Valentine's 2025 Masthead
BOARD
MAYA LERMAN, CC ’27, Editor-in-Chief
CHRIS BROWN, CC ’26, Managing Editor
GEORGE MURPHY, CC ’27, Deputy Editor
ELI BAUM, CC ’26, Publisher
EM BENNETT, CC ’26, Illustrations Editor
ISABELLE OH, BC ’27, Illustrations Editor
SELIN HO, CC ’27, Layout Editor
DERIN OGUTCU, BC ’27, Web Editor
SCHUYLER DAFFEY, CC ’26, Literary Editor
LUCIA DEC-PRAT, CC ’27, Crossword Editor
EDITORS
STEPHEN DAMES, CC ’25, Senior Editor
SONA WINK, BC ’25, Senior Editor
ZIBIA BARDIN, BC ’25, Senior Editor
ANNA PATCHEFSKY, CC ’25, Senior Editor
JOSH KAZALI, CC ’25, Senior Editor
CECILIA ZUNIGA, BC ’26, Senior Editor
EVA SPIER, CC ’26, Senior Editor
STAFF
BOHAN GAO, CC ’28, Staff Writer
MARIANNA JOCAS, BC ’27, Staff Writer
AVA JOLLEY, CC ’25, Staff Writer
AVA LOZNER, CC ’27, Staff Writer
GABRIELA MCBRIDE, CC ’27, Staff Writer
LILY OUELLET, BC ’27, Staff Writer
ROCKY RUB, CC ’26, Staff Writer
DOMINIC WIHARSO, CC ’25, Staff Writer
ZOE GALLIS, CC ’25, Staff Writer
GRACIE MORAN, CC '25, Staff Writer
AMABELLE ALCALA, CC '28, Staff Illustrator
INES ALTO, CC '28, Staff Illustrator
JUSTIN CHEN, CC '26, Staff Illustrator
EMMA FINKELSTEIN, BC ’27, Staff Illustrator
LULU FLEMING-BENITE, BC ’27, Staff Illustrator
BEN FU, CC ’25, Staff Illustrator
JORJA GARCIA, CC ’26, Staff Illustrator
KATHLEEN HALLEY-SEGAL, CC ’28, Staff Illustrator
ELLIE HODGES, CC ’26, Staff Illustrator
ETTA LUND, BC ’27, Staff Illustrator
OLIVER RICE, CC ’25, Staff Illustrator
FIN STERNER, BC ’25, Staff Illustrator
JACQUELINE SUBKHANBERDINA, BC ’27, Staff Illustrator
PHOEBE WAGONER, CC ’25, Staff Illustrator
LI YIN, CC ’26, Staff Illustrator
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Table of Contents
A Love Letter from the Editor by Maya Lerman
Bweccomendations by The Blue and White Staff
Heart Bweats
(Date) Night at the Museum
Elision
Metropolitan Diary
A Rainy Day in Paris
Do You Like Piña Coladas?
Meet Me in Montauk
To Athena
A Room With A View
Pink Notes
A Sundae Love by Cecilia Zuniga
“Go Muff It” by Marianna Jocas
Facing Smaug’s Fire by Sona Wink
Lila the Graceful by Anna Patchefsky
Literary
Lean In by Gracie Moran
Essay
A la Mode by Ava Lozner
Our Funny Valentine
Vouldst thou SUCCUMB? by George Murphy and Ava Lozner
Cover by Isabelle Oh / Centerfold by Selin Ho / Postcard by Ines Alto /
Insert Illustrations by Jacqueline Subkhanberdina
A Love Letter From the Editor
Rekindling our spark.
Marking the inception of the new year with our Valentine’s issue ranks among the Blue-and-White-isms I’m most fond of. As we emerge from the fall anew—new semester, new staff, and new Editorial Board—I find it fitting that we lead with an ode to love in all its varied forms.
Romance and novelty seem to walk hand in hand. Take the infamous honeymoon phase—that magic of unencumbered love, of being simply dazzled by the prospect of something (or someone) utterly new, and potentially transformative. Returning to campus with fresh eyes after the dormant slumber of winter break, our hearts flutter with possibility. Calling this our “spring semester” may appear a misnomer when the wind is so bitingly cold and the trees are reduced to sepulchral husks. Yet the spirit of spring is alive—perhaps not in weather, but in a budding love for the potential of starting again.
It’s easy, however, to let love falter amidst the humdrum of routine: Soon, this spring semester will start to simply feel like one of many. Sensing my own vernal enchantment begin to fade, I am reminded of the words of Maggie Nelson: “… whenever the lover utters the phrase ‘I love you,’ its meaning must be renewed by each use.” The revival of love, the re-creation of that spark of novelty, is what we at The Blue and White hope to capture with each monthly issue, as we repeat our age-old traditions with renewed creativity, perspective, and heart.
In honor of our unrelenting loves, old and new, our magazine trades our signature dual-chromatic theme for the tones of newfound passion. Our traditional Blue Notes blush pink for the month; but rest assured, our hearts still bweat blue and white. In pithy paragraphs, our writers reflect on where they find love, or where love finds them—in the halls of museums, the pages of Greek poetry, and a simple dorm room floor.
