ElonParties by Nassau Weekly

In the final issue of the semester, the Nass telescopes “echo,” critiques optimism, and considers what it means to leave this place.

The Nassau Weekly

Volume 44, Number 8 April 17, 2022

In Print since 1979 Online at nassauweekly.com

April 17, 2022

Masthead

Editors-in-Chief

ElonParties

Juju Lane Mina Quesen

Publisher Abigail Glickman

Alumni Liasion

Allie Matthias

Managing Editors Telescoping Echo

4 7 9 13 14 16 19

Sam Bisno Sierra Stern

By Lucia Brown, Amaya Dressler, Tommy Goulding, Lara Katz, Alexandra Orbuch, Kate Lee, Sierra Stern, and Audrey Zhang Designed by Cathleen Weng and Hannah Mittleman

Design Editor

Cathleen Weng

Senior Editors

Lauren Aung Lara Katz

Cynical Optimism By Anya Miller Designed by Vera Ebong

Junior Editors

Please leave a voicemail, I’m out of the wheelhouse By John Slaughter Designed by Vera Ebong

Will Toledo, Roberto Bolaño, and Some Notes on Growing Up

The Sickness/Hastalık/Die Krankheit/‫یرامیب‬/La Enfermedad By Aybars Önder Designed by Eman Ali

Rumination By Daniel Viorica Designed by Benjamin Small

Will Toledo, Roberto Bolaño, and Some Notes on Growing Up By Peter Taylor Designed by Hazel Flaherty

Everything Everywhere Should Watch this Movie By Eva Vesely Designed by Eman Ali

Read more on page 16. HA

Lucia Brown Kate Lee Anya Miller Zoey Nell Charlie Nuermberger Alexandra Orbuch

Art Director

Emma Mohrmann

Assistant Art Director

Hannah Mittleman

Head Copy Editor

Andrew White

Copy Editors LA

Nico Campbell Katie Rohrbaugh Bethany Villaruz

Events Editor

David Chmielewski

Audiovisual Editor

Songs of the West / Swimming Pool Cartoon By Chisom Nwadinobi and Hazel Flaherty Designed by Cathleen Weng

Christien Ayers

Web Editor

Jane Castleman

Social Media Chair

Mollika Jai Singh

Cover Attribution

Social Chair Vera Ebong

Kristiana Filipov

Volume 44, Number 8

This Week:

Mon

Tues

Wed

Thurs

Verbatim:

About us:

1:30p LCA UNTITLED: A spring showing by Michael J. Love and DAN 303

4:30p Robertson The Great Uprooting: Migration and Movement in the Age of Climate Change

Fri

3:00p Carl. A Fields Center End of Year Celebration

6:00p Taplin Emiri Morita ’22, Violin

5:00p Chancellor Green Spring 2022 Student Reading

6:00p Richardson Race, Speech, and the University

Sat

2:30p LCA Mary Stuart — A New Translation by BT Hayes

7:30p Taplin Early Music Princeton

1:30p LCA Spring 2022 End of Semester Showings in Dance

4:30p LCA Athens, Georgia — A New Rock Musical

Sun

8:00p Theater Intime The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman

8:00p Richardson Princeton University African Music Ensemble

4:30p LCA Open Master Class with Stanley Jordan ’81

5:30p ZOOM Artist Conversation: Elizabeth Colomba and Autumn Womack

Got Events?

Email David Chmielewski at dc70@princeton.edu with your event and why it should be featured.

For advertisements, contact Abigail Glickman at alg4@princeton.edu.

Overheard during breakfast Diner 1: “I haven’t pushed anyone down the stairs in a while.” Diner 2: “Got to get back into it.”

Overheard in the middle of the night Guy shouting: “Dude! Why are you peeing on a tree!” Guy peeing on a tree: “Not me! Not me!”

Overheard over text Sad junior: “My lamp just burned out. Is that representative of me?” Friend: “Yeah, sorry, I’ve always known you were a light bulb.”

Overheard in architecture library Distressed white boy: ”She can date whatever moron she wants. Just keep that shit out of Wucox Dining Hall.”

Overheard in Firestone Pre-med senior: “I want to find a partner who can titrate my acidity to a perfect light pink.” Friend: “Yes! To the endpoint, and no further!”

Overheard during a dinner discussion Contemplative diner: “It was literally a walk-in drivethrough. A walk-through, you could say.”

Overheard at flexitarian feast Carnivore: That was so filling, like I didn’t think vegetarian food could be so filling.

Overheard while getting ready Enlightened girl: They say ‘dress for the job you want, not the job you have’ and the job I want is somebody’s weedsmoking girlfriend.”

Overheard in Terrace Music aficionado: “Did you know that Chick Corea made an album with L. Ron Hubbard?” Friend, googling: “Of course it’s called Space Jazz.”

The Nassau Weekly is Princeton University’s weekly newsmagazine and features news, op-eds, reviews, fiction, poetry and art submitted by students. Nassau Weekly is part of Princeton Broadcasting Service, the student-run operator of WPRB FM, the oldest college FM station in the country. There is no formal membership of the Nassau Weekly and all are encouraged to attend meetings and submit their writing and art.

Overheard in Terrace Stressed junior: “Should I take neuroscience?” Wise senior: “Why would you?” Stressed junior: “If I decide to be a neurosurgeon, I want the door to be open.” Wise senior: ““Life is about closing doors.” Overheard in Lecture AAS Professor: “I know it’s hot, but W.E.B. Du Bois didn’t have air conditioning and he managed to produce all that great work.”

Submit to Verbatim Email thenassauweekly@gmail.com

Read us: nassauweekly.com Contact thenassauweekly@gmail.com us: Instagram & Twitter: @nassauweekly Join us: We meet on Mondays and Thursdays at 5pm in Bloomberg 044

Volume 44, Number 8

PAGE DESIGN BY CATHLEEN WENG ARTWORK BY HANNAH MITTLEMAN

Telescoping Echo

o telescope, we begin with 300 words, then slice the word count in half for each successive section. We stop when the numbers stop dividing evenly. This week, eight Nass writers telescope the word “echo” (echo, echo).

