “Don’t let him in, Dave,” Door insisted roaring. Larry was asleep in our bed that I so quietly. He knew I would cave if I thought too rarely slept in. I so rarely slept. long about anything.

The next day, the doctors said, “It seems he “Thingshavebeenfine—thankyou.Things ” had a stroke while he slept. I am sorry for your have been okay. It was hard to fully move on but I loss.” usually don’t like to think about it.

I told them I was sorry—for the scratches “Is your kid doing okay Dave?” the Salesman and the bite marks, for the torn limbs and the

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

LIT

bones everywhere. I told them I was drunk and tired and that Door was asleep. I told them I was sorry and that I didn’t mean it.

“Strokes can happen to anyone at any time.”

The doctors reassured me it wasn’t my fault.

Door reassured me it wasn’t my fault—he said I was drunk and I was tired and he said that if he were awake he would have stayed closed.

I called Julia to tell her what had happened. I said he had a stroke and I said there was nothing I could have done and I said I was sorry and that I was tired and angry.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. She was always too young.

For a moment I thought my problems would go away and that things must get easier. But I got sober and I got sleep. Things got lonely. I grew

something. He can’t help himself.

“No thank you, I don’t have any money.” I did think about it for a minute. If it were free I might try it out. It couldn’t hurt. But it probably wasn’t free.

“Don’t trust him,” Door said to me.

“You really should take a look at these charts Dave. They have great numbers on them—it shows nothing but the unprecedented success of the Heart Attack. Patent pending.” Numbers are irrefutable. The last time I saw numbers was this morning when I was making myself a bowl of oatmeal. Door read the box and told me how much water and oats to pour in and how long to heat up the bowl. The numbers were irrefutable.

The oatmeal was delicious. “It is free, Dave. The Heart Attack doesn’t cost a penny.”

“Take a look at these charts with numbers on them.” The Salesman slid the charts with numbers on them under the door. I looked at the numbers. I couldn’t understand what was good about them. I looked at Door and whispered.

“I can’t tell if they’re good.”

“What do you mean? Let me see,” he whispered back. I turned the charts toward Door. He looked at the charts with a skeptical eye. He looked through them scrupulously. He was probably looking at the way they go up as time continues on. He was probably looking at how nearly all of them showed drastic improvements to dire problems. He was probably reading the key and the title and the axis. He was running calculations and analyzing the variables. After thinking about it for a long time he looked back at me. He stood strong but nervous.

“Those are good numbers. Dave these are good numbers,” Door reassured.

Door swung open to reveal the Salesman.

Grinning as always with a package now in his hand. There you are Dave. You look so old Dave. Here take the package. Take the package.

I reached out my hand and through Door’s frame and into the cold outside air. I looked past the Salesman and into the water and sailboats beyond. Into the world of the Salesman where nobody forgives you for anything ever. Not even Dave. My hand shuddered a bit as I reached toward the package containing the Heart Attack.

Patent pending.

My stomach thudded. The tigers roared. As I touched the package my heart threw itself into my lungs. I could feel teeth dig into my organs and I felt the claws tear at my limbs.

Itastedthecoreeandthesailboats.Isaw Shrek and Donkey on their adventures with the enemy. I saw Larry cold alone on our bed.

The tigers roared. I saw Julia beside my body, wondering where I went. I saw Door.

Door looked at me. We always knew we would share this moment at last with calm and peaceandpainfinallyendingforeverwithDoor and Dave at the frame of the world as a dusty pine tear dripped down his face. For one last time I held his hand and I closed my eyes and I saw sunshine ten times over.

JESSE GALLANT B’24 is just one great idea away from breaking even.

distant. Julia grew up.

“How is it free?” I inquired.

“You’refineDave.You arefine,Door ” reas “You really must look at these charts.” sured. It felt good that Door was so always There was silence as I stepped a bit away reassuring. from Door. I saw his face and he looked worried.

“Your problems have a solution Dave.”

“What?” I whispered to Door. He looked “I don’t have problems.” I don’t have probworried. lems. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a wife, I “Don’t cave Dave.” Door was worried. don’t have a husband. I don’t have problems. I “Do you know what it is?” haveahouseandaporchandacoreecup.Ihave “It doesn’t matter what it is. Just stay closed,” a nice view of the sailboats and the newspaper. I Door said to me, even though that was his job. also have Door. I really do not have problems.

He seemed to know what it was. Most of me “It’s a new thing they are calling a Heart knew not to. Part of me knew. But a growing Attack, Dave. Patent pending. Results are beyond most of me wanted it. It was free after all. belief.” Of course the Salesman was here to sell “What does it do?” I asked the Salesman.

VOLUME 46 ISSUE 01

10

S+T

MOSHI CAPITALISM

TEXT ANGELA QIAN

DESIGN SARA HU

ILLUSTRATION JULIA CHENG

Animated monsters, capitalist fantasy, and the strange exception at the heart of the Internet age

11

M

y Moshi Monster’s name is Diavlo. He ran on Adobe Flash Player, a software platform Most players who stayed until the end described enjoys Lady Gaga and steak, and his initially released in 1996 that delivered web, waiting in their carefully decorated houses until favorite Moshling is called Clickr. He audio, and interactive content on computers. a sudden goodbye message appeared from Roary isn’t doing so well, but he’s feeling hopeful; at When Flash was discontinued in 2020, all were Scrawl, editor of the in-game newspaper The least, that’s what he tells me when I log on. forced to shut down. And even though this Daily Growl, on December 13, 2019. The mesMoshi Monsters was a browser massiveshutdown happened long after most of these sage encouraged users to download the new ly multiplayer online role-playing game platforms’ heydays, many of these discontinuaMoshi apps, now widely considered to be failed (MMORPG) aimed at children ages 6-12, one of tions provoked mass outpourings of public grief attempts to convert the franchise from Web to many online worlds such as Webkinz, Club Penonline. The YouTube video titled “Club Penmobile. guin, and Pixie Hollowthatflourishedfromthe guin’s Final Minutes” has been viewed over 16 In fact, browser games in general were in late 2000s through the early 2010s. Users chose million times. The last minutes of Pixie Hollow decline long before Flash shut down: aside from between six monsters to customize and tend. were also recorded and uploaded to YouTube, requiringsignificantcapitaltobuild - andmain They could navigate Monstro City: a landscape amassingoverthousand 85 views.Usersflooded tain, mobile gaming was fast overtaking the of streets, beaches, candy mines, and islands thegame.Thescreenfilledwithspeechbubbles. browser as the most popular children’s enterpopulated by shops, games and other monsters.