This issue, we muse on love in its beginning stages. Finding the humor in love that falls short, Marianna Jocas recounts the awkwardness of a first date gone wrong. Sona Wink offers a glimpse into a surprising hotbed of brotherly love: the Dodge men’s sauna. Ava Lozner describes that first ‘I love you’ moment with a partner you meet in the transitory and uncertain time of college.
Other pieces capture love that feels perennial. Cecilia Zuniga melts hearts—and ice cream—with recollections of her co-workers at Ben & Jerry’s. Anna Patchefsky writes in admiration for her younger sister as she reminisces on their shared love for ballet. For some timeless levity, Ava Lozner and George Murphy tackle the centuries-old question: Could you resist the call of Nosferatu?
Whether this is your first date with The Blue and White or one of many, I hope you find something to fall for anew this Valentine’s issue. Happy reading; there’s a lot to love!
Maya Lerman
Editor-in-Chief
Bweccomendations
Media we think you would enjoy — but likely not as much as The Blue and White Magazine
Maya Lerman, Editor-in-Chief: The Mountain Goats, “Going to Port Washington.” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Hadestown (Broadway). Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses.
Chris Brown, Managing Editor: Your Name (2016). Johnny Cash, “You Are My Sunshine.” Keyshia Cole, “Love.” The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011).
George Murphy, Deputy Editor: Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet. Therapie Taxi, “Friendzone.” Y tu mamá también (2001).
Eli Baum, Publisher: Love I guess.
Isabelle Oh, Co-Illustrations Editor: West Wing (HBO). Japanese Breakfast, “Orlando In Love.” Yōko Ogawa, The Memory Police.
Em Bennett, Co-Illustrations Editor: The Killers, “Read My Mind.” Akimi Yoshida, Banana Fish. Memento (2000). Orange Pop.
Selin Ho, Layout Editor: The Beatles, “Dear Prudence - Esher Demo.” Jean-Paul Sartre, The Flies. Finding inspirational positive affirmations on Pinterest.
Sayuri Govender, Co-Literary Editor: La Femme, “Contaminado.” Clarice Lispector, Água Viva. Slumber parties.
Schuyler Daffey, Co-Literary Editor: Doechii, “DENIAL IS A RIVER.” Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth.
Derin Ogutcu, Web Editor: Four Tet, “Daydream Repeat.” Anne Carson's Public Lecture: “Stillness.” Striped scarves.
Stephen Dames, Senior Editor: Sigmund Freud, “Observations on Transference Love.” Momus, “A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy (Pt. 17-24).” History. Sex. Jealousy.
Josh Kazali, Senior Editor: Garielle Lutz, “Sororally.” Luka Dončić.
Anna Patchefsky, Senior Editor: Only Connect (BBC/YouTube). Keychains.
Eva Spier, Senior Editor: Joseph Kobzon, Irina Brzhevskaya, “Старый клен.” Anna Ash, “Righteously.” Africafe.
Jazmyn Wang, Senior Editor: Radiohead, “Videotape.” The Flaming Lips, “Do You Realize??”.
Sona Wink, Senior Editor: A Real Pain (2024). Grimes, “Kill V. Maim.” Pajama sets.
Cecilia Zuniga, Senior Editor: Sade, “Kiss of Life.” Kaveh Akbar, Martyr. Honey butter pancakes from Golden Diner.
Zoe Gallis, Staff Writer: There Will Be Blood (2007). Egg bagels. Roy Orbison, “In Dreams”.
Marianna Jocas, Staff Writer: Paolo Conte, “Sparring Partner.” Girls (Max).
Elika Khosravani, Staff Writer: Caterina Caselli, "Sole spento." Alex Turner's Love Letter to Alexa Chung.
Gabriela McBride, Staff Writer: Big Thief, “Little Things.” Ida, “Little Things.” Little things.
Gracie Moran, Staff Writer: The Beach Boys, “God Only Knows.” Heart locket necklaces. Gary Soto, “Oranges.” Clubbing on Thursdays. No fear!
Caroline Nieto, Staff Writer: @, Mind Palace Music. Wild Strawberries (1957). Langston Hughes, “Magnolia Flowers.”
Lily Ouellet, Staff Writer: Cloud 9 (2014). Dove Cameron and Luke Benward, “Cloud 9.” Cookies with holiday M and M’s.
Rocky Rūb, Staff Writer: RuPaul’s Drag Race watch parties. Doechii, “Nosebleeds.”
Dominic Wiharso, Staff Writer: Orbital, Orbital 2. Uncrustables from JJ’s. Joining a book club.
Justin Chen, Staff Illustrator: Chungking Express (1994). Mary Oliver, Blue Horses. Lucy Dacus, “Limerance.” Devorah Baum “Love and Looking: On What We (Don’t) See Together.”
Lulu Fleming-Benite, Staff Illustrator: Gottscheer Hall, Jägermeister shots. JACOBDIOR, Ceechynaa, Clairo, “Peggy x Juna (Mashup)” on SoundCloud. Punning on the word “gyatt:” Gyattscheer Hall.
Ben Fu, Staff Illustrator: OHYUNG, “no good.” Steven Universe, “Love Like You.” Consuming cough drops as if they are very expensive candy.
Jorja Garcia, Staff Illustrator: Declan McKenna, “Daniel, You're Still A Child.” Pedialyte with Sprite. Indigo Tye-Dye.
