Art is Dead and College Killed It
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked”
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“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked”
Since it first reached American readers in 1971, The Bell Jar has become synonymous with feminine sadness. The novel was revolutionary, following a young Esther Greenwood, a misunderstood and depressed girl walking the tightrope between adolescence and adulthood. As she confronts the oppressive norms of femininity, the expectations of womanhood are so taxing as to quite literally drive her crazy.
It’s late at night, the sky deep purple against the New York City skyline as Hudson University President Nathan Alpert walks home. He’s agitated; criticism has been coming from every direction. The campus is in the midst of mounting tensions between pro–Israel and pro–Palestine advocates. Donors have pulled out funding and student groups are protesting. He’s heading home though, complaining to his wife on the phone over the contents of the day and promised a relaxing night for his troubles. But he pauses mid–sentence, noticing students spray–painting political imagery onto a building. He yells out to them as they disperse and turns to leave. But in that movement, his eyes widen. Out of nowhere, a knife plunges into the president’s body. He falls.
If you’ve ever seen a Save Chinatown Flyer or the UC Townhomes sweatshirts, you’re looking at the art of Alyssa Chandler (C ‘24). Leaning on a couch in the Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall, Alyssa takes a sip of her Dunkin coffee. “It’s been a crazy week,” she admits, gesturing towards her senior thesis sitting on display as part of the Fine Arts Department as part of their Senior Thesis Preview Exhibition. On a table, Alyssa has laid out protest stickers and a hand–printed zine detailing the community’s current fight against the 76ers arena. On either side of the wall are archival photos and articles underscoring the history of Chinatown, including a handmade map of the Vine Street Expressway.
The first time I met Katie I was livid. Seventh grade, my mom decided that we needed a guard dog after our house was burglarized. I knew this was a terrible idea. But nonetheless, I came home one day to find a two–year–old rescue pitbull, tail wagging and tongue out in the closest thing to a canine grin.
For Mikel Elam, the canvas is a portal.
A few inches away from a dumpster in a parking lot sit half a dozen people, their legs hanging over a hole they’ve been digging for the last week. It’s a motley crew. An undergrad student works in sync with a Ph.D. who’s decked out in round glasses and a safari hat to clear away the dirt with brushes and spades. A professor helps an older woman get up after her legs fall asleep while digging in the pit. A mom and her 13–year–old son can hardly contain their excitement when they find a broken glass bottle.
Mya Gordon (C ‘24) is emotionally attached to the black squirrel by Houston Hall and the turtles at the BioPond. It makes sense, given the fact that Mya is constantly invested in the community around her—whether she’s volunteering in the West Philly community or going on a spontaneous walk to explore her surroundings. In the midst of sleepless nights applying for grad school, Mya offered us a sneak peek of her past four years at Penn, reminding us to seek joy wherever we go. Before riding away on her baby blue bicycle, Mya tied up her pants with a hair tie so they wouldn’t catch in the gears and headed off on her next adventure.
I learned to drive in my mom’s minivan. It might have been the same old white Toyota my mom had long driven me to school in, but when I was behind the wheel, that minivan became an entirely different vehicle (and safety risk). But no matter who was driving, we would always turn the volume dial all the way to the right as soon as we heard the first note of the guitar riff that would inevitably lead to us screaming, “You’ve got a fast car…”
I was walking through pouring rain when Bean called to see if I wanted to work with him this summer. I had promised my mom that I would come home, a prospect I wasn’t entirely excited about—it would mean reinstated curfews and the self–imposed house arrest of the 110 degree Texas heat. Bean had been a mentor for me throughout high school, and when he first offered me the job, I was tentative. In many ways it felt like a step backwards: I’d be working with a local nonprofit to help coach a youth slam poetry team, a program I’d been a part of all throughout high school. When I went to college I wanted nothing more than to move forward, to leave behind everything I once was as a teenager in Sugar Land and re–emerge a metamorphosed girl. But here I was back again after my first year, in the same lifeless town, in the same small life.
It all began with picking my little sister up from a museum camp. Part of the privileges of being home for the summer is the duty of providing the rides necessary in my public transportation–less hometown of Houston. While waiting for my passenger, I meandered through the halls to find the museum's latest art exhibition: Artists on Site. After tugging on the locked door (and double checking that it wasn’t actually a “pull”), I began to walk away when a young woman in her twenties unlocked the door to let me in.
What happens in college a cappella doesn’t always stay in college a cappella.
My life lives on Google Calendar. Each hour of my life is carefully measured and categorized in beautiful color–coded blocks that account for everything from my class schedule to lunches with friends to “Rotting in Van Pelt.” During the school year, I would play a solo game of Jenga on Sunday night, attempting to figure out how to fit everything on my to–do list into the 168 hours I had in a week. In some ways, my Google Calendar is a diary of my existence, a catalogue of how I spend my waking days—or at least intend to, considering the plethora of 6 a.m. runs scattered throughout my calendar that I've definitely slept through.
Editor's Note: This article contains spoilers for Season 3 of 'Ted Lasso'
To Winston Peloso (C ’23), the world can be broken down to a mathematical equation. Sitting outside Houston Hall in the late afternoon, he easily switches between scientific jargon and the casual lingo of students as he talks about his time at Penn; emotions about senior year are carefully parsed, meanwhile the scientific process of creating purified crystal can be explained away as “super fucking specific.”
On a cloudy Thursday night in late March, the cozy, domestic interior of the Penn Women’s Center has been transformed into a hub of action. Harley Haas (C '24), the chair of Abuse and Sexual Assault Prevention, balances her laptop on her knees as she simultaneously sends out emails and welcomes in another volunteer. Leslie Lytle (E ‘23) yells over the organized chaos, “Has anyone heard from Liz Magill?” Two volunteers sit on the couch sorting through bags of chalk while sharing the run–down of their day. In just one week, these months of planning by the campus–wide organization, ASAP, will leave the living room of Women's Center and culminate as the campus’ largest anti–violence rally—Take Back the Night.
After a hectic week of classes, I’m looking forward to one thing. Windows closed, dorm door locked, and computer brightness all the way down, I open up an incognito tab and navigate to my secret guilty pleasure: Outer Banks.
Adulthood is turning on a podcast. The choice of the monotone voice of NPR over the melodies of Taylor Swift. Tuning into the affairs of the economy instead of dancing to your main character soundtrack. Listening to words of wisdom rather than singing along to those lyrics you know so well.
It’s 6 a.m., still dark and cold outside in the early March gloom, when Temple University third–year Ph.D. student Daniel Carsello leaves his apartment to pick up the UHaul loaded with supplies.
If you take everything else away, I would contend that my defining characteristic is my hair. As a kid, my nickname was broccoli, based solely on the fact my hair resembled a sprouting floret. Coming into the COVID–19 pandemic, I remember a teacher noting that while he struggled to recognize the rest of his students in their masks, he always knew I was approaching because of my signature mane. Everyone’s first compliment was of my curls and their last question was an inquiry into my hair routine—to which I always falsely answered, “I don’t even know,” as if I didn’t spend hours on Sunday pre–conditioning, co–washing, plumping, or whatever other tips I picked up from the endless curly hair influencers I followed.
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