The Soccer Data Revolution

The first time I watched the famous baseball analytics film “Moneyball,” I asked myself, “Where the hell is soccer’s Billy Beane?” Now, for those of you who have somehow never seen this must-see movie, I was asking why no soccer geek had attempted to do what Beane did when he revolutionized baseball with his intelligent use of data to sign undervalued players to his team. Yes, I’ll admit, being the soccer geek that I am, I imagined being locked up in my room all day, studying my little book of numbers and eventually coming up with the secret of what it takes to win. Ideally, I was going to gift this formula to my favorite club, Liverpool FC, to help them finally win that ever elusive Premier League trophy. 

As it turns out, soccer already has its data geeks. And believe me, these soccer statisticians and fanatics are shaping the future of the sport. 

For poorer clubs stuck in a world in which the rich clubs only get more dominant each year, employing data analysts may, in fact, be their only hope. If used correctly, data analytics can help these mediocre clubs to drastically improve the quality of their match analysis, scouting, and training, allowing them to more effectively develop strategies to compete with the more affluent clubs. 

Few things are as painful as watching your team waste a ‘golden chance.’ Not many Chelsea fans will forget how Fernando Torres somehow failed to slide the ball into an empty goal against Manchester United in 2011. Regular fans, engaged in their often-heated post-match discussions, might say that the team missed a key opportunity. For the soccer analyst, however, it is much more useful to know just how good the missed chance was. The analyst can then provide the coach with a more objective evaluation of the team’s performance. But how does the analyst quantify the quality of a chance in the first place?

This is where the ingenious invention “expected goals” (xG) comes in. Taking into account variables such as how far from the goal a player is, how many defenders are around them, at what angle they are positioned from the center of the goal, and whether the ball is on the ground or in the air, xG models can determine the probability that a player, in nearly any given situation, will score a goal. 

The probability is calculated based on a large, historical database that records past data of the outcomes (goal or no goal) of real game situations. For example, a penalty kick in the English Premier League goes in about 77 percent of the time, which translates to a 0.77 goal value. For a soccer fan, this means that if your favorite team has a penalty, you can probably be optimistic, since the probability of them scoring is 0.77. 

For the analyst, xG is particularly useful because it provides an objective view of the quality of goal-scoring opportunities that a team has created over a period of time. A team may lose a game two to zero, for example, but looking at the data can soften the blow of the loss. If an analyst studies the post-game data and finds that the team actually created chances resulting in a predicted total goal value of three (the sum of the team’s xG probabilities), the team played well even though they did not get to capitalize on their efforts and score those predicted goals. 

Expected goals is just one example from a group of new, revolutionary metrics being used in soccer (others include expected assists, expected points, etc.). Forward thinking individuals are now using data to make more objective judgements about The Beautiful Game.

One such forward thinking individual, perhaps the closest soccer has come to finding its own Billy Beane, is Matthew Benham. Formerly a shrewd professional soccer better, Benham now owns FC Brentford in England, his beloved boyhood club, and FC Midtjylland in Denmark, the team with which he has found the most success. By introducing the use of data analytics, Benham has elevated Midtjylland from a mediocre club on the brink of bankruptcy to the champions of Denmark. The club uses analytics in areas such as scouting, in-game analysis, post-game analysis, and training. 

Of course, it’s one thing to have data and another to know what to do with it. Midtjylland’s success is remarkable, not only in the abundance of data they have been able to collect, but in their utilization and interpretation of that data as well. Midtjylland gives other small, relatively poor clubs the hope that they may too employ data analytics as a secret weapon in the economically unbalanced world of soccer. 

However, it is unlikely that the better-funded clubs will simply sit back and ignore the use of analytics. In fact, Liverpool FC (my dream employer and one of the wealthier soccer clubs) already employs data scientists. Willer Spearman, a Harvard educated physicist who has published numerous research papers, including one entitled, “Physics-Based Modeling of Pass Probabilities in Soccer,” works as the lead data scientist at the club. Tough competition, not just for my own career dreams, but for the poorer, mediocre clubs hoping to use analytics as their secret weapon.  

Some may feel that analytics cannot be used to predict every outcome in soccer or that the numbers take away from the emotion and complexity of the sport. And they would be right—but only to an extent. Soccer, with its low scoring nature and its susceptibility to random events, will always be a difficult sport to quantify and analyze. Data and probability can’t explain every outcome: for example, in 2015, Leicester City won the English Premier League with the odds stacked against them 5000 to one. But does this mean that any attempts to further our understanding of the game are fruitless? Matthew Benham and FC Midtjylland certainly wouldn’t say so.

As for the claim that numbers are taking the emotion away from soccer, I like to think of it this way: the numbers are not there to reduce the emotion of The Beautiful Game, they are simply meant to explain it. I, for one, felt a greater appreciation for the brilliance of Lionel Messi when I looked into his xG statistics and realized that, season after season, he scored from positions that most other players only score from 1 percent of the time.  

Soccer will always have an element of randomness to it. It is in this randomness, perhaps, that one finds beauty. The sport’s complexity also ensures that there probably will never be some simple mathematical formula that “solves the game.” However, there will be curious and intelligent minds like Matthew Benham that will constantly seek to push the boundaries of how we understand soccer. As for us regular soccer fans, we need only hope that the use of analytics will level the playing field and prevent soccer from becoming a sport dominated by the same exclusive group of rich clubs.

Mediocre Issue | November 2019

Wash your Tears Off in the Lake

Wash Your Tears Off in the Lake: In Praise of Mediocre Diving

'To vision profounder 

Man's spirit must dive."  -Emerson 

         Ella is standing backwards but facing me; tears are running down her face and neck. She’s thinking about her most recent back dive; she jumped too high and came straight down in the same spot, hitting the board with her lower back. It’s a common fear that almost never gets realized on the diving dock, and although she only got a bruise, she’s terrified of it happening again, and understandably so. Any horror story about being paralyzed or seriously injured in diving almost always has to do with hitting the board. The board naturally springs one outward, so it’s rare, but Ella had the misfortune of actualizing this fear. Her bruise was on the milder end of what the outcome could have been. Afterward, she practiced countless back approaches—essentially a backward pencil dive—to regain that distance, but still, it’s a tough fear to shake. She wants to do it, though, so she has to trust that she won’t hit the board again. 

The moment you dive off the board is elusive, like the very moment you wake up from sleep—you are never totally cognizant of it. That single second in the air is not conducive to thinking or planning. Ella has to commit to powerlessness, and she has trust in her own instincts. She lingers on the board, settling into her fear. Suddenly, she lifts her arms, swings around, and plummets backwards and headfirst into the icy lake water. She does the dive well, if not beautifully, but more importantly, she is not the same afterward. 

         At this particular tradition-based and achievement-oriented girls camp in small-town Maine, girls spend their summers working for the same awards that their mothers, grandmothers, and even some of their great- or great-great-grandmothers have earned. “Achievement-oriented culture” sounds bad, but at camp, it encourages risk-taking and failure and doesn’t idolize perfection in the way that schools do. These awards are the reason campers like Ella are so driven to be vulnerable and to conquer their fears. The silver pins that they receive are emblems of both individual hard work and perseverance, but also of their place in a long tradition of driven women. Ella’s courage in completing her back dive was catalyzed by the drive to achieve her Water Queen pin—a demanding award that is not often achieved because of the grit it requires. 

