Sunday 27th July 2025
Blog Page 270

Overthinking dating: Am I more in my head than he’s into me?

Daisy Clague
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Overthinking dating: Am I more in my head than he’s into me?

It went well with Isaac. It went well when he asked if I’d had a tour of the house; when we stood alone in the upstairs bedroom and he leant across to kiss me; when I pulled my cardigan tight around me in the alley beside his house and he mumbled “are you ok? Are you cold?”, as the rectangle of sky above us hardened into an abrupt and chilly grey dawn.

Isaac is creative, clever, and he wrote his dissertation on feminist philosophy. After so many drinks I stop trying not to get excited about us; I am exuberant, attentive, bubbling. Leaving the party in an Uber, I am confident – “let’s go for drinks soon?” – he nods, smiles, we kiss again. The next afternoon, I sing in the shower, hangover miraculously mild – what a difference a day makes.

A week later, my Guardian-reading, music–sharing, dry humour coupledom fantasies are increasingly interspersed by spikes of bad stomach butterflies. Why hasn’t he messaged? Was it a bad sign that he asked me to stay over that night? Was it bad that I said no? Had it been just a bit mechanical, like he maybe only kissed me because my eyes were visibly swimming with desperation? Had he rushed downstairs a bit too quickly when his flatmate called up about a spillage in the kitchen? The spark of connection from our evening together begins to dull and a familiar shame spiral takes its place. I recall sidling up to him earlier in the night while he was mid-conversation with a smooth-haired brunette; lingering far too long at the party; literally screaming into his face: “I’m an introvert too!” I remind myself of the needy protagonist in He’s Just Not That Into You; I resent myself for taking such a toxic movie to heart.

My attitude to Isaac’s radio silence oscillates with my self-esteem. I remember that he’s notoriously shy and renownedly passive. It doesn’t mean he didn’t like you! I seethe silently at our mutual friend for failing to get intel, presumably because she knows that he found me repulsive and can’t bring herself to relay it. You were definitely too much.

As the condemnation of my bickering thoughts gradually encroaches on every facet of my personality, I note that I haven’t felt like this for a long time – I haven’t cared. It makes me sad because it is so rare to meet somebody with whom I feel the click, so rare to feel anything other than temporarily entertained or dismissively contemptuous towards prospective romantic suitors. It makes me sad in case I never see Isaac again. I remind myself to be grateful – that there are still people out there who I might like; people who might like me back; that I’m free to go out and meet those people; that my stomach still has the latent capacity to make the good butterflies as well as the bad.

Another week passes. I continue to bore my friends, my mum, and my brother with the what-ifs and the what-should-I-dos of my non-relationship with Isaac. I’m scared to reach out into the ether with a casual WhatsApp because I’m simply not casual: I am fragile, afraid of being batted off because it always feels more personal than I know it’s supposed to. I’m scared because I like Isaac, and if Isaac doesn’t like me back my mind joins up the dots that no amount of candle-lit self-care baths can rub out: you will never be enough.

The fool-me-once trauma of heartbreak keeps me from stepping into the ring for another round. I milk memories instead, replaying the patchy, alcohol-stained reel of a six-hour evening, stitching moments this way and that, turning words and glances and smiles over and over in my head until their edges begin to blur. If I keep on ruminating, maybe I can clarify exactly what happened, who felt what, whether he’ll want to go out with me if I ask. Maybe the polluted building site of my mind will manifest the potential that was sparked between acquaintances in a student-y house party on a muggy Saturday night and in the sudden predawn temperature dip of an adjacent alleyway.

Amongst my stubborn self-doubt and hamster-wheel thoughts, the only thing I can be certain of is that my romance with Isaac will remain forever nascent. Better kept safely, eternally unfulfilled than invited out for drinks; welcomed into the lab for trial, testing, and probable error.

Never mind. I’d rather imagine what might have happened than know that nothing could.

‘Stirred to breathless heights’:  Wolf Alice Concert Review 

Anya Biletsky
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‘Stirred to breathless heights’:  Wolf Alice Concert Review 

Wolf Alice have had a whopper of a year. The London-based alternative rock band released their third studio album, Blue Weekend, in June 2021, to rave critical reviews, and in January they won the Brit Award for Best Group. They are now touring with Blue Weekend, glittering on stages across the UK.

The disruption Covid created for live entertainment has been gutting for music lovers, many of whom have not been able to experience a live concert since 2019. Storm Eunice’s disturbance in Fifth week also led to the added stress of transport cancellations and delays. As I tried to prepare alternative travel arrangements for the journey from Oxford to London, a feeling of uncertainty, so painfully familiar to us by now,  began to cloud over the experience. Although forced to get a train several hours earlier than initially intended – which led to an extremely chaotic morning – Wolf Alice delivered a night that was completely worth the extra faff.

This was the second of three successive sold-out nights for the four-piece at the London venue, and it proved one for us and the remaining five thousand people in attendance to remember. Wolf Alice performed a number of songs from Blue Weekend, as well as a handful of staples from their older records. The show began with the explosive ‘Smile’, kicking off with an exhilarating number that appropriately roused the crowd in anticipation for a night where the band’s – and the fans’ – energy levels would not waver. Following ‘Smile’ came ‘You’re A Germ’ from their 2016 album My Love is Cool, matching the opener’s dynamic chord progressions and thumping beat.

As  a lead singer, Ellie Rowsell’s comfort onstage was unquestionable, her presence fierce. Clad in an oversized blazer and elegant bootcut trousers, she delivered consistently powerful vocals and guitar solos aplenty. Her impressive vocal range was showcased as she transitioned effortlessly from the thunderous pace and half-screams of the hard rock song ‘Play the Greatest Hits’ to the softer tones of ‘Feeling Myself’. The stage lighting mirrored the cooldown between the numbers by turning a deep violet from a flashing neon green.

Indeed, Wolf Alice are a band who serve up phenomenal artistic variety. The mélange of genres to be found in their music is evidence enough of this: indie, rock, grunge, shoegaze… Witnessing them in concert only confirms their chameleon knack for transformation. We were stirred up to breathless heights in one song, the bassline pounding through our bones, and lulled back down to soothing, melancholy introspection in the next.