LUCIA BROWN At some point, the wrought iron fence that trapped the house disappeared, leaving behind a crumbling foundation of a short brick wall, some columns, and a few out-of-season irises. The stout structure was a base for squirrels between patio cushion raids, a nuisance to mow around, and an unwelcome surprise for the mailman when he veered off-course last Saturday. The mailman crashed into the brick three weeks after her grandfather tore down the NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH sign, a white diamond with huge, painted eyes that stared down the potholed street. She didn’t realize it was gone until she was taking out the compost and tripped over it, dirt-caked and face-down under the shed. Back by the mailbox, her grandfather had filled in the hole. Two layers of houses back, a four-lane road stretched west from the interstate across town, the constant sirens fading into the background like kitchen jazz. The house’s residents didn’t notice the fire engine approach after the crash, hear

it scrape against the curb as it dodged the potholes, hear the mailman shout from the brick column. Her grandfather was the first one to find out, the blocked driveway stopping him from leaving for the lumber yard. He grumbled through the screen door that he’d be driving over the neighbor’s flowerbed to get out. No one in the neighborhood knew the mailman; assuming the workers rotated, they never made an attempt. But that Saturday, she filled a plastic cup with tap water and offered it to him. The mail truck sat, half scraped and crumpled, in the middle of the road. Plastic boxes of mail lined the front lawn and, as the firefighters finished checking the truck, the two delivered letters by foot, kicking dirt over the tire tracks through the neighbor’s yard and unfolding the monkey grass. God, that dog was so stupid. We’d throw the ball and she’d step over it, trot to the fence, scratch around a little, sniff the grass. We visited our grandma once or twice a week, and each time her dog would yip at us like strangers. Remember the time she stayed over with us, bark bouncing around whoever entered the kitchen? We loved joking to our grandma that with how stupid the dog was, she was lucky to be cute. But we were proud to

have a dog in our lives, even if we couldn’t teach her to sit, roll over, or high-five us. When the diagnosis hit and the IV pole became a constant presence, our grandma reasoned the dog would get lonely with her in the hospital—soon after, without telling us, she offered the dog to her dog sitter. And I guess we just let her go.

Stop me if I’ve told you this story before: heads under the picnic table, sausages over the fire, narrow wooden bridge spanning the creek. When night pressed down on the house, the windows cooled, grain outside wispy in the breeze. That summer, it was impossible to tell gnats from mosquitos, ghosts from strangers. Our shoes were damp by the front door and, legs knotted under loose-knit blankets, we didn’t notice when the creek changed course. Lowcountry maritime oaks, scale the whitened boneyard, call it a start; Sandhills young pines, tack cicadas on my sweater, call it a childhood; Upcountry American elms, so when we get snowed in, we call it an answer.

Volume 44, Number 8

TOMMY GOULDING AMAYA DRESSLER We collapse to the floor in sacred unison. It’s a moment we should be grateful for. We’d done it right: every dancer was on time. I could hear the echo of the floor groaning under the collective weight of our spines rolling against its surface. I could imagine the bruise we’d all share the next morning. There was no individual he could single out; no grudge he could hold. There was no reason—none—that the choreographer could possibly yell. We were all OK. But everyone being OK just meant that no one dancer was safe. At any moment, the choreographer c o u l d glance the wrong way, see one dancer a silent beat behind. For the next five hours, they would receive the full, unrelenting force of what it meant to be the dancer who ruined this choreographer’s vision. It was an absolute sin to wish the choreographer’s anger upon any of your peers, but I couldn’t help it. If someone else is culpable, I am innocent. The music speakers are turned up so loud that I can’t hear my own labored breathing. The room is so loud it’s silent, but that is OK. No one could hear me if I screamed but, for once, I am free from the choreographer’s own shrieks of pent-up artistic passion. He chose a song with impossible

eight counts—impossible to count. I wish we’d had a metronome, something to track the pace at which one’s ankle should brush the floor, the rate at which one’s back should arch forward, contort backward. We try our best to estimate what he wants, but my guesses are never quite right. But I am OK. Except for the m u sic, this room is si-

lent.

I t i s one of those rare moments where every last of us is in sync. – The music repeats itself two, three times over as the dancer rises from the floor. She can’t tell if the echo is real or it’s just that her eardrums have finally given out. Or maybe she’s just too tired. Her eyes are discomfitingly apathetic as she faces the choreographer’s nook. His water bottle leaves a wet-stain atop the

speakers; it quivers as the music pulses. He hasn’t touched it since the rehearsal began, five hours ago. I wonder if he’s also dehydrated, and that is why he’s so mean. She must be too dehydrated to recognize that she’s a full two counts behind everyone else—and her head’s turned the wrong way. The music stops. There’s just enough time to meet the choreographer’s eyes, to see the collected stare proceeding his resounding tantrum which makes her the dancer of disgust. It’s five seconds of odd tranquility— mutual recognition met with absolute loathing. – If I had more faith in him, I would think that he hates the way he treats us. I would think he’s just repeating precisely what his choreographer did to him. It’s just the same pedagogical severity echoing across generations, invading more nooks of his life than he’d ever be willing to admit. But I hate that fear of him makes us silent. And silence—that terrible, life-sucking habit—repeats itself beyond the dance studio. – I promised myself that I would never let that happen again. But it’s amazing how his voice still echoes where it’s not permitted, and how you, still, were silent when the others needed you more than any—.

Briny, sagging muscles strain against too tight ropes. An old ship, a team of hardy men, unchanged by war, cuts through angry seas. A man calls, unheard, and then begins to weep, letting the song move him as nothing else has yet. How they sing on Iron Age rocks, to heroes and cowards, the almost divine and the almost animal. They sing of dreams and homelands, lost battles and loves, hidden cities and Chinese gardens, West and East, what is past and what is to come. The fate of all this striving, all these cities and ideas and books and tears, we know, they seem to say. And they promise to tell all, in haunting, green-eyed melodies. White foam roars through green waves, and the singing fades away. The rock and the wisps of smoke disappear. The men take their captain down from the mast, exhausted and tearful. He mutters words in tongues they have never heard, wild-eyed and delirious. They peel dripping wax from their ears, hardly exchanging glances, and tend to him. In the coming days, they will restore Odysseus to good health. He resumes his role as the mournful captain of a doomed crew. The men have never noticed much, but there is something changed in his face, in the way his feet lightly tap across the deck. As if he saw just a little beyond them. When they speak their simple Greek words to him, he now pauses for a moment, as if trying to understand, before answering. Many months later, he will sit on Calypso’s beach and try to write what he heard when passing the Sirens. Only an echo remains:

Argos’ old soldiery On Troy beach teeming, Charmed out of time we see. No life on earth can be Hid from our dreaming.

This is an unenchanted age. Whatever marvels we have or find are packaged into exhibitions and sold into traveling circuses, which delight the stupid and horrify the sensible. The gray pools of water, the greasy makeup, the deformed bodies, the dimly lit tents, and gaudily painted signs-- these are a uniquely modern hell. In the eyes of children in the crowd, where there should be the light of childhood innocence, instead there flickers a greedy lust for spectacle and strangeness. It’s enough to make well-thinking people everywhere sick. I recall a great commotion, on a certain visit of the circus, about a young girl who had recently joined the company. Above her tent were painted some tasteless pictures, as well as the words “SINGER FROM THE EAST” and “MEET THE LOVELY SIREN.” Inside, a pallid girl of about twelve, with dull gray eyes and stringy dark hair. Her song moved even myself.

April 17, 2022 PAGE DESIGN BY CATHLEEN WENG

In the flickering torchlight, the dogs softly snore. From the Ithakan hills, nocturnal birds, familiar yet unseen, echo through the night. Odysseus leans in the doorway. He has not slept in days. Leaving Penelope lying in bed, he stares at the glimmering vault of the heavens and the black roiling of the sea. He is remembering hot days outside Troy, his men lost in the waves. And the words of the smiling sirens: “You will never come home.”