Goodbye, and SAVE PIXIE HOLLOW, and I love tainment format. The children who made up They purchased items with Rox, the virtual you. I’m not ashamed to say, I cried watching this... the player base were growing older and leaving currency; collected Moshlings, in-game pets; read a comment. The music, the outfits, the speeches, the platform in droves. In 2013, Moshi Monsters’ and played games and story-based missions. the everything when all the fairies died, all at the same parent company Mind Candy reported that its They also interacted with each other by posting time, on September 21. revenues fell 34.8 percent from £46.9 million in messages on their bulletin boards, an early taste The demise of Moshi Monsters was not so the previous year to £30.6 million due to a drop of social media for children, and an enduring dramatic. Although the public was an important in online subscriptions and resource-intensive draw to the game. Members paid a monthly fee feature of the game, the streets of Monstro City attempts to develop mobile-friendly content. for access to exclusive goods, Moshlings, events, weren’t visually designed to contain everybody As the tablet replaced the computer, the age of map locations, and games. Lady Goo Goo, for at once. The environment has a two-dimenonline children’s worlds came to an end. example, was a members-only Moshling and sional shallowness, viewed straight on; avatars superstar baby.1 Her hit single “Peppy-razi” was may only exist along a single plane of the street. +++ featured in the Underground Disco, a mem(The view in Club Penguin, on the other hand, bers-onlyrhythmgamelocatedinsideanor- is from slightly above, adding depth and allowMy mom used to take me to the neighborhood map sewer nightclub (49 Pence’s “Catch a Pitch ing for more users to occupy a single screen.)

Jo-Ann’s every year to buy fabric for my Halor Try Cryin’” was also available to play). loween costumes. When it closed this year, I Between the years of 2008 and 2013, Moshi Monsters grew to over 80 million users 1 worldwide. In the UK, one in two children Lady Gaga successfully sued Mind Candy in 2011, banning played. Games like Moshi Monsters all Lady Goo Goo from releasing “Peppy-razi” on YouTube.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

S+T

encountered the disconcerting feeling of defato be frustratingly opaque, as no one had really tion the “purity” of the game, signaling that miliarized space, the onset of estrangement: the documented the process, and those directly even the most compelling returns to the past place I knew, the object in its truest form, was involved with the project and its small existare false. direrentfromtheplacethatnowexisted.ing We community were hard to reach. However, I +++ attended the closing sale. We walked around the found some commonly known approaches the store with a handful of other people—old ladies, team probably used.

Ten years before Moshi Monsters, another senanother mother-daughter pair, a family with One common method is to create a new sationally popular children’s game based on small kids—and felt a community with them, as versionoftheonlineworldusingadirerent pet collection and social interaction swept the if we were all scavengers descending upon the platform. Many fan rewrites are created using globe: Pokémon. Cultural anthropologist Anne same fallen animal. It was to be replaced by an a combination of HTML5, JavaScript, and other Allison argues for a postmodernist interpretaAldi. The store moved, suddenly, from reality actively developed and widely supported web tion of the Pokémon economic system, which to memory. It was disturbing to think that one technologies. In this context, HTML5 is used she calls “Pokémon capitalism.” This system is day—maybe soon—I might feel this way about as the markup language to display the webdefinedbyacorecontradiction:whileitsworld the entire world, and be lonely. site’s visuals, while JavaScript and other web relies on the logic of the noncapitalist “barter My discovery of Moshi Monsters Rewritten technologies are used to add interactivity and economy” (Pokémon trading), its objective is one (MMR) almost felt like a direct response to this animation. (The original Moshi Monsters ran on of acquisition and accumulation, and its relasense of loss elicited by the changing physical basic HTML and Adobe Flash Player.) MMR also tionship between player and Pokémon is charlandscape. Its antidote to the “lost-ness” was a usesthetoolNativefiertopackage - theweb acterized by the capitalist overtones of control, remarkable sense of “found-ness,” in the form site into a standalone desktop application. The dependence, and ownership. It also conforms to of a fan-rewritten reboot of my childhood world. development team of MMR most likely obtained a preexisting market economy—and yields the When I downloaded it, I was startled at how thenecessarydatatofillouttheonlineworld game’s corporate owners tremendous monetary true to the original it was. (The fan rewrite of by scraping (copying the data from) the game’s profits.

