HARD CONVERSATIONS II by claire stromseth & nina nehra
HOW TO MAKE CIOPPINO by lucie babcock
ENRICHING THE COMMUNITY by ishaan rajabali
POLITICS OF THE PLATE by ishana dasgupta
MELTING INTO EACH OTHER by emilia ferreira
I USED TO THINK MORE by emma castro
GRANDMA SHUFEN’S STRING BEAN BRAISED NOODLE SOUP (打卤面) by lecia sun
SOMERVILLE SPEAKS by rohaan iyer
THE IMPORTANCE OF WATCHING THE POT BOIL by leah glaspey
CROSSWORD by elanor kinderman
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Miles Kendrick
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observer recipe (updated fall ‘25)
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Expanding the Narrative on Viewpoint Diversity
“Freedom
of expression
is a primary value to foster on a
college
campus…
But constructive dialogue does not come from poking a sharp stick into the eyes of others and then inviting them to the table to talk… In doing so, they risk isolating themselves from those that they seek to engage.”
“It is an irony of ‘viewpoint diversity’ and related initiatives that they purport to make a safe space for conservative ideas at a moment when expressing such views may be met with peer criticism or social discomfort, but criticism of conservative ideas risks being met with doxing, loss of employment, and even state violence.”
become a platform for bigoted commentary. In 2007, the magazine published a mock Christmas carol titled “O Come All Ye Black Folk,” and a fake advertisement called “Islam, Arabic Translation: Submission,” in which racist remarks about affirmative action, specifically targeting Black and Muslim individuals, were printed.
The severity of the comments led the Tufts Committee on Student Life to impose a provision that temporarily suspended the student publication and eliminated the ability to publish anonymously. While the dean of undergraduate education at the time, James M. Glaser, eventually reversed the restriction, he also stated, “Freedom of expression is a primary value to foster on a college campus… But constructive dialogue does not come from poking a sharp stick into the eyes of others and then inviting them to the table to talk… In doing so, they risk isolating themselves from those that they seek to engage.”
Following these events, the cofounder of The Primary Source, Brian Kelley, wrote a letter to the Observer stating that the journal he helped create “[had] become a monster.” The publication was ultimately derecognized in 2013. As seen through the rise and fall of The Primary Source, initiatives on campus that aim to expand viewpoints have the capacity to cause as much harm as they do good.
To prevent these initiatives from causing harm, Warikoo stressed the importance of respect and protection for historically marginalized groups in academic spaces like CEVIHE, saying, “We have to come to these discussions from a place of respect for each other’s lived experiences, and if that doesn’t happen… harm can be done to… often the most marginalized students.” In response, Hersh emphasized CEVIHE’s emphasis on learning. He stated, “One need not agree that another person ought to hold the view that they hold. But for the sake of finding the truth of any conflictual matter, our goal is to learn why people reach different conclusions… that’s the core to education and truth-seeking.”
Members of the Tufts community have argued that it is important to ac-
knowledge power imbalances and histo ries of violence that continue to permeate the lives of oppressed people. In a written statement to the Observer, Anthropology Professor Amahl Bishara stated, “It is im portant to [engage different perspectives] while taking into account power and his tory: how ideologies and societal forces like racism, capitalism, patriarchy, colo nialism, and homophobia shape our un derstanding of difference and our experi ences of learning.”
Many professors agree that the mis sion of expanding viewpoints is not new to college campuses, but is embedded in their very foundation. As Warikoo stated, “the core of higher education has been for centuries about truth seeking, testing out ideas, engaging in different viewpoints.” In emphasizing that this is not a new phenomenon, she affirms that higher education has been centered around promoting discussions across perspective lines for decades. This highlights a tension at the heart of the CEVIHE initiative: when the pursuit of viewpoint diversity is reframed as a corrective to so-called ideological imbalance, it risks erasing the long tradition of rigorous, pluralistic discourse already present in academia.
The AAUP and other members of the Tufts community hope that CEVIHE can carry out its goal while mitigating harm, especially for historically mar ginalized communities. Ultimately, the future of viewpoint diversity at Tufts— and in higher education more broadly— will rest on how institutions choose to navigate polarizing discourse in an open and accountable manner. When conver sations acknowledge the histories and power dynamics that shape them, they have the potential to do what higher ed ucation has always intended to do: foster deeper understanding.
DESIGN BY JOEY MARMO, ART BY LEILA TOUBIA AND MARIA SOKOLOWSKI
Dearest steadfast readers of the Tufts Observer,
I wish to share with you all three stories, each of which represents my greatest secrets, only revealed in a final attempt to disturb the serenity of my soul so that I can be free from the plague of inner peace, of which I have maintained for quite some time. Upon coming to the conclusion that I must express my being in poetry, I struggled to find the subject matter that would accurately convey the Meaning of Life. It was only after much self reflection and a long and tiresome examination of the causal relationship of our universe that I realized a fundamental rule of the heavens: all things must relate to each other. In this, I have constructed two poems, one on the left and one on the right, that can be read as separate tales of love, of horror, of the soul and of the gods. The two poems, in turn, work together to form a third poem, reading line by line. The italicized portions are to be read in each of the three poems. When all are read, each of you will have gained a clear window into my soul, and perhaps an answer to some of life’s greatest questions.
Dearest James
The Soup, The Soup
The lights—flickering in the gloaming, Sharp creaks in the floorboards
Fireflies reappearing in summertide Serve to remind me of a mantra
Fleeting sniffs of slow-cooked beef—too soon did I forget childhood joys
A fetid stew is a portent of death
My heart aches with the sudden change
But today My Beatrice returns I can not bear to hold my civility
A high pitched shriek, a tritone humming
Double, double stovetop dutch oven
Goulash burns, my stomach bubbles
As the dark cloud wafts towards me
My mother taught me not to run
Shall I compare thee to pork soup? Thou art more tasteful and more soothing
My father taught me moderation As I weightlessly glide over to the table
I am the next victim of your wretched plot
A specter rubs his acrid fingers along my shoulder
Slowly creeping towards my nose
I stir the soote pot with my doffed rib I can do nothing to repel the serpent’s lures
Give in, Give in, the hallowed angels sing
My body stoops toward the bowl, one last breath
I become goulash, beef and tongue as one
Men are irrational with passions ablaze So while I die in your arms, love another
Like waking up from a coma in a cold sweat
Am I too old to be haunted by such nightmares?
These are not said to manifest in soup
Young men dream about love, and yet Noodles turn cold in temperate rooms
Do not prefer pungency or blandness
For goulash stings in the sun’s sharp rays
Ghost stories lose their mystery
The moon cloaks the zest of pork Love poems lose their zeal
Apollo and Artemis do take their turns
In the perpetual stew of blackness and light
ByJamesUrquhar
How to make Cioppino that at least three-fifths of your family will probably enjoy
(Cioppino is a fish stew from San Francisco. CHIP-ino, not Cee-oh-pino, and not ever San Fran.)
By Lucie Babcock
Wake up at six in the morning on December 24 and drive in your pajamas to the nearest seafood market. Approach the raw counter, realize you forgot to bring the recipe. Hesitate. Google it?
Order from memory. Forget the clams. Decide that a whole crab is not worth the price of college tuition, settle for two legs instead. Halibut, shrimp, spaghetti. Loaf of bread or baguette?
Return home, display purchases. Locate the recipe, read the note from last year that says to buy more fish, less mussels. (You bought more mussels, less fish.) Sigh.
Dump everything in a pot. Cioppino means ‘chopped up’, little bit of everything, it’s fine. Stir, stir, stir. Stir again. Wonder if it’s really supposed to look like that. Wonder if maybe you bought the wrong sauce. Wonder if the mussels should be open by now.
Gigi was here so you could ask. Settle for reading her recipe again. Spill sauce on the recipe. Almost freak out, save the day with paper towels.
Bring in someone to sample. Add salt. Pass over stirring responsibilities, then reclaim them because the new stirrer is more focused on the football game playing on TV.
Almost ready. Entrust bread slicing to a younger cousin. Hope they don’t lose a finger.
