WHO WE ARE
ARTS & CULTURE OPINION SCEIENCE & TECH EXTRAS
WHO WE ARE
The Pacific Sentinel is a monthly student-run magazine at PSU. We seek to uplift student voices and advocate on behalf of the underrepresented. We analyze culture, politics, and daily life to continually take the dialogue further.
We offer a space for writers and artists of all skill levels to hone their craft, gain professional experience, and express themselves. We are inspired by publications such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. We advocate for the underrepresented and the marginalized.
We are always looking for new students to join our contributor team as we can’t do it without your help. If you’re interested in working with us, visit our website at pacsentinel.com or contact our Executive Editor at editor@pacsentinel.com
cover by kaitlyne bozzone
KAITLYNE BOZZONE
REBECCA MOSS
SHAAN BIR
KARA HERRERA
FEATURED THIS ISSUE
editors
ariana protsman is a graduate student in the book publishing program at portland state university. she is a lover of books, emo music, and hikes involving waterfalls.
rebecca moss enjoys spending time at her apartment with the fire going and talking rin out of adopting a fourth cat. she graduates this june from portland state university book publishing program and does not know where she will end up and is very much freaking out about it. she is a proud dog mom and will never stop talking about her german shepard.
rin kane is obsessed with her three cats and frequently has to be talked out of getting a fourth. she is also a graduate student in the book publishing program at psu and can be found at shows, stocking up on books about small-space gardening, talking endlessly about getting a criterion channel account without actually doing it, and thrifting throw pillows.
kaitlyne bozzone is a grad student in the book publishing program at psu. she loves discovering new music in her niche genres of choice, sharing pics of her pets, and anything lavender flavored. you can often find her exploring bookstores around portland or rambling excitedly about the various tv shows she’s watching.
contributors
kara herrera enjoys anime, PC games, jigsaw puzzles, zoology, D&D, and books. She’s a second-year book publishing student, and has surprisingly really liked learning about book data management and operations. She loves to write about gender crit and yap about post-colonialism, and in general just always has something to say about the media she’s consuming
shaan bir is an Economics undergraduate at Portland State with a strong interest in Labor Economics. He enjoys writing about economic issues that shape our society. Outside of work, he can be found enjoying his coffee at local Portland shops, weightlifting or bicycling outside the city.
ian drazkowski likes to cook breakfast, read speculative fiction, play RPGs and watch baseball. He is a production editor at Ooligan Press and is pursuing his MA in book publishing. As you read this, he is probably sitting on the couch with Terra (his pitbull mix), Spotify daylist playing in the background, either reading, writing, or building a D&D character.
DEAR READERS
We’ve done it! We’ve made it through the school year with flying colors. Some of us, like myself and several members of The Pacific Sentinel staff, will be graduating. Others can see graduation on the horizon as it gets everso-close. We press on!
This final issue of the academic year is a great one, especially with the push from the incredible staff and contributors. From opinions to reviews to culture, we have yet another well-rounded issue with an incredible aesthetic to finish off the academic year.
Shaan returns with a followup to his local art survey, ultimately challenging the us readers to get outside and see the beautiful local art that Portland has to offer. We also see Ian’s return with an insightful vignette about the so-called “company culture” found in many of today’s workforces. Our production editor Kaitlyne sheds light on different forms of feminism today and how society has strayed from what its original intentions were. Multimedia editor Rin takes us through the movie “Sinners” (2025) with an incredible review. Lastly, associate editor Rebecca gives us insight into the art of Tarot, sharing some history and personal experiences.
Let this issue be a fond memory, especially as we head deeper into the cuts and uncertainties of PSU. I cannot guarantee that The Pacific Sentinel will be back for this fall, but I can guarantee the spirit will continue.
As we head into summer, I highly recommend taking time for yourself, perhaps setting up a spot on the river to get some sun. I know I will.
Onward and upward,
Ariana Protsman
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
BY RIN KANE
Music Immortal An Analysis of “Sinners”
image from unsplash
Spoilers Ahead
Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” is a ferocious convergence of Black musical genius, vampire mythology, and the inescapable architecture of white supremacy. Rather than asking which of these forces will triumph, the film threads them together in an intricate, combustible network where history, horror, and cultural legacy collide. In many ways, it’s less a question of victory than of survival—who rebels, who assimilates, who burns?