A cold Northeastern night. A young student steps out into the night, Odyssey under her arm. The glow of gaslight illuminates the falling snow. The stars overhead, chapel-song gently floating. My God, how long ago and far away.

ARTWORK BY HANNAH MITTLEMAN

LARA KATZ I. At the bottom of the pool, you hear nothing but the bending of sound. When I chase you, you always laugh, duck under, and I follow—and when I laugh, you don’t hear my voice, you hear its echo—off the bottom, the sides, the water molecules. When my voice reaches you, it is not my voice. But you remember where it came from. You laugh. You always laugh back. When we arrive, you always get undressed first, because you want to get it over with. You crouch in the locker room in the furthest corner, ashamed to be seen pants-less but too proud to enter a bathroom stall. I always watch you. I get undressed wherever, I take my time. It’s only my naked body, after all, it’s no different from anyone else’s—especially not yours. But I always get to the deck first. I stand and smile back at you, who always wobbles, and won’t look at me, and hugs your arms around yourself. You’re always anticipating something. You never feel ready. You’re always cold.

You’ll always be cold, I sometimes remind you. Sometimes you blink back, teeth chattering. Sometimes your eyes just remain closed, and I imagine you’re trying to suck all the world’s warmth back into yourself, back under the surface of your naked skin. You don’t get goosebumps anymore, though. And I always jump in first. With a splash, the slap of a belly flop, the eye of the lifeguard already turned my direction. You follow with dipping toes, with nervous giggles, and the whole pool room fills with your voice, your reverberations. Once we’re both in, though, we’re both in. II. Once we’re in, we’re both in. Games are not meant to be easy. Games are meant to be hard. Sometimes I feel your knee on mine, or your elbow in my stomach; sometimes, I feel your soft skin beneath the nails of my curling fingers. But usually, we try to get further without touching each other, see how long we can go and how much we can do without touching. Sometimes I think

you’re me, floating over there, mermaid-hair and eyes reddening with chlorine. Sometimes I think I can only breathe chlorine. Sometimes I think I’m made of water, and that’s why I feel so trapped and so safe. And games are meant to be fun. We always have fun. It never really hurts; it hurts in the way time hurts, or friendship, or love.

III. It hurts in the way time hurts, or friendship, or love. You’re all slick with water when I finally get you, my arms tight around you, my air bubbles gliding over your face. I want to ask you to open your mouth, to taste my air, to tell me if it tastes like yours. But you’re not hearing me, only my echo, by the time it reaches you my words aren’t words anymore. I want to hear your voice, but it never fills the pool.

IV. I want to hear your voice, but the echo has left the pool. I want to shake you, but you won’t shake me back. I want you to tell me it wasn’t on purpose, but I only hear the echo of your laughter.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

Volume 44, Number 8

PAGE DESIGN BY VERA EBONG

Cynical Optimism A writer probes the alltoo-cheery world of an optimist. By ANYA MILLER

would describe myself as a maniacal cynic, as in, not only am I perpetually pessimistic, but I often wish pessimistic situations on others who seem just too happy. Perhaps my personality comes from a mix of nature and nurture, from having a mother who “just doesn’t buy it” when sad puppies appear on the TV promoting animal shelter donations, from watching too many stand-up comedians who are really just assholes with a microphone in their hand. Regardless, I admit that I find comfort in expecting misery and truly believe that others would benefit from following this perspective as well so that they can save themselves from the costly disappointment of expecting happiness and ending with inevitable doom-and-gloom. Now imagine my horror, when upon my arrival at Princeton, I found that

I had been placed directly next door to someone who I would describe as a psychotic optimist. Optimist, in that she believes that everything will work out well in the end, no matter how horrible the situation seems. Psychotic, in that she is an optimist. Within the first few weeks of class, I began to observe a noticeable difference in our perception of Princeton. While we both took nearly the same classes, I was being flattened by the workload and suffocated by my expectation of something going wrong—so much so that all I could think about was how impossible Princeton seemed and how isolated I felt in comparison to my seemingly more prepared peers. Realizing that this wasn’t an issue for her, I asked how she dealt with the crushing pressure that Princeton seemed to present. She responded that she did indeed feel the pressure but was trying to “romanticize her Ivy-league life” to cope. She revealed she did this by appreciating the

simple things, like walking between classes on cobblestone pathways through the castle-like structures and leaning into the positive stereotype that people hold for Ivy League students. Her simple response elicited a simple rejection from me. There was no way that “romanticizing Princeton” was enough to make Princeton feel like it wasn’t trying to maliciously eradicate all my time with work and subsequently replace my identity with a series of Canvas discussion posts. In my refusal of her logic, I decided that my response to Princeton was a matter of identity, that I couldn’t be happy here because I wasn’t meant to be here, that I was not from the right background, but that she was, and that’s why her positive attitude worked. I felt that my problems came from my own past, and not my perception of the present. Although we ended up spending more and more time together due to shared classes and living spaces,

April 17, 2022 PAGE DESIGN BY VERA EBONG

and a friendship began to develop, the maniacal cynic in me couldn’t help but wish pessimistic situations upon her. I had a secret, villainous desire for her to face something difficult enough to test her positivity, where she would realize that not everything works out, and thus it is much safer to expect things to not work out. I wanted her to feel the same negative pressure that I felt and then bellow a glorious “Aha! See, positivity doesn’t work!” when she caved to the situation, proving that it wasn’t my cynical fault for caving to my own situations. In a way, I got what I wanted. She ended up facing a terrible situation— the unexpected end of a long-term relationship. Naturally, I felt horrible, seeing her in pain after developing what was now a close friendship was difficult to watch. Still, a small dubious part of myself was curious to see how her optimism held up, to see if she still really felt that things “just work out” in the end. Surprising (and yet so predictable) my cynical desires were unfounded—she

was as optimistic as ever. When she talked about her heartbreak to me she told me (and I quote) “Sometimes it really hurts, but I think to myself, thank God I’m not a toad. Like, I am so grateful to be a human who can feel real emotions and have experienced this pain as much as I experienced the joy that caused it.” At another time, “At least I’m not some hamsterous creature, who can’t feel anything, condemned to only thinking about cheese.”

She’s actually insane, I thought, after hearing her logic. But slowly, as I grew closer with her and continued to watch her process the world around her—watch as her positivity held through all sorts of turmoil—I began to catch myself thinking what I had previously found obnoxious: the buildings really are pretty here. I am glad I’m not a toad. Things probably will work out in the end. Princeton isn’t so bad. I’ve realized that there has always been merit in looking at the bright side of things; I have just ignored this view because I

didn’t think that looking at things optimistically could actually be sustainable in genuinely bad circumstances. Part of this, I am sure, has a strong connection to mental health, and the dark moments that one can take oneself to when they feel hopeless or experience pain. But I am so grateful to have learned from such a kind and non-hamsterous friend just how much mindset matters, and how much I am in control of my perception. That being said, I am still a cynical person. I still grumble at people who are having too much fun and I still wish for people who are riding those ridiculous onewheel-scooter-things to trip over a large rock. However, living with a psychotic optimist has proved to me that I can be happy while I’m stressed, that I can open myself up to people and treasure experiences (even if I get hurt), and that it works out to expect the best out of situations instead of the worst. However, living with the Nassau Weekly has proved to Anya Miller that she can be happy while she’s stressed.