Are the mussels open? Is the pasta done? Where is the bread plate? Where is the slotted spoon? Who made the salad? Is something burning?
Ready! Quick! Ladle. One plate—only mussels, next plate—only fish. Extra sauce. Extra pasta. Coveted crab leg. Sit down. Eat. Relax. There is still bread and butter; there are still the fancy Christmas plates. There is Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider in the goblets that haven’t been knocked off the table over the years. Laugh. You can still bite down on the crab shell to crack it open with your teeth. You can give the best bit of the meat to your brother. You can get sauce on your chin. Clean up. Compile feedback. Discount the yearly request for more crab (re: crab is one million dollars an ounce). Hunt for space on the recipe to write down the new input.
Hope you’ll remember to read the note next year. Hope you won’t forget the clams.
By Ishana Dasgupta
In March 2025, Fox News host Jesse Watters sparked a strange online debate. Sitting at his desk, Watters began rattling off what he called “Rules for Men,” proclaiming, “You don’t eat soup in public. You don’t cross your legs. And you don’t drink from a straw… It’s very effeminate.” The rules spread rapidly online. People made jokes describing how soup can be eaten in a masculine way, “The trick is to eat it with your bare hands out of a [WWII] army helmet.” Others responded with disbelief at Watters managing to make soup, a humble meal, a part of the gender identity discourse. Beneath the comments, the conversation revealed something enduring: the historic use of food as a vehicle to highlight and police identity.
Watters’ comment wasn’t an isolated incident. A growing number of public figures and online communities have turned everyday eating habits into a test of masculinity, such as rapper Wiz Khalifa, who warned men against eating bananas whole in public because it looks “sus.” There have been countless online videos about eating popsicles, pickles, corndogs, or any other phallic foods, all for the fear of appearing “gay” in public.
In his 1825 book The Physiology of Taste, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin states, “Tell me what you eat and I shall tell you what you are,” a.k.a., ‘you are what you eat.’ For centuries, what we eat, how we eat, and even where we eat have communicated our race, culture, class, and gender. In this sense, food operates as a kind of social shorthand,
roles that define traditional masculinity, such as being the provider for the family. This connection between meat, strength, and maleness has persisted into modern culture, where the idea that ‘real men eat meat’ continues to be propagated by ‘manosphere’ influencers.
The gendering of food in America emerged gradually, tracing back to the late nineteenth century when eating outside the home became a staple of modern life. Restaurants like Schraffts started catering to female restaurant-goers specifically by serving “light” main courses, such as salads.
quietly communicating who we are. In Western culture especially, conventional ideas of masculinity and femininity are mapped onto the plate as neatly as they are onto color, clothing, or language.
No food represents this idea more than red meat, which has become a cultural symbol for masculinity. Historically, hunting, the primary source of meat in many societies, was almost exclusively a male activity. Because meat was a scarce, highly-prized resource, hunting became a marker of male strength, skill, and dominance. Eating meat affirms masculinity by firmly placing men at the top of the food chain. This status establishes social
This new dining culture coincided with the rise of women’s magazines reinforcing the idea that women preferred “dainty” foods. These publications not only prescribed what women should eat, but linked restraint to femininity and moral virtue. Men, on the other hand, were encouraged to eat hearty foods like steak, beef, eggs, and chili. Over time, these distinctions hardened into symbols of identity: meat became a “manly” food, while salads, yogurt, and fruit were cast as ‘feminine.’
The result of this messaging is a strange hierarchy of foods and feelings: indulgence as masculine versus restraint as feminine. For example, Hungry-Man TV dinners advertised satisfaction and size, while Lean Cuisine meals offered thinness, elegance, and self-control. In this way, appetite itself became gendered.
Studies show that men are more likely to make higher-calorie, less healthy food choices, partly due to lower nutritional awareness and a stronger desire for hedonic, pleasure-based eating. Women, by contrast, tend to demonstrate greater dietary restraint, and a stronger proclivity for low-calorie foods.
These choices feel natural, until someone points out how arbitrary they are. Sophomore Hazel Galloway’s recent dining experience demonstrates these notions. When she ordered a steak at a restaurant, the waiter served it to her dad, then her brother, before finally offering it to her. She recalled, “[The waiter] looked a little embarrassed, but also kind of surprised, like it was odd for me to order a [heavier] meal than my dad… I remember thinking how automatic it was for people to not just assume only men eat steak, but also assume women wouldn’t want to.”
That’s what makes the viral soup discussion so strikingly relevant. It exposes the absurdity of these cultural rules, showing how even something as simple as soup can be cast as a threat to masculinity.
Unlike eating meat, eating soup requires patience: it must be spooned, not cut; sipped, not swallowed whole. It cools slowly and asks for care. These qualities of slowness, warmth, and patience have long linked soup to care, making it one of the most widely accepted ‘comfort foods.’ Across cultures, it’s the food of caretakers: the meal brought to someone recovering from illness, the dish made by grandmothers and mothers on a bad day. The role of caretaker has historically been, and still is, the responsibility of women, continually linking soup to femininity and sensitivity. In this sense, Jesse Watters’ claim that “real men don’t eat soup in public” exposes how deeply masculinity still depends on a denial of vulnerability.
In the Queer community, it’s this same vulnerability that paved the way for
connection and community-building. Soup’s association with care and comfort was precisely why it became a centerpiece for one Queer space, wherein this act of nourishment doubles as an act of resistance.
It exposes the absurdity of these cultural norms, showing how even something as simple as soup can be cast as a threat to masculinity.
Queer Soup Night (QSN), a grassroots movement, was founded in Brooklyn by chef and activist Liz Alpern in the aftermath of the 2016 election. To combat the fear, isolation, and uncertainty of the time, Alpern and friends cooked three pots of soup, opened the doors of a local café, and invited anyone to join. The model was simple: Queer chefs and allies make soup, attendees pay what they can, and all proceeds go to local organizations. Within a year, the collective spread to Portland, New Orleans, and Vancouver, each event adapting to local needs while preserving the same spirit of connection.
Queer Soup Night’s significance goes beyond the food itself. As one writer put it, “[Queer people] know all too well the pain of being shunned from family dinner tables and wider communities of origin— turned away from the rituals of worship, so often food-centered, bullied in the lunchroom, stared at in the supermarket.” QSN embodies that truth. For many Queer people, food is not just sustenance but a way to express community care and feed one another when their families, or even the world, have refused to. Importantly, QSN reframes the same softness that Watters criticized into a source of collective power.
Eating is never neutral: it’s an act through which gender is both performed and policed, and a means for rejecting societal pressures. By reclaiming soup, and by extension food, to bring people together, the Queer community highlights how relationships, identities, and ideas are fluid. Just like soup.
Enriching the Community: Diversity on the Hill
At 11:45 a.m. on any given weekday, a soundless bell heralds the end of morning classes. Students flood the Academic Quad, weaving through analyses of academic jargon, laments of exams past, or gossip about the latest willthey-won’t-they. This organized chaos is the student experience in its purest form. The air is fragrant with the kind of kinship only a small liberal arts college can provide.
Community is melded with the foundations of Ballou Hall, the first building erected on campus; it is intertwined with the redgold of the New England fall; it echoes in the chatter of the Campus Center; it can be heard in the beats of the Fall Dance Showcase and the tunes at Applejam, and in the resounding applause that follows. Most students would agree that it is difficult to make one’s way up and down the hill without a couple of waves and at least two on-the-run conversations.
At a rough total of 6,900 people, Tufts’ student body is often described as closeknit, where one can always find a familiar face in the hallways. The university’s website reads, “As members of the Tufts community, we have the opportunity and responsibility to help build a University and a world shaped by our values of inclusion.” These principles are not just buzzwords. Diversity is reflected in the 50 percent of Tufts students who identify as people of color, and in the 13 percent that hail from outside the US. As Jaime Dimalanta, a senior from the Philippines, commented, “I do appreciate, even though I have been to international schools which are a lot more diverse, I’m still able to meet a lot of people that have grown up and lived in many different places.”