         There are also awards for various activities like swimming, identifying trees, and canoeing. They activities teach valuable lessons, but I think the most unique and instantaneously transformative activity is diving (it should be noted that this is something I never shut up about). We’re not a diving camp, but we have two boards on the dock; one is slightly higher than the other, and only get higher as the lake’s water level drops throughout the summer. It's an entirely mediocre setup. I have never been a competitive diver. I’m not a particularly good diver, and I've never been taught how to teach it, but from June through August, I spend my days holding a Lifeguard tube and teaching girls like Ella how to do elaborate dives I likely won’t ever attempt. The task of teaching diving with no formal training aside from safety protocols was at first unfamiliar and more than a bit overwhelming. And yet, I fell in love with it quickly. It was silly, stressful, rewarding, and more about emotional guidance than actual technique. I was seeing adolescent girls becoming radically more confident and independent before my eyes—it turns out that mediocre divers are the most rewarding type of student. For one award, a younger camper might be working on a simple approach, while others practice tuck, pike, or back dives for more advanced ones. The Water Queen award requires girls like Ella to master seven dives: a back dive, a flip, a twist, a tuck, an inward (jumping backwards off the board and flipping inward towards it, aka scary), a high dive, and a choice dive. 

         The awards themselves hold no weight outside of camp, of course, and the Water Queen pin only has clout with the distinct group of camp girls who understand what it is and how difficult it is to earn. The skills do, however, matter in the real world. These girls know how to grind. I watched them willingly thrust themselves over and over into freezing water, into waves and wind, into bellyflops and bruises and frustration and self-doubt. They may not be Olympic divers, but they learn grit, they take feedback, and they push through discomfort. 

         Innovation is a pillar of a mediocre diving program. Crocs, for example, are crucial on the diving dock. You can tell someone to “just jump higher,” but put a Croc on their head so that they don't look down while they’re doing their approach (Crocs float, and the campers have fun swimming for it after). Legs coming apart? Put a Croc in between their knees; it works like a charm. If they keep over-rotating, tell them to swim to the bottom of the lake and bring back sand—they’ll straighten right out. Our most dreaded and most effective invention is a game called “Jump or Dive.” The participant does their approach—the specific sequence of steps and arm motions that precede the dive—and jumps off the board, at which point a counselor yells “jump” or “dive.” It works, despite the terror involved. We have very limited insight as to how legitimate diving teaching works, but our methods have proved pretty effective in producing some solid dives. 

         There are certain things no human being can do (as of yet), like jumping off the Empire State Building without dying. But that is exactly what diving often feels like—impossible and terrifying and utterly beyond human ability. Knowing that the worst that can happen is a bellyflop, notwithstanding an almost freak accident like Ella’s, barely softens the pit that forms in the stomachs of so many of our divers. 

         Yet, fear is so fundamentally human: it’s instinctive but also learned, and it steers us away from the unknown and the unscripted. It suppresses the lives we might have otherwise had if we’d opted for a riskier choice when one was available. This is obviously not a horrible thing; we are fortunate to be biologically hardwired to fear things like driving off a cliff or eating spoiled food. But buffering the threat of death can also blunt the thrill of being alive. Adrenaline spikes from the perceived but unactualized threat of death. The terror of diving is primal like that—it turns out that bodies don’t know that throwing yourself headfirst off a springy plank is (probably) not actually going to hurt you. When you do it, though, and you end up safe and fine, it calls all of your fears into question: if you were wrong about this, what else could you be wrong about? If I just did something that I had formerly thought was impossible, how many other seemingly impossible things actually aren’t?

         The quality of the dive is not the point. It’s the act itself that matters: launching oneself in an unfamiliar direction, opening up to vulnerability and failure in front of the others on the dock, accepting criticism and recognizing that there is a difference between feedback and judgement. Where else do teen girls get to practice these fundamental skills? They go home in August to college-oriented school pressure, to a world that tells them they’re crazy for having feelings, to a social media culture that makes them feel compelled to present a curated, perfect image of themselves. It sounds trite, I know, to list these particular perils of being a youth in the contemporary world. But as cliche as it may seem to talk about them, they are the woes that these girls actually experience. Diving (especially mediocre diving) equips them to grapple with these challenges. Conquering one big fear can start to melt all the other ones that linger behind it. Learning how to do cool shit like backflips is just a plus.

         On a Wednesday night this past August, I handed out four tin foil crowns decorated with puffy paint, delicately placing them onto the heads of four adolescent girls in front of 121 other teens, 34 staff, and a sea of proud parents. I'll admit it—my eyes filled with tears as I pressed hard-earned silver pins into their open palms. They received explosive applause, and my pride for them in that moment remains inarticulable.

         Some of the girls didn’t get crowns; many of them just dove for fun. But Julia tasted self-confidence, Grace learned to persevere through frustration, Katie realized that there’s nothing wrong with messing up, especially on the first try. A century ago, my camp’s founder, Charlotte Vetter Gulick wrote, “In all the activities of camp we have striven to make them, not only a symbol of the big things in life, but a miniature epitome of that life, seen with [a] loving vision and attacked with courage and devotion. Because we believed that life was beautiful, we have tried to give a beautiful preparation for it, to awaken unquenchably a sense of its infinite significance.” Louder for the people in the back, Charlotte! Diving is this “beautiful preparation,” not because the dives themselves are visually beautiful, but because of the skills and courage it demands from the preparers. 

         I’d seen it countless times, but it still amazed me. When Ella did her back dive after hitting the board, I didn’t really focus on the height she got, her almost perpendicular entry into the flat lake, her pointed toes. Her eyes were still a bit puffy, but her tears had been washed off. When her head popped up through a wave, I caught sight of a grin, a glow of pride, a cleansing of her terror, and her anxiety assuaged, if not erased. At 16, she is learning the same courage I learned the first time I did a back dive. Later in the summer, when she was terrified to attempt a backflip, I promised to do one first in solidarity, and truly thought I was going to pee myself (those who can’t do, teach, as they say). We grew together that afternoon, with my bathing suit remaining un-pee-ified, and Ella safely far away from the board as she rotated in midair. 

The puffy-painted crown that kept slipping over her eyes in August was for her, but also for me. Somehow camp clout makes both campers and counselors stand a little taller and be a little riskier, even and especially after parents arrive to pick up their children and camp closes up for the year. I have a little diver tattoo on my ribcage, but for those of us who have dove, our little divers are always with us, whether they’re inked on your skin or not. Ella carries her back dive and backflip in her demeanor now, exuding confidence and bravery. Maybe that unrememberable instant in the air is absorbed instead of experienced. Wherever it resides, as I watch these girls grow up, I can see that it never leaves them. Tears always wash off in the lake, but the dive, in all of its glorious mediocrity, stays with them forever.

All names have been changed. 

Mediocre Issue | November 2019

When Its Okay to Burn Your Boyfriend in a Bear Skin

(Spoiler warning)

What’s the best way to get rid of your clueless boyfriend? Burn him alive with the help of a Swedish cult—or at least that’s what Dani does in Ari Aster’s box office hit “Midsommar.” 

