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  • Literary Lessons from Stand-Up Comedy

    Literary Lessons from Stand-Up Comedy

    Written by Sara Cline

    I’ll be forthright: I’m a stand-up comic. That means I’m absolutely biased in my argument that stand-up comedy should have a place in the literary canon, alongside the likes of prose, poetry, and drama. To my credit, I was a fiction-writer, poet, and English major before I ever stepped foot into an open mic, but the more that I’ve delved into standup, the more I’ve come to see its literary merit. Besides, the definition of literature has changed over time, expanding to include oral traditions like folklore and slam poetry, while other “literary adjacent” forms like film continue to make their way into English classes. Seeing how closely the techniques and goals of fiction-writing and joke-writing align, I’d argue that standup is one more oral tradition worth inducting into the literary canon.

    First off, a lot of jokes simply are narrative fiction. Just take a look at the über-successful John Mulaney, with his long-form storytelling jokes. My personal favorite is “The Salt and Pepper Diner,” in which he details the best meal he’s ever had. (Not-so-spoiler spoiler: it involves 21 plays of Tom Jones’s “What’s New Pussycat?” queued up on a diner jukebox. C’mon, you know you want to watch the clip now.) Jokes like Mulaney’s are stories, so they follow many of the same conventions as fiction; most critically, there must be conflict. To understand why comedy needs conflict, it’s useful to first understand why fiction does. A primary function of conflict is creating stakes: the potential for loss. Whether it’s the threat of death or a missed bus, an uncertain outcome keeps the reader engaged. Conflict is also key for characterization, since we tend to define characters by how they act in the face of obstacles. Through conflict, characters are often forced to grow or change, creating their “arc” or “development.” Most notably, conflict elicits reader emotion—we root for or against the character, empathically invested in their trajectory. These same phenomena all apply to comedic stories. In the above Mulaney joke, we anxiously await the diner’s reaction to the jukebox debacle. Indeed, one definition of comedy is simply “tension and release;” you build audience discomfort and release it with the punchline, and they laugh with relief.

    Another central tenet shared by fiction and comedy is character. Just as novelists must craft their characters with attention to their backgrounds, personalities, and motives, so, too, must comedians. Zach Galifianakis and Rory Scovel are two current examples of standups who play characters in their stand-up specials (if you want to see for yourself, “Zach Galifianakis Live at the Purple Onion” and “Rory Scovel Tries Stand-Up for the First Time” are both available on Netflix). One character that Scovel inhabits is that of a southern bro, reminiscent of many people he met while growing up in South Carolina. (For more on the origin story of this particular character, check out this Oxford American interview.) Characters like Scovel’s “southern guy” fit into the realm of “relatable comedy.” For example, a parody of an overprotective mom is funny because it’s something familiar—we all know a helicopter parent—yet still made strange by being hyperbolized to the point of absurdity. Of course, not every comedian is a character comedian or even an impressionist. And not all comics have a deep understanding of their characters—some characters are still hackneyed embodiments of tired stereotypes. But the most important character for any comic is themselves because the audience wants to hear their unique perspective. If a novel’s narrator isn’t compelling, we shut the book. If a comedian has no unique narrative voice, we shut our ears.

    I find, too, that there’s an interesting overlap between foreshadowing and callbacks. In comedy, the callback is a useful tool in which the comic hearkens back to a prior joke or punchline from earlier in their set. It can have huge payoff, as it combines the funny memory of the original joke with the humor of the new application. Foreshadowing, on the other hand, is the fiction-writer’s (ideally) subtle trail of plot breadcrumbs that lead to the story’s conclusion. In this way, both types of writers are interacting with the audience’s memory. Callbacks are also linked to the “rule of threes,” which is a rule that persists in fiction, screenwriting, comedy, and other forms of writing. In screenwriting, the rule takes the form of “setup, reminder, payoff,” as explained by Dan Olson in his insightful video essay on the editing (or lack thereof) in Suicide Squad. This film device “rewards” the audience for remembering a certain piece of info, much like a callback does. But, really, our brains love the number three because three is the minimum number of elements needed to establish a pattern. Take, for instance, “The Three Little Pigs,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” or the three spirits that visit Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. In comedy, the rule of threes often takes form as setup, anticipation, punchline. Using a list or “comic triple” is a prime example: the comic sets up a pattern with the first two list items and then subverts it for comedic effect, as seen in the age-old “an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman” or “a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead” jokes. Really, any writer can benefit from getting to know the number three more intimately. Some examples in comedy include:

     “When you die there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. When my father dies, he’ll see the light, make his way toward it, and then flip it off to save electricity.” – Harland Williams

     “I can’t think of anything worse after a night of drinking than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember their name, or how you met, or why they’re dead.” – Laura Kightlinger

    I would include a third quote, but you know exactly why I didn’t. Subversion, baby.

     An oft overlooked literary aspect of standup is its poetics. Indeed, Kevin Cummings writes, “Humor and poetry often make use of the same literary techniques, except that humor doesn’t know how to behave for company.” As Cummings further points out in his article “Words That Sound Funny,” words with hard consonants, especially the K-sound, are more likely to elicit laughs. This “comedy K” has actually long been part of comedy lore, though comedians may also haphazardly discover it on their own through trial and error at open mics. Besides diction, poetic techniques like assonance, consonance, and even rhyme—in the form of phrases like “itty-bitty” or “rinky-dink”—are all part of the comedian’s toolkit. Another shared priority between poets and comics is word economy: a joke improves as you “trim the fat,” making it concise and more to the point. As a poet myself, it’s no wonder that my jokes often come in the pithiest form: one-liners. In similar fashion, comedians pay close attention to rhythm and pauses, much as a poet does with line breaks and syllable counting. In fact, Jerry Seinfeld admitted that he counts syllables in his jokes. (For more info about his scrupulous writing process, watch his 2012 New York Times interview here.) Like a slam poet, comedians choreograph pauses into their routine, allowing the audience to digest the words, visualize the scene, and feel the tension, before a quickly-delivered surprise punchline. And then we pause for laughs, too. TLDR: comedians are essentially poets.

    Another literary aspect of standup is its use of figurative language. A major example is irony, which boils down to incongruity—whether that’s incongruity between expectations and what actually happens (situational irony), or incongruity between surface meaning and underlying meaning (verbal irony). Irony is the backbone of comedy, since humor derives largely from subversion of expectations and/or defamiliarization of the familiar. Indeed, in their article about style in standup and literature, Luis Boaventura and Ernani Cesar de Freitas examine how comedians like Seinfeld defamiliarize mundane situations—“such as a trip to the supermarket” or “taking a shower”—and how defamiliarization is a “feature of literariness.” Another figurative device that comedians use to highlight incongruities is simile or analogy. Take these two quotes, for example:

    “Sex when you’re married is like going to a 7-Eleven. There’s not much variety, but at three in the morning, it’s always there.” – Carol Leifer

    “Dogs are forever in the pushup position.” – Mitch Hedberg

    The first example is more overt, but Hedberg’s example works just as well at creating an incongruous, funny comparison. You can’t help but imagine both a human on all fours and a dog doing a pushup. And, of course, like most other literary forms, comedy uses wordplay, puns, double entendres, etc. We can also be very scatological, but hey, so was The Dunciad by Alexander Pope, and he’s widely regarded as one of the greatest English poets.

    Closely tied to irony is the literary genre of satire. Satire is everywhere in comedy. In fact, if we examine the history of standup in the United States (as described by Caty Borum Chattoo in this online pamphlet about comedy’s power for change), we find that standup evolved out of lighthearted and frivolous Vaudeville, but the first “influential breakout household names” were social commentators like George Carlin and Lenny Bruce, “known for taking on taboo topics directly and challenging the status quo perspective on social issues.” It makes perfect sense, too, that social norms are the butt of many a joke, since comedy is all about subverting audience assumptions. Meanwhile, obvious, overdone jokes are referred to as “hacky”—clichés, essentially. Relatedly, mindful comedians know the difference between “punching up” and “punching down.” As Sascha Cohen explains, the difference is “where the cultural power of a joke is weighted”—i.e., are you “punching down” at marginalized people, or “punching up” at privileged ones? Cohen writes, “The idea that humor should ‘afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted’ has been a sort of moral directive for comedians for some time.” Thus, satirical standup is just as literary as a novel à la Mark Twain. In fact, I’d argue that stand-up comedy is the more ideal form for social change because laughing is fun. Laughing at your own biases and faulty logic is way more enjoyable than getting into political debates with strangers on Facebook.

    But can comedy actually lead to change, in practice? Yes. In their study comparing a comedic documentary on global issues (“Stand Up Planet” featuring Hasan Minhaj) to a somber one, Caty Borum Chattoo and Lauren Feldman found that the comedic documentary made viewers feel more “positive affect and a connection to the characters and storyline” than the somber one, which in turn led to greater “awareness, knowledge, and intended action” in engaging with the issue of global poverty. Chattoo has also stated that not only do people pay better attention to complex information when delivered comedically, they also feel “hope and optimism on issues usually portrayed as hopeless – emotions that help to motivate behaviour change.” Moreover, Erika Soto Lamb (from Comedy Central) argues that comedy is ideal for our short attention spans and can highlight the absurdity of situations, like the difficulties women face trying to obtain birth control, as seen in this Inside Amy Schumer sketch. Finally, standup is a great medium for social change because it’s a conversation. As Ian Brodie Cape writes in his article “Stand-up Comedy as a Genre of Intimacy,” standup “is a form of talk,” allowing for “reaction, participation, and engagement” from the audience. Cape’s interpretation rings true, since standup is performed in vernacular, i.e., the way we speak to our friends and familiars, as opposed to the high diction found in most fiction, poetry, news articles, etc. This uninflated language makes standup (and its social messages) more accessible to the common man, rather than simply the educated. Simply stated, we want viewers to be “in” on the joke. Thus, standup may earn not only more laughs than more conventional literary forms, but also more positive social change.

    I suppose that most people would agree that joke-writing is creative writing or storytelling. So, it would make sense that comics use the same tools as fiction-writers and even poets—conflict, character, the rule of threes, figurative language, diction, etc. Still, you might hesitate before referring to standup as “literature.” And that’s fair. One definition of literature (as popped out by Google) is “written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit.” And given the amount of writer’s craft involved and the great potential to create lasting positive social change, I think standup is shaping up to fit that definition. Maybe it’s not literature, but it certainly is literary.

  • Will You Accept this Narrative? The Techniques of Storytelling on The Bachelor

    Will You Accept this Narrative? The Techniques of Storytelling on The Bachelor

    Written by Kayla Bollers

    “Alaya, will you accept this rose?”

    “Of course.”

    Peter Weber hands Alaya the group date rose. Cradling the freshly cut stem between two fingers, Alaya exchanges a knowing look and heartfelt smile with the man she’s falling for. The couple leans in for a warm embrace.

    But her softly murmured “Thank you” is drowned out by abrupt, suspenseful music. The camera pans to one of the many bachelorettes, Victoria P., staring down at her lap and shaking her head. The music crescendos as the camera pans over to the rest of the bachelorettes paying witness to the scene in Episode 4 of The Bachelor, all with crossed arms and vengeful scowls.

    “Ohhh my goodness,” Tammy sighs in a voice over, disenchanted. The scene cuts to her incredulous face in a confessional.

    “Are you freaking kidding me? I didn’t expect Peter to ask Alaya to come back, and now I’m kinda disappointed in him,” she continues. The video cuts again to three other bachelorette confessionals that echo her response. The strings and drums steadily rise in the background.

    In less than two minutes, an innocent, heartfelt moment between two lovers has warped to a much more sinister scene.