Pixie Hollow, by contrast, is extremely limited, originalfiles,whicharecurrentlyavailableto My term “Moshi capitalism,” then, deonly allowing for users to customize a fairy and downloadonlineasSWF(AdobeFlash)files. scribesthespecificformofcapitalistfantasy explore a single setting.) Down to the soundThis is where the legality of fan rewrites that arises when, under the legal conditions of a scape, MMR was an exact replica. The loading of defunct online worlds can be controversial. non-commercial fan rewrite, the game is forbidscreen features the Moshling Iggy chasing the While the information might be publicly availdenfrompursuinganyformofprofitincentive. cursor around, accompanied by a crisp, evocaable, the Moshi Monstersgamefilesarecopyright The Moshi world represents a dream economy tive chomp upon capture. The map locations— ed by Mind Candy. Rewrites usually circumvent where the goods are great (the Black Pearl of The Port, Ooh La Lane, Bleurgh Beach—blink this by ensuring that they are non-commercial the Potion Ocean! a tessellating silver egg! and with animation and interactive features: clicking projects created for the purpose of preserving a more), and, for an extended initial period, capon the monster hiding above an archway elicits piece of cultural heritage, and thus considered italiserectivelylimitless.Theuseofone-time a giggle and a wave. The Flash mini games in “fair use” under copyright law. Although MMR secret codes to reap Rox in large lump sums of theMoshiAmusementParkworkflawlessly. has collapsible ads in the desktop app, suggestup to 1,000 is encouraged. There’s even a list on It was just like stepping into an old dream. It ing that the project is generating revenue, it theoqcialwebsite.Ikeptthinkingthatthere struck me that even the absurdity of the Moshi might still be protected if the ads are being used must be something wrong: a mistake, or a catch. aesthetic—worms bursting out of the animatforapurposeotherthanfinancialgain—for It exfelt like I had discovered a get-rich-quick edteallake;Moshlingsbasedorofanillegible ample, if the revenue is put toward hosting the scheme that actually worked. The biggest obstamix of animals, objects, and shapes; a purple app or other costs related to the development cle in the game is luck—in the pursuit of plantCyclopean tree bearing a glittering, searchlight and maintenance of the game. ing the right combination of seeds to attract gaze—is, in its way, perfect for our present time.

That these fan rewrites exist in a legal gray rare Moshlings. In short, you can get everything It echoed the absurdity of our environment in area helps explain why every user is a Moshi you want. And everything is really good. the digital age, where it’s inevitable that we Member in MMR, with full access to parts of The coupling of capitalist fantasy and get our grip on technology just in time for it to the game that were formerly hidden behind nostalgia merges to create a uniquely appealing change, where few things in the immaterial digimembershippaywalls.Thereare(finally!)no media object. In contrast with the current digital sphere feel as stable as the old Jo-Ann’s. restrictions on all the various types of play that tal entertainment landscape dominated by social This was, by far, the most successful projare possible in Monstro City. This feature adds media forms that often relegate the user to the ect of its kind I had encountered. MMR is a to my feeling that these fan rewrites are special, non-agentviewerandorerahighlycuratedand fan-made and independent recreation of Moshi miraculous, that they can rise perfectly from the algorithmic user experience, MMR feels freeing, MonstersthatisnotaqliatedwithMind Can dead, but in a far more accessible, democratized, playful, fresh. Its point is to embody you. It redy. It’s available for free as a desktop app on equitable version of what they once were. (I calls endlessness and wonder. It allows a user to MacOS, Windows, and Linux. Unlike a physical was never a Moshi Member until now.) Unlike vanish into the impossible, dream-like consumJo-Ann’s, it seemed like it was possible to reach Google, my data isn’t being harvested and sold. erlandscapethatexistedbrieflyduring child intothepast,graspitfirmly,andbring-itloss Unlike Twitter and Instagram, the platform isn’t hood within these online worlds, a landscape lessly, perfectly, into the present. optimizing itself to keep my attention, or trying that at least promised that you could have, and Butnotwithoutasignificantamountof to get me to spend real money. These rewrites be, anything. It’s important to note that while timeanderort.Makingafanrewriteof - ade are a rare case of something on the Internet the aims of the internet of the past may not funct online world is a task that demands profeeling right to me—fundamentally, existentialhave been any less capitalistic than the present, gramming knowledge and detailed familiarity ly, even spiritually high-quality, and yet totally itsmethodswerelessrefinedandlesspervasiv with the original online world. My investigation free. That they exist in a legal gray area seems Since Moshi Monsters predated the widespread into how the MMR team created the app proved to have put the user into an extraordinary sweet use of sophisticated algorithms online—there spot. was never a concept of data-based personalizaAnd, indeed, MMR is technically imperfect. tion in Moshi Monsters or any of its contemporary Thereissuchathingasalostfile:severalminor worlds—its rewrite also feels like a unique place features didn’t quite make it to the present, like on the Internet where it is possible not to feel certain quests, cut scenes, and the mysteriously, constantly observed. It was a feeling I wasn’t permanentlyroped-orFoodFactory.Alostfile even fully aware of until it lifted. Once I realized is an absolute hole. It made me begin to questhis, I felt an almost heady sense of relief.

Its appeal is also that its form of dream capitalism is detached from most of the violence associated with consumption under late-stage capitalism: no resource exploitation or environ-

VOLUME 46 ISSUE 01

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S+T ILLUSTRATION JULIA CHENG DESIGN SARA HU TEXT ANGELA QIAN 13

mental damage; no scarcity or homelessness subjects required by capital’s present.” The origthe value of a product should, under traditional or inequality. Just pixels. But here is the subtle inal Moshi Monsters worked to inculcate children capitalism,reflect,orrefract,thevalueofits messageofthelostfile,easytomissunderthe into futures of wage labor and consumerism. labor. Is this genre of product unique? Are fan seductions of consumerist fantasy and nostalgic Its rewrite attempts identical aims under a thin rewrites lucky exceptions? Or does the internet escapism. The game is a fantasy of escaping the veil of escapism. All of this pleasure serves its still contain utopian possibilities outside of violence of capitalism online, and nothing more. ideology, showing us the possible rewards under capitalism? Even if not, there is still something The game conditions us to desire what we capitalismanddefiningourgoalsunderits extremely powerful about experiencing this forshould desire under its system: a steady accudemands. Thus, MMR’s goal to bring something mat. It contains echoes of care and refreshment mulation of capital and private property. A comback from the dead restates, and strengthens that, in our increasingly atomistic and disemfortable existence in a city built upon the labor with repetition, the exact capitalist systems it bodied world, I never even knew I missed. ofthefictionalsubalternclassofGlumps.These seems to defy. Fan rewrites stop short of being Glumpsfigureintothecanon,whichismainly quite as revolutionary as they seem because, by +++ expressed through the story-based Super Moshi definition,theyfocusonreplicatingthepast.