While horror as a genre has been leaning away from jump scares and toward psychological thrills for several years, “Midsommar” is the first horror film I’ve seen that has taken up the mantle of trauma and fear that’s specifically feminine. By shooting through reflections in mirrors and incorporating the symbolic significance of runes and bears, Aster places the viewer in the midst of a crumbling relationship. When that relationship is demolished, we’re content to watch it burn. 

 ———

Spatial Disconnects

The audience is introduced to Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) through a phone call. Dani, on one end of the line, relentlessly calls Christian, worried about an ominous email she had received from her bipolar sister. On the other end, Christian is out with his buddies, leisurely eating pizza, and ignoring Dani. The guys urge Christian to break up with her, characterizing her as nagging. Christian is on the fence, wondering, “What if I regret it later and I can’t get her back?” Still, he himself states that he’s been thinking about the possibility of a breakup for over a year. This spatial and emotional disconnect introduces us to the strained dynamics within their relationship. 

Later that night, Dani finds out that her sister killed herself and her entire family via car exhaust poisoning. Christian can’t break up with Dani in the wake of this tragedy, so their relationship is “saved” for the time being. However, on a trip to Sweden accompanied by three of Christian’s friends, the couple is eventually forced to confront their issues. 

There, the group visits the Hägra commune, a Swedish community whose sinister practices border on cultish.  Dani’s experiences in the commune offer her the opportunity to recognize the shortcomings of her relationship with Christian, when he’s emotionally insensitive following the death of her family. He continues to be inconsiderate throughout their time in the commune. For example, he neglects to warn her about the ättestupa ritual they witness, where an old couple throws themselves to their deaths, and is dismissive when Dani becomes anxious about other foreign couples disappearing mysteriously from the commune. 

 Throughout “Midsommar,” Aster shows the disconnect between Dani and Christian by shooting the smaller frame of a mirror within the larger frame of the shot. At the beginning of the movie, Aster films through mirrors to establish the dynamics of their relationship before they reach Sweden. The first scene that unfolds through a mirror is the confrontation between Dani and Christian after Dani finds out that he’s been hiding his plans for a two-week trip to Sweden with his friends. Aster chooses to shoot this confrontation through a floor length mirror. In this shot, we can see Christian only through the mirror that Dani stands next to. This mirror acts as a frame within the larger frame of the film; Christian is literally separated from Dani through the amplified depth the mirror creates between the two. 

This filming technique exaggerates the physical and emotional distance between Dani and Christian. During this scene, Christian dismisses her concerns, claiming that he “wasn’t keeping it from [her].” When Dani exclaims “you already have a plane ticket!” he responds with a not-so heartfelt “I’m sorry?”, a comment that demonstrates Christian’s insensitivity towards Dani.

With this filming technique, Aster allows the audience to see both Christian’s and Dani’s faces even while they face opposite directions. Because we usually don’t see both characters’ faces at the same time when a conversation is filmed in a traditional shot-reverse-shot pattern, this detail creates a feeling of unease in the relationship, laying the groundwork for what happens in Sweden.

We lose the mirror shot when Dani moves across the room to talk to Christian at close range. The literal distance Dani is covering here can also be interpreted as the distance she has to go to accommodate Christian’s indifference. She goes through considerable effort to apologize to him even though she’s the one who has been wronged. The emotional energy she exerts for him is exhausting to watch. This situation is a realistic expression of Dani’s anxieties about her relationship, a moment of realism before the horrors that take place at the commune. Based on this scene, we know that Dani would rather stay with someone who puts forth little effort to compromise or be vulnerable than face her fear of being alone. 

The next significant shot we see involving Dani and mirrors takes place during the group’s initial arrival in Sweden. As the group nears the Hågra commune, the camera flips upside down to show the viewer a world that is literally topsy turvy.  Our introduction to this reality is another mirror shot where Dani confronts her own reflection once at the commune. As Dani stares into her own eyes, her features begin to warp and enlarge in a grotesque fashion, resembling her sister’s and family’s faces after their deaths at the beginning of the film.

         Within the world of the film, Dani’s warped perception of her reflection can be explained by the mushrooms she took with Christian and his friends when they first arrived in Sweden. However, this shot can also be interpreted as a depiction of Dani’s confused sense of self at this point in the story, because of both her relationship with Christian and her family’s death. Dani’s sister is shown in the background of the mirror, wearing the same exhaust pipe that was strapped to her face when she died, vividly showing that Dani feels haunted by her family’s death and her inability to have stopped it from occurring. Since their death morbidly prevented Christian from breaking up with Dani at the beginning of the film, her sister’s appearance in this shot can also represent Dani’s nagging sense that something is wrong with her relationship. Additionally, because Dani is left alone after her family’s death, this shot could be a reflection of Dani’s fear of isolation that drives her to stay with someone entirely wrong for her. 

 ———

Runes

         In addition to mirrors, Aster also uses runes to characterize Dani and Christian’s relationship. As the film progresses and Dani and Christian’s relationship falls apart, the Hågra people gift Dani her own Swedish garb—mostly eerily pristine white clothes, a sign of their acceptance of her and expulsion of Christian. The scenes in which Dani wears these clothes are ones of empowerment and community. In one scene, for example, Dani is dressed in the bright white, almost knee length dress of the Hågra and dances around the maypole with the other Hågra girls until they drop from exhaustion. The last girl standing is crowned May Queen, the highest honor bestowed at the Hågra’s summer solstice festival. While Dani participates in the May Queen dance, Christian betrays Dani in a bizarre, ritualistic orgy.  

The runes that we see sewn into Dani’s Swedish clothes represent her move away from Christian and towards self-discovery. According to an article published in The Week, the Radio (ᚱ) rune sewn into Dani’s Swedish clothing means “journey” in the Nordic tradition. In the context of Dani and Christian’s relationship, this could be interpreted as a marker of Dani’s journey to the realization that she does not need Christian in her life. A defining moment in this turn happens when Dani wails in despair at Christian’s cheating and the rest of the girls from the commune wail along with her in a pile on the floor to comfort her. This results in a hyper-expressionistic show of female support and the catastrophic impact of infidelity. 

         The other rune featured in Dani’s Hägra clothing is the Dagaz (ᛞ), which means “new beginning.” This rune conveys almost the same meaning as the Radio rune, except this one implies that Dani’s journey will result in a new start, or symbolic rebirth, once she has rid herself of Chrisitan. Aster chooses to focus on these runes, which are sewn into Dani’s shoes, right before she begins her May Queen dance competition with the other girls in the commune. Dani’s rebirth then becomes reliant on a supportive community. 

         On the other hand, the runes on Christian’s clothing are linked to his masculinity. The most prominent rune imprinted on Christian’s Swedish robe is the Tiwaz (ᛏ), which is associated with the Norse god Tyr and with masculine power and energy. Furthermore, Christian only wears Hågra clothing during the orgy he participates in with the Hågra women, a role he is only needed for because of his sex. This emphasis on Christian’s masculine energy makes him a larger symbol for manhood and the most abhorrent qualities of masculine behavior associated with mistreatment of women. The inclusion of this rune on Christian’s Swedish robe also conveys that his masculine energy is not welcome in Dani’s new female-centered family. When Christian is anointed with his robe, he only wears it for a short time before he is stripped naked of it and thrown out of the orgy ceremony chamber after he’s done his part. When he is stripped of the robe, Christian is stripped of his association with the commune and thus Dani’s new sense of place and self. This image presents Christian, and maleness in general, as a commodity. Christian’s masculinity is only welcome when he can serve the commune and procreate with one of its members in an orgy, and once he has served his purpose, he is emasculated in the most humiliating way: stripped naked and thrown out into the open air.