And the fans responded accordingly. They became an undulating, frenzied mass during the roaring ‘Visions Of A Life’ – mosh pits and all – and in the same song they stood gently swaying as Rowsell held them enchanted on a stage lit up with red and blue. The nostalgia-inducing song ‘Silk’ moved some fans to tears.

To perform an intimate, mellow rendition of folk song ‘No Hard Feelings’, Rowsell came down to sit on the edge of the stage, where she was given a bouquet of tulips by a fan in the front row. She accepted the bouquet with delighted surprise – and later flung it back into the crowd, returning the fans the love they show the band in a gesture of her personal appreciation. That, or maybe she just doesn’t like tulips.

Bassist Theo Ellis kept firing up the crowd with his volcanic energy, leaning at the edge of the stage into the audience to ecstatic shrieks. ‘This song’s for you, London!’ he yelled before the band played ‘Bros’, another classic from My Love is Cool.

A mention must be given to the band who opened for Wolf Alice on their first and second London dates, Lucia and the Best Boys. An electrifying four-piece from Glasgow, they established the mood of the night with a selection of characterful indie-pop songs from their 2020 EP The State of Things. Vocalist Lucia Fairfull stomped vigorously on the stage in a black leather jacket, making the auditorium quake with fervour.

At the end of the night, Wolf Alice returned to the stage for an encore, playing fan-favourites ‘The Last Man on Earth’ from Blue Weekend, and, of course, ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’ from their 2017 album Visions of a Life. The euphoria in the room was palpable. ‘Me and you were meant to be in love!’ the fans screamed, almost drowning out Rowsell herself. It’s unsurprising that Wolf Alice have long been hailed the best band in Britain.

Not a bad way to celebrate the return of live music.

Image Credit: Paul Hudson/CC BY 2.0 via Flickr

The revival of the print book

Ella Myers
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The revival of the print book

This summer my friend and I went on holiday together. Her bag was lightweight, full of clothes and swimsuits, whilst mine was half-packed with books. At the beach, she would whip out her Kindle, whilst I was balancing a weighty tome in my hand, trying not to drop it on my face and probably injure myself in the process (I was reading American Wife by Curtis Sittenfield, which at over 500 pages, could have done some damage). Smugly, my friend pointed out that she could read basically any book in the world on her tiny Kindle whilst I lugged about a miniature library in order to entertain myself during the many days we spent sunbathing. She had a point, of course, and for the last decade or so many people have made the swap from physical books to their electronic cousins. 

Last year, however, saw 212 million print books sold in the UK, the highest number of sales in over a decade. But why are people returning to print books despite the fact that they are more expensive, more inconvenient and less portable than e-books? I’m sure the lockdowns and people’s whole-hearted attempts to get back into reading played a large part, but why did the general public decide to buy print books specifically? I think there’s just something special about holding a book in your hands, something unique and timeless that isn’t replicated in a e-book. 

There is, of course, the opportunity reading provides to escape the glare of a screen for a while. Getting lost in the turning of pages is also a nostalgic act for many whose reading habits have probably petered out since childhood. But there’s also something to be said about the book as an actual, physical object. The rise of the internet has meant saying goodbye to a lot of the physical paraphernalia of our hobbies. Our music, our books, our films, our TV shows are all now online. I think people want to have actual things that represent the art and culture they love. They want to be able to browse through their own library of books, reminded of the time they read that book and the person who gave them that novel for Christmas. Just like with vinyl, people want to be able to see and touch the art that inspires and moves them rather than just be able to access it invisibly through the Cloud. 

There is also the showy element of owning print books. A book in your hand as you wait at the bus stop and a bookshelf crammed to the brim with classics are both signs of curiosity and intelligence. If you walk around with a copy of A Little Life under your arm, you’re declaring that you’re emotional, complex and clever enough to read super long books. A copy of Pride and Prejudice and you’re a sentimentalist, an old soul, and a romantic at heart. The shiny, grey rectangle of a Kindle is anonymous – you could be reading anything from Eat, Pray, Love to Crime and Punishment. Print books make it so much easier to announce your bookish snobbery loud and clear. 

The print book also allows you to have a different sort of reading experience to one you would get with an e-book. The physical book has a certain smell, margins to scribble in, pages to dog-ear and sentences to underline. The books become yours, an extension of yourself. That isn’t to say that there isn’t something magical about other forms of reading too. The audiobook, for instance, can envelop you in a fictional world in a totally different way. I can still remember listening to David Tennant’s fantastic reading of the How to Train Your Dragon books as a child. He would roar to mimic the dragons’ cries, bellow for the Viking chief and whimper in fear when the protagonist was afraid. Audiobooks can be magical too.

But in a world full of podcasts and background TV, it’s quite nice to have an entirely non-electronic hobby. Just you and the book. Try and think of your favourite book right now. Chances are, it’s not one tucked away in the corners of your electronic library but rather one you can picture in your mind’s eye.

Loving reading is, of course, loving the words on a page. Loving the print book is something a little more complex; it’s loving the turning of the page, the lending of your battered copy to a friend, the placing of the book on a bookshelf which encapsulates your interests. Even if, on that beach with my friend, her Kindle was more practical, it was also less joyful. After she swiped the last page, she was finished with her book. When I opened American Wife again a few months later, at a café table, a tiny little stream of sand trickled out from between the pages, immediately taking me back to where I first read it and the memory of being on holiday with my friend. Print books become artefacts of our lives, tied to specific places and people and forming a physical representation of who we are and who we want to be.

Image Credit: David Orban // CC BY 2.0

Cherwell Town Hall: Meet the Oxford Union Presidential Candidates

Pieter Garicano and Estelle Atkinson
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Cherwell Town Hall: Meet the Oxford Union Presidential Candidates

Facebook feeds and Instagram stories are filling up; this term’s Oxford Union elections are fast approaching. Cherwell sat down with the three candidates for the presidency, to discuss everything from their favourite musical artist to their worst experiences at the institution they aim to lead. 

