What We’re Loving: New Members Edition

What do you do when you can’t think of anything to write about? Listen to an album called Writer’s Block, of course. I’m not sure if this record by Peter Björn and John captures the unique blend of misery, hopelessness, and desperation of the title, but it sure is a welcome distraction for someone procrastinating on their creative writing assignment due tomorrow (cough, cough, not me). Each tune is practically bursting with catchy rhythms, beating drums, and for some reason, a lot of whistling. There’s nothing else to bring you out of that mid-story slump than dreaming about “eating well, sleeping well” in “Amsterdam” or jamming along with the tubular bells (whatever those are) on “Young Folks.” The lyrics are sharp and witty, too — “I know many people who met the same way, / relations that lasted for more than one day” from “Let’s Call It Off” is just one example of such perfectly delivered one liners.

Perhaps I don’t listen to enough music to know what genre this album belongs to — it’s folksy, and rocky, so folk-rock maybe? All I know is that when I’m “Up Against the Wall” (or shall I say, the deadline), this is what I turn to first.

Katie Tam ‘21

Several years late, but nonetheless, I’ve discovered Don Hertzfeldt — and nothing is the same anymore. In the sixteen minutes of the “World of Tomorrow”, Hertzfeldt’s animated short film coated in numerous awards, including a Sundance Grand Jury Prize and an Academy Award nomination, a little girl is taken on an astonishing trip through times and dimensions. The voyage is hilarious and obscure, as the film exists at the layered border between sci-fi, comedy and philosophy. It is, perhaps, exactly this combination of these three genres that makes “World of Tomorrow” such a remarkable achievement: an aesthetically pleasing quarter-hour non-feature movie fueled by emotion and creativity.

Hertzfeldt made the whole movie by himself, aided only by short segments of Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier, and voices of his four year old niece Winona Mae and of director/friend Julia Pott. Bearing in mind the intriguing story, witty details, at times absolutely mind-blowing photography, and the brilliant sounds and music — Hertzfeldt easily scores the very top on any list of inspirational filmmakers.

The next time you have 15 minutes to spare and think you’ve seen all good stuff on Netflix, search for “World of Tomorrow” — I guarantee it’s a better investment than many full-length features… unless, of course, you’re like me, and you binge on Hertzfeldt’s complete filmography. Then you’ll notice that “World of Tomorrow” has an equally magnificent sequel. Ah, the little joys of life.

— Bes Arnaout ‘20

David Wroblewski’s breakout novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle marries Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet with the ineffable cuteness of dogs: admittedly a bizarre concept. Who would think a retelling of the melancholic tale of regicide, set on a dog farm in rural Wisconsin, would entrap the reader so completely? Wroblewski proves his mastery in this reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s age-old ghost story.

For die-hard fans of the Bard, though,this book might truthfully be one to avoid. Wroblewski doesn’t shy away from taking some artistic liberties. Ophelia and Horatio have been rolled into a singular entity — their companionship now provided by a dog named Almondine. The eponymous character, Edgar, the reincarnation of Hamlet, is mute, communicating through sign language.

Using innovative renderings to side-step potentially awkward translations, Wroblewski succeeds in providing readers a work that far surpasses any mere adaptation. Returned to bare bones, the story of Hamlet is fleshed out in a wholly original manner, simultaneously reminding us of Shakespeare’s genius and subtly introducing us to Wroblewski’s. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle provides an even more heartbreaking visual of a family torn apart by death, secrets, and guilt, and is a must-read for fans of Shakespeare and cynophiles alike.

— Andrew Tye ‘21

While on a class trip to Rome this fall break, some of our group’s contingent wandered into a small French bookstore near the Church of San Luigi dei Francesci. I perused the aisles briefly, not expecting to find anything — the rest of our group was outside waiting, and we needed to go.

Unfortunately, I delayed everyone for a little while longer. I had stumbled across Dessins, an edition of Sylvia Plath’s drawings. The book is organized into four groupings of Plath’s drawings, each centered around a letter either to her mother or her husband, poet Ted Hughes.