The narrative follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack (played by Michael B. Jordan with such uncanny distinction I found myself squinting at the screen until well over halfway through trying to figure out if they’d just gotten a really good look alike) returning to their hometown in the Mississippi Delta after a mysterious and likely criminal stint in Chicago. With their cousin Sammie, also known as Preacher Boy (Miles Caton), they intend to open a juke joint on a former sawmill purchased from a man later revealed to be a local KKK leader. Sammie, despite his preacher father’s warnings that blues are linked to the sinful and supernatural, joins them eagerly. Their return is a reclamation of land, culture, and community—but it’s haunted from the start.
A little further away, a sizzling white man covered in blood and sores heaves onto the screen. Remmick (Jack O’ Connell) staggers up to a cabin begging for help and is taken in by a white couple. They are warned by a Choctaw band of vampire hunters not to trust him, but the couple threaten them with a shotgun and Remmick, revealed to be a vampire, promptly turns them into the same. Remmick is an Irish immigrant, and through this lens the vampires aren’t just monsters—they are a metaphor for systems of consumption and colonial extraction. Sammie’s music becomes the object of Remmick’s desire for its ability to transmit memory, pain, and spiritual connection across generations.
The film’s structure pivots on a now-iconic juke joint scene, during which Sammie performs “I Lied to You” (as seen on this issue’s playlist). This sequence is a sensory overload: blues rhythms slide into glam rock, tribal percussion, and early hip-hop breakbeats as Sammie’s music works in conversation with the spirits of his ancestors past and present. It’s one of the only film sequences I’ve
seen where my mouth involuntarily dropped open and stayed that way until it was over. The choreography evokes the chaotic beauty of Gaspar Noé’s “Climax”—mesmerizing, frenetic, surreal. But unlike Noé’s detached nihilism, this performance is a call to cultural continuity. Sammie is not simply a performer; he’s a conduit through which history, resistance, and ancestral recall flow.
This spiritual transcendence through music stands in stark contrast to the film’s depiction of white supremacy. The vampires, in their hunger, are analogue to the white supremacists who attempt to suppress, possess, or erase Black life and culture. Coogler makes this parallel explicit: the KKK and the vampires are not separate threats—they are different manifestations of the same colonial impulse. One feeds off blood; the other off power. And both are cursed, soulless, and afraid.
The construction of whiteness is a national affliction rather than a regional or cultural one
As an Irish vampire, Remmick recalls a time when Irish immigrants were outside the boundaries of whiteness. His tragic longing and musical sensitivity signal his attraction to Sammie’s power as a spiritual figure. Remmick recognizes the immortality Sammie embodies: one rooted not in violence or consumption, but in memory, tradition, and rhythm.
The notion that the construction of whiteness is a national affliction rather than a regional or cultural one is reinforced both through this treatment of “fringe” communities and through Sammie’s naive optimism. When he excitedly asks Smoke and Stack about Chicago, their weary response that they came back to the Delta because they’d rather deal with the devil they know highlights the pervasive construction of white supremacy.
Indeed, Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), Stack’s whitepassing girlfriend, becomes a vessel for exploring
the treacherous terrain of racial ambiguity. Her attempt to straddle identities—crossing in and out of whiteness even though she would rather cleave to her Black heritage—ultimately brings about the downfall of the community. Her character critiques the privileges of passing and the dangers of false solidarity. Her careless alignment with the vampires under the assumption that their perception of her as white would protect her is her undoing, and tragically, the juke joint’s as well.
Ultimately, once he survives the vampires, Smoke sacrifices himself to destroy the KKK, whereas Stack and Mary get their forever, though flawed, ending together. Coogler, drawing a clear line between human evil and supernatural monstrosity, suggests that white supremacy is, in fact, the greater horror: more enduring, more insidious, and more capable of eroding community from within.
His survival is not es-
cape—it is transfiguration... His music, his connection to ancestral memory, his refusal to assimilate—these are his talismans.
The film’s quieter moments are just as powerful. Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) represents cultural retention and spiritual fortitude. She is one of the many who managed to keep their culture and practices safe from erasure, and her first scene feels like an elegy to that. The cinematography is exceptional here; the dappled light, the heavy oaks, the softness, the stillness. Her and Smoke’s connection isn’t sassy and raw like Mary and Stack’s; it’s charged with a weighted electricity, like the air before a storm. It’s beautiful. Eventually, her
decision to die rather than be turned by the vampires reaffirms the film’s core ethic: integrity of self and community is worth more than survival under erasure.