Volume 44, Number 8 PAGE DESIGN BY VERA EBONG

Please leave a voicemail, I’m out of the wheelhouse By JOHN SLAUGHTER

Hopping along the lovely word-stones in the volume before me, Dancing in light-streams of contemplation divine, Basking in wisdom I thought unattainable, Along the scholarly cobbles I drift, Seeking and finding form within Authorial, labyrinthic catacombs That capture beauty And frame freedom— Until my Fall. Diving away from inked symbols and stamps, into the blankness of the page, into unexplainable chapter jumps into the little pools perforating the start of each paragraph, those that well up with unknowledge, into that monstrous, godlike white page prefacing such voluminous importance and well-edited glory; into decisions arbitrary and blankly staring some made by writer, others by editor, but most by upbringing. now i live crawling around these gaps, a creature fallen into the unassumed, blinded by empty lampposts, abandoned long ago, still glimpsed on easels few, Up above, the rumble train of pen strokes and gawks deafen my poor ears and trap me beneath loose stones that carry ancestral weight. down here, Mysticism twists herself in circles, gnawing at her purple train with an eloquence unthought of a chaos-born beast; Assumption lays here too, drunk on the stones, dizzily laughing and spreading a cheer that fogs one’s eyes with untamable fire. on this rocky incropping, my eyes flame with unquenchable thirst and the mirage dries my hope into dust, but, heaving, i reach out Please, sir, where might I find the sea?

Volume 44, Number 8

ALEXANDRA ORBUCH I pull the faded pink quilted cover over my shoulders, resting my head on the ivory pillowcase. A momentary shiver scurries across my body, reaches my toes, and escapes into the foam mattress. Your soft voice echoes across the chill of my dark bedroom, and I shift my body to face you. The yellow lights of the faraway bridge filter through my window, subtly illuminating your features. “It was 1940,” you say as you shut the blinds and embalm your features in darkness. The bridge disappears. It was 1940, and you were just a child. Younger than me. No mother or father. An orphan tucked away in the dark green hills of war-torn Romania. It was 1940 a lot in my childhood bedroom. And 1945, when you emerged from the Holocaust in Bacău, young and alone. 1946, when you turned to the black

market to survive. And then 1958 when you escaped, free from the grasp of communism. My mother read me Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are growing up. I turned the pages of Olivia, fascinated by her shenanigans. I laughed aloud at Amelia Bedelia’s blunders. But those were not the stories of my childhood. Or rather, that is precisely what they were. Stories. Your words were history. History that flew across my bookshelves traveled along my dusty pink carpeting and gently began to play in my head as I shut my eyes. During those chill dark evenings beneath my pink quilt, you sitting beside me, it was

In a couple of years, AI will be able to capture our voices and we’ll be able to hear anyone long after they’re dead. Whenever you miss someone, you can just select their voice on any device, and you might even be able to have a full conversation. Sarah tells me this over dinner. She’s working at the lab to create AI voices that sound more human and not so creepy like Siri. Sarah’s a master of intonation. A woman in STEM. You won’t be able to talk about deep topics for a while, because that requires downloading a personality. But you can chat about food, or the weather, any time you want. In her application for the lab position, Sarah wrote about her grandmother and how she would do anything to hear her voice again. Imagine

not 2006. The light illuminating your face was not from the Brooklyn Bridge. And you were far from 80 years old. It was 1940 and our voices mingled in the chill of brisk Romanian eve-

to face you. Lights of a faraway bridge illuminate your features. “It was 1940,” you say as you shut the blinds, the bridge gone, your features dark. It was 1940 and you were just a child. An orphan tucked away in the hills of wartorn Romania. It was 1940 a lot in my childhood bedroom. And 1945. And 46. And 58. My mother read me Goodnight Moon and

Where the Wild Things Are. nings, lights filtering in from the small bakery across the way. You were just a child. A faded pink quilt above my shoulders. A shiver. The echo of your soft voice. I shift my body a world where the day’s schedule, tomorrow’s alarm, even the next song on shuffle, was read to you by a voice you loved, she wrote. That’s the world I want to create. The world I want to create is away from here, where we study the past to feel better about the future and study the present to feel better about ourselves. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more immortal, and I want to live knowing that I can come to an end. But Sarah’s idea is innovative, I’ll give her that. I keep thinking about my family. I’ll probably be paranoid by thirty, calling my parents every day to make sure they’re still there even though they never leave the house and just nag me about a mortgage and a Roth IRA. Where’s the balance between preparing for a stable future and trying to root myself in an unstable present? Let me know when they come up with it, I tell Sarah.

I turned the pages of Olivia and laughed at Amelia Bedelia’s blunders. But those were not the stories of my childhood. Or rather, that is precisely what they were. Stories. Your words were history. A vivid black and white film

that played beneath my eyelids as your voice echoed across my bedroom. During those chill evenings, it was 1940.

Quilt above my shoulders. A shiver. Your voice echoes. I face you. Lights of a faraway bridge illuminate your features. “It was 1940,” you say. It was 1938 and you were just a child. A war-torn orphan. It was 1940 in my bedroom quite often. And 1945. And 46. And 58. I read Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are. Olivia, and Amelia Bedelia. But those were just stories. Your echoing words were history.

A quilt. A shiver. I face echoes of your voice. Bridge lights illuminate your features. “It was 1940.” You were just a war-torn child. An orphan. I read books. But those were just stories. You were history.

Volume 44, Number 8

Last week, I went to a memorial on Zoom for a student that had been in my freshman seminar. I had spoken to him maybe twice. There were 100 little boxes on the screen and a palpable grief that I’ve never known. Everyone took turns speaking and I turned off my camera. Listened to his high school teachers, his aunt, his camp counselor while I folded my laundry. There was one girl I recognized from school; she talked about how they’d connected at orientation over a love for period K-dramas. We’d text after every episode, she said, and once he got too lazy to type everything, so he left me four voice recordings. I just found them again, she said, and I can’t stop listening. Would you mind sending them to us? His mom typed in the chat. Everyone joined in. Us too, if that’s okay! Please. How special. I guess we’re all no better than those famous people who clone their dying dogs. We want to cling to a life where everyone we love is a call away. After the memorial, I draft a text: crazy request but can you just send me a voice memo? But sending it seems too morbid, so I just call my mom, my dad, my boyfriend, and Sarah, in that order. So nice to hear your voice. Sarah says her lab is doing demo-testing and they want to borrow my voice. I just have to say a bunch of everyday phrases into a mic. Testing, testing, that’s my cue. I speak over the faint echo.