———

Bears

Another key symbolic tool used to represent Christian is the bear. With her new power as the May Queen, Dani chooses to sacrifice Christian by burning him inside of a bear carcass. This image is doubly disturbing: first because Christian is inside a bloody bear carcass which children of the commune are shown gutting earlier in the film, but also because Christian looks almost childlike with his face framed by the furry bear’s as we see him for the last time.

Christian’s fate was foreshadowed at the beginning of the film by a painting in Dani’s bedroom back at home. In this painting, there is a little girl wearing a crown, miniscule in front of a large bear whose nose she is stroking. If this bear represents Christian, its size shows that he is a large presence in Dani’s life, but one that she also loves. His presence is one that she spends too much fruitless energy on, but one that she will eventually overthrow, symbolized by the little girl’s crown and its associations with power. Dani certainly achieves empowerment by the end of the film when she is crowned the May Queen, leading to her literal and symbolic courage to kill Christian, or in a real-world sense, break up with him.

         In the Nordic culture that the Hågra hail from, the bear is considered the most powerful and ferocious animal. Norse men would even wear a bear skin to battle to channel the power of the bear against their enemies. It’s curious that Christian wears a bear skin, the ultimate symbol of Norse manliness, at his most vulnerable moment—when he is sedated, awaiting his death. Because of this symbolism, Christian’s brutal, shameful death is associated with both the shortcomings of masculinity and the triumph of Dani’s femininity. 

         Dani wears a ball gown of flowers as she watches Christian burn. Flowers are almost universally associated with femininity—Dani becomes a symbol of extreme femininity while Christian embodies the extreme masculinity. If you read the movie as symbolic of the arc of a relationship, Dani’s act of murdering Christian is synonymous with her decision to break up with him following a cheating incident represented by the orgy. Her actions are thus a “win” in this story, but whether this win is positive or negative is up to the viewer. Dani smiles to herself as the film closes, yet the Hågra around her scream in pain, perhaps representing the dual joy and suffering that comes with cutting toxic people from one’s life. Regardless, Dani’s individual triumph over Christian and the negativity he brought to her life have wider reaching effects because of these symbols. Her victory becomes a symbolic triumph for women with emotionally abusive boyfriends. In Aster’s world, they can watch them burn in hell.  

Mediocre Issue | November 2019

A Break from the Block

After 18 blocks at Colorado College, I decided to spend this semester in Australia doing quite the opposite. As I write this, I am about nine weeks into my studies at the University of Sydney. While finishing up all of my mid-semester essays and assignments, I thought I would take a step back and reflect on just how different class can be when it’s not stuffed into three and a half weeks. 

Don’t get me wrong—I treasure the block plan and all it has to offer. That said, the semester plan grass does look a lot greener when I’m reading hundreds of pages each week on the block plan. The last two months have just been so inextricably different in both good and bad ways that I think it is worth taking a minute to unpack my experiences outside of the block plan bubble. 

The University of Sydney is a public university in the heart of the city. It takes a solid 20 minutes to speed walk from one end of campus to the other, if you don’t get stuck at any of the intersections for too long. There are 59,000 undergraduates and graduates enrolled, they use a normal semester plan, and most students commute to class rather than live on campus. So, it’s just slightly different from what I’m used to at CC. 

My first week of classes was baffling. They don’t do anything?? We read over every page of every syllabus, went through all of our assignments, and talked schedules. I stumbled out of the lecture hall with nothing to do, and then I had a full week before the next class to do all that nothing. 

Over the next few weeks though, things picked up, and at about the time that I would normally be packing up for a block break trip, I started to feel like I really had a grip on each of my classes. I drew out a huge grid so that I could visualize my schedule between my four classes, and I used it to try to space out my work as well as superimpose my travel plans and social life. That type of control over my schedule is something that I have never felt at CC. At CC, I feel like as soon as I start to grasp how to do the work for a certain class, the block ends. I am left in a perpetual cycle of readjustment, learning and relearning how to exist in one space after another. Here, though, I did all that adjusting in the beginning of the semester and had three months left to experience the life I had built around my classes. 

Now, there is a lot of value to the adjustment crash course that CC provides. I think it made my entire abroad experience a little less daunting. I wasn’t so afraid to go to a new school, to meet new people, or to start new classes because I had gone through that kind of thing 18 times already. On the block plan, you learn how to adapt to new environments, put yourself out there, and make new friends. In the process of learning all of this, though, you don’t get the chance to establish a balance between hard work and enjoying your life. But hey, maybe that’s what your twenties are for. 

Another interesting element that shifts when moving from the block plan to the semester plan is how you relate your classes to each other in your head and which material your brain decides to stir into your current lecture or reading. At CC, I always learned material in my current class through the lens of my last. When I took Mathematical Modelling in Biology after Neuroscience, for example, I created a model for receptors in memory consolidation. When I took Biology of Animals after Introduction to Psychology: Bases of Behavior, my bio paper was on the behavior of octopuses. This creates some really unexpected but rich mashups. On the semester plan, instead of applying a full course’s worth of material, you learn everything simultaneously, allowing different ideas to grow together in an interdisciplinary way. As questions come up in one class, I analyze them through the lenses of my other classes, resulting in a well-rounded feedback loop that binds all of my interests together. Right now, I am learning about birds in my biology class, working with birds in my internship, thinking about how I interact with birds in my cultural studies class, and experimenting with different ways of portraying birds in my creative writing class. One topic that wasn’t necessarily relevant to all of my classes managed to permeate all of them. This facilitated really productive learning and allowed each discipline to inform the others. I can only imagine how this experience must develop from semester to semester as entire course-loads of information are added. 

Both formats represent modes of information synthesis that might be encountered in a career setting. Moving from one job to the next, you might be taking a set of knowledge in its entirety and applying it to your new position. On the other hand, you could be working on multiple projects at once, gaining insight from the ways that they interact and using that to improve each of them simultaneously. 

Another important question to ask about the block plan is whether our learning and retention is affected by our courses being reduced to three and a half weeks. In my neuroscience course, my professors liked to freak us out by joking that only after three and a half weeks would your brain would start to move information to long-term memory. Of course, that is not true and learning happens differently for everyone. As far as I can tell, there is no definitive research on whether learning something over a shorter or longer period is better for long-term retention. One study I found looked at people who were fast and slow learners. The researchers measured how much information participants could retain if they learned the same amount over different lengths of time, but they found no differences between the two groups (Gentile, Monaco, Iheozor-Ejiofor, & Ogbonaya, 1982). 

Sleep is a factor that has been heavily researched of how quickly or slowly people learn something. Over an entire semester, you sleep more often. You might have seven nights of sleep after a single lecture compared to just one on the block plan. Many studies (Fischer, Drosopoulos, Tsen, & Born, 2006; Peigneux, Laureys, Delbeuck, & Maquet, 2001; Stickgold, Hobson, Fosse, & Fosse, 2001) show that sleep plays a major role in memory consolidation. However, none of these studies examine whether more nights of sleep will help you learn something even more effectively, but I figure that the more nights you have after learning a concept, the better chance there is that one of them will be a night consisting of high quality sleep. So, this research does not point to the block plan as being worse for learning, but it does suggest that on either schedule, one of the best things we can do for our learning is just to try to get a good night’s sleep.