One of the most exciting parts about the college experience is stepping into a world brimming with new ideas and cultures. Senior Bela Silverman discussed how her upbringing in Hellertown, a small town in Pennsylvania, influenced her decision to come to Tufts. “We didn’t have any diversity in my high school at all … coming into college, it was definitely a priority.” She highlighted how students’ backgrounds mediate the way they seek out spaces, adding that they “contribute to the way that you’re sharing, and that enriches and diversifies your educational experience.”
Senior Chaliya Holder highlighted how her upbringing in a diverse atmosphere in Brooklyn strengthened her appreciation for both her own identity and cultural inclusiveness. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been taken away from places like that … it’s almost like a reverse culture shock, where I’m like, ‘wow, I’m so glad I got to experience that.’”
Holder elaborated on how these early experiences influenced how she sought out community at Tufts. Her decision to participate in a photoshoot for Onyx Magazine on a whim her freshman year led her to her current position with the magazine as Co-Editor-in-Chief. “It fit my niche more closely beyond being Black,” she explained. “It’s a Black arts magazine, [and] I’ve been doing different kinds of art my whole life … it’s nice to have that oasis of trust where everyone gets it.” Like its namesake’s shaded bands of color, Onyx brings together myriad creative forms and outlooks, including Holder’s love for curation.
byIshaanRajabali
Varied interests are especially celebrated through Tufts’ strong civic engagement culture. In her junior year, Holder founded Friends of Black Farmers, which invests in community-oriented solutions to the systemic barriers that farmers face. “We have a lot of really passionate groups … [and] there are causes that need voices, and I wanted to add something to the conversation.” She shared that simple activities—such as a trip to Groundwork Somerville to garden—helped members look beyond college to link their work to systemic issues amidst a bonding activity. The closeness of the community at Tufts stems in large part from this wide range of student clubs, which allows students to bond in a variety of contexts. For example, Dimalanta’s campus commitments span a dynamic five years: senior advisor for the Philippine Student Union (PSU), captain of the Men’s Rugby team, and a staple host advisor for the Global Orientation (GO) program, to name a few. “It’s interesting how there are so many different ways in which you can socially engage with people on campus, that you’re just able to just have these niche, different spaces that you just bounce around because of the accessibility of student organizations.”
juBlack community-orithat pasthat something simple Groundwork members to Tufts range to example, a the captain host (GO)
Silverman focused on her experience of finding sisterhood in the Chi Omega sorority. She was initially skeptical of Greek life due to sororities being white-dominated spaces, but changed her mind during the recruitment process. She observed the organization’s concerted efforts to tackle issues of representation, acknowledging, “That’s a paradox, because we do obviously go through recruitment and are talking to girls to see how they would fit into the sorority.” She emphasized that inclusivity in Greek life remains a continued effort, where both intentionality and practice have to come together.
While the melting pot of Tufts boasts students from over 80 different countries, the lack of socioeconomic diversity tempers this variety. According to a 2017 New York Times report, the median family income at Tufts stands at a whopping $224,800. Dimalanta commented on how economic privilege can undercut racial and ethnic diversity. “It makes for a very interesting dynamic when it comes to interact[ing] with people, [their] relationship with money, spending habits or things that they value to be really important,” he explained.
Silverman expressed a similar perspective. “I think diversity carries so many differ-
ent definitions, and just because we have so many diverse backgrounds on campus doesn’t mean that economically it’s the same thing,” she shared, stressing that to her it seemed that expensive fees and lifestyles add to the allure of Tufts as an elite institution. “You’re not getting as well rounded of a collaborative environment as you would think you are. I have the ethnic and cultural diversity exposure here that I didn’t at home, but economic-wise, it’s completely stagnant.”
Holder highlighted that a lack of socioeconomic diversity is indicative of a structural and systemic superficiality. “We technically have these diversity quotas, we can break up the student body… but are these people intermingling with each other?” she questioned. She added that the pressure to conform to social norms is heightened by the novelty of college. “Coming to any new area and trying to find where you fit in, you want to put your best foot forward. And if the messaging you’re receiving is [that] the best person you could be is a rich person, there definitely is pressure.”
In Dimalanta’s opinion, less socioeconomic diversity contributes to an overall rigidity of opinions and assumptions that can be daunting to challenge. “I’d say there’s definitely less sensitivity towards people’s backgrounds … what people have actually had to work towards or have experienced to get themselves to Tufts.” The lack of awareness around economic privilege can inhibit students from leaving their bubble of comfort, encourag-
ing unwillingness when it comes to engaging with viewpoints that challenge their own.
Holder observed how her specific academic choices, as an anthropology and psychology major, revolve around nuanced conversation. “It’s a lot of hearing different viewpoints … and you have to engage with it and understand it,” she explained. “I wouldn’t be surprised if other people [don’t] want to deal with [those they disagree with]. Explaining why I deserve rights to somebody for an hour and then going to study for a midterm is not realistic.” She underlined the necessity of understanding these perspectives, despite disagreement. “Our inability to communicate with people that are different from us is a product of the problem, but also feeds it. Once isolated from people that are different from you, you just lose a bit of your empathy.”
A melting pot is ultimately a medley of flavors that, in harmonious tandem, produces comfort. And while the Tufts community functions as a reassuring space for many, diversity means more than statistics on a webpage. The tensions of attending an elite institution boil down to the balance of cultural and socioeconomic diversity. Initiatives like the Tufts Tuition Pact, which aims to provide a tuition-free experience to students from families earning less than $150,000, will go a long way to introduce socioeconomic variety on campus. But the idea behind it must also be reflected in the community’s acceptance of these new backgrounds. Perhaps it is time to infuse Tufts with some new perspectives; this hill certainly seems ready.
I Used to Think More
In a world of self-proclaimed overthinkers, I believe I underthink—
—though I suppose this wasn’t always the case. For my seventh birthday, I asked my grandparents for a dictionary, and I actually developed a habit of reading it. By 12, I became enamored with classic literature, devouring Austen, all the Brontës, Wilde (my personal favorite), and Plath. The bookshelf in my childhood home crawled halfway up my bedroom wall and every shelf was two books deep. In high school, listening to philosophy podcasts on my seven-minute drive to school became my morning ritual, alongside a cup of black coffee. I developed an affinity for neuroscience and dug myself a rabbit hole as I explored neuroplasticity, the idea that we quite literally rewire our brains through our decisions and experiences. This inspired me to learn, to absorb as much knowledge as possible, to engage in a perpetual strength exercise for my neurons. I jotted down everything I found interesting in a notebook I kept on my nightstand, lest I forgot something enriching. I read Freud, for God’s sake.
One of the first values my dad instilled in me was creativity. “You have to create as much as you consume,” he’d say. The fastidious and obedient child I was, I assumed the responsibility and created like my life depended on it. As a teen, I painted every week for hours on end in silence, and that was enough. As soon as I turned 18 I designed and got my first tattoo, inspired by my favorite passage from Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis. I made up songs on my guitar that sounded like dark green and the smell of firewood (after reading a book on synesthesia, I decided I had a mild case of it). I learned the theory behind why playing a C chord in open tuning and then moving it up two frets sounded so lovely. And I wrote. I wrote and I was good at it and it was easy. Poetry and short stories and long stories and journal entry musings and ideas and aspirations. I even typed up the opening chapter of a memoir (or a diary,
depending on how seriously you want to take me).
What motivated this furious consump tion-creation cycle? For one, my grand parents were dying. I couldn’t stop this. I was becoming an adult, which brought me closer to my own death. I couldn’t stop this. I was losing weight. This, I didn’t want to stop. I regularly discovered that my brain and body did not like me very much. Every month a day came on which I was unable to lift myself from bed. I tired of the continual rotation of new therapists, new drugs, new meditations, and new bullshit supplements (in case you were wondering, vitamin B12 does not alleviate symptoms of MDD, GAD, or PTSD). When I was well enough to be functional, then, I had to make it count.