In the end, only Sammie survives. But his survival is not escape—it is transfiguration. He doesn’t need vampiric immortality because he’s already achieved something more profound. His music, his connection to ancestral memory, his refusal to assimilate—these are his talismans. As he drives away in the twins’ car, shattered guitar clutched to his throat, it’s clear he carries both loss and legacy.
“Sinners” is a genre-defiant epic, folding the surrealism of Climax, the mythic Americana of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the righteous fury of Django Unchained into something entirely its own. It is a film about art as resistance, music as lineage, and white supremacy as a curse that ultimately devours even its beneficiaries. It is, finally, a film about what survives when the night ends—and who becomes legend in its aftermath.
I won’t spoil the post-credit scenes, but if you missed them the first time do yourself a favor and go watch it again.
The Southern Gothic Issue Playlist
Family Tree
Ethel Cain
Season of the Witch
Donovan
Black Leaves
KIRBY
O Death
Ralph Stanley II
Rhiannon
Fleetwood Mac
I Lied to You
Miles Caton
Bath County
Wednesday
Harvest Moon
Neil Young
Baby Please Don’t Go
Sabine McCalla
The Wetlands
Aoife Wolf
At the Whimsey of Fortune and Fate
The Art of Tarot
graphic from pexels
Some people will see a sign that says “Tarot Readings” and immediately scoff at the idea of sitting down, having someone shuffle cards in front of them, and reading the cards. The interpretation alone may feel ridiculous and like it’s one big scam. While there is the possibility of that being true and there are definitely people out there who truly just scam people out of their money, I am here to tell you that the art of tarot is alive, and wondrous. A little history:
The “game” of tarot originated in the 15th century, yet the practice of divination and readings with the tarot cards started in France, 1780. The deck holds 78 cards; 22 Major Arcanas and 56 Minor Arcanas split into four categories: Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles. Each category holds their own meaning, too.
Wands
for energy, growth, animation Cups for the subconscious mind, love, and happiness
Swords
for aggression, strife, boldness, and courage
Pentacles
for money and trade
Of course, some people have their favorite cards such as The Empress, The Lovers, and The Wheel of Fortune. My personal favorites are The Star, The Tower, the 7 of Wands, and Strength. They all have their own meaning but when you put them together in a spread? Then the real story comes out.
I could get into the weeds of reading and what every card means but I won’t do that here. Tarot is a form of answers, warnings, and your spiritual guides finally getting a chance to tell you to knock it off or yes, good god, do that thing you wanted to do. Not every reading is clear, lord knows that I have had some muddy ones. But it’s all in how you intend to read the cards. Personally, I have been learning to read cards for about 8 years now and while it’s fun and lovely to learn something like this, it’s still all very serious. One of the most important things to know is that the cards are not set in stone. What they tell you is not a hard future or event, you can still change it as what you are reading is a journey, yours. These are just possible paths you could take. Your intention goes a long way here. YAnd your guides will take it from there.
My personal beliefs and interest in this art form stems from my family and the culture we come from. Tarot’s history is heavily tied to religion and was slowly passed down to traveling Romani peoples. Eventually, in the 19th century, it made its way down to Louisiana.
One of the most prominent figures in New Orleans history, Marie Laveau, was believed to have used tarot card readings as part of her hoodoo practices for her clients and customers. Marie was born a free woman of color in New Orleans, and a hairdresser that worked with many wealthy people who asked for her advice and help with matters. Then dubbed the Queen of Voodoo, she began performing rituals, creating spiritual charms and protections, and carried the practice for decades.
Marie passed in 1881, in her sleep, and her story is survived through a shop on Bourbon St, “Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo” that sells many spiritual items, voodoo dolls, and offers readings. Yes, I did pay for a reading while I was there. I was still learning myself and was hoping for some guidance, and what I received was a reading of my possible future I didn’t like. It was the only time I had ever felt duped by the cards.
All this to say, open your mind. For centuries this practice has been taking place and while it is still mysterious and not a widely taught form, it can be a means of focus, and path-finding. And, who are we to turn our nose up to Marie Laveau?
I’m Just a Girl!
