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  • Finding A Respite from The Pandemic in Don DeLillo’s ​Underworld ​

    Finding A Respite from The Pandemic in Don DeLillo’s ​Underworld ​

    Written by Abdallah Hussein

    The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is an unusual, tragic, and (most relevantly) suffocating circumstance. Going into 2020, I was optimistic at the prospect of the undiscovered, but I could never have imagined myself isolated in my home for unearthly amounts of time, knowing one unlucky excursion out my front door could result in the contraction of a lethal disease. Daily challenges that elicited confusion and disillusionment in the supposed “comfort” of my home wasn’t exactly something I had on my wishlist for the year. In an attempt to cope, I tried different ways to distract myself, anything from exercising to curling up in my bed watching movies and shows. But if any relief came, it was minimal and fleeting. It wasn’t until I ensconced myself in literature that I really did see a positive, lasting effect. As summer started and the number of Covid cases grew faster than ever in Texas, I began reading many books, each adding an extra pad of armor to my psyche in their own unique way. No book, however, has been more beneficial to my personal health and well-being than Don DeLillo’s ​Underworld​.

    Underworld​ is a book of American life, which allowed me to see through the eyes of a multitude of unique characters dissecting and displaying the human condition in all its richness and griminess.

    Underworld​ was published in 1997 and was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. It is an 827-page non-linear behemoth of a novel that follows the lives of over a hundred characters through the tumultuous second half of the twentieth century, placing them amidst famous historic events. The baseball game where the game-winning “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” occurred, Truman Capote’s famous “Black and White Ball,” comedy houses that hosted Lenny Bruce and many more make their due appearance in the novel, but all are overshadowed by the threat of looming death—The Cold War. Underworld echoes the same feelings of anxiety and fear and dread that run rampant today due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The book, at first glance, seems as if it’ll be a history and event-based book, but it’s quite the opposite: the focus is on the normal, everyday Joes experiencing those events. In the grander scheme, the events are only there to give new dynamics and dimensions to their lives. ​Underworld​ is a book of American life, which allowed me to see through the eyes of a multitude of unique characters dissecting and displaying the human condition in all its richness and griminess.

    I have never really encountered a book, or any art form for that matter, such as Underworld; by the time I’d finished the sixty-page prologue I knew that Underworld was completely different from the previous dozen or so books I had already read during quarantine. Forty years after a game-winning home run, main character Nick Shay drives through the American desert in search of Klara Sax, a woman twenty years his senior with whom he had a romantic affair when he was a teenager. Four decades later, Nick has lost his virility, masculinity, and identity. In an effort to absolve himself of the string of unfortunate events that have plagued his life, he decides to seek Klara Sax out—to visit a time when he felt a strong and reverberating sense of manhood. At the time, I was still reeling through the end of an important relationship, and I felt hopeless when pondering the thought of emotional recovery. In the context of all those feelings, exacerbated by the pandemic, the relieving sensation of being lifted out of a deep hole was even greater. Nick going into the desert in search of Klara, in search of a part of himself that he’d lost, struck a major chord with me because it mirrored my own search through literature for solace. It was a passage so moving that I was no longer concerned with my own problems. Instead, I immersed myself in the story of Nick and Klara’s encounter and thereafter, the dozens of other character’s stories that followed. Beginning most prominently in Nick and Klara’s encounter and extending off into the subsequent story lines, there was a neat escapism that also encompassed the luxury of learning more and more about who we are, what we feel, and how we respond to obstacles as people. To sum up the result of reading that passage would be to quote (one of my favorite quotes anywhere) part of the very first sentence of the book: “and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful.” 

    Reading about a time in history that was in its own way “unprecedented” reminded me that while our specific condition is unique, “unprecedented” times have always happened.

    A character-centered book is hardly difficult to find. Why were his characters in particular the ones who made our new and terrifying world understandable to me? ​DeLillo is generally known for his “navel-gazing” (i.e. excessive self-contemplation) and nowhere is this better on display than in Underworld. ​Navel-gazing is a chastisement aimed at authors whose characters are too invested in their own internal worlds, but in Underworld, introspection is perhaps the shining achievement. In a book where all the characters are under a suffocating cloud of events, it is refreshing to see a focus on the individuals caught up in the overbearing storm of events rather than the significance of the events themselves. Considering the string of calamities happening in and outside of our country such as police killings, economic depressions, and the chaos and division of the 2020 presidential election (all under the shadow of a global pandemic, I might add), a novel about the events of fifty years ago becomes extraordinarily relevant today. DeLillo’s navel-gazing played a huge part in my own relief amid the fast rush of loneliness and anxiety. 

    If I had read Underworld before the pandemic, it would have been a great book. But it would have lacked that deep human connection, that personal “book-to-reader” synaptic click that exists when the reader is damaged in ways that are gigantic and universal in their scope, as well as tight and personal in the heart and mind. Moreover, reading about a time in history that was in its own way “unprecedented” helped me because it reminded me that while our specific condition is unique, “unprecedented” times have always happened. The brand of fear and uncertainty we’re experiencing now is not new and seeing those emotions experienced on the page helped me feel seen. There’s a special kind of humanism in a book where no personal detail or thought is skipped or skirted. It’s all put out there in the open and we are treated with a full observation of many, many character’s thoughts, feelings, dilemmas, and tragedies.

    At the novel’s conclusion, DeLillo ends his masterpiece with the assurance that “Everything is connected in the end.” Only after writing this article do I truly understand that ending and that quote. Without the seemingly inconsequential decision of picking up Underworld, I would not be who I am today, nor would I be writing this article and sharing all the novel has to offer. The novel reminds us that we are not necessarily alone, because we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves. We are connected in all our victories and defeats and when the world around us is rocked by unexpected, terrifying, or simply surprising events, we can take courage in the fact that we are all going through it together. 

  • #Relationshipgoals: Do Darcy and Elizabeth Pass The Vibe Check?

    #Relationshipgoals: Do Darcy and Elizabeth Pass The Vibe Check?

    Written by Megan Snopik

    While the countless spin offs of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) range from zombie movies to raunchy fanfictions, the original conception of its hero, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, made a young girl’s romantic dreams take shape (or at least they did for this writer). The struggle, however, of reading Austen’s work in today’s world is the contextualization of Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship to our own lives. Is Darcy too much to ask for in a world where we can “swipe left” based on a single picture and text a late night “U up?” to make a connection? Was Austen writing a man too impossibly perfect to survive in our 21st century world? Was he even possible in her own time? And most importantly, is Darcy+Elizabeth actually #relationshipgoals?

    In Pride and Prejudice, the relationship of Darcy and Elizabeth has some real highs and lows. That’s part of its charm. However, while Colin Firth absolutely killed his portrayal of Darcy, our obsession with Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship might actually be misplaced for a number of reasons. While we swoon over the idea of a gentleman changing his snobbish ways to earn our favour and propose not once but twice, the Darcy+Elizabeth fantasy is not as ideal as the 21st century reader may want it to be. Let’s look at some of those flaws that we would totally not stan today. 

    #KnightInShiningEstate

    Elizabeth only realizes that she was mistaken about Darcy’s character once he pays off Wickham to save her family’s honor (and her mother’s nerves), making him the sole savior of the Bennet family. After he donates a small sum (proportionally) to the “Bennet Honor Fund,” Elizabeth rather suddenly forgets her earlier qualms with his character. It was awfully convenient that she had also just toured his bangin’ estate as well. The timing of her realization that “It would have been something to be mistress of Pemberley” is just a little sus to this reader. Either she truly was too foolish to see his moody predisposition as the honey-trap it was, or she was taken aback that he was like Rich rich. In any case, as much as our mothers tell us to marry doctors, the reality is that most people want more in their relationships nowadays than just a large stack of cash and a nice house, and had she had more economic freedom of her own, Elizabeth would have probably looked for more than a Sugar Daddy in Darcy. 

    Talking about conveniently placed bachelors, let’s address here also how painfully straight everyone is in every contemporization of Austen. While media today still struggles to portray accurate and positive relationships of all types, we also should task ourselves with questioning the portrayal of heterosexuality as the natural and only possible avenue for love at the time. There is no question that Grindr would have massively flopped in 19th century England, but should our modern portrayals of the story be tweaked to appeal to a larger demographic? What would it be like if we shipped Darcy and Mr. Bingley? P+P may be thought of as an epic love story, but the question is a love story for who, and if love that looks different is still able to be valued under the constraints of a yearning Elizabeth+Darcy world. 

     #UnrealisticOTP

    The hate turned into love trope Austen uses would totally have been overshadowed by the absolute wealth at stake in today’s world. In modern terms: they have primogeniture, estates, and the Napoleonic War, we have a widening gap between the working class and the top 1% and a world plagued by an actual plague. In 19th century England, primogeniture meant that once Daddy Dearest croaked, all his earthly belongings became the eldest son’s. Bingley’s leasing of Netherfield, is thus not only a huge indicator of his money bags, but since the Miss Bennets know that they will have nothing once their father dies, it’s hardly surprising that money signs sprang up in their (and Mrs. Bennet’s) eyes. Bingley and crew would have been the catch of the season.

    Today, Elizabeth would be seen as a total gold digger (I mean come on, she did realize she loved him only after seeing his estate) and not in a good way. Women’s situations have changed. They are no longer dependent on snagging an estate holder to ensure they don’t grow destitute in old age and with that comes certain judgements about women who appear too much to be in it for the money. Any contemporary Elizabeth should also be really curious as to exactly where that good good Darcy money came from.

    #theTOXICITYinthisroom

    At the end of the novel Elizabeth and Darcy finally admit that they love each other, but prior to that perfect ending, their duel of wits and sass is absolutely down and dirty. Darcy’s whole Thing is being exceedingly arrogant and rude to those around him as a sad result of his shyness and aloof nature. Elizabeth’s epic roast of his initial proposal puts him in his place, but it also effectively shuts down any open conversation of feelings between the two. The rejection itself is also caused by misinformation given to Elizabeth, showing that they never exhibit crucial communicative capacities.

    Nowadays, people will be in the “talking” stage for any amount of time — but Darcy and Elizabeth take that to another level. Their text strands would take three (maybe four) scrolls based on the length of his letter to her. They take so long to make their points and express their emotions, their texts would have to be MLA-Times-New-Roman-12-point-font-double-spaced with an attached bibliography just to decide where to get dinner. I’m not sure if thumb workouts are a thing, but they would probably win endurance typing championships. 

    Can you imagine Charlotte and Jane listening to Elizabeth rant on FaceTime about how awful Darcy is all night long? The sheer emotional labor to support Elizabeth  should come with a 401K and a better-than-average healthcare coverage. While she definitely dishes out as much as she takes from Darcy, are gossip, mistrust, and some nasty insults the best foundation for a relationship? Calling anyone “tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me” isn’t a great pick-up line, no matter the century . . .

    #RaceToTheAltar

    Probably the largest difference between then and now is the insistence on marriage, and while handbags (actually called indispensables in England in the 18th-19th centuries) were all the rage for women, bagging a man was a young woman’s number one goal. The only time that women were truly secure is after marriage, a concept that would not work in today’s much more liberal society. They totally skipped that first awkward Tinder date, the gawky first kiss, and the weird labels-or-not stage.

    Darcy and Elizabeth are not the only characters in an absolute sprint to the altar. Mrs. Bennet, her whole life revolving around tying her daughters to the closest breathing male (Mr. Collins, I am looking at you), would create more drama today than the national collective of The Real Housewives could ever dream of. I understand that the standards of the time were different, but trying to get your daughter to marry her cousin is a little too backwards today (at least in most places). Let’s also note that Charlotte getting Elizabeth’s sloppy seconds is definitely not Girl Code. 

    Collins and Charlotte aside, Lydia and Wickham probably would come in first for the 200-meter marriage dash. Eloping with the town “bad boy” certainly has its charms — until you find out he is actually a bad guy. Let’s be honest: Wickham would totally be arrested for kidnapping a 15 year old girl and ransoming her virtue for money. He would absolutely be #canceled in today’s times. 