Artistically speaking, the drawings aren’t necessarily anything to write home about. Many of them are simple studies in pen (one might even classify a few as doodles). Yet in Plath’s poetic hands, the plainness of a sketch becomes its power.

Some of the subjects of the drawings are ordinary — a closed umbrella, a broken chestnut, a breath of pencil outlining a boat. Others, though, are inked memories of the brightest (and simultaneously darkest) parts of Plath’s life. Of these types, a detailed pen drawing of Hughes stands out. His scruffy beard is driven into the paper, and crosshatching sculpts a sunken face, with heavy eyebrows. And most beautifully, what looks to be a flower pours down over the crown of his head — or maybe it’s just a trick of the light.

— Sylvie Thode ‘20

I strongly believe that all of us have an inner Lorde: angsty, dramatic, a darker Taylor Swift grappling with her demons (minus the diamond baths). I, for one, go so far as to fling myself onto my bed, stare agonizingly into the far distance, and refuse to accept that the world is anything but a blue dominated watercolor, what is undoubtedly an absolutely terrible imitation of the artwork for her second studio album, Melodrama.

Melodrama has become the dominating soundtrack to my life for an embarrassing amount of time. I wake up to the heady, intoxicating throbs of “Green Light” and “Supercut”, and sleep to Lorde crooning, whispering that she’s ‘a little much for everyone’ in “Liability.” Not for me, Lorde, not for me.

A far cry from her earlier hedonistic, Kristal-infused Royals, the sentiments of Melodrama feel more personal, mostly stripped of commercial overtones. Lorde is a poet, her lyrics are thespian, romantic, a postmodern pre-Raphaelite level of intensity, subtracting the nature, adding the inebriation. Synesthesia has always intrigued me, and it comes as no surprise that Lorde belongs to the niche category of people with sound-to-color synesthesia. Her music is poetry, her songs are paintings, and her album is a perfume that I want bottled and a glossy coffee table book I want bound.

Melodrama, in my head, is Lorde telling me that it’s okay. It’s okay to love unrequitedly, and remember naively. It’s okay to forgive, and to fight. And finally, it’s okay to sometimes, occasionally, artfully fling yourself on a bed in a Prussian-blue world of your own dramatic making. After all, we’re all human, and Lorde’s music helps us reach the catharsis we’re all, consciously or not, looking for.

— Anoushka Mariwala ‘21

This is a semi-nude statue; the woman is barely covered by a sheet draped across her lap. She has an apple in her hand for good measure. Some art historians say this is an allusion to the story of Adam and Eve. Others say that it’s so she might be mistaken for Venus, to remove the scandal of depicting a respectable woman in the nude.

This is Pauline Borghese in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, one of many masterpieces by Bernini on display in the museum. A whole exhibit has opened on his works, donning the halls of the building. There is also the quintessential Apollo and Daphne, capturing the exact moment where the nymph is grabbed by the god and begins to morph into a tree (and memorialized on the Penguin Classic edition cover of Ovid’s Metamorphoses). There is my favorite, “The Rape of Proserpina”: the “sculpture of fingers on soft flesh.” Along with it come discussions I have with two other girls about the aestheticizing of sexual violence.

But I always return to Pauline on her couch, looking self-satisfied and confident. A professor describes her as ‘a woman sufficient unto herself.’ I love that assessment.

— Katherine Powell ‘20

It’s infectious; you can’t help it. First you laugh, baffled by the ridiculousness of it all: the exaggerated smiles, the oversaturated pastels. Every kpop connoisseur knows that “cutesy” is a classic that borders on cliche. But there’s something especially addictive about Twice’s brand of bubblegum. At a cursory glance, their new single, “Likey,” which depicts the emotional rollercoaster of waiting for a crush to like your selfie on Instagram, seems lacking in substance. Lyrics like “Put on BB cream, pat pat pat/Put on lipstick, mam mam ma” don’t immediately address the deeper problems plaguing society. But I think this piece deserves a closer inspection.