BY KAITLYNE BOZZONE
When Pseudo-Feminism Leads Us Down the Alt-Right Pipeline
If you spend too much money at the mall but get tons of discounts from sales, that’s girl math. If you eat just a handful of almonds and a pint of ice cream for dinner, that’s girl dinner. And if you can’t hold down a job and only care about scrolling TikTok and dating, well, who can blame you? You’re just a girl! It’s a phenomenon that’s been going on for a while now, and it’s something scary to see in an age of fascist rollbacks of rights and the rise of a dictator.
Our societal idea of what a woman can be has shifted along with the general culture: to the right. With the rise of tradwife-ism (the ultraconservative role of a married homemaker who values her husband over herself, in line with “traditional” gender roles) lurking in the periphery of women’s online spaces, you can’t get far in a doomscroll on
TikTok without hearing allusions to Nara Smith, infamous tradwife icon.
But falling for the tradwife agenda is too obvious for some, especially those who self-identify as feminists. They’re independent women, and perhaps aren’t even attracted to men or interested in marrying. So the algorithm needs to adjust. We see “girl pretty vs. boy pretty” and “divine femininity” circling on our feeds, promoting a wave of gender essentialism that promotes transphobia and sets feminism back decades.
Maybe you recall the rise of “bimbo feminism”: cute, pink, and girly, but seemingly self-aware. Influencers like Chrissy Chlapecka promote feminist and left-wing ideals in a sparkly, hot pink,
and scantily clad package that appeals to young women, yes, but also the patriarchal standard of what a woman should be. And even while reclaiming the word bimbo, you can’t divorce it from its meaning of an attractive but unintelligent woman. And bimbo feminists typically don’t try to remove the air-headed stupidity from their aesthetic: TikToker @nikitadumptruck makes videos explaining complicated topics “for the girls” by greatly simplifying the concept, relating it back to stereotypically feminine hobbies through asinine metaphors, and speaking in a valley girl type accent. Her bio proudly proclaims her as “professor at bimbo university.”
This take isn’t going to be popular, but it needs to be said: this isn’t the pinnacle of feminism so many like to make it out to be. How can it be? You can hit all the right talking points in your content, but wrapping it up in a pink bow tinged with misogyny is glaringly missing the point.
There is only so much reward for internalizing misogyny, a diminishing return for promoting your own subjugation
There’s this idea that anything a woman chooses to do is inherently a feminist choice by virtue of her being a woman, aptly named “choice feminism.” It isn’t accurate. You can dumb yourself down and claim that you’re bad at math or can’t work in certain fields because you’re “just a girl,” but the choice to do so isn’t a feminist choice. It’s just sad. You can choose if you want to shave or if you want to work because feminists fought for your ability to make that decision. That doesn’t mean that following the patriarchal standard is feminist.
And while bimbo feminism is relatively new, the phenomenon isn’t. In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” “My own
sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their FASCINATING graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone… I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them, that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.” Wollstonecraft not only criticizes men, rightfully, throughout the book, but also women complicit in their own oppression for the social rewards they reap from it.
The fact of the matter is that there is only so much reward for internalizing misogyny, a diminishing return for promoting your own subjugation, especially when you frame it as radical or feminist. Things are getting worse, our rights are being stripped away, and intersectionality is disintegrating around us. “Not all men” is back in the cultural zeitgeist, transphobia is at a critical high, and some truly believe women should lose their right to vote.
It’s scary right now, and we need to remember the tenets of feminist theory that will help us fight back against fascism: that women are, above all, people. People who are flawed and diverse and deserving of respect and freedom and equality. That we have every right to exist in the public without performance for an audience whose values are determined by men. Think critically about your choices and why you have them. Maybe it will bring us back into a movement towards what we deserve.
Primitivism in Portland
BY SHAAN BIR
by author
As I explore Portland’s Alberta Arts District and Paxton Gate for this issue of the magazine, I am guided by the subject of Primitivism, which is a return to intuitive, unrefined creativity that aims to connect with the unfiltered realities of life.
To fully understand the meaning of Primitivism, we must go back into history…
The art brought by European explorers from the African continent was not considered “art” according to the 18th-century definition of art and hence placed in ethnographical and anthropological museums to be regarded as a part of their culture.
In the broader context, the European artists used the word “primitive” to describe ideas and forms developed by artists working on the African continent because they didn’t consider it art. The work by African artists was considered less than the art made by Western artists, and the word “primitive” was used by European artists to justify the colonization of the African continent. On the other hand, the early 20th-century art made by European artists was considered to be modern and advanced than the art made by native Africans themselves.
photos
Alberta Arts District
Alberta’s neighborhood is in the northeast corner of the city. It is full of cafes and a variety of cultures in a confined space. There are art-inspired shops, including craft shops, ceramics shops, painting shops, and numerous stores that have local art on the wall for sale.