    Though Darcy and Elizabeth’s is certainly a love story of the ages, I’m still not convinced it’s the love story of the ages. Darcy and Elizabeth, while a happy relationship on the pages or the screen, is limited to just those spaces, and they certainly would fall apart under the scrutiny of today’s society. This might just be me, but maybe we should aim for relationships formed for reasons beyond gratitude for buying off the seductive rakes that run off with our sisters. While we learn some important lessons about the dangers of, well, pride and prejudice, in Austen’s novel, our own understanding of those concepts in the modern world has changed a lot. We also have the benefits of a more liberal society — thank goodness — so we don’t have to accept the first matched profile at the peril of facing eternal loneliness. 

  • Oral Storytelling in Tabletop Roleplaying Games

    Oral Storytelling in Tabletop Roleplaying Games

    Written by Scotty Villhard

    After a hard-fought battle, the five companions share a moment for their fallen friend, Usk, a lizard-folk who once roamed the swamplands. Roska, the half-dwarf-half-orc freedom fighter, says a prayer to the gods of her fathers. Od, a fishman exiled from his home, remembers the night his family went missing, while Marleen, the cat-person archer, thinks back to her own father’s death at the hands of a blood-curse. Horven, the tale-telling halfling who left home for a life of adventure, marks the event in his notebook, while the devil-woman Violet simply waits. 

    Dark pillars burst from the earth. The group watches the Shadowfell, a plane of undeath, rise forth and form a being of undulating necrotic energy hundreds of feet tall. Antimatter incarnate. The Negative God. Then another figure rises from the dark, joining the companions: Usk, brought back to unlife by waves of necrotic energy that roll off of the Negative God. The six, bonds forged in their scars, stand together for what might be the last fight of their lives.

    “Roll for initiative.”

    It would be a waste of time to explain Dungeons & Dragons in detail. Maybe twenty years ago the world’s oldest tabletop role-playing game confined itself to basements and convention halls, but today it’s a well-known cultural phenomenon, thanks to the popularity of actual play podcasts like The Adventure Zone and Critical Role. That’s how I discovered the game. For the sake of clarity to those unfamiliar with the game, though, Dungeons & Dragons is a game played in the mind and with dice— a fantasy story directed by a dungeon master, acted out by the players, and filtered through the rules of the game. Success comes down to a roll of the dice. The appeal of Dungeons & Dragons and similar tabletop RPGs seems obvious: you get to play out a fantasy life as a halfling wizard, orc fighter, or any number of other possibilities. You can become a paranormal investigator in Call of Cthulhu, or a tortured bloodsucker in Vampire: The Masquerade. But for many of the people who play, it’s not the fantasy that lures them in. It’s the opportunities for storytelling. Tabletop role-playing games are communal, improvised, randomized, and call back to that oldest of oral storytelling traditions.

    These games are the natural extension of oral storytelling, evolving as they are told, improvised and personalized to suit the table. The grandest adventure narratives have been spoken in the moment and then lost to all except in memory. But memory is where myths are made.

    Oral storytelling predates recorded history, going back to the earliest days of humanity. Even as mainstream storytelling has shifted to the written word, we see the oral tradition all around us: every time a parent tells their child a bedtime story, or a group of old friends recount their youthful misadventures. But for many, tabletop RPGs carry a special sort of magic. Many writers, from essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates to HBO Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, profess their love of Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop RPGs. At their tables, and at hundreds of thousands of tables across the world, stories are formed, without writing or record, from play. Fantasy epics and ghost stories, mysteries and power trips, all take shape under a rulebook, dice, and imagination. These games are the natural extension of oral storytelling, evolving as they are told, improvised and personalized to suit the table. The grandest adventure narratives have been spoken in the moment and then lost to all except in memory. But memory is where myths are made.

    If you look on any tabletop RPG forum, you’ll find threads dedicated to stories from play, epic successes and hilarious disasters alike. Within a group, a certain character might become famous or infamous, referenced as an in-joke for years after the character’s “death.” These stories spread between groups, influencing the official rules of the game itself. For example, Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition is essentially a modified war game with an emphasis on tactical combat. But Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is a storytelling game built around roleplay and social and environmental interaction. Player characters are no longer restricted to archetypes (like the elven wizard or dwarven cleric) because the game-makers understood that the appeal of tabletop RPGs had become the freedom to create.

    These moments of play were surprising, funny, tragic, or all of those at once, and progressed the story forward in ways none of the “authors” had intended. Chance adds the spark that keeps the story interesting and keeps a player in the same mindset as a  reader who wants to turn the page of their favorite book to see what happens next.

    Tabletop role-playing games also added a new element to the oral storytelling formula: chance. Because tabletop RPGs are told by multiple players (and the game master) at once, sometimes their desires for where the narrative should go conflict. Often this occurs when the players are going “against” the game master, or against each other. In these cases, the only solution is a roll of the dice. Roll high, you win. Roll low, you lose. The rules are there to contextualize the rolls of the dice, but it’s chance that makes the story. In the Call of Cthulhu campaign I run, a bad stealth roll resulted in a player learning the mysterious faith healer was not only their old mentor in disguise, but the serial-killing vampire they had been chasing. At another time, a player tried to assassinate a famous scientist at a party, failing every roll until a  critical success (in this case a 01 on a percentile die) led to the would-be victim running to the bathroom with food poisoning — the same bathroom where the assassin was trying to clear their head. And during a session of Dungeons & Dragons, a critical failure (rolling a one on a twenty-sided die) resulted in a character death that fueled the entire next campaign, as the party travelled to Shadowfell to rescue his soul from damnation. These moments of play were surprising, funny, tragic, or all of those at once, and progressed the story forward in ways none of the “authors” had intended. Chance adds the spark that keeps the story interesting and keeps a player in the same mindset as a  reader who wants to turn the page of their favorite book to see what happens next.

    Fiction writers have a lot to learn from tabletop RPGs. If you count yourself as a writer, find a group of friends who are interested. Go to your local gaming store. Join an organization through your school. Nothing makes good writing versus bad more evident than when you have to keep a group of over-caffeinated role-players engaged in your story. Strip away all your fancy prose, all your literary tricks. Run a game. If you don’t like epic fantasy, there is a whole world of role-playing games out there across a hundred genres, from vampires to teen social drama, created by the largest companies to the smallest indie creators. Here are some things I’ve learned as a writer from running tabletop RPGs for over the years. Roll a 20-sided dice, if you have one, and see where you land.

    1. Discover what characters people latch onto, what scenarios they find the most fascinating. Another necromancer terrorizing the local villagers isn’t interesting. Maybe the village is terrorizing a local necromancer. Maybe the necromancer is a misunderstood archaeologist. These ideas might be awful, but you won’t know until you put them in play.

    2. Bring your characters to life. Player characters are the truest version of this, living characters incarnate. They’re unpredictable, out of your control, and often a mash of contradictions. And yet it is still these characters that pull the story forward.

    3. Explore not just the how but the why of building a world. You’ll quickly learn that players don’t care about history for its own sake, but for what it means to them. The same is true with readers. Keep the world engaging and keep the lore relevant. No one cares about the tax policies of the third lord of the realm a century and a half ago.

    4. Realize that yet another secret-parent reveal is old hat at this point. In general, realize that using tropes as major plot points will cause your audience (the players) to lose interest in future mysteries.

    5. Orcs aren’t inherently evil. Racial coding runs rampant through genre fiction, and this includes Dungeons & Dragons. It makes for offensive and lazy fiction. Examine your prejudices and presuppositions and write with them in mind.

    6. Setting makes a story come to life. Even the simplest of courthouses or shacks can become rich miniature worlds with the right words and evocative details.

    7. Don’t overburden your narrative. If you try to make every story happen at once, the climax will become a series of confrontations and revelations that flow into each other and render themselves mundane.

    8. If a villain should be redeemable, don’t make them irredeemable. That might be obvious, and the moral frontier differs for everyone, but taking a character too far will make them unlikable and no one will ever be convinced that actually, now, they’re totally chill.

    9. If something doesn’t work, learn from it and move on. Don’t dwell on a rough chapter or a bad session. Revise if possible, improve always. You learn the most from the failures. 

    10. Chance and unpredictability add spice to a story, but don’t base major plot points completely on coincidence. Even in the examples cited earlier, there was context and buildup towards those rolls. You want the reader to guess the twist right after it happens.

    11. Let the characters win sometimes. If you’re not careful, a story can become a series of bummers, neither entertaining nor engaging. Even in the saddest of stories, characters need to win every once in a while so it at least seems like there might have been a chance, once, for it to happen another way.

    12. Let the characters lose. A character who gets everything they want all the time is a boring character. Even the mightiest hero has setbacks, and the greatest victories come when all seems lost.

    13. It’s far more fun to watch your hero foil themselves than to be foiled.

    14. Character arcs should be driven by the characters, not by external influence. We call that, as well as the plot version, “railroading,” where the game master essentially puts the characters on a train and forces them along a story and an arc. Let the characters develop in reaction to the world, not as the world moves them.

    15. If a subplot feels forced or unnecessary, let it go. Write it out completely if you have to. Even if it’s an idea you love, if it’s crowding the narrative or doesn’t fit thematically with the rest of the story, get rid of it.

    16. Good heroes come in all sizes. They don’t need to be galactic saviors or genius sleuths. There are game systems built entirely around the idea that your characters are ordinary. Ordinary people are always fascinating, because they are the ones with the furthest to go.

    17. Good villains… (see above)

    18. The best conflicts don’t have a right answer. Be mean to the heroes. Force them to make tough decisions not on the basis of objective definitions of right and wrong, but on what those words mean to them.

    19. Take a chance, literally. If you’re stuck in a story, or don’t know where to begin, add a random element to your writing. Find a list of prompts and roll a die. Incorporate whatever you land on. It might be awful. You might cut it out completely later, or reduce it significantly. But it gets you to write. It overcomes that hurdle, however large or small, and keeps the story moving. And you might even find that this random element was exactly what you needed to make everything work.

    20. Use tropes. Yeah, I know what I said earlier. But you can’t reinvent everything. Tropes exist for a reason; they are characters and concepts that audiences (and players) want to see over and over again, because a trope is a promise. Build onto your archetypes. Add to the clichés . That’s the grand legacy of oral storytelling, and of all stories — community. Everything works in conversation with each other. Each novel exists in the context of all novels that have come before it. Write your ancient wizards, your trigger-happy mafiosos, your found families. But bring them to life. Add something new, something that someday, someone else might take for themself, inserting it into their own story before adding something of their own. Storytelling is communal. So, commune.

  • October Shivers: Creepy Content from the Hothouse Staff

    October Shivers: Creepy Content from the Hothouse Staff

    We asked our staff to contribute their favourite spooky works – from the ones that scare them out of their shoes to the ones that remind them of the thrills of childhood Halloweens. Below you’ll find content ranging from the outright horrendous to the slightly shiver-inducing.

    NBC’s Hannibal

    Kylie Warkentin, Editor-in-Chief

    As a noted wimp and previously traumatized victim of Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, I am very particular with the type of visual horror I consume – I don’t like to be scared, but I love being horrified. NBC’s Hannibal understands this philosophy at a visceral level. Grotesquely beautiful and unrepentantly pretentious, Bryan Fuller’s criminally underrated prequel to Thomas Harris’s works of the same name ruminates on how horrible it is to know someone so well you forget to know yourself. Though the tasteful depictions of cannibalism don’t necessarily frighten me, I do sometimes wake up in a cold sweat at 1AM with Mads Mikkelsen’s perfectly pleasant delivery of “Nothing happened to me. I happened.” banging around in my head. And, best of all, it’s funny. The amount of cannibal puns is really – it could be said to be – it’s. Hmm. Well you might say it’s delicious.

    “Ghost Duet” by Louie Zong

    Christie Basson, Managing Editor & Website Co-Editor

    While I am not a big proponent of fear-inducing horror films or chilling haunted houses, I can appreciate the opportunity for creativity that sweeps through the American people during Halloween. From dressing their children like pumpkins to transforming their homes into webbed witches’ houses, October is a time for people to let loose and let their inner creative come out to play. This  song is one such fun example of cute and “spooky” vibes that show how the season can inspire real joy and creativity, even for those of us who are faint of heart and stomach.

    “The Haunted Organ Theme” by Vic Mizzy

    Stephanie Pickrell, Co-Website Editor

    This is the theme music from the 1966 comedy horror film, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. I watched it with my dad once when I was sick and stayed home from school, and he’s never let me off the hook for jumping at the (rather cheesy) jump scare in the middle. Also, what’s better for a spooky story than a haunted organ? And yes, I still jump at the jump scare.