Missions, as round, ugly minions of the world’s And,indeed,capitalismisflexibleinthatit In the beginning, I opened the desktop app. I principal antagonist. They are also shown in allows for its own multiplicities. It’s possible for created my monster. I assigned him colors and the background of game landscapes working at games and their related media to have ambiva name. I entered the universe and traveled into the candy mines and at the electric plant. The alent relationships with capitalism and still the virtual world of yesterday. rewrite’s fantasy doesn’t dream its way out of perpetuate a capitalist logic.

The biggest surprise was still waiting for the violence of labor exploitation and the unIt’s obviously not true that everyone who me.WhenIloggedonforthefirsttime,Iwas derclass—despite having the freedom, and the played Moshi Monsters as a child, or even plays astonished to not be alone. MMR felt as popincentive,todoso,simplybybeingunaqliated the rewrite now, is an obedient and undiscernulated by users as the original! Even better, with the original company. ing servant of capitalism. But as our appetite for the users I encountered were mostly women The original world under Mind Candy had nostalgia grows and more physical and digital between seventeen and twenty-nine. What I had incentives to maintain the game’s canon: it was structures begin to fall into our past, the meshappened upon was an entire world of young theircommodity.Thefanrewritehasdirerent sageofthelostfile,theabsolutehole,sits women and escaping together, impossibly, into the incentives to maintain the game’s canon. It’s waits like a judge at the Underground Disco. simplicities of a collective childhood where we possible to transform the canon by allowing all played with the same toys. We were landing users to create their own storylines and even +++ back in another age, one in which the Internet their own avatars. However, fan rewrites largely felt like a playground built just for us—not a give up this freedom, instead seeking to mainThe existence of this model, however, may sugsite for domestic terrorism, before the endless taintheoldworldanditslogicasbydefinition gest new and hopeful possibilities for the crescroll, before any of us knew the anxiety of a nostalgia project. We have powerful emotionation of entertainment projects that enact nonimminent death by climate change, before mass al and psychological attachments to capitalist capitalist forms of labor. It’s incredibly striking surveillance, mass disillusionment, and the atsystems. We choose nostalgic dreaming of the that absolutely no oneiscurrentlyprofitingfrom tention economy. It was just like entering an old past over claiming the freedom to transform the a game that was painstakingly and expensively dream. It feels like a miracle to reach into the future. While community members have, in the developed, for years, by a wealthy corporation pastandfindeverybodythere. past, added custom goods such as Star Wars: The (at least, not anywhere close to the amount of Clone Wars posters to Moshi stores, the canon is profititcould,“should,”bemaking).Thisis ANGELA QIAN B’24 is 34gutturalwildfowl on otherwise painstakingly reproduced and maina stunning feature. It challenges every expecMoshi Monsters Rewritten (add her!). tained. tation we have for what types of relationships So, while it seems strange that the developcan exist between user and game. The model erswouldincludesuchadetailintheir fiction makes space, maybe just for a moment, for the al, pixelated city for children, as essayist Sam possibility of publicly available, democratized, Adler-Bell wrote in a recent analysis of video non-monetized media objects that are carefully games and capitalist fantasy, “Games, like all encreated and designed to be valued, and valuable. tertainment products, shape us into the sort of This breaks the law of commodity exchange:

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

EPHEMERA

Sam Stewart B’24 Animation for Zoetrope White pastel and charcoal on toned museum board Animated loop exploring meta power dynamics between animation, animator, and viewer. Characters borrowed fromJiwíTrnka’sshortThe film Hand (1965).