There’s an overwhelming amount of street art, mostly in the form of murals, and there’s even art in places you don’t expect art to be in, including the trash cans and bus benches.
On Northeast 17th Avenue, the Community Cycling Center Mural was a project by artist Robin Korbo, completed in 2006 with the help of volunteers, depicting all manner of subjects, including musicians, hot air balloons, spaceships, and pirates riding a bike. The Community Cycling Center is also a non-profit, as it provides access to bikes to all, regardless of income and background, justifying this space to the community.
On the northeast side of 17th Avenue, I encountered another mural. It shows the story of Floyd N. Booker Sr., who served in the army and worked for the Union Pacific
Railroad for almost twenty years. He then started his business, Courtesy Janitorial Services, which is still operational today and is one of the oldest African American-owned businesses in Portland.
How did we get these murals in such a small space?
The neighborhood had been neglected due to various events, including the discontinuing of the streetcar, which was replaced by the bus system in the late ‘40s. There was an economic decline due to the construction of the freeways, which resulted in taking the traffic away from the neighborhood. In the late eighties, the area had become dangerous due to gang-related activities, which resulted in the closure of many long-standing businesses.
Roslyn Hill is an important figure in the making and revitalization of the northeast Portland, Alberta Arts District. She, working with business partners, is credited with redeveloping several blocks along Alberta Street and pioneering the use of urban touches, such as public art and corrugated metal siding paired with existing vintage structures.
Paxton Gate
Located on North Mississippi Avenue, Paxton Gate is an establishment that is much more than your average bodega. It’s more akin to entering a zoo that has been possessed by a Shamanistic witch; a sanctuary where the aesthetics of the supernatural and the natural sciences coexist. Specimen jars contain a wide variety of taxidermy creatures, including zebras, rabbits, hippos, frogs, and exotic fish. But there is still indefinable beauty at Paxton Gate, even in death.
In the Context of Primitivism, I visualize the aesthetic at Paxton Gate as a modern reimagining of the word ‘primitive.’ The art exists in the form that is framed, curated, and commodified. Death is an object of beauty, and it is similar to the Primitivist impulse to appropriate non-Western art forms and distance them from their cultural origins. Here, nature is a consumable object that can be purchased and displayed as a luxury good, similar to ‘artworks’ that were once exhibited in European museums.
However, unlike Alberta’s murals, which seek racial equity and represent local culture, Paxton Gate’s art of taxidermy raises ethical questions about commodification. These two interpretations reflect the
issues and complexities of Primitivism and raise questions about the exploitative consumption of ‘exotic’ aesthetics.
Alberta Arts District is different from the curated, commodified ‘primitivism’ seen at Paxton Gate. Here, the streets are murals that display the narratives of a community shaped by labor and resilience. The mural of Floyd N. Bokker Sr., who built his own business against systemic neglect, is more than just a painted image – it is a return to intuitive, unrefined creativity that aims to connect with the unfiltered realities of life.
The Theatricality of Company Culture
BY IAN DRAKOWSKI graphic by ariana protsman
We open on a crisp Manhattan morning: executives from across the financial sector fidget in the seats of a sleek conference hall overlooking Central Park. The occasion is yet another symposium on “cultivating company culture,” a nebulous concept which gets stuck in the heads of corporate business bros like a certain Mariah Carey song between the months of November and January. The keynote speaker, a former tech CEO turned consultant, is playing the lead in today’s performance. He takes center stage with practiced enthusiasm, and Act One commences.
“Culture,” his monologue begins, “is the secret sauce your business needs.” The audience nods, enraptured, as though witnessing a profound revelation rather than an aphorism that has graced the pages of “Forbes” so frequently it might as well be the magazine’s tagline.
For the better part of the last decade, “company culture” has been elevated to near-mythic status in
the corporate realm — presented as the alchemical element that transmutes struggling enterprises into unicorns and transforms ordinary workplaces into talent magnets. The script, we’re told, is deceptively simple: foster trust, nurture enthusiasm, and cultivate commitment from your team members. The stage direction? Demonstrate to employees that their contributions matter — that their labor serves a purpose transcending the mundane pursuit of quarterly profits.