It’s also important to consider the stress. It’s a different beast on each schedule. During the semester it is omnipresent, following you around like Eeyore’s personal storm cloud. Even during mid-semester break, you have assignments waiting for you when you get back—the due dates are already marked on your calendar. But isn’t that still the case on the block plan? You have extracurricular commitments that bleed into your breaks, applications that you cram into your free time. And on top of that, I think to some degree we loosen our stress management during the block because we know that the block break is coming. Mindfulness and balance can seem fruitless during those three and a half weeks, but looking at it from a macro level, all eight blocks together make up a large chunk of our lives. Without making an effort to cope, this constant tension and release of stress can really build up. 

Something that the block plan definitely does have going for it is the opportunity for field trips. My best memories at CC have been multi-day camping trips and weeks at the Baca campus where I can immerse myself completely in the learning. In my classes here in Sydney, field trips involve missing other classes and having to catch up later, navigating public transportation, and being taught by exhausted TAs. There is also no flexibility; when we were doing an outdoor practical and it rained, we put on our raincoats and made subpar field observations anyway. At CC, we would have just moved it to the next nine-12 time slot that we had scheduled and done something inside that day. 

Now I’ll talk about what many of us consider the main draw of the block plan: uninterrupted focus, and from that, enhanced learning. With only one class to worry about, CC boasts that its students can become completely immersed in one subject. For me, this benefit might be the one that has held up the most so far. When I have a huge research paper or presentation due (or both!) during fourth week, I take a lot of comfort in the fact that this is all I have to worry about for the time being. Even if I have multiple assignments due for my block, usually once I finish one, the other one is based on similar content and is slightly easier to work through. Despite this, I have noticed my focus drifting away from my class in some of my most recent blocks. While I was very excited about ornithology, I would find myself picking up books and watching documentaries about completely different topics. Once I moved onto my statistics block, all I wanted to read about was ornithology. It seemed that no matter what I tried to get my brain to focus on, and no matter how interested I was in it, I was still craving supplemental learning. But, once I started the semester plan and had to start negotiating how much mental energy I could dedicate to three different classes, I really missed the focus I was able to achieve on the block plan. 

Here, we can turn to Isabell Stengers’ concept of pharmakon (drawing on the work of Plato). This refers to “a drug or quality that can act as a poison or a remedy,” based on the idea that “cures become curses in different moments and different moods.” Simplified, it means that almost anything can be good in moderation, and bad in excess. This could be a helpful way of thinking about focus and distraction. It can be disorienting to have too little focus and an excess of distractions. This is the extreme that you are closest to on the semester plan–with too many clubs or lab classes, you can start to feel out of control. But on the block plan, you are nearing a different extreme: that of too few enriching distractions and an excess of focus on one subject. This can also be overwhelming and create “block-plan tunnel vision,” which is why it is so nice to get off campus on the weekends or go to a cafe in town to study. Our coping mechanisms at CC are ways to combat homogeny and give our minds the variable enrichment they need. With an awareness of what you’re up against, it may be possible to have a balanced lifestyle on either the semester or the block plan. That lifestyle will just be achieved in different ways.

Finally, I think the block plan teaches us active learning. On the semester plan, it’s been easy for me to tune out during a lecture, maybe even skip one, because I know I can just catch up on the material later. All the lectures are recorded, so I feel like I have a safety net that I can fall back on when I have to study for finals. Having that resource seemed like a good thing at first, but I found that it encourages students to tune out when they could be doing their most valuable learning right there with the professor or TA. At CC, the proximity of our assessments keeps us on the edge of our seats, trying to soak up as much as possible during each lecture. My mindset is “I’ll need to know this really well for the test in a few days, so might as well do my best to understand completely it right now.” I never completely step out of that test mindset during the block, so I’m always asking those extra clarifying questions during class, rather than telling myself that I’ll figure it out later.

Thinking ahead to life with a full-time job, having experienced the block plan will help me adapt to a new environment or pick up a new skill set quickly, yet will also help me know when to take a break. It’s teaching students now what the risks are of becoming too absorbed in one thing, as well as what our brain signals feel like when we need a break. This could help us pursue highly demanding jobs with long hours while still keeping our mental health in check.

Overall, it seems to me that neither schedule is clearly better than the other, but the block plan isn’t a fluke, and you didn’t choose CC for nothing. This random idea that we tried out might not be groundbreakingly perfect, but it doesn’t seem to be putting us at any type of disadvantage going into grad school or the job market. If anything, it is a unique experience that will allow us to bring a different perspective to wherever we go after CC. 

Of course, I am just one data point at both schools, and experiences vary drastically both from one person to the next and from one school to the next. It is a worthwhile thought experiment, though, to take something that you’re accustomed to, like the block plan, and examine how radically it has shaped you as a person and how it situates you as you move into your future experiences. And, we’ll see how I feel come finals week. 

Mediocre Issue | November 2019

Comic

Gallery Scissors

Stick Boy.

On a Monday afternoon with sweltering heat pushing through the blue Subaru’s thick glass windows, Simon watches Carver tug at his polka-dotted tie at every stop sign.

“Should I hold the wheel or something so you can take it off?” Simon asks finally. “What are you talking about, take it off? I’m not gonna take it off, Simon.”

“Well, I don’t know. It looks like it sucks to wear.” He shrugs within a heap of denim designed to be overalls on someone larger.

“It’s my dad’s. From France. It does not suck to wear. You just don’t know anything about what it’s like to dress well.” Carver exhales sharply out of his nose. “It’s cause you’re still a child, bro.”

“You are too.” Simon says it how a child with hurt feelings would say it. Dejected and defensive. He sits up a little straighter to combat the persistence of this image that he has suddenly become hyper-conscious of. Carver had managed to make child sound like a negative thing. Simon hadn’t thought of it like that before.

“Nah.” He sniffs and tugs at his tie again. “I’m gonna be driving your ass around ‘til you’re senile, huh?”

“Hopefully. I never wanna sit behind a steering wheel. I wouldn’t trust myself. Not with a big machine like this.”

“Doesn’t take a lot of skill,” Carver sighs. “I could do it with my eyes closed, even.”

“I hope you don’t,” Simon says quietly.

They drive for a bit in silence, watching the green of trees and corn husks flash by like streaks of watercolor against a bright blue acrylic.

“Gallery Scissors,” Simon whispers to himself. A sudden movement of the mouth, a blip in the brain. The possible birth of the best band in existence. Beatles status type of shit.

“Carver!” Simon bellows, causing Carver to jump and swerve the car a bit to the left. “Gallery Scissors! Holy shit.”  

“Simon, what the fuck bro?” He straightens out the car and tugs on his tie again.

“Gallery Scissors!! Do I have to say it again?”

“What the shit is that?”

“The sickest band name you’ve ever heard! Is it not?” Simon’s eyes are wide now, bulging from the skin pulled taut across his face.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“I just thought of it! We gotta use it. It’s too good to not use.”

“How the hell do you mean for us to use it?”