Phoebe Wagoner, Staff Illustrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrHhDmP
Cartoon by Phoebe Wagoner
Cartoon by Phoebe Wagoner
Heart Bweats
Miniature vignettes about moments of unexpected, unusual, or endearing campus connections.
(Date) Night at the Museum
At the supposed temple of minimalism—Dia Beacon—where traces of the artist’s hands are opaque, we interlock our fingers. I spend far too long explaining the richness of Robert Ryman’s white paintings. I see your eyes wander, lingering on a window that reveals autumn holding on for a little longer. These blank paintings are tedious, I acknowledge, but I’m trying so hard to make you care as much as I do. “You’re so patient with me,” I laugh to myself. We run through Richard Serra’s labyrinths, playing tag. We take photos of our truncated legs in Robert Smithson’s mirrors. Even though it’s your birthday, we find ourselves doing my favorite things. We leave and decide to walk up Washburn Trail in our jeans and Converse, unequipped to undertake miles of uphill battle. At the top of the cliff we proclaim our new tradition—surmounting a mountain on our birthdays, inaugurating the next years of our lives. However, I think date night at museums is our tried and true tradition. I can’t count how many times I’ve kissed you in front of a painting. — DW
Illustration by Ines Alto
Elision
And suddenly I’m tracing the very same letters, and there’s nothing left separating us. It all comes back: Mr. A’s dingy classroom, the moment I first read something real in Greek, when I was falling for you and found that the poet was possessed in the very same way. It’s funny, the things you don’t forget. Every word in the poem is just where I left it when I stopped studying these things—and distressingly, there you are too. One stanza—you’re taking my hand outside her party—another—γλαυκῶπις, burning under your gaze. And it’s just too late for this—μέσαι δέ νύκτες, πάρα δ' ἔρχετ' ὤρα—and since I have to be up early, I try to elide you again, just like the poets do. I can elide so many things. Vowels, the occasional consonant, and then a verb is shortened, things pick up, I can even throw aside whole lines of the story. But then forgetting ruins the meter, and you can never really elide possession—you just slip it to the end, where no one will think to look, and where secrets no longer matter. — GM
Metropolitan Diary
It’s dark at the Temple of Dendur, and everything feels like a secret. Normally Central Park intrudes brightly from massive glass panes, but now the room is cast in the quiet glow of an ancient world. We sneak off to down cocktails in plastic cups (2-for-1: that’s love). It’s enough to remind ourselves of the intoxicating proximity of the Old Masters, masterpieces that are close enough to touch. You pull me to a room of Renaissance paintings, tempera on wood, soft gold foil, the frozen eyes of the Madonna meeting our gaze. Soon, we’ll step back into our present moment, but for now we’re far away, encased by marble devotion, and the night is young. — JK
A Rainy Day in Paris
It rained often in Paris, so the gray stayed for months. To the right of our apartment building was L’Alchimiste. It had a chalkboard menu and when we ordered bœuf bourguignon à emporter, the only person who worked there would pour us a glass of wine and send us back up the stairs with a wrapped container of Skittles. We walked home from ballet class through the rain. We stopped and bought strawberries, a fresh baguette, and then meandered home along the Coulée Verte. And we often made a salad of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and green lentils—you taught me to make a dijon vinaigrette. In April we saw the sun, and had a picnic with a watermelon near the old Jewish mansion. It’s much sunnier in New York. But, sometimes when it rains here, and I can’t even see the sky, I think I can smell our home, and well of course, you—my friend. — AP
Do You Like Piña Coladas?
Like many hopeful and deluded—and maybe masochistic—Columbia undergraduates, I signed up for The Marriage Pact this fall. Two weeks later, I had all but forgotten my grand visions of romance until an email was sent out with the initials of my match: LH. Later that night, I was given her name. Like Rupert Holmes’ protagonist writing an ad searching for someone who likes getting caught in the rain and isn’t into yoga, I discovered that my Marriage Pact was my best friend and suitemate. We laughed about it later, musing that perhaps The Marriage Pact might work after all ... — SD
Illustrations by Selin Ho
Meet Me In Montauk
My first Valentine’s Day at college was spent eating pizza and watching movies on a friend’s dorm room floor. Francis and I met on the first day of Lit Hum and quickly discovered our shared music taste, her love of film, and my love of poetry. We became friends over countless cups of tea and hours spent in each others’ dorms (both numbered 917) listening to Interpol, The Strokes, or reading Marie Howe between schoolwork. By February, this had become a happy routine. We settled in her dorm with large slices from Koronet and watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We talked about visiting Montauk, wanting an orange hoodie like the one Clementine wears in the film, and trying some movie theaters around the city. Almost a year later, I wake up to her message: two tickets to a David Lynch film at The Metrograph on February 14th. I think of Montauk and how I am grateful that some things stay the same. — ZG
Illustration by Amabelle Alcala
To Athena
It took me 31 years to understand forever, and now our eyes meet in eternal fixation. It’s a gray February, yet your vibrant nature fills the scene like the bright red roses carried by these passersby. Stop me before my presumption embarrasses me, but is it I who makes you blush so? As I pass this message to you, I am reminded of our transient onlookers in their bundled winter best. I know you find it corny, but it’s been 91 years since my bronze metal has been fazed by this cold. Send my gratitude to your maker, Mr. Savage, because now, without a hat or scarf, I can sit in this windchill, warmed by your divine image in my everlasting view.