Rachel Ojo

Second-year, Philosophy Politics and Economics, University College

Current Union Librarian

Image Credit: Meghana Geetha

Rachel Ojo wants to make the Union less toxic: less drama, fewer burned bridges, and more inclusivity. Citing tense relationships  between the Union and societies such as the Afro-Caribbean Society and the LGBTQ+ Society, Ojo wants to see to it that no one ever feels that they are intruding on someone else’s space when engaging with the Union. She seeks diversification of both speakers and Union members, and, if elected, would be the first black female President of the Union. 

This is not the first occasion where Ojo has sought out a platform for change; after a stabbing near her school, Ojo became chair of the UK EU Select Committee on knife crime. Ojo has also served as an advisor to a House of Commons senior group. When talking about her pledges for her presidential candidacy, Ojo told Cherwell: “one thing I see as really important when making these pledges is, at the end of the day, even though it’s a pledge, there’s nothing stopping me from taking action right now.” 

In terms of her general feelings about the election, Ojo told Cherwell, “I’m feeling really positive about this.” She expressed gratitude at having a supportive team around her, saying her officers are people she really believes in. While two of her officers previously held positions in OUCA, including her candidate for Treasurer, Kamran Ali, who experienced an attempted impeachment for financial misconduct as President, though the verdict was overturned as invalid. Ojo says her slate has a lot of political diversity, something she believes is reflective of the Union as a society: “people who support Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems, can all run together, and all essentially unite on points that they think are important.”

Ojo’s message to voters is this: “If you’re thinking the Union isn’t a place for you, I’ve been there. I’ve had that feeling. But I just want to assure you that the Union is improving. We are trying our best, and we will make it a place that you can be proud of.”

If you could invite any three speakers, who would they be?

1. Michelle Obama – Former First Lady

2. Viola Davis – Actor

3. Jacinda Ardern – Prime Minister of New Zealand

What kind of music can’t you get enough of?

Basically, I’m obsessed with Beyonce.

Favourite non-Union Oxford thing?

PPE Society Events

Anjali Ramanathan

Second-year, Law, Christ Church

Current Union Secretary 

Image Credit: Meghana Geetha

When asked about what drives her to run in the Union, Ramanathan, like many, references the infamous Malcolm X speech at a 1964 Debate, saying “that’s what the Union is capable of.” She tells Cherwell, however, that she’s not sure the Union is currently meeting that level of potential: “I think the answer is no.” Ramanathan ventures that if the Union was considering inviting a modern Malcolm X to speak, there would be a conversation about controversiality. She doesn’t know what the outcome of that conversation might be.

While the Union may not be sure exactly what speakers it wants to invite, Ramanathan fears speakers are equally uncertain about whether the Union is their desired platform: “we now live in a world where there are far more opportunities to speak than there were in the 60s.” Ramanathan wants to look back to memorable moments in Union history and figure out how to do the same in this century. She believes Spark’s pledge for a speaker hardship fund would help the Union find its next Malcolm X by removing financial barriers for speakers who may not be in a financial position to travel to the Union. There is also talk of more collaborations with every other society, and allowing for council members to speak there.

Through-out the interview, there is a strong emphasis on policies. When asked about her worst experience at the Union, she changes tone. Even as an officer, she says, she experienced deep institutional hostility from the ‘proceduralists’, and the ‘gatekeepers’ of the institution. It happens even with the small things.

“When I ask a question or when I want to clarify something in the rules that I interpret as possibly having two meanings. And the response that I get is “it’s so obvious”.  And it’s weird to me. Because it is not obvious to me and it’s certainly not obvious to most members who have not read our 300 page rules.”

What then, is her message for voters? “The people I want to see in the Union, whether that’s committee or speakers, are people who don’t feel like they belong there.”

If you could invite any three speakers, who would they be?

1. Kamala Harris – Senator from her home state and first female Vice President of the United States

2. Hartwig Fisher – Director of the British Museum and prominent player in debates on repatriations of colonial artefacts

3. Ashraf Ghani – Last president of Afghanistan

What kind of music can’t you get enough of?

Chance the Rapper

Favourite non-Union Oxford thing?

Sandy’s Piano Bar

Ahmad Nawaz

Second-year, Philosophy and Theology, Lady Margaret Hall

Current Union Treasurer

Image Credit: Meghana Geetha

Nawaz is the last candidate we meet. Survivor of a terrorist attack and an activist for education, he has seen much press. The same press was what led him to know the Oxford Union; in his experience the power of the Union is shaped by the media attention it receives. In the UK, and abroad. A hypothetical Nawaz presidency, he tells us, would operate with that thought in mind.

“I don’t know how much people in the UK look at these things. But in Pakistan, it’s a huge thing, the Oxford Union. Because if one famous speaker comes, Imran Khan for instance, everyone’s like, Oh, Imran Khan is speaking, and everyone’s watching YouTube.”

However, with the power of that platform comes a cost. Nawaz believes that the Union has been too quick to give its powerful stage to controversial speakers who want to make “narrative based speeches”. A speaker like Jordan Peterson, he says, would probably not make it under his presidency. Why?  ‘Activists’, he says, need more ‘academic backing’. Our follow-up question as to whether this principle would be equally applied to activists on the left is brushed off.

The desire to do things differently has been a theme throughout much of his Union career. A non-drinker who ran independent in his first two elections, he doesn’t think he fit in much at the start. The definite low-point for him was inviting Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg, and having the invitations  fall through due to failures higher up in the institution. He hopes that his presidency will give him another shot. 

And Nawaz’s message to voters? “One thing I want to say about our team, is that they care about people, not just at the Union but elsewhere … and putting that sort of energy into the Union, making sure that everyone feels comfortable, and that every member enjoys their time, would be the primary aim. Generally, just making sure that every member feels empowered [the name of the slate is empower].” 

If you could invite any three speakers, who would they be?

1. Malala Yousafzai – Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Activist and Personal Hero

2. Shah Rukh Khan – Bollywood Superstar

3. Oprah Winfrey – Talk show host and television producer

What kind of music can’t you get enough of?

On a night out, Deep House and Techno. But when studying, something chill like Lo-Fi or Classical

Favourite non-Union Oxford thing?

Going out with my friends from LMH

Polls are open from 9.30 AM until 8.30 PM on Friday the 4th of March. Voting will happen in-person at the Union building.

Featured Image Credit: Meghana Geetha

Remembering SOPHIE

Jimmy Brewer
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Remembering SOPHIE

CW: Transphobia, Death

On the 30th January 2021, at around 4:00 in the morning, the world suffered an unjust tragedy. The artist SOPHIE fell accidentally from a balcony, and died. Like many musicians taken too soon – Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, Tupac Shakur – SOPHIE’s career was at a stage rich with promise. Having released in 2018 the most daring and powerful album yet, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, SOPHIE could only have gone on to bigger and better heights. SOPHIE’s legacy, though maculated by tragedy, is an inspiring one nonetheless.

Sophie Xeon, stage name SOPHIE, grew up in Glasgow. When asked in an interview what sort of images SOPHIE gravitated towards growing up, the innovative artist displayed typically avant-garde sensibilities: ‘I got really into Matthew Barney and Cremaster Cycle and the distortions of form and gender and material and shape’ SOPHIE says. Named in honour of the muscle that raises and lowers the testes in response to changes in temperature, the Cremaster Cycle is a challenging and highly-praised collection of five avant-garde films exploring, among other things, aspects of human reproduction. SOPHIE also recalls a childhood featuring a father taking Sophie to raves from a very young age: ‘He bought me the rave cassette tapes before I went to the events and would play them in the car and be like, “This is going to be important for you.”’ This striking parental technique is remembered fondly by SOPHIE, and the artist remarks on the creativity of SOPHIE’s father’s musical tastes: ‘Not someone that’s like, “Sixties, ’70s, this is the real rock and roll.” He was always like, “That was rubbish. Electronic music’s the future.”’

After an adolescence spent locked away in a bedroom producing music, and jobs as a wedding DJ, the first significant critical attention SOPHIE received came in 2013. SOPHIE’s single ‘Bipp’/’Elle’ topped music magazine XLR8R’s year-end list and placed 17th on Pitchfork’s. Following this, SOPHIE’s debut full-length album Product came out in 2015. Among a release that included the production of accompanying silicon sex toys, Product was received with mixed feeling; some critics praised its eccentricity while others dismissed it as shallow. SOPHIE was working hard during this period – in 2015 SOPHIE co-produced the Madonna track ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’. SOPHIE also had a heavy hand in the production of Charli XCX’s Vroom Vroom EP. The EP helped to shape the sound of Hyperpop, a genre characterised by busy, abrasive electronic production and bold, catchy choruses.

With 2018 came the most defined piece of work SOPHIE would make, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides. This is my favourite SOPHIE album, by some margin – it is sublime. Gone are sounds of acoustic instruments, and with them any tether to the physical world. The album is a river and you are swept along with it: alternately buffeted amongst its rapids, then soothed by delicious sections of calm – made all the more poignant by the contrast. Individual tracks also stand out: ‘It’s Okay to Cry’, for its empathy and luxuriance; ‘Immaterial’, for its uninhibited danceability. The closing ‘Whole New World/Pretend World’ begins with synth stabs so intense that they deserve a place amongst the clanging hammers and buzzing saws of a steel foundry. The album is breathlessly forward-thinking. Both listenable and challenging, it teases the listener of their prudishness (‘Spit on my face/Put the pony in his place/I am your toy/Just a little ponyboy’) then consoles them that ‘It’s Okay to Cry’. To accommodate these lyrical contrasts, the music is effortlessly malleable: it melts into lush soundscapes, then tightens into rigid synth hits in seconds.

The music video for the album’s first single, ‘It’s Okay To Cry’ featured SOPHIE, semi-naked in front of a backdrop of clouds. This was a clear, powerful gesture of self-acceptance – and for many prompted the realisation that SOPHIE was transgender. When asked about choosing the moment to ‘reveal herself, both literally and metaphorically’, SOHPIE replied that ‘I don’t really agree with the term ‘coming out’.… I’m just going with what feels honest.’ SOHPIE had previously battled critics’ accusations of ‘gender appropriation’. They falsely assumed SOHPIE’s gender identity, and proceeded to attack the artist for using a typically ‘female’ stage-name and projecting a stereotypically ‘girlish’ image. In the face of these hurtful, ignorant and transphobic vilifications, it is truly admirable that in the music video SOPHIE made so bold and public a statement of self.

SOHPIE’s tragically early passing froze music in time. What stands, crowned by Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, is an impressive but truncated body of work. While we lament SOPHIE’s untimely death, we can also enjoy the music and celebrate the legacy left behind. SOPHIE continues to inspire – both as a person and as a musician – and stands as someone we all can look up to.

Image Credit: KateVEVO/CC BY 3.0

Flinching before a dead god

Sophie Barshall
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Flinching before a dead god

God is Dead, but lots of us miss him.

We look for his shadow in astrological charts, turn that shadow into beams of light that reactivate purple crystals, and then bend quantum physics into crystalline shapes.

I garner spiritual fulfilment through the practice of yoga and have felt smug at my rejection of too much of the attendant ‘woo-woo’. If I hadn’t, you see, I would have had to break up with my boyfriend, whose stars are totally incompatible with my own; and that was definitely not the right thing to do. Spirituality without religion, Sam Harris promised me (see Waking Up, 2014), is something I could find without depositing faith from one dubious source to another.

Atheism has been an intellectual possibility in Western thought since the 19th century. ‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him’, declared Friedrich Nietzsche in his work of philosophical fiction, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-5). The Enlightenment welcomed in new ideas of a universe governed by scientific laws where there had once been Christian divine providence; Darwin’s theory of Evolution, the development of Higher Criticism in Germany which proved Biblical scripture to be a historical document, and the discoveries of geology all ripped a Christian God away from the fabric of European society. Accordingly, the question of His existence does not come up in conversation with my friends. A few are religious; most are not.