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WORLD

DIAMOND of the Season

TEXT NAVYA SAHAY

DESIGN ANNA WANG

ILLUSTRATION MICHELLE DING

India’s arranged marriage with the English language

Obviously, Bridgerton—an adaptation of permanently because of the power the English Julia Quinn’s light-hearted, steamy, historical language has over the Indian population. romance book series—is not really a commentary BeingproficientintheEnglishlanguageisa on colonialism, even with its progressive casting requirement for high-ranking jobs in India and a choices.Thefirstseasondidn’tevenfeature symbol of the wealthy urban upper class today. It AnEnglishlibraryfilledwithstacksofold cast members of Indian origin, as it focused on extends beyond symbolism, determining classes’ volumes, decorated with paintings of old, white the love story of Anthony’s sister, Daphne. But upward mobility in India: speaking good English men. At the center is a dramatic confrontation— watching the second season prompted me to isthekeytosuccessinIndia’sprofessionalfield. or rather, a moment of passion—between a reflectonmyownrelationshipwithmy-coun A 2011 study conducted by the Lok Foundation British aristocrat and an Indian woman (at least try’scolonialpastanditsenduringerects. and Oxford University proved that 41 percent of in appearance). Earlier, we watched the aristoIfirststartedthinkingaboutthesecolonial the rich in India could speak English while fewer crat teach the Indian to shoot. Even further back, reverberations when Edwina Sharma (Kate’s than two percent of the poor could do the same. the woman was shown listening to the aristosister) was declared the “diamond of the season” I have seen this dynamic through my own crat’s conversation with his friends, in which he by the Queen, who tended to bestow this title on experiences with the Indian education system. speaks of his requirements for a wife as if she’s a her hand-picked favorite amongst the ladies of Schools are divided into two classes: the governcommodity. the British aristocracy, or the “ton.” Anthony’s ment schools usually are of poor quality and These are some of the vivid scenes in the subsequent determination to marry the diamond rarely teach English properly, and the private extremely popular second season of Shonda reminded me of Britain’s possession of India for (often international) schools are EnglishRhimes’s Bridgerton, a fantastical, Regency-era its “diamonds”—in other words, its riches and medium. This hierarchy extends to higher drama which has been praised for its diverse resources. In fact, India was called the Jewel in education in India, as well; prestigious univercasting. This season follows the enemies-tothe Crown. sities like Indian Institutes of Technology and lovers storyline of Kate Sharma and the Viscount I saw a parallel between the way Anthony Indian Institutes of Management use English Anthony Bridgerton. While I was watching sought to possess each of the Sharma sisters for as their primary mode of instruction. When my these scenes, I saw the complex love-hate direrentreasons(Edwinaforhersocialstatus father studied at such an institution, the Indian arairbetweenAnthonyandKateassomething and beauty, Kate because he was attracted to her) Institute of Technology, he realized he automatentirelydirerentfromwhatthecreators and had how England had conquered India all those ically had an advantage because he had been intended—a representation of post-colonial years ago. Similar to Kate, India was an enticing taught in English-medium schools, while his India’srelationshipwithBritishinfluence, prospect in for the British. Kate and Anthony’s friend who had been taught at a Hindi-medium particular the English language that the British power dynamic certainly reminded me of the school really struggled, and had to take extra introduced to the Indian colony. struggle against colonialism. India, like Kate, classes to improve his English so that he could Ever since I came to America for higher who constantly countered Anthony’s attempt to comprehend the mathematics and physics he studies, I have been wondering why I feel such a court her sister (and later seduce Kate), resisted was taught there. sense of pride that I can speak proper English—I and rebelled against British rule for centuries.

In fact, most Indians operate in two realms: even enjoy impressing others with my vocabuEven the ending of the show featured an the domestic realm is where they speak the lary—when I feel little to no sense of shame that unequal relationship. In Anthony and Kate’s mother tongue, and the formal, educational Iambarelyfluentinmymothertongue,Hindi. marriage, Anthony controls the purse strings realm is where they use English. Of course, My entire education has been at an international while Kate, who had lived in a family of limited English is a lingua franca—a language historschool where I studied everything in English. meansbefore,haslittlefinancialindependence. ically meant for trade and work-oriented Funnily enough, my second language was Hindi. purposes. But that doesn’t explain why India, This was despite the fact that my grandmother +++ unlike other countries, has class segregation had done her master’s in Hindi literature. Her basedonproficiencyinthelanguageandaccent. vocabulary was excellent, as was my mother’s, This is where the parallel ends. Unlike Kate, The dominance of English is primarily an urban who had studied at a Hindi-medium school.1 Yet who submitted to Anthony’s charms, India phenomenon; in cities, getting a good education my mother, despite being extremely well-edtoday is an independent country with its own andjobrequiresEnglishproficiency—asupposed ucated, to this day feels nervous sending text trajectory. Yet the knowledge that my country indicator of both intelligence and social status. messages to friends in English, always checking is free did little to comfort me, as I felt that we This is not an indirect consequence of them with me as if she’ll be thought of poorly retained some of our colonial links in subtle but colonialism, but a conscious, direct one. In if there is some grammatical error. Why was disturbing ways. In my own experience, the most 1835, a member of the Council of India, the English omnipresent in all of our actions? I never pervasivecolonialerectthatisoftenoverlooked imperial legislature in India under the East thoughtIwouldfindtheanswertothisdeep-istheBritish’sinfluenceonourlanguage.Much India Company, Lord Macauley, promoted the rooted identity question in the sexual extravalike Kate and Anthony’s entanglement, Indian idea that all education in India should be taught ganza that is Bridgerton. andBritisharairsseemtobeintertwined in English. Macaulay’s main position was that Indian languages like Sanskrit are not strong enough modes of communication. His argument eventually led to the passing of the English Education Act, which established an education system rooted primarily in English, and which has led to native tongues being forced out of

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THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

A school in which the mode of instruction is Hindi.

WORLD

academic and professional contexts today. My well to remember that colonialism wasn’t a love father explained how this Macaulism persisted story like Kate and Anthony’s. As critic Sashi even after independence. He told me that Tharoor argues, forgiving colonial rule is not attending an English-medium school had deeply the same as forgetting the traumatic experience ingrained the English lens into his mindset.

India underwent as a colony or overlooking the He described the elitism of English-medium often degrading impact it has had on our national schools in India—most of them charge more dignity. I still see that impact in the special status than their non-English-medium counterparts, English receives, in the advertisements for lightsothathavingEnglishproficiencybecameaway ening skin cream, and in Bollywood’s promotion to signal one’s rise in the socioeconomic pecking of light-skinned heroes. Implicit Anglo-Saxon order. mindsets prevail; they remain embedded in our Anglophones still look down on psyche—subtle, but puissant. non-speakers as if speaking excellent English is representative of competency. Perhaps the +++ biggest consequence the British are responsible for is the death of pride in our national languages or mother tongues as means of communication. +++

confused about what language we are supposed to speak? This confusion arises from the ambiguous aspects of the post-colonial identity, which involvesaperpetualconflictbetweenthedesir to stay true to our traditions, but also an inability to completely rid ourselves of the linguistic hierarchy established by the British.

Don’t lose faith. There is a way to reconcile the two. Perhaps future shows will show Indian culture in all its complexity and brilliance. More importantly, there is a way to acknowledge English’sinfluenceonourcountry,whileatthe same time, not thinking any less of our own languages. We can’t change our history, but we can change our future—one where students adept in native tongues are not barred from elite education,whereknowledgeisoreredinallour languages so that people can choose according to their comfort. Who knows? This may ultimately lead to the birth of a multilingual generation, which would be a true force to be reckoned with.

