Volume 74 - Issue 7 (Halloween Issue)

volume xcii issue 3 september 24, 2023

The Yale Herald

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

RK: What’s the scariest thing you’ve seen this week?

ADV: So I’ve been noticing lately that my dreams are getting more and more realistic. Like, set in situations that are true to my life, et cetera. Around the time of our first print issue, I bolted awake at 5 in the morning, teeth clenched, terrified that we had sent it to the printer with major mistakes. Stress dreams, one might call them. Recently though, I had an old type of dream, a really fucking weird one.

An austere river ran through a hybrid yurt-and-airplane-hangar building. A single tattooed woman sat on an ornate, circular rug. I was led below the surface (which was grass, so I’m not too sure how,

but I don’t ask too many questions about the logic of these things).

My guide stopped us in front of an open door and showed me a very large room, at once dirt-floored and a sterile laboratory. A line of men faced a shallow rectangular pit, and stepped into it one by one. The other men threw books at the central one’s feet, and matches dropped from a here-to-fore hidden chute in the ceiling, igniting them. Somehow, the fire burned the words from the pages of the books onto the skin of the men, turning them into women. Rinse and repeat. For my thoughts on the Interpretations of Dreams, turn to the back cover of this magazine.

RK: Ok.

Beautiful risings Herald readers, Since our last print edition, we’ve started wearing beige sweaters and eating salmon in the Herald office. The salmon was scarier, and Sara Offer definitely stepped in it. We’ve even paid our printer.

This issue is courtesy of Etai Smotrich-Barr, who has spent so much time this week doing off-schedule layout for us. Unrelatedly, this issue is dedicated to Bob Kaufman’s “Abomunist Manifesto.”

Take an issue, touch all the pages while eating salmon, read it in bed (preferably not your own), and do the crossword. Definitely come to our Herald Halloween party at 366 Elm Street at 7:30 p.m. on Halloween Day. For Friends of the Herald (that’s you).

Most daringly, Rafi & Arthur

YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST

THE MASTHEAD Editors-In-Chief Arthur Delot-Vilain/ Rafaela Kottou Managing Editors Madeleine Cepeda-Hanley/ Lydia Kaup/Hannah Szabó Creative Directors Sara Offer/Etai Smotrich-Barr/ Iris Tsouris Senior Writers Madelyn Dawson/ Nadira Novruzov/Jack Reed Staff Writers Lillian Broeksmit/Elizabeth Chivers/ Ashley Choi/Krishna Davis/Leo Egger/ Aidan Gannon/Sophie Garcia/ Oscar Heller/Helen Huynh/ Cameron Jones/Anna Kaloustian/ Sophie Lamb/Camilla Ledezma/Colin Quinn/Hannah Nashed/ Alexis Ramirez-Hardy/Kyan Ramsay/ AJ Tapia-Wylie/Aidan Thomas/ Ashley Wang/Avery Wayne/ Elio Wentzel/Andrew Wu

Reviews Editors Theo Kubovy-Weiss/ Natalie Semmel/Elena Unger Reflections Editors Eva Kottou/Chloe Shiffman Culture Editors Emily Aikens/Isabella Panico/ Alex Sobrino Features Editors Connor Arakaki/ Madelyn Dawson/Jack Reed Opinion Editors Ariel Kirman/ Daviana Rodriguez Zamora Arts Editors Jess Liu/Eli Osei Voices Editors Cal Barton/Ana Padilla Castellanos Inserts Editors Amanda Budejen/Jack Rodriquez-Vars Copy Editors Zoe Frost/Jisu Oh/Ece Serdaroglu/ Tessa Stewart/Alina Susani

Web Editor Kris Qiu Columnists Danya Blokh/Irene Colombo/ Lyle Griggs/James Han/Dory Johnson/ Maude Lechner/Judah Millen/ Alexa Murray/Hailey O’Connor/ Lucy Santiago Business Abby Fossati/Evan-Carlo Fowler/ Avery Lenihan Calendar Jess Liu Design Alexa Druyanoff/Angela Huo/ Helen Huynh/ Grace Kim/Kris Qiu/ Claire SooHoo/Alina Susani/ Liza Tsidulko/ Vivian Wang/ Silvia Wang/Miya Zhao Photography Fareed Salmon This Week's Cover Iris Tsouris

October 31, 2023

IN THIS ISSUE: 2

REVIEWS Connor Arakaki on Motherhood in Frankenstein Madelyn Dawson on Saved!

James Han on Ivy Wok

REFLECTIONS New Year, Same DVD

by Lu Arie Floating pumpkins, cats on pillows, and gold-red leaves—all on film.

A Sentimental Season

by Ellen Windels Autumn: the season for turtlenecks, crosswords, and slowing down.

Graphic by Alina Susani

FEATURES 14

Grove Street Cemetery: Death, Where is Thy Sting?

by Clay Jamieson The Grove Street Cemetery as a burial grounds, a museum, and a business.

18

Connecticut’s Spookiest Couple

by Megan Kernis Ain’t it Scary? with Sean and Carrie

Requiem for a Crybaby

by Jackie Liu Living with grief and learning to love.

My Parasocial Relationship with a Dead Bug Collector

by Jasmine Gormley Moths (large, fat, and fuzzy), death, and illegible handwriting.

10

CULTURE Walking Among the Dead

by Hannah Nashed The graves, bodies, and stories in the Grove Street Cemetery.

First Year, First Fall

by Zoe Frost Why we find comfort in autumn.

22

OPINION In Defense of Spirit Halloween

by Ariel Kirman retvrn to Adult Peanut Butter and Jelly costumes.

Stepping into Character and Acting Out

by Daviana Rodriguez Zamora Halloween is God’s gift to the young.

24

ARTS Cannibalism Makes Living Easier

by Will Sussbauer Cannibalism, primordial desire, cinematic catharsis: Bones and All and Raw.

VOICES Flickering Lanterns

by Alina Susani A marching band of ghosts.

One, two. One, two.

20 Wet Moss, Wet Stone, Cold Earth

by Chloe Shiffman Branches of berry-laden English Yew. 17

INSERTS 13

Getting Spooky on Spotify

by Emily Aikens

19

2 clowns

by Audrey Kolker

21

Obituaries

26

Ask Joehoru

by Joanna Ruiz

26

Cumsock

by Chesed Chap

27

PUZZLE: Cryptic Crossword

by Jem Burch

28

Calendar

by Jess Liu

COVER STORY!

4

REVIEWS

The Yale Herald

Motherhood, And Its Monsters Connor Arakaki, MC ’26, Herald staff

On a dreary February night, I am reading under the long shadow of a bookshelf. The jazz from the saxophone player next door bleeds through the wall. The pillow in my lap acts as a makeshift desk, and resting quietly atop it is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Frankenstein tells the cautionary tale of Victor Frankenstein, his laboratory birth of a monster, and their downfall from mutual abandonment. Frankenstein critiques the “playing god” genre, dutifully cheapening masculine creator figures that are too often portrayed as heroic. Victor’s inability to take responsibility for his creation quickly makes him an unempathetic creator. He vilifies the monster only because of his appearance and casts him into exile in the forests of the Alps. As vengeance, the monster murders almost everyone Victor loves by the end of the

novel—and it’s justified.

Shelley transforms Victor from a near-divine creator into a fallible mortal, ignorant of motherhood’s realities. At first sight of his creation, Victor rushes out of his laboratory, claiming, “the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.”

The monster is left to reckon with his selfhood in solitude, observing the DeLacey family from afar, and reading neglected copies of Milton’s Paradise Lost and Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther. In a twist on the story of Narcissus, the monster looks into a mirrored pool. Realizing his ugliness, he laments: “I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification.” What does a child have to ponder so despondently about?

Shelley responds—alienation.

For Shelley, the critique of maternal abandonment is personal: her mother, the early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, died while giving birth to Shelley, and Shelley herself experienced multiple miscarriages. In a 201 re-publishing

of the 11 text of Frankenstein, literary critic Charlotte Gordon introduces the novel, writing, “Like the creature, she felt abandoned by her creator and rejected by society.

Like Frankenstein, she felt compelled to create. Her own birth had caused the death of her mother, but it had also brought life to her characters.” The monstrosities of motherhood are not substantiated

by Frankenstein’s horror, but its author’s biography.

A couple days ago, I reread an online version of the book on the Northeast Regional from D.C. to New Haven. At this time of year, the route is speckled with orange trees. I imagined the monster wandering in the woods, etching messages into bark for Victor to read someday.

When I arrived home, I tried to find my annotated copy of Frankenstein in my dorm. Finally, I uncovered it in another cramped corner of my shelf. I picked up the book again, and was neither reminded of its monster nor its creator, but instead its author. There’s a new chill since I’ve been gone, and it’s deliciously haunting. ❧

YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST

Rest in Peace, Ivy Wok James Han, PC ’24

2

After five unbroken weeks of Yale Dining, we were all craving a takeout dinner. Something casual, maybe a little bit trashy. Nine of us, all living in L-Dub, decided on Ivy Wok. The little Chinese-American restaurant used to be found at 316 Elm, right next to Tomatillo. It was the best (and closest) place for sticky-sweet, greasy, Chinese-American takeout comfort.

We made the two-block journey, walking into the cozy restaurant with a too-large party.

You could say there was an open-kitchen concept. Or maybe

that the dining room was never really meant for guests to sit in.

An older Chinese couple, speaking in a rapid mix of Cantonese and Mandarin, simultaneously manned the register, three woks, and a deep fryer packed full of battered chicken. We sat down at our table before paper menus filled with green and red text. In Chinese culinary culture, chefs should be capable of cooking any dish a customer could request. With one hundred fourteen menu items, Ivy Wok was certainly a paragon of that culinary value. The menu was a bit culturally confused, featuring Cantonese-American classics, Japanese teriyaki, Thai tom yum soup with noodles, and Hong Kongstyle congee.

Chinese food, as most Americans know it, comes from the fusion of Cantonese dishes with American ingredients and preferences. Growing up Chinese-American in the Midwest, this culinary fusion is all too familiar. My parents tried to cook as much traditional Chinese food as possible so that I’d learn about actual Chinese food too. The problem: General Tso’s chicken is fucking delicious.

There’s a large audience for tasty Americanized Chinese dishes, but the need to appeal to as many diners as possible means borrowing from non-Chinese classics like teriyaki and tom yum. That’s how you get a hundred pan-Asian dishes on four pages of cardstock.