“What do you mean? It’s simple. We make a band. We name it Gallery Scissors.”

“Dude. Think for one second. Do you play an instrument?”

“No. But I’m sure I could learn kazoo. Give me like a few weeks and I’ll be dirty at it.”

“Yo, wait. What? You feel like you need to learn—hold on, that’s a whole other issue. It’ll derail us.” Caver makes a right turn and then says, “Simon, please explain your brain processes.”

“With every great name comes a great band. Everyone knows that.”

“It’s like one crackhead comment after another.”

“And you have good work ethic! You could figure out how to play guitar for sure. I know you could.” Simon is leaning forward, drumming an inconsistent beat on the dashboard with his pointer fingers. “And then we can find a drummer and a singer and maybe a—”

“Simon. I don’t want to be in your band, man.”

“What? Why the hell not?”

“I refuse to be a member of a band led by a rhythm-less, less-than-average kazooist.”

“I told you that in less than a month, I’ll be shredding! I’ll be the best kazooist the world has ever seen.”

Carver pulls into a narrow spot in the school parking lot and turns off the engine.

“Simon,” he says slowly. “I won’t be in your band. You’ve gotta find someone else to do it.”

He steps out of the car and Simon follows closely behind him toward the concrete monstrosities that make up Valston High School. Simon takes notice of Carver’s gait, the way his feet turn in slightly and his shoulders hunch forward just a bit. There’s no doubt that he’d make for a great album cover.

“Okay. But would you just think about it a little bit at least? You could be passing up on the greatest experience of your entire lifetime. I’ve got a good feeling about this one. I mean it too.”

“You have good feelings about stupid things often, Simon.”

“Okay! But this one! I even said I mean it this time!” Simon runs up next to Carver, stretching his legs out far in order to keep his pace.

“Bro, chill. Give it a week and you’ll be bored of all of this. I’m gonna be late to class. See you after school.”

Carver rushes off to the gymnasium and Simon smiles to himself. He has never felt so sure of an idea until this exact moment.

The bell rings and he feels a finger tap his shoulder. Behind him stands Ellie Taylor, dressed in fire. Red, really, but he feels that if he said the fire comment out loud, she’d like that type of thing.

“You look like you’re wearing fire,” he breathes.

She chuckles and shakes her head. “Simon,” she says. “You heard the bell, right? You’re late to class, you know.”

“So are you.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t even planning to go. You look like you were at least planning to go.”

“Well, maybe I wasn’t.” He sees this as the perfect response. The sort of response that has the ability to paint someone as interesting and maybe even a little dangerous. But Ellie doesn’t even seem to hear. She’s digging deep into her bag, her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she concentrates.

“Ah!” she says suddenly, pulling a twig from the bottom. “This! I found this stick on the sidewalk earlier this morning. It reminded me of you!”

She holds the stick only a few inches in front of Simon’s face. He closes one eye and squints at it. It’s slightly crooked with two smaller twigs sticking out on either side, like tiny, weak arms. Simon looks down at his own body and then back at the stick. Maybe they do look alike.

“Uncanny, right?” she asks, grinning.

“I guess so.”

“I can make it into a keychain for you. I have my jewelry class at three today. If you lose your keys, everyone will know they belong to you.” She puts the stick back into her bag, implying that no matter what Simon decides, the keychain will still be made.  

“Okay. Thanks, El.”

“Oh! And I found this the other day at an antique store.” She pulls out a bright orange felt beret and balances it on her head. “What do you think? I bought it but I can’t tell if it’s stupid or not. I mean, it’s a beret, so I know it’s kind of objectively stupid, but …  like … it’s kind of cute stupid, right?” She grins and cocks her head to the right. The beret slips off kilter.

“Right. Cute stupid for sure.”

“Good,” she says, and then turns to walk away without any warning.

“Ellie!” he shouts after her. Her body jolts in surprise and he realizes that she was still much too close for him to raise his voice. 

“What?” she turns on her heels to face him.

“You have a band?” she says.

“Well—not yet. I’m sort of compiling one. Carver’s in it.” Simon winces slightly at his own lie.

“Yeah? What does he play?”

“Guitar. Well—he’s learning guitar. He’ll be really great though. He has good work ethic.”

“And what do you play?” she asks, one blonde eyebrow raised slightly higher than the other.

“I’m an aspiring kazoo-ist.”

“Ah. So nobody in this band actually plays an instrument yet.”

“Uh … yeah. I mean, that’s true but …”

“I’m in. You could use a real musician.” When she says the word musician, it’s like her mouth wants to linger on it. Simon pauses just in case she wants to say it again. She doesn’t.

“It’s called Gallery Scissors,” Simon says. “Pretty dope, right?”

“Kinda goofy. But the whole prospect is pretty goofy.” She pulls the beret off of her head and stuffs it into her bag.

“I hate this thing. It was a bad purchase,” she says, looking down at the blinding orange felt. “See you, Simon,” she says, this time before walking away.

“I’ll text you about our first rehearsal!” Simon calls after her, though she’s too far away to hear now.  

 ———

At 3 AM, Simon wakes in a cold sweat upon realizing within a dream that every successful band has four members.

Carver’s phone buzzes him out of a deep sleep.

“Simon, what the fuck?” Carver mumbles into the phone.

“Shit, dude!! I got Ellie today but we need one more!”

Carver pulls the phone from his ear to avoid going deaf. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, bro. Why the shit are you calling me at 2:30 in the morning?”

“Gallery. Scissors. Bro. Every successful band has four members! Just think about it! The Beatles. The Stones. Led Zeppelin. Probably more. I just... can’t really remember right now.” There’s a pause before Carver answers. He can feel Simon’s deep anticipation through the phone. 

“Simon. I’m literally gonna fist fight you at school tomorrow.”

“Be serious, Carver.”

“No, actually what the fuck? Why would you wake me up to tell me that? I’M NOT IN YOUR BAND, SIMON. Holy shit.”

Carver hears Simon exhale loudly. “Well, damn,” he says.

“Good luck with it,” Carver says. The line clicks.

Simon stands up from his bed and walks to his desk. He drums his fingers on its wood surface.

Carver’s dad, Mr. Carver, teaches at VHS and has a corkboard outside of his classroom. Seeing that the two of them are good friends, Simon figures that Mr. Carver wouldn’t mind if he put a poster up. Mr. Carver speaks four languages, knows everything about everything, is one of the most active philanthropists in Valston, adopted Carver as a single father and is one of the smoothest lady killers Simon has ever encountered. Simon is fairly certain that he likes Mr. Carver more than Carver.

Simon pulls out a red piece of construction paper and a sharpie. He writes, “GALLERY SCISSORS AUDITIONS!!” out in big capitalized, block letters. At the bottom of the paper he writes his phone number.

The red is bold but Simon scowls at the sign itself, seeing it as too plain to be associated with a band that is as soon-to-be influential as Gallery Scissors. Simon adds a peace sign in one of the corners and a doodle of a skull in another. He sticks it into his bag and flops around, sleepless in his bed, for the rest of the night. 

 ———

Magenta Socks.

Against cork the red pops even more, Simon thinks. He stands back to admire the poster beside the other, duller ones Mr. Carver already has hanging up. One for astronomy club, another filled with community service opportunities and a third with sign-ups for the end of the year talent show.