PAGE DESIGN BY CATHLEEN WENG ARTWORK BY HANNAH MITTLEMAN

SIERRA STERN — The love my brother had for me is the worst thing I’ve ever killed. My brother used to yield to me. When we were kids he would fawn and copy, worshiped me older and babied me younger. Forever ago with my cruel kid ways, I taught my brother coldness. He has never loved me so much again. Still, when we come home from school I find us wearing the same clothes and singing the same songs. Around the same time we decided to retry religion. He’s trying to learn Hebrew and so am I. Last summer he gave away my pants by mistake because he would have bought them too. Our sibling-speak has always been the most damning evidence that we are, in fact, twins and not Big Little Brother and Small Big Sister. We are too tired now for family dinners, and I’m sure our skills are rusted, but we used to share one stuttering brain, and my brother would always say the last word of my sentence—a broken, buffering kind of twin telepathy. It would annoy me that he did this. That last word was an echo and a ghost. The shivering, stunted body of that sweet bright thing that died. When I used to run and cry to my mother about some savage insult my brother had said, she would tell me, You raised him

like this. You taught him to be cruel. I would get angry because I knew it was true. Being a twin has always felt translucent to me. My brother is loud. His laugh and limbs fill a room and take up space. His antiparallel, I am small and shrewd and scrunched up tight. He might have raised me this way, meek. My brother and I are tied loose with spider silk.

I like to forget myself. The punch of my footsteps against the stairs at night rattled me, and so I learned how to walk without noise. The other day I left my room in hard soled boots and turned back on the first step down, returning with sneakers. Some people remember me loud, but in truth I am always speaking quietly, repeating things twice and talking from the side of my mouth. My smile is crooked from doing this, but it had to be done, because my face used to creak when it moved. When I spoke my muscles would screech, and when I blinked you could hear the unending ping of a dropped key. In my home, the desert, words are carried, stretched, and buried. It’s the brightest pitch black at night, and there’s a very present nothing that moves just beneath the ground. I want to be sand-quiet. —

When you discover that somebody has never moved, you start to realize things about them. Like why they slept in for a week after their first kiss, and why they stay home when the rest of the family drives upstate for the weekend. There’s a room in my house that slants and vaults, twice as tall as any other one. For eighteen years I threw my voice up at the ceiling and watched it stick. —

My grandmother called my grandfather things in Yiddish. Things like stupid, foolish, lazy. I wish I could have those words too. I would wield them like an heirloom and strike you, until we fell down purple and gray.

Volume 44, Number 8 PAGE DESIGN BY CATHLEEN WENG ARTWORK BY AUDREY ZHANG

AUDREY ZHANG I. I heard the golden trumpets and the sound of heavenly harps Echo down the corridor, covered with ivy, laden with light She sang all the right notes, hit all the sharps Until the stars lifted the curtain of the night The seers told me the world would end soon That the oceans would evaporate We would turn to dust, face the moon And quietly accept our fate But how could we ever say that we, The children of the sea and sky Would bow down to adversity Bow down to a singular eye There is no greater delight Than having your actions echo Through the marbles halls—so white Sowing seeds into the lands so low I smelled the burning orange grove That one summer, when the sun Blazed bright overhead, our alcove Was a cerulean green, comparable to none You said our bond was unbreakable, a stated fact You said we’d live, that we’d survive That we would each play our part in this act That we would not fear the hive May our thoughts reverberate when the younger ones recite All that we have preserved in thumbnail sketches and ink Look how we’ve worn gloves threadbare, how our doves still take flight As we watch over the battlefield, our forest, our dreams, and think Will my words echo in your mind, as yours do in mine That night, we almost held hands, almost Become close enough to hear our heartbeats, a sign That we were more than friends, more than a ghost You are my mirror, and I am yours, forevermore, forevermore You leave, so unexpectedly, but you always return with a grin Do I trust you, when they urge me to leave you on the shore? Will I hear your voice again, above the clamor, above the din?

II. A faint memory, a fading whisper of something You wanted me to know, to sing You showed me the falcon’s wing As if I were an Ancient King We played music together once, as friends But as we’ve navigated all these bends And painted skies for our mortal ends Glory, gold, meet me at the temple to cleanse Will your love waver, visage fade? Into the darkness of dawn, we wade Through the mist, I draw my sunlit blade And look, always, for your plaited braid Your bird led me to the old well Where we as children fell Under the fairies’ soothing spell That rid us of worries, so we no longer dwell I search for you in the empty halls, the high plateau I have saved all your maps, you know When I reach the summit, I see you glow Only to realize you are just an echo

III. The ocean reflected the shape of your smile Subtle, fleeting, soothing, wise When you ran along the train platform while I saw tears fall from your bright eyes Sister, how long its been since we Played strings together, touched the autumn air Remember when you lifted me to see The enchantress’ silver-white hair, so fair Now your music box guides me Toward glimmering machines My thoughts roar like the sea I join the clockwork queen

IV. Mirror mirror Hear her How she sleeps And wakes, keeps The sun in her pocket Her heart in her locket Reflecting our last waltz Through the hidden vaults Where Echo resides Away from the tides

Volume 44, Number 8

PAGE DESIGN BY EMAN ALI ARTWORK BY EMMA MORHMANN AND EMAN ALI

The Sickness/Hastalık/Die Krankheit/ ‫یرامیب‬/La Enfermedad A multilingual short story exploring one’s thoughts while at the gym. By AYBARS ÖNDER

.he following short

story is written in multiple languages to capture the flow of the thoughts of the main character and thereby explores how the language of internal narration might interact with external circumstances. The substantive content is in Turkish, German and English. The numbers are occasionally in Spanish and Farsi, in addition to the aforementioned languages. He first heard a faint buzzing when he was entering the gym. The gym was very crowded, and this sensation he therefore attributed to the noisiness of the atmosphere he found himself in. Kafasında bir sürü düşünce uçuşuyordu. Eve dönünce ne yapacağını, yazı nasıl geçireceğini henüz düşünmemişti. He wore his earbuds. Er dachte, er müsse sich immer mit etwas Geistigem beschäftigen. Deshalb hörte er ein Audiobuch

olduğu inancıyla egzersizine devam etmeye karar verdi. Vi/Gerade um halb zehn U/er Fünf/hr als er weggehen

an, wenn er Sport machte. Heute wahlte er “Der Process” von Kafka. His hand habitually grabbed a towel as he walked by the reception desk. He hopped onto an elliptical. He was going to warm-up by doing cardio for precisely five minutes; then he would do 3 sets of 5 reps each on every machine, and he would stretch and leave. The methodical precision of this routine comforted him. Nothing could go wrong in the gym. Everything was precisely in order, always. He hopped off the elliptical and walked toward the squat machine. Eins Zwei Drei Vier Fünf Five perfectly executed squats. Although by now going to the gym had become customary for him, he nevertheless felt a little proud

wollte… He stopped and took a deep breath. Although he felt nauseous, he had done this for long enough that his exercise routine was mere reflex for him, and therefore his movements were unimpeded. ‫کی‬/ denn es wurde so dun-

kel, daß er, als er aufblickte, in dem nahen Seitenschiff

‫ود‬ Drei/ ob er sich jetzt nicht eiligst entfernen sollte/

Vier Five

and satisfied after every set.