To help myself stay hopeful, I always think back to one bright, sunny afternoon. My family and I were driving in the heart of the city I live in, Bangalore, and I pointed out a particularly pretty red building to my mother. She informed me that the picturesque architecture of the building was Victorian in style; it had been constructed in colonial times. Yet, it merged perfectly with the hustle-bustle of the typically busy Indian street in which people carried on with their lives, indirerenttoit.Suchbuildingshave - unobtru sively become part of the Indian landscape. I like to think of it as emblematic of our messy, but ultimately triumphant history—it embodies a dream for India to neither shed its past nor be ruled by it. I think English can be that building—a beautiful language that is not idolized, but among the many beautiful languages in our country. If there’s one thing Bridgerton got right, it’s the diverse vibrancy of the Indian color palette that should also extend to our forms of communication, so that English doesn’t play the authoritative Anthony to our Kate.

It’s not just the technically linguistic aspect of Indian education that is the result of colonialism, but everything the language entails—the British cultural force that overshadows traditional practices. Similar to how Kate married Anthony and stayed in England, the reverence with which Indians treat the English language is suggestive of an abstract marriage to Britain’s culture. I have heard from friends and family how education in English-medium schools, especially Christian missionary schools established by the British, promotes Western culture. For instance, pupils are encouraged to eat food in the Western way: with a fork and knife, instead of the Indian way of eating with your hands. Even to this day, these schools have a startling amount of Christian imagery and reference to Christian ‘moral science’ or ‘history’ that many claim impose a Western view of everything, including Indian history itself. My father shared that at the convent school he went to, British rule was gloriIt is these implicit patterns that led me to fied—asifIndiahadnogovernancebefore,and cynically view Bridgerton as a glossy attempt needed to be ‘uplifted’ by the Anglo-Saxon race. at displaying diversity instead of representing Convent schools aren’t as conservative now, but cultures accurately. The show is progressive in its this example illustrates how the dominance of vision and I certainly don’t expect it to comment theEnglishlanguagehasacascadingerect—on colonialism; it is anachronistic, after all. But NAVYA SAHAY B’26 concentrates on English it also leads to the promotion of the English afewIndianshavenoticedthelackofflashbacks Literature. perspective and culture over Indian traditions, showcasing the Sharmas’ lives in India. Another especially in institutions with a colonial past. criticism of the show was that it inauthentically Clearly,theEnglishlanguage’sinfluence portrayed on Indian languages. The origins of Kate India is all-encompassing and, at times, oppresand her family were a confused sive. This doesn’t mean that one native tongue mess, as they spoke words can unite India, as Prime Minister Narendra of Bengali, a language Modiseemstothinkreflectedinhisdecision spoken in East India, and to convert all medical textbooks to Hindi. The Tamilian, a language plurality of languages we speak renders that spoken in South India. impossible: South Indians, like Tamilians, do India has a diverse set not even speak Hindi. It also isn’t practical given of languages and each that a large part of education, including medical isspokenbydirerent education, has been taught in English. ethnicities in India.

This familiarity is partly why our relationYet, how can ship with the English language is so multi-facwe expect the West eted and ambiguous. Despite our issues with to get the repreit, in some ways, English serves as a unifying sentation of our presence in India. After independence in 1947, languages right there was much talk about making Hindi the when we national language in India, but that incited a ourselves violent protest from those in Tamil Nadu. The remain compromise was that English also became an oqciallanguage;todayitisarguablythede facto national language—one that, while passed through colonialism, has evolved into a bridge betweenthedirerentpartsofIndia.

And it’s not as if India hasn’t had its own erectsontheEnglishlanguage,inthesame waythatKateinfluencesAnthony’sgrowthasa person. She helps him face his fears and insecurities about his father’s death, even as she lets some of the more problematic aspects of his behavior (like his keeping mistresses) slide.

Similarly, lots of Indian words have found their way into English—bangle, bungalow, karma, jungle,etc.—reflectinganintegrationofdirerent cultures. I take pride in our additions to the English language. They show that even under colonial oppression, we made our mark. So much so that Taylor Swift uses the word “karma” in her songs. Today, our language is heard by the whole world.

So, quite interestingly, the Kate-Anthony dynamic between India and English, while unequal, isn’t completely one-sided, due to our contributions to the language. However, we’d do

VOLUME 46 ISSUE 01

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S DAY RID ’ E N I T N DLE E L S VA Can you solve them all?

GAME

1) Why do skunks celebrate Valentine’s Day? They’re very...

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DESIGN SAM STEWART

ILLUSTRATION ANNA WANG

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TEXT ALYSCIA BATISTA & ANNA WANG

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2) What’s the best recipe to make on February 14?

A hug and a...

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3) What do you call a Valentine’s Day gift that doesn’t arrive on time?

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LETTER BOX Bouquet = A

Courtship = I

Cupid’s Bow = C

Embrace = L

Love Letter = Qu

Kiss = E

Sweetheart = M

Heartwarming = S

Single = H

Date Night = N

Be Mine = T

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

Hugs&Kisses=

O

–

–

DEAR INDY

Presents:

HE’S JUST NOT THAT INDIE YOU

F

Dear Not Quite Unrequited,

Dear

,

Indie

ranch g to b he n i y r een t ds. T I’ve b new frien finally , y l t I Recen nd make ery time one, a v e t t ome ou is tha ds with s almost m e l e en prob ith m be fri ke get to ll in love w can I ma ? w a f nds Ho they tely. y just frie a i d e sta imm s who friend Love, s So Hard ife I My L o o Boo H

Have a question for Dear Indy? Submit it here!

