Culture

CULTURALLY SHOOK | Contemporary Love in the Time of the Chainsmokers’ “CLOSER”

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I have inadvertently heard the song “Closer” so many times that sometimes I hear it even when it’s not being played. What I once took to be a constant in my life, an allegedly reassuring acoustic verification of my ongoing physicality—my heartbeat—has been aggressively replaced by the song’s superficial, Day-Glo, Capri Sun beat. In a sense, I admire the song’s ambition, its desire to aspire higher—apparently, permeating the airwaves is not enough for “Closer.” It wants to extend itself into new psychological realms, infiltrate the cerebral networks of the adolescent masses, leak its toxic sugar into every crevice of our collective consciousness until one day suddenly we are not living our lives anymore—we are just living in the imagined idyllic lifeworld of the song, intangible figments residing in the corporeal actualization of the self-obsessed chart-topping hit. No longer will we be independent autonomous beings — we will exist only in relation to this aural “simulacrum of human feeling.”

Maybe this thread of self-reflection is what makes the song so popular—maybe the reason it has been re-re-replayed is that it arguably can be perceived as a reflection on universal human feelings that are difficult to directly acknowledge. Maybe converting these difficult truths into fruity electronic beats is how we tacitly learn to confront them.

Life

BETWEEN BARS | When I’m 36

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I’ll be 36 years old when he gets out of prison in 2030. It occurred to me that scientists have been saying that by that year all the polar ice caps will have melted. Across the street from Auburn, there’s a small gas station with a convenience store that sells Marlboros and sodas and lottery tickets and bite-sized snacks. Upon my first visit, I found it odd that a string of local businesses would situate themselves so near to a maximum-security facility. I guess Auburn prison has been around for so long that it’s merged into the landscape like a wall in the city.

Life

THE WORLD AROUND YU | Death to a Workaholic’s Favorite Drink

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For some time now, it has been a habit of mine — much like how a frequent cocaine user would call his addiction a “habit”, to take my coffee black. Sans crème, sans sucre — a straight, untampered and unholy noir. I’m not sure how this came to be, the exact progression (or descent) to my black coffee drinking preference, but it certainly wasn’t always this way. Freshman year, I could barely stomach a sip of such vile brew until an ungodly dosage of cream and sugar was applied. Yet sometime in between the now and then, a coffee dependency took hold, and I weaned myself off any and all unnecessary additives to become the calloused coffee drinker I am today.

Life

FECKLESS AND FRECKLED | Hill and Bill’s Sham of a Marriage and Other Election Hypocrisies

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We’re so quick to attack Trump and Clinton for being crooked, phony liars, but maybe it’s time we see ourselves as the true hypocrites. The 2016 presidential election has been touted as America’s most progressive election yet. Not only are the “real” issues coming to the forefront, but people are also visibly staking their personal claims in the outcome. From Facebook posts to baseball caps to hostile arguments at the dinner table, voters are making their personal allegiances known. Despite these allegiances, many of us are ambivalent about the candidates we’re rooting for.

Culture

THE E’ER INSCRUTABLE | Fimbulwinter: The Rhein’s Fury, Part I

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“Jetzt komme, Feuer! Begierig sind wir,

Zu schauen den Tag,

Und wenn die Prüfung

Ist durch die Knie gegangen,

Mag einer spüren das Waldgeschrei.” -Friedrich Hölderlin, “Der Ister”

Almost two thousand years are to be retrospectively traversed from the death of Hitler to the object of my next inquiry. This is an ode to the Rhein river, the fosterer of an independent Germany, and a blessing, and a curse. In 55 B.C., Gaius Julius Caesar built a bridge over the Rhein. The river was dark, wild, and churned with the same malevolence which the peoples of the sunnier Mediterranean perhaps perceived in the spectral shapes flitting amongst the German pines.

Life

ON MY MIND | I Don’t Feel Like Smiling

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There’s an old chain email/Facebook adage that goes something like: “It takes 37 muscles to frown but only 22 muscles to smile. So smile. It conserves energy.”

I’ll tell you right now that I googled this saying to see if it had any scientific merit, but the first three links I tried were all inconclusive or confusing so I gave up. I give up on a lot of things, so it’s not really a big deal. Anyway, I only looked it up in the first place because I wanted to let you know that smiling is too hard and consequently I’ve decided to stop until further notice.

Life

WHITE KNUCKLES | My Modern Love

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This piece is very different from what I usually write; it is inspired from the NYT Modern Love column, which I read avidly, and from my own life – for one can speak generally and universally only to a certain extent. When my mother told me about love, she always mentioned Paolo, her high school sweetheart. When I asked why it ended, she confessed that she was dating someone else, an older guy; when Paolo found out, a fist fight broke out, and two relationships were broken up. I always found myself amazed at the fact that they didn’t punch her, as I wondered how is love compatible with deceit, fist fights and lies? My mother would quickly add that Paolo was too immature for her; it would have ended anyway.

Life

Kylie’s Room | On [unsolicited] Advice, Indecisiveness and the Dear Sugar Podcast

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Where would I be without advice? I am frustratingly indecisive when it comes to making decisions regarding my own personal life; often, I find myself going in circles trying to make a decision. From the classes I should take next semester, the clothing I should wear, career decisions, where and what I should eat for my next meal-  I often find myself sending out a quick “HELP/What should I do?” text out to friends, or dialing my mother during the middle of the work day or the wee hours of the night when I fail to make a decision. The advice that I’ve gathered through the years from friends and family has made an impactful impression upon me.

Life

CULTURALLY SHOOK | We Don’t Sleep Anymore

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I want to dissociate. Split myself into two bodies, break myself apart into two corporal entities. It would be a twisted ode to nuclear fission, except instead of dividing the nucleus of an atom I would just be dividing myself. Just imagine! I could exist in two places at once, think two thoughts at once, do two things at once.