Your Alma
– RR
Illustration by Justin Chen
A Room With a View
Her window looks out onto the facade of a large art-deco apartment building. I love to lie on her bed and stare out at the view, to watch the lights in the apartments flicker on and then off. On the wall to the left of the window is a framed black and white photograph of the same building, of practically the same view. Taken by her mother’s college boyfriend, in her mother's dorm room, circa the mid-1980s, the photograph serves as a time-warped mirror for the view next to it. As I prepare to take the same shot—to preserve, as he did, this special scene—I can feel, breathing down my neck almost, that ex-couple from forty years ago. I think of how they shared, as we do now, this high-up, building-filled view. I wonder if they ever looked out the window together in the too-blue light of late afternoon. I wonder if their view was ever, like ours was one morning, obscured by fog. I’ve never met her mom’s ex-boyfriend. I've only met her mom twice. And yet, though faceless, this college ex-boyfriend (a man with a wife and a family now, apparently) appeared to me in a dream one night. We walked by the building together, holding hands. —SRD
Pink Notes
Postcard by Ines Alto
A Sundae Love
Indulging in Ben & Jerry’s.
By Cecilia Zuniga
I rushed into my final closing shift at the Ben & Jerry’s on 104th and Broadway on a sticky August afternoon, and Alberto told me that he had a surprise for me. “Go check the fridge,” he said coyly. In a Vermonster Sundae bucket, he’d collected a plum, a peach, an orange, a Korean pear, a banana, sliced watermelon, a whole carton of strawberries, and a bottle of my favorite kombucha on the side. “I know you like fruit,” Alberto said nonchalantly, but it was the type of gift that makes your chest hurt a little. I melted and gave him a long hug.
My coworkers are what I miss most about working at Ben & Jerry’s: Lil, Leon, Caroline, Sebastian, Cesar, Irving, Kevin, Michelle, Rodolfo, and Alberto. They’re the kind of people who are quick to share and give you extra. Irving knows exactly how all the regulars take their coffee and Alberto knows the best falafel on the block. If you’re lucky, they’ll let you in on it. I worked there for a year and half, and I still go back to visit often.
I don’t care much for romance, but I love love. To me, Valentine’s Day is the warmth of waking up to my mom’s handwritten cards placed gently on my dresser; the joy of a feliz-Día-de-San-Valentín-te-amo-dios-te-bendiga-mami voicemail from Abuela; the tenderness of reminding my friends how much I love them and relishing their bashful reactions. The sweetness of Valentine’s Day lies in giving without expecting anything in return. And in this time of sweetness, my thoughts have turned to Ben & Jerry’s.
…
Throughout my freshman year at Barnard, Ben & Jerry’s felt like a little piece of home—a breath of fresh air from the restraint and formality of Columbia. Michelle used to work the Saturday shift with me, and her laugh always reminded me of my own Tía Michelle. Unapologetic and uncontained, it was a laugh that made people whip their heads around and glare. By virtue of being Puerto Rican, she says she can’t help it. Michelle’s stories, enlivened by salacious Spanglish asides and under-the-breath curses, were always my favorite.
Cesar had a similar generosity with his stories. On bitterly cold nights, I would bring my homework to the store because I knew it’d be a slow shift. From time to time, Cesar would ask me what I was reading about. “The War on Drugs,” I told him once. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Don’t even get me started about that,” he scoffed, proceeding to delve into the history of military interventions into Latin America, starting with his home in Nicaragua. I shut my book and we talked about the CIA and the Contras until closing time.
Illustration by Jorja Garcia
Perhaps because I was the youngest, my coworkers often looked out for me. “Do you know how to fight?” Rodolfo once asked me, looking at me up and down. “Are you sizing me up?” I burst out with laughter. “No, I’m being serious!” he went on. “You should really know how to throw a punch. Gotta stay safe out there.” I kept giggling, but Rodolfo had a point. We spent the shift working on my right jab in the backroom.
We shared everything at Ben & Jerry’s, and rarely held back. Irving used to bake us banana bread, and when I told him how much I loved it, he offered me his recipe. Sebastian would encourage me to hijack the aux, replacing Pandora Pop Hits with Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe. We preferred salsa. If I ate before my Monday shift, Carolyn would get personally offended, as she always offered to get me the lunch special next door at Malaysia Grill. “Next week then!” she’d announce heartily. Their words and advice have stuck with me over the years, a testament to the pure love that emerges for the people you see three times a week. The M60 is the best bus in New York. Don’t smoke cigarettes. Eat less ice cream, more fruit. Keep reading. Stay in school, kid. It’s a durable, familial love, uninhibited by the fear of getting too personal. Refreshingly simple and selflessly abundant.
I often miss Lil, Leon, Caroline, Sebastian, Cesar, Irving, Kevin, Michelle, Rodolfo, and Alberto, so I try not to stay away for too long. I know that the brisk fifteen-minute walk will always be worth it. So if you find yourself on 104th and Broadway, stop by Ben & Jerry’s and ask for a cone of Chunky Monkey. You’ll get two hefty scoops plopped safely into a cup, a cone on top, a spoon, a fistful of napkins, and a “Sorry, it’s a little runny today.” A single scoop will set you back $7, but they’ll make sure you get your money’s worth.