    “Hags” by Jenny Zhang

    Josephine Yi, Prose Co-Editor

    This 17 page lyric essay meanders from personal recollections of childhood (tender and ugly in equal parts) to the socio-political to Asian urban myths in such a way that renders any distinctions between these three things practically nonexistent. An ode to the vengeful, demonized hags which haunt the social imagination and emerge as tropes in our cultural cautionary tales, this essay is a nod to the subtle and cumulative rage of a working class, Chinese American, immigrant, female writer in the U.S. Perhaps, “Hags” isn’t the spookiest work— at least in the traditional sense of the word— but if white male supremacy and capitalism sounds scary to you then this may just make you run and hide.

    “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads

    Savannah Mahan, Poetry Editor

     “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads is not a very scary song, but it does make you jump out of your shoes— to dance! I cherish this song not just because of the groovy baseline, but because it embraces the strange and the unsettling that Halloween truly revolves around. With the refrain of “qu’est-ce que c’est?” reminding us that things just do not often make sense, I find myself joining along in the half-sung and half-screamed vocals. I dare you to listen and not do the same. P.S: Please watch the video if you desire to see jolting dance moves in an oversized suit. 

    “Wraithe” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Megan Snopik, Website Writer & Prose Board

    My favorite spooky creative work is “Wraithe” from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s collection Second April. This poem has the perfect spooky house vibe, and will definitely make you think twice about the rain tapping on your window (it could be something/someone else!). As she says at the end of the poem “wonder what sort of people/ could have had this house before…” you can’t help but wonder about your own house’s ghosts… Read this poem here.

    Dracula by Bram Stoker

    Abdallah Hussein, Website Writer

    Being mostly a stranger to the horror genre, my frame of reference regarding it is close to absent. However, I did read Dracula by Bram Stoker over the summer and it was truly a terrifying experience. I’d always tackle the book in the dead of night; all lights off with the exception of a tiny light shining onto the pages of the book. Having the tension build up with sad deaths, insane plots twists, and harrowing descriptions of vampires and settings across the story in a bone-chilling manner while being surrounded by nothing but shadows was truly a gut-wrenching feeling that kept me under the covers for a while and it’s something I’d like to do again, especially in this more appropriate time of year.

    Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink

    Scotty Villhard, Website Writer & Prose Board

    Alice Isn’t Dead is a podcast written by Joseph Fink, co-creator of Welcome to Night Vale, about a woman who drives a truck across a haunted America in search of her missing wife, Alice. The podcast is short, three seasons of 10 episodes each and nothing more, but over the course of these episodes it crafts a world and lore hiding just behind our own, in abandoned truck stops and fading roadside attractions. Fink’s writing veers more heavily into horror here than in Welcome to Night Vale while never losing wit, with each episode offering a chance to tell a special kind of ghost story. With a great performance by Jasika Nicole and some of Disparition’s best music of their career, Alice Isn’t Dead has become a staple of my horror fix.

    Donnie Darko

    Pramika Kadari, Website Writer & Marketing Team

    Actor Jake Gyllenhaal’s bone-chilling expressions in Donnie Darko stick with you for days after finishing the film. In addition to the creepiness, Donnie Darko is an amazing movie full of complex storylines and dynamic characters. Hidden behind the lattice of complicated timelines is an emotionally impactful story about love and sacrifice. It’s one of those movies you can’t stop thinking about for days after you watch it, even if you do have to search up articles and YouTube videos to completely understand it.

    The Magnus Archives by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J. Newall

    Skylar Epstein, Website Writer & Prose Board

    The concept of The Magnus Archives, a horror fiction podcast produced by The Rusty Quill, is simple. All of the episodes feature recorded “statements” outlining strange and eerie encounters people have had in their lives that are submitted to the head archivist of the London based Magnus Institute, Jonathan Sims. While the overarching plot of the podcast is slow to boil over, each episode is perfectly disturbing and terrifyingly creative. From an anglerfish monster in the streets of Edinburgh to a pottery class gone terribly wrong, the statements explore all shapes and sizes of fear. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be thinking about these stories and staring too deeply into shadowy corners for days after listening. With its slow paced, creeping narrative, The Magnus Archives asks the question: what are you afraid of…and how close is that fear to consuming you?

    The Raven Boys series by Maggie Stiefvater

    Caitlin Vaille, Poetry Board

    My favorite read that gives subtle spooky vibes is The Raven Boys series by Maggie Stiefvater. Although I really do want to get more into the thriller/horror genre in the future, I’ve stuck to very minimal levels in the past. So, if you’re like me and might want to feel the Halloween spirit but not jump out of your seat, then this series is wonderful. It’s got paranormal elements laced throughout, from clairvoyance to spirits to ley lines. Not to mention, it has a cast of truly memorable and unique characters.

    “Love Potion No. 9” by The Clovers

    Emma Allen, Poetry Board

    As a kid, whenever Halloween drew closer, it was time to listen to Halloween music for each and every car ride. One of my absolute favorite songs on my family’s Halloween CD, which never fails to put me in the spirit for the season, is Love Potion No. 9 performed by The Clovers. Even though it was not originally intended to be a Halloween song, it features all the essential spooky elements like gold-teethed gypsies, potions, and magic signs. The song is smooth and almost impossible not to sing along to, by virtue of the singers’ smooth voices and the deep saxophone notes. Hearing the song brings back great memories, mostly me and my sister forcing my mother to hit rewind about 15-20 times each car ride, so we could hear Love Potion No. 9 again.

    Coraline

    Jaqueline Lugo, Marketing Team

    This movie is timeless terrifying. Coraline tells the story of a young girl who has a complicated relationship with her parents and finds an alternate world into which she escapes. I watch it every Halloween with my sisters; even as we grow older it never fails to scare us. The animation and the color scheme is absolutely amazing. I love that how at the beginning of the movie we get so many loose ends. We have so many cryptic scenes that mean nothing, but as we get to the end we see that all the loose ends come together to tell give us the story.

    Symphony No. 1 “Lord of The Rings”

    Lacee Burr, Prose Board

    I’m usually not one for instrumental music — I need to be able to sing along to a song and essentially hold my own private concert — but Meij’s Symphony No.1 Lord of the Rings is definitely the exception. This isn’t the music you hear in the movies (it was composed and performed before we had the pleasure of seeing Orlando Bloom take down an Oliphant), and it’s actually based on literary themes from the original novels. There’s five parts to it, but the Gollum (Smeagol) section is definitely the one to choose for Halloween. The music sounds how Gollum looks and acts, so if this guy has ever unnerved you, open your music app for 10 minutes of spookiness. 

    “The Raven” adapted by Lord Buckley

    Tom Jennings, Poetry Board

    My spooky piece for Halloween is Lord Buckley’s rendition of Poe’s “The Raven”. Buckley was known for “translating” classic pieces of literature into hip, jazzy slang in the 1950s, and this is probably the only Halloween-related example. He was a great influence on jazz poets like Bob Kaufman as well as many stand-up comedians with his rapid delivery. One of the very few jazzy takes on Edgar Allen Poe!

  • Curl Up with This and Break Free: How the Hothouse Staff Escapes Stress

    Curl Up with This and Break Free: How the Hothouse Staff Escapes Stress

    As you know from the many opening lines in the many emails  you’ve received, the world is a confusing and often-frightening place to live in right now. In the long tradition of turning towards stories to temporarily escape the chaos around us, the Hothouse staff has compiled some of our favorite works that provide us comfort and escape routes in times of stress.

    Julia Schoos, Editor-in-Chief
    The Inkworld Series

    Like many, I tend to favor things I read in my childhood when I try to get away. Sitting on the lowest shelf, nestled between my other German novels, is the first book of the Inkworld series: Inkheart—or, as I know it, Tintenherz, by Cornelia Funke. I took meticulous care of it as a child, so with the exception of its yellowing pages, it shows no sign of wear, despite the fact that I must have read it at least six times when I was younger, and even modeled introductions to my earlier short stories after its first few lines. I can’t summon the chapter I used to be able to recite nowadays, but even today, the Inkworld, crafted from worlds within worlds and words within words, and its characters are a welcome home for me to burrow into.

    Kylie Warkentin, Managing and Website Editor
    The Princesses of Westfalin Series

    Truly, nothing has brought me internal peace more than this series retelling the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Snow White, and Cinderella fairy tales. Centered around three of the three twelve dancing princesses cursed by a pact with dark magic, this series has everything: the familiar beats of fairy tales, genuinely fun characters, and knitting as an important plot point. Also, the author included the knitting patterns of the bracelets and shawls the characters made in the books to protect themselves from evil magic, which rocks on every level.

    Christie Basson, Website Editor
    Spud Series by John van de Ruit

    Maybe comfort is not exactly the right word, but I find that when the world around me becomes increasingly sinister, I turn to the comedic for distraction. One series I can always rely on is Spud by John van der Ruit. The story (set up as a diary) follows a boy attending boarding school in South Africa in 1990 and it covers all the intricacies of boarding school life – midnight swims, fierce feuds, the frustrations of an all-boys school – and the absurdity of Spud’s own family, who could hardly be more ridiculous and hilarious. However, the books have an undercurrent of depth through them, and cover more serious issues, including the tension of a country in upheaval. I have found that I enjoy the books also a historical peephole into a South Africa I never knew, but still somehow recognise.

    Alyssa Jingling, Marketing Director
    Beowulf by Seamus Heaney

    My go-to stress read is Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. It’s a heroic and adventurous tale masterfully told through the Irish poet’s rich wording; it’s beautifully easy to imagine myself drinking mead and going off to battle monsters right alongside the heroes. It also has the original Old English text, so when I really need to focus I like to try to decipher that version.

    Sara Cline, Poetry Board Editor
    Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human

    In these past few weeks, I’ve been particularly swept away by two Quantic Dream video games: Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human. I’m a sucker for choice-based games, and these two are special in that you play multiple characters, with the characters’ paths inevitably crossing in the end. Heavy Rain engrossed me as I tried to identify and track down a serial killer known as the Origami Killer, and save a young boy in the process. Meanwhile, Detroit: Become Human stuck me smack dab in the middle of a rapidly growing android revolution.

    Abbey Bartz, Website Staff Writer
    Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

    Fangirl has been my favorite book since I first read it in high school, and since then, I have read it more times than I can count. It’s a cute, funny story about a shy, anxious girl in her first year of college, who wants to be a writer and has to deal with family drama, school stress, and boys (relatable, no?). No matter how many times I read it, it never fails to make me smile, no matter what I’m going through at the time.

    Addie Gordon, General Staff
    Westworld

    The work I have been using to escape the current situation is the Westworld television series on HBO. The world the show creates is so detailed and fascinating that I can’t help but get lost in it. The plot and characters are also so detailed and well written, that it’s impossible to not binge. Overall, it allows me to explore human behavior, the possibility of AI takeover and the idea of time jumping all in one place.

    Chloe Manchester, Website Staff Writer
    “That Summer Feeling” by Jonathan Richman

    There’s no better promise of escape than the summer. I wait nine months out of the year for a three month period of bliss that has never once let me down. Summer sadness and that familiar feeling of being stuck is all part of its magic – this song perfectly encapsulates the beauty, the loneliness and languidness, that lies at its heart.

    Natalie Nobile, Website Staff Writer
    Shovel Knight
    Ah, Shovel Knight! Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

    Nay, for thou art more lovely and I can’t go outside anyway.

    Your levels— how challenging! Your music— how eight-bit!

    Your controls are so frustrating, yet I can’t seem to rage quit!

    Though with you I waste innumerable hours,

    I’d do it again only to unlock these powers:

    Chaos Spheres and Anchors and Daggers to hurl,

    and momentary escape from this terrifying world.

    Sarah Fetahagic, General Staff
    Inception directed by Christopher Nolan

    In stressful times like these, I like to spend most of my day sleeping. Inception is all about the concept of layering and designing your dreams—most of its characters are asleep for the majority of the film, taking you along with them as they explore their carefully constructed dreams. If it ever fails to make me feel like I’m in sleep’s warm embrace, I can easily escape into Inception’s world by imagining what my own artificial dreams would look like.

