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The last fall faculty production of Middlebury College Department of Theatre, “She Kills Monsters,” combines imagination and reality at their finest.
Tanya Tagaq is a songwriter, artist, activist and author born in Nunavut, Canada. Her vocal style draws heavily on Inuit throat singing, known as katajjaq, a game played by two women sitting face-to-face and a cultural practice she experienced while growing up. Tagaq developed her own solo throat singing technique out of necessity when she found herself without a singing partner during young adulthood. She uses this skill to create passionate, genre-defying music, as experienced on her 2016 album “Retribution.” The songs on “Retribution” flow seamlessly into one another, combining this ancient art form with avant-garde sonic experimentation. The album’s sound is also deeply rooted in collaboration, featuring contributions from many other Canadian and Indigenous performers. At its core is a call for awareness of Indigenous rights and an end to environmental destruction, interrelated causes that Tagaq has advocated for throughout her career.
All Middlebury faculty and staff will receive two extra vacation days and a $1,500 bonus this December, according to an email from the Vice President for Human Resources to all staff and faculty.
Leave the elaborate set and extensive casts to faculty shows. Theses, in contrast, are the simpler, single-celled protozoa at the root of the theatrical tree of life. “No One is Forgotten,” Gabrielle Martin's ’21.5 acting thesis and Madison Middleton’s ’22.5 500-level work in directing, written by Winter Miller, revels in the power of this streamlined medium. The play opens with two assumed journalist captives in a concrete cell. Contrary to journalism’s concise exposition, details in this play are provided only as frequently as the prisoners’ oatmeal.
Is race just something we are all performing? This question is explored, though not exactly answered, in the most recent film in the Hirschfield International Film Series, “Passing.”
It certainly feels like November on campus: there’s a chill in the air and the first snow in the mountains is already behind us. These four books hail from a variety of genres but have a wintery feel, making them perfect for rainy afternoons or snowy nights. I’ve found that winter books often have a darker tone than books associated with other seasons, making them great wintertime companions. These four favorites of mine are powerful and more than worth your time.
“Petite Maman,” the latest movie in the Hirschfield International Film Series, uses a minimalist approach to tell a poignant story of family and friendship bound through loss and love. The film opens in a nursing home, with the camera following closely behind a child as she says goodbye to each resident of the building. The viewer follows her until she finally enters an empty room and approaches a young woman, her mother, taking down the family’s personal effects from the room. The girl then sits on the empty hospital bed, unable to say goodbye to this last person.
Among students, it is common knowledge that Middlebury’s mental health resources fall short in a myriad of ways. The counseling office has long remained understaffed and overbooked, leading students and even professors to suggest that students would be better off searching in Burlington for services or not bothering at all. Members of the board who have also served as orientation leaders noted that they err on the side of honesty with their new students, expressing that mental health support on campus is inadequate at best and devastatingly lacking at worst.
Here’s some advice my grandmother gave me when I was young: always watch a horror movie on a first date. I mean, what could be more romantic than shielding your eyes as your partner wraps their arms around you? What a great excuse to do the ol’ “yawn and stretch,” the ultimate protection from the characters that could very well jump off the screen and into your house. I still firmly believe in watching horror movies on the first date, but now I hold this belief for different reasons.Whether or not you agree, it does seem like the monsters that creep across our screens sometimes appear in real life. Horror movie tropes represent different types of partners you might find in your life, and certainly here at Middlebury.
Content Warning: This article contains mention of suicide.
Raffi Barsamian ’21.5, from Sherborn, Mass., is in his final semester on the men’s varsity soccer team. In this installment of “Seven Questions,” Barsamian reveals his pregame ritual, what he would tell his younger self and the strategies he uses for balancing school and sports.
Words may not be able to describe how I feel about Kate Bush, but I can still try. A breakout star in Britain at age 19, Bush made her name with thematically sprawling concept albums and interpretive dance. By age thirty-five, she had abandoned fame and moved to the countryside to live in obscurity (until her 2005 comeback album “Aerial”). I got into her music the summer when I was 17, and I have never stopped listening. Bush has accompanied me through all of the growth and changes I’ve experienced since then, and over the years, I’ve always been able to come back to her songs and find new meaning in them.