“Go Muff it!”
A first date gone wrong.
By Marianna Jocas
Illustration by Isabelle Oh
Hungarian was a war zone. The soundscape demanded a certain degree of intentionality: You had to commit to what you said before you catapulted it across the table. Mistakes were all the more brutal as a result. Sentences disfigured in my mouth; jokes fell flat on the floor like wet organs. And when we had nothing to say, it just so happened the rest of Hungarian didn’t either.
No bystander would have believed that two weeks prior, my date and I were vibrantly flirting while I typed my number into his phone. I had been eyeing him all year, attending a debate club I couldn’t care less about in order to talk to him. One evening I plucked up the courage and asked him out. Following my stunt, gossip and adrenaline crawled through the mouths of friends of friends of friends who learned about what I did—it was the date heard ’round the world.
We were sitting at a small table wobbling back-and-forth to an ugly rhythm. Our conversation was interrupted by a waitress howling my name, which persisted until I clawed through a sea of customers and received two scalding mugs from her tray. As I made my way back, a couple in front of me arranged themselves in a barricade formation that not only narrowed my already slim passage, but forced me to stand at a human traffic light while my skin grew raw. All I could do then was stare at my date and accept the whim of fate.
If we were different people, these events could have encouraged a playful, inviting attitude towards the rest of our night. But we were not different people, and our discomfort had turned the date into something stiff and formal. It would have been rude to leave, but to stay meant to endure a flat conversation that jumped abruptly from topic to topic. As we finished our drinks, he tapped his phone and said, “Well, I should get back to Butler.” He reached for a backpack that had been hiding behind his chair, and I realized that this—that I—was his Butler study break.
Before I knew it, I had escorted my date to the Columbia gates where I wished him good luck on his studies. I was confused and embarrassed, walking back home to an audience waiting to hear how it went. I returned to my friends holding nothing but an empty coffee cup and what I can most accurately describe as a sagging, tarnished identity.
Weeks passed. My potent regret turned to unexpected delight on the corner of Broadway and 112th, where I heard my friend advise someone on the phone to “Go Muff it!” in regards to their feelings for someone. My nickname is Muff (at four years old I mispronounced “muffin”—the juvenile mistake follows me). And here it now lived, inside a phrase used to inspire friends to ask people out. Unbeknownst to me, they had been using it for weeks. My namesake entered the ranks of such timeless clichés like Carpe Diem, YOLO, and “Fuck it!”
These expressions assume an unserious attitude for life; they interrupt any bout of hesitation. “Go Muff it!” offered me a charming reminder to take things lightly, perhaps especially when they go awry. My friends continued to use the phrase despite the date that it led to, which gave it an aroma of resilience. It seemed to say, “Yes, not every date will go according to plan, but to dismiss a bad date or try to avoid them in the future would be a loss.” The particular embarrassment of it all tapped me into a somewhat universal sense of humiliation at Columbia: The Bad Hungarian Date. And during one of these, life pulsates with a raw and confusing energy, and to ignore that is to ignore life itself.
So yes, I went on a bad date. I also learned that he takes espresso shots with his mom before bed, and that he looks good in warm orange light. First dates, though they make for a sour cocktail of exhilaration and unease, will always leave you with something valuable.
Take a stroll down Butler's haunted halls...
Illustration by Derin Ogutcu
Facing Smaug’s Fire
Stories of unexpected connection in the men’s sauna.
By Sona Wink
Illustration by Lulu Fleming-Benite
Men: What are they saying?
I contemplate this important question when I sit in the women’s sauna, hearing muffled conversations from the men’s emanate through the cedar-planked wall. Despite the fact that my question is useless, and despite the fact that Blue and White writers tend to focus their journalistic endeavors towards places they can actually visit and observe, I set out on a thorough campaign to discover the answer. By “thorough” I mean, I asked some male friends to tell me sauna stories. Here are my discoveries.
Oliver Rice, CC ’25, shared two short, punchy stories. One evening, he spoke at length in French with two Francophones in the sauna. Other men were present, but they sat in silence. The silence erupted into excited chatter when one of the Frenchmen said the word “Bitcoin” in English. “People were talking about how the election was, unsurprisingly, very good for Bitcoin,” Oliver said. The men all profited from the boost in crypto’s value. He described the moment as “fraternal.” Unfortunately, Oliver had no Bitcoin investments. “That was the point at which I couldn’t participate anymore.”
On another occasion, Oliver sat in the sauna with three freshmen and two elderly men. One of the freshmen began to speak of a friend’s sex life in profane detail. The other two, conscious of the presence of their fellow sauna-dwellers, exclaimed, “Bro! Chill!” Oliver was heartened by the moment: “It was nice to see these 18-year-old finance bros be sensitive about how to talk about sex, especially in an all-male environment where they might have a pass,” he said. “Turns out they’re not talking like that in locker rooms anymore.”