I was staring at this encyclopedia

REVIEWS

October 31, 2023

Saved! by the Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter Madelyn Dawson, SM ’25, Herald staff It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we announce the death of Lingua Ignota. All that was left of her was incinerated in a fiery convulsion on August 22, 2023, with the release of single, “All Of My Friends Are Going To Hell.” She is survived by Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter.

On October 23, 2023, singer, composer, performance artist, and multi-instrumentalist Kristin Hayter released her first album under her own name, stylized “Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter.” She previously released three LPs under the moniker “Lingua Ignota”: 2018’s All Bitches Die, 2019’s caligula, and 2022’s sinner get ready. In 2023, she announced that she was retiring the Lingua Ignota name.

“Revelations is upon us,” Hayter wrote in a social media statement.

“Gentle friends, it is ok to let go.

Thank you for sharing the dark with me, it is time to move forward.”

Lingua Ignota was a deeply experimental, onerously extremist project, steeped in the tradition of neoclassicism, but shaded by the grinding resonance of noise and industrial rock. Hayter described the music as “survivor anthems,” informed by her experience as a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault. Lingua Ignota was forged in darkness and by darkness. It had no way of escaping its own unceasing night.

And so emerged Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, the cantor of her own diabolic hymns. Saved! is a record about salvation, but it doesn’t offer any solace. Part Pentecostal-Holiness Movement funeral hymn, part Appalachian folk vocalization, Hayer is able to wrangle both a heavenliness and a hellishness we don’t have the words to name. She recorded the album first on a 4-track tape recorder, then transposed the sounds through other degenerated tape recorders to further distort the fidelity.

On standout single “i will be with you always,” Hayter sings with a desperation, one that rings through her trembling vibrato.

Even as she breathes between lines, you can hear her hunger, her gasping for the air that will give her the strength to finish the song. “I know your name, take your teeth out of me,” she sings.

“Return my body to me, release me.”

The album finds its own salvation on its eight-minute closer “how can i keep from singing.”

Unintelligible vocalizations writhe in the background as Hayter’s operatic rings out the lyrics to a traditional Quaker hymn, “Through all the tumult and the strife / I hear that music ringing / It finds an echo through my soul / How can I keep from singing?”

Maybe Saved! is the closest I can get to god, or maybe it’s drawing me to some other angel or demon.

Either way, I follow Hayter’s voice like she is a seraph singing the hymns of whatever salvation she can muster.

Lingua Ignota is dead. Long Live Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter. ❧

YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST DARING! YALE'S MOST

of a menu when I started getting questions from my friends about all the Chinese classics. I loved explaining what all the traditional foods were, though in the end, we ordered familiar fare: mixed dumplings, General Tso’s chicken, lo mein, and chow fun.

The dumplings, folded by the woman at the counter, arrived in a bamboo steamer that moments before sat atop a cauldron of water, gently cooking the filling until it was just set. With that first bite of chicken—its exterior crisp from its brief bath in the fryer but slightly softened by glistening orange sauce—I was transported home to the hole-in-the-wall takeout place I used to visit with my friends after school. I think everyone at the ta-

ble had that same experience.

There’s incredible variation in the quality of Chinese-American takeout, and even though we all grew up with different interpretations of the same dish, Ivy Wok managed to strike at the essence of each classic. Home had never felt so universal for a group of people who didn’t know each other until a month ago.

For the next two years, Ivy Wok became my little respite from Yale, my favorite New Haven takeout spot. Handmade wontons, rice congee topped with preserved eggs, and perfectly imperfect chicken were the reliable standards that supported me through remote work and too many five-credit semesters. A mere three-minute

walk away from my dorm, Ivy Wok was an ever-present temptation and culinary link to home.

When I walked by last year and saw the sign that read “we have made the decision to retire and close Ivy Wok,” I couldn’t help but feel like a crucial part of my Yale experience was dead. For twenty-three years, an immigrant family had provided amazing takeout to New Haven and Yale. They must have served thousands of students, watching them as they grew and ultimately graduated. I wonder how many movie nights, study breaks, and first dates Ivy Wok has been a part of. It was time for a well-deserved rest. ❧

In What We Like, Hardy Eville and James Han explore New Haven’s culinary scene with an emphasis on off the beaten track restaurants, unique cuisines, and the best hangover food.

3

REFLECTIONS

The Yale Herald

4

New Year, Same DVD Lu Arie, BF ’26

M

y birthday is the day after Halloween. As a child, that’s how I situated the first of November in my head. There was nothing more exciting to me than waking up in the morning after Halloween, opening presents, and then ripping into my trick-or-treat bucket with my brothers to gorge on Parma Violets, Maoam bars, and Drumsticks.

Today, my brothers are both in their mid-to-late teens, but one Halloween tradition has survived in our house: we watch the DVD version of Pumpkin Moon annually on Halloween. The film isn’t well-known; our nanny found it in a charity shop when we were little.

Based on the 2001 picture book of the same name, the 27-minute animated TV special centers around the magical friendship between a black housecat and a half-rotten pumpkin. The first scene—which opens on a foggy suburban street in autumn—is accompanied by a harp riff and bass chords so loaded with nostalgia that when I hear it now, it still physically transports me back to our old living room in London.

Pumpkin Moon was produced in the UK in 2005, but is set in the American Midwest in the 1950s.

When the film’s central family sets out to plant pumpkins in the garden, their black cat steals a seed and plants one herself, too.

A montage of the seasons follows.

Mice eat the cat’s pumpkin, the pumpkin begins to rot, and the family shovels it onto the com-

Graphic by Miya Zhao

post pile. On Halloween night, the carved pumpkins come to life.

Miraculously, so does the rotten pumpkin. When lit with a candle, the rotten pumpkin sparkles with magic, regains its orange color, and flashes a bashful grin at the cat through a mess of haphazard mouse-hole facial features. The end of the film is fantastical: the cat defeats an army of evil witches and ghosts with a rebellious song, the moon turns into a huge pumpkin, and the carved pumpkins fly through it to collect new seeds.

It’s just a children’s cartoon, but the memorable folk jazz-inspired soundtrack and beautifully illustrated Halloween scenes can still distract me from nearly anything.

Since my birthday is the day after Halloween, Halloween celebrations have always been inseparable from the awareness of my growing maturity. Every year when my brothers and I watch Pumpkin Moon, it feels like less and less time has passed since the previous Halloween, and I always feel the difference between who I was then and

who I am now—a calendar marker of emotion. Over time, though, my brothers and I have noticed more and more of the film’s imperfections. It’s not hard to see where the animators have flipped a shot on its vertical axis and repeated it to save time and effort. And now that I understand more about animation, the DVD’s behind-the-scenes demonstration of the cat’s blink on flip-book paper doesn’t brim with magic like it used to.

Regardless, my brothers and I still get excited to watch our annual 27-minute-long dose of innocence. But I don’t know how much longer this tradition will last now that two out of the three of us have moved away for university. I can’t bring myself to watch Pumpkin Moon without them. The film’s two-dimensional treasures—goldred leaves, cats curling up on pillows in front of open fires, floating pumpkins overflowing with seeds and the promise of regeneration— would fall flat. I’ll just listen to the soundtrack this year. That’s enough to remind me of home. ❧

REFLECTIONS

October 31, 2023

A Sentimental Season Ellen Windels, BF ’27

E

very Autumn, I have the same epiphany. I claim it as my favorite season all year long, but I always seem to forget that, deep within, I am cherishing much more than the warm colors and turtlenecks. The true power of this time of year is the undiscovered emotion it reveals, happiness and melancholy and tenderness and peace all unapologetically billowing within me. My reflective capabilities of the year before—when I was magnificently younger—are embarrassingly dwarfed by my current revelations. I reach for the limits of what a human can appreciate.

In the Autumn, I sit outside and absentmindedly stare, meditate in the cool breeze and smile at the soft shapes of nature meeting the geometric impositions of architecture. My eyes catch on every lonely object: the empty bench, the friendless squirrel, the bagel without cream cheese. I tear up at old couples moving slower than tectonic plates, seeing their unconcerned nature as a covetable symptom of time. As the daughter of an ecologist, this is the only time I take my upbringing seriously with a constant observational study of wholesome and imperfect people in a tired and impeccable environment. Every Truth exists at once.

Nuance is unbounded. I conclude that the world is increasingly entwined and devastatingly not.

My typically tight and cynical mind blooms with fluidity and contemplation. The universe and

I speak the same language; as that essence of life flows up, around, and through the world, I become a receptive vessel. I breathe it in with the crisp air, consume it through butternut squash soup and oat milk cappuccinos, absorb it as I tap on the bark of deciduous trees and dip my fingertips in the cooling water of streams. It trickles in through the soft laughs of friends and strangers, insulated by the warm lining of a dapper coat, thin beige gloves, and a dependable scarf of plaid and protection.

My chest has been chiseled through, or maybe pried open.

Either way, the waning, aching weather slowly reveals my heart to the world in a terrifying and healing interaction. I am vulnerable to crying after a lovely phone call with my mother and to tearing up when a dog looks too much like my own. I am no longer one of those sensible people who can rationalize their way out of wondering and reminiscing.

My hypothesis is that this is an evolutionary adaptation of internal preparation—the pre-hibernation berry-feasting of bears. I absorb all the beauty that I can now, for I know my limitless wonder is not fixed. The year continues with the progressively monochromatic November and December and my entire being retracts, balling itself up. I shiver off feeling in the Winter, and shy away from all I possibly can, seeking only equally numbing comfort. Creativity is tilted, half of what it could be, as my energy is poured instead into keeping my limbs warm and my brain at minimum happiness, forgetting the cherished gift of dopamine and Vitamin D typically graced by the sun.

This clamped-up state becomes flattened in the Spring. A little more hopeful, sure, but also cynical. Annoyed. Things have stretched on a little too long. I am not trusting of the environment,

recovering from the fatalistic intensity of the previous months.

The world made promises and refused to keep them; my open mind slammed shut in the cold and was scared to produce more than tiny doodles of vines and three-dimensional boxes.

I am loosened in Summer, certainly, happy in a way that reflects the constant sun, the balmy nights, the promise of never-ending excitement. The world is on vacation, supported by a seemingly autonomous society that graciously holds picnics and festivals and parades so we can make the spark within us a tangible object. This seasonal joy, though, is a little false. Or, at the very least, quite surface level.

I let the continuity of experiences take over, leading me from place to place. In the endless days, I forget to stop and listen.