Dear Boo Hoo My Life Is So Hard,

Shut up! Shut up! Let me go take some deep breaths for a minute and then I’ll- an swer your question.

Okay, I’m back. Sorry for giving you that pseudonym. As much as your dilemma sounds like a veiled way to brag about being obviously very attractive and having a great personality, I get how this could be frustrating. It would suck to worry about a friendship being jeopardized, or whether or not you’re unintentionally leading someone on. Being a good friend already takes energy and care, so it’s reasonable to assume that being a good friend to someone who might be in love with you (or who is definitely in love with you takes even more.

Before I go on—I’m not accusing you of being intentionally - irta tious, or blaming any of this on you, but if you’re being intentionally irtatious it’s your fault and you should stop.

I’m sure, however, that this is not the scenario, and you’re just being yourself. In that case, there’s no real way to prevent people from- con stantly falling in love with you. Maybe you’re just that beautiful and that charming, which is fine. ou can’t control that. What you can control is how you respond to these friends who immediately develop feelings for you. ou shouldn’t have to forfeit an entire friendship just because -some one is into you, but it’s important to make clear that you don’t feel the same way. If you explicitly communicate your lack of interest and they still want to be friends with you, that’s okay. If not, * Pos s we they were either never really your friend in the first ek ible o Pla inc the y l place which sucks but good riddance , or they “13 book uded r titl es : ,” Ha know that they need some space from you in order ll” Goin “Sa “Indi for thi fa (lik g on y In e Li s to deal with their feelings (which also sucks, but Wo st at e An Ind die-t nings ie h n m T in a more emotionally mature way . It’s really, really “H an” iff-I ie Ha ,” “I ing,” n i n ( l g d l d Yo di cult to be stunning, smart, sexy, and hilarious, ur h Fid like P ie’s, ), “B ie of Nam el-in retty ” “In reak but I think you’ll be okay. I will be, too, after I go take e,” Gr d d W i i the ay.” and e,” “ om e se some more deep breaths.

“In Ind an), ti I di

ILLUSTRATION SAM STEWART

This would be a fun situation for a will-they-won’t-they arc in a long-running sitcom, but it is not a great situation for you in real life. Liking someone who’s unavailable is hard enough, but having to deal with the roller coaster whiplash of weird mixed signals is even worse, and it isn’t fair to you. If this person really cared about you, they probably wouldn’t be playing wi e ball with your feelings I’m not super good at sports analogies, but I mean to say that, metaphorically, they’re bonking your feelings around with a bat in a way that is not particularly impressive because your feelings are sitting right there on a tee anyway). Plus, if this is how they behave while they’re in a relation ship, how can you be sure they would behave any better if they were in a relationship with you?

I would steer clear for a while. You deserve to be with someone who is entirely available and entirely not a jerk. If this really is a will-theywon’t-they plot, and if it’s really meant to be, you need to give this - per son a couple of seasons for character development first. The cool thing is that sitcom characters always get hotter with each season, too.

DESIGN SAM STEWART

Dear Indie The p , erson other , whi I really l ik ch fusin g is t sucks. B e has a si ship, hat d gnific ut wh th es a a me. I ey have d pite bein t’s most nt g in a conefinit know ely re th it rea lly se ey’re wit been flir lationt e h ing w ms li Wha some k t am i I sup e they’re one else, th but into posed me, t to do oo. with that?

Not Q Love, uite U nrequ ited

TEXT ANNIE STEIN

ebruary 14 is right around the corner and love is on the brain!

There’s just one problem. Because this is the Indy, my editors told me that I had to frame this column as an anti-capitalist critique of Valentine’s Day. They also said that if I wanted to make pop culture references, they would only permit allusions to French New Wave cinema.

They warned me that if I didn’t start adhering to the Indy’s mission statement in my column, they would replace Dear Indy altogether with a new section called Accessible Critical Theorist of the Week. Readers, I was faced with a tough choice. But I’m willing to put my career on the line to help my readers in the best way I know how. I’m willing to fight for love— and this week’s readers are in dire need of some advice about it.

Thankfully, I’m a highly qualified expert: I’ve seen every rom-com* there is to see, and if the leading guy was really hot, I’ve seen it twice. The editors can spit on me and push me down the stairs of Faunce while invoking the name of Éric Rohmer, but deep down, they know what I know: anyone who knows anything about love learned it from a movie starring Drew Barrymore.

i d s b n’t u die S e By ter ecau se an hade s s rib le. e the y of y ’r e

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VOLUME 46 ISSUE 01

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Saturday 2/18 @8:30PM: Shade Range Attend this celebration for trans and queer POC performers. Tickets can be bought in advance for $15 or at the door for $20 and at this link: Every Saturday in February @12PM: National #FiveFreedmen Book tinyurl.com/shade-range.

Club Reparations Educational Series Location: Columbus Theatre, 270 Broadway, Providence, RI 02903 For Black History Month this year, the SoliDarity Community EngagementGroup,anorganizationthatsupportserortstoeducate, Wednesday 2/22 @6-8PM: Clothing Swap empower and uplift the community in regard to reparations, is hosting Startorthesemesterrightbyclearingoutyourclosetexcessswapp & weekly Zoom calls for people to learn about reparations and how with the community. Bring your unwanted clothes and accessories—in descendants of chattel slavery can become a protected class as ‘American goodclean & condition—andfindnewitems!Alltheleftoverswillbe Freedmen.’ Sign up for the free online series here: tinyurl.com/ donatedtoalocalnon-profitorganization.Ticketsrangefrom$8-12 Reparations-Educational-Series. depending on what you are able to pay, and can be bought here: tinyurl.

Location: Virtual, over Zoom com/February-clothing-swap.