    Stephanie Pickrell, Website Staff Writer
    To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

    This is my favorite comfort novel for any occasion. Ned Henry is an overworked time traveler who takes a brief vacation to 1888 to escape his boss, the ever-demanding Lady Shrapnell, only to discover that the rules of time travel have gone haywire. What follows is a humor-filled adventure of love-at-first-sight, peculiar Oxford dons, a multitude of Victorian expletives, and a cat that may single-handedly destroy the space-time continuum—what more could you ask for? It also takes place in a post-Pandemic world, making it, if not a reflection of our current times, at least a sign that there’s hope on the other side.

  • Coming Together When The World Falls Apart

    Coming Together When The World Falls Apart

    Written by Lindsey Ferris

    With the songs from the musical Come From Away still playing in my ears, the memories my parents have shared over the years of 9/11 comes to mind and I’m left again in awed silence of how the world responded to the devastation.

    Working off the baby fat from her last pregnancy, my mom was at the gym on September 11th. The drone of the small T.V. mounted on the wall was suddenly interrupted with a breaking news alert as she sweated on the elliptical. Images scrolled across the screen one after another. Smoke billowing from broken windows and then the second tower – unbelievably – being struck. My dad was in Newark on a trip; he was a first officer for Continental and flew the 737. Over the next four days as the U.S. air space was closed, my mom fielded calls from friends and family checking if my dad had been flying that day. Repeated answers of “he’s safe” and “I’m not sure” were spoken over the phone. It was odd, she says to me, remembering this moment, to not hear the drone of a plane or see the small silhouettes of them in the sky. Everyone felt heartbroken and uneasy about the future in the wake of 9/11. The very date – nine-eleven, spoken in reverence – has since become emblematic of a catastrophe but also of the unification of people around the world that has long outlasted that initial aftershock.

     When prompted by the question, “Where were you when 9/11 happened?,” almost anyone can instantly share the exact moment when they heard the news. I am too young to remember, but looking at my parents’ faces when they describe how they heard the news of the terrorists’ attack makes me feel as if I was there. Every year, a moment of silence is held for those we lost, and as time passes, the way we speak of 9/11 transforms from anger to remembrance to pride at how the U.S. united. Now, almost twenty years after the fact, a new generation has been raised and they don’t have that intimate connection to the day. While they grew up with its scars and aftereffects on the edges of their lives, it is a moment in history to them, not a memory. As more time passes and that moment becomes more distant, it is important to memorialize the past so that no one forgets it. While we hope that day will never be repeated, its remembrance is important and has been done through story, documentary, and photography. Come From Away, nominated for best musical in the 2017 Tony Awards, brings a new form of commemoration to the stage.

    As I sat in the audience during curtain call, tears slipped down my face despite the joyful folk music playing. This one-act musical had instantly become my new favorite show.

    Inspired by the documentary You Are Here, Come From Away puts song to part of the story that is 9/11. This story focuses on the 38 planes that landed in Gander, Newfoundland, a rural Canadian island that boasted an enormous airport which had seen decreased use since the induction of the jet age facilitated nonstop travel over the Atlantic. Within a day, the small town’s population nearly doubled for a three-day international sleepover after the U.S. airspace was closed and planes performed emergency landings across the world. Despite the language barriers and clashing cultures, the Newfoundlanders created a temporary home for the stranded travelers by offering everything they had to bring comfort. From sharing their home to potluck dinners, the community embraced the travelers as their own.

    I saw the show in February when it toured in Austin and have listened to the music on repeat since. As I sat in the audience during curtain call, tears slipped down my face despite the joyful folk music playing. This one-act musical had instantly become my new favorite show. I watched each character run to the front of the stage and take their bow, as I clapped fervently for what each person represented in the world. On my way home, I was still pondering why Come From Away’s portrayal of 9/11 had affected me so deeply.

    Growing up with a pilot as my father, I had always imagined flying just like my dad. The allure of the open sky and anything being possible made commanding a plane romantic to me. Beverly Bass, the actual 9/11 pilot, was depicted in Come From Away and represents everything I had once dreamed of becoming. She had climbed the ranks of the industry despite sexist barriers and constant complaints from her male cohorts and became the first female captain at American Airlines. Her solo, Me and the Sky, shares her life story in a strong feminist tone as she lists her greatest achievements while backed by an all-female chorus. I could see myself in every word, from her father encouraging her to persevere, to Beverly taking charge of every situation she was put in. Her strength was, and continues to be, inspiring for any woman to not take no for an answer. 

    Friendship can be the only thing that seems to be holding you up when the world around you is crashing down. Hannah, an actual passenger on Beverly’s plane who is a character in the show, portrays that. Her son was a firefighter in Brooklyn just across the bridge from Manhattan and the Twin Towers. When greeted by Beaulah, a real-life-inspired volunteer from Newfoundland, Hannah refused to shower or do anything that would take her away from the phone station. Hannah’s son was missing, despite not being scheduled to work that day with the fire department. Beaulah stood by her side in unity, offering bad jokes as comfort, because her own son was a firefighter and she understood the worry a mother has for her kids. The two women became close over the three days and formed a friendship that continues today. Hearing the pain in Hannah’s song as she called New York again and again, berating herself for not being there for her son, tore at me. It was the same worry my family felt for my dad and Beaulah’s kindness was my mom’s friends who were constantly checking on her. People rising up to support the ones who can’t carry their fears alone anymore happen everyday but are needed most when hope is hard to find.

    That’s when I realized why the show stayed with me long after the house lights came up. Come From Away shared the message of what it means to come together when the world seems to be falling apart. 

    The planes that landed at Gander came from all over the world and the language barriers that resulted from that threatened to panic stranded travelers even more.  As people were directed from plane to bus to reach their shelter, one African family was fearful of following Canadian directions because they had no idea what was going on or where they were being led. But when the driver of a transportation bus pulled out the Bible peeking from their luggage and flipped to Phillipians 4:6, reading, “Be anxious for nothing,” this new form of communication helped the family understand that the Newfoundlanders could be trusted. Beyond the essentiality of communication, this bus driver’s actions proved that at the root of it we’re all the same. The Bible this family read somewhere in Africa is the same Bible the Canadian busdriver read and exemplifies the universality of humanness. The musical is full of moments that prove we’re all human before anything else and that that can always unite us. We all need food and we all worry about our loved ones and we all want to help each other, despite what we usually see as barriers – race, nationality, sexuality, religion. That’s when I realized why the show stayed with me long after the house lights came up. Come From Away shared the message of what it means to come together when the world seems to be falling apart. 

    As I think about the show today, I can see the similarities to how the world is responding to COVID-19. Once again people are pulling together to bring support to others in need, whether it is first responders or families affected. Younger generations have reacted to Come From Away because of its  ability to truly portray events they never experienced. It allows them to see and understand how the catastrophe of 9/11 impacted the world despite not being alive during the event. Perhaps a musical bringing quarantine life to the stage will immortalize this moment and how people are responding in the best ways they can. Musical or not, one thing we have learned from the last few months is that humanity prevails – today, like twenty years ago, we see again and again that people are kind and compassionate. As we face another crisis that will define a generation, knowing that there is hope brings stability into a world of constant uncertainty.

  • The Generation of Nostalgia: Vaporwave, Piracy, and the Internet

    The Generation of Nostalgia: Vaporwave, Piracy, and the Internet

    Written by Leah Park

    On one of my perusals through social media, I came across a viral video that depicted a character from The Simpsons teaching a self-defense class. However, instead of playing the dialogue of the scene, the clip played a funky pop song called “Selfish High Heels” by Yung Bae. The song was vaguely familiar. I was intrigued and immediately went on a search for music similar to the genre of this clip. Eventually, I came across a whole plethora of artists creating works in a subculture known as “vaporwave,” where commercials of young adults in the 80s were edited into music that played the sounds of edited 80s music. In fact, one such vaporwave video caught the attention of my father and uncle, as they had both seen that same commercial on the television almost forty years ago in South Korea. These videos and songs are plentiful on Youtube, Soundcloud, Spotify, or anywhere you look on the web. The songs themselves have thousands to millions of views, and comments below are all different iterations of “Remember when music was good?” The massive amount of attention these videos receive demonstrates that the modern mass audience is still on the lookout for media that reminds them of the past. The reason why can be summed up with the critical soft spot of this current generation: nostalgia.

    Nostalgia used here refers to “a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past” that is evoked by visual and auditory media. The use of modern nostalgia was, at first, most majorly present in both art and music subcultures especially during the rise of internet culture and social media (from roughly the 1990s to present day). Vaporwave, often stylized as “V A P O R W A V E,” is one of the many subcultures that have arisen from this quest for nostalgia. This movement was largely inspired and preceded by John Oswald’s coined term “plunderphonics,” an art movement that was based off of piracy. By using other artists’ music, the nostalgia artist modifying this music can both elicit the emotions that the song evoked in its original use, and also modify it to mean something new. In vaporwave, this modified music not only sardonically hearkens back to the consumer-culture of the 80s and 90s but also invokes a nostalgic sound that resonates with its listener. As stated before, none of this would have been possible without the open media nature of the internet and social media. As Adam Neely points out in his video on the music theory of vaporwave, the “Wild West” nature of the internet made it easier for vaporwave artists to obtain the files and data of artwork they would then anonymously remake and share without any legal trouble. Back in the days when vaporwave was “plunderphonics,” there was no such thing as anonymity on the internet, so music was easier to pin down on their creators. Now it is harder for situations such as John Oswald’s great CD burning in Canada to repeat itself.  The rise in popularity of vaporwave meant that “nostalgia” culture largely hinges on how artists could, essentially, get away with piracy.

    This pattern is one explanation as to why “meme” culture and social media sites such as TikTok are so popular—their “trends” are easy to recognize.

    Defining vaporwave is risky business because the movement itself is a reaction to the increasingly copyrighted and capitalistic nature of the world. However, we can generally say that Vaporwave is a music subculture that arose in the 2010s as a criticism of capitalism, seen in the sheer amount of vaporwave artists using edited clips from commercials from the early 80s or 90s in their music videos. The songs themselves are reminiscent of the early days of the internet by using sound samples from various early internet programs, including the “You got mail!” soundbite, K-Mart elevator music samples, and many, many more. Many artists from vaporwave also “borrowed” songs from major artists, editing and slowing down voices from popular singers in the 80s and 90s to create new works. Look to what is widely considered the “national anthem” of vaporwave to see how Diana Ross’s vocals were edited to make something new. When scrolling through comments for vaporwave posts or even when considering the original song that was sampled, one can often see comments referring to an era when “music was good,” when things were better. In fact, these comments can usually be seen on any track not currently on the “Top Hot Tracks” list trending on Youtube.

    Going back to the “soft spot” of this generation, this weakness for nostalgia can largely be attributed to the rise of the internet and the efficiency of sharing media. Due to the internet and the amount of daily media consumption that an internet user can achieve in a short span of time, it has become easier to share content from past time periods with those  people across the world. Users can find other users who have consumed similar media—perhaps as far back as in childhood—and together they can celebrate and remember those days with the media as a conduit. Not only do we create communities where nostalgia-seeking is encouraged in this way, the shorter and shorter amount of time required to produce and consume mass amounts of media leads to users seeking things that are familiar and easy to digest. This pattern is one explanation as to why “meme” culture and social media sites such as TikTok are so popular—their “trends” are easy to recognize. This is what drew me to the funky, familiar elements of “Selfish High Heels”  and pulled me down the deep rabbit hole of vaporwave subculture.

    Vaporwave largely capitalizes on this search for familiarity and has found relatively large success. Many vaporwave artists are now able to tour internationally, finding a loyal following through social media. But vaporwave artists aren’t the only ones profiting from nostalgia seekers—ironically, big corporations, despite low quality productions and poor critical reception, have chased the nostalgia dollar with a rising number of remakes and sequels. I myself have fallen prey to these schemes. I have vivid memories of seeing the theatrical release of Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast released in 2017 and enjoying the familiar story beats I had grown up with in the animated film—until I realized afterwards that I had merely fallen prey to the nostalgia bait of Disney. The appeal of familiarity has also bled into popular music, as seen with the rising popularity of heavy audio sampling. If an audience is already familiar with and invested in with certain elements, then there will be a greater possibility of them coming to see these familiar tales again. In the end, audiences will always be more invested in familiar artwork instead of making the effort to create new bonds to new ones. Thus, as the internet grows, so too will the popularity of nostalgia.

    Further V A P O R W A V E:

  • Genre Studies: What Type of English Major are You?