    Almost nothing about reality television feels real, but we still tune in to programs like The Bachelor for our weekly fix of over-the-top drama and tantrums that make four-year-old me look tame. Regardless of how much of a train wreck this series is, it makes for a heck of an entertaining story—that’s the reason we find ourselves watching. We love the story reality television sells us. We didn’t just waste those 84 minutes of our lives for nothing; we felt invested enough in these characters, the conflicts, and their resolution to make it to the two minute super teaser at the end of the episode, which promises us a whole ‘nother round of insanity next week. After all, this is a show about 30 girls all fighting for Peter ( bachelor and protagonist)’s hand in marriage for six weeks, in what has to be the most exaggerated fashion imaginable. The Bachelor, and reality series like it, have crafted page turners without pages—an innovation of the cheesy romance novel with new stakes and ferocity.

    The producers, who have an interest in furthering this drama, have pulled some… strange stunts to heighten the tension and build the conflict necessary to any great story. 

    The producers—the masterminds behind The Bachelor—construct a terse (and toxic) environment by isolating the contestants from everything but themselves and their love interest. There’s no internet, no cell phones, no magazines, and certainly no television.  I don’t know about you, but if I was told that I would have to quit my job and move to a mansion with no internet to choose my forever partner from a pool of thirty reality TV contestants , I would say no thanks and run far far away. But The Bachelor provides incentives to stay: clout, publicity, and the chance to be the next star of the complimentary series, The Bachelorette. The elevated stakes designed by the producers reinforce the bachelorettes’ fiercely competitive behaviors and drive so they become compelling characters—an integral component to a sensational story. Of course, we all root for the characters that make ludicrous decisions and follow their hearts, living vicariously through their daring and disastrous journeys. If all goes well for our protagonist, he will live happily ever after with his romantic interest, the love of his life, and we will have witnessed the most incredible love story of all time.

    Luckily for us, all never goes well.

    With high stakes and willing participants, conflict is necessary to give this story a spicy kick and prompt stimulating character development. Fortunately, there’s an abundance of cat fights and spectacles since there’s nothing better to do than obsess over Peter. The producers, who have an interest in furthering this drama, have pulled some… strange stunts to heighten the tension and build the conflict necessary to any great story.

    In the beginning of Episode 1, the producers allow Hannah Brown, Peter’s former lover from The Bachelorette, to return a set of wing-shaped cufflinks that he gave her during their first meeting just a few months prior. In essence, this meeting marks the end of Peter’s time with Hannah and the beginning of a new chapter in his romantic journey. Not only does this “harmless” formality spur protests and shocked exclamations from the ladies, but Peter looks visibly distraught after seeing Hannah, having been reminded of the fresh sting of rejection. Although Chris Harrison, the iconic host of The Bachelor, seems keen on Peter moving past this relationship, the contradictory actions of the producers scream of ulterior motives. Clearly, Peter’s struggle between his ex and his prospective lovers has a much higher thrill factor for the audience than a single man with a clean slate “searching for love.”

    And of course, The Bachelor is infamous for its share of sinister motivations on the part of the ladies. As much as we love to root for a hero, we also love to hate villains, and in this case, the villains of the show are Peter’s lovers. However, none of them fulfill this role on their own—in each episode, a new conflict between contestants comes to light, and weeks of intensive editing of the footage transforms one or more of the participants to embody the villain archetype. What one of Peter’s potential wives, Hannah Ann, claims is an innocent mix up of champagne bottles sparks a three episode-long war between her and another contestant named Kelsey.

    The scandal starts with a scene on a patio with Kelsey and a handful of other girls discussing her plans to share the champagne she brought from her hometown with Peter. Everything catapults downhill from there, as evinced by the shift in music from gentle strings to a quirky synthesizer—a handy move from the producers to signal something disastrous is about to happen. Tensions build as the girls gush at Kelsey’s romantic gesture and ask where she placed the bottle for fear of accidentally opening it. The episode then cuts to a parallel scene with Peter and Hannah Ann, who spot the cute setup on the outdoor fireplace and decide to take a seat. The episode alternates between these scenes six times in the next thirty seconds, with each glimpse with Peter and Hannah Ann playing out the girls’ concerns as they playful shake up Kelsey’s bottle. Finally, in an ironic turn of events, the moment Kiara gushes that she’s “so excited to hear [the bottle],” an explosion rings out in the distance, accompanied by Peter and Hannah Ann’s giddy cheers. The camera cuts to Kelsey’s incredulous expression, and a string of venty confessionals punctuate her outrage.

    The fact that a champagne bottle manages to ignite so much controversy is truly impressive. Accusations fly back and forth between Kelsey and Hannah Ann, but without the pensive music, omniscience of the camera, and calculated arrangement of the footage, this iconic catastrophe (nicknamed Champagne-Gate by the Bachelor fandom) would just be another petty pageant squabble. In this case, the editing of this moment heightened our sense of conflict and artificially ‘exposed’ these women to give them dubious motivations. For instance, from this footage, it seems like Hannah Ann might want to ruin Kelsey’s moment with Peter to eliminate her competition. On the other hand, the footage seems to hint at Kelsey’s emotional instability, especially as multiple girls come to testify about it later on in the episode. Either one of these angles gives us something entertaining and intriguing to focus on—as opposed to what really is just a harmless mix up between two champagne bottles.

    We want a story that pushes our boundaries, gives our desensitized minds a bigger thrill, and keeps us guessing. The Bachelor strives to create such a narrative via video editing strategies and circumstantial manipulation. And although in the back of our minds we know this is messed up—you’re still gonna watch the season finale, right?

  • On Personhood, Communal Experience, And Following The Universe’s Trail Of Breadcrumbs

    On Personhood, Communal Experience, And Following The Universe’s Trail Of Breadcrumbs

    Written by Chloe Manchester

    I.

    In a passage from Zadie Smith’s book On Beauty, she describes a meeting of protagonist Zora and her classmates. 

    “Here were people, friends. A boy called Ron, of delicate build whose movements were tidy and ironic, who liked to be clean, who liked things Japanese. A girl called Daisy, tall and solid like a swimmer, with an all-American ingenue face, sandy hair and more of a salty manner than she required, given her looks. Daisy liked eighties romantic comedies and Kevin Bacon and thrift-store handbags. Hannah was red-headed and freckled, rational, hard-working, mature. She liked Ezra Pound and making her own clothes. Here were people. Here were tastes and buying habits and physical attributes.” 

    Amelie’s eponymous film introduces herself and her family by running through a list of each character’s likes and dislikes. Some Fridays, Amélie sees a movie. “I like looking back at people’s faces in the dark,” she says, “but I hate it in old movies when drivers don’t watch the road.” Amelie cultivates a taste for small pleasures. She likes dipping her hand into sacks of grain, cracking crème brulée with a teaspoon, and skipping stones at St. Martin’s Canal. As for her father, “Raphaël Poulain doesn’t like peeing next to somebody else. He doesn’t like noticing people laughing at his sandals or coming out of the water with his swimming suit sticking to his body. Raphaël Poulain likes to tear big pieces of wallpaper off the walls, to line up his shoes and polish them with great care, to empty his toolbox, clean it thoroughly, and, finally, to put everything away carefully.”

    In his book The Art of Flight, author Sergio Pitol writes that “We, I would venture to guess, are the books we have read, the paintings we have seen, the music we have heard and forgotten, the streets we have walked. We are our childhood, our family, some friends, a few loves, more than a few disappointments.” 

    In To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf explores the intricacies of the mind. Mrs. Ramsey “often felt she was nothing but a sponge sopped full of human emotions.” Lily is excited by the idea that “life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach” and later wonders “what was the spirit in her, the essential thing by which, had you found a crumpled glove in the corner of a sofa, you would have known it, from its twisted finger, hers indisputably?.” 

    No one is quite sure what it means to be a person. Smith says we’re tastes and buying habits and physical attributes. Amelie says we are our own eccentricities. Pitol says we are our experiences, Woolf says we are an amalgamation of our most trivial memories and moments. I’m trying to work it out myself. 

    II.

    Last spring, I compulsively reacquainted myself with Vampire Weekend in preparation for their new album; at the same time, through a friend’s not-so-gentle nudging, I was falling headfirst into Elif Batuman’s campus novel called The Idiot. Through sheer dumb luck, the two converged. 

    I deep-dived into Ezra Koenig’s personal life, his college years in particular, and discovered that he had written a collection of short stories for a writing class. Many an hour was spent bathed in the blue light of a computer screen, searching for said collection. Thousands of Google results later, the search brought me to a surprising source—an article in The Guardian written by none other than Elif Batuman. In her piece, Batuman tells the story of an eager young Ezra who, after having read her article in n+1 about the death of the short story, requested if he could please send her a copy of his own. I was in disbelief: what a coincidence! By some stroke of magic, the internet had revealed some hidden truths, had revealed the human mind at work. Our internal curiosity has the power to form surprising external connections with others. 

    It was cinematic and melancholy, and I set my book down for a moment to sink into it. By the second verse, I had goosebumps; I knew this story, I was holding it in my hands.

    A few weeks later, I found myself reading yet another campus novel, this time Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Absolutely enthralled, I tore through its entirety in two days. Here was everything I loved—English country houses, bright young things, post-war Europe, decadence, despondence, longing. Vampire Weekend’s discography on shuffle provided background noise for my little literary feast, and in another stroke of sheer dumb coincidence, the song “Arrows” came on. It was cinematic and melancholy, and I set my book down for a moment to sink into it. By the second verse, I had goosebumps; I knew this story, I was holding it in my hands. Sitting up in disbelief, I searched the song lyrics on the internet and as chance would have it, learned that “Arrows” is based on scenes from Brideshead Revisited. Some months later, I watched the Brideshead television adaptation and smiled as I hummed along to the score, the same tune as “Arrows.” 

    Is that what life is? Uncovering the invisible breadcrumbs left for you and you alone, traversing a never-ending neural network that is yours to explore? These moments, or as Batuman phrases it in her aforementioned article, this “wonderland of hidden connections,” are not coincidences, but truly distilled magic, small doses of meaning that enchant us and reward our curiosity. They remind us of what it means to be a person, stumbling from one discovery to the next, swept up in life, a vital component in the motion of living.

    So exciting are they, and yet we can’t find the words to convey their significance when explained to another. They mean nothing to anyone but ourselves because of the myriad of little pathways traveled to reach the realization. But that’s the sum of a life lived, a hodge-podge scrapbook of memories and pathways that only hold meaning to us.

    These quiet incidents of recognition are different for every individual, but unite us in that we all experience them. There’s no telling what these things might be, they strike out of nowhere, always pure and coincidental. So exciting are they, and yet we can’t find the words to convey their significance when explained to another. They mean nothing to anyone but ourselves because of the myriad of little pathways traveled to reach the realization. But that’s the sum of a life lived, a hodge-podge scrapbook of memories and pathways that only hold meaning to us. It reminds me of the felix felicis potion in Harry Potter that smells differently to each person. Hermione smells freshly mown grass, new parchment and spearmint toothpaste; I imagine I’d smell rain on hot asphalt, Redken Anti-Snap, and Diva laundry detergent. Arbitrary details. Yet in truth, rain on hot asphalt evokes a sense of freedom, of mischief, of summer thunderstorms that would roll into town and save me from Saturday morning swim meets. Anti-Snap smells like love, gentleness—my mother combed it into my wet, tangled hair every night after bathtime. Another random detail of life, insignificant at first glance but intensely revealing of one’s personhood when we choose to share them.

    III.

    Maybe knowing someone is an endeavor measured by facts in a matter of degrees. Consider my friend’s roommate. Aparna is vegetarian, she’s teaching herself to play the violin, she studies biology, she was born in ‘99, has one younger brother, speaks a bit of French, and could eat celery and peanut butter every day without tiring of it. By most standards, it would be fair to say that I know Aparna. But by that definition, you could come to ‘know’ anyone by asking a series of questions, committing them to memory, and then regurgitating them later to prove your knowledge. Knowing someone this way mirrors studying or memorizing, but it’s not the same as the intimacy that might come from knowing the scent of another’s liquid luck, or being familiar with their daily idiosyncrasies and joyous habits. I could have gathered every single one of those details from her Instagram or Twitter in the span of half an hour. Therefore, knowing someone can’t be about collecting and committing to memory.