So, when I arrive at C. S. Lewis Society, I do not know that it is a Christian society. I do not attend in some kind of challenge to myself; I think that, as a Harry Potter fan who has been deprived of magic in adulthood, the mysteries of Narnia will nourish my inner child. I am surprised, then, when a girl with dark curls stands up and starts reading aloud from Lewis’s The Four Loves:

‘‘God is love’ says St John’; this is how the book begins. Oh no. I quickly realise my mistake – of course, C. S. Lewis was a devoted Christian. It would have been absurd to have a society devoted solely to him that wasn’t religious.

The Four Loves distinguishes Eros from Friendship, Affection and Charity. I like the sound of it and will order it on eBay that evening when I get home. What makes it such a delightful book is that it addresses questions of love with total sincerity, and consequently, I find myself open to receiving them in earnest. It’s not that a secular book – maybe self-help style – couldn’t do the same; it’s just that I imagine finding it repulsively cringey. Perhaps this is my own problem – that I must receive ‘big’ ideas padded with irony or veiled beneath a layer of fiction. Only, belief in a deity does allow you to approach these questions – questions that we have been and will always be concerned with – with such clarity and unflinching candour.

But I am a flincher. Do I believe in God? I blush even asking myself. I feel intellectually inadequate, late to the party, and wholly bamboozled.

It’s not that I have an aversion to talking about Him – I grew up going to church fairly regularly, and since my teenage years we’ve done the ‘right’ thing of attending at Christmas and Easter and I have always enjoyed it. But I’m not sure if church is really about God for me. It is about family, ceremony and smells; it is space to think, time outside of normal life marked by wine and white robes and wood under-body.

This church-as-contemplative-space thing I’ve got going is one way of trying to reconcile rationalism with religion, and I feel comfortable with it. But C. S. Lewis Society –  a Christian society – this is the real deal, a level up, a stretch. I feel nervous that I might leave the room Reborn and not even know how it happened. Staying silent, clandestine, I listen as members take turns to read passages aloud; and once the shock subsides, begin to enjoy the intimacy of sharing in this small group.

People have been trying to prise worship apart from God for a long time: in 1799, Reformed theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher gave an address in which he declared ‘God’ no more than an allegorical tool for reflection, and worship ‘pure contemplation of the Universe’, so that ‘belief in God, and in personal immortality, are not necessarily a part of religion’. Almost 170 years later, John T Elson wrote in Time magazine that, ‘even within Christianity . . . a small band of radical theologians has seriously argued that the churches must accept the fact of God’s death, and get along without him’. Should we embrace a cultural life of faith absent of any supernatural claims, and pray to a dead God? I suppose that, inadvertently, this is what I have been trying to do. But as the meeting continues, my way of inhabiting religious space starts to feel like a compromise and not an answer; and I realise that I experience some indifference when it comes to worship because this middle ground demands very little by way of conviction.

But this is about life! And death! I must commit, I realise at C. S. Lewis Society. Or, at least, I must try and have a good old think about this transcendental stuff.

When the meeting ends, I follow some members into the chapel of Pusey House for the Compline service and contemplate the Universe, Schleiermacher-style, by candlelight and song. It is undeniably beautiful.

And then the next week, I return to C. S. Lewis Society. And the next. And then the next.

At the end of the fourth session, it is announced that Stewart Lee will be coming to speak next week. Stewart Lee! The stand-up comedian Stewart Lee? No – it isn’t, I’m afraid. Dr Stuart Lee is a Professor in the English department. Oh.

Dr Stuart Lee, Professor in the English department, leads us through an excellent close text analysis of a passage from the Lord of the Rings, referencing J. R. R. Tolkien’s On Fairy-Stories (1939) which has been mentioned several times already at C. S. Lewis Society (where I still haven’t spoken a word): a long essay which discusses the fairy-story as a literary form. This sounds very inner-child-friendly and God-free, and so I read it in the quest for new directions. If we are to live without God, we are to be responsible for enchanting our own lives; and what better way to do this than through fantasy, I suppose.

Tolkien quickly mentions our cultural affliction: “rationalization’ transformed the glamour of Elfland into mere finesse’ he writes, which ‘seems to become fashionable soon after the great voyages have begun to make the world seem too narrow to hold both men and elves’. The problem is not that we do not have fairy stories anymore, then, but that we do not allow them the space to charm our lives. Perhaps all we must do is widen our world again with the mysteries of magic! Tolkien argues that the use of imagination to create a world that is rational and consistent and yet different from our own can lend us fresh insight into life; ‘it was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine’, he writes. Unchallenged preconceptions will be challenged in these new worlds, he believes; their wonders will bring us joy, and they will help us to be more moral.

On Fairy-Stories is not as God-free as I had hoped, but it offers me a new way of living with religion. The essay ends with Tolkien asking us to consider Christianity: ‘The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories . . . and among its marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history’. I recall the magic of living through a novel, a film or a good television show; the way it colours interactions with friends, walks through the park and the way that I see myself in the mirror for those few days in which my consciousness is bound up with a seductive storyline. I am excited, thanks to Tolkien, by the idea of bewitching my life with the ancient stories of Gods in a similar way; so that I can live through them and believe in them and at the same time never believe in any of it at all.

In 1946, faced with the meaninglessness of human life in a world without God in the wake of the horrors of the second world war, Jean-Paul Sartre declared that ‘existence precedes essence’: that our life is only as meaningful as we choose to make it. This might sound like if-you-work-hard-you-will-succeed messaging, which we all know isn’t true in a society rife with inequalities, but Sartre distinguishes Facticity – the facts about ourselves and the circumstances that constrain us – from Transcendence – our freedom to act. Actualising our potential by doing (within the constraints of our Facticity) is the path to existential freedom – and denying this freedom, Sartre says, plunges us into anxiety. Nevertheless, existential theory has been an uplifting driving force in my life; it shows us how to derive significance from coincidence, absurdity and meaninglessness, and reminds me that ‘I could have been good at the piano’ isn’t the same as being good at the piano. The problem is, existentialism doesn’t leave much room for worship: its entire premise is meaning-making sans God.

Maybe the Psychedelic Society can help me. I attend a talk – the Art of Self-Inquiry – that they host with artist Rupert Spira, who whispers us through a guided meditation. Ignoring standard practice of upright-sitting, I lie on the floor: my neck and back are sore, which I deserve because I have totally abused the rules of anatomical wellness this week. Spira introduces us to the principles of a non-dual understanding that is the essence, he says, of all the great religious, philosophical, and spiritual traditions. This is the recognition that underlying the diversity of experience there is a single, indivisible and infinite reality that is, as far as I understand, a universal consciousness. Our individual consciousness – which is the only thing that we know to be true, and which feels like an independent existence – is actually part of a unified whole; and the nature of this unified whole, says Spria, is happiness.

Taking some initiative, I have cultivated a ball of light around myself, representing – quite suitably, although perhaps unoriginally – my independent consciousness. Behind fuzzy eyelids, I push the ball into a big pool of everyone else’s. According to Spira, recognition of this reality is foundational for any sustainable relationship with the environment, and the basis for peace between individuals, communities and nations. This experience of consciousness resonates more as ‘peace’ to me than ‘happiness’; but nevertheless – I like it. If the need for religion is a result of our insecurities in the face of nature and an unintelligible universe, Spira’s theory integrates me into the cosmos, and it is comforting.

At the end of a long stint of societies, essays and talks, yoga poses and conversations, I still have some questions; but I know for sure that the act of inquiry has been an enriching and fruitful one. For now, it is time to pause and see how this hodgepodge of ideas holds up in the big bad Real World.

And Stewart Lee did come to Oxford; I saw his stand-up show, Snowflake/Tornado at the Playhouse in January. It did not disappoint. Maybe he’s even worthy of worship…

It’s Complicated: The Status of the Romantic Comedy

Dorothy Scarborough
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It’s Complicated: The Status of the Romantic Comedy

It’s become fashionable to decry the death of the Romantic Comedy, but every article that starts with that headline goes on to publicize the next exception attempting to, purportedly, Frankenstein the genre. These articles often point out that Netflix is the last player in a dying game, providing us with the worst selection imaginable, from the Addison Rae vehicle She’s All That to yet another perky American small-business owner being wooed by a vaguely European prince (at Christmas, naturally). They tell us that the real ones – the high art of the late 80s to early 2000s and slightly more questionable but beloved iterations of the late 90s to mid-aughts – have ceased to be made. 

That hasn’t stopped Jennifer Lopez, an expert in the field, from starring in two this year. In the first, Marry Me (February 11) a world famous pop singer (Lopez) is humiliated by her cheating fiancé just before their wedding-cum-concert and reacts by marrying an Average Joe (Owen Wilson) who has been dragged to the show by his adorable daughter. The second, Shotgun Wedding, is due out in June and partners Lopez with Josh Duhamel (re-cast after  Armie Hammer’s assault allegations forced him to drop out) as they try to save their families – and relationship – from the kidnappers who crashed their destination wedding. Dun dun dun. 

The key to a great romantic comedy is a combination of pitch-perfect acting and an excellent screenplay. Nancy Meyers, for example, whom people associate with the genre, was too focused on creating an aesthetic ‘feel’ and the relationships were backgrounded. The plot should never be overshadowed by its gimmick, if it even has one. In Notting Hill, Julia Roberts’ Anna Scott is a Hollywood actress, but she’s ‘also just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her’. Ten Things I Hate About You is based off of The Taming of the Shrew but ably creates its own poetry. The characters, too, have to be reasonably fleshed out. A 2016 New Yorker piece suggested that the heroine who once owned an independent bookstore might now work in marketing, insist that she ‘loved books’ and carry a Strand (read Daunt) book tote. The hero, meanwhile, who might have been a human rights lawyer now runs an app that ‘connects startups to lawyers’. Yes, today’s jobs tend to be ridiculous, but what, exactly, was Bridget Jones’ role at Sit Up Britain (and why was she not fired)? The characters themselves were idyllic but not unrecognizable. They weren’t self-conscious, and they had no sense of meta-ness, even if the movies they were in did. They weren’t naturally saccharinely sentimental, they were forced into it. They tumbled into love, as if their lives had suddenly been diverted from a straight course. In short, they existed in a world beyond the confines of the movie. Vanessa Hudgens’ triumvirate of Stacey, Margaret, and Fiona, however, do not live in a world that seems to exist beyond the boundaries of the Netflix screen. The Princess Switch, and movies of its ilk, are set in fairyland, not (an admittedly romanticized) Manhattan. 

Dazzlingly witty dialogue (intended if not always successful) similarly defines the genre. The golden age variety are both recognizable and revolutionary, while the silver have moments of genuine humanity and humor. Nora Ephron’s ‘I love that you get cold when it’s seventy one degrees out, I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when your looking at me like I’m nuts…’ speech (When Harry Met Sally) became ‘You give me premature ventricular contractions… you make my heart skip a beat’ in No Strings Attached (by New Girl and – yes – Shotgun Wedding writer Elizabeth Meriwether). The scripts are specific and sweeping: no two romances are the same, nor can two declarations be. Though we live in an era of phenomenal screenwriters, big names like Phoebe Waller Bridge and Jeremy O. Harris are more interested in darker stories like No Time to Die or Zola. With what’s going on in the world, who can blame them? Maybe the next true stage of the quality romcom is the dark comedy romance. That may be confirmed when we finally get to see the reportedly excellent Worst Person in the World in March.

That said, traditional romantic comedies have been successful in dark times before. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Maid in Manhattan, and Two Weeks Notice – all of which premiered in the shadow of 9/11 – are some of the most financially successful of all time. What’s more, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is, frankly, high comedic art. Contemporary darkness should not scare Hollywood away from investing in the genre. There is likewise reason to hope that a new crop might approach the heights of the past, and perhaps even begin to rectify the racial homogeneity that has left a stain on nearly every romcom of the past thirty years. Saturday Night Live breakout Bowen Yang and Comedy Central personality Joel Kim Booster are starring in Fire Island, an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice due out this summer. The hilarious Billy Eichner will star in Bros, the plot of which has yet to be revealed. I Want You Back arrived on Valentine’s day, which follows two dumpees (Charlie Day and Jenny Slate) working together to take back their exes (Gina Rodriguez and Scott Eastwood respectively); it also features a scene-stealing Manny Jacinto. 