Eins Zwei Drei He felt a slight unease in his stomach in the middle of a squat. “What could that be?” he thought. The buzzing feeling was back in his head, stronger this time. Bunun geçici bir his

He got up. The uneasiness in his stomach had vanished, but he felt the buzzing in his head intensify, now joined by a slight airiness. He walked toward the closest machine and plopped himself on the seat.

Bir Two -The nausea in his stomach was back. He felt his thoughts turning in a whirlpool. Now he thought about a professor, how

ashamed he was to have said something, this girl-

Tres -self-loathing, utanç -

Vier

-and perhaps hatred‫جنپ‬/ he had always suspectedHe felt that he was falling. Er bückte sich. Der Bauchschmerz war fast unerträglich. Karnını acı içinde tuttu. He felt a tug at his belly. Before his shocked gaze, his stomach freed itself from his abdomen, ruptured his torso, turned inside out, and emptied itself.

The last thing he could see was the unconcerned onlookers calmly continuing their workouts. The methodical precision of the Nassau Weekly comforted Aybars Önder.

Volume 44, Number 8

Rumina t i o n s “I think often about this evening, and what my friend was trying to tell me. Something about appearances, how things seldom are how they seem? But this is too banal, and she is clever.”

By DANIEL VIORICA

was in Bucharest then, but only briefly. My grandmother’s apartment was not far from the river, and in the evening, when the air inside grew hot and stuffy, I took the alley walk to a place I had not visited since I was a child. I was surprised when I first returned. Just past the marketplace, down the hill scuffed by tires, you could descend from the street into a forest. The willows hung, thick and wet, and smaller trees with large, waxy leaves edged the path. I found that there weren’t many people there—several fishers, a runner, and

two smokers—and so there was something like peace hidden here within the city. You could look back towards the apartments and see nothing but their heads peeking over the tops of the trees. As I said, I came here often. The walk became familiar to me, the timing consistent: I would set off when the outside air was deep blue. One night, I saw someone whom I had known for just a short time, an acquaintance I’d met in an old bookstore years ago. I greeted her, and we talked for an hour, sitting on a bench overlooking the river as it became a lake. The houses, which seemed to float on the other side of water, reflected yellow lights, along with clouds and the first hints of stars. She was older than I remembered, but just as quiet. She was now at the University that my father had attended, and was

studying to be an engineer. She admitted, with a slight smile, that her true love was still for books. She told me a story. “It was the third week of term. Our first exam was approaching, and it was raining. Me and two others had left the faculty. We were staying close to the edge of the masonry, and rushing so that we could make it without getting soaked in the rain. We were laughing. I think that we were very happy. “I didn’t know the others well. Both were in my year, in my faculty, and so they were new to the place and to one another. One, Adrian, was tall and thin with a smile like a sharpened knife. He was clever and as I would find out later prone to fits of melancholy, especially during the rain. The other, Cassia, was bright as a lamp. She laughed often, with a sound like the bells past Victoriei.

I tell you, because later on, I think it will be important. “Cassia didn’t know the way, so Adrian took us through the school of the Architects, and past the large church on the corner with the twin statues looking outwards. He told us that he was taking us to a place he knew well; he had grown up in the area, and there was a cafe, on the second floor of a building, above a bookstore, to get out of the rain.” By then, it was growing dark. The sun was setting, and the water of the lake in front of us was tinged with pink. Night encroached. The few children in the playground by the river departed, and the streetlights went up in the forest, making pools of soft white light. They had always reminded me of faeries, from the stories I had been told when I was a child. My friend was looking out over the water, to the houses beyond, perhaps. She noticed

April 17, 2022

PAGE DESIGN BY BENJAMIN SMALL

me, shook her head, and continued speaking. “He couldn’t find it. He looked distraught and angry and began to make little sense. It had been here, it had been here just the other night. Cassia looked worried. She did not know the city well; I think she had begun to rely on him. Eventually, he calmed, and said that it was meant by the gods. Maybe he was joking. I wasn’t sure what he meant. “We did find a cafe on a side street, the kind that tourists would love to find, but could only by accident. It was lit with small, glowing light bulbs, half hidden under lush plastic greenery. We ordered coffees, and talked about the evening, the weeks, and our lives. “I won’t get into the details. Adrian had calmed and was happy. He had been happy. He grew up in the outskirts and he was only now able to spend time in the city on his own. Without his parents. It had been boring at home. He had few friends but very

close ones, and they would drive around at night like they were Americans, then drink in their basements and imagine their futures. I think he found it stifling. It was easier, then, to live a future than to imagine it. That’s what he said—each moment, he said he could feel that he was in the future, and he was living it just as he had hoped he would. “Cassia looked down. She was not from here—she had come on a whim, and she now felt like her life was wasted. She missed home every day. Time moved too quickly, and it stood still; she could imagine it stretching out in front of her. In the moment, there was nothing she could do but to study, and hope to find consolation, if not happiness. The things she had loved at home were not possible here, and at home they would be normal, neglected. They would fade with the passing years. She said this daringly, almost angrily, and the lightbulbs cast a glow on her face and on her hair, which trailed down in

golden ringlets to her neck . .. “We had all spoken. I left for a moment to see whether it continued to rain, and when I returned they were gone. I walked back home to my mother’s—not far from here, without an umbrella. I wouldn’t see them until after the exam. Each acted just like themselves, though I don’t think I saw them together again.” It was dark. The lights in the houses in the distance were fading, one by one. Most of the light on the surface of the lake was from the moon on the clouds. The air, finally, was cool. My friend said goodbye, her long skirt twisting as she left. This was the last time that I walked back home from the park. I was leaving Bucharest the next day. I tried to remember every detail from my surroundings: the streets, the pieces of scrap metal, the way the sidewalk turned, how music faded down from this or that balcony on the seventh floor. Before

I knew it, I was home. My grandmother had gone to sleep, though the apartment still smelled of her cooking. Soon, I fell asleep. I think often about this evening, and what my friend was trying to tell me. Something about appearances, how things seldom are how they seem? But this is too banal, and she is clever. Perhaps she was just speaking, and not trying to tell me something at all. No matter. Since this, we haven’t spoken. I don’t think I told her I was leaving. Or maybe the event didn’t matter, just the sense of the evening. I was heartbroken that summer, and besides I was leaving. This was the last time I sat on that bench by the river, watching the change in the light. Maybe I knew that this would be the end of something, and I didn’t want to let it go. We did find a Nassau Weekly on a side street, the kind that Daniel Viorica would love to find, but could only by accident.