By Emma Castro
With time, I decided happiness was overrated. The evidence for this was everywhere. Could Van Gogh have painted Starry Night if he’d felt attached to both of his ears? Could The Bell Jar have been written by anyone who didn’t want to shut their head in a burning oven? We praise the “tortured artist” and the “mad scientist.” It’s possible that the most disturbed are often the most creative because they are unwilling (or even unable) to see and accept the world as it is. Perhaps suffering is a prerequisite for true creativity. So, if given the choice between being happy and creating something meaningful, why would I choose the former? To be satisfied is to be complacent, and to be complacent is to be stagnant, and to be stagnant is to be uninteresting. To be truly interesting, then, is also to be starkly individual—to have thoughts, skills, and ideas that cannot be replicated by just anybody. What I experienced and what I felt were of little consequence, so long as I was creating something important out of them. Sadness is one of the most versatile artistic media. Acrylic and sadness on canvas. Charming, almost.
I used to think I would be happiest if I ended up alone. That I would be content in a perpetual solitude, that I would never have to sacrifice parts of myself for the satisfaction of another. Letting people in meant dedicating time to them, accom-
a form of the stagnation I feared so deeply. In the name of growth, I took not leaps of faith, but steps—initiating more conversations, saying yes to more coffee dates, divulging more personal stories and listening to those of others. From this, I found people who pulled me outside of myself— and what a gift that was. Now, I am learning what it means to be grateful. I have found people who make me understand why so many people believe in God. I am learning that the feelings of sheer joy and infatuation that I once dismissed as fleeting and childish are real and terrifying and wonderful. I am discovering I have always been full of love; I was simply directing it towards ideas instead of people. I am now learning to accept the presence of others, to feel it, and to indulge in it. Further, in relinquishing a bit of my individuality complex, I’ve realized that so much of who I am is other people. Immediately there is some disappointment in this, knowing that I am not only me—and yet there is so much beauty in it too.
Yet I worry that a consequence of this is that I think less. Less meaningfully, at least, and less independently. Today, what occupies my mind is my work and my schedule and my responsibilities and my friends and my romantic relationships and my appearance and how I am perceived by other people. Rarely does any sort of input resonate with me these days. I forget the plots of movies I watch within a month. I hardly read for pleasure. I’ve been reading Crime and Punishment since August, and I’m only on page 129 (and I still don’t know the proper way to pronounce Raskolnikov). I’ll still say my favorite writer is Oscar Wilde but I don’t know if I remember why. I mess up my old favorite passages of his when I try to recite them in my head.
24x30 canvasses leaning against my dresser. The other day I was cleaning my room and discovered my guitar case had collected dust. On my computer, I have about a dozen open documents with two sentences on them. All my journal entries are starting to look the same: mundane, superficial, uninspired. I worry my mind has hit some sort of ceiling, or rather its ceiling is gradually caving in on me. Sometimes I think my thoughts had so much more weight when I was 90 pounds.
I wonder if I’ve become a hedonist. If I’ve sacrificed my intellect for happiness. I’m unsure of how compatible individuality is with companionship. In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion says information is control. Every book, podcast, series, movie, album, painting, and performance I consumed was my choice. The way we choose to consume food has a direct influence on the condition of our bodies, and I believe the way we choose to feed our minds has a direct influence on their development, too. So, in retrospect, I’m starting to doubt that my limitless curiosity was anything more than a desperate attempt to exercise some control over something. It was so difficult for me to see beauty in the plain world that I felt compelled to adorn it with my creations to make it more palatable. Maybe I accept the world as it is now, and maybe this is a crime. Information is control. What I have yet to decide is whether I’ve finally stopped inhibiting myself from growing, or if I’ve simply allowed other people to inhibit me instead.
HEADPHONES ON or off?
By Gigi Appelbaum
Icheck my phone after class to find a text, “I saw you in Carm and waved, but you didn’t wave back!” I think back to my morning—sitting alone at breakfast with my noise-cancelling Airpods, listening to Amy Poehler’s podcast, and the text makes sense: there’s no chance I would have noticed someone trying to get my attention. Part of me feels guilty—my intention wasn’t to isolate myself—but another part of me shrugs and dismisses it as a side effect of a necessary ritual. My alone time in the morning is important; if it comes at the expense of some social interaction, I think I’m willing to make that sacrifice.
The first iteration of the headphone in the late 19th century didn’t have noisecancellation technology. Nevertheless, concerns about isolationism abounded as it entered the mainstream. In 1979, when Sony came out with the Walkman, a CBS Records vice president complained, “With the advent of the Sony Walkman came the end of meeting people.” In 1982, the Washington Post wrote that “we have entered the age of the urban hermit,” describing the Walkman as “a potent symbol of an antisocial electronic future.”
With the emergence of portable music, young people began to self-isolate even in public spaces, tuning out the world with their headphone usage. This trend increased significantly with noise-cancelling technology, spearheaded by the audio company Bose, and followed by other companies, such as Apple’s famous AirPod Pros.
While noise-cancelling headphones have the power to grant a necessary sense of privacy, they can also exacerbate loss of connection and lack of presence in
public spaces. On the Tufts campus, any venture outside reveals a significant portion of students engrossed in the world of their headphones, mentally and physically separated from the spaces they inhabit. While the rise in noisecancellation technology has improved the lives of college students in many ways, including aiding in concentration during studying and exer cising, it still comes with a price that Tufts students are willing to pay.
For freshman Claire Cunningham, adjusting to college life has meant accepting the fact that privacy can be hard to come by. Noise-cancelling headphones can be a solution. “Being in college means you’re constantly surrounded by people,” she explained. “I think that noise-cancelling headphones can help you build in space for yourself.”
Senior Umi Yamamoto feels that the technology helps keep overwhelming feelings at bay in public spaces. For them, being fully immersed in their music brings a necessary calm to their day. “I use my noise-cancelling headphones when I’m overstimulated. I even have Loops—nonelectric noise reduction earplugs—that I use during tests, in class, or just walking in busy places,” they said. “They allow me to create space and distance for myself to listen to music and think more clearly.”
For others, being constantly surrounded by peers is a facet of the college experience that allows for an all-encompassing sense of community. Allowing oneself to be present on campus creates opportunities for potentially transforma tive interactions with strangers.
Leaving a writing workshop earlier this year, I was disappointed to realize that I’d forgotten my Airpods in my dorm. Minutes later, I found myself immersed in a conversation with a stranger who happened to be walking nearby, and, months later, we remain good friends. When students use headphones to block out the world, this sense of spontaneous community suffers—with my Airpods in, that friendship would not have had the opportunity to form.
Freshman Flora Elham finds that her noise-cancelling headphones help her ground herself with quiet before classes or while walking from place to place. That said, she makes a conscious effort to limit her use of them around others, so that she can be present for possible conversations.“I have to be hyper-aware of my etiquette when I put them on,” she explained. “I take them off when I’m actively talking to people, to avoid being rude.”
The growing connection between public headphone use and a perceived disconnection from community begs an important question: what does community mean on a college campus, and how can individuals contribute to building it? Does our community consist of our friends and classmates, or is it comprised of the whole student body—strangers we pass on our way to class and eat next to every day in the dining hall?
Cunningham is constantly working to expand her community—she finds value in connecting with strangers and said she makes a point of talking to at least one every day. Whether she’s chatting with people in line for a Kindlevan smoothie or being introduced to classmates’ friends, every conversation is an opportunity to learn more about members of the Tufts community. To her, interacting with new
community, even if you don’t know every one personally,” she shared.
seem to be antithetical to the idea of com munity-building that relies on frequent interactions with strangers. Their use in public spaces limits opportunities for spon taneous conversations and allows students to isolate themselves, even when they are surrounded by other people. “When I see someone wearing noise-cancelling head phones, it is a signal that they want to be left alone in some capacity,” Cunningham shared. “They’re the universal signal for ‘give me my space.’”
ness, cutting users off from the everyday happenings of the world around them. Not only are users deprived of spontaneous interactions—they’re unaware of the pos sibilities for those interactions that might arise while in public. With distracting en tertainment readily accessible, headphoneusers are not forced to grapple with the so cialization that comes with public existence.