    We’re idiosyncratic, we’re physical attributes and tastes and buying habits, we’re our childhoods, our loves and losses, we’re the tip of an iceberg, we’re made up of little separate incidents that together form the whole of our being; we’re all of this.

    Earlier in the semester, I went to the most bizarre party. It was an RTF party and I walked in armed with a set of assumptions and judgments as to who I thought these partygoers might be. Climbing the stairs, I could hear the new Vampire Weekend album floating through the door before I even reached it. I went inside and saw the host, Jack, dressed exactly like Ezra Koenig—tie-dye socks, Tevas, short shorts and big t-shirt. This was no costume party, the mimicry was unintentional. How could he not know, how did he not see himself as the caricature I saw? Something else caught my eye not long after. I made my way to the bookshelf, strategically placed in the hub of activity, begging to be looked at. Infinite Jest, The Dharma Bums, Woody Allen on Woody Allen; it was like a prop advertising its owner as the most quintessential film student on earth. Again I asked myself, how could he not know? Why is it that people are unable to see the pathways or connections that we do as onlookers? Why is it that people are unable to see themselves as we do? That’s unfair of me, isn’t it, to assume that I know Jack (or at least know enough to condescend) because of how he dresses himself or because I’ve seen the books he chooses to display? (God knows what my own bookshelf proclaims of me.) But I have no way of knowing what he’d smell if he leaned over a boiling pot of felix felicis. Like Smith, I assume his personhood when all I truly know are tastes and buying habits.

    We’re idiosyncratic, we’re physical attributes and tastes and buying habits, we’re our childhoods, our loves and losses, we’re the tip of an iceberg, we’re made up of little separate incidents that together form the whole of our being; we’re all of this. Maybe because we’re able to recognize this about ourselves, it’s conceivably much easier to understand ourselves than it is other people. Taking the time to explore our own minds allows us to recognize our constant growth. The problem with trying to pin down others lies in the fact that people are not static. We might think we’ve come to understand someone only for them to immediately contradict our expectations. We don’t have much in the way of fixed identity. We have traits and tendencies, idiosyncrasies and predispositions, but when we try to know others, all we do is draw lines between the is and the is not. They are this, they are not that, and so on forever. These boundaries will box one in. If personhood is nothing but a collection of random boundaries, then those boundaries are apt to move.

    In short, measuring and defining who a person is in a concrete way is impossible. Boundaries shift, people change in unexpected ways, or we discover aspects of their selves  that were hidden all along. Sometimes they do things and they don’t know why. We recognize this fluidity in ourselves, yet we rarely cut others the same slack we would extend ourselves. So we can’t know others, but we can know ourselves. The most we can do is seek out the distinctive magical moments that color our days and try to remain aware that like us, others have their own complex inner worlds where dots are connected by their own unique, seemingly random events.

  • Lessons in (Im)mortality: What We Can Learn from Vampires

    Lessons in (Im)mortality: What We Can Learn from Vampires

    Written by Stephanie Pickrell

    Think, for a moment, of a vampire. Consider the young woman languishing across a couch, neck bared, and the tall, pale figure lingering over her, lips bathed a bright, delicious red. Or the creature hovering outside the sweeping balcony windows, silhouetted by the soft glow of moonlight, with a face as smooth as wax and fangs that reach too far down its chin. Or better yet, the devastatingly handsome stranger across the school cafeteria, too pale and too perfect to be human, with an aversion to sunlight and in possession of a miraculous anti-aging cream. Regardless of the varied vampire varieties that appeared in your head, each is still recognizably a vampire.  In fact, the variety of vampires present in literature and film is a testament to the vampire’s unique versatility. The vampire has proven adaptable for a creator’s every need, and has even been instrumental in introducing ideas ahead of the times (including this recent adaptation of Dracula by Kate Hamill).

    But what, exactly, is a vampire, and why is it a creature that we keep reviving and redefining?

    Is it a walking corpse, or an apex human predator? Scientific experiment gone wrong, or monster as old as time? An unfeeling psychopath, or an expert in scenting human emotions? The devil himself, or simply an unfortunate human being? It’s a remarkably customizable form; we’ll accept nearly any representation of it as long as it involves a thirst for blood and some sort of immortality. But surely we’re not obsessed with vampires in all their versions because we all secretly want to know what blood tastes like. So maybe it’s because we’re fascinated by the idea of immortality, and want a taste of something beyond life and death. As human beings, death is the inescapable calamity, the great equalizer, the one experience that we all fear and share. Vampires, however, have found a way to cheat the system, and it’s that loophole that makes them intriguing enough to turn to time and time again.

    Before writing this article, I asked some people for their thoughts on immortality, and I got a wider range of answers than I had anticipated. Some said they’d feel an increase in motivation, because they would feel free of the pressures to find a job and start a family. Others said they’d be more engaged in political life and activism, because they’d have a chance at seeing drastic change come about over the years. Still others said they’d be nicer to people because they knew they would have to see them die, while a few said they’d be less nice to people, because everyone would eventually leave them anyway. Nearly all mentioned the need to leave a legacy before their death, and how the pressure to accomplish it changes once the deadline is removed.

    All of these thoughts are represented in the vampire canon. Vampires are, as far as we know,  human creations, made by mortals imagining immortality. More than a way of fantasizing about eternal life on earth, vampires also allow us to decipher our priorities in mortal life. Here are a few lessons in (im)mortality, brought to you from our favorite vampires:

    Dracula (1897), Bram Stoker

    The second-most iconic vampire today (behind Edward Cullen, of course) as well as one of the most purely horrifying, Count Dracula may not seem like a first choice of who to go to for life advice. However, if you give him a chance, you’ll find that he’s quite reflective for someone with no actual reflection.

    The Count can be hard to understand at first glance (given that none of the novel comes from his point of view), but we do get the occasional piece of dialogue from him that gives us some insight into the pain that comes with immortality. When discussing his future housing plans with his poor, oblivious guest, Jonathan Harker, he makes this sentimental admission: “I am no longer young; and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth.”

    Did the Count once have a family? Did he once have a childhood? We have no way of knowing. But what is clear is that the Count loved somebody at one point, probably multiple someones, and those losses still affect him profoundly.

    The Count affirms that the presence of death is inevitable for everyone—mortal or immortal. He also validates our expressions of grief. If the Count, who is centuries old, still mourns for the people he once knew, why should we expect to move easily past grief within a few mere years or decades? However, we don’t have all of eternity to mourn, either. The Count’s grief teaches us that grief is inevitable and continuous, but warns us against spending the rest of our lives avoiding the sound of laughter.

    Interview with the Vampire (1976, 1994), Anne Rice

    As one of the first stories to really address the vampire from the vampire’s point of view, Anne Rice’s novel offers plenty of commentary on the struggles of vampirism, and the film adaptation (based on her screenplay) continues what the novel started. One of the strongest lessons on the costs of immortality comes from this scene in the film, where Claudia, a child vampire turned at the ripe age of five, demands her guardians, Louis and Lestat, tell her why she was made a vampire. As a vampire, she is unable to change or grow, and thus is permanently stuck in a miserable purgatory between child and adult.

    Claudia teaches us that change is good. Immortality is the complete denial of change, even change as simple as getting a haircut. As she ages in soul but not in body, Claudia experiences the burdens of existential adulthood without having the mental and physical capacities to truly deal with it. Mortality gives us a deadline that not only allows us to change, but forces us to do so. As mortals, we have a chance to recognize our incredible affinity for progress and improve ourselves sooner rather than later.

    Twilight (2005, 2008), Stephenie Meyer

    While Twilight may be the vampire movie everyone loves to hate (see a recent limerick take down from Hothouse’s very own Lindsey Ferris), it still offers a unique perspective on the benefits of immortality as opposed to its disadvantages. As this incredibly sappy scene at the end of the final movie says, the answer to living forever and not suffering from grief, existentialism, or boredom is . . . love! Specifically, love found with one person who is also immortal and sparkles in the sun. After all, Edward and Bella are not the only perfect couple in the movie—the entire Cullen family is coupled up. In fact, it is Edward’s single status that gives him the angsty teen vibes the girls in the movie (and your middle school) fell for—despite the fact that he’s 104 years old.

    If the only way immortals can live happily ever after is to find true love with another immortal, at least the expectations for mortal love aren’t quite as high. Us humans don’t have eternity to find our soulmates, but at least we have other things to sustain us, like personal growth and planning for our retirement. In other words, love isn’t as much of a requirement for mortal life as it is for immortal life. Either that, or we have to find our soulmates as early as possible . . . I think I’m going to go with my first interpretation.

    What We Do in the Shadows (2015)

    As a mockumentary, What We Do in the Shadows pokes fun at nearly every possible portrayal of vampires, but there are still some (moderately) serious lessons to be learned from it. In this heartwarming scene, vampires ranging in age from eight thousand to twenty something years old learn to appreciate a new mortal friend, Stu. Stu is able to provide his vampire friends with IT support and access to the outside world—both of which they have lived without for so long, stuck in the conventions of their time.

    Stu, as a mortal, reminds us that even though we die, we still have an advantage over immortals: While they have to continually learn the customs of the time, we learn them like a mother tongue. Is immortality really worth it if technologies and customs over time are so difficult to comprehend that  one must rely on a mortal for help? As mortals, we have the ability to fluently experience our lives in the context of our own time—we are the experts of our own IT systems.

    Though often monstrous in a certain, er, light, there’s definitely more to vampires than immediately meets the eye. From the serious to the silly to the sentimental, vampires teach us about ourselves by possessing exactly that which we can never have: immortality. These are just a few of the many lessons that can be learned from observing immortal vampires, but unfortunately, we won’t know more unless we can interview them directly ourselves. To any vampires out there reading this, you know where to find me.

  • Black Creative Greatness: Hothouse Staff Picks to Celebrate Black History Month

    Black Creative Greatness: Hothouse Staff Picks to Celebrate Black History Month

    Julia Schoos, Editor-in-Chief 

    “Voice of Freedom” by Phillis Wheatley

    I was first introduced to Phillis Wheatley in our very own Dr. Woodard’s class on African American Literature Through the Harlem Renaissance. While certainly not a contemporary black author, Wheatley more than deserves recognition during Black History Month. A young girl enslaved in Boston, she utilized her classical education as well as her status as a “celebrity slave” to become the first African American woman to be published—and disavow slavery in the same breath. In “Voice of Freedom” Wheatley produced a masterwork of poetry which, in its protagonist’s dialogue, bears undeniable confirmation that Phillis Wheatley is an abolitionist and most certainly abhors the dark deeds of slavery, regardless of any perceived equivocacy of her earlier poems. Through its ferocity, the poem and Wheatley herself continue to astound readers in the present just as they riveted them in the past.

    Honorary mentions: anything written and created by Daveed Diggs, as well as works by Maya Angelou.

    Kylie Warkentin, Managing and Website Editor

    “I Remember Clifford,” performed by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, featuring Lee Morgan on trumpet

     

    Originally composed by jazz tenor saxophonist Benny Golson in memory of the immensely talented jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown after his tragic death at twenty five, “I Remember Clifford” is one of my very favorite jazz standards. And though there have been many notable interpretations of this threnody, I love this 1958 performance by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers featuring Lee Morgan on trumpet the most. Something about the way Morgan shapes each note turns me into a melancholic sap, missing moments and people that seemed close just seconds ago.

    Alyssa Jingling, Marketing Director

    Guava Island, directed by Hiro Murai

     

    My favorite work by a Black creator is the (hour-long, TV-length) musical film Guava Island, which was produced by Donald Glover. He also starred in the film (alongside Rihanna), and he created the story. His brother Stephen Glover wrote the screenplay. As a visual artist I am drawn to the scenic and costume design, but the story is also striking and beautiful. It is framed as a flashback story that Kofi (Rhianna) is telling her child about the creation of Guava Island and her relationship with Deni (Donald Glover). When narrating the creation of the island, Kofi says that “the seven gods of the seven lands created the dueling truths: love and war.” The progression and ending of the film beautifully illustrates that concept and encourages viewers to create fun, joy, and community in the face of hardships and sadness. It’s about an hour long and can be found on Amazon Prime Video (free for Prime members).

    Andilynn Feddeler, Design Editor 

    Summertime ’06 by Vince Staples

    My favorite album is Summertime ’06 by Vince Staples because it reminds me of a very pivotal couple years of my life, during which I was learning to manage my emotions, my time, and myself. He has an album for every genre and a song for every emotion—his versatility as an artist is what draws me to him, even if I don’t like everything he releases.

    Christie Basson, Website Editor 

    Citizen by Claudia Rankine

    “Standing outside the conference room, unseen by the two men waiting for others to arrive, you hear one say to the other that being around black people is like watching a foreign film without translation.”

    I think every person should read Citizen by Claudia Rankine at least once. Part poetry, part memoir, part art, this book is a testament to difficulty of being Black in America. Rankine, through the course of the book, discusses micro-aggressions, police brutality, stereotyping, personal trauma – but she keeps coming back to the internal injustice built into the backbone of America and the ways in which Black citizens struggle to find their identity as Americans when they are so often mistreated. The book travels between retelling of personal experiences, her poetic musings on identity and trauma, and references to current and historic culture.

    Jeff Rose, Fiction Editor 

    Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison

    This short book is one of my favorite of Morrison’s works, because she writes about the complexity of Black representation in literature, often at the hands of white authors writing what they think Blackness is. This book is a treasure tome of writing advice, a masterclass in how to write about identity and people, and a testament to Morrison’s genius when it comes to race and literature. One of the quotes that stays with me as a writer is: “My vulnerability would lie in romanticizing blackness rather than demonizing it; villifying whiteness rather than reifying it. The kind of work I have always wanted to do requires me to learn how to maneuver ways to free up the language from its sometimes sinister, frequently lazy, almost always predictable employment of racially informed and determined chains.” Here, she questions her own biases as a writer, and strives to better write Blackness, and reify whiteness. Read it, reread it, then keep rereading it over the course of your writerly and readerly life.

    Josephine Yi, Nonfiction Editor

    The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

    This is the first novel in Jemisin’s afrofuturist series titled Broken Earth. The Fifth Season can (and should) be widely celebrated for its achievements in the realm of fantastical world-building alone. In this story, Jemisin utilizes elements of post-apocalyptic storytelling to reimagine and honor the supernatural-like powers and resilience of black people resisting oppressive environments and institutions.

    Sara Cline, Poetry Editor 

    Black No More by George Schuyler

    First off, the novel is a literary landmark: some scholars cite it as the first full-length satire authored by an African American, and it’s one of the earliest examples of black sci-fi / afrofuturism. The premise of the book is that a black scientist creates the technology to turn black people white. No one is safe from Schuyler’s lampoon: his caricatures and plot devices are delightfully absurd and ruthless. He runs the premise to the extreme, making the novel increasingly dark, unbelievable (and yet, at the heart of things, believable), and funny. You will be equally tickled and disturbed.

    My honorable mentions include “Let Me Handle My Business, Damn” by Morgan Parker, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Cane by Jean Toomer, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, and “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston.

    Kennedy Lily, General Staff 

    The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

    One of my favorite books is The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. I love The Bluest Eye because it is one of the first books I read that discussed the trials young, dark-skinned Black women face living in a society based on Eurocentric beauty standards. This book is an important read because it can educate people about the pressures Black people feel to assimilate into Western cultural norms.

    Stephanie Pickrell, Website Staff Writer

    Shahid Reads His Own Palm, poems by Reginald Dwayne Betts.

    Poetry unafraid and unapologetic, of the beautiful as well as the true. Sentenced to nine years in prison at sixteen, Dwayne Betts explores the consequences of a civil system that too few think about.

    What fascinated me most about these poems is the sincerity in its depictions of desire, as well as the characters that spring from the pages, ghosts, but nevertheless real. It’s a collection intended to change anyone who reads it, and I recommend that everyone does.

  • Kilt It: The Successes of Scottish Storytelling and Literary Greats

    Kilt It: The Successes of Scottish Storytelling and Literary Greats

    Written by Abbey Bartz

    If you walk up George IV Bridge towards the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, you will pass by an unassuming red cafe called The Elephant House. Even on the gloomiest of Scottish winter days, when the wind is howling and a cold rain dribbles from the sky, tourists stop and take pictures here. If you have never opened a guidebook about Edinburgh, you might wonder why these people choose to stop here. It looks like nearly every other coffeeshop you have ever seen, set apart only by its bright red front and elephant-shaped sign. This coffeeshop is proof that you should never judge a place by its appearance. For it was here, in this ordinary little cafe, that J.K. Rowling penned part of Harry Potter.

    I’m sitting in this very cafe now, eating a scone with strawberry jam and clotted cream, drinking a latte, and soaking up the magic that J.K Rowling left behind. I’m hoping that by being here, I’ll absorb some of her literary talent. I’m also secretly hoping Mrs. Rowling will walk through the door herself and offer to have a cuppa with me. One can dream.

    The Elephant House is one of many places worthy of literary pilgrimage scattered throughout Scotland. Scotland is very proud of its literary figures, especially of those who were born in Scotland (although Rowling wrote much of Harry Potter here in Edinburgh, and has lived here for many years over the course of her life, she was born in England, so I’m not sure she would identify herself as a Scot. And I’m not sure the Scottish would claim her as such, either, but that’s another story). Two of Scotland’s native literary sons–Sir Walter Scott, novelist extraordinaire, and Robert Burns, pre-Romantic poet–crop up time and time again throughout Scotland. Their influence is scattered across the Scottish country and throughout Scottish history and culture, reaching far beyond the pages on which they wrote. As you travel through Scotland, you will find monuments to them in many cities, and a museum dedicated to them in nearly every town in which they lived. 

    Mark Twain famously accused Sir Walter Scott of starting the American Civil War, because Scott’s novels, which were reportedly widely read by the plantation owners of the time, led Southern gentlemen to imitate the clan chiefs of old.

    Sir Walter Scott was a famous novelist in Scotland in the late 18th and early 19th century. He was born in Edinburgh, just blocks from the University of Edinburgh where I’m studying for the semester. He is known for writing some of the world’s first historical fiction novels, turning Scottish history into fictional dramas punctuated with descriptive scenery from the Scottish landscape, to wide appeal. One could argue that he is partially responsible for creating the romantic view of Scotland and the Scottish Highlands that many (including me) hold today. Scott wrote about Highland clans and culture, about the Jacobite Risings, about chivalry and loyalty and warfare. And although many Americans these days (at least most that I have encountered), have no idea who he is, he was once a literary phenomenon in the States as well. Mark Twain famously accused Sir Walter Scott of starting the American Civil War, because Scott’s novels, which were reportedly widely read by the plantation owners of the time, led Southern gentlemen to imitate the clan chiefs of old. Their big plantation houses and ideas of chivalry, Twain said, were attributable to the images of lairds Scott created in his books. This claim is interesting to me, although I don’t personally buy into the idea that a Scottish author is single-handedly responsible for a war that had more to do with slavery than chivalry. Although I admit that I have read very few of Scott’s novels (one, if we’re being completely honest), I could see the romantic appeal to the way he renders the Highlands and its culture.

    But writing is not Scott’s only claim to fame. If you go to Edinburgh Castle and see the Honours of Scotland (the sword of state, the crown, and the scepter), his name pops up in that exhibit as well. Why, you ask? Well, after Oliver Cromwell took over England in the 1650s, the Scottish people endeavored to hide the Honours so that they would not be destroyed. They did such a good job of it that the Honours were lost for a hundred years. Sir Walter Scott, with his love for Scottish history and the status he’d developed from being a famous novelist, was given royal permission to search for the Honours of Scotland. He found them in a chest under Edinburgh Castle, and became a hero. He was given a title for his efforts (hence the “Sir”) and got his name into the history books of the country he loved so much.

    There are museums in honor of Scott scattered all across Scotland, mostly along the region bordering England. There is also a gigantic gothic tower dedicated to him on Prince’s Street in Edinburgh, and another monument to him in Glasgow. It is clear that the Scots are very proud of him, and have made every effort to ensure that he is remembered.

    Robert Burns is another literary figure that Scotland is extremely proud of. Robert Burns was a prolific poet in the late 18th century, who came from a humble background, rose to literary fame, and died at age 37. Although his life was short, it was not without impact. He is known as The National Bard of Scotland, drawing on the rich history of poetry in Scotland. Burns remains one of Scotland’s most famous poets, writing in Scots and in the Scottish dialect of English. Most Americans probably don’t know that they are familiar with at least one of his works: the song “Auld Lang Syne.” 

    As the band played the familiar notes on an accordion and a violin, everyone on the dancefloor joined hands and sang the entire song, swaying back and forth to the music.

    Although in America this song is reserved for saying goodbye to an old year on New Years’ Eve, here in Scotland the song is used to close out many events. For instance, it is often played at the end of ceilidhs, traditional Scottish dances, an event that I have experienced firsthand. As the band played the familiar notes on an accordion and a violin, everyone on the dancefloor joined hands and sang the entire song, swaying back and forth to the music. I only knew the first verse, and was surprised when the song picked up at the end and people started jumping around as if they were at a rave. The song, which has a sort of archaic and somber tone to it back home in America, is lively and joyful here. 

    The Scots are so fond of Rabbie Burns–as they call him– that they still celebrate his birthday, 223 years after his death. January 25 is known as Burns Night, a night for having ceilidhs and fancy dinners serving haggis, neaps, and tatties, which together comprise the national dish of Scotland. Burns’s poems are recited, and “Auld Lang Syne” is sung at the end of the night. Although I didn’t engage in the festivities (not because I didn’t want to – I just didn’t know about the events in time to buy tickets to anything), I did observe it from the periphery. I saw men and boys dressed up in kilts and women wearing fancy dresses, headed off to celebrate their beloved poet.

    Burns, like Sir Walter Scott, has many museums and monuments dedicated to him. There is a monument on Calton Hill, near the city center, commemorating his life and his contribution to Scottish literature and culture. His birthplace, the town of Alloway, now has a museum dedicated to his life. And both he and Scott are commemorated in the Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh.

    Although Scott and Burns have both been dead for a long time, the Scots celebrate them as if they were alive and well. They are regarded as national heroes for their huge influence on the cultural framework of Scotland and their effects on its history and landscape. It is awe-inspiring to see them commemorated and celebrated the way that they are. 

    Although many Americans may not know Sir Walter Scott or Robert Burns off the top of their heads, in their own day, these two men were just as famous as J.K. Rowling. Although Scott and Burns have both been dead for a long time, the Scots celebrate them as if they were alive and well. They are regarded as national heroes for their huge influence on the cultural framework of Scotland and their effects on its history and landscape. It is awe-inspiring to see them commemorated and celebrated the way that they are, because in America, authors don’t generally get monuments dedicated to them, and their birthdays certainly aren’t celebrated as national holidays. Although in certain circles, writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald or Emily Dickenson are spoken about with reverence, their art and lives don’t touch all aspects of American culture; they don’t receive the same sort of recognition as Scott and Burns do here. I think that’s a real shame. Americans are missing out on the fun of celebrating writers, and simultaneously are not giving literature the place of reverence it deserves in our cultural identity.