So when Autumn returns, with its apples and ghosts and the gut-wrenching realization that I will never return to the joy I felt at eight years old, I remember to look about and to simply exist. I see Beauty in noses and cheeks tinged with pink, child-sized sweaters, and accidental reunions. I do crosswords and intentionally drink water and unintentionally love everything. As Autumn surrounds me, I can’t help but slow down and smile as the lovely particulars of the world are unveiled. ❧

5

REFLECTIONS

6

The Yale Herald

REFLECTIONS

October 31, 2023

Requiem for a Crybaby Jackie Liu, BK ’25

I

t is three days before my twentieth birthday, and I’m sitting inside Atticus Bookstore Cafe, looking for the right words to describe funerals. Saying ‘the right words’ feels like a disservice to the implied ‘wrong’ ones, because they haven’t done anything to deserve being punished. I just want words, right or wrong or somewhere in between, to express how sobering a parent’s funeral is.

My least favorite thing about funerals is that we’re expected to cry at them. Planning funerals so soon after death is ridiculous. There is no way of truly processing the size of space someone leaves in your life a mere week after they die. No way of telling whether they’re dead (like the four stages of mortis type somatic death) or whether they’ve just gone on a business trip. They’ll be back by Christmas. They won’t.

In my professional opinion, funerals should be held at least six months after a person dies. Funerals should be held when your mom finds a piece of clothing that smells like your dad, but neither of you know what to say so she puts it back. You don’t ask where. Funerals should be held in your kitchen every day after school, when you have to teach yourself how to cook because your dad isn’t there to (over)bake you mozzarella sticks from Costco. When your brother stops living in your house because someone’s died there, and ‘it’s bad 風水 (fēng shûi)’ but we can’t afford to remodel, and who gives a fuck anyway? When your dad dies

and you’re struck by the glaring self-awareness of just how much everything means to you, but unlike lightning, it strikes once.

Twice. Every day.

Before I discovered substance abuse and prose poetry, I had no outlet for my grief. I couldn’t dissolve Klonopin under my tongue like tasteless Smarties, or lose myself in a Pessoa or Miłosz poem that made me forget who I was.

The tragedy of capitalism is that we must always want something in order to survive. What happens when the world keeps moving but you don’t? What happens when 拜 拜* becomes something real, a tangible symbol that someone is gone instead of a freshly cooked meal, lit candles, open windows, and incense sticks propped in uncooked rice? I want clarity so thinking about it no longer feels like trying to see through the thick cloud of grief that clings to my skin like the sweltering humidity of Taiwanese summers. A funeral is no place for a child, regardless of how old they might feel. It’s funny how unfamiliar most people are with death, despite its inevitability.

The biggest misconception that most people have about grief is that it ends. One of the hardest pills for me to swallow after the beginning of my junior year was that love ends, but grief doesn’t.

The only remedy is to continue to love and hope that someday the grief becomes small in comparison. For years I didn’t think of the ever expanding space between my

ribs as grief. It was a friend to me.

It taught me that really, we never know how much time we have left with someone. It taught me to send my favorite poems to them even if they don’t respond because I still know they read them. It taught me to buy their favorite fruit from the grocery store, to remember to use shark stickers when texting so we can match. It taught me that no love we ever give can be wasted.

Grief is granular, and tastes like 胡椒 (hú jiaō). It smells like joss paper and burnt vetiver. A breakup is really a funeral for a relationship. Most days I wake up and everything is beautiful, but I am so sad. This is not a new thought.

My mom used to say to me, 哭笑 不得 (kū xiào bù dé). I don’t know whether to cry or laugh. But I can wear both masks. For so long I looked for clarity through a sheet of dirty glass, but it was a mirror.

I can live on my own, but why should I? I am constantly thinking of two things: first, how I want to love and be loved, ad infinitum; second, how I, too, am going to die someday. These two things are not mutually exclusive. I want longevity, in both life and death. Be gentle with each other.

And don’t forget: empathy, no matter how small, is luminous. ❧

* 拜拜 (bàibài): a traditional Taiwanese custom of honoring ancestors

7

REFLECTIONS

The Yale Herald

My Parasocial Relationship with a Dead Bug Collector Jasmine Gormley, TD ’24

F

8

or nearly two years, I’ve worked in the Yale Peabody Museum Entomological Collections. We have all kinds of things: bugs, of course, dozens of Blue Morphos with their surreally glimmering wings and stick bugs as long as your forearm. We have other bug ephemera, too; there is a baby mobile with real, dried moths hanging from it, and circa-1880s art made from the wings of locusts pasted onto wood. Most of my time is not spent with these oddities, as much as I would like it to be. Most of my time is spent in a room simply labeled “The Morgue”—a temperature- and humidity-controlled area behind the main office that houses thousands of insect specimens, mostly butterflies, moths, and skippers. Some of my friends call me Bug Girl; it should actually be Moth Girl.

We have nearly 5,000 moths that were collected over several decades

by Margaret M. Cary, a scientist whose name is infamous in the admittedly small circle of people who spend their time in the entomology collections. The first drawer of specimens I ever worked with was one of hers. Between the 1920s and 1960s, Margaret and her collaborators collected lepidopterans (butterflies and their associates) in Venezuela, Jamaica, Florida, Haiti, and just about everywhere in between. She did all of this as a female socialite whilst the Depression and then World War II raged on. Frustratingly for those of us paid to do data entry for the Yale

Peabody Museum, she wrote all of her specimen labels in some of the worst handwriting I have ever seen. Take, for example, a swallowtail she collected in Guatemala City in 1941. As the war raged on in the old world, Margaret, whom I tend to imagine in the finest safari-type uniform money can buy, was dashing through Guatemala with a butterfly net, chasing down the swallowtail, and going through the painstaking, steady-fingered process of pinning and drying a butterfly. She then writes out her label, in dull pencil: “Gu.…

C..y. Papi..o. [DATE ILLEGIBLE] 1941.” Why, thank you, Margaret.

Quite illustrative.

Labels are one of the most important parts of the entomological process, sometimes more so than the specimen itself. The label is meant to be preserved with the specimen for all time. It tells you the species, exactly where the insect was caught, the date of its capture, any relevant details regarding its habitat, and the collectors of the insect. If all of this information is in a database like the one we use at the Peabody, you have a powerful knowledge base: you can see how species distributions have changed over time, or you could track genetic differences between geographically isolated populations of the same species. This, like so many things, is especially pressing with the specter of climate change looming before us. Keep all of that in mind when you read the label in the photo (right).

The student assistants in entomology have bonded over the agony of reading Margaret’s spidery (ha…) scrawl. “What does this say!? Can anyone tell…?” one of us will often sigh while holding a Margaret Cary label. We pass the septuagenarian paper back and forth, holding it under a magnifying glass. Together, we Google the known species range of the moth on our hands. It doesn’t help— Margaret has caught some of the only specimens in existence. It is Colombia, somewhere, we decide.

Last year, on my mother’s birthday, I found several moths that Margaret had collected on that same day 70 years earlier. I can’t tell if the ghosts I feel in the collections room belong to the insects or to people like Margaret.

They might also come from being alone, breathing the dust of dead moths. Sometimes I imagine a deceased Margaret chuckling at us from Heaven while we pore over the moths whose forms have outlasted her. I often picture Margaret in 1920s Cuba, chasing down the sphinx moth whose eyes I gaze into now. A 70-year-old dead sphinx moth’s eyes are much like deflated globes—once bulbous, now a bit flat in both color and dimensionality. They conjure just as much of the world.

Nobody knows much of anything about Margaret’s life. I do know that she either loved or hated sphinx moths. Only these two feelings could bring someone to travel far and wide, kill thousands

October 31, 2023

REFLECTIONS

of them, and ship them across the Caribbean and back up the coast of the Atlantic. They are the kind of moth—large, fat, and fuzzy— that might make you jump if it flits too close in the night. I have decided, though, that it was love.

Many entomologists wait in fear for one question: “How do you get the bugs?” This is often followed with: “Do you find them dead?”

Entomologists do not (usually) find them dead. Usually, one will use a Kill Jar, which is exactly what it sounds like. These days, I don’t often need to preserve a bug I find.

If I do, into the kill jar it goes, and the jar’s toxins put it to sleep forever. I’m told that bugs don’t have the same kind of pain reception that we do. This isn’t a comfort to me. Even if the bugs don’t feel pain when they die, I sure do.

Margaret was a great scientist, even though there’s not much left to read about her. Handwriting aside, each of her moths is pinned near-perfectly, with wings spread just so, and pins centered in thoraxes.

Margaret’s obituary, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1969, notes that her Sphingid moth collection is one of the finest in the country, and to omit flowers if you plan to attend the funeral. ❧

9

CULTURE

The Yale Herald

Walking Among the Dead Hannah Nashed, BK ’26

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10

he wind nipped at my face, biting my nose and dancing in my hair. My hands had long since retreated into the oversized sleeves of my hoodie. My feet scurried forward on their own, my mind preoccupied with the music pouring in from my headphones. Suddenly, I found myself at the entrance of the Grove Street Cemetery: a gated field of green, bespeckled with stones. I had never spared a second thought to the cemetery; it had always been a passing scene, a landmark to acknowledge but not a destination to go to. But this time, I stepped inside.

It struck me first as strange. One step forward and I was suddenly in a place where the dead outnumbered the living. It was quiet. My breathing, my heartbeat—every noise, every sign of life, came from me. I was surrounded not by living beings but rather by beings who had lived.

I made my way through the green. Each headstone stuck out from the ground like plant labels in a garden. I departed from the main road and began zigzagging in between the maze of headstones.

To my left lay Sally Merriman, “the amiable Comfort of Marcus Merriman who fell Victim to the Small Pox.” Marcus was right next to her. An American flag was planted firmly in front of his gravestone—a recognition of his service in the American Revolution. As a member of Capt. Phineas Bradley’s crew, Marcus had helped fight the British when they invad-

ed New Haven in 1779. After the war, he served as a silversmith and married Sally on the 13th of November 1783. After Sally died in 1793, he married his second wife, Susanna Bonticou, in December of that same year. Marcus would go on to have two more wives, Lydia Wilcox and Betty Huntington, before finally passing on the 20th of February 1850. Out of four, however, only the first lay with him till the end.

Across the field, a perfect cube rose from the ground. Immediately, I knew it marked a life that had recently ended. The grave’s sharp edges pierced the world around it—its stark silhouette out of place. The structure was resolute in its purpose: a solid block of stone, simple and unmoveable.