Polytechnic University revealed that par ticipants with high levels of portable audio technology use, like headphones, reported more social loneliness than those who reported low use. Thus, noise-cancelling headphones seem to be acting as a mani festation of a growing shift away from physical and social interaction that has come with the use of the internet as a place to socialize. This cultural dependency on technology for socialization, entertain ment, and distraction limits students in
I have fond childhood memories of my grandma making this soup for me after long travel days to visit her home in Houston, Texas. I remember the first time I tried her soup at eight years old, confused and overwhelmed in a new city. My grandma’s cooking was a comfort I didn’t realize I needed. When I told her the soup was “很好喝!” (very yummy!), it became a family staple. I knew she spent hours in the kitchen laboriously preparing and cutting ingredients in anticipation for my family’s visits. Making food for her family was my grandma’s love language, a sentiment that surpassed our language barrier. I always knew there was a flavorful bowl of soup waiting for me on her circular kitchen table as soon as I walked into her home.
My grandma was from a generation which never wrote down recipes. She simply recreated dishes from memory and intuition, and my mom watched, learning to recreate the soup from her memories of the flavor. Now, my mom makes the soup for me whenever I go home for break. She claims she can’t make it as well as her mom did, but I disagree. Whenever I drink it, the effect is just the same: a warm, familiar embrace.
Recipe adapted from my mom’s verbal instructions:
Quantities for approximately 4 servings:
Cut ⅓ lb. pork loin (or any pork variation you have) into thin, long strips and marinate it with soy sauce, sesame oil, and Shaoxing wine for a half an hour or so.
Chop 1-inch long ginger, 2 cloves of garlic, and 2 scallions. Don’t chop the garlic too finely.
Chop about 8 mushrooms, thinly sliced. Soak them in water.
Chop about 2 lbs. string beans about 1 inch long each. Chop off the ends and discard.
Sauté everything separately, mix in ingredients when the oil is hot for a strong flavor (过油).
ARemove vegetables from the pan.
Turn the heat down to medium heat and cook the marinated pork until about halfway done. Put the vegetables back and mix everything together.
Then, add about 6 cups of water.
Add salt, pepper, more sesame oil, and mushrooms. Add some chicken broth because “plain soup never tastes good.”
Let it simmer until everything is soft, approximately 20 minutes.
Add around 10 medium-sized shrimp last because “it cooks fast but you must add the shrimp or else it won’t taste good.”
In a separate pan, cook thin layers of egg omelet (3 eggs) and cut them up into thin rectangular strips. When the soup is done, garnish with more cut scallions, coriander, and egg strips.
You can add noodles separately to the soup if you want. I think the base alone tastes better.
Greetings from Yesterday
By Jules Zinn Rowthorn
Shortly afer her Nana passed, the girl was greeted by a fapping bird dancing around her body, as if the small creature was trying to lif the weight of her grief with its wings.
Tough Nana had lef her physical body, she took this bird as an extension of her. She had come to tell her granddaughter that she had not lef in spirit, only in the material realm. A moment of inarticulable inner peace amidst a storm of sorrow.
Her body is physically twenty, but when her brain replays the laughter of loved ones, she is once again the little girl giggling alongside them.
Te smell of her Nana’s stew lingers long, like the last note of a symphony song.
Te sting of nostalgia accompanied by the incomprehensible gratitude for all that has been.
A moment long gone, a time machine speeding down the highway of memory.
Nana kept very diligent journals. Afer her passing, the girl discovered them sitting in boxes, collecting dust.
Cursive handwriting, quick penciled thoughts sprawled over pages.
Nana wasn’t shy in detail.
Te poetic etchings of her day-to-day seemed to show that the idea of forgetting even the most mundane experiences was anathema to her.
Some pages are hymns of natural Earthly wonders: these are the most sacred. In the crevasse of ache she fnds Nana’s presence in the wind that cools her face, and her soul in the music of birdsong. Her magic is in every four-leaf clover she fnds, and her joy in the swaying of every tree’s trunk.
She wishes for one more hug from Nana, walks the world enveloped in the love they shared.
Each day she is greeted by the spirit of those she has loved, their aliveness palpable in every wonder she has.
Memories of yesterday, ever-evolving actors within her mind and soul, leading the way toward tomorrow.
“Farewell for now, my secret pond. So long you creatures and lilies and ferns and trees. I’ll carry you in my memory over the long winter ahead along with the remembrance of the sun’s shimmering silver path and the million sun-stars of the rippling waves.”
– Anne Rowthorn
White tiered skirts for Lizzie McAlpine. Satin bows for Gracie Abrams. Sparkles and sequins for Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Sabrina Carpenter. The soup of clothing items blend together into one homogenous mass around the stage, one person indistinguishable from the next. Outfits are not just similar; they are made up of the same top, bottom, shoes, and accessories as if there was a dress code posted at the door. The beauty of a good concert outfit, like any outfit, is that it is both personal and communal. It can signal your interests while also allowing people to know your specific tastes. The monotony of outfits at a concert creates a sense of community, but that sense of community is
MELTING INTO EACH OTHER
overshadowed by the sameness of the surroundings. Instead of feeling proximity to the crowd, I feel the uncanny sense that I’ve been transported to the world of The Stepford Wives.
This offputting sense of unnatural conformity can start with the artists themselves. Music artists, in all their activity around making, promoting, and sharing their music, are ultimately selling a brand. The 21st century domination of social media platforms means that instead of just music journalists, gossip columns, and an artist’s management team creating the conversation and pushing a new album, the artist has to present themself on various platforms, blurring the line between their public and private life. They don’t just promote their music, but their taste, their life, and themselves entirely. Like with any celebrity, fans want to know their favorite artists more and more intimately. It’s much more rare in this day and age to see an artist who isn’t promoting some degree of parasociality. And like with influencers, it’s become easier for fans to find out exactly what brands, products, and items their favorite artist likes. Think of the endless videos on YouTube from GQ of “10 Things [This Celebrity] Can’t Live Without”, or Vogue’s series “Inside [This Celebrity’s] Bag”, or even Vogue’s “Beauty Secrets” series. These videos can rack up millions of views and show us a peek behind the curtain of what our idols (supposedly) use. Whether staged, genuine, or somewhere in between, this type of content brings us closer than ever to being able to emulate the people whose status far eclipses our own. It’s how trends trickle down to us, including fashion. The barrier to knowing what music artists and celebrities like has never been thinner, and music artists
are smart enough to know how to capitalize on our attention.
This is not necessarily a malicious pursuit, but merely a way that artists can create more commotion for an album cycle. Sometimes that manifests itself in infinite variants of vinyls and remixes, and sometimes it can create art beyond the music. Part of capitalizing on social media ecosystems is creating a distinct brand. Olivia Rodrigo has claimed the color purple, making her concerts a sea of uninterrupted lavender, lilac, and indigo. Sabrina Carpenter in recent years would not be half the icon she is without her big blowout and platform heels. Charli xcx most recently dominated charts and culture with the BRAT rollout, adorning billboards and walls in BRAT green. So, when I took the train to last year’s SWEAT tour and the car was filled to the brim with people in bright BRAT green, it was no mystery where we were all headed and where we got the idea from. The branding of an era or album cycle creates an even more specific style of dress for the cycle’s concert, with not just the artist’s general image to pull inspiration from but the colors and aesthetics of the album too.
But branding, marketing, and influencing alone don’t create the copy-paste outfits. Knowing what our musical idols like is only half of the equation. Having, or rather purchasing, those items has also never been easier. Financing purchases with credit cards has been commonplace for decades, but with the advent of ‘buynow-pay-later’ programs like Klarna, consumers can finance almost anything in several interest-free installments, even if they can’t actually comfortably afford to buy so many things at once. Rapid consumerism is not a new conversation in fashion, but it has moved at an exponentially faster rate in recent years.
OTHER Concert Attire Blues
By Emilia Ferreira
Because it is so easy for everyday consumers to buy (or finance) the exact same items that mega-rich artists have, there’s less of a push to put a different spin on the trend, a personal touch or mark of taste that makes something that is trendy into something that is marginally but meaningfully more personal.
Seeing the sea of leopard print shortshorts for Tate McRae makes me wonder if people had that item in their closet before, or if the desire to dress for the specific occasion has led to overconsumption that is both unnecessary and boring to the eye. It’s one thing to dress for the occasion; it’s another to buy for the occasion.