Similar to Twice’s other singles, “Likey” thrives on a simple verse and a catchy, upbeat chorus. The music video provides its own sort of aesthetic catchiness, with fun, repetitive choreography and enough outfit changes to keep you on your toes. Yet it also contains more emotionally charged images, such as the clip of one member staring at a department store almost wistfully as everything around her moves in fast forward. Perhaps “Likey” has a certain self awareness to it, as lyrics like “I’m holding in my breath so I can zip up/Pulling it over my waist once more” and “I want to look the prettiest/but I’m still hiding these feelings in my heart” complement its happy facade with darker undertones. Perhaps Twice is taking jab at the consumerist culture so prevalent in South Korea and around the world — a culture that that has, alongside social media, helped purport a toxic obsession with outer appearance.

The song’s rap, where I believe the piece truly takes off, is more explicitly negative with the line “I feel melancholy today, try not to but I’m still sad/I’m sulking ’cause you’re not responding” (my absolute favorite part, of course, is when the rapper says with copious amounts of swagger “Oh, wait, wait, I finally got an answer, woo” before dabbing). Generating content that millennials can relate to without coming across as obnoxiously artificial is no easy feat, but this kpop girl group has passed the test with flying pastel colors. “Likey” is an earworm that I believe even those less experienced in k-pop will find themselves replaying — probably more than twice.

— Shira Moolten ‘21

My new favorite: Carmen Maria Machado’s debut short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. This collection invites us to plunge into new realities of sexuality, violence, and horror through magical elements and fantasy. As in The Husband Stitch where a woman’s life comes to a grisly end by the hands of her own domineering and brash husband, Especially Heinous where Machado adapts several seasons of Law & Order using only two to three sentence episodic summaries to reveal the sinister truth of the lives of women and two detectives in New York City, or in Inventory where a woman recounts her past and current sporadic sexual encounters amidst an apocalypse presumably caused by sex, each story is a clever manifestation of incredibly visceral struggles that women encounter daily. And yet, with all the sharp and oftentimes shocking twists and discoveries we read, the heart of Machado’s work is grounded in her beautifully and haplessly drawn characters. Read these short stories and gush with me about it!

— Rasheeda Saka ‘20

Organic shapes — rolling waves, sloping curves, round orbs — are inherently comforting to the eye. Tarsila do Amaral, known simply as Tarsila, was a prominent Brazilian painter who channeled this subconscious affinity into her artwork, exploring the tension between nature and human form. A feature exhibit on Tarsila organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art abounds with mountains, fluid cacti, and abstract blobs. In pseudo-realistic scenes of Brazilian favelas and worker’s protests, the exhibit addresses the social realities of Tarsila’s time. Her work process is animated by sketchbooks, historical documents, and drafts; though little-known in the United States, Tarsila’s Cubist and Surrealist style defined modernism in Latin America.

Tarsila’s paintings are calm in their form and color, but disruptive in composition. With “Antropofagia,” two human forms are intertwined and distorted in a verdant forest. Dominated by a large breast and two feet, “Antropofagia” combines shapes from two of Tarsila’s previous paintings, returning to primitivist motifs. This union of bodies in a piece ironically named for human cannibalism mirrors the demographic blending of Brazilian history. In tandem with one another and with Earth, Tarsila suggests, we find the vibrancy of Brazil.

Through executing a physical evolution on canvas, Tarsila illustrates the universal ways in which culture and human relationships form — naturally, and nevertheless in constant resistance to ever-present power structures. Her piece is a proud statement of a Latin American artist, affirming the continental fusions of her society. And in the pure delight of framing the contorted shape as beautiful, Tarsila affirms creation beyond the political realm. Organic in its essence, Tarsila’s oeuvre is a reminder of the cultural cycles of disruption, creation, and evolution in which we are all implicated.

— Simone Wallk ‘21