    I’ve finished my scone now, and J.K. Rowling still hasn’t turned up. Oh well, it was worth a shot. I suppose I’ll walk down to Blackwell’s, the bookstore, for a wee while and see what new Scottish authors I can find. Blackwell’s has a whole wall of shelves dedicated to Scottish authors, including several contemporary authors who are following in the footsteps of Scott and Burns. Authors like Irvine Welsh, who wrote the internationally acclaimed novel Trainspotting, or Ian Rankin, one of Scotland’s most famous crime writers, or James Robertson, who writes about Scottish current events in his fiction. Perhaps I’ll encounter some up-and-coming authors that will someday be as revered as Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns. There is a vibrant literary culture here in Scotland, so I will have no shortage of things to read on those rainy and cold Scottish days. Although I can’t say I am particularly fond of the weather, with all the books and authors around here, I could be convinced to stay here forever.

  • Curiosity, Killed: The Deeper Meaning of Cats

    Curiosity, Killed: The Deeper Meaning of Cats

    Written by Natalie Nobile

    One of the stranger things Tom Hooper said about Cats (2019) was that it was “about the perils of tribalism” (Vulture). Director Hooper, you are a bold one. Unfortunately, between all the CGI and Jason Derulo and catnip and snot, Hooper’s ‘message’ seems to have failed to reach the audience. To assert that Cats comprises such relevant social commentary, Hooper must be convinced of Cats’ potential to actually mean something, anything, at all.  Does Cats really hide some deeper meaning?

    The musical adaptation called Cats, whether on stage or film, has roots in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot. Surely he, author of such cryptic works as “The Hollow Men” and “The Wasteland,” could not aimlessly meander through descriptions of cats without inscribing some hidden coding, some indelible mark on his material which must appear in all its iterations. What secrets may we discover by plumbing the depths of the Jellicle soul? Are Jellicles really “allegorical cats” and “political cats,” as stated in “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats?” To truly analyze the soul of Cats, we must cast our minds back—back to before Judy Dench (as Old Deutoronomy) propositioned Ian McKellen (as Gus the Theater Cat). Back, to before “Memory” so paradoxically juxtaposed realistic snot and emotive CGI cat ears.  Back, to the version where Mr. Mistoffelees has only two speaking lines (AS IT SHOULD BE). I speak, obviously, of the 1998 filmed performance.

    Here we must search for meaning. First, allow me to set the scene for you: a variety of cats introduce themselves in a junkyard. Ignore the temptation to dismiss this as Dada, and you will discover a rich plot hidden under the… what’s on their heads, anyway? Are those stripy merkins? A helpful guide amongst the Jellicles lays out the purpose of their gathering, the Jellicle Ball. At this ball, various cats will perform in hopes of impressing their leader, Old Deutoronomy. This old kitty cat gets to choose who ascends to “the Heaviside Layer” and is thus “reborn”(“Invitation to the Jellicle Ball”). Grizabella, apparently an outcast, appears intermittently with sad songs and a mysterious past. At one point Macavity, “the Napoleon of Crime” (“Macavity the Mystery Cat”), cat-naps Old Deutoronomy. Shenanigans ensue. Finally, Old Deut chooses Grizabella to ascend, granting her new life and re-acceptance.

    A mess. A stinking, furry mess, incomparable to any created by your own personal feline, yet a mess nevertheless. What motivates these characters? Why do they want to ascend—doesn’t that mean dying? Ha. Cats concerns itself not with such petty matters. We must look beyond trite conventions like ‘plot’ or ‘characterization’ to discover its secret message. And to that end, we have at least one common thread to follow. First and foremost, the thread of introduction: each Jellicle cat hoping to ascend presents either the story of their life or the foundation of their identity. For “The Old Gumbie Cat,” this means sleeping on “any place that’s smooth and flat,” but also directing mice and beetles towards “gainful employment.” For “Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer,” it’s mischief and mayhem, with a heaping side of theft.  Etc., etc. Clearly the cats like to ham up their oversized personalities.

    The second main thread pulls us closer to the truth.  The Jellicles define—and debate, and defer—the meaning of ‘Jellicle’ throughout the musical: Are Jellicle cats “rather small,” or “not too big,” or “roly-poly” (“The Jellicle Ball”)? Some say they’re “black and white,” but I have observed, “with my very own eyes,” a number of other colorations (“Jellicle Songs”).  Both the threads of introduction and ‘Jellicle’ shall guide us through this musical’s jumbled contradictions.

    Now the first thread of ‘introduction’ implies an audience, which appears in the songs as ‘you.’  You who?  “The Rum Tum Tugger,” between smokin’ dance moves from John Partridge, lets slip a frightening fact about the mysterious ‘you,’ via the line “if you put me in a house…”  And who would put cats in a house? Humans, of course! Strange though it may seem, the final number confirms our suspicions. In “The Ad-dressing of Cats,” Old Deut breaks the fourth wall—or at least, whatever ruins of it remain—and instructs his human audience on “how… you ad-dress a cat.” Old Deut explains it thusly: having “learnt about [cats’] proper names,” we (humans) now know that “a cat is not a dog.” Excuse me? He further demands that we supplicate each cat’s “personal taste” with “some caviar or … salmon paste”; what gives him the right?! And more importantly, why leave us with this injunction? The introductions make even less sense when directed at humanity—Why do I need to know their ‘proper names?’ We must accumulate more evidence. We must watch the whole thing. Out of all the Jellicle songs (and there are many), no clear theme emerges but for the aforementioned introduction one, and the fact that apparently, everything from tap-dancers to railroad assistants to magicians counts as ‘Jellicle.’ No straightforward answers as to why they’re letting humans observe, or what the limits of their tribe might be. But maybe the exception to the rules can instruct us: Grizabella, who strayed from the Jellicle way. Grizabella, whose introduction comes neither from herself nor her friends, but from her enemies, loaded with loathing and fear.

    By comparing the outcast Grizabella to her Jellicle rejectors, we can discover what qualities she lacks, and thereby reconstruct the definition of ‘Jellicle.’ Grizabella, who “was Grizabella the Glamour Cat” (“Grizabella”), visually diverges from the others. She has red nails and heels, a ragged coat and a sparkly dress; but these by themselves seem acceptable in Jellicle society, considering that celebrated members like Jennyanydots, Bustopher Jones, and Mr. Mistoffelees all wear some article of clothing (tap shoes and a hat, a full suit and spats, and a luminous jacket, because magic). But only Grizabella has ‘ears’ which are, in fact, clumps of hair from her wig. A highly human-hair-looking wig— not furry or fuzzy, but curly. Does the Jellicle identity depend on ears and fur? Do Grizabella’s follicular challenges justify her expulsion? If Jellicles truly despised human characteristics to the point of shunning her on that basis, they would hardly put on a performance introducing themselves to humans, would they? Grizabella’s earlessness simply hints at another feline failing.

    Note that in previous songs, not only the Jellicle appearance was emphasized. Jellicle abilities take center stage in “Jellicle Ball,” in which they claim that they “know how to dance a gavotte and a jig” and can “jump like a jumping jack.” In “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” ‘can’ appears 27 times; ‘do’ appears 21 times. They even explicitly claim that they’re “faithful and true/ To others who do what/ Jellicles do and Jellicles can”—whereas Grizabella’s attempt to dance fails (“Grizabella’s Rejection”). In comparison to the other clothed cats’ costumes, hers appears disheveled and dirty: “The border of her coat is torn and stained with sand” (“Grizabella”). Without a “merry and bright” appearance, or a “cheerful face,” or the ability “to practice [her] airs and graces” (“Jellicle Ball”), Grizabella cannot participate in the mutual performance at the Jellicle Ball, the mutual debate of what ‘Jellicle’ means. On her intrusion, the cats remark, “Who’d have ever supposed that that/ was Grizabella the Glamour Cat?” (“Grizabella,” emphasis mine). Her name and title lie in the past, because she is incapable of performing her own persona.

    Aha! Our threads of introduction and ‘Jellicle’ converge! Persona, which must be performed to exist, provides both motivation for introduction and an explanation for the fuss over ‘Jellicle.’ Rather than any scientific category or duty-defined profession, ‘Jellicle’ is a shared persona created by its performers—the Jellicle cats. Thus arises the importance of performative ability, without which cats like Grizabella cannot participate in the mutual definition of what ‘Jellicle’ means. Despite her inability to actually perform the ‘Glamour Cat’ persona, Grizabella still clings to her previous moniker. In “Memory,” she can only “smile at the old days/ [she] was beautiful then,” because the ‘Glamour Cat’ exists in memory alone.

    “Memory” poses an anomaly: out of 21 unique songs, only three draw from material other than Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. “Grizabella the Glamour Cat” and “Memory” were adapted from “Rhapsody on a Windy Night.” The inclusion of T.S. Eliot’s non-feline-centric work signifies a serious tonal shift, and the musical begins to focus on the serious message at the heart of all this cat tomfoolery. Grizabella’s tragedy—the loss of her established Jellicle persona—catalyzes the cats into moving from songs of comic frivolity to introspective contemplation. “The Moments of Happiness” represents a drastic departure from the self-concerned songs of the first act. Adapted from Eliot’s “The Dry Salvages,” this song explains—ostensibly to the Jellicles but mainly to us human observers—that “the past experience revived… is not the experience of one life only/ But of many generations.” Memory, then, forms not only the basis of each cat’s persona, but allows it to be revived, becoming part of all Jellicles’ memories and thus part of all Jellicles. “Let the memory live again,” said Grizabella; and that’s just what the Jellicles do.

    For although our former Glamour Cat may “smile at the old days” (“Memory”), she can no longer cling to her old persona. As age encroaches, “the memory is fading” (“Memory: Reprise”). She must, instead, form a new persona—in the magical logic of Cats, a new life. And so Old Deutoronomy grants Grizabella that “different Jellicle life” (“Old Deuteronomy Chooses the Heaviside Layer”) via a trip to the Heaviside Layer. This literal rebirth hides metaphorical layers, for like a philosophical wardrobe, it opens to grant us passage along with our heroine. When a kitten reprises “Memory” just prior to the Jellicles accepting Grizabella, it revives and re-experiences the Glamour Cat’s ‘fading’ memory. Grizabella’s authentic self, laid bare in “Memory” alone, now joins the symphony of other Jellicle personae as a communal effort. Together, despite all their contradictory definitions, these cats perform a shared social persona of ‘Jellicle-ness.’

    Still, why should the cats put their memories on display for humans to watch? We aren’t merely interlopers whose presence they tolerate, and decide to include at the last moment—it can’t be that simple. No, Old Deutoronomy has yet a deeper message for us. If our questions on the importance of introduction and the definition of ‘Jellicle’ lead to the answer of ‘persona,’ why should cats be instructing us on why their personas matter? More directly: why should the Jellicle persona matter to humans? Why should we take care of cats’ “proper names,” “personal taste[s],” and other details of personae (“The Ad-Dressing of Cats”)? Why must we remember that “a cat is not a dog?” If a cat isn’t a dog, could it be something else? And why should Old Deut so gently tell us, “Cats are very much like you?”

    Like me? Not a dog? My god. I understand. A cat is not a dog! These cats are not dogs— they’re people! This is a musical! A false play, put on by people in cat costumes! Are you so easily deceived? Wake up, sheeple! Wake up and listen to the truth I proclaim: We are people in human costumes. Just as the cats fuss over the definition of ‘Jellicle,’ we too fuss over the definition of ‘humanity’—are we clever and tricky, or emotional and candid? Of moderate size, or roly-poly? Can we tap dance? Can we control the railway train? Can we sing sweet ballads of yore? Yet this too is nothing but “endless masquerading” (“Memory: Reprise”). We fear the social alienation that Grizabella experienced, but most of all we fear that unlike Grizabella, our memory will not be received, or remembered, or re-accepted. We fear that society, our shared persona of ‘humanity,’ will reject our authentic, tap dancing selves. In the end, then, maybe our Jellicle Journey has taught us something about the pitfalls of attempting to create one shared identity.  Maybe it’s about the dangers of a cult narrative, or the hazards of groupthink, or the menace of… Um…

    Screw it.  It’s about the perils of tribalism.

