The Poetry Snapshot: Navigating to Nowhere

nehaallathur Leave a comment

Welcome to the nights of the beautifully broken.

Driving up north in Michigan

We start to head down this unraveling midnight road,
and music slips through every word unspoken.
You begin to navigate us to nowhere.

When I cannot fall asleep at night,
I fall apart instead.
I look out the window and try to convince myself,
I know what’s coming ahead.
These silent roads are all intertwined,
and you continue to navigate us to nowhere.

Like a deer in headlights, the conversation changes.
This dynamic is starting to reach new stages,
and I don’t want to be on different pages.
But then you accurately navigate us to nowhere.

We eventually circle back without a hurry.
But this drive has gone by in the blink of an eye,
and now looking back, it’s starting to seem blurry.
So again, can you navigate us to nowhere?

Hidden Gems: The Twilight Zone

jushutch 2 Comments

Unfortunately it’s already the last week of October, which means that this is the last post of the horror-themed Hidden Gems series. I can’t believe how fast it flew by, especially being busy with midterms and existential dread about the state of the world. I’ve really enjoyed sharing some of my favorite works of horror art, I just can’t believe how much I didn’t get to cover; there’s pretty much an endless amount of art that I could talk about when it comes to horror. However, that doesn’t mean that you won’t see a spooky post now and again, especially if the inspiration strikes or I watch a particularly good movie. For my last post of spooky season, I found it fitting to talk about a work of art that is extremely close to my heart, a show that inspired my lifelong interest in the supernatural, science fiction, and horror: The Twilight Zone.

Depending on your generation, you might already be extremely familiar with the show; it was groundbreaking when it aired it 1959, and has inspired countless knock-offs and remakes due to its incredible popularity. However, I’ve noticed that has been brushed under the rug recently; I find less and less people who have ever seen it, let alone enjoy it. Unfortunately, the show’s age has been a large deterrent to modern viewers. It is filmed in black and white, as expected for the time, and not all of the acting has aged well. Although it is certainly an old show, I would argue that it has an unmatched amount of charm, and that the intellectual ideas presented in each episode are incredibly fascinating and still relevant today.

The original Twilight Zone of 1959 lasted for 5 seasons and spanned over 150 episodes, making it an incredible catalog of science fiction. Each episode is a self-contained short story and usually features some sort of social commentary or moral. The range of the show is incredibly broad: examples of topics include aliens, time travel, beauty, living inanimate objects, and other unexplainable phenomena. The one thing shared between all episodes is the haunting and iconic introduction by Rod Serling, the show’s creator. Each introduction is unique, but they all convey the same thing: anything can happen in the Twilight Zone, a place where not everything is as it seems, but a place where any of us could end up without knowing. It’s an incredibly powerful introduction, and one of my favorite examples of how art and media can create such strong emotions in the viewer, which in this case happen to be fear and uncertainty. The black and white filming of the show is also extremely conducive to the aesthetic being portrayed in each episode. One might expect it to be a barrier from realism, but I find it to be incredibly immersive, since so much attention is drawn to the characters and the story, not so much the visuals and special effects. More often than not, the immersion is actually broken when they attempt to use ambitious special effects; on the flip side, they use clever practical effects to achieve surprisingly convincing results. Episodes like Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? are a perfect example of this duality: some unfortunate prosthetics are especially jarring, while some of the practical effects are clever and so well done that it almost beats anything that could be accomplished today. In general, all of these aspects of the show make it extremely charming and memorable. Even if not every episode is perfect, they all come from a place of creativity and attention to detail is evident in every one.

With that being said, I can’t recommend the show enough; some seasons are currently on Netflix, and it’s the perfect show to watch during the month of October. Although the show has a notable reputation, it certainly doesn’t receive the amount of appreciation it deserves, especially considering how groundbreaking it was and how much it influences horror and science fiction writers today. If you do decide to watch it, these are some of my favorite episodes, and ones that I would recommend watching first: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Time Enough at Last, The Monsters are Due On Maple Street, Eye of the Beholder, and To Serve Man.

Study Hal: Week 24 – Costume Party

Leila Mullison 1 Comment

Hal is gearing up for Halloween this weekend! In his excitement (and to procrastinate on school projects…) Hal made costumes for him and his dog Sparky! They’re based on his D&D campaign, where he plays a wizard named Ignatius Lightshield with a dragon companion called Smokey.

Despite their fun outfits, Hal and Sparky are staying home this year. It’s unsatisfying to get all dressed up with nowhere to go, but it’s better to keep everyone safe! They’re watching scary movies instead, but, I think Hal likes the scares more than Sparky does… What about you? Are you a horror movie fanatic like Hal? Or would you rather be watching cartoons like Sparky?

In case you’ve missed it, Hal is a University of Michigan student taking remote classes this semester. He’s back on Tuesdays to share his experiences. Check out the Study Hal tag for more, or check back next week (preferably after you’ve voted)!

Mile Long Mixtapes: Ep. #0, Introductions

Kellie M Beck Leave a comment

I usually pull off onto State St. from my house on Catherine, drive south through campus, past Briarwood Mall and the Ann Arbor Airport, and keep driving till I hit downtown Milan. From there, I’ll loop around on Saline-Milan Rd., take Whittaker back north until it turns into Washtenaw, Arborland, and campus all over again. It’s the perfect route because it’s essentially a gigantic square, and for the most part, it’s wide-laned, grassy country roads, the kind where the sunset bleeds crimson through the trees no matter the season. The square manages to encapsulate the majority of my life within its limits– I grew up in a rural area between Ypsilanti and Milan, technically Ypsilanti Township. It’s right around the Washtenaw/Augusta county lines. There’s not a lot to do around here; my high school years were spent frequenting the Tim Horton’s and the Aubree’s Pizzeria. Late at night, after extracurriculars ended for the day, the only thing to do to avoid going home was to drive around and park in driveways and lay on the roofs of our cars and look up at the night sky. The stars are a lot brighter out there than they are here on campus. 

 

I take this drive probably once a week. It takes around an hour and a half to make the round trip; conveniently the approximate amount of time it takes to listen to two complete albums. The driving is just enough for my brain to focus on, but not enough to fill it up– driving frees up space in there, I think. That wasn’t why I started though. Considering present circumstances, I, for one, just wanted to get out of the house. But aimless driving isn’t really aimless, for the most part. This route, besides being easy to drive, passes by my parents’ house, my old elementary, middle, and high school, my ex-girlfriend’s house, and my old favorite coffee shop. The square, in its entirety, is a topographical etching of any significance I’ve found in my life so far. So every week, for the past few months, I’ve traced it, around and around and around. 

 

There’s nothing I love more than an album– a playlist is great, sure. But one complete story, a series of motifs and callbacks looping through the tracklist, one person’s experience– somehow, by being more singular, it feels more universal. Over the next few months, I’ll be writing about the albums I’m listening to on my weekly drives– the memories it reminds me of, and the stories behind the albums themselves. And maybe, if I’m lucky, someone reading this will feel a little closer to me and the universal human experience.