Location: The Nest, 1155 Westminster St Unit 220, Providence, RI 02909 Monday 2/13 @6-7:30PM: The Womxn Project Project Space Message for Address Join the Womxn Project to write cards to representatives and senators to Mutual Aid* & Community Fundraisers let them know the issues you care about! Warm drinks and snacks will be provided. RSVP by emailing volunteer@thewomxnproject.org. *Mutual aid is “survival pending revolution,” as described by the Black Location: Email for information Panthers. Join in redistributing wealth to create an ecosystem of care

DESIGN ANNA BRINKHUIS

TEXT SOFIA BARNETT & KAYLA MORRISON

ILLUSTRATION OLIVIA SPRINGBERG

BULLETIN

Upcoming Actions & Community Events

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in response to a system of institutions that have failed or harmed our Wednesday 2/15 @5:30PM: Re*generation February Meetup communities.

Re*generation, an initiative focused on education and working at the intersectionofallfieldstounite,supportandempowerpeopleofcolor + Help #ShutDownWyatt Activists Beat Charges! will be hosting this meetup featuring speakers Courtney Price, Earl J. Donate at https://gofund.me/e775d6c8 Edwards, and Jacques Bidon. The gathering will be focused on empowIn May 2022, four activists with the #ShutDownWyatt campaign—where erment, community building, and celebrating unique perspectives supporters advocated for the shutdown of the Wyatt Detention Center, a prison while understanding their impact on the future of education. Food and in Central Falls, RI—were arrested in Georgia. The Wyatt Detention Center is drinks will be provided. Reserve a spot at this free event at tinyurl.com/ controversially known for its cruel conditions, such as the instance of the death Regeneration-February-Meetup. of Hiu Lui Ng, a 34-year-old Chinese detainee who died while in the custody of Location: CIC Innovation Center, 225 Dyer St. Fl 2, Providence, RI 02903 immigration officials in 2008 after repeatedly making known to prison officials Friday 2/24 @8-10AM: State of Black Businesses in Rhode Island | Legislative Breakfast In Rhode Island, data continues to show that Black-owned businesses experience discrimination, particularly within their process of receiving state contracts. The Rhode Island Black Business Association will be hosting a conversation over breakfast on the impact this has on the state economy and how we can support economic equity for Black business owners. Register your attendance for free via Eventbrite at tinyurl.com/ legislative-breakfast.

Location: Sprout CoWorking Providence, 166 Valley Street Building 6M Suite 103, Providence, RI 02909 Monday 2/27 @3:30-5:30PM: The 1619 Project Film Screening Join Providence Student Union, a high-school, youth-led coalition aimed at promoting student power, for a screening of The 1619 Project.Thefilm, referring to Nikole Hannah-Jones’ leading essay to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative,” was adapted as a longform collection, book, and curriculum for which Jones was ultimately awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

Location: 769 Westminster St, Providence, RI 02903 Monday 2/27 @6PM: Justice Circle for Women of Color & Nonbinary People of Color in RI Join Sista Fire RI, an organization focused on building collective power with and by women of color for social, economic, and political transformation. The Justice Circle is the organization’s monthly membership meeting open to women of color and nonbinary people of color living in Rhode Island. Dinner will also be provided. Register at bit.ly/ FebruaryJC2023.

Location: South Side Cultural Center, 393 Broad Street, Providence, RI 02907

his pain and illness. Next month, their court process begins, and donations will aid in their legal and travel expenses.

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Amenity Aid Rhode Island Donate at amenityaid.org/donate-money Amenity Aid works to provide hygiene resources to marginalized communities and low-income people in need. On top of serving individuals, Amenity Aid partners with local shelters, food pantries, anti-domestic violence organizations, and other community groups that support underserved communities to distribute hygiene resources.

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Project LETS Providence COVID-19 Relief Fund Donate at projectlets.org/covid19 Project Let’s Erase The Stigma (LETS) is working in coalition with various grassroots organizations in Rhode Island to support marginalized groups in our community in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. All donations will directly help individuals, children, and families meet their basic needs.

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Ocean State A$$ Mutual Aid Fund Donate at tinyurl.com/oceanstateass Support sex workers statewide, priority given to BIPOC sex workers, trans sex workers, and sex workers who have been impacted during the pandemic.

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Queer & Trans Mutual Aid Providence Venmo: @qtmapvd; Paypal: qtma.pvd@gmail.com / Info: tinyurl. com/qtma-pvd QTMA PVD is a small, volunteer-run mutual aid fund for queer and trans folks in the Providence, RI area. They do payouts once per week and have distributed over $80,000 since their founding in June 2020. They currently have over 30 outstanding requests for aid and would appreciate any donations!

Arts Every Second Tuesday of the Month @ 7:30-9:30PM: UpRiseHer’s Feminist Book Club Join UpRiseHer, an organization aimed at empowering women, for their Feminist Book Club, which meets every second Tuesday of the month.

Sign up to attend here: tinyurl.com/upriseher-bookclub.

Location: UpRiseHer, 335 Hope Street, Providence, RI 02906 Friday 2/11 @ 3:00PM: Cyphering While Black: Facing the Music, Confronting the Culture Thisevent,thefirstpartofaspeakerserieshostedbyBrown’sCenter for the Study of Slavery and Justice, focuses on exploring the modern landscape of the independent music scene as well as the use of music asaliberationtool.Specifically,thiseventwillfeatureJewelryRap Productions, an independent music collective from North Carolina, and their experience as well as focus on independent artists having to navigate largely white critique and constraints.

Location:PerryandMartyGranorCenterfortheCreativeArts,154 Angell St, Providence, RI 02906

Do you have an event, action, or other information for the Providence community that you’d like to see shared on this page?

Email us at indybulletinboard@gmail.com!

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT