Cipher Mag
Letter From The Editor: Bad
Letter From The Editor: Bad

In Love With a Serial Killer

Serial killers, both fictionalized and real, have always held a complex and not entirely fathomable hold on the public’s attention. 

In 1969, the Manson Family, perhaps some of the most well-known serial killers, committed a string of murders that were both brutal and shocking. The vague, unclarified goal behind the attacks, the viciousness of the murders and the idea that a single man could drive others to kill so mercilessly all combined to fascinate and horrify the public as they watched the heavily publicized investigation and seven-month trial. Without inflicting a single wound on any of the victims, Charles Manson became one of the most famous serial killers in the world. He was so charismatic and manipulative that his cult “family” was easily convinced to do his murderous bidding. 

638 White Guys

Someone on a quest for immortality should not search 16th century Florida for the Fountain of Youth, but find a quiet room and write The Next Great Novel. The books of the literary canon will outlive not only the authors who wrote them, but the very societies that shaped them. Constantly reprinted and disseminated, classic novels are texts that have evolved into shared cultural experiences. Two complete strangers can find common ground by complaining about reading “The Scarlet Letter” in high school. 

Camp Kairos

I still have my Kairos necklace. I don’t wear it anymore, like I used to back when I still believed in it. I keep it in a box of old mementos, not as a symbol of a life-changing event, but as a reminder of the lie that it represents.

“Kairos,” derived from the Greek word—wait for it—Kairos, means the right or opportune moment. It is also the title of a very cult-y retreat put on by Jesuit Catholic schools around the nation.

Commodifying Culture

The Banana Pancake Trail is the route around Southeast Asia traveled by backpackers and sightseers, named after the dish often made at guesthouses and hostels there. Western tourists have made their presence in the region known, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment have sprung up to cater to their needs. The most common route passes through parts of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

Any tourist lucky enough to travel this route has undoubtedly heard the ubiquitous phrase, “Same, same, but different.” Locals say it with a smile as tourists walk by in droves with the same mountaineering backpacks, the same flip-flops and the same baggy linen pants with elephants on them.

Branded

It is Thursday night on the University of Southern California campus. My friend Caroline, a member of Kappa Alpha Theta, accompanies me down Greek Row, telling me what the strange symbols mean as I point to each house like a toddler at a new playground. I can’t tell you much about the rest of the night except that I jumped into a grocery cart filled with ice at a frat house.

Before You Jump off a Cliff

As the light begins to fade, you find yourself on top of a cliff. It’s a desert cliff, the kind with a wind-swept top, the red rock still warm from the afternoon sun. Beneath your feet, the surface feels more like sand than stone. The air is dry and cool, and the wind stings your nose and leaves grit in the back of your throat. A handful of feet away from where you stand, the land drops off, sheer, ending in a deep blue pool that shimmers with the last of the light. A river, branching out in two directions and winding sluggishly downhill, feeds the pool. It looks to you like a 1,000 foot drop, but you realize it’s probably less.

Four-Star Cults

✭✭✭✭ “great family environment”

I’m an older woman and found the sound of 800 children laughing and chanting scripture about the fate of their souls immensely relaxing. My grandkids came up from Phoenix for the day, and loved the jovial atmosphere. I noticed the bellhop seemed to be removing some older male children from the premises. I’m guessing this was related to the pamphlet in our room about maintaining the golden ratio?? Also, loved the privacy from the massive cement walls surrounding the resort.  

-Linda, Tampa

The Fourth Party

I come from a small town in southeast England called Sheringham, in the voting constituency of North Norfolk. Picture beautiful sandy coastlines, large stately homes, quaint British towns and a perfectly farmed countryside. Sheringham even has a town crier. Turn the other eye, and you’ve got a large retiree population, extreme lack of racial diversity and the inbred capital of the U.K., where the dialectic “yer getting on ma wick” translates to the rest of the country as “you’re starting to annoy me.” Norfolk was a wonderful, if a little slow-paced, area to grow up.