  • Fun Size: The Modern Appeal of the Short Story

    Fun Size: The Modern Appeal of the Short Story

    Written by Vanessa Simerskey

    Short story. Definition supported by Oxford: “A story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel.” While this definition is accurate, I believe I can write a better one. Let’s try this again. Short story. Definition provided by yours truly: A story that presents a snapshot, not a video, into a world the author crafted, and focuses on a particular moment or set of moments. Can’t forget to mention they’re typically meant to be read all in one go.  While this is pretty good (if I have to say so myself), I think there’s one more definition that can one up even my own. Let’s try this one last time. Short story. Definition from short story author, Sherrie Flick: “For me, the writing of short stories is more philosophical, requiring first a sound idea and a brave concept.  That concept is then whittled down to smaller, more precise ideas and becomes a matter of describing the big world through a small window.”  While excellent, even this definition is just a definition. It doesn’t fully explain all the reasons why short stories are worth reading. Luckily, that’s what I’m here for. To tell you why they’re a gratifying, engaging, and refreshing form of literature.

    There are a slew of people out there who genuinely cherish reading but, like most hobbies, find it challenging to maintain. As someone who is desperately trying to be an avid reader of novels, finishing a book gives me a surging sense of pride and accomplishment. However, for the 21st century reader (like myself!), finding time to squeeze in reading a novel can be tricky when the majority of your time is devoted to other daily responsibilities. You eventually just add reading a few new books to your New Year’s resolution again, or to the endless list of things you vow to yourself you’ll do soon (and soon is never as soon as you’d hoped). For those of us who fall squarely in this disappointing category, I present: the short story. 

    The benefit short stories provide  stems from their intrinsic shortness. Short stories can not only be read fairly quickly, but they also create similar feelings to those felt after the arduous task of finishing a novel. This compelling genre of literature is the ideal solution to many who want to cultivate their hobby of reading while also juggling long shifts at work, between the back to back classes along with the maintenance of semi-vigorous workout routine and the attempting to cook semi-healthy meals for yourself. . 

    However, not everyone wants to cultivate this hobby – there are plenty out there who aren’t the biggest fans of reading, and might even, dare I say, hate it. It’s understandable to lose interest when a story isn’t instantly captivating or doesn’t resonate with the reader, but it makes many believe they’ll forever hate this solitary pastime. For these poor unenlightened souls, short stories can stand as a bridge to bring non-readers to the realm of literature – a way, if you will, for them to test the waters before committing to diving in. 

    Short stories, in their infinite versatility, can appeal to yet another group of people entirely: those looking to expand their reading palate. This type of literature is perfect for giving readers a convenient way to experiment with authors and genres. Nervous about reading an entire science fiction novel? Intimidated by an author like David Foster Wallace? Reading a short story grants you the opportunity to dip your toes in the waters and try out styles and genres of writing that you might otherwise be opposed to. Readers can also expose themselves to a variety of cultures within and beyond their country’s borders in the span of ten pages. Yes, it’s true that other forms of literature can achieve this same goal, but short stories provide more condensed and intimate snapshots of another community’s culture, familial relationships and aspects of everyday life. A short story, by its finite page or word count limitations give us as readers less opportunities to establish a clear historical and cultural context. Therefore each word, phrase, and sentence is carefully picked and placed (like a flower in a bouquet, so to speak) to create the backdrop for these stories. 

    It is the nature of short stories for the thrill of the unknown to be a prevalent feeling for readers. Some short stories authors reveal less information to provide a gap for creativity; when the story is on a word count crunch, readers get the chance to fill in the blanks (like a cooperative game of Mad Libs) and mustn’t take any word for granted. Sherrie Flick, writer of the flash fiction chapbook “I Call This Flirting,”  discusses in a radio interview the process of short story writing and her goals for the readers. “I want them to think back on the story years later and add their own sub-plots, characters, and details. Ideally, the story expands beyond the page, and the reader is active in that expansion,” she says. From small details and clues the authors did include, readers can speculate about what happened before or after the short story or figure out other context information about the characters and setting.  

    At this point,  I’ve hopefully peaked your interest and stimulated your brain waves a little to convince you, dear reader, that short stories are worth your while. I’ve curated a list of five short stories that I believe emulate the best aspects of what makes a short story transcendent and worth your time.  

    1. “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez

    In this short story, Márquez demonstrates the  best of magical realism when a strange and mysterious old man with enormous wings shows up in the backyard of a local family who lives near the beach. As the (presumed) angel suddenly becomes the town’s idea of a zoo animal, Márquez offers a new perspective about the way communities handle the unknown and how people can profit from the oddities of the world. The reader, throughout the story, keeps asking questions – who is the old man, how did he get to the beach, and what exactly does the ending mean? Márquez, with his brilliant skill can introduce you to the world of magical realism while also forcing you to reflect on how society may treat outcasts and he does it in under 3,000 words. Although originally printed in Spanish in a collection named La Hojarasca, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” was published in a translated version of Márquez’s collection called Leaf Storm. Marquez has mastered the art of writing fantastical short stories and if this one peaks your interest, the Harry Ransom currently has an exhibition featuring this celebrated and extraordinary writer. 

    2. “Speech Sounds” by Octavia Butler

    “Speech Sounds” is a wonderful blend of dystopia and science fiction. Butler produces a story set in a future version of Los Angeles where society experienced a major foundational societal shift that spurred violent outbreaks and constant fear. The main character Rye is faced with multiple life threatening choices (like should she trust a stranger she just met? Should Rye engage in the violence when the people around her begin to ?) that reshape her identity and her future going forward. Through Rye’s eyes, Butler captures a restless world of chaos that’s only saving grace is to figure out how to effectively communicate with one another. Butler is a great stepping stone into the realm of science fiction for those who are hesitant to dive into the genre. “Speech Sounds”appears in two of Butler’s collections, Bloodchild and Other Stories and Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. Whether you’re really into dystopias or never really got into the Hunger Games, Butler will strike your fancy with her take on a society that struggles to (quite literally) understand one another and establish their own voice, especially the voice of the woman.

    3. “The Management of Grief” by Bharati Mukherjee

    Set in the mid 1980s of Toronto, “The Management of Grief” tells the story of families who were impacted by the (real life) terrorist bombing of an Air India airplane. The story  follows the seemingly calm Shaila as she processes the next excruciatingly painful chapter of her life after losing three immediate family members. Many face denial, others seek humor, and some crave isolation, but Shaila seems to act naturally as if she is in complete control of her grief and has found peace. Though many others in her community look up to her as an example for how to manage grief, Shaila isn’t exactly as put together as she may seem. Shaila’s internal struggle is beginning to burst forth and she must go on a journey of healing that may conflict with her cultural traditions and gender norms. Mukherjee uses a short story format to condense a historical moment while creating a learning opportunity for the readers to take note of and understand (and even criticize ) the outcomes of this catastrophic event. But even if you’re the most stoic person, Mukherjee will make your eyes glisten at one point in his heart-rending short story. “The Management of Grief” is  published in her collection The Middleman and Other Stories

    4. “Real Women Have Bodies” by Carmen Maria Machado

    From the beginning of “Real Women Have Bodies,” there’s a looming eeriness that never seems to fade away (inside joke if you read the story). Machado constructs a seemingly normal world but with a perverse and surrealistic twist that involves a contagious and unusual disease. After becoming intimate with the dressmaker’s daughter, Petra, the narrator finds herself at a crossroads when she discovers how this strange disease and the local dress shop (which our narrator also happens to work at) are entangled. Machado uses this story to criticize beauty and body standards and the dehumanization of women if they don’t meet those expectations. The author focuses on ideas revolving around gender violence, body image, and sexuality in this story and throughout the rest of the collection. Machado has a captivating writing style that is just as strong in her other works  – this is an example of an author who might lure you in with a short story but have you stay for a novel or memoir (Dream House is definitely worth looking into). “Real Women Have Bodies” was published in Machado’s collection Her Body and Other Parties. 

    5. “Children of the Sea” by Edwidge Danticat

    Danticat’s “Children of the Sea” focuses on two correspondents: the first is a man writing from sea in the process of escaping from Haiti, the second, his lover who is still in Haiti with her family. The repressive political corruption evident throughout the story is emblematic of parts of Hatian history during the late 1950’s and how it permanently traumatized and displaced many Hatian citizens. By hearing the profound exchanges between a divided couple facing these grim circumstances, the reader not only empathises with their great suffering but is told a lesser known history about this island. “Children of the Sea” retells history from the inside rather than simply stating facts. The way the love story is mixed into a highly dangerous and political world is what makes this story especially beautiful and heartbreaking.  “Children of the Sea”is a part of Danticat’s short story collection Krik? Krak! 

    6. “Little Miracles, Kept Promises” by Sandra Cisneros

    “Little Miracles, Kept Promises” is a story that tells multiple stories about Mexican-Americans. A multitude of deeply personal letters written in Spanish and English (sometimes a combination of the two) along with mementos are left  on an altar, each asking God or the Virgin Mary to answer their petitions. Each prayer has its own unique voice that gives a glimpse of the challenges faced by each individual. Whether it’s a young woman begging to find a good man or a thankful father raving about his healthy new-born son, Cisneros provides an intimate insight of the role religion plays for Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants. “Little Miracles, Kept Promises” is featured in Cisneros’ collection Woman Hollering Creek. 

    Other stories worth mentioning include “The Swimmer” by John Cheever, “A Temporary Matter” by Jhumpa Lahiri, and “Mrs. Perez” by Oscar Casares. Also written by authors above:  “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado, and “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros

    Let’s be real. Putting this list together was pretty difficult. Narrowing down this list from my original 20 to 6 was one of the most agonizing things I could ever do but these…these are the strenuous lengths I would do for the sake of sharing the unending possibilities of short stories with the world. These precious, beautifully crafted tiny balls of writing are worth sharing about just as much as they’re worth reading about. Authors carefully selected the right words (conscious of their word count limitations) and carefully crafted language to capture a moment in a universe filled with precious lives, breath-taking sights, the heavy burden of tragedy, and  all the small things that make life unique as well as terrifying. Now please do me the biggest favor: stop reading this article – no seriously stop – and go read a darn short story. 

  • The Four Letter Word: Unspoken Ways the Website Staff of Hothouse Shows Love

    The Four Letter Word: Unspoken Ways the Website Staff of Hothouse Shows Love

    This Valentine’s Day,  Hothouse’s website staff decided to rebel against cynicism and scorn commodification—they wrote about the different ways they experience love. From a wedding to a quinceañera, read on to discover how love appears (in all its forms!) to each website writer.

    Christie Basson, Website Editor:

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    This photo is from my parents’ wedding day and I love it for the way my dad is looking at my mom—I feel like that one glance says more than words ever could. This is also one of the few photos I have of my grandfather, who passed away when I was little, and so it means even more. I found this in an old box in my grandmother’s house and when I asked if I could have it, she nodded and said she understood exactly why.

    Kylie Warkentin, Managing and Website Editor:

    Pan with vegetables sauting

    I’m not very good at mincing onions because I have no wrist strength and cry a comical amount around the third or fourth cut. I’ve recently discovered the punch of red onions, which podcasts complement my Sunday morning meal prep, and that you can put soy sauce on basically anything and credibly refer to it as a stir fry. Barry Jenkins, director and co-writer of Moonlight (2016), said “When you cook for someone, that’s a deliberate act of nurturing. This very simple thing is the currency of genuine intimacy.” All of my roommates joke about how terrible I am at cooking, but help me cut a sweet potato and lend me flour for vegan pumpkin muffins, anyway. I wake up every day with my peanut butter toast and coffee and learn.

    Abbey Bartz, Website Staff Writer:

    “I hope you never lose your sense of wonder

    You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger…

    I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean

    Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens

    Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance

    And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

    I hope you dance”

    – “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack

    I was a daddy’s girl growing up. Whatever my dad was doing, I wanted to help, whether it was fixing something in the garage, gardening, or going to Home Depot. Country music is my dad’s favorite, so country songs became the soundtrack of my childhood. My dad always had a country CD on in the background at home, or a country station on in his truck when he drove me home from school. Some of the songs that we listened to over and over again back then are still my favorites today. He and I still talk about music together, each of us letting the other know when we’ve found a song we think the other will like.