The laziness of a concert outfit made exclusively of the day’s hot items comes off as bland and uninspired. When convenience rules, we lose not just quality, but any sense of individuality. Ideally, when trends trickle down into different spheres, they are reinterpreted and personal tastes and touches are added; that is the growth of fashion that allows for both conformity and individuality. Buying a piece of clothing that is similar to the trend, then adding, removing, or reimagining an aspect of it, is what keeps it in the middle ground between playing into popular culture and creating individuality. It takes much more effort to wait for that kind of item. When convenience and the quick satisfaction of getting the trending items dominates, the result is a concert outfit that is ultraspecific to the event, ultra-current to the
moment, and uninteresting enough that it fades into the background of every other person dressed the same way.
It’s not necessarily about preaching individuality as gospel, but letting fashion, music, and culture morph, change, and grow. Individuality is oft-hailed, nearly impossible to achieve, and seems to be an increasingly unattainable virtue. Confor mity is not the enemy, and individuality is not a quality that makes one holier-thanthou. But to escape the uncanny valley of looking around the concert room and see ing dozens of people around you wearing the same outfit made of the same items, it’s imperative that we reject the fashion vices of old: instant gratification and blind con sumerism.
Somerville Speaks: Residents Clash with City Officials over Unhoused in Davis Square
By Rohaan Iyer
“They don’t actually want to hear from us!” exclaimed an audience member when the October 6 Davis Square Public Safety Meeting ended after only an hour and a half of discussion.
The meeting was called in response to a recent increase in the unhoused population in Davis Square. The city began by presenting the administration’s intention to expand the Somerville homeless shelter, increase community outreach, and review the level of policing in Davis Square. Once they opened up the floor to a Q&A, the atmosphere quickly became tense. Many residents shared stories about feeling uncomfortable or even unsafe walking through Davis Square at all times of day. The city had booked the venue for one hour, and the meeting had already gone over an hour and a half when the conversation was shut down. There was audible agitation from the crowd, who wanted the meeting to continue, showcasing the apparent disconnect between Somerville residents and city officials.
One woman in the audience said, “Over the past year, I’ve noticed more and more of those benches are just occupied by people kind of sitting around, loitering, littering, doing drugs… I was wondering if it would be helpful to actually remove the benches.” This was met by a resounding round of applause. However, according to
the Maryland Neighborhood Design Center, “adding these hostile elements often serves to make the space feel unwelcoming to all users,” not just the intended excluded groups. In response to the suggestion, Councilor-at-Large and Somerville Mayoral Candidate Jake Wilson told the Observer that the idea “honestly feels like cutting off our nose to spite our faces … The benches are not the problem. It’s the behavior around the benches, and that’s where we want to set a clear standard of what behavior we’re going to allow in Somerville from everyone, housed and unhoused.” Removing benches would be a form of “hostile architecture,” which is defined as architecture that “uses elements of the built environment to guide or restrict behaviour in urban space as a form of crime prevention, protection of property, or order maintenance.”
Despite Mayor Katjana Ballantyne’s reassurances that they are enrolling the unhoused in MassHealth to combat drug addiction and other health issues, pushing for more shelters, installing used needle deposits throughout the city, and doubling police patrolling in the square, these measures are seemingly not enough to “satisfy” Somerville residents.
One of the driving factors for the recent uptick in homelessness, according to Joyce Tavon, CEO of the
Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, is that “Somerville has lagged in its creation of supportive housing.” Tavon is a longtime Somerville resident whose mission is to combat homelessness in Massachusetts through systemic reform that prioritizes affordable housing and healthcare. She further emphasizes the importance of supportive housing by explaining, “You engage people, you get them housed, and then you get them working on recovery, treatment, all their other needs.”
The primary need for unhoused people is housing, which the City of Somerville does not currently have. In a written statement to the Observer, Tisch College Professor of Political Science Brian Schaffner explained, “The most effective way to address this situation would be for the cities of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and others to collaborate… rather than pushing the problem off on each other by clearing encampments and forcing people to relocate to other communities.” Wilson agreed, saying, “The big
thing is working with our neighbors and making sure that we have a regional ap proach to a regional crisis. When I talk to neighboring cities, they tell me they’re not getting that right now.” With upcom ing elections in November, the ways that candidates differentiate their strategies in combating this issue will be critical.
Even if the current city administra tion and mayoral candidates are now ready to push for more housing, these initiatives come at a time of local and federal push back. On a local level, three neighbors of the Somerville homeless shelter filed a lawsuit against a relocation initiative that would have allowed ten more beds to be built—coincidentally, the same number of people recorded sleeping in Davis Square daily, according to Mayor Ballantyne. The prosecutors claim that the project would violate zoning laws, but The First Church of Somerville, where it’s being constructed, claims that it is within its religious right to expand for the sake of charity, according to the Massachusetts Dover Amendment. Tavon also remarked on the effects of the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which was recently passed under the Trump admin istration, saying, “It’s true that everything the mayor sug gested is not being cut today, but these cuts are going to start to roll out.”
When Tufts can do to best support the situation, Tavon had a few ideas: “I think that some kind of collabo ration with Tufts could help by providing space or resources for a much more robust
the city currently has set up right in Davis Square, thus redirecting the flow of unhoused people outside of such a crowded, commercial area.
Tavon, among others, believes that Tufts does have a responsibility to address the issue as both a point of advertisement (its proximity to Davis Square) and one of civic responsibility. Many Tufts students enjoy a level of privilege attending a wealthy institution surrounded by mellow suburbs and lively squares. When we enjoy such a privilege, how far does our responsibility
Schaffner, though, had a slightly different opinion, writing, “First and foremost, I think Tufts has a responsibility to ensure that its students engage with the wider community with respect and compassion. Beyond that, I’m not sure how much Tufts can or should reasonably be
situation.” When asked what responsibility Tufts has toward the situation in Davis Square, Associate Vice President of the Government and Community Outreach Team Rocco DiRico said in a written statement that “Tufts University supports several local nonprofit organizations that serve the unhoused population in Davis Square … As part of the Tufts University Day of Service, a group of student volunteers spent the afternoon cleaning up Davis Square.”
While the path to a solution can seem insurmountable, with the aforementioned lawsuit inhibiting shelter access and the lack of federal funding to the city, Schaffner wrote, “Tufts students have the right (and even a civic responsibility) to make their voices heard by reaching out to local elected officials, community organizations, and attending community meetings.” Expanding on Schaffner’s sentiments by writing
about local organizations, DiRico wrote, “The Somerville Homeless Coalition, Project Soup, Second Chances, the Community Action Agency of Somerville, and CASPAR are just a few of the local nonprofits that serve those who are facing poverty and housing instability.” Tufts affords its students many privileges, and a good place to start using them is in the community, getting involved in local politics, and giving back to others.
Seeing You Seeing Me
Lucie Babcock
When I was eight, my orthodontist told me I had an ugly side profle. Not directly like that, of course, but I still remember standing inside the scanning contraption, trying not to fdget in the heavy X-ray vest while Dr. Grant pointed at the pictures on the computer screen with his pen. He told my mother that braces would fx the issues with my overbite and help with her side profle, which obviously needs some work, hahaha.
Grant! I went home, to the big mirror in the bathroom, and confronted my refection for the frst time in a while. To my utter shock, the side of my face was no longer monstrous. It was a miracle.
For years, even afer my braces came of, I refused to so much as tilt my head in pictures, constantly trying to angle my desk in middle school so that my crush would never get a glimpse of—god forbid!—how my nose looked from the side. I was convinced it was awful.
Years later, while eating lunch in the high school parking lot, my friend declared solemnly that she was getting a nose job. Because my nose is so gigantic, she explained. I looked at her nose from the front, from the side. I really, really tried to see it as giant. Honestly, it wasn’t even an above average nose size. When I told her this, she rolled her eyes. Your nose is perfect, you have such a nice side profle, you don’t get it.
Now this, such a direct contradiction to the wisdom of Dr.
