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

Volume 2 Issue 4

Philosophical Society Achieves Ataraxia

Philosophical Society Achieves Ataraxia

It’s a Wednesday night and 20 students gather in Vollum not for a movie, or to discuss finances, but as the email sent out to all of them announced: “to situate the role of virtues in Epicurean hedonism once and for all.” Sent by the organization’s founder and the speaker for the night, Elise Woodard ’15, the phrase, following a description of what hedonism and virtue mean in the context of Epicureanism, and followed by a note stating “Epicurean delicacies will be served” relates the two main objectives of the club: providing a space for presentations of philosophically relevant arguments and creating an inclusive atmosphere for students of all disciplines who are interested in philosophical topics to evaluate and discuss the argument as presented. Woodard notes that “I don’t know of any other group [on campus] like us; we’re not doing political organizing, we’re not deciding on things to do outside of campus. I think the Philosophical Society is unique in being an academic club where you evaluate and discuss arguments. I think philosophy lends itself pretty well to this, it does things piecemeal, and each presentation is of stand-alone arguments that don’t require a lot of background knowledge.” Still, a lot of thought has gone into how the meetings should be structured.

 

Big Toe Brings The Body for Halloween Show

Big Toe Brings The Body for Halloween Show

NPR recently published a small piece that asked the question, “Where’s All the Good Halloween Music?” In it, someone sent in an email to the All Songs Considered offices and pondered why Christmas has so many (by which I mean far, far too many) songs associated whereas Halloween has, well, “Monster Mash.” The writer, Stephen Thompson, responded by listing a couple of “spooky” bands, like Timber Timbre and Dead Man’s Bones (yes, that Ryan Gosling band).

Regardless of how good these bands are, they are Halloween-scary in the same way that my mother’s choice in October lawn decorations are Halloween-scary. As I have been writing about this, NPR (god bless ’em) have posted another Halloween-centric music piece, this time a “Question of the Week” asking “What Are The Most Terrifying Songs Of All Time?” And the top result? Sufjan Stevens, with “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” Okay, well there are a couple ways to define ‘terrifying,’ I suppose.