    Genre Studies: What Type of English Major are You?

    Written by Chloe Manchester

    We’ve all seen them. Wandering the halls of Parlin, hunkered down at the PCL, asleep on the front lawn. These are the people you know without ever really knowing, the English majors so distinct you’d recognize from a good six feet away.

    The Shakespearean

    The Shakespearean’s wardrobe consists entirely of graphic tees with some sly saying such as “prithee, let my meat make thee silent” or “fighteth me.”  They love to crack a “wit” joke or insert a “that’s what she said” wherever possible, making serious classroom discussions mercifully lighthearted. They were definitely in theater in high school, and you know this for certain because they always play broadway hits on aux and remind you for the umpteenth time that they played Jean Valjean or Madame Thenardier in their high school production of Les Mis. The Shakespearean is, while exhausting, an infinitely entertaining character. 

    The Modernist

    The Modernist likes to ask people if they’ve read “The Waste Land.” They go to parties and genuinely enjoy feeling like the outsider, believing it to be excellent research for the novel they’re going to write. They ask for a typewriter every year for Christmas, and refuse to begin said novel until they have one. They either wear a t-shirt-skinny-scarf combo straight out of Liverpool circa 2003, or all black with platform boots. 

    The Classicist

    The Classicist is an English and Latin double major. They wear turtlenecks no matter the weather, and carry a leather satchel in lieu of a backpack. They go to Caffe Medici at least once a week in order to see and be seen. They’re always asking what you’re reading so they can tell you what they’re reading (The Odyssey, Emily Wilson translation). They are beautiful and intelligent, very enticing, but can be as incurably cold as the ancient marble statues they resemble. 

    The Wattpad Fanatic

    The Wattpad Fanatic writes romance fanfiction about Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger instead of writing their papers. They’re a passionate defender of young adult novels and Chick Lit, and have the best recommendations for a laid-back read when you’re brain-fried after reading Paradise Lost and The Canterbury Tales back-to-back. They’re intense in person, passionate in friendship, and their Wattpad stories are better written than most of The Modernist’s favorite books.

    The Testosterone Terror

    The Testosterone Terror secretly wishes there was a war going on so they could fight in it. They only drink whiskey. They love short, choppy stories with even shorter, choppier sentences. Their favorite graduation gift was a box of premium Cuban cigars. Where some dream of cottagecore, The Testosterone Terror dreams of cabincore – fishing rods, flannel button downs, and an endless pile of logs just waiting to be split open. They only read the same four authors: Vonnegut, McCarthy, Hemingway, Bukowski. 

    The Sci Fi Kid

    The Sci Fi kid worships not God, but Philip K. Dick. Their response post on The Martian Chronicles subreddit got over 2000 upvotes. They live in a post-truth state and are terrified of Elon Musk. They read about conspiracy theories incessantly and don’t trust the government. They are most likely libertarian. I probably don’t need to tell you this, but their favorite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey.

    The Radical

    The Radical has had a pink pussy hat since before it was cool. They read Sylvia Plath at way too young of an age. Their twitter is just as aggressive as their haircut, but their compassion outshadows both. The Radical spent an entire paycheck to buy a first edition Sisterhood is Powerful and single-handedly convinced their racist uncle to vote for Bernie through the use of Audre Lord quotations. The Radical struggles to walk beneath the sheer weight of all the buttons pinned onto their Fjallraven backpack and denim jacket. 

    The Slacker

    The Slacker always wants to talk about their DMT trip. They pretend to hate social media but really get down with tumblr (#trippy). They work as a cashier at Trader Joe’s. They wear a lobster shirt because it reminds them of their two favorite things – Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace and Kramer from Seinfeld. When The Slacker sees the no-shoes boy wandering around campus, they get jealous. 

    The Romantic

    The Romantic is Pinterest famous. They are undoubtedly an INFP. They run into street signs  because they’re constantly reading books while walking down the street, and occasionally get pneumonia from standing outside fully clothed during a rainstorm. They can bang out a 10 page paper in a single night, and thrive off the sheer thrill of it. The Romantic walks in beauty, like the night.

  • Knight Terrors: Horror in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

    Knight Terrors: Horror in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

    Written by Natalie Nobile

    Hey, when you were assigned Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, did you try to get out of reading it by using one of the films as a cheat sheet? But then all the films sucked? Well buckle up buttercup, because there’s a new adaptation on the market, and it’s coming for you! The Green Knight stars Dev Patel as Sir Gawain, questing to “prove his worth … by facing the ultimate challenger,” the titular Green KnightTM. The only trailer so far serves striking imagery—a spontaneously combusting halo-crown, an ominous wheel calendar, a jump cut to Gawain’s spooky skeleton, and under it all, an insectoid buzz. Fantasy elements give way to phantasmagoria. Giants loom from the mist, and a tree man straight out of Doctor Who prepares to land a sickening axe-blow. The whole thing styles itself staunchly as horror; it’s even got the industry standard stinger in its soundtrack. But wait! You cry. Surely this medieval tale of Arthur’s knight errs on the side of cheese rather than freeze. Ye must bringeth me a faithful adaptation, for the purpose of getting out of reading it. Well no worries, faithful student, say I, because this story bears less signs of adventure than of survival. Horror may in fact be the best vehicle for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

    Such an interpretation of this tale doesn’t inherently break new ground: see this terrifying clip from Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Now I know that this Gawain looks like He-Man, and Sean Connery has inexplicable cleavage (not to mention the full-body bronzer), but this scene clearly intends to chill you to the bone (instead of what it actually achieves, which is tickling your funny bone). Its brand of horror, however, hinges on the shock and gore of a man’s decapitated body rejoining with his disembodied head. Supreme cultural authority Den of Geek describes the best horror films as “rely[ing] on atmosphere and suspense rather than gore and jump-scares”; maybe that’s why Sword of the Valiant falls flat. But then check out the 1973 adaptation. It builds and builds and builds the tension, and then cuts to something completely different. Try as it might to frighten viewers with atmospheric pressure, it cannot sustain the weight of audience expectations—like, y’know, something happening. What does happen feels either underwhelming (Gawain eats soup) or laughable (huRAHHH!). And is that shot of a guy getting thwacked by a tree even meant to be in there?

    As you may have seen from those film clips, this story has a tone problem—and unfortunately, that tone problem isn’t inherent to the adaptation process itself. It lies in the text itself. Compare two translations by Simon Armitage and Marie Borroff. In Armitage’s version, the Green Knight calls Arthur’s lords “bum-fluffed bairns,” but Borroff diminishes them in her version merely to “beardless children” (280). An ax Armitage calls “the mother of all axes” (208), Borroff calls “huge and immense”; where Armitage’s  Green Knight asks, “So who has the gall? The gumption? The guts?” Borroff’s version calls for “one so willful my words to assay,” (291). Which translator gets it right? Is this High Arthurian Drama or a Chaucerian comedy? Stately or Seussical? Well, obviously, neither. Borroff emphasizes the statelier aspects of SGGK, but doesn’t shy away from (muted) humor; Armitage goes heavy on the humor, but just as willingly draws out the ominous violence dwelling in this narrative. The narrative itself prances between both body horror (flayed alive fox, anyone?) and misogynistic humor (ha-ha, women are jealous). To properly ascertain the tonal acrobatics of this poem, let us review SGGK 101: the basic plot. You’re welcome, Brit Lit students.

    On Christmas Night, the Green KnightTM barges into Camelot and demands that someone exchange blows with him. According to his deal, they give him a stroke, then exactly a year later, he deals them a stroke. Gawain offers himself in King Arthur’s place and caput! off goes the Green Knight’s head. But whoopsies, he’s not dead; he picks his own head up, rides around, and tells Gawain to meet him next New Year’s Morn at the Green Chapel.

    Smash cut to nearly a year later; Gawain heads out through the lands beyond maps to find the Green Chapel. Instead he finds a dwelling which completely unsuspiciously appears out of nowhere. Inside, Lord Bertilak welcomes Gawain and feeds him, then gets our hero to promise that he’ll stay around for a while, and not get out of bed before mass (yes, he’s that specific). Ever-trusting, Gawain further promises to play a swap game with his host: each day, they will give to each other what they have earned. What all this comes to is that each day, Bertilak leaves early and slays various types of beasts, while his wife, the Lady, sneaks up on Gawain in his chambers and entraps him—courteously—into a variety of sexually incriminating situations. Over three days, the host kills deer, a boar, and a fox (potentially the most important part of the entire poem), sharing them with Gawain, while Gawain receives (in total) six kisses from the Lady, and he…shares those too. On the final day she offers Gawain a girdle, which she claims can magically preserve him from all harm. Gawain succumbs; he accepts the girdle and conceals it from the host, thereby cheating at the swap game. So much for honoring hospitality.

    Apparently oblivious to Gawain’s chicanery, Bertilak guides Gawain to the Green Chapel. Three near misses of the axe later, Gawain discovers from the Green Knight—really Bertilak in disguise—that this was simply Morgan Le Fay’s way to scare Guinevere. Bertilak lets Gawain return to Arthur’s court, where Gawain wears the green girdle as a badge of shame; finis. Note: If you’re confused as to why I’ve just now mentioned Morgan Le Fay at the penultimate moment, this is also the moment the poet chooses to reveal her involvement. She appears only in retrospect, as the unknown enemy Gawain has been confined with all along. Scary. And indeed, her only known goal is to scare: she wanted to “frighten [Guinevere] to death” (2460). Why? ‘Cuz chicks be jealous, brah.

    The tale’s conclusion is a perfect example of the tone ‘problem.’ At the same time as this story becomes one centering around fear, it also becomes a (misogynistic) joke about female jealousy. The preceding portions’ tone also ricochets all over the place: the Christmas feast is jolly, but then the Green Knight Halloweens it up; Gawain’s lost in the wilderness, but then he bumps into another joyous feast; hunting scenes of bloodshed, flirtatious scenes in Gawain’s bedroom; “wa-hey it’s all just an elaborate prank! to scare someone to death.” Above all these scenes have ambiguous tones: let’s be frank, a head getting chopped off is, without any context, neither inherently serious nor silly (though extreme at least). You’re as likely to see it in a horror film as in Monty Python. So indeed, without the same cultural compass as this 14th-century poem’s audience, a 2020 reader might feel a bit disturbed by how lightly Bertilak references Morgan Le Fay, Sorceress Supreme.

    We want to validate a reading of SGGK as horror, not prove it. For the moment we must discard all thoughts of gumption, gall, or guts, and turn instead to the parts of this text which—if framed well, by, let’s say, an upcoming A24 adaptation?—genuinely chill to the bone.

    Re-situating ourselves, then, with a wider appreciation of the poem’s flexible tone, we want to find an underlying motivation for this prancing betwixt fear and laughter. We want to validate a reading of SGGK as horror, not prove it. For the moment we must discard all thoughts of gumption, gall, or guts, and turn instead to the parts of this text which—if framed well, by, let’s say, an upcoming A24 adaptation?—genuinely chill to the bone. Let’s review the evidence. Rewind. Pause. Enhance. Okay, Bertilak’s hunting scenes? Let not the façade of simplicity deceive ye, pilgrim. These scenes hide the horrific heart of the poem.

    Gawain’s at the castle, and he’s promised to stay in bed every day until Mass (about noon). The Lady’s in the castle with him. Bertilak’s out killing things. At the end of each day, Gawain must swap whatever he ‘wins’ with Bertilak. Day One: Bertilak and his men slaughter deer, which were “harried to the heights and herded to the streams” (1169). Then the poem jumps to Gawain, caught in bed by the Lady: she promises, “I shall hem and hold you on either hand” (1224) in an open display of flirtation. Gawain mirrors the deer, the Lady mirrors her hunter husband. Hmm. Back to Bertilak’s crowd, who hew the deer’s heads off. The reappearance of decapitation ain’t lookin’ good for Gawain. At day’s end, Bertilak gives Gawain the deer, and Gawain gives him a kiss (originally from the Lady… though of course Gawain doesn’t mention that).

    Day Two: Bertilak and his men pursue a boar, which charges them but must eventually “retreat/ To a rise on rocky ground, by a rushing stream” (1569-70). Huh. That seems… familiar. Again the poem intersperses Gawain’s attempts to politely decline the lady’s affections. This time he’s ready for her; but like the boar, he is overcome. He accepts the lady’s two kisses, while Sir Bertilak “severs the savage head” of the slain boar. Two Bertilak, Zero Gawain. Bertilak gives Gawain the boar, Gawain replies with two kisses.