“Wow. That’s obnoxious.” Simon turns to see Mr. Carver, arms crossed.

“Okay if I hang this sign up?” Simon asks, pointing at it.

“You already did.”

“Okay cool.”

“What does it mean?” Mr. Carver asks, squinting at the poster’s blinding red.

“It’s for my band. Carver—uh Charles is in it.”

Mr. Carver furrows his brows, as if he’s contemplating what the word “band” could mean in this context. “So the two of you … you’re self-proclaimed musicians now?”

“Yes sir.”

Mr. Carver rubs a hand across his face. “I learn new things every day, huh?” he exhales. “You should be more descriptive in your poster, Simon. Nobody will know what ‘Gallery Scissors’ means.”

“Oh. I thought it was clear. Do you have a pen?” Simon asks.

Mr. Carver pulls one from his pocket and hands it over begrudgingly. In parenthesis beside the word Scissors, Simon writes, (this is a band BTW).

“And do you think I should put a trademarked symbol next to Gallery Scissors? Just so no one takes the name?” Simon’s hand hovers over the poster.

Mr. Carver chuckles and shrugs. “You know, that’s really up to you and Charles, kid. If you wanna take the precaution, I say go for it. It never hurt to be assertive. Especially with something as precious as a band name.”

“Especially with this band name!” Simon scratches a TM next to the last S in Scissors and then stands back to admire his work.

“Right.” Mr. Carver scratches his head and nods slowly. “Get to class, kid.”

“Thanks, Mr. C,” Simon says. “Oh, are you making dinner tonight?”

“Scallops. You’re welcome to join us.”

“I just might,” Simon says, grinning.

Oswald Jackson sits next to Simon in history class. He’s skinny, allergic to a lot of things, and incredibly quiet, but Simon notices him drumming softly on his desk with his pencil. It seems like he’s got fairly good timing, not that Simon knows much about timing. He is nonetheless left with a good feeling about Oswald and his potential to be the best drummer the world has ever seen.

Simon has never said a word to Oswald. Today is the day. He leans in close to Oswald’s ear and whispers, “You wanna be in a band?”

Oswald jolts in his chair, causing it to squeak violently. Everyone in the class turns to look at him. His face goes a bright cherry red and he focuses his eyes on the floor until everyone looks away.

Simon tries again, a little less abrupt this time. “Sorry about that. Wanna be in my band?” he says, a bit slower.

“… What band?” Oswald whispers back.

“It’s called Gallery Scissors. We need a fourth member. A drummer. You drum?” Simon motions to Oswald’s pencil, still clenched tightly in his right hand.

Oswald squints down at it and then looks back up at Simon. “I’ve never touched an actual drum set before,” he says.

“But you have rhythm. I think you could be a sick drummer.”

“That seems like a pretty unreasonable assumption.”

“Wanna try at least? We got some cool people in Gallery Scissors. That’s the name of my band, by the way. Gallery Scissors. Cool, right?”

“I … I mean … I don’t know how much time I have to … like sit there and try to learn the drums. Maybe you should find someone who already plays?”

“Hey, come on. It’ll be great. You’ll be great.”

Oswald shrugs and says begrudgingly, “Okay.”

At 3:45 PM, Simon meets Carver in front of his Subaru. Carver notices Simon’s posture and cocky grin and immediately readies himself for a conversation he has no desire to be involved in.

He loosens his tie and says, “What is it, Simon?”

“Got Oswald Jackson today. You know, the kid who almost died cause of Lucy’s peanut butter sandwich in fourth grade? Well, he’s the drummer for Gallery Scissors now. And it’s gonna be sick.”

“Simon, I can promise you right now that Oswald Jackson has never even touched a drumstick.”

“And you’d be correct. But it doesn’t matter because soon he will touch a drumstick. And it will be glorious, Carver.”

Carver exhales sharply through his teeth and unlocks his car. On the drive home, he plays Pink Floyd loudly, in hopes that Simon won’t talk over the music. Of course, he does.

“It’ll be amazing. You don’t wanna have regrets about this for the rest of your life, do you?” he says, his face becoming red with excitement.

Carver groans and turns the volume up.

“Seriously!” Simon shouts over Another Brick in the Wall. “Seriously, man! It’ll be legendary!”

“Talk about anything else, Simon!” Carver screams back. Simon seems to get the message and sits silently in the passenger seat until they pull into Carver’s driveway behind Mr. Carver’s red Honda Pilot.

“I’m staying for dinner,” Simon says softly. “Your dad’s making scallops.”

At the table, Simon pokes at the scallops with his fork. They’ve turned out to be much more intimidating than he had expected.

“Lemon and garlic, Simon,” Mr. Carver says. “And the texture is an interesting one, but I think you’ll be able to get past it.”

Simon pops one into his mouth and grins to himself. Mr. Carver grins back.

“There you go,” he says. “So, tell me about this band you two are in.”

Carver chokes on a scallop and shakes his head violently. “No,” he says, his mouth full of food. “It’s not a thing. We do not have a band.”

“Yeah! We got two more members today. Oswald Jackson and Ellie Taylor.”

“Oswald’s a good kid,” Mr. Carver says, nodding and pushing his thick-framed glasses farther up his nose. “What does he play?”

“He will play drums. Soon.”

Carver buries his face in his hands and lets out a muffled groan.

“I was in a band in high school,” Mr. Carver says, ignoring his son’s noises of distress.

“Oh yeah?” Simon says, eyes widening. “What was it called?”

“Graves of Solace. I played keys. We had a lot of gigs in high school. It was a great time, too. We weren’t even very good but it was a great feeling. You get really close with your band mates, meet tons of cute girls … awesome experience.”

Carver lifts his head from his hands. “For real?” he asks.

“Absolutely. Ladies love musicians.” Mr. Carver cuts into a scallop.

“Hell yeah they do!” Simon says.

“I … I’ll do it,” Carver says softly.

“What?” Simon looks up at him and raises an eyebrow.

“I’ll be in Gallery Scissors. I’ll learn guitar.” Carver keeps his eyes on the table. For a moment, nobody speaks.

Mr. Carver picks up his wine glass and raises it toward the ceiling. “To Gallery Scissors. May they be successful in their efforts in becoming the best band this world has seen.”

“To Gallery Scissors,” Simon and Carver say in unison, mirroring Mr. Carver with their water cups held up toward the ceiling. 

 Mediocre Issue | November 2019 

The Six

This series features writing from an inmate at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center and will be published in installments. This piece stems from weekly programming facilitated by the Colorado College Prison Project. The inclusion of this piece in Cipher aims to provide a platform for incarcerated writers and promote contact between our communities. Just to note—the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office requires approval of written material prior to publication and the censoring of authors' full names.

Dear Cipher editor,

First of all, I wanted to thank you for taking the time and effort to read through my story. I’m very excited to see that my piece has been accepted to be published in your magazine “Cipher,” and I’m eager to polish up my story so that it’s enjoyable for your readers. 