The top of the cube had a thick ring of darker granite, like a record. Around the edge of the ring, in a serif font, read: Richard Warren Jr 1937 - 2012 . Mary-Jo Worthey 1937. Richard was 75 years old when he died, having completed a 45-year tenure at Yale College, his alma mater, working for the Yale Collection of Historical Sound Recordings. He met his wife, MaryJo, in Cambridge, MA while getting an Ed.M from Harvard. The two bonded over their passion for music and enjoyed 50 years of marriage. Now one roamed the Earth while the other decomposed beneath it.

The lack of a death year near Mary Jo’s name seemed rather ominous. She was living, but the peo-

ple who had made this gravestone were waiting for her to die. In order for the ring to close, Mary Jo would have to die. With her alive, the grave was incomplete.

I continued along the path, switching the song in my ear, both to respect the dead but also to ease my mind. The singer's voice was deep and low as he strummed his guitar. The wind whistled in tune.

Leaves broke free from a tree ripe with the season and rejoiced in their newfound freedom, riding the soft gusts of wind and landing softly at my feet. My eyes tracked them to an orange and red tree—a secular burning bush. Underneath it lay the tomb of Harriet E. Sears, the wife of John Townsend. Five engraved crosses surrounded her name, framing her life with religious subtext. The top of the tomb came to a point, almost like a bishop's hat: heavily embossed with a patterned motif. A giant stone cross, taller than my five-foot frame, stood next to it: the grave of Harriet Rebecca Townsend. Behind them was Frances Townsend.

His grave was unlike any other I’d seen. Huge, foreboding, and yet nothing more than what could otherwise be described as a lump—a great swell in the earth as if he were somehow attempting to push his way back up to the surface.

I walked past the Townsend family and stumbled into the Hillhouses. In front of me laid William and Frances Hillhouse, the parents of James Hillhouse. Born November 19th, 1854, James went on to attend Columbia Law School and worked with several prominent attorneys before opening his own private practice in New York City and then eventually teaching at New York University School of Law. James died from arteriosclerosis and left 2,400 volumes of books to the Yale Law Library.

He now rests near his parents and is surrounded by the rest of his

clan. No longer gathered around a table or exchanging letters back and forth, here the Hillhouses lay in permanent reunion. I wonder if James knew his books would be housed just a few feet away from him. And, I wonder if law students know that the books they use gloves to carefully look through were once the cherished possessions of a man just across the street.

I continued my walk scanning the stones that decorated my view.

The engravings on a few had been worn away by time, washing away any memory of the person buried beneath. I wandered by Thomas Munson, the founder of Hartford, Connecticut, and Roger Sherman, the only one to have signed the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. I also passed Mrs. Rebecca Minot. Her gravestone

was tiny, barely making it to my mid-calf. It was rugged in every sense of the word. The color of a brick set ablaze, the gravestone was engraved with letters in different sizes, each one slightly tilted.

There was no indication of a birth or death; it was simply her name in handwritten letters. The “Mrs.” told me she was married, and the hand-crafted nature of the gravestone told me she was loved. Nothing else mattered.

The last grave I passed was that of M. Charles Hill: an American diplomat, lecturer in international studies at Yale, and senior advisor to George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Regan, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali. But, the thing that intrigued me most was the name directly below his: Norma Thompson. Born in 1959, her death was not yet written in stone. I wonder whether she feels a sense of peace or of doom when she mourns her

husband and sees the empty date next to her name. I wonder if she’s ever walked around and met her future neighbors. I wonder what she thinks of them.

Here I was standing while everyone around me lay flat on their backs, deep under the earth. They had all lived their lives. Some had engraved their accomplishments on their tombs, others had built monuments on top of their graves, and still, others had chosen to be remembered by just their name.

Each one had a story. Between those two dates was a line that represented a life.

Exiting through the steel gates, I looked behind me and had a different perspective of this place that I once saw as nothing more than a background. Here lies a library. A destination filled with stories, each one real, rich, and varied. Some old, some new, and some still waiting for a conclusion. ❧

OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD

Original image by Fareed Salmon

“I think what I need is some sort of amphetamine vape”

CULTURE

October 31, 2023

11

CULTURE

The Yale Herald

First Year, First Fall Zoe Frost, MY ’27

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12

hen I went home for fall break, I looked through my old journals, from the first-grade diary with a lock and puppies on the cover to the understated blue Moleskine I thought was the epitome of sophistication in junior year of high school. From every year of my life, there were two entries, the first in August: Dear Diary, Why does everyone hate me? I am so alone. I have nothing, and I hate seventh grade. Then, radio silence until around Thanksgiving: Dear Diary, I am so loved. Feeling so grateful for all the warmth that surrounds me in my home lately.

The leaves are so beautiful, the air is crisp. I feel so fulfilled. Every year, if I wrote anything in my diary during August and November, it was those two entries almost exactly, with varying degrees of melodrama.

I have always felt best within the confines of a routine. The unstructured time between June and September combined with the summer heat of New York City feeds my anxious brain. Perhaps the warm fuzzy feelings I have about fall are just a symptom of my relief that the school year has arrived again, and with that, the subway has once again reached normal temperatures. But this year, I’ve started to wonder if there is something universally special about the

season. I haven’t been keeping up with my journal (frankly, I think I’m scared that I’ll leave it exposed and my suitemates will read it), but I’m still sensing warm, fuzzy fall feelings all around, even in those who prefer summer, or those who have never seen changing seasons.

Is it the marketing? Courtnie Bui, SM ’27, tells me that fall has always been her favorite season.

Being from Orange County, California, she admits that “it doesn’t make sense.” She recounts the gloomy skies over Family Weekend, saying that they made her feel a “genuine and inconsolable sadness” and that upon leaving her suite and realizing she had to walk in the rain, her “fists were balled and shaking in rage.” While she has never experienced real variety in weather until now, Bui believes that she has the same understanding of fall as anyone born and raised on the East Coast. “So many places in America don’t experience changing seasons, but we all have a collective sense of what it is to be in autumn because we’ve been fed the same pumpkin spice goodness.

Consistency in perception of fall comes from somewhere—most likely branding and the media. I love it.”

Is it the clothes, perhaps? Nneka Moweta, BK ’27, remarks that she was a little disappointed by Yalies’

fashion choices at the start of the semester but is feeling hopeful about outfits to come: “everyone is bringing so much to the table… there was fall in [Los Angeles, CA] but there’s so much East Coastness here.”

Is it simply the lack of knowledge regarding the sad, long winter that is to come? Abigail Hu and Priya Gill, both MY ’27, have been trying to pick out winter coats for about a week and are just excited to be in a new place with crunchy leaves. They are not yet anticipating the stretch of gray skies and boredom that comes between January and spring break. “We’re in a different space; we’re not used to seasonal depression,” says Hu, a native of New Orleans, LA. “I went to New York for a day trip with my friends and saw these beautiful autumnal colors for the first time ever.” Gill echoes this sentiment, saying that the changing leaves have made her feel “peaceful…we don’t have many trees in [Fresno, CA].” She also remarks on the coziness of the season, saying that the cool weather makes friends want to curl up together indoors: “I feel better because I’m spending time inside with friends.”

These fall-loving first years, who do not yet associate summer’s end with fall’s beginning, seem to find the same comfort in autumn as I always have. What truly creates those warm and fuzzy fall feelings is likely a combination of everything my friends from warmer places told me. While I do believe that we’re all influenced by Starbucks campaigns and Thanksgiving stories, there is something inexplicably wonderful about fall—something that cannot be explained away by marketing, clothes, or first-timers’ excitement. I’m hopeful that when I muster the courage to take my journal out again, it will contain lines about the joy this first New Haven fall has brought me. And then, silence until next August. ❧

INSERTS

October 31, 2023

Ethel Cain GETTING SPOOKY Ptolemaea, Listen to this if you are trying to curate an eerie atmosphere. As a on SPOTIFY whole, this song’s album, Preach-

Halloween is upon us! Maybe you need more autumn-themed music to maintain your delusion that you are Rory Gilmore. Maybe you want to romanticize your walk down Hillhouse by listening to sad, indie women talk about being sad and indie. Maybe I’m projecting. The bottom line is that everyone needs new songs for their October playlist. Here are five!

Witchcraft, Graveyard Club

I do not know how I stumbled upon this song, but I am eternally grateful I did. When the ominous intro fades into the 1980s-esque synthetic beat, you immediately feel like you are in The Perks of Being a Wallflower tunnel scene.

Bassist Amanda Zimmerman’s harmonizing is the song’s highlight, and her ethereal voice resembles a cross between Clairo and Stevie Nicks.

Cemetry Gates, The Smiths

This is an ideal song to listen to while talking a long, melodramatic stroll through the Grove Street Cemetery. As Morrissey describes frolicking throughout the graveyard, he sings, “Keats and Yeats are on your side / While Wilde is on mine.” Despite the upbeat rhythm and sarcastic tone, this song encourages listeners to think about what death means, not only for themselves but for the literature that they engage with. You can choose to ruminate over or ignore the lyrics, depending on your tolerance for existential dread.

er’s Daughter, sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie, but this song is particularly harrowing. Drawing inspiration from Dante’s Inferno, the title alludes to the ninth circle of hell, which houses traitors. From the distorted intro to the screeching bridge, this song will give you chills as it tells the fictional story of Ethel Cain’s kidnapping, emotional manipulation, and eventual death.

Maneater, Nelly Furtado

Perfect for a Halloween movie night, this song complements any vampire-themed film. It is nearly impossible to not feel like Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body if you blast this song while getting ready for your Halloweekend plans.

Halloween, Phoebe Bridgers

And how could I exclude such an aptly titled track? The chorus of this song features the lines, “Baby, it’s Halloween / And we can be anything,” a haunting metaphor in which Bridgers compares interacting with her partner to dressing up for Halloween. In these lines, Bridgers comments on her relationship’s ephemerality, implying that it will pass, much like the daylong holiday.

Graphic by Alina Susani

Give it a listen!

Answers to CRYPTIC CROSSWORD, page 27 S R I S H A H M A R C O L A M B K I T E I C I E R I M S O H A P P Y T H O N G D I A N A S A Y S E T T A E F F O R T R A N T G U N R Y E D U G L O S E R S B E N O I T O K A Y C O D E B R E A K E R B A N G Y E E H A W R I G G E D M A V B A O I V E D E C O B O L E R O C O D A W O R K T I M I D O U I J A V A L U E M E A L L A V A S I T E M B A N E A C E R S D E E P N A S

Emily Aikens, TC ’26

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COVER STORY!

The Yale Herald

14

Grove Street Cemetery Death, Where is Thy Sting?