I haven’t always been good at reconciling my inner identity with the literal blood and bones I’m living in. As a middle schooler, I tried my best not to acknowledge the way my body had changed. I knew, obviously, that it had. I had gone through puberty, went up bra sizes. My thighs got stronger when I started playing volleyball, and then my biceps when I switched to beach from indoor. But even at 15 and 16, I still felt 12, forever standing in the skin-tight camisole I had to wear under my costume for a school play, not sure what exactly was wrong with my body, but convinced that something was.
Last spring, I few home for my grandmother’s memorial service. I watched my grandfather sit in a folding chair in the corner of the hotel banquet room, hunched in his black suit. His eyes never lef the dusty projector screen, where a slideshow was looping over and over through pictures of my grandmother. Gigi at 18 in a fancy silk dress and big hat; at 22 with two little daughters at the beach; at 50 holding me as a baby. She looks gorgeous in every
single one. So does my mom. And by the time I pop up in the pictures, so do I. Even the ones I remember as terrible, like the Tanksgiving where I wore a dress that was so blindingly red it made me look like a stop sign in the family album. All of a sudden, there wasn’t anything wrong with my dress or my hair or the way I was laughing with my mouth open, all the things I had once sworn made the pictures worthy of being tossed in the freplace.
Tis is something I’m still coming to terms with, how my own perception could have been wrong for so many years. Even before braces, my side profle was perfectly average. I looked completely normal that Tanksgiving. I won’t say there’s never been a bad picture taken of me, but the majority aren’t anything close to jump-scares.
When I didn’t feel like my insides matched my outsides, I tried to shove them into alignment through sheer force of style. Te summer afer we graduated high school, my best friend and I were freshly out to our friends and going through smutty lesbian romance novels at an alarming rate. We decided it was time to start experimenting with queer style. We landed on, of course, the epitome of queer accessories—carabiners. For a whole summer, we clipped our unwieldy keys into our jean loops and sauntered
around town to a chorus of metallic clicking and clacking. I was obsessed with somehow telling the outside world that I was queer, while also terrifed that the wrong people would get my message.
It’s true that a carabiner can’t accurately express the swirling soup of my identity. But something was getting across to other people, at least sometimes. Te frst time I kissed a girl at a party at Tufs, I was desperate to know what had alerted her to our shared interest. Was it the nose piercing? Were my bangsand-bob just a little too alternative to belong on the head of a straight girl? Why could the random girl from my poetry class read me right away, while my close male friend nearly did a spit take when I mentioned my high school ex?
Te problem with not knowing how you see yourself is that other people rarely know how they see you, either. Can I be honestly perceived when I’m not quite sure what that even means? Te older I get, the more important it is for me to feel a sense of solidarity with queer culture, especially at a time when it feels more
and more under attack. But aside from walking around with a giant sign taped to my back, there’s no magical way to tell strangers at the T-stop, hey, look at me, I’m the same as you, see? Te jewelry I choose to wear or the way I style my hair for the night are never going to scream ‘bi!’ to all onlookers, no more than a carabiner or combat boots or blue highlights.
I never knew what people meant when they said things like queer visibility until I was sitting under my desk and gripping my phone as I staved of a government-fueled panic attack by watching MUNA music videos for 45 minutes. I needed, simply, to watch queer people exist and make art and be okay. Is that visibility? Quite literally, yes.
Recently, I’ve realized that my desperate need to be visible was born of the hope that if I could just dress the right way, someone would tell me who I am. But there’s power in the ability to shapeshif, and I’m learning to lean into that strength. I don’t need to hold myself to a set of arbitrary standards, just like I no longer expect my body to look exactly the same
forever. I started to see my sexuality in the same way—sure, I could get into the MIT frat by unzipping my jacket and firting with the boy guarding the doors, but inside I was a free-wheeling gangster from an old western movie, entirely unpredictable.
I might never feel convinced that my self-expression perfectly matches the fesh and blood I’m stuck with. For now, I can just be happy to have a body that gets to wear weird striped sweaters and Doc Martens. A body that still remembers what it felt like to be 12. To have a body that might have an ugly side profle, but doesn’t care anymore. A body that I share with my mother and hers.
And a body that feels 100 percent sure it can assure people, every chance it gets, that they don’t actually need a nose job. O
The Importance of Watching the Pot Boil
Leah Glaspey
When I was little, my greatgrandmother would always save the bones from our Tanksgiving turkeys. She would spend the next couple of days turning the carcass into broth and making it into a hearty soup with meat and vegetables. To my great-grandmother, the bones were nearly as precious as the meat that came on them; the idea of throwing them out was practically unimaginable. Ofen, my siblings and I would sit down at her kitchen table and she would place hot bowls of delicious, hearty food in front of us—what she referred to as farmer’s meals. While we ate, she would tell us about how her hands innately recalled these simple recipes, a remnant from a youth colored by turmoil. Growing up in a Ukrainian farming community through the beginning of the 20th century, then later grappling with the landscape of post-war Europe, nutrient-rich foods were scarce throughout her adolescence. Calories had to be consumed wherever
they were found, and small luxuries had to be sustained. Te rare presence of meat presented the need for preservation, so she learned to make soup out of the bones that were lef. Easy to make and easier to share, the meal guaranteed nothing went to waste. Every morsel was savored through the soup’s fexible formula. Soup is so prevalent across cultures and economic statuses precisely because of its versatility. Soup is the universal unifer in terms of rich, simple meals that ofer ample sustenance. Truly, the only required ingredients for a soup are time and passion. A dedicated cook with a lidded pot, water, and any sort of edible plant can make the most basic soup. Cabbage water soup, the famously meager soup eaten by Charlie and his family in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is simply cabbage slowcooked in a watery vegetable broth, likely made from carrot tops, potato peels, and the like. This is the beauty of soup— regardless of how sparse the ingredients are, a hearty meal can still be made.
Te broth base ofers hydration that solid food does not, usually enhanced by salts and essential nutrients a glass of water would not provide. Cooking legumes, meat, and vegetables in the broth retains the full nutritional value of the ingredients, even those that would cook out if they were to be boiled, strained, and eaten plain. Additionally, the hodgepodge nature of soup means that nearly any ingredients can be combined and it still retains its character. A soup can truly be made from anything, but the cook must be willing and able vvto stay near the pot while the water turns to broth and the vegetables sofen.
However, most people cannot wait to watch the pot boil. Te fast-paced nature of the modern work environment has sped the innovation of convenience culture, presenting many low-income consumers with quicker options. Canned and instant soups ofer a quick meal that is ofen cheaper at face value, but have long term costs associated with consistent
consumption. Historically, the primary diference between the soups of wealthy and struggling families has been the quality of ingredients used, but now, the diference lies in the means of production. Innovation towards convenience has allowed a purchase to replace the process, but the process is what makes soup so rich. Te accessibility of soup was secured with the invention of canning in the 19th century. Not only could soup be a highly nutritious food made out of any ingredients on hand, but it could very easily be prepared during times of abundance and saved for times of scarcity. Tis was the foundation of canned soup growing into the phenomenon we know it as today. Not only is soup easy to share with the group that is gathered, but a canned soup could be gifed to a struggling neighbor to eat when they please, or sent of to a faraway community struggling with food inaccessibility. As ridiculous as it may seem, early canned soups demonstrate some of the richest aspects of human nature: home-cooked meals, life as cycles of abundance and drought, and caring for communities both close and far. However, like many other areas of our postindustrial world, the convenience and cost of canned soup caught up to itself. Before industrial canning became commonplace, most preserved goods had to be produced by the consumer at an
earlier date. Now, canning is more ofen a strategy to create a longer shelf life for a commercially produced product, ofen using additives in the food and chemicals in the processes that are harsher than what would be found in a home kitchen. Commercially produced canned goods greatly increase the accessibility of preserved foods, making it easier to donate and distribute, but they also decrease the expected quality of a foodstuf. For this reason, a truly homemade soup has become a rare thing. Tis is to the detriment of the consumer, assuming they are eating anything more substantial than the cabbage water soup of Charlie Bucket. While a fresh pot of homemade soup has countless health benefts, commercial soups are ofen high in sodium and contain other artifcial ingredients and colorings that can have lasting impacts on the health of the consumer. Although the accessibility of food with long shelf lives cannot be overlooked, it is vital to acknowledge the sacrifce that comes along with them. Fed is undoubtedly best, but the quality of the food consumed over time is vital to one’s wellbeing and can perpetuate the same systems of oppression that made canned soup seem like such a revolutionary milestone. Low-income consumers are more likely to rely on ready-made foods like commercially prepared canned soup because of the reduced time-cost, and thus, are more likely to sufer the consequences from increased consumption of processed fbers and refned grains. Tis is where the class divide starts to look diferent in modern soup, and all foods for that matter, than it did for prior generations. Before the rise of convenience foods, low-income consumers had no option but to invest time into cooking real ingredients into a home cooked meal, the same being true for high-income families. Te diference between the two was whether they had access to the ingredients in the frst place, and if they did, their quality. Now, the long shelf life of commercially produced foods has created a divide in whether or not a family has access to homemade meals at all. While it can still be cheaper to make a pot of soup from scratch, the time associated with fnding a recipe,
gathering ingredients, and preparing the soup is much more signifcant than simply opening and heating one’s favorite canned soup. Our society’s growing productivity has created a new sort of class divide—the diference between those who can aford to spare a minute, and those who cannot.