While culturally we may continue to fret about the beloved and derided genre that made Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, and Kate Hudson stars, know that whenever Valentine’s Day rolls around, you can turn to Woman of the Year, When Harry Met Sally, Hitch, The Proposal, Trainwreck, and whatever we’re next lucky enough to call our guilty pleasure. 

Image Credit: Marry Me / Facebook

‘The modern cult of the Girl Boss’ – Review: She Felt Fear

Neily Raymond
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‘The modern cult of the Girl Boss’ – Review: She Felt Fear

CW: insanity, mental illness

She Felt Fear – Kristy Miles’ new play, which premiered at the Burton Taylor Studio in Week 4 – made me think of a Yeats poem. Or the beginning of one, because for the life of me I can’t remember the rest of it:

“I have heard that hysterical women say

They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,

Of poets that are always gay.”

You’ve got to love the resonance: She Felt Fear has a fiddle, a poet, and a hysterical woman who is sick of them both. 

The plot is uncomplicated. Kathy (Juliette Imbert) is a single university student living alone. A prickly perfectionist, she pours all her energy into her work and an occasional visit with her only friend, Peter (Jules Upson), who is quietly in love with her. When Peter drags Kathy to a party, Kathy meets the lovely Lily (Bethan Draycott) – and finds that she likes to spend time with her. For a misanthrope like Kathy, it’s as if the sky is falling in. As Kathy hurtles into a relationship with Lily, and Peter tries to express his secret love, it becomes clear that nobody will escape with their emotions intact. At any moment, Kathy could snap.

This is all accompanied by Nina Halpenny on violin, while a mysterious poet-narrator (Emma Starbuck) looks on, offering some delicately written verse now and then.

She Felt Fear proceeds in the way of a traditional narrative, which is a relief; it’s easy to understand what’s going on, even when surreal elements creep in. And they do creep in. When the narrator isn’t looming over the corner of the stage, she’s inserting herself into the tale with no regard for the fourth wall. And that’s not to mention Kathy’s scenes of mania. There’s a point in the play’s latter half, when Kathy, devastated and lonely, writhes on a table like some diseased lab animal. Even through these strange images, the audience remains firmly situated in the story –  no easy feat.

This is a testament to the quality of Miles’ script, which is tied tight as a bow. Yes, there are plenty of aphoristic passages – “Listening and saying the right thing in response is some kind of witchcraft,” says Kathy at one point – but they are well-balanced by the earthier sections. Many jokes had audience members snorting. The awkward banter between Kathy and Lily is compelling, a portrait of first-date discomfort that manages to string itself out across an entire relationship. Miles is a playwright to watch.

Adam Possener composed original music for this show, and although the pieces are short, often lasting only a few seconds between scenes, they are outstanding. Possener’s use of alternative violin techniques – like jittering the bow across the strings and tying a windchime to the bow’s end – makes the melody sound like it’s about to fall off the edge of a cliff. It’s unsettling. Lizzy Nightingale’s set design doesn’t draw attention to itself, which, for this show, is ideal. The tables and chairs are easy for cast members to move on their own. Lighting and sound design, by Ava van den Thillart and Luke Drago, and Valerina Tjandra, respectively, is also streamlined – it fleshes out the story without being distracting.

Imbert brings Kathy to terrifying life, in a performance so authentic that you sometimes fear for Imbert’s own sanity (don’t worry, she looked fine at curtain call). Imbert is particularly believable because of her fine control of microexpressions – those facial expressions that flit across one’s features for a tenth of a second. Upson is a lovable wonder as Peter, leaning hard into the friend-zone blues. Draycott as Lily is the stereotypical manic-pixie-dream-girl, and quite a convincing one. Halpenny, our violinist, is clearly engaged with the story, while our narrator, played by Starbuck, defies description; I’d come close by likening her to the best Oscar Wilde fever dream you never had. And, of course, there’s the flamboyant Alfred Dry in a variety of background roles. Together, this ensemble brings the heat.

She Felt Fear sets out to prove that the hysterical woman trope is not dead. To the modern viewer, this might seem distasteful. Why can’t we leave Mrs Rochester locked up in the attic, where she belongs? The modern cult of the Girl Boss has no place for unhinged women.

But Miles’ play recognizes that female empowerment can come at the price of vicious self-criticism, and that female individuals bear a disproportionate amount of the mental health burden. The hysterical woman used to be born crazy; nowadays, she’s driven crazy. Surrounded by the pressure to be beautiful, to craft a beautiful life, and to appreciate beauty, is it any wonder that Kathy goes a bit crazy? She Felt Fear is a portrait of hysteria in the twenty-first century. It’s more progressive than you might expect.

Besides. For all of Kathy’s wild moods, nobody once asks her if she’s on her period. If that’s not an affirmative experience, I don’t know what is.

Image Credit: Aaron Hammond Duncan

Behind the scenes: fashion and photography in Oxford

Jimmy Brewer
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Behind the scenes: fashion and photography in Oxford

It is 3pm on a Saturday; Oxford is heaving. Cornmarket is thick with charity collectors and religious preachers. (“I know you are young and are probably not thinking about death and eternity right now…” I hear trailing behind me.) I enter a building that I did not know existed, into the Student Union’s social space. A low, square-gridded ceiling and plain furnishing brings to mind my old school’s ICT room.

Why am I here? I am covering the first of three sessions run jointly by the Oxford photography and fashion societies. The sessions are building to a final exhibition, the culmination of the project, in week 7 of Hilary Term. Participants will join one of seven groups, each with designated models, stylists and photographers. Their task today is to brainstorm ideas on the intentionally vague topic of ‘paintings’. The groups will meet one another for the first time, so, naturally, there are social as well as creative waters to navigate.