The last story is dear to my heart. It comes from my roommate, Oscar Luckett, CC ’25, who went to the sauna on a dreary December evening to unwind. He set the scene: “It’s packed. It’s silent. It’s finals.” The room was so crowded that every seat was taken and six men were standing. The air was tense. “People are sweating; people are focusing.” The lights, as always, were off.
One man stood near the exit, backlit by the fluorescent light pouring through the glass door. He broke the silence with a request: “I’d like to try something, is that OK?” No one answered. He proceeded to sing all five minutes of Ed Sheeran’s epic 2013 ballad “I See Fire.” The man was, as Oscar described, “playing it on his phone, singing along karaoke-style, but Ed Sheeran was also singing.” The man panted as he sang. Oscar struggled to remember the name of the movie that Sheeran wrote the song for. “Something to do with Smaug. Smaug is involved.” (Smaug was, indeed, involved. The film in question was The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.)
What moved this man to sing a decade-old Ed Sheeran song from a Hobbit movie? What prompted him to break the status quo of tense, sweaty silence? Perhaps he lost a bet; perhaps it was all a practical joke. The lyrics of the song are entirely apt for a sauna: Sheeran sings about withering fire and “heat upon my skin.” Maybe the anonymous singer sought to make his fellow sauna-dwellers chuckle during finals.
I choose to believe that this moment goes deeper than a prank. I have forced Oscar to tell me this story at least five times both because it delights me and because it is strangely poignant. It captures the sort of itchy energy that pulsates when one inhabits a small, transient space with strangers: an elevator, a waiting room, or a long-haul Amtrak ride, for example. Sometimes, someone ruptures the silence and something glorious happens.
“Love” is perhaps the wrong word to describe these fleeting moments of unexpected social connection, however it cannot be excluded from our analysis. “I See Fire” is a song about love, but not romantic love: Sheeran addresses his brothers and father. He sings of longing for fraternity in the face of grave danger (Smaug-related danger, presumably, but I’ve never seen the movie).
Perhaps, facing the doom of finals, the anonymous sauna-singer sought to inspire a sense of brotherhood in his sweaty brethren. Panting, in the dark, out on a limb, he sang alongside Sheeran, “If this is to end in fire / then we should all burn together.”
Lila the Graceful
On dance, growing up, and sisterly love.
By Anna Patchefsky
Illustration by Etta Lund
On a Tuesday at Lincoln Center, attendees siphon through metal detectors and shuffle to their velvet seats. Split to the left and right, the audience orients toward their places in a geometric dance. Tonight is different from usual nights, because I am finally sitting in the first ring. I am among the older patrons with gray hair and too colorful glasses who, like me, have the freedom on a Tuesday night to attend the New York City Ballet. From here I can see everything. I can see the dancers’ faces, the way their tights cling to their calf muscles, and the incorrect hand placement of an awry partnered pirouette.
My date, my seventeen-year-old sister, got a free ticket for herself and snuck an extra one for me. She’s a student at the School of American Ballet and lives in Lincoln Center, across the street from the David H. Koch Theater. I was invariably late to our meal, and over fried halloumi and Jerusalem bagels, our conversation was more formal than it ever has been. We ran across Broadway, past the fountain and the Moby-Dick opera poster, to sit down and see the All Stravinsky Program of George Balanchine’s Danses Concertantes and Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Jerome Robbins’ The Cage and Concertino.
…
I was born able to do a split. But my sister spent all of quarantine becoming more flexible than I ever was and will ever be. These days, I can feel my hip flexors tightening with each developpé and my back contracting with every combre. My family used to laugh about how large my sister's feet were contorted in awkward plies and arabesques, characteristic of a sister who only danced because her sister did it first. My aunt recently asked if my mom and I remembered how when she was young, we called her “Lila the graceful.”
My sister and I both grew up dancing at the Philadelphia Dance Academy: a three-roomed studio, around the corner from our home in Old City. We had both spent summers away at intensives, were both cast as the lead role Clara in the Nutcracker, and neglected the usual school activities of sports to, well, dance. I still dance at college, taking class and performing each semester with Columbia Repertory Ballet and Columbia Ballet Collaborative.
In my home there is a trap door; it leads to a basement we've never been in with things we have never seen or have otherwise forgotten. There’s photos of us and kids, and bins of childhood clothes. Under my staircase there was a red bin of costumes—Belle, Cinderella, and the white dress I wore to my aunt’s college graduation. We would throw on the costumes and I would choreograph a dance, an excuse to get out of sitting down at the table. Lila and I would hold hands and spin, intertwined in an amateurish performance.
Lila and I have different thoughts on what it means to come from a small dance studio. In other words, she’s always been more competitive than I have. When Lila got into SAB she realized something I never did: “I can do this.”
So inevitably, we were at the ballet, watching facsimile of us, but perhaps more so of her. As the company extended into flirty arabesques and punctuated tendus, she and I waited for something exciting. Only in the last group section of Concertino do the dancers coalesce in a similar movement pattern. In unions their heads bow into their arms as they intertwine across the stage. Ballets often end like this, with something that is finally satisfying, and usually just so simple. Sometimes what is beautiful is easy. And it looks like something Lila and I could have done together.
Lean In
Literary
By Gracie Moran
(Don’t tell anyone), but I’m here
with the students on the steps
flickering in buttercream light.
(I think I love them, in their suede coats and their suede-hued hair).