All of this, of course, in service of the dramatic Act Two reveal: the true motivation was quarterly profit all along! The dramatic irony is palpable, if not particularly subtle.
It becomes difficult to suspend disbelief and buy into the performance when someone earning a multiple of your salary — likely performing work that is simultaneously less taxing and more rewarding — schedules quarterly “wellness check-ins” to inquire about your mental state. Their transparency
is almost admirable. They freely admit these sessions exist primarily because content employees are more productive; they boost metrics and secure performance bonuses for their managers.
To be fair, given the choice between a company that makes even performative efforts toward cultivating a supportive environment and one that demonstrates callous indifference to its cast and crew, the former is obviously preferable. There exist virtuous managers who genuinely strive to create workplaces conducive to both profitability and personal fulfillment. They deserve recognition, perhaps in the form of a motivational desk ornament, or a “#1 Boss” mug.
Perhaps you have one of these managers, and they would lend an ear when you’re down. Lovely. Would they do your job, or is it beneath them? How much better would your day-to-day be if you had their job? Are you being paid less for a job that is harder and less gratifying?
Are you being paid less for a job that is harder and less gratifying?
When the answers are “no, a lot, and yes,” how sincere can their concern for your well-being possibly be? If they actually wanted you to be well and satisfied and content, they would distribute money more equally and make sure everyone shares the most difficult and unpleasant tasks. But they don’t, because they don’t actually want employees to be happy. They want them to be docile.
The critical standard is remarkably low if we give raving reviews to managers for simply recognizing their employees as both profit-generators and people deserving of comfort and fulfillment. A manager can sincerely believe their culture-building initiatives benefit both the company’s bottom line and their employees’ sense of purpose, while simultaneously treating human contentment as just another exploitable resource — no different from intellectual property or capital equipment. It takes more than recognizing a person’s humanity
to overcome the omnipresent reality that employee satisfaction is a corporate asset—one that is maintained precisely to the extent that it generates returns for shareholders.
(In a fourth wall-breaking aside to the audience, the narrator makes a plea: “I can hear the critics shouting, ‘Socialist! Radical!’ Is it truly radical to question the return on investment of human fulfillment? To resist the commodification of one’s wholeness of self?” The hecklers’ answer is predictable as the narrator retreats to the safety of the wings.)
Corporate rhetoric describes successful cultures as those that nurture employee development and operate on foundations of mutual respect and trust. Yet this narrative rings hollow when the architects of these values wouldn’t consider performing the unpleasant tasks delegated to those occupying the lower rungs of the organizational ladder. How does one maintain composure during earnest discussions about “the company family” shortly after scrubbing bathroom facilities, while those granted infinitely greater resources for personal comfort spend their afternoons “in meetings”— corporate shorthand that might encompass anything from actual strategic planning to leisurely networking at the local country club?
The irony compounds when we consider compensation structures. Executives receive premium salaries for performing work that is inherently more intellectually stimulating and personally fulfilling. They navigate the realms of strategy and vision — the work we find most rewarding — while commanding compensation packages that might exceed eight figures. Meanwhile, those tasked with the most physically demanding, repetitive, or unpleasant functions often struggle to secure wages sufficient for basic necessities.
(An underpaid lighting tech pans the spotlight upstage, where an uncredited actor making union minimum outlines a hypothetical):
Say I gave you an array of tasks you could complete, and any of them would be rewarded with $1,000. You could spend eight hours sitting through meetings, schmoozing clients over drinks, and balancing a spreadsheet (maybe tack on an extra hour to figure out how Excel works); that, or you could spend eight hours dealing with every complaint that a customer calls in with, or you could clean
“Is it truly radical to question the return on investment of human fulfillment? To resist the commodification of one’s wholeness of self?”
every surface in every room of an office building, or you could wash 8,000 cafeteria trays.
I bet I know which one you’d pick.
Yet these obviously less desirable roles command the lowest wages, while those performing them are expected to show gratitude for the mere opportunity to be part of the production — to keep from biting the hand that feeds them crumbs from the corporate dinner table.
When the same organization that speaks reverentially about its cultural values maintains such stark disparities in both the nature of work and its compensation, the discourse around company culture becomes the most elaborate, condescending form of theater — ornate and meticulously crafted, but ultimately an artificial construct designed to obscure uncomfortable realities.