Clay Jamieson, GH ’25

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ehold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52 It was a warm October day. The sun shone through the still-green leaves overhead as I walked along Grove Street. The tall towers, the asphalt and concrete, the throngs of students crossing at the College Street intersection, the lines of cars waiting in impatience at the stoplight—all of the bustle around me was bursting from the early bounds of Puritan New Haven and sloshing north, up Prospect Street and out toward West Rock. In a few short centuries, the city spread and rose toward the heavens in bubbling plumes of stone and steel. But it left a small pentagon of green untouched, sheltered by thick brown stone walls from the ceaseless building and demolition all around it.

That pentagon is where I was headed. But something caught my eye before I could even cross the street to it. A pair of workers in uniform waited in front of the Jitter Bus, one of them wearing headphones around his neck. Their shirts conspicuously read “Grove Street Cemetery.” They looked abnormally normal, given the nature of their work. Just two young dudes waiting for their coffee. I don’t know what I expected grave-

yard employees to look like (have I ever even considered the notion that graveyards have regular employees?) but this was certainly not it.

Across the street lies a gate that reads: “the dead shall be raised.” The imposing brownstone portal was constructed

by New Haven architect Henry Austin, sometime between his career-spurring design of Yale’s Dwight Hall and his career-ending burial in this very cemetery.

The secret society Book and Snake loomed, solid and stoic and gleaming, just across the street from the cemetery. The cemetery’s dark gate and the society’s white marble tomb seemed to be in a competition over who could appear more ominous. I think the gate wins.

Grove Street Cemetery was established in 1797. Originally, the New Haven Green was used as the city’s main burial ground, but by the end of the 18th century, it had become so filled with dead bodies that a new cemetery became necessary. James Hillhouse and a group of citizens chose a spot on the outskirts of town, and within a few decades, the burials in the Green ceased, and the existing gravestones were transported to Grove Street, then called “The New Burying Ground.” Since its establishment, the cemetery has pioneered conventions now common in modern cemeteries, such as a private and non-profit status, a planned layout, paved and named streets, and family plots.

Past the gate lies a squat chapel-like building: the Grove Street Cemetery office. The words “new haven city burial ground” are painted in black and gold on the office’s glass front door.

Channing Harris is a member of the Board of Directors of Friends of the Grove Street Cemetery, Inc., and a continuous volunteer for the New Haven Preservation Trust. He spent forty years as a landscape architect, and worked on many projects for Yale; those readers who have had the pleasure of sneaking into the Secret-Garden-esque backyard of the President’s mansion on Hillhouse can thank him in part for its beauty. He met me near the gate and we began walking clockwise through the cemetery. He spoke with a slow and measured pace, and walked with an even slower and more measured pace. This, combined with his encyclopedic knowledge of the cemetery and its inhabitants, corporeal and arboreal, means that it took us nearly an hour to circumnavigate the 18-acre cemetery.

“In 1839, a report to the commissioners was done on the condition of the cemetery…It's quite a long report, very thorough. It investigated a lot of aspects of the conditions of the cemetery and recommended improvements, which resulted in the wall and the gates, more landscape improvements, and the naming of the avenues,” Harris said.

Harris explained that the Grove Street Cemetery represents

FEATURES

October 31, 2023

Image by Fareed Salmon

a broader Federal style of cemeteries that rivaled a Romantic approach to their design, fittingly epitomized by the Mount Auburn Cemetery near Harvard. “There’s always been a rivalry between Yale and certain Cambridge institutions… so that might have had something to do with that,” he said with a smile.

Inside the cemetery office, I met Superintendent Seeley Jennings, who was seated at his desk, puffing a cigar and conversing with his office manager and assistant superintendent. Jennings has been the superintendent of Grove Street Cemetery since 2016. After concluding a 34-year career at Lakeview Cemetery in Bridgeport, he bore the burden of retirement for four long months and promptly went straight back to work in New Haven. Perhaps cemetery management is more enjoyable than I would’ve guessed.

As I spoke with the superintendent, it became clear that cemetery management is also more work than I would’ve guessed. Jacob

Jennings, the cemetery’s assistant superintendent, explained that there are five full-time employees, including the superintendent, assistant superintendent, and office manager Rosa Rodriguez, as well as four seasonal employees who work from the middle of April through the middle of the summer.

Work on the grounds is constant: cutting grass, blowing leaves, fixing foundations, hosting funerals. The cemetery’s roads are blown clean of leaves and debris every day. 40 recently planted trees require 20-gallon watering bags to be refilled twice a week. If people plant bushes, flowers, or small gardens within the cemetery, those will get watered as well. Jennings and his team are also responsible for the sidewalks surrounding the cemetery, and they regularly collect litter and cut the grass outside the walled perimeter. This is the sort of work that you only notice if it completely halts—and then you really notice it.

During the interview, a wom-

an entered the office, unnoticed until she sat down in the chair behind me, and got to work sorting through a box of old papers.

This is Sandra Markham, another board member of the Friends of Grove Street Cemetery. She explained that, while the New Haven Museum possesses most of the cemetery’s records, many financial papers were left in the attic of the office. She’s taking inventory of them before they, too, get sent to the museum. She also organizes historical talks, including one chronicling gruesome deaths among the cemetery’s inhabitants, and, over the past five years, has photographed and documented countless Grove Street Cemetery graves for the Find a Grave database.

There are also the hundreds of visitors each week to deal with.

“Especially before the pandemic, we would have busloads of tourists coming in here,” Jacob Jennings said. While vandalism and trespassing used to be a regular issue, the cemetery has not experienced

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FEATURES

16

them for a while now–”knock on wood,” Seeley Jennings interjected. Security drives through the cemetery a couple times a night, and cameras and alarm systems help, too. “I’m sure people sneak in here sometimes at night, hop the wall, but there’s been no actual issues caused by it,” Jacob Jennings added.

Precisely mapping out the cemetery and locating unused plots that can be reclaimed and sold is also a huge undertaking. From the superintendent and Harris, I gathered a rough outline of how the cemetery is governed. Ownership is based on the families who invested in plots.. “If you own a piece of land here for a family lot, or an individual lot, you are a proprietor,” Harris explained. The proprietors reune for an annual business meeting, while a group known as the standing committee of the proprietors conducts the day-to-day business of the cemetery and directs the superintendent.

Jennings handed me a 1912 Grove Street Cemetery rulebook.

The price of a grave was listed as $6.50. While the rulebook phrased it in less blunt terms, I was morbidly amused by the child discount on the normal grave price. According to a flier found near the cemetery entrance, a full grave today costs $7,500. The child discount is unfortunately no longer available.

Today, the cemetery advertises “perpetual care.” It seems like a particularly heavy burden to bear.

“Perpetual” is certainly a long time to be caring for something. How do you ensure the maintenance of this space forever? What happens when the cemetery runs out of plots to sell?

The cemetery’s endowment helps answer these questions. In 2011, the Yale Daily News reported that 95% of Grove Street Cemetery’s endowment is invested within the Yale endowment, with

The Yale Herald

the remaining portion for use on current or ongoing projects. Seeley doesn’t know the details of how the cemetery, an entity completely separate from Yale, vested its funds with the university—the move occurred before his tenure—but he does know this: “They do a great job getting return on the money.”

“A certain percentage of all our grave sales goes into our perpetual care fund, and that’s what Yale invests for us… and that money can’t be touched. We operate on the interest of that money,” says Seeley Jennings.

When I asked about any big plans for the cemetery, the response was modest. The biggest upcoming project is the repainting of the cemetery walls, the sort of masonry repair periodically needed for the easily-weathered brownstone used in so much of the cemetery. Further repairs to damaged monuments were also mentioned as a priority. A small columbarium for the interment of ashes was completed a few months ago.

The site’s status as a National Historic Landmark precludes major changes to the burial ground, but I got the feeling there’s not much desire in the first place for big changes to this static oasis amid the sprawl of Yale’s building spree.

Shortly before the end of the interview, Seeley Jennings took a moment to rhapsodize about his profession. “It’s a business, it really is. It’s just that we deal with people at the worst times of their lives.

That's the biggest part. Compassion is a very big part of this business. And you gotta love history to be here.”

Jacob Jennings chimed in.

“This place is almost as much as a museum as it is a cemetery, which is one of the reasons I really love working here.”

I thanked Sandra and the Superintendents Jennings, then stepped out of the office and back

into the October sun. The leaf blowers were still running. The day was still bright. I felt a twinge of reluctance to leave. The office interior was airy and light (one benefit of a repurposed chapel), and I had enjoyed the warm smell of Jennings’s cigar. The massive brownstone gate stood in front of me. I passed between the papyrus columns and headed home.

I didn’t pay much attention in Sunday School, and I’m no theologian scriptural scholar, but I did go back to the Bible to look for the verses from which “the dead shall be raised.” was lifted. There’s more to these words than vague foreboding. Just a couple lines below them, I spotted a phrase I recognized from a hymn I half-know; a hopeful and beautiful and triumphant phrase I suddenly wished Henry Austin had inscribed atop the gate on the interior side, opposite the existing passage, visible only within the welcoming embrace of the cemetery.

The words seem to better reflect the cemetery I saw today: a place occupied with employees who carefully manicuring its lawns and repairing its gravestones, tended by volunteers planting new trees or sorting through old papers or photographing epitaphs, strolled through by passersby, visited by professor-led tours, filled with birds chirping among the tree branches and squirrels scurrying about the headstones. It doesn’t seem like a place of death, at least not exclusively, at least not in the way death is usually conceived.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

1 Corinthians 15:54-55 ❧

VOICES

October 31, 2023

Flickering Lanterns Sometimes there is only one fear, sometimes many, sometimes they are a marching band of ghosts holding flickering lanterns moving slowly. They are a band of marching ghosts and a marching band of ghosts and some of them only carry their lanterns but others their instruments like the deep bassoon or the whistling flute or the echoing cymbals or the triangle. The triangle player trembles, his wispy fingers and hat’s feathers vibrating with his instrument. The tinny chimes do little to calm the space where his nerves once were. They play their instruments only for me, an endless tune, a haunting melody, a ringing in my ears. I feel their rhythm echo through me, as though my heartbeat is their metronome, as though

They do not have an audience; no eyes on them save mine, watching the faint light of their lanterns, watching them wait patiently across a harbor, watching their barely tangible bodies march, watching them linger, loom, lurk, haunt. They flutter like their lights. The flames pass through their phantom forms, the faint breeze threatens to blow their can-

I am part of their band. An uneasy reassurance.

dles out and their bodies away.

No intermissions in this show, this show on loop,

One, two. One, two.

though no melody is ever the same. I must listen always, in the shadows of my mind, in the secret shallows of sleep.