    Day Three: Bertilak and his men find nothing to hunt but a fox, which they chase over hill and dale. Meanwhile, the Lady makes moves on Gawain yet again. This time she offers him her magic girdle, which can preserve him from all harm! Try as he might to resist, Gawain can’t deny he wants to escape the Green Knight’s axe and live; he takes the girdle (and three kisses). Sir Bertilak returns with the tricky fox’s stripped hide, which he ominously presents to Gawain; Gawain gives up three kisses, but no girdle. The message is very clear: Gawain cannot escape his fate, by fleeing like the deer, fighting like the boar, or feigning like the fox. But where did the stream go? And what about our theme of decapitation?

    On this final day, themes aren’t the only things that fail. The swap game’s rules also get broken: While Gawain gives Bertilak the kisses, he never hands over the girdle. Our true knight is now false and all bets are off! This reversal comes at a crucial moment, after two repetitions of the reliable pattern. Storytellers frequently use the ‘rule of three’; but after two repetitions, your audience may get bored, so usually the third (and final) form is something unexpected. The Gawain (or ‘Pearl’) poet seems very aware of this narrative convention, because they explicitly mark each repetition with the number of kisses Gawain receives from the Lady, making the format very obvious. Apparently the poet wasn’t so aware of suspense: the pattern of three builds tension that goes nowhere. The third repetition repeats neither the hallmarks of geography nor decapitation, and thus this loop concludes without event, and the narrative continues on its merry way.

    On New Year’s Morn, Bertilak sends Gawain to the Green Chapel, which turns out to be no human dwelling but rather a grassy hillock beside a stream (hey wait). Worse, the Green Knight’s already there, sharpening his axe, ready for decapitation—hey, wait! The Green Knight, after revealing himself to be Sir Bertilak, claims the girdle as his own (because he owns whatever his wife owns, medieval times were sexist, yadda yadda). Gawain gives up what he owes to Bertilak: the girdle, making recompense for his cheat at the swap game, the nick on his neck, fulfilling his promise to receive a return stroke from the Green Knight. All our supposedly dropped threads pick back up again, so what if the fox wasn’t the third repetition? What if this is the third repetition, which means Gawain must somehow die? The false third repetition, with the fox and the girdle and three kisses, was just a hope spot.

    The ‘hope spot’ is a term coined by self-described “all-devouring pop culture wiki monster” tvtropes.org to describe a classic technique of the horror genre. The protagonist finds themselves in apparent safety, such that their ordeal is implied to be over, but then, yikes! Out pops the clown/alien/Freddy Kreuger. A hope spot typically induces an epiphany of horror in the audience: the possibility of escape all the more exaggerates how definitively, horribly trapped a character is, and near-certifies a doom and gloom ending. In a way this is just an advanced jump scare, one which plays with your expectations of when a jump scare’s about to occur. The creepy thing appears in an ostensibly safe space, distorting the apparent stability and thus disrupting all trust in anything that appears stable. It gets in your head, man. The Gawain poet reinforces the false hope of the girdle with the apparently played-out repetition of three hunting scenes. By subverting a reliable trope, they destabilize even the expected narrative structure. Gawain has apparently made it out of the repetition of three without himself becoming the decapitated prey, but then the associated imagery re-appears, and we find ourselves wondering if the Green Knight has really let Gawain go. After all, he’s left his mark—the girdle.

    The girdle has been called a blazon of lust, or badge of shame, a “sign of sore loss,” (2507), of “cowardice and coveting” (2508); but above all a girdle (a fancy belt) is a binder. Its function is to confine. However Gawain attempts to escape the loops in which he’s bound, he only encounters more. He seems to escape his promise to the Green Knight, but must suffer the blow at this other being’s mercy; he breaks his swap game with Sir Bertilak, but must eventually confront him again and return the girdle; the girdle looped around him becomes a symbol of continued containment, within not only social conventions but also mortality. The girdle becomes synecdoche for the mortal coil: he will wear it “till [he] breathe[s] his last” (2510). The poem’s shaky ending implies that, while Gawain survives this adventure, his fear of death—the reason he accepted the girdle and thus the cause of all his shame—will always pursue him. It Follows. The girdle marks his fleshly flaws, the most obvious of which is mortality.

    So. At the start, I said this story was about survival. Horror stories usually have one lone survivor, but with the added implication that, oho, something spooky’s gonna find ‘em! The creepy doll’s back in the basement! They didn’t kill all the vampires! Something something clawhand! And sure, SGGK does the same, in that it reminds you our hero is mortal. In this failing, however, he has some conspirators in the sense that conspire means “to breathe together” (six feet apart). Gawain returns from Bertilak’s castle, from the lands beyond the map, to Camelot. When he proclaims the girdle as a “badge of false faith” (2511), the other knights each adopt “a belt borne oblique, of a bright green” (2517) to admit their faults along with them. They all will die, but they accept that, and by wearing the ‘belt borne oblique,’ they accept their fear of death. S’all right, bruh. We’re all scared. And no crazy axe-man jumps out at them, either, because this is horror on a much grander scale: the existential horror of surviving in a terrifying world, albeit communicated via dodging giant green knights and hunters and witches in a frail mortal body.

    Well now. I’ve told you what happens. No need to wait for The Green Knight to come out; the book’s all spooky anyway! Indeed, though the upcoming film seems to be leaning towards a surreal psychological thriller, SGGK’s narrative offers many more interpretive possibilities. Gothic. Monty Python. Mr. Punch, apparently. But a film must make strong narrative choices about what it puts on screen, forcing it to choose a more focused interpretation of the text. Literature has ambiguities: white spaces between the lines, in the margins, on the endpapers, and those are where you get to fill it in. (Those also tend to be what you get tested on.) Which is all to say—should you ever be assigned Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, please… just read it.

     

    Further Reading/Homework:

    Borrowable Marie Borroff’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, (or buy)

    Borrowable Simon Armitage’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, (or buy)

    Free transcribed Middle English version (here’s what lines 2077-2211 sound like)

    And much, much more: The National Emergency Library

  • What Starts Here Changes the World-Building: The Forty Acres across Genres

    What Starts Here Changes the World-Building: The Forty Acres across Genres

    Written by Stephanie Pickrell

    Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Or perhaps write an ode to a nightingale? Or maybe even reminisce about walking through an endless sea of daffodils?

    Poets throughout the ages are notorious for waxing sentimental about the natural scenery around them, but depending on where you live, sufficiently beautiful countryside can be hard to find. I, for one, have long lamented the dearth of inspirational settings in suburban Houston. It was a welcome change when I finally came to campus and found myself surrounded by engaging architecture, plenty of foliage, and endless little hideaways to explore. However, the strengths of UT’s scenery lies not only in its beauty, but in its variety. Old or new, welcoming or fear-inspiring, you can find nearly any kind of view on campus if you know where to look.

    Whether you live in Austin or not, we’re all missing campus, so here are a few places that I think are particularly reminiscent of certain genres—from the romantic to the terrifying to the strange. If you’re as homesick for campus as I am, maybe these will give you something to look forward to for when we finally get to come back. 

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    High school again – the Batts/Mezes/Benedict Complex

    Maybe it’s the loud ringing bell on the first floor, or maybe it’s the endless yellow hallways, but something about the east side of the Six Pack reminds me of my old high school. Or at least what my high school would have been like if it had had better lighting and more reliable plumbing.

    The complex has everything a high school should have: the abundance of small rooms, the rows of desks with bright red chairs that squeal like dinosaurs, the aesthetic chalkboards with barely erased cusswords, and the various orgs that claim the rooms for their use after hours. In other words, it’s the perfect place to set a high school romcom. The bell rings and the door flashes dramatically open as the most popular girl in school walks in, miniskirt, heels, and all. She walks by the water fountains and the nerds stare after her, jaws dropping in oval-eyed awe. On her way, she trips our heroine, whose many books go scattering everywhere. Our heroine (who is at this point narrating a self-pitying voice-over) scrambles to pick them up until a tall, handsome stranger kneels to help, and she finds herself falling out of the world and into his deep, deep eyes . . . 

    Ahem. Anyway, whatever your feelings about high school may be, wandering a bit through the halls is a good way to invoke some of that good ol’ high school nostalgia. Encounters with tall, handsome strangers not guaranteed.

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    Don’t look back – the Passage beneath the UTC

    The University Teaching Center isn’t my favorite building for a variety of reasons: panicked memories from orientation, a frequent shortage of chairs in the study areas, and the strange caterpillar benches that look like they were taken from a pediatrician’s waiting room. However, the passage through the building on the ground floor is the worst of all. 

    The lighting is dark, the escalators are covered in decades-old gum, and the smell of the bathrooms seems inescapable. Let’s not even mention the empty plant bed toward the back. Why would anyone bother to bring in dirt for a flower bed that never sees the sun? Unless . . . it’s not really a flower bed, but something worse. Perhaps the resting place of a spirit older than time, brought to this institution long ago by a curious professor who didn’t understand the history he was meddling. Left alone by the students preoccupied with their own petty worries, has it been brooding in silence, occasionally snatching an unsuspecting soul from the shadows? 

    In any case, I never walk here alone, if I can help it. However, it’s the perfect place to set a horror story, so if you’re looking to inspire terror, the UTC is the place to visit. 

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    Another secret garden – Behind Turtle Pond

    Next to the tower and the FAC on the edge of a parking lot is a little greenhouse and attached cottage that resembles a building transported from a different time. Or, perhaps more likely, it was simply overlooked as everything else grew up around it. Still, there’s something strange about it. It exudes an aura of otherworldliness, beckoning gently to those who wonder about its secrets, while from others it hides, letting their eyes slip harmlessly over its panes. Who knows what treasures lie inside? Surely not mere plants?

    Anyway, this little area behind Turtle Pond has always brought to mind some kind of secret garden—hidden in plain sight and surrounded by soothing greenery and the sound of dripping water. Even if you can’t go inside (please don’t trespass!), it’s a delightful little place to walk around and imagine what could be hidden behind the glass.

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    A possibly romantic balcony – Painter Staircase

    But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? Of course, this balcony on the side of Painter Hall hangs over a parking lot rather than a doting Romeo, and the stairs would make the journey to the top more of a simple walk than a daunting climb, but the romantic potential still exists. Oh, Romeo, sweet Romeo! A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but the parking lot only ever smells of car exhaust. 

    I love all the staircases on campus, especially the ones in odd places, but this one beats them all  in terms of placement. It leads to a beautiful blue door placed squarely in the middle of the side of a building, all over the parking lot where I was (twice) almost hit by a car. What’s not to love? Anyway, it’s a great place to consider the serendipity of life and architecture. Just please remember to look both ways before you cross the street.

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    Most likely to be haunted – Littlefield Home

    If you’ve ever been on an official campus tour, you’ve likely heard the story of Mrs. Alice Littlefield, who supposedly haunts Littlefield Home for no reason other than its Victorian architecture. Even though we’re told the building now houses the offices of University Events instead of her ghost, there’s no guarantee that Mrs. Littlefield doesn’t still wander about the premises from time to time. 

    Despite its imposing structure, I’ve always thought that Littlefield seems more likely to house a friendly ghost that bakes cookies and dusts the bookshelves than an evil spirit that leaves blood on the walls. I’ve been fought on this point before, but I get the feeling that Mrs. Littlefield isn’t a malicious ghost. She does the rounds, makes the curtains flutter, does the whispering in the wind and the occasional high-pitched scream, but her heart’s not really into the haunting, you know? In any case, whether you believe in ghosts or not, maybe you can find inspiration for a friendly (or not so friendly) ghost story in the yard. 

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    Etched into stone – the Tower Benches

    Personally one of my favorite places to sit after a long day of classes (weather permitting), the booths by the tower have always intrigued me for the names, insults, and professions of love scratched all over their surfaces. I love the idea of leaving something personal behind for other people to discover, and these seats seem to exemplify that human impulse. What’s the story behind the “Marry Me?” scratched an inch deep into the seat? Or the initials in the heart that someone etched a jagged line through the middle? Or the drawing there that looks kind of like a—oh. Never mind. 