    Among all the other useful skills he taught me, from plumbing to gardening to woodworking, my dad taught me to dance when I was little. He used to waltz and two-step through the living room with me. Even now, I can recognize waltz almost immediately when I hear it, although I have sort of forgotten how to waltz. He re-taught me to two-step recently, now that I’m old enough to go out and two-step on my own.

    Kayla Bollers, Website Staff Writer:

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    They pull you close to their chest. When your arms tighten, so do theirs. Your hearts beat in unison between your ribs as you soak in body heat and tears. Their joy is yours, and your sorrow is theirs. In that moment you are warm, you are safe, you are home.

    Leah Park, Website Staff Writer: 

    We were driving home from the hospital and my uncle told me that my bedridden grandmother wanted to apologize. When I asked why, he told me she felt bad that we had to go visit her all the time at the hospital for all these years. She still wanted to go to Disneyland together, a promise she made so many years ago. My eyes went misty and I said thank you out the car window.

    To think my grandmother had remembered a promise she made to a toddler so long ago, despite having suffered hardships such as hospitalization and the loss of her legs as well as the loss of her hearing and vision. I loved her a lot, she still is a big inspiration to me to this day.

    Lindsey Ferris, Website Staff Writer: 

    Darkness presses against my eyes as I lie in bed with warm covers pulled up to my neck. My mom lays beside me and her pressure pushes down the mattress until my small body curves into her side. We’ve been whispering for the last hour and had slowly lapsed into silence. Just soaking in the other’s presence before bed time called.

    Natalie Nobile, Website Staff Writer: 

    “I can’t smile without you

    I can’t laugh and I can’t sing 

    I’m finding it hard to do anything” 

    “Can’t Smile Without You” by Barry Manilow

    Ah, a sharp cheddar from the very god of cheese.  Describing love by the hole it left, Manilow’s up-tempo lament mourns not only a lost partner but also what he lost with them: the smile, laugh, and voice of his previous self.  “But Natalie,” you say, “He’s… using his voice to sing.”  Aha, well, by the time of performance, he’s regained that voice— the song expresses hurt from a later, healed perspective.  Due to its irrepressibly fuzzy nature, I will jam out to it in public, whenever, wherever.  WITNESS ME.

    Stephanie Pickrell, Website Staff Writer

    x

    I thought I loved the rain,
    but it was just the sound
    of you pacing in the kitchen
    when it was too wet to go outside
    and the slow, sad sigh of your breath
    in the air.

    — by Stephanie Pickrell

    Vanessa Simerskey, Website Staff Writer:

    “Life’s not the breathes you take

    But the moments that take your breath away

    Just like it took my breath away when she was born”

    “The Breath You Take”  by George Strait

    My dad chose this song to dance to for the father-daughter dance at my quinceañera. At first, my adolescent mind didn’t quite understand why he picked this song. But as I continued to listen, I began to appreciate the meaning behind the lyrics. He picked this song to remind me how much he cherished the memories of me growing up and how he’d always be there for me. As I listen to it now, I remember my uncoordinated feet spinning around on the dance floor along with every time he stood by my side, believed in me (when I couldn’t), and loved me unconditionally.

  • The Heavy Wings of Hate: On the Flightlessness of Subjection

    The Heavy Wings of Hate: On the Flightlessness of Subjection

    Written by Leah Park

    The ability to move freely through the air, to see the world from a different perspective; the exhilaration of the wind rushing past your face, the power to carry yourself so far from the ground that once entrapped you on this earth: winged flight has always enraptured the human imagination. From the Greek tales of Daedalus and Icarus’ winged escape to the beautiful, powerful sextuple-winged seraphims found in many religious texts, humans have often revered the ability  to escape the wretched binds of gravity. It is due to this inherent reverence that wings (and their ability to give the power of flight) have been used to symbolize an inhuman power or a transcendence of the human condition. A Biblical verse I have often seen adorned upon family friends’ living room walls or stitched into upholstery in furniture stores – it’s even captured on a statuette by my grandfather’s bathroom mirror – describes the very act of the Christian Lord carrying believers up on said wings:

    “…but those who hope in the Lord

        will renew their strength.

    They will soar on wings like eagles.”

    Isaiah 40:31, NIV

    In modern culture, wings are still very much present in literature and film. Disney’s Maleficent and Falcon from the Marvel Cinematic Universe are both winged characters who use their wings (natural or mechanical) as symbols of transcendence, Maleficent being a powerful sorceress and Falcon using his wings to become a hero for the masses. Wings often lift a character from the general populace, transcending them and empowering them into a symbol of maturity and power. However, not unlike any device explored in literature, there is an alternative viewpoint — wings as oppressive or empty instruments, rather than ones of transcendence.

    The subversion of winged imagery in modern literature is evident in young adult literature, notably in James Patterson’s Maximum Ride.  The young adult series focuses on the ventures of a group of mutated children led by the title character, Maximum Ride. The members of the group were each genetically fashioned with a pair of large, feathered wings in a laboratory focused on the furtherment of human evolution. Despite this angelic figure, they are far from your typically powerful, angelic archetype. These children are messy, rowdy, and all-in-all very much regular young adults. One of the characters is even called the “Gasman” due to his constant flatulence, a very human debasement. They are very much just human children (with the addition of wings fashioned upon their backs).

    These children are not considered by the readers (or even the characters themselves) as “transcendent” from the human race, nor are their wings considered empowering. Maximum in particular considers her mutation a stressful burden, as she states in Angel Experiment, “In the dictionary, next to the word stress, there is a picture of a midsize mutant stuck inside a dog crate.” The group of mutants not only perceive themselves as ostracized from society, but are fearful of the human society that created them. This is evident from the beginning of the first novel, which opens on a morning routine that shows the characters’ isolation from the outside world in a household on the outskirts of human civilization. Even during their interactions with society, they often use fake identities, unable to satisfy many of their needs legally due to their inability to procure money. One such moment is when the group enters a fast food establishment for a meal and Max remarks that “[they have] Dumpster-dived for lunch on many occasions….” and that “the Castle Room would have been neat, if [she] didn’t hate crowds, sticking out, grown-ups, feeling paranoid, and spending money.” Maximum is acutely aware that she and the rest of the winged children “stick out,” and she is constantly paranoidly looking over her shoulder for members of society that seek her wings. The characters’ seclusion from the rest of humanity is not voluntary and even trademarks of their characterization – like the strong bonds they have formed with each other – are only products of their constant persecution from the scientists who target the wings on their back. 

    Paradoxically, although these characters feel ostracized by humanity and experience the need to isolate themselves for their own safety, they still consider themselves human and try to become like the society that spurns them. One such example would be their names, which each character chose for themselves in rebellion against the numbers they were assigned in the laboratory. Another example would be their birthdays and ages. The scientists never told each child their real age and birthdays so the children fashion themselves their own – another way to assign themselves marks of humanity. Due to their wings, these children were never truly a part of society, and despite their angelic appearance they were treated poorly by the very humans that created them. 

    Because of these wings, the main cast serves as a hyperbolic example of label-seeking youth and the way in which young people try to place themselves in society. Patterson uses the wings as a vehicle to symbolize the ostracization that young adults feel during this period of their lives and the ways they self-assign labels and seek those like themselves. Wings, in this way, symbolize not empowerment but a burden of growth and evolution, a difference that causes a group of young adults to create their own mechanisms to fit themselves into society. Instead of the expected empowerment of winged beings, Patterson displays, instead, winged beings seeking out the “normalness” of human society – an inversion of a well-established trope. 

    This subversion of wings is no new concept. “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez similarly explores the ostracization and burden that wings can bring for the characters who own them. This story tells of a couple who finds a dirty, senile old man with large wings during a long rainstorm. Convinced that the old man is an angel who has come to take away their sick child, they keep him in their chicken coop, using his unique appearance and the superstition around his angelic form to earn money from curious onlookers. Eventually, his novelty fades away and he is forgotten, left in the rotting chicken coop as the villagers move on with their lives and their attentions are diverted elsewhere. For a while, he seems close to death, but the old man finds his strength once more and grows new feathers. The story ends as he flies away, becoming “an imaginary dot on the horizon of the ocean.”

    The old man serves as a subversion of the typical angel, being old, parasite-ridden, and unable to speak Latin – the apparent language of God. It is due to this off-kilter appearance and his appetite for “eggplant mush” (which he prefers over the recommended “angel food” – mothballs) that many are later convinced that he is no angel, but merely an old man who happens to have wings. It is widely accepted by both the villagers and, indirectly, the reader that the old man’s wings signify no apparent social clout.. They merely serve as almost dead-weight upon the old man’s back, not empowering him nor lifting him above the village in any bigger way. The oddity of the wings also lead to the man becoming a sideshow for the couple that keeps him, and pilgrims come from across the lands to come see this supposed angel. When visitors see that the old man is unlike the angels they have been taught to expect from their beliefs, they quickly mistreat him, plucking his feathers and branding him before eventually forgetting him in favour of a travelling oddities show and the spider-woman they keep. The old man isn’t even afforded a name (further demoting him on the social scale) and he definitely isn’t paid for his service to the couple.  The chicken coop he sleeps in allegorizes his role as the couple’s metaphorical domesticated animal, whose existence is meaningful only for what it brings his owners. The wife, Elisenda, is extremely annoyed when the old man wanders into her house — despite the fact that it is due to the old man that the couple could afford the house in the first place. As the story progresses, he is continuously dehumanized, removed from society and treated as less-than because of his wings. His angelic appearance loses its worth when society realizes his wings do not provide the man with any power. The old man’s wings thus act as a symbol of ostracism, rather than being a connection to angelic transcendence or power. 

    The old man is not unlike the young adults of Patterson’s novel as he invokes angelic imagery while subverting the human expectation of the grand angels from Biblical imagery. His winged yet unangelic disheveledness leads to society ostracizing him by making him a spectacle, the couple taking advantage of this to earn money. The contradicting religious reverence yet spectacle-making awe of humankind makes the old man an outsider, and the old man cannot escape until he goes through a “molting” stage – he essentially loses his feathers before regrowing them and only then is strong enough to fly away. The old man’s wings do not serve as a way for him to become the bigger-than-human religious figure that the pilgrims and villagers seek. In fact, it is due to these wings that he finds himself trapped in a chicken coop in the first place. The old man’s wings serve not as an image of frightful religious power, but instead leads to his use as livestock and his designation as an outsider. In the end, the only power the old man had had – his ability to take children- is thwarted as well when the couple reveal that they have built a house “with iron bars on the windows so that angels wouldn’t get in.” 

    Marquez goes as far as to directly reference the empty symbolism of wings – at one point, the priest delivers a sermon ro remind the villagers that the devil often tricks the unwary and states that “if wings were not the essential element in determining the difference between a hawk and an airplane, they were even less so in the recognition of angels.” The old man’s angelic imagery, then, has the ability to be… empty. His wings are useless, serving no greater purpose to him or those around him. They did not empower him – in fact, they remove the village’s fear of winged idols and angels and eradicate the reverence that the village and pilgrims carried for wings. His wings are like those of any other winged beast – his feathers can be plucked (without him exacting punishment) and he will grow them back. The appearance of wings is subverted so they become the thing that readers can pity the old man for, instead of serving to symbolize transcendence. It is these very wings, at the end of the short story, that carry him away from society instead of serving as a tool that lifts him to an elevated status among the villagers. Like Patterson’s children, he is most comfortable fleeing the oppression of society. 
    James Patterson and Gabriel García Márquez both, at different periods of time, explore the topic of winged humans and how wings contribute to not transcendence but rather their ostracization from society through Maximum Ride and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” Rather than using wings as a positive symbol of empowerment, they are ostracizing to the characters that possess them. Patterson uses wings as to represent the turbulent and ever-changing growth that the group of young adults leading the novel are going through. The old man with large wings in Márquez’s short story, on the other hand, represents the negative aspects of the old man’s religious novelty and the possible emptiness of winged imagery. Both literary works utilize and subvert the symbol of wings and the invoking of angelic imagery. Many symbols in literature can often find this duality in their metaphor. Rain can be the harbinger of renewal and new life, and yet also of melancholy and mourning. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter the innocuous red letter upon Hester’s breast bears a symbol of martyrdom and sacrifice, despite its original symbolism of adultery and scorn. Wings can thus serve to symbolize not just power or transcendence, but of ostracization and alienation. It is this duality that had Icarus’ wings carry him at first to his freedom, only to have him plummet from that great height to his demise. While our society may remain obsessed with ideas of escape and angelic imagery, it would serve us well to keep in mind that wings are a double-edged sword to those who possess them.