One, two. One, two.

The marching band gets loud, sometimes. The ghosts get too many. Their footsteps nearly drown out their own song. Their march gets loud but never seems to bring them anywhere.

One, two. One, two.

Their stoic, never-aging faces reveal nothing: not the discomfort of their repetitive motions, not the passing of time. Sounds of their marching and changes of their lights are the only evidence that they are not entirely motionless. The flickering lantern sputters out.

One, two. One, two.

- Alina Susani, ES ’26, Herald staff

17

FEATURES

The Yale Herald

Connecticut’s Spookiest Couple Megan Kernis, ES ’27

T “He bridges the analytic-continental divide…” “...I’d bridge divides with him all day”

OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD

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here is a house on Elm Street with a cold, brick-floor basement, warmed only by the presence of Connecticut’s spookiest couple. Sean and Carrie McCabe immerse themselves in all things haunted—Bloody Maries, Mansons, murders, human sacrifice, and the Bridgeport poltergeist, to name a few. Together, the couple braves these age-old haunts, investigating the myths and fears behind them in their podcast, Ain’t it Scary? with Sean and Carrie.

Sean and Carrie met on Tinder after discovering a shared interest in true crime podcasts, both especially fond of the Last Podcast on the Left. On their first date, Carrie asked Sean what his favorite movie was. He answered with Shaun of the Dead, which left Carrie dumbfounded—the cult classic happened to be one of her favorites as well.

From the beginning, it was evident that Carrie believed in the paranormal, ghostly world while Sean remained skeptical of the evidence behind it. Sean said, “We kind of came from different backgrounds of belief but we always were able to connect on a passion for history.”

Sean, a communications officer at the Yale School of Medicine, was formerly a reporter for News 12 Connecticut, where he gained knowledge of audio production.

Carrie had experience in filmmaking from her own explorations in the creative arts world. Together, they’ve made a professional pod-

cast that supersedes expectations.

Their 150th episode analyzes the origins of the Bloody Mary urban legend. I found myself fascinated and amused by their well-researched historical context, complex criticism, and witty remarks. “I started out [the 150th] episode just going, ‘Well, this will be fun for Halloween,’” Carrie said.

“It’s like everyone grew up sort of instinctively knowing the legend, but why did we know it?” The episode explores a variety of potential origin stories, including Mary Tudor, Mary Worth, and links to cautionary tales about menstruation.

Mary Tudor, Carrie explained, was the daughter of King Henry and Catherine, and was accused of torturing and murdering hundreds of people to bathe in their blood.

Mary Worth was a contributor to the reverse underground railroad who burned slaves instead of returning them. This disturbed the townspeople so much so that they lynched Mary Worth, and through Bloody Mary, she is able to haunt those around her. Additionally, cautionary urban legends arose frequently to warn girls about their safety and virtue, including the idea of dangerous hitchhikers killing kids who were hooking up in the woods. The couple’s strong historical work establishes a factual foundation for their engaging and witty banter while also implying bigger ideas such as the importance of critical research skills and skepticism.

Sean notes that “jumping to

conclusions is how people make the wrong move,” stressing the importance of careful research.

Yet even the careful Sean was befuddled by a case that occurred right next door to Yale in Bridgeport, CT. The New York Times reported the story of the house on Lindley Street in 1991 and detailed the mysterious happenings, deeming it “Connecticut’s haunted house.” The home was owned by the Gooden Family, and was said to be haunted by a poltergeist. According to prominent supernatural investigator Lorraine Warren, these particular ghouls are “inhuman spirits that tend to exert influence over a house for relatively short periods” and “are drawn to the presence of a child who is

emotionally troubled.” And that’s exactly what this spirit is said to have done to the Goodens, especially their nine-year-old daughter, Marcie. Witnesses claimed to have seen animals talking and furniture—including a 450 lb refrigerator—moving on its own, and to have heard the voice of a ghost when Marcie was present.

The case attracted over 15,000 onlookers to the site but was brushed off as a hoax, never to be solved.

you know, like green veiny tremulous

what

oh I have no idea I haven't been invited anywhere!

fair!

so where are we going

no just The Fool but sexy? what sexy leaf

I was just gonna go as The Fool what's your costume?

par-tay par-tay I'm ready let's go let's do this

oh well what are you going as

I do not

are going out for halloweek, baby!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!

2 clowns

Sean’s curiosity is understandable: how can we explain the paranormal observations of others, and is there a reality behind these twisted stories?

Carrie’s father, Paul Ferrante, is an author and retired teacher.

His young adult series, T.J. Jackson Mysteries, follows a group of young teenagers through bewildering historical events. Paul uses the entertainment of a thriller along with the facts of history to teach readers about new time periods. In developing his series, Paul asked himself, “Why don’t I take these historical stories… and wrap that history as a paranormal story that’s entertaining for you young adults.”

Paul was an English teacher for 42 years as well as a football coach.

His passion for English, history, and sports has been with him since the beginning of his career, when he wrote for Sports Collectors Digest. After becoming a teacher, he decided to try his hand at writing a young adult novel, which became the first book of his mystery series.

Carrie emulated her dad’s passion, but with her own, unique niche in podcasting with Sean. While Paul focuses more on the educational benefits that thrillers can offer, Sean and Carrie teach the importance of storytelling and apprehension thereof.

The tradition of scary story-telling, for all its entertaining lore, is simply a reflection of our history and an extension of our beliefs. Every story possesses an origin that is deeply rooted in our past, and will eventually spark inspiration for the next generation of scary stories. As Paul says, “even if you don’t believe in them, ghost stories are interesting.” Regardless of whether or not you believe in them, the excitement of wondering about ghosts and ghouls beyond our world has long kept our stories alive—and will continue to do so for years to come. ❧

the virility of the natural!

Emerson, chlorophyll positive phototropism you get it

October 31, 2023

19

VOICES

The Yale Herald

Wet Moss, Wet Stone, Cold Earth.

Paint chips fall to a rain that pounds hard and dark on the cemetery gate. The pieces land in piles, black Benjamin Moores with silky underbellies degraded to the slap-and-stick of fallen crud. It’s late October, and the Pinebrook Catholic Cemetery is feverish with autumn foliage, seasonal thunderstorms, and other evidence of equinox. Reddened leaves, waterlogged, plaster the grass. The air smells of wet moss, wet stone, cold earth. Branches of berry-laden English Yew thrash with the storm, pinballing between the iron bars.

The storm spits and brawls and throws itself around a wrinkled old woman kneeling in the mud outside the gate. Blind to the storm, she reaches through the bars to the branches, dipping her hand in and out of the cemetery’s domain. Her hair droops and sags.

Her face droops and sags. Her skin itches under her purple neptune raincoat. When Delia peels back the sleeve to balm her arm in the rain, her elbow skin slides loosely on her bone.

Despite her graying figure and the grayer weather, Delia’s cheeks blush with ruddy resolve. She eases the tender berries of English Yew from their stems.

Her herbology degree taught her that these ‘berries’ are not really berries but poisonous seeds clothed in fleshy arils. Delia’s herbology degree also taught her autopsies rarely test for Taxine, the toxin lying latent in Yew seeds. The chill eats into her fingertips. Delia numbs her hands. She eases the skin from the seeds, pocketing only the sticky yellow pips. She wipes her pulpy hand on the grass before reaching for more.

Delia has no patience for dead skin.

- Chloe Shiffman, SM ’26, Herald staff

20

Graphic by Alina Susani

OBITUARIES

October 31, 2023

IN MEMORIAM:

“Baby” Era

It was the “swoosh” of the flip and the elegance with which you ran your hands through your hair that made me fall in love with you. It was the way you dated Selena Gomez that made me wish I was near you. It was the low-hanging pants and autotuned voice that kept me constantly turned on. To the Justin Bieber “Baby” era, I wish you well and pray that you will find peace. I may never listen to your whining voice again or hear another arrest story, but I will remember all those moments of the past. It's okay, you can go now. We will find a way to live without you.

- Eva Kottou, MY ’26, Herald staff

The Balayage

Here lies balayage highlights.

They were a lights show happening on the back of your head. Now that they’ve grown out, the $100 to get them redone needs to pay the bills. Christian girl autumn won’t be the same without you, but hopefully now it will be better.

- Tyler Watts, GH ’25

Birds Aren’t Real

Rest in Peace to Birds Aren’t Real.

It was like, maybe funny in 2017 at the bridge between the USA PATRIOT Act era and the Trump era, but alas—during the millennial-to-Gen-Z Twitter transfer of power, it just became sad. Birds Aren’t Real is survived by various microchips in your bloodstream courtesy of Bill Gates and Pfizer.

- Arthur Delot-Vilain, DC ’25, Herald staff

Durfee’s Chicken Tenderness

Durfee’s has been closed for three years now, and the pill is still hard to swallow. The little room on Elm Street, once bustling fifteen hours a day, is empty. Gone are the packages of Easy Mac, the tampons, the interminable yogurts. The fresh, hot samosas and the chicken tenders. The Oreos at 1:35 a.m.

The Bow Wow is no replacement.

Scanning canned coffee under the watchful eye of the supervisors is dystopian. (If they’re going to stand there, might they rather take control of the register than playact at prison warden?) At Durfee’s, there were just two cash registers, staffed by women who were either benevolent or neutral. No one scolded you for not taking a receipt—they did not have receipts.

If you knew Durfee Hall, you could go out the back door of Durfee’s and dodge spiders in the basement hallway until you came out onto Old Campus. This was particularly useful for the postWoads crowd, who could seamlessly stop for snacks while filing from Elm back to Old Campus.

On busy days, I used my nine-dollar lunch swipe to purchase a carton of fresh raspberries and two packets of Justin’s almond butter, which I would eat on my way up Science Hill. Others waited for the famous chicken tenders, which were perpetually sold-out.

Durfee’s closed quietly in spring 2020. I never got to say goodbye.

In 2021, it was the Student Package Center, but it’s empty now. I’m not sure what it’ll be next. Nobody remembers Durfee’s anymore, just the gap-year washups like me. When we graduate in May, Durfee’s will drift away—but maybe not forever. Its Facebook page reads, “Durfee’s Sweet Shoppe is a Yale institution.” Here’s hoping that’s a promise.

- Lucy Santiago, MC ’24, Herald staff

Durfee's Sweet Shoppe in 2012.

21

OPINION

The Yale Herald

costume has required at least In Defense of Spirit Halloween ideal one full minute of explanation,

Ariel Kirman, TC ’26

I

22

t’s an iron law of life that if there’s an empty storefront in September, it’s a Spirit Halloween

by October. An equally strong guarantee: come November 1st, the storefront will be empty once again. What a business model.