    Still secluded despite its central-to-campus location, it’s a calming place to sit, watch the world go by, and think about the stories of the people who’ve left their mark in the stone around you.

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    Most historic – Waggener Hall

    One of the most satisfying things about campus is that the Classics building looks like a classics building. Maybe it’s the tiny wooden desks still nailed to the floor, or the creaky flooring, or the elevator that is slower than taking the questionably-constructed stairs, but Waggener has somehow preserved the Look of an ancient liberal arts college, and I hope modern renovations never happen. 

    It’s the perfect place to wander around between classes, listening to the snippets of conversation on the merits of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, looking at the signs to the nuclear fallout shelter, or browsing the shelves of the Classics Library on the ground floor (which also looks exactly like you’d expect a Classics Library to look). If you’re ever needing inspiration for a historical novel or just want to find out if nails on a chalkboard is truly the worst sound to human ears, Waggener Hall is the perfect place to visit. 

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    Passage to Somewhere – the Staircase behind Greg

    I owe the discovery of this staircase to a random student who heard a friend and I wondering if there was a way to get to Jester from Patton Hall without going down Speedway—and the answer is yes, there is. It’s a slim staircase that starts from the back of the Patton Hall patio, winds around the back of Greg, and finishes behind Moore-Hill. It’s a nice little path and a perfect alternative to Speedway, if the mere thought of tabling orgs makes you shudder. It also borders the creek by San Jacinto, which means it’s quiet and protected from the rest of the world. 

    One could almost say it’s mystical in its unique silence. Almost as if it hides the entrance to a world parallel to this one, with a UT that is just like ours, but older, stranger, and suffering from dark forces . . . Whether or not you actually find anything supernatural on the path, it’s ideal for imagining passageways to new worlds—or just somewhere less busy. 

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    Dead or only sleeping – the East Mall Fountain

    Another one of the places on campus that lands more on the haunted than the peaceful side of things, the dead East Mall fountain gives off an air of crumbling dereliction. I saw it going once—and the water sprayed well above the second story—but I have lost all hope of ever seeing it run again.

    Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but take into account its prolonged sabbatical and it does seem odd to have such a big fountain that is never kept going. It’s the kind of place that seems like it came out of a John Green novel, where the characters are remarkably aware of the symbolism of their own lives and make up metaphors just for fun. In any case, its elevated position in the east makes it a good location from which to watch the sunrise and have a short-lived relationship filled with too many philosophical discussions. 

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    Hideaway ft. another dead fountain – Goldsmith Hall

    Otherwise known as the Architecture courtyard, this is one of the most well-known picturesque places on campus—with good reason. Besides the pretty blue window frames, the benches, and the colorfully tiled dry pond in the middle (what is it with the number of broken fountains on campus, anyway?), the beautiful pink magnolia trees in each corner bloom every February and shower the courtyard in soft blossoms. 

    It’s a truly nice location and somewhat of a neutral one. It could be anything you wanted it to be, from a romantic hideaway to an example of post-apocalyptic beauty to a garden on an alien planet. It’s a good place to sit in silence and just think for a while in the early morning, shielded briefly from the rest of the hustle and bustle on campus. Just make sure you’re truly alone before you start talking to yourself out loud . . . not speaking from personal experience or anything. 

  • We Cannot Watch Scottish Gaelic Die

    We Cannot Watch Scottish Gaelic Die

    Written by Abbey Bartz

    Whenever I meet someone new in Scotland and they hear my tell-tale American accent, they always ask what brought me to Scotland. I tell them that I am studying Scottish literature at the University of Edinburgh, and, specifically, that I am interested in the Gaelic language and its literature. Their next question is invariably, “Why?”

    The question is always polite, but it is always undergirded with skepticism. Why would a girl from Texas want to come to Scotland and learn about a language that most Scots don’t even speak? Why would someone from so far away be interested in a language that is so close to dying out? Why would anyone waste their time on studying a language that has contributed so little literature to the world? Historically, the Scottish Highlanders—the people who spoke Gaelic—were seen as a barbaric, uneducated, backwards race, with little to add to the civilized, learned societies of the world. This image has shifted over the centuries, to the romanticized 18th century idea of the “noble savage,” illiterate and uncorrupted by modernity, to, more recently, poverty-striven crofters who are just barely scraping by and who don’t have anything to write about. Even today, the Gaelic language is regarded with ambivalence, and sometimes scorn, as seen in my interactions with nearly every Scot I met.

    Their “why” is not a bad question by any stretch of the imagination. The answer lies in the question itself, and in the surprise and skepticism in their voices when they question why I’m choosing to learn about Scottish Gaelic. My interest in the Gaelic language and literature all started with a poem. A poem with a fascinating story behind it.

    In my freshman year of college, I took a class called Intro to British Studies. In that class, we studied an overview of British history and literature, a brief portion of which covered Scottish literature. And it was there that I discovered the first poems I ever loved: a set of epic poems known as the Ossian cycle.

    I admit, up until I read the Ossian poems, I hated poetry. We all made mistakes when we were young, so I hope you can forgive me for that. Until that point, I just didn’t get poetry. For some reason, I could never quite grasp what the poet was trying to say, so all the beauty of the poem was lost to me—I was always too busy trying to figure out what the heck the poet was talking about to stop and enjoy it. But with the Ossian poems, I got it.

    The Ossian poems were purported to have been written in Scottish Gaelic by a Gaelic bard named Ossian, who tells stories of ancient Scottish heroes and their adventures. The collector and editor of the poems was a man named James Macpherson, who was born in the Highlands and was a native speaker of Gaelic. He was an academic and a poet in his own right, even before he published the Ossian poems in the 1760s. Macpherson claimed that the poems came from an ancient manuscript written in Scottish Gaelic, which he had discovered while traveling in the Highlands. Only fragments survived, but Macpherson translated the parts he could salvage into English and published them for all the world to enjoy. The poems became an international sensation—Napoleon is even said to have even carried a copy of the poems with him during his conquests. Clearly I am nowhere near the first person to fall in love with Macpherson’s Ossian poems, and I certainly hope that I will not be the last.

    I don’t think I can explain to you what it was about the Ossian poems that made me fall in love with them. It was probably the knight-in-shining-armor bits that hooked me. I’m a sucker for a good adventure story, especially ones that involve a little romance and a lot of sword-fighting. The Ossian poems had both. And for once, I didn’t feel like I had to work to untangle the mess of metaphors and imagery to get to the story in the poem; it didn’t feel like I was solving a math problem to get to the meaning. I was swept away by the beautiful imagery and the magic of the story. I was so sad that the poems only existed in fragments, because I wanted to read it all. I couldn’t get enough.

    After we had all finished reading the poems and gushed about how magnificent they were, our professor pulled back the curtain on Macpherson’s work—it was all fake, every bit of it. Macpherson hadn’t found any ancient Scottish Gaelic manuscripts; no such manuscripts could have existed, because the ancient Scottish Gaelic society was illiterate. Macpherson had written the entire series of poems himself, very (and I mean very) loosely based on actual poems that existed in the oral tradition of Gaelic Scotland. Macpherson, a native Gaelic speaker, had written the whole thing in English, then translated it into Gaelic to add some legitimacy to his task, then translated it back into English and published it. Many 18th century readers and critics fell victim to his ploy, just as I did, because none of them knew enough about Gaelic Scotland to be able to contradict him. But as people started asking Macpherson questions about his manuscripts, his story began to unravel. To this day, scholars still debate how much of the poems were based on real Gaelic stories and how much were purely Macpherson’s invention. You would think that this would have ruined the poems for me, but actually the fact that the Ossian poems were all forgeries made me love them even more. I loved this added level of intrigue and controversy, which continues to the present day.

    I think very often we take language for granted, as well as the literature in our language. But imagine for a moment what would happen if English disappeared.

    Scholars are still divided on Macpherson’s motives behind the farce. Some believe that he was in it completely for the money and the fame that would come from being the discoverer and translator of such poems. I am of the opinion that he did it in an effort to save a language and a culture that was dying. Macpherson, a Highlander himself, grew up in a time when the British government was vigorously suppressing Gaelic culture, after a series of armed rebellions in the Highlands. He watched as his culture was dismantled, and as the Gaelic language was forcibly replaced with English. In pretending to discover an ancient manuscript in Scotish Gaelic that could stand alongside the epic poems of Homer and Virgil, Macpherson may have been trying to bolster his cultural heritage in the eyes of the cultural elite of Britain. I prefer to think of Macpherson as a hero rather than a crook, because I think that makes a much better story.

    Although Macpherson’s poetry was not authentically Gaelic poetry, he did capture the essence of Scottish Gaelic literature, and his work did spark an interest in the actual Scottish Gaelic poems of the Highlands. This controversy led to many efforts by scholars and Ossian enthusiasts to collect real Gaelic poems—which were still circulated, but through oral recitation rather than in writing—and publish them in collections. Many of the (legitimate) Gaelic poems we have today came from these efforts. In reading the authentic Gaelic poems, one can see that, even though Macpherson’s poems were forgeries, they fit in well with the real poetic tradition of the Scottish Highlands. Macpherson’s poems faithfully recreate the atmosphere present in the actual Gaelic poems and songs, with imagery that captures the brooding feeling of the Highlands and the natural beauty of the landscape. Although his poems were inauthentic, there are real Gaelic poems which are even more beautiful, more captivating, and more exciting than his versions. These poems paint a wondrous picture of Gaelic culture, offering a window into how the Scottish Gaels viewed the world.

    For example, Donnchadh Ban, a Gaelic poet famous for his nature poetry, composed the poem “Song to Misty Corrie” about a mountain he used to live near in the Highlands. And William Livingstone’s poem “Take this Message to the Poet” relays the effects of the Highland Clearances in the late 18th and 19th centuries, when many Scottish Gaels in the Highlands were forced off their land to make way for large-scale sheep farms owned by the newly anglicized Scottish Gaelic clan chiefs. All these poems give different views of the life of the Highlanders, demonstrating the beauty and depth of Gaelic poetry, and why the Gaelic language is worth saving.

    With some Gaelic poems, it is very difficult to find an English translation, as I discovered when researching Alexander MacDonald’s 18th century poem “Am Breacan Uallach” (“The Proud/Noble Plaid”). In this poem, Alexander MacDonald (or Alasdair MacMhaighstir Alasdair, as he is known in Gaelic) expresses his love for the tartan, the traditional dress of the Highlanders, in a time when it was outlawed for many years by the English in an attempt to suppress Gaelic culture. For class, I relied on a translation my professor provided in order to read the poem, but when I searched for a translation online I could find nothing. This demonstrates the need for Gaelic speakers as translators and the lack of scholarship on Gaelic literature. Despite many efforts to save the language and raise the profile of Gaelic literature over the years, Gaelic language is still in jeopardy.

    Today, the language is in even bigger trouble than it was when Macpherson published the Ossian poems in the 18th century. Scottish Gaelic is considered an endangered language, a language that is slowly dying as its speakers grow old and die without passing it on to the next generation. There are only about 65,000 Gaelic speakers left in Scotland today, which means that all the speakers of Scottish Gaelic would only fill DKR stadium a little more than halfway. English is the dominant language in all parts of Scotland, and the vast majority of Scots don’t know any Gaelic at all. In fact, in my eight weeks of learning Scottish Gaelic, I know more Gaelic than most Scots will ever learn. Most of them are not at all bothered by this. They are content to let the language die.

    But that is exactly why I want to learn it. Because I, for one, am not content to let it die.

    Although Scottish Gaelic is—and always has been, to some extent—seen as an inferior language, that does not mean that it is not worth preserving. What few realize is that Scottish Gaelic has a rich literary history, one that goes back centuries. It is a literary tradition that most never give a moment’s thought to, and one most will never dive into.

    Most of us can only access this tradition through translation. Although the translations are often beautiful, much of the sense and feeling of the poem is lost in translation. It is impossible to completely capture the imagery and the rhythm of the poem in the original language in the translated version. If we let Scottish Gaelic die, we will be even farther removed from these original versions. The work of translation requires people to not only know the words of a language, but also understand the cultural weight behind them. If the language dies, we lose the ability to access this cultural cargo. The words become superficial instead of symbolic. At that point, the poetry will fade away because no one will understand the worth of it—just as I have observed with the Scots whom I have spoken with about Gaelic studies. Gaelic is not like Latin, another dead language no longer spoken conversationally. Because of Latin’s historical and cultural dominance (through Rome and those cultures which would invoke it), its literature has not disappeared. But if a minority language like Scottish Gaelic was allowed to die, its literature would die with it, and all the beauty and richness of its literary heritage would be lost.