“No Time to Die” is a big movie — big in budget, big in story and big in spectacle. But for the 25th film in the 007 series, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and featuring the last of five turns as James Bond for star Daniel Craig, nothing plays a larger role than the beating heart at its center: Craig. Amidst the epic sweep of this 163-minute blockbuster, there are moments of intimacy as we get to experience the humor, love and heartbreak layered beneath Bond’s steely outer shell. Being a 007 movie, there is always another shootout or high-speed chase to disrupt the serenity of these quieter moments, but the intensity of the action sequences is elevated by a deepened sympathy for the man at the center of it all. This emphasis on the humanity of the iconic protagonist sets the film apart from its predecessors, solidifying its status as a resounding cinematic success and one of the best films of the year.
I have anxiety and depression. My favorite color is purple (or blue, depending on the day). I’m happiest in libraries, at concerts, on the beach or watching sunsets. I’m passionate about multimedia storytelling and creating positive representation for marginalized communities. Fall is my favorite season (partially because my birthday is in October and partially because of how beautiful the leaves look). I’m a New Yorker and thought I would never survive outside a city, but am learning to love the access to nature that living in a rural setting affords me. I understand rationally that these are all facets of my being, that without any one of them, I would not be the person I am. But I’m still wary about attaching the label of “mentally ill” to myself. I’ve been grappling with my mental health for most of my life. After my parents divorced, my mom decided it would be healthiest for me and my brother to learn how to process our feelings in therapy. As first and third graders, respectively, we weren’t thrilled by this prospect — especially since we had some therapists we didn’t get along with. In retrospect, I give her major kudos for this: recent studies have found that only about 10% of children see a therapist before they turn 18. I was in sixth grade when we found someone we really liked and I have been meeting with her ever since. I’ve also been a proponent of mental health initiatives and in high school I advocated for more accessible mental health resources on a local and state level through the New York Civil Liberties Union. As a student at Midd, I’ve had multiple conversations with peers about mental health, some of them even among the Editorial Board of the Campus. On a wider level, mental health isn’t the taboo it once was. Whether diagnosed officially or not, many of my friends are open about the ways in which they’ve struggled with their mental health, both on and offline. Over the years, social media accounts dedicated to raising awareness around mental health and promoting resources have become more commonplace. There are varying stats on Gen-Z mental health, but studies agree that more than 2/3 of Gen-Zers are mentally ill in some capacity — a proportion much higher than for previous generations. Despite this generally more mental-health savvy culture and all of my own resources — having access to a therapist, having a mom who “got it,” having a Posse mentor and a greater support network on campus, I still fell through the cracks. I spent my first semester in college on a schedule fit more for a vampire than an 18-year-old. I’d wake up at 7:30 a.m., spend my morning trying not to fall asleep in classes, get lunch, then go back to my room and pass out until 7, 8, or sometimes 9 p.m.. I would proceed to stay up until anywhere from 2 to 5 a.m., struggling to focus and get my homework done. Rinse and repeat. On paper, I had a great first semester. Sure, I was constantly on the verge of a breakdown, but at least my transcript and résumé were strong. In retrospect, this feels like an almost superhuman feat. I can’t imagine pulling off the grades and extracurriculars I did, while running on the consistent lack of sleep I had. Maybe it’s because Covid-19 drained me of the capacity to run on nothing but sheer willpower, caffeine and adrenaline. Or maybe it’s because I’ve learned not to push myself past my limits anymore — or at the very least, how to stop prioritizing everyone and everything above myself. I don’t think I turned a single assignment in on time that semester. While I had been repeatedly assured that everyone struggled with adjusting to their college course load, this felt outside of the realm of typical transition-period difficulties. People in my hall and in my classes were still somehow able to be up at the same time the sun was, and maintain some sort of a social life. While I recognized that functioning in a constant state of burnout wasn’t healthy, it was second-nature to me — I didn’t have a blueprint for operating any other way. I graduated from high school with an IB diploma at the cost of my sleep and my sanity. I was privileged to learn how to write strong analytical papers, how to conduct research, how to engage with my course material and the world around me in meaningful and critical ways. But I also adopted a really toxic mindset of prioritizing assignments and grades over my mental and physical health. This mindset transferred over to my time at Middlebury. It’s one that seems to thrive in high-pressure academic environments known for their rigor. After multiple FaceTimes with my mom that ended in tears, I was forced to admit to myself that something was wrong, that I was drowning, that I needed help. But asking for help was easier said than done. I worried that admitting I was struggling would be conceding that I didn’t belong at Midd, that I wasn’t capable of handling the workload, that I didn’t deserve to be here. These fears were rooted in imposter syndrome — which is especially common for women of color at predominantly white institutions. I eventually reached out to all the resources at my disposal. Soon, my mentors knew I was struggling, my professors knew I was struggling, my dean knew I was struggling, my academic advisor knew I was struggling. They were sympathetic, outlining various avenues of support I could access — but not one of them suggested that I try to get accommodations. Instead, they advised me to go to the Center for Teaching, Learning and Research and work on creating schedules for myself — a method I had already been taught in high school. I was made to feel like it was my fault, like if I just managed my time better and worked more effectively I could stay afloat. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="off" background_color="#ffffff" border="none" border_color="#FFFFFF" border_size="5px" shadow="off"]I was made to feel like it was my fault, like if I just managed my time better and worked more effectively I could stay afloat. [/pullquote] While schedules and time-blocking can be helpful, no amount of time-blocking could cure my brain fog. I'd sit and stare at my computer for hours, willing words to appear on the screen, but I couldn't do it. I spiraled into a vicious cycle where I would get so anxious about something having to be not only good, but perfect, that I would avoid doing it. Then, when the deadline had passed and I was still faced with my blank screen, I felt guilty, which made me more anxious. With fight or flight out of the picture, that left me with a third option: feeling frozen. These are classic symptoms of mental illness, symptoms that, in retrospect, so clearly point to a need for help. It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with accommodations, it’s that I never thought they applied to me. Being high-functioning means that the struggles I go through because of my mental illnesses exist below the surface. One of my family members has ADHD and he’s had an Individualized Education Program, the pre-collegiate version of accommodations, for many years now. Professors are required to include information about the Disability Resource Center on their syllabi and they often encourage students to reach out for accommodations. I always skipped over this part. My perception of accommodations was that they were for people with learning disorders or physical disabilities, not those struggling with anxiety and depression. You can’t advocate for yourself if you don’t think you deserve help. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="off" background_color="#ffffff" border="none" border_color="#FFFFFF" border_size="5px" shadow="off"]You can’t advocate for yourself if you don’t think you deserve help.[/pullquote] Halfway through my sophomore fall, I discovered that one of my friends was given accommodations because she had panic attacks — something that I also dealt with. This surprised me, not because I didn’t think she deserved them, but because so much of the language surrounding accommodations highlights “disability.” I was forced to redefine disability — not only on a larger scale, but in my own relationship to it. My mental illnesses were so ingrained into my daily life that I overlooked the fact that they were just that: illnesses. More importantly, I overlooked the fact that being neurodivergent meant I had to work harder than my neurotypical peers to complete the same assignments — not because I was any less capable, but because I had to overcome the barriers that come with anxiety and depression in the process. Somewhere along the way, I forgot to be proud of myself for what I've been able to accomplish despite having to overcome so much. Instead, I fell into cycles of beating myself up for not meeting my fullest potential. The next week, I applied for accommodations. Despite this being a multi-step process, as outlined on the Disability Resource Center website, it was less of an ordeal than I had braced myself for. I had expected to undergo an interrogation of sorts, to prove that I genuinely needed help and wasn’t trying to cheat or find an “easy way out.” I reached out to my therapist beforehand to ensure that she could produce documentation to back up my claims. While this streamlined the process, I later found out that it wasn’t even necessary (despite what the language on the site about documentation suggested), and that students could get assessed through the school. In comparison to these daunting preconceptions, the actual process seemed almost overwhelmingly simple. I emailed the Disability Resource Center, set up an appointment with them, and over the course of an hour, explained the ways in which I was struggling and was presented with different solutions in the form of accommodations. Almost immediately after, I received a provisional Letter of Accommodation and got a permanent one after filling out some paperwork and sending documentation from my therapist. While I was grateful for how straightforward the process was, and for the lack of red tape around it that I had previously envisioned, I felt bitter (and still do) that it took so long to get there, that I had been so wary about reaching out for help before. There’s an astounding amount of irony in the fact that the site for the office dedicated to accessibility uses official language that is inaccessible to students and doesn’t have clearer guidelines on what qualifies as a “disability” for the sake of acquiring accommodations. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="off" background_color="#ffffff" border="none" border_color="#FFFFFF" border_size="5px" shadow="off"]There’s an astounding amount of irony in the fact that the site for the office dedicated to accessibility uses official language that is inaccessible to students and doesn’t have clearer guidelines on what qualifies as a “disability” for the sake of acquiring accommodations. [/pullquote] While I wasn’t told to seek out accommodations my first semester, I was advised to drop a class. This happened again last semester, when I was falling behind on readings and assignments. Both times, I refused. I told myself I could stick it out, despite the sleep and peace of mind I knew it would cost me. Even though I was granted the institutional support I so desperately craved two years ago, there’s a sense of shame that continues to hang over me, that exists in tandem with a self-imposed expectation to prove myself: at first, just as a woman of color at Middlebury, but then, as a woman of color who qualified as having a disability. At the beginning of this semester, I was hesitant to send a professor I admired my letter of accommodation, worried it would make him think less of me, that I’d have to work harder to prove I was a “good student.” I think this is representative of a wider stigma associated with mental illness, that it is something that is a burden, something to be worked around, something to be “dealt with.” On the flip side of this stigma, I’ve seen discourses that reframe mental illnesses in an overly positive light, even going so far as to call them “superpowers.” Neither of these feel right to me. My anxiety and depression mean spirals and panic attacks — where it feels like the walls are closing in on me and I can’t catch my breath no matter how hard I try. On good days, though, I can acknowledge that they’re the parts of me that make it easier to empathize with others, to provide a good listening ear and advice if needed. The fact that I have mental illnesses is not good or bad, it just is. They’re a part of me just as much as my favorite colors, settings and seasons. But even as I type that sentence, I know that it is something that I’m still coming to terms with. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="off" background_color="#ffffff" border="none" border_color="#FFFFFF" border_size="5px" shadow="off"]The fact that I have mental illnesses is not good or bad, it just is. They’re a part of me just as much as my favorite colors, settings and seasons. But even as I type that sentence, I know that it is something that I’m still coming to terms with. [/pullquote] My ability to acquire accommodations was entirely circumstantial, a combination of privilege and luck. If I had never met my friend who had accommodations because of her panic attacks, I’m not sure that it would’ve ever crossed my mind to pursue accommodations for myself. If my mom hadn’t put me in therapy, it might have taken me a lot longer to name the issues I was facing and learn how to cope with them. The list goes on. I want to envision a world (or at least a better version of Middlebury) where if you’re struggling, you get the help you need. Not just through individualized support like accommodations, but more structural solutions that allow grace and create room for students to get extensions and similar “aid”— not because a Dean said they should, but because they know themselves best, and they know they need it. But that can’t happen until we’re able to have open, honest, vulnerable conversations about the ways in which we are struggling. This, in turn, requires overcoming the shame and guilt associated with not meeting expectations — whether those be your own or those imposed upon you. I hope that this article is a start.
As I sit down to write this, I ask myself, “why bother?” It is common and far too accurate to joke about the absence of young people in concert halls. Such jokes were made to me at least twice in reference to last weekend’s concert by the Doric String Quartet and Jonathan Biss. Of course, the stereotype is not entirely true — there are a few young people who still enjoy hearing, as composer Felix Mendelsohn put it, “songs without words.” Yet the question remains — why do some of us enjoy what so many others on this campus do not? I’d like to bring up a theory which I believe is refuted by last weekend’s concert: so-called “classical” music lacks the vivacity to engage younger audiences. Regardless of the fact that the pieces played on Sunday — quartets by Beethoven and Béla Bartók, and a quintet by Edward Elgar — would be more accurately classified in the Romantic and Modernist periods, I can certainly understand why one would believe this proposed theory. The audience at last Saturday’s concert was, at times, verging on catatonic. The only head-bopping to be found in the audience may have been my own. After the concert, I walked past a number of thumping, sweaty dorm parties. The juxtaposition between these two ways of listening to music was not lost on me. Popular music, by any definition, is made for dancing. It’s a shame that the bourgeois history of “classical” music in the last two hundred years has led to such stoic practices. The music performed last Saturday was every bit as physical as the music played through dorm speakers. Biss and the Doric String Quartet are well aware of this fact. Leaning together, swinging apart and swaying side-to-side, the quartet embodied the music’s swells and drops. The right foot of violinist Alex Reddington never seemed to stop tapping. At moments, I half-expected the group to leap out of their seats and perform a jig. These musicians were, in a very literal sense, a sight to be seen. Many of them forwent the traditional black suit for those of striking blue. Reddington even sported a pair of brightly colored, striped socks, which nicely highlighted his active feet. The musicians’ outfits brought a touch of levity, as if to say, “We’re here to have fun.” Dismissing the pretentiousness that has built up around “classical” music, the performers seemed more like children at play than bastions of European high culture. They seemed to play for the love of the activity itself. As a piece hurtled to its finale, bows were flourished like raised rapiers above the performers’ heads. One could imagine them in some melodrama on an Italian piazza, perhaps costumed as Mercutio or Tybalt. Theatricality is no trivial element when it comes to music. Good music deserves to be fully embodied. It is no coincidence that, in English, music is played just the same as a theatrical play. All of these activities share the adoration of life found in child’s play. That adoration is communal. We feel the highs, the lows and the middling stretches together. Music has an inherent togetherness. Even if the quartet hadn’t introduced pianist Biss as “our really dear friend,” the comradery between all five musicians would have been obvious. They passed themes and motifs one to the other with as much playfulness as technical skill. The folk-dance-inspired second part of Bartók’s Third String Quartet was announced with a sudden plop which violist Hélène Clément sent deftly to violinist Ying Xue. Xue held the note’s tension through a gorgeous passage of pizzicato, or plucked, folk themes. This is music that rewards close cooperation. The Doric String Quartet and Jonathan Biss played excellently together. To the skeptical listeners who are still reading: “classical” music is no less lively, emotional or personal than anything else on Spotify. Sure, it can be esoteric and sometimes just bizarre, but there are outliers in any genre. If you’re still unconvinced, I encourage you to give the next Performing Arts Series concert a try. My meagre 700 words can’t convey the joy and aura of a concert, but I can assure you, there is a particular joy reserved for the musical. That joy is, at its essence, the same you’ll find in a packed Friday-night dorm party or a Wednesday-night open mic.