  • My Bitter Valentine: Limericks on the Worst of Romance Literature

    My Bitter Valentine: Limericks on the Worst of Romance Literature

    Written by Lindsey Ferris

    Whether you celebrate Valentine’s day with a box of chocolates or Ben and Jerry’s, the traditional romantic gesture involves words spoken from the heart. We all know the classic “Roses are red;” however, for the people lucky enough to dodge Cupid’s arrow and are exhausted by the cliches oozing off every page of romance novels, perhaps a limerick would more appropriately convey your feelings about the fluff that lines the shelves of bookstores.

    There once was a writer of romance 
    Whose readers were all in a trance
    But his book was not novel
    (It seemed like a brothel!)
    He couldn’t keep his wick in his pants.

    Romance novels may contain the idealistic relationship that a certain type of reader dreams of, but after reading the gamut, it’s easy to see that the classic romance novel formula is actually repetitive and cheesy. In celebration of Valentine’s Day, why not dump romance novels for limericks? After all, stories from the likes of Nicholas Sparks and Danielle Steel are just the tip of the romantic iceberg.

    1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

    There once was a man with an ache,
    Either from thirst or simple heartbreak,
    He’d smell blood on the double,
    Which gave him some trouble,
    For his girlfriend smelled just like a steak.

    Vampires had begun their retreat to the shadows until Stephanie Meyers pulled them out to sparkle again. The Twilight Saga brought on an onslaught of books and shows that audiences readily sank their teeth into. The appeal of a “vegetarian” bad boy vampire who wants to kill you literally all the time but finds the strength to restrain himself intrigued not only Bella, but most of the pre-tweens in your middle school. Twilight dragged the sexy vampire trope out of its coffin and dressed it up as a romance between a pedophilic, 108 year old vampire (who’s still in high school?) and a seventeen year old girl. Bella’s character quickly becomes a pain in the neck, as she is described like every girl has once felt: awkward and insecure. But of course, her life changes when a boy tells her she’s beautiful. Suddenly, Bella is suckered in for life by the perfect guy. But, I mean—who among us?

    2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

    There once was a man named John
    Who wrote books for young morons
    Cigarettes are a metaphor
    But who did he mean it for?
    Every pen stroke he does makes me yawn.

        You would think John Green’s fourth novel, The Fault in Our Stars, would demonstrate some sophistication—instead, he comes across as your friend’s dad trying too hard to relate to “kids these days.” John Green writes the protagonist as your average teenage girl—until he forgets and inserts his own dusty and bookish thoughts into the character. Maturity clashes with young cheap lines written for a laugh, like Hazel’s lovely description of August: “Look, let me just say it: He was hot. A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy…well.” John Green’s…clever…line of “Okay? Okay” captivated the world, and lives on today (and forever) in the form of countless tattoos. But there couldn’t be a better description of his own book! It really was just okay.

    3. Nicholas Sparks

    There once was a man named Nic
    Who wrote each book with a trick:
    Whether star-crossed lover
    Or boy from the gutter,
    He regrettably wrote each like a prick.

     Nicholas Sparks is the first name that comes to mind when romance is mentioned. Churning books into billion dollar movies, his heart-wrenching cliches have captured everyone’s attention. No one can resist the guilty pleasure of dreaming someone will dash after you in the rain and sweep you off your feet into a life changing kiss. Remember that girl from high school who was oddly obsessed with Disney and true love? That was actually Nicholas Sparks. After writing thirteen novels, it’s obvious that he has found the magical equation to make the New York Times Bestsellers list. His key ingredients include handwritten letters, girls from the upper class, tragic endings, small towns, dancing alone, cheesy dialogue, strong father bonds, and absent mothers. Another constant? Every book is set in god-forsaken North Carolina. At least he’s writing what he knows?

    4. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

    With wonders of time travel handy,
    She slipped through the stones on her fanny
    “Sassenach” Jamie’d purr,
    When she was not so demure
    As she saw ‘neath his kilt, no panty.

    Period romances are known to swoon even the strictest celibate, with leading male characters that bring chivalry back to life by acting like true (if roguish?) gentlemen. Bridging two very different eras of the 1700s and 1940s, Outlander is the mother of all period novels. Our heroine, Claire, slips through time via mystical stones and immediately becomes entangled into a (not so) classic love triangle. Torn between the husband she left behind in the 1940s and the dashing Scot who protects her in the 1700s, Claire can’t seem to pick just one. Does she stay with the clean-cut soldier who returns to his bookish life post WW2, or the sexy Scot whispering in her ear? While we can all certainly sympathize with this exact situation, it’s hard to back a heroine who has such inconsistent taste in men.

    5. Danielle Steel

    She wrote one-seventy-nine,
    Society she wanted to climb,
    Her pages are steamy
    And the men always dreamy
    But her cleverness is less than sublime.

     Danielle Steel’s first novel, Going Home, was published in 1973, starting a romance career where she quickly churned out 179 easy reads. Her reach is vast and power alarming, as she’s been published in 43 languages and 69 countries. With an average of seven novels a year, how can Steel have any time to go outside and gather life experiences to feed her novels? Perhaps the answer is she doesn’t need to because of the formulaic way she writes. With accolades like making the Guinness Book of World Records, it’s fair to say that creativity has taken a back seat in favor of bourgeois mass production. The very desk that Danielle Steel spends 20 hours a day writing on is custom made to look like a giant stack of her three best sellers. Satisfaction or hubris? Let’s ask her 6,000 pairs of Louboutins.

    6. The Fifty Shades Series by E.L. James

    E.L. James thought it clever to steal
    And made the red room a big deal
    Anastasia was shy
    ’til she saw Christian’s tie,
    With a snap of his fingers she’d heel.

     Fifty Shades of Grey quickly swept the nation and became a bestseller—but really, can this novel even be considered a romance when it’s actually just Twilight fan fic? Yes, the obvious references to Twilight and the famous names of Bella and Edward have been changed; however, once you know that this story was originally a serialized fanfic based on Meyer’s work, you really start to appreciate the very, very minimal editing style the publishers used before publishing it into the, uh, glory we know today. How can Christian Grey even attempt towards realism when he is a multi millionaire CEO without a college degree at the ripe old age of twenty seven? But it’s okay—not only is he a beautiful man with a godly figure muscled to perfection, he can also masterfully operate a helicopter. Realism! But the most important detail is his, let’s say, unnaturally good skill in bed. Christian Grey is how we got a genre riddled with power hungry, ego-sensitive men for whom female characters love to throw their spines out the window. And where did Christian Grey come from? Ask Stephenie Meyers.

     

    I apologize for my rudeness,
    I’m usually not a nuisance,
    But regarding love
    (Which we hear too much of)
    A limerick can run interference.

  • The World in the Margins: Clarice Lispector, Brazil’s Most Enigmatic Writer

    The World in the Margins: Clarice Lispector, Brazil’s Most Enigmatic Writer

    Written by Ingrid Alberding  

    It was a sunny day on Avenida Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro as a woman with cat-like eyes and vivid red lipstick stared at an empty display of naked mannequins. Her name was Clarice Lispector, an interesting figure now regarded as one of the masters of Brazilian literature. Jose Castello, a fellow writer who saw her that day and decided to say hello, writes, “It takes her a while to turn around. She doesn’t move at first, but then, before I dare repeat the greeting, she turns slowly, as if to see where something frightening had come from . . . Clarice had a passion for the void.” 

    Though admired in her own time, she was nevertheless an othered creator. Lispector was born in 1920 as Chaya, the daughter of a Ukrainian Jewish couple. A year later, the family fled to Brazil as refugees and altered her original, Slavic name “Chaya” to “Clarice.” She lived much of her life on the margins as an immigrant and Jewish woman. For instance, when she was accepted to Brazil’s most prestigious law school, she became the first (and only) Jewish woman to attend. While still a student there, she worked as a fashion journalist to support herself after her father’s death, concurrently publishing her first novel, Near to the Wild Heart, at twenty-three. Critics struggled to define her, often coming up with famous male writers to compare her to (her work was initially described as “Joycean,” much to her annoyance, as she had never even read him). But Lispector escaped definition. 

    Often, it feels as if Lispector vacillates between a need to define the world by its smallest sensations and a desire to paint the world in broad brushstrokes and all-encompassing altruisms.

    Many of her novels and short stories trace the lives of women, often in a non-linear structure. If you are looking for a book with a high-paced plot, you should avoid Lispector, as many as her works depict life in a sudden flash rather than as a series of frames.  For example, in the brief anthology Daydreams and Drunkenness of a Young Lady, three women live relatively prosaic, time- and setting- appropriate lives, only for them to reach a breaking point after an everyday event. In “Love,” one of the stories included, a woman on public transport is severely perturbed by a man chewing gum outside. So perturbed, in fact, that stepping outside into an expansive garden, the woman is propelled into crisis: “The cruelty of the world was tranquil. The murder was deep. And death was not what we thought.”

    Often, it feels as if Lispector vacillates between a need to define the world by its smallest sensations and a desire to paint the world in broad brushstrokes and all-encompassing altruisms. The Hour of the Star, Lispector’s last novella, follows the protagonist, Macabéa, who displays a steadfast and irrational optimism that is rendered by the narrator as deeply pitiful. The Hour of the Star contains every detail of Macabéa’s deeply impoverished life, from an unawareness of her own stench, to her desperation to be beautiful and adored like Marilyn Monroe (a hope regarded as foolish by everyone around her). As in her other novels and stories, Lispector includes scenes you’d scarcely find in other great fiction about women. Macabéa eats a fried cat at one point in her life, which is hardly the kind of image commonly found in fiction by women before this. In spite of the great (in the words of biographer Benjamin Moser) “glamor” of her and her stories and the eloquent questions they posit, the circumstances of the characters themselves offer a contrasting grime.

    “Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?”  — A Hora da Estrela

    Macabéa is essentially an absent character, described by Hélène Cixous as “a kind of woman, a person who is so slight she almost does not exist” in Three Steps On The Ladder of Writing. Although we are given some level of entry into her psyche, many of her thoughts remain ambiguous or completely unknown. This, we do know: despite her soul-crushing circumstances and the inescapable reality of her own life, she maintains an unshakable faith. This faith is only affected after a visit to a fortune-teller, who informs her of how horrible her life is and has been. This fortune-teller adds only later that Macabéa’s life will improve very soon, and she’ll meet a rich foreigner. However, the novella ends soon after, and the reader is left wondering if the fortune teller’s promises come true. Lispector noted in a TV interview later, “I went to a fortune-teller who told me about all kinds of good things that were about to happen to me, and on the way home in the taxi I thought it’d be really funny if a taxi hit me and ran me over and I died after hearing all those good things.” 

    To date, The Hour of the Star it remains one of her most famous and critically acclaimed works, and the most emblematic of the almost mythic quality in her writing. Lispector would die shortly after the novella’s initial publication in 1977. In the past decade, there has been a wave of translations of her work into English, providing an opportunity for a new wave of readers to absorb the writing of a singular woman who was simultaneously on the forefront and fringes of the literary world.