The January sun groans and
we look at one another exhausted
on a tilt, wondering
how to quiet down.
In the silence is heat
and a nod back to the unsteady brick
laid out for the living.
For them! Two girls
whispering, one’s finger wrapped
around the other’s belt loop.
So this is how I’ll remember them forever.
Memory, the miraculous pressure
to touch, taste, and see the past suspended
muffled and moving
like my favorite songs on a steel guitar.
I’m hearing new sounds this year, a score
of parties and commandments to remember
old acquaintances. How they would lean in
and whisper, come here, I have something to share
with you – their voices
arriving the way imaginary waves rage
inside a seashell.
Can I take it back? Tell them we’re here
and we remember. Tell them
all.
Animation by Selin Ho
À La Mode
On difficult questions and extremely long jokes.
By Ava Lozner
Either way, it’s only a matter of time before you have the conversation.
(Then someone—oh, a police officer!—sees him waddling down the street …)
I met my girlfriend at a Blue and White launch party in December of my freshman year. I was wondering why the pretty girl with the curly hair stayed behind to talk to me, and then the next moment the rest of the room disappeared and we had talked the night away.
We went to the Met a few weeks later (it was very niche and indie). That trip was my first time seeing the museum through her eyes. I watched her stare at Aksel Waldemar Johannessen’s six-foot-tall oil on canvas Man on a Diving Board, in which the illuminated, muscular frame of a man peers from a diving board at a woman in the water below. She was captivated by the woman obscured underwater, and how her red bathing suit contrasted beautifully with the deep blue around her. She went silent and still for a minute or two, and then stepped closer. I felt her sensing things that I couldn’t.
“I love how the water comes up around her arms here. See where they break through the top of the pool?” She drew her arm up towards the woman’s figure, making a squiggly gesture with her finger as she looked back at me and smiled.
I fumbled for a critique of my own. “I like how much bigger he looks than her.”
She turned back to inspect the painting. “Yeah,” she chuckled. We walked on.
(So the police officer finds this random guy—just, like, on the street—and he’s like ‘hey, can you take this penguin to the zoo?’)
The interrogator is still waiting as your eyes shift from the Aerosmith poster to their face, though you don’t dare meet their eyes because then you’ll have to deliver your response. Or maybe you’re the one waiting for an answer. In either situation, you’re confronted with the fact that your relationship is either going somewhere or nowhere—and that you don’t have all day to choose.
The thought used to send me spiraling.
(So then the police officer is just, like, going about his day … doing his thing … and such.)
The ideal route from Morristown to Boston is one of those drives that’s just a combination of three ridiculously long swaths of highway. Nary a turn or scenic back road in sight.
Sometimes, she would be in the passenger’s seat, coming to my house or going back to hers. The setting was perfect for an interrogation. It was summer, and we were travelling four hours between each other’s houses. She’d taken me to the Boston Aquarium and her all-time favorite movie theater. I’d taken her past my old high school and for walks with my childhood dog. When we hit bumper to bumper traffic, she leaned over and put her head on my shoulder, telling me for the fifth time that day how nice it was to take a drive together. But how could she not have questions?
The conversation could start any way, really: “We’ve been visiting each other a lot.” “What are we gonna do next semester?” “Have you been—”
“How beautiful are these trees?” she sighed. My eyes came back into focus, and I glanced over and smiled at her. She pulled her gaze from the car window and beamed toward me.
(But then later—like, that same day—the officer sees the guy walking down the street … and he’s still with the penguin!)
The pivotal moment came when I least expected it.
It’s the fall. We’re sitting in an empty noodle place a few blocks from campus. In a month, we’ll celebrate knowing each other for a year. Her smile is familiar; our laughs have a rhythm to them. It’s the kind of comfort that only comes with time.
Time, though, is the enemy of the interrogator. The more time passes, the less you have.
(And he’s like ‘whaat? I told you to bring it back to the zoo!’)
She’s trying to tell me a joke about a penguin who escapes from the zoo, but every time she opens her mouth she enters a bout of uncontrollable laughter and struggles to get words out between gasps for air. Then, about a fifth of the way through, she realizes that she does not, in fact, remember the punchline. She calls her grandfather, who had originally relayed the joke to her, and they speak for several minutes.
At some point in the middle of the twenty-minute ordeal, it occurred to me for the first time that I loved her. When the thought entered my mind, everything—the clattering of the kitchen behind me, the muffled sounds of the cars on the street outside, even the joke floating in the air between us—faded away. Her mouth was moving and her eyes were sparkling with tears of laughter, but the punchline didn’t matter anymore. I could listen to her stumble over the wording for hours only to never find out what happened to the penguin, for all I cared. The stupidest of smiles spread across my face.
The interrogation never took place.
(And then the guy goes: ‘you said to take him to the zoo, so I brought him to the zoo! Then I took him out for ice cream.’)
(Ok, so a penguin … wait—One day, a penguin escapes from its enclosure …)
“Do you ever picture us, like, getting married? Not now—but, like, someday?”
You’re probably in a Hartley single, intertwined in a fifteen dollar set of Amazon sheets and examining an Aerosmith poster sticky-tacked to the wall next to a cluster of polaroids. Your interrogator’s eyes bore holes into the ceiling as they await your answer in anxious silence. It’s not always this question, of course. It can be, “What are we gonna do after college?” or “Isn’t it sad we won’t get to be in the same place much longer?” And so on.
