Gleanings | 1

brat

Hongtao Hu

The moment that one woman becomes brat, everyone else isn’t. This is the epitome of an object, brat, the album, becoming an event last summer — brat summer with Lena Dunham articles, brat and its remixes populated by a mishmash of popularized slurry, brat crystallized and finalized with the epochal statement: “kamala is brat”. Or more accurately, apocryphal. Was the artist even able to alter her art at this point? Can an artist change the intention of the art after it is completed? What was once a brash tribute to hyperpop, untamable, “brat is everything and nothing”, has been domesticated as transgression. Single. Considerable and mappable. In the end, however, the album is well produced. (I still listen to it a year after its release. Who wouldn’t?)

(you) on my arm by Leith Ross

Lana Nguyen

Love isn’t inherently about grand cinematic gestures. Though surprise trips to Greece, weekly Michelin star dinners, and elaborate social media posts are nice, sometimes the more “ordinary” moments, such as watching your loved one do their hair, speak louder to the true nature of love.

(you) on my arm by Leith Ross expresses the desire to love through the ordinary: walking to a party, falling asleep in a car, and sharing compliments. Nothing about these experiences are necessarily unique to Leith Ross. Walking, sleeping, and talking can be done with just about anyone. However, because it’s being done with her loved one, it takes on a different meaning. Ross offers a fresh perspective on romance. No situationships. No “if they wanted to they will.” No “3 month rule.” It’s a simple, heartfelt love that appreciates the motions of life– perhaps something we should all try to seek in love and life. 

Life Tower Move-in 

Max Scholl

Frequently called “Rice’s 12th residential college,” (well, now 13th) Life Tower stands a couple blocks from campus. It’s a popular off-campus living option for Rice undergraduates, so towards the end of O-Week (when Housing and Dining kicked us advisors out of our temporary housing at 1 pm, quite the awkward time), the grounds were teeming with sweaty college students lugging suitcases and IKEA bags. Life Tower rents trollies out to students moving in, but all were taken. All temporary parking spaces were also taken. Unpacking in my room, I noticed the cabinet above my bathroom toilet had some loose strands of hair and yellowed toenail clippings piled in a corner. For the past couple of nights, staring up at the ceiling before falling asleep, I wondered if the previous tenant had a strange thing for toenails, like a weird impulse that made them collect their clippings in a cabinet above the height of an average person. At any rate, walking through the halls of a massive 19-story blued-glass apartment building pampered with that “millennial-gray” aesthetic—puerile floor-bonding events advertised in the elevators—I couldn’t help but feel at least a little bit like Monsieur Hulot in PlayTime. 

New Servery Swipe System

Max Scholl

This semester, Rice Housing and Dining updated their meal plans to include a ‘guest swipe’ system. Previously, those with a mandatory on-campus meal plan would swipe in their friends using their downright excessive number of meal swipes. Now, each student has a limited number of guest swipes. (Yes, they check your ID, and entrances are guarded by an H&D worker in turn watched over by their manager). In “Postscript on Societies of Control,” Gilles Deleuze points out a new form of social organization where subjects are not discretely ‘forced’ into certain avenues but instead guided through variable gateways, codes, and algorithms. Servery food is still available insofar as access to it is monitored, logged, and deducted. Swipe-sharing is permissible only if it falls beneath a quota: the code (of H&D, of regulated guest swipes) leverages its influence when you begin to ration your guest swipes and, thus, begin to control yourself. Social bonds then become rationed around a regulating scarcity; a ‘soft power’ alters the expectations between on- and off-campus friends. Yet (and much to Deleuze’s point), this new code comes with new forms of resistance and new ways of being: perhaps friendships will be strengthened by the lengths some will go to acquire free food for their off-campus comrades, like stealthily running through a servery twice or pretending your best friend is also your cousin (or even your husband!). Food for thought. 

Ethel Cain At 713 Music Hall

Shem Brown 

I tried to buy tickets back when the presale first happened, but they were all gone within five minutes. Last month, however, my dad texted to ask if I still wanted to go. None of us except Michael, my dad’s friend, had been to the venue before, and he spent the whole ride warning us how cold it was inside. When we got inside it was glacial. Our tickets had seat rows and numbers on them, but we were directed to this weird two-level riser situation on the side, behind the people who had purchased box or table seats. I remained bemused by this the entire night. Every review I’ve seen of the Willoughby Tucker tour has praised how ethereal, how beautiful Ethel—and honestly everything!—is. I’m certainly willing to believe this, but I fear I wasn’t given a lot to work with due to 1. my broken glasses that I haven’t been wearing and 2. the conveniently located pylon that stood directly in my line of sight. No notes whatsoever about her show: she was perfect. What was not perfect was 713 Music Hall, which has now become maybe my least favorite venue for everything ever.

Chaus

Caitlyn Ladd 

Rice Coffeehouse, lovingly referred to as Chaus, is one of the best places on campus for socialization and studying. Amid the asylum-inducing walls of buildings like Fondy and O’Connor, Chaus is a kind of haven for those not wanting to bald from stress before the age of 25. The bustling atmosphere and impeccable music selection create an ideal third place. “Third place” describes a space outside of home or work conducive to meeting people in an informal setting. These “third places” are cozy, with a generally welcoming vibe that encourages mingling and hanging out with friends. Recently, people online have claimed that third places are declining in popularity, becoming less and less common. However, Chaus proves that third places still exist and thrive at Rice; where else could you find $3.75 doodles of Chiikawa? Or an impromptu performance of Bruno Mars’ entire Silk Sonic album?