Te commercialization of time since my great-grandmother’s day has changed the face of culinary culture. By the time she was my age, she was responsible for cooking meals from scratch to feed her whole family. My great-grandmother was raised in a world where skills were ofen considered the golden ticket out of a dire situation (like knowing how to make the remnants of poultry last through a pot of soup), but the past century has shaped every inconvenience into a business venture and every moment of struggle into a product to be outsourced. I have access to grocery stores flled with ready-made, instant meals. I have never known a time where knowing how to cook a meal was a necessary prerequisite to having a meal, making the time spent stewing optional and the homemade luxurious. Te evolution of soup in our world demonstrates a greater tension: knowing how to do things yourself is not necessary anymore, but it is a massive privilege to have the time and resources to produce homemade, highquality goods. In the contemporary battle between access and quality, the solution lies in slowing down. Tere is power in knowing how to make things and making them well. Te goodness lies in the process, and true equity will be when the process is not reserved for just the privileged few.
YOU WANT THIS POACHED CHICKEN
1 Whole young chicken (3-5 lbs)
2 Yellow onions
2 Lemons
Salt
Pepper
Short vermicelli noodles (you can find these at most international grocery stores. They are not rice noodles, which are also called vermicelli noodles. Rather, they are made from durum like Italian pasta. If you can’t find them, you can break angel hair pasta into pieces as small as you can get them)
Short grain rice (ratio is one part noodles to two parts rice)
Ghee (clarified butter) or butter
By Veronica Habashy
At least two hours before you plan to cook, grate one onion into a bowl with a generous amount of salt, pepper, and the juice of a lemon (leave the squeezed lemon in the bowl). Add your chicken and rub the marinade to coat. Put some into the cavity as well. Cover with plastic and refrigerate until ready to use—ideally overnight, the longer the better.
Fill a large stock pot with water. Slice two onions into quarters and throw them in. Add a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and add the chicken (leave behind the marinade). If the chicken is not fully submerged, cover with more water. Bring back to a boil and then let simmer on low with the lid partially on. After about 20 minutes, flip the chicken over in the pot. Depending on the weight of the chicken, it may take anywhere from half an hour to a full hour to cook. (Don’t worry. It’s hard to overcook a poached chicken.)
While the chicken is simmering,melt about a tablespoon of butter or ghee in a medium saucepan. Add the vermicelli noodles and toast until they darken slightly. Rinse and add the rice to the pot; toast everything until the rice turns opaque.
Add some stock from the chicken pot. You want to add as much liquid as you did rice, i.e. if you are cooking two cups of rice, add two cups of liquid. Add a pinch of salt and taste the liquid. It should taste salty. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat and cover with a well fitting lid. Cook until all the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Taste to confirm it’s fully cooked and fluff with a spoon. Cover until you’re ready to eat.
You’ll know the chicken is done when the meat starts to pull away from the leg bones. You can also test to see if the juices run clear. If you cut into it and it’s pink, just return to the pot and keep simmering.
Remove the chicken and put it onto a plate (or a cutting board with ridges around the edges—the juices will run). Once the chicken is cool enough to handle (I can never wait that long), shred it and add to a bowl with some of the rice. Ladle some broth over and add a squeeze of lemon.
Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I love to cook, and to eat, and to try new, elaborate (sometimes excessively so) recipes. However, unequivocally, without a doubt, no contest whatsoever, my favorite food is and always will be a poached chicken. I have trouble explaining to the chicken-poaching novice why it’s so perfect because, in so many words, a chicken prepared in simmering water is often a tough sell. The key is in the marinade—ideally done overnight, a bath of grated onion and a heavy crack of black pepper infuses the chicken and the broth with a powerful and nourishing allium tone. This Egyptian chicken soup, farkha maslou’a, is an unsung hero of Egyptian home cooking. Frequently associated with younger picky eaters or overlooked in favor of more complex stews or heartier meat dishes, it is never heralded as the star. Oftentimes the steaming masterpiece of the chicken is simply a byproduct of the stock needed for another recipe. Every holiday feast, my mother begins her cooking day with one of these chickens, which we typically enjoy with our hands while standing by the stove—a needed break. If you can resist the urge to fill up on the fresh, steaming, juicy bird, shred your favorite bits into a bowl of the most irresistible, buttery rice, and ladle over some of the broth (everyone has a particular soup-to-rice ratio they are fond of). Add a generous squeeze of lemon and feel your core temperature rise. If ever asked the question of what meal I would choose to be my last, or what meal I would choose to eat for the rest of my life, few moments pass before I supply this answer to both.
Alphabet Soup
By Elanor Kinderman
ACROSS
1Magical opening
5Soothing ointment
9Actress Christina
14Membership fees
15Bowl you can buy at Hotung
16For a specific purpose
17Where to find two black suits
18"___ it my way"
19Metallic sound
20P. T. Barnum's favorite snack
23Somewhere to be between a hotel and the Holiday Inn
24That girl
25Private bed?
27U-turn from NNW
28Wedding cake layer
32Out to lunch and having a bite
34Brings to the dinner table
36Common first word
37Little girl who sang about finding 20across in her soup, or a drink with cherries and soda
41Food, informally
42Peanut butter and chocolate candy you might get on Halloween
43It has eyes on its skin
46Powerful blow
47Shares an email with
50Mythical bird
51Crystal ball, e.g
53Idolize
55Type of person who might ask for 20 and 37-across at a restaurant
60Newspapers, magazines, etc
61Guesstimate words
62Air apparent?
63Cardiologist's insert
64Blue-green shade
65Leafy green vegetable
66Sharp attack of emotion
67Talk someone up
68Console that included Super Mario World, for short
DOWN
1TV family who are both creepy and kooky
2___ Aires
3Speak from memory 4"Shoot!"
5Get-out-of-jail money
6"Back in Black" band
7Home for a supervillian
8One with a golden touch
9Strained the brain
10Doing nothing
11Sketching medium
12Simple soup
13What a man wearing loafers with no socks might give you
21Make changes to
22Greek X
26Bag-screening org
29Offline, online
30"... happily ___ after"
31Kings, in Spain
33Mischief-makers
34Trailblazer of queer pop (last name)
35Crockpot concoction
37Rattled to Gen-Z, à la Shakespeare
38A heart-warming, autumnal drink
39Animal providing mental health support, initially
40Used as a rendezvous point
41EMT specialty
44Until now
45Miner's find
47Pro with a racket
48Cuisine including gumbo or jumbalaya
49Classic blazer fabrics
52Consommé
54Classroom furniture
56El __ (weather event)
57Meredith _____, from a long-running ABC drama
58Quickly, quickly
59Part in a play
60Denver clock setting: Abbr
CROSSWORD BY ELANOR KINDERMAN, DESIGN BY JOEY MARMO
if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen!