A unique part of the Middlebury experience is the opportunity to live in an academic or special interest house where students pursue a common interest and share it with the campus community. These include 10 language houses, the Queer Studies House, Self-Reliance and InSite, as well as special interest houses where residents try out food recipes, experience spiritual traditions or pursue mindful and healthy living. “We watched a lot of Soviet cartoons, and we did a lot of cooking,” Julian Gonzales-Poirier ’23, a resident of the Russian House, said. Having lived at the Russian House for his entire sophomore year, Gonzales-Poirier considers his experience as a mini-study abroad, during which he boosted his language skills and familiarized himself with Russian culture. Quinn Rifkin ’22, who has just begun his semester at the Italian House, hopes to immerse himself in the Italian language by chatting with his peers and the teaching assistant. However, due to over-enrollment this fall, these special communities are starting to change. As the housing problem intensified, the school decided to re-appropriate some interest housing spaces for students without the shared interest. “Our top priority has been to provide an in-person educational experience to all active students who wish to be at Middlebury this fall,” A.J. Place, associate dean of students, said. “We needed to be creative in using all available space possible, including any open space in interest houses.” Currently, there are 301 students living in interest houses. Fifteen spaces in special housing were cycled into the August room draw, including eight from the Community Engagement House at 48 South Street. The Arabic House, where ideally five students sign the language pledge to speak only Arabic, now accommodates two Arabic speakers and three non-speakers. Hazel Traw ’24, one of the two Arabic speakers in the house, has been studying Arabic for four years. She considers the language house an opportunity to practice using the language in casual settings. For Traw, the arrival of non-Arabic speakers came as a surprise. The Residential Life staff did not communicate in advance with her and the other Arabic speaker about the non-speakers, so they only realized what was going on at the first house meeting after moving in. “I suppose it makes [our experience] a bit different, but I don’t think it makes the sense of community any worse,” Traw said. When she bumps into others in the morning or late at night, she is happy to chat with the non-speakers in English. Sam Roubin ’23.5, a non-Arabic speaker, chose one of the few remaining doubles on campus with his friend in the August housing draw. As the portal displayed the house name as “Sperry,” he only realized he was in the Arabic House when he searched for it afterwards. Currently, the Arabic House holds at least one event per week, such as cooking traditional Arabic dishes and watching Arabic movies. Students from different courses come over, and the non-speaker residents are always welcome to join. Roubin likes the homey feeling of the house compared to regular dorms, and the Arabic teaching assistant has been teaching him simple Arabic words. Although not involved in the room draw, the Wellness House located on Weybridge Street also felt the pressure from the housing crisis. Supported by the office of Health and Wellness Education, the house is designed to encourage individual and collective well-being and substance-free or low-substance use behavior. To apply, students must submit an application and attend an interview. Ansen Gong ’23, who was remote during spring 2021, admitted that he applied for the Wellness House to avoid off-campus housing at Bread Loaf — the only regular housing option left when he logged onto the portal at 4:00 a.m. in China for his lottery draw. He guesses that about half the residents came to Wellness for similar reasons, but he does enjoy living with everyone else in this small community with their own kitchen and laundry. “If you want a quiet place to live, [Wellness] is pretty nice,” Gong said. On the other hand, Sophia Wittig ’24 applied for Wellness because she could not get a space in Bread Loaf, which is only open to juniors and seniors. “I specifically asked to go to Bread Loaf for the financial discount, but [the school] wanted us to have the on-campus experience that we missed last year,” Wittig said. She knows that many sophomores have the same financial concern and would gladly live at Bread Loaf if it were allowed. Regardless of why students chose Wellness, concerning substance use, Wittig said that she had not "seen or smelled or heard anything". During orientation, the residents made an agreement on quiet hours for weekdays and weekends. "[The house is] very quiet when I go back [at night], which is kind of nice." said Ansen. However, apart from that, a common pursuit of wellness does not seem visible. “We have community expectations pasted on the wall,” Wittig said. “We’re supposed to have house dinners once a month, but that hasn’t happened.” “We understand that it is not ideal to have a student(s) living in an interest house without that specific interest,” Place said. “If students are having concerns we’d encourage them to connect with their Community Assistant, the house contacts or our office directly so we can offer support.”