When I arrive, there are about five people sitting around. “What college are you at?” is the question echoing in the air. Of course, a respectable student is at least five minutes late to any event. Over the next ten minutes, pairs of patterned trousers and wide-cut jeans, with accompanying legs, filter in. A group as sartorially orientated as one named ‘The Oxford Fashion Society’ inevitably attracts those who care about what they wear. Fastidiously dressed, upright, serious-faced characters come in and sit down quickly. Tote bags are removed from shoulders. Sauntering in alongside, generally attired with less panache, are members of the photography society. When the session begins, there are about 30 of us.

Megan Baffoe, one of the event’s organisers, gives a brief overview of the guidelines and goals of the project, then the groups are let loose. After initial ice is broken, things start to happen. People talk about artists they admire. Big personalities of the groups emerge. Bejewelled fingers swivel laptops around to show the rest of the group their screen. Certain artists names’ keep reoccurring, Klimt and Mondrian. One can guess why: the colourful, mosaic-like works Klimt is known for adapt themselves well to clothing. Mondrian, on the other hand, is an attractive choice on account of his simplicity of colour and bold design. This is the kind of chatter floating around the room – a pleasant change to hear a group of Oxford students not complaining about essay deadlines.

Clothing is a dominant topic of discussion, but so too is clothing’s opposite, nudity. Experimentation with nakedness, or aspects of it, is proposed by some, and, though mostly well-hidden, cringed from by others. Megan Baffoe had stressed at the beginning how important it is that everyone is comfortable wearing the outfits – a guideline certainly being put to the test. Alongside these kinds of abrasions, the groups periodically have an idea that snaps together with a momentous synergy. Ideas are scribbled down, pictures sent into group chats. This is typical of the jolting pace of a brainstorm session.

Turning one’s emotional response to artwork into words is a challenging translation of medium and I was impressed at the participants’ ability to do so. Aided by pictures from Pinterest, one of them gives an insightful description of painter Egon Schiele’s contorted, intricate artworks. Another shows me landscape photographs he has taken and explains why it was pictures of nature he likes so much. “It lets me combine walking and photography.” Pragmatic reasoning, but he does not stop there: “landscapes are so vast, and panoramic, that in the moment they can be overwhelming to take in. Photography allows tiny fragments of this bigger picture to be isolated, and details that would have been missed to be brought out.” Showing me a photograph that, he tells me, is a heavily zoomed in section of a much larger landscape, I can see a road winding daintily past a forest, over which a thick bank of cloud hovers. It is an affecting image.

This is the general tenor of the session – interested and interesting students sharing art that excites them. Each participant I ask has taken a different road into the hobby that, thanks to the session, now unites them. Some had started photographing during lockdown; others had been making clothes with a mother since they were very young. The common thread running through the event is a creativity that, though unspoken, defies the definition of a person by such narrow measures as academic performance that so often dominates this university. It reminds me, happily, why art is and will forever be essential.

Image Credit: Zachary Elliott

A Change of Heart

Jimmy Brewer
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A Change of Heart

W.H. Auden concludes the final poem in his 1930 debut collection with instruction to “look shining at/New styles of architecture, a change of heart.” Architecture necessarily thrusts itself into the view of the general public; by choosing it as the art form to “look shining” upon, Auden bestows change in taste accessible to the general population, rather than to merely the rich or highly educated, with promise and hope. However, a change of heart must shift relative to an old perspective.

Indeed, Prince Charles, acting as spokesperson of the old perspective, commented after its completion in 1976 that architect Denis Lasdun’s concrete-heavy, modernist design for the Royal National Theatre was “a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting.” A building, in its inability to be hidden – as opposed to, say, the framed print of a nude painting that, when I was little, I embarrassedly made my parents take down when a friend came round – can evoke a strong gut-response repulsion. Prince Charles, used to the neoclassical symmetry of Buckingham Palace, was clearly appalled by the austere National Theatre. One crucial tension in the design of a structure is between aesthetic integrity and the appeasement of a wider audience.

Happily, the same grandness of scale in architecture that facilitates its impulsive censure also enables its reverent praise. For example, last term I signed up, dutifully, to deliver copies of Cherwell, and was driven around by Timmy, Cherwell’s charismatic, 10-year-loyal delivery driver. Between anecdotes of farcically angry porters, the topic of conversation fell upon St Hilda’s College’s recently completed new buildings. Timmy, who had not been afraid to voice disparaging views of the colleges earlier, remarked how ‘in keeping’ he thought the buildings were with the college and wider city, whilst still looking beautiful and distinctive. I agree with him, though being a St Hilda’s student myself, I cannot claim impartiality. What is interesting is the unprompted praise that architecture can generate, an inversion of the gut-response dislike.

It was this gut-response dislike, though, that made popular the photograph-based blog and subsequent book, Ugly Belgian Houses. Some of the homes that feature only narrowly miss looking stylish, having lost balance tip-toeing on the cutting edge and ending up notably hideous rather than refreshingly inventive; others are temples to poor taste. There are penny-farthing proportions, mismatched exteriors, and vulgar extensions aplenty. Yet the blog’s creator, Hannes Coudenys, remarked on a shift in perspective he had while photographing more and more of these houses. What began as exasperation at ludicrous design became admiration of his country’s propensity to experiment, even when it goes wrong: “It is better to be ugly than to be boring.”

With deviation from norms of style comes risk of ugliness. Being ugly is different from being bland, it is to be distinctive in repulsiveness. Perhaps, though, ugliness is too routinely vilified; to eliminate ugliness in art, the ‘failed’ experiments, is to eliminate experimentation. Auden is defending ugliness when he urges us to “look shining” at new styles of architecture – for new styles, good or bad, are evidence of a humanity leaning towards change, refusing stagnation. The “change of heart” is both the architect’s and the reader’s; the same realisation made by Coudenys, that life is better ugly than boring. Symbolically positioned at the end of his first book, the words point forward to a future forgiving of failure and afire with change. To root for progress, we must also root for ugliness.

Image Credit: Flora Dyson

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