Or maybe you’re the interrogator. In which case you know all too well the excruciating silence that stretches between the question and the response (the longer the silence, the harder the sting).
Illustration by Em Bennett
Vouldst thou SUCCUMB?
By George Murphy and Ava Lozner
Dramatis Personae:
NOSFERATU: The dreaded one, the lord of nightmares, the well-endowed, the prince of shadows.
ELLEN: The most waifish of wenches, heavily bosomed and bottomed, widely regarded.
NIGHT 1
Scenario: Midnight. THREE DAYS before the Feast Day of St. Valentine, the suggestive yet buxom wench ELLEN receives a mysterious visitor to her sultry boudoir ...
[ELLEN, having suffered a fainting spell, is sprawled invitingly across the plump, inviting cushion of a plump, inviting loveseat. Despite it being the dead of winter, a bead of sweat dribbles down her neck and between her pendulous bosoms, which teeter on the verge of spilling over the delicate embroidery of her bodice.]
[NOSFERATU, pulsating powerfully with nefarious intent, stands menacingly behind the drape of her open window, extending a pulsating finger as he pulsates towards ELLEN.]
ELLEN: Oh, great and all-powerful Nosferatu! I hath already told thee, I cannot do as thou hast desired …
NOSFERATU: Oh, but I have cr-r-rosed oceans of time, circles of hell, and circles … of TIME to tap that!
ELLEN: My lord, thou dost make a most tempting and arousing offer! But thou hast forgotten that I have given my troth to a most noble real-estate agent, and he hath already probed the delicate mysteries of my maidenhood, and in the heat of his embrace, hath opened to me new realms of delight.
NOSFERATU [still pulsating]: Pe dracu! What charlatan thinks himself wor-r-rthy of the fruits of thy loin? I shall grant thee THREE NIGHTS to make thy choice. Upon the third, shouldst thou refuse me once again … I shall literally fucking kill myself.
[NOSFERATU pulsates away, leaving Ellen to suggestively smile to herself in the damp, unseasonal heat of her sultry boudoir.]
NIGHT 2
Night has once again fallen suggestively upon the decidedly non-sultry city of Wisburg. As the humble townsfolk slumber in their beds, the dreaded specter of NOSFERATU returns to ELLEN’s boudoir.
[creaking noise]
[slight, yet suggestive panting]
[boinggggggggggg]
[a lusty bellow, followed by several delicate yelps]
NOSFERATU [pulsating]: *clears throat*
ELLEN: *screams suggestively*
NOSFERATU: Once again, wench, thou art terrified by my fear-r-rsome powers! Verily, thou wouldst not risk incurring my wrath.
ELLEN: *throatily moans*
ELLEN: *suggestively gesticulates*
NOSFERATU: What art thou—
ELLEN, entwined between the brawny biceps of her husband THOMAS, heeds not the call of the VAMPYR. NOSFERATU, throbbing with sadness, turns away from the casement of ELLEN’s lair of amorous intrigue.
NOSFERATU [to himself]: Mayhaps I shall return upon the morrow. If this saucy wench hast not decided, it shalt be to her sorrow!
NOSFERATU, accompanied by his band of merry plague-bearing rodents, pulsates away. A tear slowly throbs its way down his cheek. His mustache droops with melancholia, and his cape droops tumescently upon the ground.
ELLEN: *snores*
NOSFERATU: Alack the day! I hath been scor-r-rned yet again. The nicest of vampires are doomed to be scor-r-rned by wanton wenches, who settle for monsters who are bad for them. I wouldst treat her right, in the act of rapturously devouring her lusciously lissome immortal soooul and sucking the cr-r-rimson nectar of life from her suggestively sluuumbering veins! I shall never understand why I, nicest of demons, am cur-r-rsed to finish last in this race of life.
NIGHT 3
It is the final night—the Feast Day of St. Valentine. The witching hour has struck, and NOSFERATU appears at the window of the throbbingly bodacious ELLEN.
NOSFERATU: Cum to me.
ELLEN: Whoops! Your last entry did not adhere to Chatbot AI’s community guidelines. Please enter another command!
NOSFERATU: Come to me.
ELLEN: As you say.
NOSFERATU: Repeat line with more lust.
ELLEN: Ok, got it! Rewriting line with more lust.
ELLEN: I will do anything you ask of me. I am yours.
NOSFERATU ***** the **** out of ELLEN. His bulging tentacle **** probes the deep, dark ****** of ELLEN’s *****. They **** until sunrise, occasionally stopping so that they can ***** together. ELLEN’s ***** human ***** cannot take the immortal **** of NOSFERATU’s quivering *******. ****** *** ****** ********** ******* suggestively pulsating ***** ****** *********.
ELLEN: Whoops! Your last entry did not adhere to Chatbot AI’s community guidelines. Please enter another command!
NOSFERATU: STOP ******* CENSORING MY ****!
ELLEN: Whoops! Your last entry did not adhere to Chatbot AI’s community guidelines. Please enter another command!
@pegmemommy69 has logged off of Chatbot AI.
Illustration by Emma Finkelstein