If one were looking for a word to sum up 2021 so far, “fatigue” would be a good candidate. It is also a fitting title for the second album from classically-trained polymath L’Rain, a New York City native and associate curator at the nonprofit arts center MoMA PS1 by day. A sonic collage of samples, field recordings, woozy compositions and wordless interludes, “Fatigue” is a contemplation of the hard work of healing and recovery in the aftermath of loss and an album I was grateful to have in my life this past summer as I was beginning my own relationship with grief. L’Rain’s experimental approach plucks sounds from across genres, creating a lush new sound to complement her surreal lyrics. At the same time, her vocal delivery and adept production wrings every drop of meaning from her words. Where words fail, she makes liberal use of noise and distortion. As album opener “Fly, Die” stutters to a start, L’Rain’s voice echoes across a seemingly great distance. Punctuated with sirens and airguns, the track is a manifesto for self-confidence, protecting your time and the power of adaptation. “What have you done to change?” she asks through jarring distortions as the song winds down into the next track, “Find It.” Here is where the melodic side of L’Rain’s songwriting is revealed. “Find It” is a gentle groove that has the listener chasing the singer’s thoughts as they float over crisp drums and distant vocal harmonies. She introduces the album’s main throughline, the loss of her mother Lorraine, who inspired her stage name, in 2017. A swelling horn line builds to a cathartic blare of organs and snippets of a preacher speaking, a recording of a friend’s funeral taken by the artist. “Fatigue” is a sonic landscape in which joy and sorrow are two sides of the same coin, and its subject matter ranges from the depths of grief to exuberant, life-affirming moments. Interludes like “Black Clap” and “Love Her” are less-so compositions than documentation of the people, spaces and histories that hold meaning for the artist. L’Rain’s democratic approach to art layers studio sound with at-home recordings and voice memos, medium and audio quality itself becoming more tools with which to texture her songs. This unique musical approach is exemplified on album standout “Blame Me.” L’Rain’s voice and plucked guitar are deceptively simple against a dense mat of synths, distortion and background vocals; the track is underlaid by a barely-perceptible recording of her mother’s voice. Dealing directly with her late mother’s illness, the repeated lyrical phrase “You were wasting away, my god / I’m making my way down south” rings in my mind for hours after every time I hear it. While a good portion of “Fatigue” is not exactly easy listening, compositionally or emotionally, the songs at the album’s core go hard. Jazz-infused “Suck Teeth” is chill and spacey, impossible not to bob your head along to, even as its lyrics explore the musician’s anxieties about motherhood. Mid-album highlight “Kill Self” couches the intensity of its sentiment in a pulsing club beat as L’Rain sings in off-kilter harmony with herself. While the song is about cyclical self doubt and being your own worst enemy, it also anticipates and embraces the inevitability of recovery as part of those cycles. Sonically, it gives me the feeling of flies circling my head, in the best way. L’Rain’s double-tracked vocals shine further on “Two Face,” a piano-driven meditation on loneliness. The last words of “Fatigue” are “I am not prepared for what is going to happen to me,” a statement loaded with fear and uncertainty. At the same time, the way L’Rain sings it is a near-ecstatic embrace of the unknown. Through music that is by turns dense and sparse, claustrophobic and expansive, L’Rain crafts a moving account of life after loss and a deeply introspective look at personal growth and change.