Perhaps a more honest script would acknowledge the fundamentally transactional nature of corporate culture. An even better script might go further and change the nature of the transaction altogether: organizations might provide compensation for profit-generating labor commensurate with the difficulty and desirability of the work. In other words, the actor playing the most unpleasant, exhausting, and difficult role gets top billing, regardless of stage time or star power. The cultural elements that humanize this exchange — the birthday celebrations, the team-building retreats, and the wellness initiatives — may indeed improve the production value, but they don’t change the words on the page or the notes in the air.
How do we, normal people, use this information? If you are in a job interview and their main selling point is a vibrant and supportive company culture, question it. Is it a for-profit organization with shareholders and investors? Are managers receiving bonuses based on the performance of their subordinates? What is the pay disparity from the c-suite to the bottom of the corporate pyramid? If these answers don’t align with the enthusiastic, employee-focused company culture being described, then don’t be surprised when their interest in your well-being is less than advertised — or when it ceases to be a priority the moment your health and wellness become financially inconvenient.
As the conference in Manhattan concludes, attendees file out clutching branded playbills filled with strategies for “authentic culture building.” Outside, the stagehands begin striking the set: clearing coffee cups and arranging chairs for tomorrow’s performance. The contrast between those who take bows and those who run the lights is neither subtle nor novel, yet it persists as the unacknowledged counterpoint to corporate America’s most cherished mythology—that beneath the profit motive lies something more meaningful, more human. With the house lights up, the truth may be less inspirational: culture, like everything else in business, is just another prop in a highly profitable production.
“Chirin no Suzu” Gothic Children’s Media:
Leaving the Pasture of Innocence
BY KARA HERRERA
“Chirin no Suzu” (or “Ringing Bell” in its Englishlocalized translation), a seemingly whimsical 1978 anime film that begins with a lamb playing with his mother, hardly seems at first like a candidate for Gothic analysis. Typically, when people first attempt to define “the Gothic,” images are conjured of crumbling castles, shadowed cathedrals, and desolate moors—settings where oppressive architecture mirrors some kind of “war within”, in other words, a character’s own psychological torment. Yet, there is more to Gothic structure than human-made Gothic architecture and moody, depressive lighting. In addition to a dark atmosphere, the film’s plot and story elements tout an exploration of isolation, monstrosity, and the corrupting nature of vengeance, proving that the Gothic can thrive far beyond the confines of haunted castles and cemeteries.
After the innocent scenes showing Chirin (the titular lamb character) frolicking in the grass, his mother warns him of the existence of wolves out in the wild mountains, which are visible from the field and barn where the sheep live, but from which they are far separated by a wooden fence line. After this warning, that night while all the sheep are sleeping in the barn, a wolf breaks in and begins to attack the helpless inhabitants. Chirin’s mother herself becomes a victim and is killed. After sating his appetite, the wolf leaves the barn and returns to the mountains, but Chirin is determined to seek out revenge. Despite the urging of the other sheep towards the contrary, Chirin abandons the only home he ever knew and pursues the trail of the wolf into the mountains; Chirin attempts to attack the wolf (whom is identified as Woe or Ūo) but in his lamb body, is too weak to do anything but fluff his tail. When Woe observes Chirin’s despair at crushing some baby bird eggs that he was trying to protect, Woe offers to teach Chirin how to become a predator, rather than prey. Driven by a desperate need for strength, Chirin abandons his lamb innocence to learn the ways of his mother’s killer.
It is this internal change within Chirin that I argue, makes the movie a Gothic one. First of all, the initial fence line that Chirin’s mother warns him to not cross—the same one that the other sheep also warn him away from—acts as a physical manifestation of a Gothic “barrier,” some kind of liminal space where the threshold between what is “normal” and what is “monstrous” dissolve. Although it is the death of his mother that is the inciting incident, it is only once
graphic by ariana protsman
Chirin crosses that physical border that the change within his being is marked; he consciously makes the decision to pursue vengeance, and so begins his grim odyssey into self-transformation.
His internal transformation is mirrored by his physical one as well. As Chirin ages and grows alongside Woe, he begins to grow sharp, malformed horns, his hooves become “tougher than rocks.” Chirin spends three years learning to become as strong as a wolf, and although it is not stated outright, a viewer could infer that Chirin has become a meateater as well. Though the movie chooses to depict him as a threatening ram-like creature, the narrator describes the adult Chirin as a “ferocious beast.” We are meant to see him as monstrous, and the musical montage that accompanies his evolution into this creature is accompanied by a choir singing lines such as “get out of my way.”