Spirit Halloween was founded in 1983 by a San Francisco shop owner named Joseph Marver. When a Halloween pop-up costume shop opened next door to Marver’s own discount apparel store, he kicked into gear and created the first Spirit Halloween. Since then, over 1400 Spirits are in operation every fall, selling costumes, decorations, and candy.

And as soon as Halloween is over, so too is the reign of Spirit Halloween. Seemingly overnight, the Spirit employees pack up all of their unsold Frankenstein costumes and smoke machines, and close up shop. The best part? In just eleven short months, you can count on the stores to weed their way into your life yet again, as they open up for trick-or-treat season.

As a kid, Spirit Halloween stores were universally beloved. I remember begging my elementary school babysitter to stop by one of their stores every day on our autumn walks home from school. And everyone else was begging their babysitter too! It was a bona fide cultural phenomenon—the mass pilgrimage to Spirit Halloween. I could feel it, it was palpable: the third grade’s collective obsession with this chain of spooky stores.

And then one Halloween, when

I wasn’t looking, Spirit Halloween was no longer cool. In fact, it was decidedly uncool. The shift was obvious, particularly in my friends’ costumes, which all had some kind of clever spin to them.

Everyone’s costume involved some kind of pun or inside joke, one that I couldn’t fully understand. That year, and every year since, I ordered my Halloween costumes on Amazon. I had outgrown Spirit.

For many Halloweens, I had donned costumes that were some naive mix of “fun” and “scary” (e.g.

I was some variant of a dead cheerleader three years in a row). But as the years went on, I demanded more of my Halloween costumes.

Now, I am constantly in search of costumes that reside precisely on the border of cleverness and nonsense. For the past few years, my

after which it elicits either a mild chuckle or an expression of annoyance and silence. One example that comes to mind: last year, my friend Emma and I dressed up as “me before coffee” and “me after coffee.” The only thing that differentiated our costumes: I acted happy, and she acted sad. To us, it was funny. To everyone else, it was a chore to understand.

I could be alone in this struggle, but I doubt it. I think that many of us have succumbed to a certain pressure to make our Halloween costumes niche and obscure. And in the quest to find a costume that is perfectly witty, I often find one that’s just annoying instead.

My advice for this year: let’s return to Spirit Halloween. They sell every costume—except for the ones that require three-minute explanations that somehow cause even more confusion. I’m going to purchase Spirit Halloween’s “Adult Peanut Butter and Jelly Costume,” and I will dress up as peanut butter, and my best friend will dress up as jelly, and everyone who sees us will understand instantly. It will be lots of fun, and it won’t be clever at all. ❧

OPINION

October 31, 2023

Stepping Into Character and Acting Out Daviana Rodriguez Zamora, MY ’25

H

alloween is the one time of year we get to throw caution to the wind and become someone other than our ordinary selves. After weeks of anticipation, we don our masks and set out for a night of (hopefully) harmless mischief.

Growing up, I loved the idea of putting on a little witch’s hat or vampire fangs that were far too big for my mouth. I buzzed at the thought of walking around my neighborhood with my jack-olantern and ending the night with enough candy to send myself into a coma. Nowadays, the excitement is still there—albeit rooted in something entirely different. In 2023, Halloween is a time to let loose and forget about whatever twentysomething-year-old problems are plaguing me. This shift begs the question: why do we relish acting out of character on Halloween?

I’m definitely guilty of being sat down on the morning of November 1st by friends and reminded of my actions the night before. When confronted with the perceptions of ourselves that others hold of us, it’s easy to say that we feel embarrassed at the very least. However, it’s a bald-faced lie to say there isn’t a twinge of satisfaction with ourselves in those moments. I’m going to challenge the notion that we act out on Halloween. We’ve all heard that drunk words or actions are sober thoughts. Halloween is an even more powerful intoxicant that gives us an excuse to act on our deepest desires. On October 31st, there’s no need to worry

about how you’ll be perceived. It’s Halloween; it’s just a costume—just a character. It’s not really you. You didn’t press that random guy from your history lecture up against a wall; sexy Patrick Bateman did.

It’s liberating to act out of character by stepping into character. I’ll be the first to admit that there are some days when I would literally rather be anyone else. Halloween is God’s gift to young adults who just need a fucking break. It acts as a temporary escape from the seriousness of life. It reminds us that it's perfectly okay to get a little wild and explore the unknown.

So, when the opportunity arises to be someone other than the person others expect you to be, why not revel in the freedom it brings?

This year, I’ve been saying I’m dressing up as Betty Boop because “my hair will probably never be this short again.” Bullshit. I just want an excuse to wear a sexy red dress and flirt with people that I probably shouldn’t. In the past, I never would have admitted to this.

It goes against what I want others to think of me. This year, I’m done with the charade. I’m twenty years old. It’s my right to be sexy.

This Halloween, don your costumes and step into the out-of-character parts of yourself. Forget about what everyone else thinks. Forget about what you think of yourself.

Be free and have fun.

Just make sure your actions don’t have consequences that haunt you into the next Halloween season. ❧

23

ARTS

The Yale Herald

Cannibalism Makes Living Easier Will Sussbauer, JE ’27

W “You may have socialist beliefs but the way you look at people is conservative”

OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD! OVERHEARD

24

atching a character give into some primordial desire, leer over their friend or lover with hungry eyes, and then rip into the muscles of this victim until blood drips so thick the skin of the feaster’s chin stains red; oh, there is nothing so delirious as cannibalism nothing so wrought with cinematic potential, with metaphor and spectacle and everything film should provide. It can provoke a nearly rapturous excitement—in the sense of cinematic catharsis, of course.

Cannibalism in these films is an affliction given only to the few, so I understand if seeing them onscreen sickens you as well. Most people I have spoken to about Bones and All, the Timothée Chalamet and Luca Guadagnino picture released last year, were disappointed and disgusted by its grossness. When I hosted a screening of my favorite movie, 2016’s Raw, even my horror-obsessed friends left with a stomachache. Yet I’ve watched and rewatched each—the former twice, the latter four times—and they get better and better each time.

If you are thus-far unenlightened on these delightful films, here are brief overviews: Bones and All (2022) opens with 18-year-old Maren (Taylor Russell), eyes glassed over, gnawing on her friend’s finger until the bones shine through. She then embarks on a cross-country journey from Maryland to Minnesota in order to find her mother. Along the way

she meets other Eaters, including Sully (Mark Rylance), an older gentleman with a hair-rope of his victims, and Lee (Timotheé Chalamet), a charismatic young Eater who accompanies her on her journey. Blithely: it’s more a love story than anything else, a tragic depiction of a few outsiders trying to find their way in.

By contrast, Raw (2016), the debut feature of French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, lingers on the corporeal horror itself. Lifelong vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) enters her first semester at an esteemed veterinary school which her sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), also attends. For initiation, Justine must consume a raw rabbit kidney, her first time eating meat and the beginning of her devolution driven by her newfound cannibalistic desires which serve as metaphor for her burgeoning sexuality. It too is a love story, albeit familial, as Justine and Alexia bond over their shared affliction.

Perhaps I wrote the above summaries to paint these films in as reasonable a manner as possible— they are both Bildungsromane, about young women and their relationship to their mothers, their siblings, their lovers and themselves. The performances and direction and writing are all exquisite, making these easy films to enjoy. Except they are also about cannibalism. The young women in question are driven primarily by an innate desire to to take a body, any body, and consume it. Justine’s

arc in Raw is a devolution into ferality: she steals raw chicken from her sister’s fridge and tears into it animallike; Alexia’s finger gets cut off and she sucks then gnaws on the skin and blood of the dismembered digit; at a party, she bites off a chunk of a random guy’s lip as they make out. And that is just the beginning. In both films, we often see our protagonists—the people whose perspectives we are meant to empathize with, mind you—with the blood of their victims slathered across their lower face and neck. Lee slits someone’s throat in order to feast; Alexia habitually causes car crashes for the same reason. It is horrific behavior that anyone of any sanity would immediately condemn. So, why do I so adore Justine and Alexia, Maren and Lee? First, we must remember these are fictional stories, and distinct from historical occurrences. In tragic instances such as the Donner Party or the Andes Flight Disaster, groups were stranded without food and driven to consume other party members in order to survive. These are stories which position cannibalism as a survival tool, a harrowing last resort. For both the Eaters of Bones and All and the sisters of Raw, cannibalism is a biological urge more akin to a hereditary addiction from which they cannot escape. They are driven not by their exterior circumstances but by their genetics.

As we in adolescence must learn to live with our bodies, despite their ever-changing, ever-surprising, ever-disgusting nature, these young people must learn to live with their cannibalism.

You may object to my position of the body as “ever-disgusting,” and reasonably so. I agree that we should teach everyone to love their specific body, to not want any others; young people should know and forever remember to not moralize their bodies, to not

ARTS

October 31, 2023

claim any are “good” or “bad” or “ugly” or “beautiful.” Yet, to live in any body, regardless of its quirks and specificities, is disgusting. Our bodies are collections of bones and sinews and blood and muscles and skin; warm, wet bundles of red and white and ghastly yellows. Skins peels, organs rupture, fluids secrete with various viscosities and odors—and we have no agency over any of this. Our hair and nails slowly grow without our taking note; our heart drums; our blood wriggles to and fro like liquid snakes beneath our skin; our stomachs and intestines and livers convulse without consent. The use of our senses is dependent upon a myceliatic web of strings wrapped in a blubberlike stuff. Our means of perceiving the world is carried by a tossed-together group of substances and structures which, if isolated and placed in our hands, we would drop in disgust.

This is the power of cinematic body horror. It places, perhaps forces, that grossness into our hands, makes us touch it and remember that we have it inside us too. That we are built by it too. We can drop it, of course, and turn off the TV or walk out of the theatre.

But if it’s a well-created film, we don’t want to; that absorptive power of cinema pulls us in and makes us hold tight, no matter the protestations our fingers and palms raise. When Sully and Maren feast on a just-dead old woman and we hear the slurping of veins, the lapping of blood, the mudlike squeeging of muscles swallowed—oh, we wriggle and writhe, but we keep watching, for we are invested in the narrative. And as protagonists, these cannibals are whom the film wants us to identify with, to see the film’s world through. Their eyes become our eyes, their desires ours as well. We too become cannibalistic. When the camera pans over a bus full of people, we cannot help but see them as bodies, as

Graphic by Alina Susani

the individual parts exposed by the film, and as live meat to be soon preyed upon. Upon exiting the theatre and glancing down upon our arms’ crawling skin, we see it the same—the muscles and veins and blood and bones and marrow, the potential feast of another.