Sas Carey’s “Transition,” the latest showing in Middlebury’s Hirschfield International Film Series, is a documentary that details the intense urbanization that Mongolia has experienced through the story of a mother and daughter and their journey from the countryside of Mongolia to its capital city Ulaanbaatar. Carey has been traveling to Mongolia for about 20 years, and because of her relationship with the place and culture, she has dedicated herself to telling the story of Mongolia through four films (“Transition” being the fourth). This installment paints a detailed picture of the state of urbanization in Mongolia right now. “Transition” documents the journey of Khongoroo, a doctor working in Ulaanbaatar who returns to the countryside to be with her daughter and family. In the country, people live a vastly different lifestyle than in the capital. They tend livestock, work in the fields and live in yurts. The film captures the beautiful landscape of the farmland, full of greenery, with a close community of families living, laughing and working together. It is in this remote land of East Taiga where these relationships, specifically between Khongoroo and her daughter, develop, painting a beautiful portrait of motherhood and family. There is a love between them and the rest of the group that cannot be easily expressed through words, but Carey is able to capture it instead through film. In one such moment, as Khongoroo picks her daughter up and wraps her in a big hug, the audience can feel the pure joy of their reunion. It is a heartwarming moment that Carey caught artfully, and it speaks volumes about the close relationship she holds with the East Taigans that she was able to access such an emotional and personal moment. However, the core of this film is to show the titular transition that Mongolia is going through. We see the modernization of Mongolia through city life. With loud noises in the streets and masses of people flowing through the twists and turns of the metropolis, our first impression of Mongolia is one of activity and momentum. Then, as Khongoroo travels to the countryside, we see a completely different way of life. However, this contrast was not always so dramatic. A hundred years ago, more Mongolians were nomads living in remote areas, doing the type of work that we see the nomads doing in the film, and building the relationships that are so heartwarming to watch on screen. Now, though, the majority of Mongolians live in cities, and that is eventually where Khongoroo returns, with her daughter by her side, as they reunite with the daughter’s father. However, even as the cultures change from vibrant and fast-moving to serene and uncomplicated, the tone of the movie doesn't change. It remains personal, perhaps because the subject of the movie is Khongoroo, someone with a calm and caring temperament, and we see the world through her eyes. “Transition” conveys lots about Mongolia and its ongoing cultural shift over the past century by diving deep into the lifestyles that were once the norm but are now often obsolete, and the effects of such a drastic transformation, through the eyes of people who are closely affected by it. By seeing Khongoroo and her family’s journey up close, we gain a greater perspective on the gravity of the change Mongolia is undergoing. Carey has effectively documented the transition from a nomadic lifestyle to modern city living in a personal, emotional and beautifully shot form.
Actor Michael K. Williams passed away earlier this month after a long battle with drug addiction. He was 54. Williams played bootlegger Chalky White in the show “Boardwalk Empire.” His performance over five seasons remained steady, menacing and reliable — even when the show was sometimes anything but. He also posthumously received an Emmy nomination in September for his role in “Lovecraft Country.” But a certain character will always showcase Williams’ legacy: Omar Little. Omar Little from “The Wire” — the shotgun-wielding, openly gay thief with a moral code wears an air of complete nonchalance and security as he robs dope dealers, terrorizing the local gangs of Baltimore. “Citizens” uninvolved with the drug trade are safe from his wrath. Omar walks his grandmother to church on Sundays. He enjoys Honey Nut Cheerios. He commits a homicide every now and then. In a show full of rich characters on both sides of the law, Omar was the most compelling of the bunch thanks to Williams’ elegantly matter-of-fact performance. He paired the character’s understatement with flashes of exuberance and dark humor during the show’s more violent scenes. When Omar whistles “Farmer in the Dell” with a poker-face as he approaches his victims, Williams lets the music do all of the talking as the dealers run. It is as if Omar is just on an afternoon stroll through the park, and not about to commit a handful of felonies. “(Omar’s) gayness and his sexuality do not define him,” said Film and Media Culture Professor Jason Mittel, author of “Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling.” “He is the kind of character we have never seen on television before [...]