[Chirin] consciously makes the decision to pursue vengeance, and so begins his grim odyssey into self-transformation.
It is the climax of this short movie that also establishes Chirin’s inability to return to his former self. Once Chirin becomes an adult, he remarks that Woe has become like a father to him and he has decided “to go to hell together with him”. The two of them then plan to hunt at the sheep barn; the very place where Chirin grew up. Despite his initial willingness, Chirin finds himself unable to kill another mother sheep, as he watches her protect her child, as his mother once did for him. Woe attempts to kill the other sheep instead, but Chirin fights Woe to stop him and declares “I am a sheep!” In the ensuing scuffle, Chirin impales Woe on his horns, and as he is taking his dying breath, Woe tells Chirin
that he is proud of him, and glad that Chirin was the one to kill Woe in the end. To the other sheep, Chirin is unrecognizable as one of them, and they regard him as a horrible monster, “neither sheep nor wolfthat froze their blood.” Despite Chirin possessing a bell around his neck—the same one he had since he was a lamb—none of the sheep identify him as Chirin and shut him out. It is only once Chirin retreats alone into the mountains that he realizes that he is alone, and that he can no longer identify who he is, as he was unable to become a wolf like Woe, and is no longer a helpless sheep; so the movie ends with Chirin wandering the snowy wilderness, alone with his ringing bell.
Initially created as a storybook, “Chirin no Suzu” appears to offer a moralistic tale of avoiding sinking too deep into vengeance, lest one lose their ‘humanity.’ The idea that the self can be corrupted and made into something unrecognizable, some
“unspeakable horror” of which the evolution into it is brought about by some forbidden knowledge given to a once-innocent character—all these elements are what makes “Chirin no Suzu” extremely Gothic. The juxtaposition of the pastoral-like artstyle and soft color palette (which is very reminiscent of “Bambi”) initially forestalls too much obvious foreboding feelings; yet the hard shift into abandoning all those elements for a dark, gray-ish aesthetic (along with a shift in music tone and atmosphere) moves the genre into the “Gothic horror.”
“Chirin no Suzu” winds up becoming a short dive into Gothic anime, without relying on too many of the aesthetic hallmarks recognizable in the genre
such as British architecture or vampiric elements. It’s a quick movie, only around fifty minutes long, so I recommend taking a look for anyone interested in classic styles of children’s horror.
The Pacific Sentinel Southern Gothic
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dir. Ryan Coogler 2h 17m
Eve’s Bayou (1997)
dir. Kasi Lemmons 1h 49m
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
dir. Neil Jordan 2h 3m
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
dir. Charles Laughton 1h 32m
painting by josefa de ayala, public domain
Farmers’ Market Season
May means seasonal farmers’ markets returm, so be sure to check out these Portland-area markets this summer!
Portland Farmers’ Market @ PSU
year-round
Saturdays, 10am-5pm
South Park Blocks, Portland State University
Milwaukie Farmers’ Market
May-October
Sundays, 9:30am-2pm
SE Main & Harrison, Downtown Milwaukie
St. Johns Farmers’ Market
May-November
Saturdays, 9am-2pm N Charleston & Central St, St. Johns
Beaverton Farmers’ Market
February-November
Saturdays, 8:30am-1:30pm SW 5th & Hall, Beaverton
Montavilla Farmers’ Market
May-December
Sundays, 10am-2pm
SE Stark & 75th, Montavilla
WHAT WE’RE ENJO YING
WHAT WE’RE ENJOYING
ariana protsman
i am absolutely enjoying Sleep Token’s new album, “Even in Arcadia.” The blend of early 2000’s emo rock sounds with their most exquisite lyrics is literally to die for.
“Gethsemane” has to be a favorite for me.
shaan bir
kaitlyne bozzone
i’m totally in love with the band Luvcat. their music is perfectly macabre, murder ballads and toxic love songs that are so whimsically creepy it’s like they were made in a laboratory for me specifically. all of their songs are immaculate, but my favorites are easily “He’s My Man” and “Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel” (though their new release “Lipstick” is delicious as well!)
honestly, I’m really enjoying the idea of graduating in two weeks from now. I haven’t had any white space on my calendar recently. When school is over, I plan on biking to Boring and enjoying any free time I get.
graphic by ariana protsman images sourced from unsplash painting by george henry boughton, public domain
