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 4 Issue 3

On Blogging

On Blogging

One thousand is an interesting number.  It’s the smallest big number, with the first inkling of unassailability peeking behind its comma, just look at it: 1,000.

 

At least that’s what senior anthropology major James Curry IV has led me to think, and if there is one thing a conversation with Curry is, it’s thought provoking. Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Curry and discuss one particularly intriguing project that is underway. He is currently in the process of writing a book titled On Blogging, which is to be comprised of 1,000 posts, uploaded daily to his blog. All of the posts will be focused on the subject of blogging.  As of today, he is on post 328, and is set to finish by the time he is 23. While scrolling through what currently constitutes the work, the presence of that numerical comma, that bigness, can be found everywhere. From a reader’s standpoint, it is not so much the experience of getting lost in the text, as the sensation that you were never really found in the first place. Each and every post is a jumping point, a catalyst for a collision of ideas, arguments, and intellectual evolutions. While reading On Blogging, it is impossible to keep the idea of the blogger out of mind for long. At times, it seems like the project belongs to 1,000 individual entities rather than one singular narrator.

 

Commons Cookbook

Commons Cookbook

Scouring the internet (or, more likely, casually browsing your Facebook newsfeed), one occasionally stumbles across some documents of critical importance. These top secret missives, protected and monitored by the U.S. government, no doubt, divulge information hidden in plain sight. . .information that changes the way our entire society functions. When one guides the mouse over the link to “Chipotle Secret Menu, Check Out #4, It’s CRAZY,” inhales a nervous, shuddering breath, and presses a finger into the warm metal of the mouse pad, there is no telling what will be found. Quessarillodillas, burritochangas, double meat for half the price, glory to the Lord! Unlocking secrets such as these does more than give you all of the powers awarded to the guy with the ring in Lord of the Rings (never seen it, oops), it is a password that lets you into the Chipotle club. And if I know anything about secret clubs, it is that they are amazing. So, without any further ado, allow The Grail to let you into the secret club of Commons, our very own, on-campus Chipotle equivalent.*

SEEDS of Change

SEEDS of Change

Our SEEDs adventure consisted mainly of eating organic food. We also got on a school bus and drove an hour out of Portland to meet local farmer Charlie Harris. Charlie owns and operates Flamingo Ridge Farm, where he grows tomatoes and romaine lettuce. When Charlie says that Flamingo Ridge is a “family farm,” he means it. Every worker is on a first name basis. They sit around on hammocks and share sodas specially made by a close friend of Charlie’s. Everything on the farm is homemade and friendly.