. And you add on to that the striking charisma Michael K. Williams brought to the part. It’s just something about his performance that pops.” But Williams’ performance as Omar was legendary for a reason beyond his charisma. You get the feeling that Williams did not take himself seriously, even as he gave a serious, beautiful performance. Williams understood that “The Wire” was always meant to both entertain and make you think. “The Wire” started out as a more-than-usually thoughtful series about the moral ambiguity of the War on Drugs in Baltimore. But a cop show was pretty much all it was. We first see Baltimore through the eyes of alcoholic detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) and foul-mouthed Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce), who assemble a team of flawed but mostly well-meaning police officers bent on pursuing drug-related homicides instead of street-dealing. Soon enough, though, their investigation leads them to the highest levers of power in the city, with drug money flowing from crooked state senators to street-level dealers all the way to local businesses. After its first run of episodes, the show expanded to chronicle several parts of Baltimore society. Its second season switches its focus to the Polish-American dock workers who, mostly unwittingly, help import narcotics into the city. The third and fourth look at the public institutions that worsen the problems of drug abuse and violent crime in Baltimore, especially condemning the disinterested attitudes of the city’s public schools and city council towards winning the War on Drugs in a creative way. Some potential viewers are intimidated when reading about the intricate economic, political and social dynamics displayed in “The Wire.” They may turn away in a similar manner to Virginia Woolf when she reacted to Joyce’s “Ulysses” — feeling “puzzled, bored, irritated and disillusioned by a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.” But balanced with the show’s towering yet accessible intelligence is the other side of “The Wire”: the wittier, pulpier thread of the show which Williams’ portrayal of Omar best embodied. There are other great figures in the show who, similar to Omar, seem like something out of a Raymond Chandler dime novel instead of real life. Take Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), a ruthless crime boss who reads “The Wealth of Nations” after night classes at a community college. Or there’s Brother Mouzone, a bow-tied assassin played by Michael Potts, who shoots a character named Cheese (Method Man) in the arm and then cries to the fleeing man “Good day to you, sir.” But none of these performers could outshine Williams. In their investigation, McNulty and Bunk eventually ask Omar to go undercover for them in exchange for clemency. Omar adheres gladly, as one of the drug dealers being investigated murdered his lover, Brandon (Michael Kevin Darnall). As Omar testifies in court, he rebukes an attorney who claims the witness is a parasite festering on drug violence. “So are you, man,” Omar fires back. “I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase.” Williams plays this scene both large and small. His words spark laughs in the courthouse, and his hands fidget with the tie Omar dons on top of his otherwise informal wear. But his eyes are deadly sincere, almost feigning confusion with his interrogator’s hypocrisy. The late actor performed his signature role with the same qualities that made Omar such a compelling figure in the story. His acting style was dignified, warm, blithe, layered — and without even a trace of self-seriousness. Jason Mittell is the Faculty Advisor to The Campus.
Jack Pistorius ’21.5, from Park Ridge, Illinois, is a senior on the men’s football team. In this installment of “seven questions,” Pistorius recalls how he ended up at Middlebury, his favorite memory to date with the football team and what he would tell his freshman self. JL: Why did you choose to play at Middlebury? JP: Middlebury was the first school to contact me in the recruiting process, and the coaches maintained a great relationship with me. I also had a friend who was two years older than me who was already a Middlebury football player and [he] really convinced me to come. Once I came on a visit and saw the view from the stadium, I was sold. JL: What is one of your favorite memories from your time on the Middlebury football team? JP: Beating Tufts to cap off the 2019 season with a perfect 9–0 record. It was the first game my dad was able to see me play in college, so that made it extra special for me. JL: What are you most proud of during your Middlebury football career? JP: Being a mentor and role model for the younger guys on the team to help them have the best experience possible. JL: If you could describe your experience in three words, what would they be? JP: Fun. Competitive. Family. JL: How (if at all) do you think Covid-19 impacted the team's season thus far? JP: Covid-19 has made the 2021 season unique in many ways. Because many guys, including myself, took some time off to be able to return for our final season, the team is much larger than it has ever been. As a result, we have had to split the team into a travel squad of 75, so the ~30 other players cannot travel with the team to games. Additionally, the NESCAC rules regarding Covid-19 state that if an athlete tests positive the week of a game, they cannot play that week, so there has been a heightened sense of anxiety because of the consequences of testing positive. However, the most notable difference is far and away the absence of the chocolate milk machine in our locker room. JL: If you could tell your freshman-year self anything, what would it be? JP: As my college career is winding down, the one thing I would tell my freshman self is to enjoy all the little things that make up the Middlebury experience. In football, we have a saying: “Have to, Want to, Get to,” which pertains to things that might not be that exciting or fun, [but] the sooner you can adopt the mindset that you “get to” do something, the better off you will be. Whether it’s getting dinner at Ross or walking down to the library on a nice fall evening, if you live with the notion that you get to do everything, you will get so much out of every day. JL: What is one word that describes your playing style? JP: Spider. Editor's Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.