Volume 44, Number 8 PAGE DESIGN BY TONG DAI ARTWORK BY CHLOE KIM

A senior looks back on his time at Princeton, as it comes to an end. By PETER TAYLOR

“And how was I supposed to know how to not get drunk every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and—why not— Sunday? / How was I supposed to know how to steer this ship?” –Will Toledo, “The Ballad of Costa Concordia”

“Mom and Dad,” I said. “I need to talk to you about something.” We were in the living room of the house we moved into two years after my high school graduation. It was the week between Christmas and New Year, that liminal period which bears the promise of renewal but forestalls its enactment, perhaps to accommodate the hesitation that the cosmos and I seem to share. My parents sat across from me in complementary chairs, clearly nervous about a big secret I was about to reveal. Perhaps someone was pregnant, or I had crashed their car. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I wanted to tell you that I’m scared to

graduate.” I had staged a similar performance two weeks earlier. My two best friends, both juniors, were sitting on the couch in my dorm room, looking at details for nearby screenings of Spider-Man. I got up from my bed and pronounced nearly the exact same words, a dress rehearsal for the conversation I would soon have with not only my parents but also, eventually, myself. Both audiences reacted with a similar lack of surprise. “That makes sense,” they said, as though my nervousness were inherently predictable. In turn, their practical nonchalance momentarily turned my world upside-down. Did it make sense? I suppose it did,

though it hardly provided any comfort. I had similarly found little solace when another friend of mine, a graduate student in his late twenties, once responded to my expression of wariness by saying, “Yeah, they never tell you that graduating from college is actually a really sad time.” I sought comfort in artistic ruminations whose subjects were wayward and ponderous youth. Phoebe Bridgers, Sally Rooney, Elliot Smith, Jonathan Lethem, you name it—if it features some college kid fretting in equal measures over their life arc and their romantic prospects, you can bet it was on my mind. On the one hand, this artistic consumption was helpful, giving me a structure to which I could attach my anxieties. On the other hand, maybe it was just a way to confirm my preconceptions: that the oncoming end of college would mark the end of my youth and, in turn, all the concomitant freedom, adventure, and mystery that have defined it. My coldest comfort? Roberto

Bolaño’s

Detectives,

The

Savage

that masterpiece of a novel concerning the wayward wandering of a gang of implicitly untalented poets who scatter in disillusionment as their youth expires. Aside from the characters’ literary aspirations, I identified most with the words of Amadeo Salvatierra, who says: “I saw our struggles and dreams all tangled up in the same failure, and that failure was called joy.” Culturally, college is often used as a shorthand for youth, and for at least a few understandable reasons. Practically, college tends to overlap with a time when our minds are both impressionable and free. Where in high school and earlier our curricula are largely determined by others, in

Growing Up

Will Toledo, Roberto Bolaño, and Some Notes on

Volume 44, Number 8

PAGE DESIGN BY HAZEL FLAHERTY ARTWORK BY HAZEL FLAHERTY

college we can study what we choose. While before we are often under the watchful and sometimes repressive eyes of our parents and other authority figures, in college we find ourselves freer than ever before from their constant presence. We’re not kids anymore, but we’re certainly not adults yet either, usually far more concerned with the content of our philosophy lectures or chemistry exams than our utility bills or our prospects for home ownership. College can also be an early opportunity to experiment meaningfully or even radically with everything from our musical tastes to our political or sexual identities. To top it off, it’s easy to envision our university days as the fount for all the memories and relationships we’ll spend the rest of our lives invoking or recalling, everything from our roommate turned best friend to our epic vacation in Connecticut to the first time we fell in love. This reality is certainly not true for all, especially for students of more marginalized and/ or economically precarious backgrounds, to say nothing of the vast

swaths of Americans who, whether out of constraint or apathy, never obtain a college degree. But it is the societal standard, at least in my American context, a chapter in our cultural mythos that reigns supreme. At some point in the past four years, I became obsessed with this myth of college as an all-encompassing experience. Now does seem the moment in life—or at least in my sliver of the human experience, unrepresentative as it may be—where we’re freest from consequences, where all my struggles and dreams, to echo Bolaño, can in fact coalesce into a failure indistinguishable

from joy. Part of my obsession surely stems from effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which fragilized so many experiences and institutions previously thought unshakeable and disrupted so much that was otherwise taken for granted of the typical fouryear university experience. More profoundly, however, I think I have clung to the safety of college to sidestep the pressures of the future. After this, it’s all uncharted. I’m a twenty-three-old American iteration of my juvenile literary namesake, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Leave a Dorm. So, what happens when this all ends and I have to step out into the dreaded “real world,” a place bearing seemingly no resemblance to the emphatically curated environment of Princeton? Maybe, I fear, this is as good as it gets, this little oasis in central New Jersey where my friends and I can drink beer, strum guitars, and write personal essays without the crushing weight of the world and its burdens.

Afterwards, the joys of youth will live on only in what Dolly Parton called “the sweet used to be,” a period of life that will never be superseded and only remembered with that melancholy nostalgia that the Portuguese language calls saudade. The coming of age has come and gone, according to Taylor Swift, but what comes next? In Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Julia Flyte says, “Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.” I decided, finally, to talk to my parents because I realized I was too busy idealizing the noteven-quite-yet-past to be able to confront the future, let alone embrace it. Facing the future, which grows nearer every day in accordance with the stubborn advance of time, I realized that it was actually quite similar to the past, which had itself once been unknown to me. The only difference was that this future seemed different, scarier, less full of hope and promise. But what does it really hold? Could it truly be as terrifying as I’ve made it out to be? I remember the feeling I had when I first came

to Princeton: lonely and unexcited. I dreaded the next four years because I thought they would be full of cookie-cutter sameness, institutionalized bullshit wholly divorced from the realities of the world. I found it hard to enjoy anything about college in the first months, too overtaken was I about this school’s elitist and isolating tendencies that I still find abhorrent. I remember telling my friend Matthew my disappointed realization that perhaps I was not suited for this place, that my Princeton experience would be far from the typical one. He changed my life with a single rhetorical question: “Why would you want it to be?” I leaned into my best friend’s insight and found, over the next three and a half years, something uniquely wonderful, uniquely mine. Now, when I contemplate my lapsing undergraduate career, I recall a host of memories: my arrival to campus, whose neo-Gothic spires were equally intimidating and entrancing; my first Nass piece, where I worked out political and personal evolutions in equal measure and, more importantly, first felt like the writer I so desperately

