Volume 16 Issue 2
Erik Beserra
Lockdowniversary

A year ago I stared at the numbers rising on the New York Times website. Every day I found myself feeling more inept as 10,000 became 20,000 became 40,000 became 80,000. I stared at the numbers like a moth at lights. Inept and discouraged. I still feel inept. I now have a tab with the New York Times vaccine distribution map. It is weird staring at this good news. Some part of me doesn’t feel hopeful since this is just what needs to be done. We failed and are now picking up the pieces.

Lockdowniversary
Volume 15 Issue 3
Lauren Mondroski
Dying to Get Outside? A Grave History of Hiking ...

This was before the establishment of large public parks, meaning that if you were a Victorian-era urban American, you most likely spent your time outdoors strolling and picnicking with family, friends, and lovers, all amidst the dead.

Dying to Get Outside? A Grave History of Hiking and Cemeteries
Volume 15 Issue 2
Allison Wallace
A list of good: a good list to make

· Arriving
· The first song you listen to through headphones
· When a good bakery has good tea (the complete experience)
· The crisp, blue outlines of the hills here in Western Oregon

A list of good: a good list to make
Volume 15 Issue 2
Nerissa Wright
Seek Discomfort

Portland is a peculiar white haven, and I come from a melting pot that smells like urine year-round. Both are good, but very different.

Seek Discomfort
Volume 14 Issue 1
Lauren Mondroski
Spoiler Alert: There Is No Coming of Age

Released on August 25, 2020, Haley Blais’ Below the Salt is an album I wish I had during my first year of college. Coincidentally, that’s when I first started listening to Blais, a Vancouver-based singer-songwriter and vlogger whose wacky sense of humor and DIY bedroom-pop bangers resonated with me, a freshman living on her own for the very first time and trying to make sense of the world and herself. That unsure first-year is a senior now, but no less unsure, and I think that’s the point of Blais’ debut album: her label writes, “Below the Salt is a coming of age story that recognizes that there is no real ‘coming of age.’”

Spoiler Alert: There Is No Coming of Age

interview

Entheogenesis: an Alum’s Banned Paideia Class

The monumental Paideia schedule dominated the GCC Lobby from January 18th until the first day of classes, directing knowledge-seekers to an exhaustive list of educational and recreational opportunities. One of the week’s events, however, appeared nowhere on the list.

On January 24th, the Friday of Paideia, alumnus Richard Milsom led an unofficial, unsanctioned “Entheogenesis Seminar” in the Student Union. Participants discussed legal issues surrounding psychoactive drugs used for spiritual purposes, or entheogens. Conversation focused especially on the 2006 Supreme Court case UDV v. Gonzalez — in which the Court unanimously upheld a religious movement’s right to the sacramental use of ayahuasca, a Schedule I substance — and its implications for religious freedom and drug policy in America.

The Grail spoke to Mr. Milsom a week later about his past, his class, and his motives in holding it even though he had been denied permission by the Paideia czars.