    I think very often we take language for granted, as well as the literature in our language. But imagine for a moment what would happen if English disappeared. What if English was suppressed, to the point where there was no point in teaching it to your children because they would never be able to use it outside the home, as Gaelic has been for centuries? What stories that have captured the imaginations of generations would we lose? What songs that speak to your very soul would cease to be intelligible? What poems would wither away like flowers in a harsh winter, losing all their life, beauty, and color? What pieces of our culture would be lost?

    That is why I am learning Gaelic. Because when I read Ossian, I felt like I had discovered a treasure trove of beauty, magic, and adventure. As I have learned more and more about the literature and culture of the Scottish Highlands, that feeling has only grown. Knowing that the language is dying, I feel like that treasure chest is about to be slammed shut and tossed into the ocean where it will sink into obscurity, forgotten forever. Most people who dismiss Scottish Gaelic as being unimportant don’t know a thing about the literature that has grown out of it. They have never been whisked away on an adventure by a Gaelic poem, and have never fallen in love with the Scottish landscape because they viewed it through the eyes of a Scottish Gaelic poet.

    And perhaps they fail to realize that Scottish Gaelic poetry is not just a thing of the past. Some contemporary Scottish poets still compose poems in Gaelic, and many Gaelic singers still perform songs that arose out of this poetic tradition over the centuries. Gaelic poetry is not just a relic of a lost age; it can also be a window on today’s world. Gaelic is dying, but it isn’t dead yet. Anyone who disregards Gaelic literature, both past and present, is burying the language prematurely.

  • body and self: the poetry of ire’ne lara silva

    body and self: the poetry of ire’ne lara silva

    Written by Vanessa Simerskey

    irena
    For many, poetry has become an ideal medium for expressing the emotions behind both physical and mental illness; poetry allows writers to be vulnerable and honest in a way that some other literary forms may restrict. One striking example of this expression of raw emotional honesty that instantly comes to mind is ire’ne lara silva’s poetry chap-book, Blood Sugar Canto. In this collection, silva uses her poetry to explore what it means to live a diabetic lifestyle and the impacts it has on the self but also on close family members. As a diabetic herself, silva vividly captures a beautifully harsh and complex realm that she is clearly very familiar with. And I’m not the only one who is moved by her poetry. In fact, Blood Sugar Canto was a finalist in the International Latino Book Award in Poetry and her poetry has been featured in many journals and anthologies such as Acentos Review, Ginosko Literary Journal, Beat Texas Poetry Anthology, Improbable Worlds Anthology, and Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. silva herself will even become an official member of the Texas Institute of Letters later on this year. 

    The poet dives into the relationships diabetics like herself have with their bodies, especially when the body is betraying the self in illness. silva shows how diabetics can love themselves even  – no, most especially – when the internal, the blood, is rebelling against the love diabetics are trying to cultivate.

    ire’ne lara silva is not just a prolific writer but, in the words of Demetria Martinez, she is a “poet-curandera.” A curandero/a/x stems from indigenous Mexican culture and is essentially a spiritual healer. Martinez uses this word to describe lara in a blurb for her poetry chap-book, Blood Sugar Canto. Throughout the book, silva fully embodies the ideas behind the spiritual healing that is curanderismo, as her poems express the highs and lows of living with diabetes and the processes of healing that she provides not just for herself, but for her diabetic readers. The poet dives into the relationships diabetics like herself have with their bodies, especially when the body is betraying the self in illness. silva shows how diabetics can love themselves even  – no, most especially – when the internal, the blood, is rebelling against the love diabetics are trying to cultivate. The journey of self-love is even more so disrupted when diabetics face racial discrimination from their health care providers. The care diabetics, and really any patients, receive from their doctors and nurses is crucial for the physical and emotional healing process. So when a patient experiences discrimination from their care provider, it further enhances the trauma, they’re already experiencing and obstructs a patient’s healing process. silva gracefully and lyrically tears into a world where diabetics must deal with, spar with, and learn to co-exist with an illness and all the pain, shame, fear, depression, love, anger, and hope that accompanies it. What really makes silva the most remarkable what can be summed up in two things: silva’s song-like language and her focus on discrimination within the health care system. 

    As the title of chap-book hints, Blood Sugar Canto integrates the qualities of song into quite a few of the poems. The titles of various poems reference musical forms, for example “love song for my organs,” “lullaby,” “song for fear,” “blood sugar canto,” and “ode to syringe.” With each of these poems, she embodies the song-form established in the title. In “lullaby,” the narrator wants to teach and warn the next generation, the children, to protect their bodies and dreams from the pain and destruction diabetes can bring. Before starting the poem, silva states “for my nieces and nephews,” setting the scene for a lullaby, which are normally sung to children. Next, she breaks her poem into three-line stanzas compiled of repetitive words and phrases like “how do i tell you this gently how do i tell you this so that you hear it //…how do i tell you i want to offer these words.” In the following stanzas, silva repeats other phrases that embody the idea of a lullaby: “i thought // I had taken enough…i thought the odds were on my side i thought i thought.” The repetitive phrases follow the pattern most lullabies follow. I mean, just think about “Little Bo Peep.” This classic lullaby starts each stanza with “Little Bo Peep” (“Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep…Little Bo Peep she searched for her sheep…Little Bo Peep began to weep). Although the poem doesn’t have a rhyme scheme often found in traditional lullabies like Little Bo Peep, “lullaby” uses repetition to remain true to this well-known form. 

    The poem itself is surprisingly honest and startling for a lullaby. silva uses this harshness to teach a lesson in this poem: “you believe someone telling you that with this family // history you are extremely at risk for cancer, heart disease, and yes, // diabetes and all its complications.” However, the structure of a lullaby is designed to be soothing – after all, we use it to ease children into sleep. The harsh honesty silva implements is thus juxtaposed with the expectation of soothing language in a lullaby, creating contradiction but also allowing silva to speak to her readers without directly acknowledging them. Deliberately starting the poem by naming who the author’s intended audience is (“for my nieces and nephews”) allows silva to show the audience the dark lessons parents must teach their children at a young age. Because the poem she wrote is a lesson for the next generation in her family, the audience can understand how harsh and transparent silva must be to save the children from a fate filled with syringes and pricked fingers. 

    As the saying goes, music is the universal language. silva makes use of that fact and employs the beauty of song to speak to multiple different audiences in an understandable way. Songs are used to tell a story and that’s exactly what silva does. By writing poetry that specifically references a musical form, a form many can resonate with and recognize, silva is able to access and speak to a larger audience that will be more receptive to her voice as a Latinx person with diabetes. 

    Many relationships go through hardships; silva simply depicts these hardships when they’re shadowed by illness and how it makes a diabetic romantic relationship unique.

    One common theme in poetry and song is love. So, what better way to reach an audience than to write a love song? silva gives us the poem called “diabetic love song,” wherein she explains to her unnamed lover what their relationship will look like because the narrator is diabetic. A love song might describe a conflict that emerges between a couple, and silva gives us a similar situation, but under different circumstances. “diabetic love song” reveals the authentic and quite a bitter insight to conflicts that would arise in a diabetic’s love life. The poem itself is broken into stanzas that visually follow the form of a song. Each stanza describes a relationship with someone who has diabetes. The first stanza stresses all the experiences she won’t be able to share with her partner: “ i will never go to the beach with you in the summer // i will never share a stack of pancakes with you // i will never stay up all night // tossing back tequila shots or beer”. The second stanza lists the physical things that will litter her partner’s life if they stay with the narrator, like “pills in the morning and … at night,” “one syringe,” “alcohol pads,” “lancets,” and “testing strips.” The beginning of this poem specifically lists and lists all the aspects of what will make their relationship different from non-diabetic relationships. 

    But silva goes beyond the physicality of diabetes. In the middle of the “diabetic love song,” our narrator explores the overwhelming emotions of despair from the disease (“and sometimes i will rail against all of it // howl and gnash my teeth and throw things about”), followed by a softer look at the ways she sometimes has to save her energy for “creating and passion and love and beauty and quiet.” Like most love songs, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel: our narrator is still hopeful. By the end of this poem, the narrator makes a promise directly to her lover that she will “love you always // love you fiercely // love you as if you were the only one i ever loved.” These last stanzas serve to remind the audience that these ubiquitous, passionate feelings of love are present in all types of relationships. Many relationships go through hardships; silva simply depicts these hardships when they’re shadowed by illness and how it makes a diabetic romantic relationship unique. Not all love songs end hopefully, but it seems fitting in silva’s poem because of its ability to provide a relatable feeling that encourages the audience to root for our narrator to have someone who is dedicated, resilient, and supportive of them. 

    The one thing I appreciate the most about ire’ne lara silva’s poetry is her critiques of the health-care system –especially its effect on people of color. silva doesn’t shy away from these hot button issues, instead using her poetry as a space where she can grapple with her frustration towards systemic oppression in the health care system. The racial disparities in health care becomes most clear in the poem “‘we don’t give morphine for heartburn.’” This heartbreaking poem tells the story of the narrator’s brother, who goes to see “doctor dossantos” with the hopes that the doctors will alleviate the extreme pain he is enduring. The title of the poem is a direct quotation from the words of “doctor dossantos,” who initially examines the narrator’s brother, and the doctor states rather harshly,“we don’t give morphine for heartburn”  — despite the fact that her brother is “writhing in pain.” As silva depicts it, doctor dossantos is responsible for setting the precedent for the treatment of the narrator’s brother from future doctors; after dossantos dismisses the brother’s claims of excruciating pain, all the following doctors who examine him take a look at his file with dossantos’ notes, and send him away without another thought. Although this may seem like the narrator’s brother was unlucky to be assigned an incompetent health care provider, this poem goes much deeper than that. It’s the little details in this poem that clue us into the racial inequality silva and her brother are facing. For example, the narrator and her brother went to “the only hospital that took patients without insurance,” where they endured “hours-long wait to see a doctor” who still “wouldn’t listen though I pleaded and pleaded.” We see this is specifically a racial issue when the narrator describes how doctor dossantos saw the narrator’s brother as a “young brown-skinned man with scars and tattoos” and allowed him to continue suffering. This poem reveals the harsh image of people of color’s experience with racist and incompetent health care providers. 

    silva opened a window into a world that I didn’t know needed opening. She shows us a diabetic world where injustice, heartache, and pain coexist with love, hope, and adoration.

    The intense response we get from silva in “‘we don’t give morphine for heartburn’” expresses her extreme frustration along with an appreciation for being persistent in the face of adversity: “i am grateful that we went back and went back and insisted and insisted // but doctor dossantos, I curse your name, every time I pass that hospital.” The way this poem is written reads like a polite hate letter to the doctor who failed to help silva’s brother. Admittedly, a hate letter often creates an assumption that the writer is rash and over exaggerating the actions of ‘the perpetrator.’ However, using poetry as a medium to convey pent up frustrations urges the reader  to stand with silva because the reasoning behind her hatred towards this doctor is extremely valid under the circumstances she describes. As the poem comes to a close and the narrator curses the doctor repeatedly, silva forces us to directly confront our own biases through the use of second person. By using the second person “you,” the reader feels as if the narrator is talking to them directly and as if they are the stand-in of doctor dossantos, who was responsible for the fate of this “young brown-skinned man with scars and tattoos.” Rereading this poem again has revealed to me that her anger isn’t solely meant for doctor dossantos, but for every entity and individual who could have helped her brother somewhere along the chain — the other doctors and nurses, political officials, the medical establishment, health insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies. silva allows us to reflect on the way health care providers treat people of color and, in the process, cultivates frustration within the audience to encourage us to do something about the discrimination against people of color in said system. 

    By the time I finished reading this chap-book, I was unsure if I should cry into a pillow, kick over a trash can, give a hug to all my loved ones, or simply look into the mirror and appreciate the physical-ness of my body, inside and out. silva opened a window into a world that I didn’t know needed opening. She shows us a diabetic world where injustice, heartache, and pain coexist with love, hope, and adoration. ire’ne lara silva truly is the embodiment of a ”poet-curandera”: both an extraordinary poet and an empowering healer.