Hey, it's Cory

Hi, I’m Cory Gardner. Nice to meet you!  If I could look you in the eye and shake your hand, I would. 

Do you know about me? Because I know all about you. I know what you like to hear; I know what you like to see; I know how you like to feel. That’s because I’m good at this “getting elected” thing. One of the best, even. They’re calling me a rising star—I’ll take it. But I’m not here to gloat. I know you may not have wanted me as much as I wanted you. Still, we’re going to have to get along. I figured we may as well get to know each other. 

"The Hope We Seek"

One day in Worner, I saw a plastic-wrapped book sitting on an ottoman. I overheard somone say, “Some dude was passing that book out in front of Worner.” Within hours, I saw dozens of copies littered around Benji’s, the Worner desk, the trash and even in the Spanish house, where I live. 

The book is called “The Hope We Seek,” and the author’s name is Rich Shapero. It’s 432 pages long, and the cover looks like a cathedral ceiling updated for the Tumblr world. The flap photo portrays Rich Shapero as a profound, insightful older man, and the review on the back cover sounds like it was made with an online generator: “Rich Shapero deftly reveals man’s hunger for gold and sex as mere intoxicating perfume lilting off a far deeper Source. Unexpected and original, this tale is indeed full of the hope we all seek.”

Abducted by Veganism

I write to you from a commune I am unsure I’ll ever escape. My skin has taken on a pale green palor from all the spinach I am forced to eat and I have not seen an egg for years. Looking back, I feel nothing but shame. I should have been better prepared. I should have been safer. I should have sprinted the opposite direction the very first time I heard the word “vegan.”

Letter from the editor - Cult

One of the best scenes in “Fight Club” is halfway through the movie when Tyler grabs Norton’s hand and drenches it in a powered chemical substance that immediately starts burning his skin. Norton starts convulsing and attempts to rip his hand away, but Tyler holds it steady between thick black gloves and begins a tirade of philosophical absolutisms while he has Norton’s full attention. After a few moments of agony, Norton begs for the vinegar that will neutralize the acid. Tyler says, “First you have to know that someday you’re going to die. It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” 

Letter from the editor - Toxic

There was a small pond in the woods at the back of my middle school. Some people referred to it as “The Pond” and others called it “The Toxic Puddle.” Most commonly, it was “the shithole by the A-Building.” The whole place stunk of sulfur and the water was slick with oil, so the pejorative names were well earned.

One spring afternoon toward the end of eighth grade, my friends and I were walking by the pond and arguing about its origin. Being a fourteen-year-old boy, I turned to my friend Jack and said, “ten bucks to stick your head in the shit.” It only took 30 seconds of calling Jack a pussy to get him to dunk his head.

Speaking to the Nation

Speaking to the Nation

On July 27th 2004, a young black civil rights attorney hailing from the classrooms of University of Chicago Law School and the chambers of the Illinois Senate dusted the chalk off his jacket and took the podium.  

He addressed the audience as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention under the Fleet Center dome in Boston, Mass. 

“Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely.”

Living in the Shadow

In July 16, 1945, the radio frequency that the United States military was using to broadcast the countdown to the Trinity Test suffered interference from a local radio station. As a result of a strange fluke, the commanding officers of the operation heard strains from Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings” broadcasted through the control bunker as the final seconds expired and the bomb dropped, six miles away—the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in the United States. Stepping outside, the officers were hit by a wave of heat and pressure from the world’s first atomic weapon. In the first few seconds of the new era that was ushered in that morning at 5:29 a.m., the orchestra played on, but the desert was silent.

Turning Off Cruise Control

There were 60 students in my high school graduating class. They each knew my dog’s name, the sports I played and the fact that I was 11-and-a-half pounds when I was born. By senior year, I stopped caring about what clothes I wore or what inappropriate comments I made. People knew me by the distinct identity I possessed within the safe, comfortable, collaborative walls that coddled 240 accepting, growing, learning high schoolers. I had a specific place and I never had to work to show people who I was.