Volume 44, Number 8

PAGE DESIGN BY HAZEL FLAHERTY ARTWORK BY HAZEL FLAHERTY

wanted to be; the first time I vomited from over-indulgence, taking refuge in a toilet in Freiburg, Germany; late nights spent learning about the hearts and souls of my peers; lost loves and lost friends, ritually superseded by new loves and new friends with greater vigor; long drives back down to Tennessee, my first home,

the song “Hannah Hunt” on repeat; the satisfaction of writing a thesis; my first ever hit off a bong; that first sparkle of sunrise on a beach in Barcelona. These moments are only small slivers of an experience far too grand ever to attempt to commit to paper. The key takeaway: instead of going through the

motions, I seized my life and made it my own. This realization, this understanding, has driven me back into myself and allowed me to understand that the future is not best lived in advance but in the now, as it comes to me. By looking into my past, I have succeeded not in keeping the future at bay, as I once hoped, but in running into it headfirst. I no longer think of my next steps as an intangible promise of loneliness and monotony. Instead, they are an extension of the present, equally full of sadness and disappointment but also joy and hope. The only thing more wonderful than recalling passed moments of happiness and growth is to consider the prospect of new ones. These are moments whose character and shape I cannot predict, but whose eventual existence I recognize with the

same certainty with which I can declare that the sky is blue and things fall when you drop them. Maybe no one, young or old, knows what to make of life. Maybe, contrary to the messages of my anxieties, there’s nothing so wrong with that. In fact, maybe that’s the whole point. The other night, I was drinking a beer in Terrace’s dingy basement, surrounded by colorful murals of wild animals. Equally under the influence of mid-grade alcohol, all my best friends were around me, discussing Lukács and Tolstoy while I leafed through my copy of Eliot Weinberger’s 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei. Two unfamiliar faces arrived, both of which I quickly learned belonged to sophomores. I introduced myself as a graduating senior, and one of them said, “Oh, that’s so sad!” Her exclamation caught me off guard, so incongruous with my current outlook yet so reminiscent

of my former. How strange, then, to hear those words, as though I were conversing with an earlier incarnation of myself. My new friend must have detected a hint of my internal monologue in my facial expression, because she said, “I mean, maybe not. How are you feeling about it?” I looked towards my separately conversing friends, one of whom I caught amidst a roar of laughter. “These are the people that I get drunk with,” sings Will Toledo. “These are the people that I fell in love with.” “It’s a little sad,” I said. “I’ll miss seeing my friends all the time. But I’m ready for the next thing.” “That’s great! What’s next for you?” “I don’t know.” I took another sip of my beer. “But I’m ready for it.” Peter Taylor changed the Nassau Weekly’s life with a single rhetorical question: “Why would you want it to be?”

April 17, 2022

PAGE DESIGN BY EMAN ALI

“Everything Everywhere managed to accomplish authentic storytelling, complex character relationships, and a three-part plot structure in just over two hours, a feat that I did not think was possible.” By EVA VESELY

ecently, I journeyed to the sold-out screening of

Everything Everywhere All at Once at the AMC Lincoln

Square 13 in New York City, one of the select locations where the movie is being shown before it’s released everywhere. By the time the credits rolled, about two hours after I took my seat, not a single dry eye was left in the audience. Maybe it was the powerful collective viewing experience that caused the movie to leave such a lasting impression on me, but I believe there are several things that anyone could love about Everything Everywhere All at Once, even if it is watched, say, on an iPad in the comfort of a dorm room. As the title indicates, there are many things to be said about Everything Everywhere. The plot follows Evelyn Wang, a stretched-thin Chinese laundromat owner, after she is visited by her husband from an alternate universe and told that she is destined to save the multiverse. Everything

Everywhere brings its absurd alternate universe ideas to life through masterful makeup, set, and costume designs. For example, the movie’s villain, a being who is able to effortlessly hop between her different multiverse versions, takes it upon herself to always choose the most extravagantly dressed ones. Her numerous editorial looks, one of which features an Elvis costume and a pig on a leash, only make her seem formidably larger-than-life. Refreshingly, there are also some great instances of genuine representation in this movie. The relationships between Evelyn and her h u s band and daughter illuminate the infinite complexities of familial love in a heart-wrenching, silently-bawling-in-the-theater type of way. Love is not portrayed in an overly romanticized or glamorous manner but instead, as something that is both painfully real and never too late to become better at. Furthermore, the various universes that Evelyn travels to

portray facets of Chinese culture, from Kung Fu movies to C-dramas, in a way that is hilariously tongue-in-cheek but still feels like it’s coming from a place of deep appreciation. Not to mention the fact that the main hero of this epic journey is a middle-aged mother and Chinese immigrant, a character that is often overlooked in both Hollywood and society. Everything Everywhere managed to accomplish authentic storytelling, complex character relationships, and a three-part plot structure in just over two hours, a feat that

concept play out through rich storytelling allowed me to fully understand its meaning. I think this could be an especially useful message for our generation, which, evident by the large daily volume of tweets complaining that “nothing matters” and that “we’re living on a tiny floating rock in space”, succumbs to nihilism more and more every day. The popularity of “good for her” content, such as Midsommar and Gone Girl, which features women overcoming adversity through extreme acts of violence or rage, could also be attributed to an increasingly more nihilistic view of feminism—a response to the seemingly indestructible patriarchy.

Everything Everywhere

I did not think was possible. As if that isn’t enough, the movie also offers an answer to the age-old philosophical problem of nihilism. While I’ve learned about absurdism as a solution to nihilism in passing and predicted that the movie was headed in that direction with its message, seeing this

changed the way I view the world, teaching me that sure, maybe in the grand scheme nothing matters, but that’s all the more reason to appreciate the little things, pursue happiness and love, and embrace our infinite potential—give meaning to our lives in spite of the universe. The fact that nothing matters could be a

positive tool instead of a cause for despair. After all, if nothing matters then we have the power to determine what matters for ourselves, to choose to focus our energy on the things that fulfill us most. Maybe this is something that most have heard before, but I think Everything Everywhere helps give us the courage to truly believe it. Weeks after watching this movie, I still notice its idiosyncrasies subtly worming their way into my daily life. For instance, the friend whom I watched it with recently started sticking googly eyes on objects around their apartment as a way of showing love, just as Evelyn’s husband does. Clearly, Everything Everywhere is a movie that quite literally inspires joy and positivity, a refreshing perspective in light of the past few years. Finally, if you’re looking for one last reason to go see Everything Everywhere All at Once, Mitski is featured in an original song written for the movie’s soundtrack. So, if you don’t watch it for any of the reasons above, at least do it for Mitski.

Not to mention the fact that the main hero of the Nassau Weekly is Eva Vesely, a character that is often overlooked in both Hollywood and society.

April 17, 2022

PAGE DESIGN BY CATHLEEN WENG

HAZEL FLAHERTY

Songs of the West by CHISOM NWADINOBI

Ada, I carry with grace warmth dances on the crevices of my skin honey leaks from the borders of my chin will our maker approve of our feminine embrace? we hum our quiescent tune singing sweet songs of the west while coddling and stroking a bees nest our early leaf’s a honeymoon. only in shadows, our affair thrives sweet, like the fruit carried on the young aunt’sy carrying fruit on her head eerie, like the wise old man warning us of what’s ahead how will we escape when the sun meets its rise? you grip my hand, tight like the gele you tie, and say, “I believe all African children can fly.”