These cannibal films are undoubtedly worthwhile for their beautiful and unique portrayal of

adolescence and independence. But they are also must-watches for how they remind us of our bodies—that we must live inside a body, and that our bodies are no different from those of any animal. We are meat.

We are meat, yet blessed—perhaps cursed?—with cognizance. It is within this unchangeable state we must learn to live, regardless of how revolting it feels. ❧

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INSERTS

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Joehoru Joanna Ruiz, JE ’25

I feel that many people are surprised when I say I don’t really care much for Halloween. But I grew up Christian, so it’s not my fault. Anyway, I don’t feel the need to dress up in a costume and be silly for a night because my life is a performance. Everyday I put on my mask and face the world. I’m a bit like global gaming superstar Dream in that way. This week’s questions are scary.

Q: What scares you joehoru?

A: People who went to private school.

SUBMIT AN

OVERHEAD

Q: boo?

A: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Q: fav scary movie?

A: My Octopus Teacher.

Q: What should I be most afraid of?

A: Italians. They’re coming for you, whether you like it or not.

Ask Joehoru is a weekly column where Joanna answers her Instagram followers’ questions. DM her @joehoru or watch out for a weekly question sticker on her story to get her thought-provoking answers.

26

Q: One event in your life you’re convinced was paranormal?

A: In May I got a credit card (which, to my understanding, is supposed to be free money) but now I’m somehow $500 in debt.

So that’s really weird.

Q: Joanna what’s ur halloween costume?

A: I will be Ryan Lewis of “Macklemore and Ryan Lewis” fame. Evan will be Macklemore. Don’t ask me who he is, it’s not really important.

Let’s get back to me.

The Yale Herald

Q: If you were a ghost where would you haunt?

A: The stacks because I feel like I could probably find some ghost friends there. And we can have sleepovers or something. But not too often because that would be weird.

Q: Spookiest campus encounter?

A: I ran into Paul McCartney in the Underground after the talk he gave at the Schwarzman. He pulled me aside and asked if I wanted an autograph because he could tell I was a really big Beatles fan. I said, no Paul, no need, I’m not like the other fans, I don’t need that, I just want to shake your hand. He then shook my hand and told me the story about his mother coming to him in a dream and saying “let it be.” I said, Silly Paul, I already know this story. But also, ghosts aren’t real. So maybe it wasn’t your mom and you just made that up. He seemed offended, scoffed, and said that ghosts were real and asked if I had ever heard of Casper. I said, oh yea, I’ve heard of that little feller before, my bad. Then he said, well it was nice talking to you, I have to go. And I said, yea you too, happy Halloween by the way. And he said, wait it’s February why are you wishing me a Happy Halloween.

And I said, oh don’t worry about it, I think this will just be a really funny story for my future column.

And then he said, oh okay, you’re right and you’re a genius and probably the funniest person I know. I said, thanks Paul, I love you, and thanks for giving me your phone number. It was really weird of you to do that, by the way, but I’ll call you soon. And to this day, that was the spookiest campus encounter I’ve ever had. ❧

INSERTS

October 31, 2023

Cryptic Crossword

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27

wed. 11/1

thu. 11/2

ATTEND: 1+1>2 Happiness Architecture. Lecture from architect Hoang Thuc Hao on working sustainability and cultural value into social architectural projects. 1 p.m. School of Architecture, R322.

Estamos Unidos. Documenting the journey of a caravan of Central American migrants across Mexico and toward the U.S. Followed by director Q&A. 5:306:30 p.m. 53 Wall St. Auditorium.

Wayne Shorter Tribute. Celebrating the legacy of the legendary jazz musician with a performance from the Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band. 7:30 p.m. Morse Recital Hall.

ENGAGE: why do i always fall out of bed at night? Opening reception for the first year MFA exhibition. 6-8 p.m. Green Hall Gallery, Yale School of Art. Open Mic Nite. 7-10:45 p.m. gather. York St. Ballroom, R101.

ATTEND: Tonya Lewis Lee. A conversation with the filmmaker, whose exploration of the U.S. maternal mortality crisis “Aftershock” received a Peabody. 4-5:30 p.m. Afro-American Cultural Center.

Medium Cool. Haskell Wexer’s 1969 hand-held “cinematic Guernica” depicts Robert Forster as a TV news cameraman at Chicago’s 1968 Democratic National Convention. 7 p.m. HQ L02.

I Am Alan Turing. A collaborative effort by artists and AI, this new, experimental opera transfers Alan Turing’s legacy and theoretical biological research into musical form. 7-8 p.m. CCAM, 149 York St. Natacha Diels. Performing her compositions, which double as “a fairy tale for a fractured world.” 7:30 p.m. Morse Recital Hall.

ENGAGE: Dr. T Project. Dine on shortbread cookies and drink hot tea while Professor Toorawa talks three things worth knowing in thirty minutes. 4:30-5 p.m.

HQ 132.

mon. 11/6

tue. 11/7

ATTEND: El Teatro Campesino. On the Chicano acting troupe born during strikes against California’s Delano grape growers in 1965. 4-4:30 p.m. Zoom webinar registration at bit.ly/3Qda35a.

Attention, Shoppers! Kathleen Thelen, Ford Professor of Political Science at MIT, talks American retail capitalism and the origins of the Amazon economy. 4-5:30 p.m. 77 Prospect St., A002.

IN. A meetup and signing with the authors of this experimental, pared-down compilation of photographs taken throughout the COVID lockdown.

4:30-5:30 p.m. The Study. Register on eventbrite.com.

ENGAGE: French Language Table. Brush up your French skills in conversation with peers. 12:30-1:30. Branford Dining Hall.

Beyond the Binary. Crafts,snacks, and conversations about the trans experience.

5:30-7 p.m. Office of LGBTQ Resources.

ATTEND: The Pure Hearted Major. Literary critic Mari Kotani discusses her reconsideration of Innocence by Oshii Mamoru as both a cyborg feminist story and techno-gothic narrative. 4:30-6 p.m. Rosenkranz Hall, 005.

April Bernard. The Walt Whitman Award-winning poet reads from her sixth collection, The World Behind the World. 5 p.m. LC 102.

Mimi Lines. An evening of well-loved and obscure jazz and cabaret standards. 8 p.m. Cafe Nine. $10. Tickets on cafenine.com. 21+.

ENGAGE Climb New Haven! A climbing group for indoor rock climbers of all skill levels.

6-8 p.m. City Climb Gym. RSVP on meetup.com. musubi & memories. Discuss heritage and Pasifika identity, munch on spam musubi, and peruse Polynesian picture books.

8-9 p.m. Asian American Cultural Center.

fri. 11/3

sat. 11/4

sun. 11/5

ATTEND: Go Farm, Young People. Brian Donahue examines the history and prospects of human engagement with the land. 11 a.m. 230 Prospect St. R101.

Tales Told By Human-Operated Machines.

Toni Dove creates embodied interface and customized AI to investigate how tech alters how we invent ourselves.

1:30-2:30 p.m. CCAM, 149 York St. Waterfall Strainer, Wally, Brother Beauty.

Live music promising “timid rock,” dream-pop, and folk rock. 6 p.m. Never Ending Books, Volume Two. Fred Hersch. Dazzling and innovative jazz piano. 7:30 p.m. Sprague Memorial Hall. $11.Tickets onmusic-tickets.yale.edu.

ENGAGE: Intercultural Moonlight Stories.

Enjoy performances from stories to singing in the light of the waning gibbous moon. 7-9 p.m. Yale Farm.

ATTEND: Mundo Maya. Steve Hamm’s film follows the story of the present-day Maya people of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Followed by director Q&A. 121:30 p.m. 53 Wall St. Auditorium.

Para Siempre. iOye! Spoken Word presents their fall poetry showcase, with food for sale. 8-9 p.m. Trumbull Theater. Tickets on Yale Connect.

ENGAGE: Pumpkin Smash. Smash your Halloween pumpkins into compost, swap leftover candy, and grab treats, veggies, and gifts. 12-2 p.m. Common Ground Farm, 358 Springside Ave. THE OTHER PART. An opening reception for Sheila Kaczmarek’s exhibition of mixed media and clay art, featuring live music. 2-5 p.m. City Gallery.

Jazz Jam. Hear local players improvise, then sit in if you’re musically inclined.

4-7 p.m. Cafe Nine. 21+.

ATTEND: The Art of the Silhouette. Elizabeth O’Brien handcrafts silhouettes from scissors, paper, and ink live. 1-3 p.m.

New Haven Museum.

Squatters/Okupas. A documentary on a group of young artists who turned two abandoned buildings in Manhattan into a collective utopia beyond the law.

Followed by director Q&A. 2-4 p.m. 53 Wall St. Auditorium.

Wendy Sharp. A performance from the winner of the Banff International String Quartet Competition. 3-4 p.m. Morse Recital Hall.

Warren Zevon Tribute. A performance from Werewolves of New Haven, a local music supergroup, paying homage to the music legend. 4 p.m. Cafe Nine. $10.

Tickets on cafenine.com.

Sunday Scaries. For the brave, end your day of rest with a screening of the slashers Blood Rage (1987) and Intruder (1989). 7-10 p.m. Witch Bitch Thrift.

ongoing Hamlet. Giving new life to Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy. Crescent Underground.

Nov. 1-4. Tickets on collegearts.yale.edu.

CCAM: Machine as Medium. Artistic explorations of matter and spirit from new interpretations of Turing’s legacy to the automaton today. Nov. 2-3. Schedule on yalemachine.me.

COCK. Mike Bartlett’s 2009 play tells the story of John, a gay man who falls in love with a woman. Saybrook Underbrook.

Nov. 2-4. Tickets on collegearts.yale.edu.

Latino and Iberian Film Festival. Screenings of short films, documentaries, and feature films followed by talkback with directors.

Until Nov. 5. Schedule on liffy.yale.edu.

halloween To submit events for inclusion in the Herald calendar, contact Jess Liu at jessica.liu.jl3679@yale.edu

Illustration and Original Design by Cleo Maloney

THE HERALD BLOCKLIST (things we hate this week) Victor Wembanyama That French fuck.

Freudians Freak.

Wunderkind Leave pederasty in 300 BC. Game Theory You either got it or you don’t.

Yogurt My culture is not your costume.

Vaginal Microbiome My culture is not your costume.

Yale Free Press And we thought we had low standards Platonic Cuddling It got spooky.