I would like to accentuate some of the difficulties of my writing method. I am an inmate at the Criminal Justice Center. Because of this, I wrote my piece the only way possible: on pen and paper. There is no backspace. I cannot go back to an earlier page and add or remove certain sentences that would make the story easier to read. When ink strikes paper, there is a feeling of finality and permanence. With that being said, when I was informed that “Cipher” was interested in my writing, I started cleaning up some of the details, I made a rough draft and then later on rewrote entire pages just so it would be easier for you, or an editor, to read. Along with that, I don’t have a word processor to tell me if a comma belongs in certain places and I don’t have Google to explain to me the differences between a puppet and a marionette (turns out they’re the same thing, I thought one was a toy and one was its master). So when I go through all of your edits and recommendations, a lot of it will be something I’m aware of and I’m glad someone else caught it so that it’s not just me being paranoid about my writing. 

My story “The Six” is a perspective on a Buddhist teaching. I myself am a Buddhist and wanted to find a way to portray this teaching in a creative light that could be understood by non-practitioners. In Buddhism, there are six unwholesome mental thought processes of the mind, which if not kept in check, will often lead to feelings of suffering and unhappiness. These six mental formations are Ignorance, Pride, Greed, Doubt, Hatred, and Views. It’s kind of similar to the more familiar “seven deadly sins.” Regardless, my story takes these six thought processes and turns them into characters. Shin, the main character, is actually a play on the Japanese word “shin” which translates to “mind.” Tai is a reference to the Vietnamese word “Thay,” which translates to “teacher.” As Shin struggles to confront these difficult-to-handle situations that we as people often run into in daily life, he must use his mind and persuasion to convince the six to let go of their harmful habits. 

I want to reiterate how much it means to me that you’re reading my story and are kind enough to offer me critiques and suggestions for making it even better. Your efforts do not go unnoticed and I want to thank you for all of your wonderful insights.

Best regards,

S. Verda

*Letter has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

The world was spinning, twisting, churning. It was a merry-go-round stripping the skin of reality like orange peels. An aurora of color ricocheted left and right faster than rainbows hurled across a pinball machine.

This was nowhere and this was everywhere. Life before, life after. It all existed at once in this funnel of everlasting toilet flushes. He couldn’t remember why he was there, or where “there” even was, for that matter. Nevertheless, “there” he was: a drifting mass of consciousness, barreling his way down the whirlpool of eternity. How long it lasted, he didn’t know, nor was it important, because what he did know was that it was becoming too much. Sound was a skydiver’s ecstasy. The tornado force winds and a 200 BPM pulse meshed together in a duct of musical adrenaline. Gravity tossed the contents of his stomach like a fresh salad, and rollercoaster swirls left him in a desperate battle between swallows and dry heaves.

He felt like he was going to vomit, but by a divine grace, never reached that point. A slowing mercy bestowed its relief on the raging cyclone, and chaos changed to peace. From Armageddon to Eden. Abstract shapes and figures transitioned to a serene depiction of vibrant still-life.

He arrived.

His coffee-colored loafers crunched the frozen ground beneath him. A gentle, knowing smile touched the corner of his lips. 

It was morning in a winter paradise. Sunrise splashed its golden hour on the surface of a milky white meadow, casting flecks of red and yellow across the snow. Trees slathered in ice like blizzard cake frosting ringed the tiny field of grass. They were guardians shielding this patchwork of undisturbed snow from the woodland’s busybodies.

In the very center of the opening rested an ancient grandfather clock, the grandfather of varieties. Tall, oak, and smooth, the thirsty dog’s brass tongue lapped back and forth—tasting the seconds of time. Each tick that passed on its dusty old dial penetrated the fog of silence with a commanding echo.

Sitting in front of that clock, lulled to sleep by the monotonous nursery rhyme, was a boy probably no older than twelve. Tufts of auburn hair stuck this way and that from his head. His knees were pulled up to his chest by his sweater-covered arms and his tiny frame swayed in unison with the tender plucks of clockwork.

The man walked forward, breaking the silence. “Hello,” he said. His voice was soft, but compared to the quiet of the forest, it was like guitar strings snapping. The boy awoke with a start, and the man cleared his throat before continuing, “Where is this place? And ...  are you okay?”

The young boy cocked his head to the side and stole a glance at the approaching stranger, then returned his attention to the clock. He debated answering the question between sniffles. After wiping his nose on his sleeve, he spoke.

“Home,” he whispered at first. “This is home.”

The man gazed about the meadow in admiration. Sunlight and clear skies bathed the landscape in a glow of bluish luminescence. Stubborn dandelions dotted the earth like thorny snow weeds. The leaves of oaks and birches had been shed long ago and their bark sported thick coats of frost. Everything looked chrome. Trees, plants, rocks, and thickets were all posed as mirror ice sculptures. It was a metal tundra frozen solid in time like a cold snap camera flash. 

While the whole scene had an otherworldly brilliance about it, nothing felt wrong. Where were nature’s children? There were no birds to serenade the morning, no skittering squirrels storing their food; there wasn’t even the distant call of a babbling brook. Only the sound of ticking seconds gave an essence of life to the eerie snowglobe.

Tai’s breath let out a chilly plume of steam. He rubbed his hands together for warmth. “Not very inviting is it?”

“Shut up,” the boy growled, pulling his knees in closer. He caressed them in a comforting massage, as if nursing a wound.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just meant ... well, it seems lonely here. Are you by yourself?” No reply this time, but a nod was given in response. The grandfather spoke on with its metal chimes, a lone spectator between two strangers.

“What’s your name?” the man asked, peeking over the boy’s shoulder. “Is your knee alright?”

“Shin.”

The man looked a little closer. Indeed, the boy was holding onto his shins. The cargo pants he wore crinkled around the arms that held them tight.

“Oh, I see. Is your shin alright? Not bleeding is it?”

The boy scoffed. “No, dummy. My name is Shin. And my knees are fine.”

The man blinked thrice. He tried to be polite, but he couldn’t help but let out a few snickers. “Oh! Your name is Shin, I see now. I guess that was a little silly of me.”

“Yeah, a real funny joke,” Shin said sarcastically.

“Well, Shin, my name is Tai. It’s nice to meet you.” The man was now hovering at Shin’s side. He held out his right hand in greeting. The boy wasn’t too eager to move from his position, though. Instead, he rotated his head slightly and scanned the man up and down. Loafers, slacks, polo shirt. A real prim and proper sort of guy. Kind of looked like a teacher.

“You’re not wearing a tie. Seems like a missed opportunity,” teased Shin.

“Now you’re being silly. It’s spelled T-A-I. Tai. But I’m glad to see you’ve stopped crying.”

Shin glared at the man, puffy red eyes doing their best to look intimidating. Tai still held his hand out and his friendly smile was unmoved by the boy’s hostility. Finally, Shin surrendered. His features softened as he reached forward to shake hands with this new person. 

As their palms clasped, Tai lifted Shin to his feet and dusted some lingering flakes of snow from the boy’s sweater. Tai had a certain aura about him that Shin couldn’t quite understand. In his presence, he felt a type of courage that constantly left a smile on his face. What was it, this feeling of comfort and belonging? A father figure, a brother, a good friend, someone he could confide in. From what he remembered, he was never friends with a teacher, but maybe this could be a first. He listened to the man, patiently trying to mimic his tranquil personality.

“So, Shin, we’re home. That much you’ve told me ...” All of a sudden, in his company, he felt a type of excitement that constantly left a smile on his face. What was it? This feeling of comfort, of belonging. As if just being in his presence, he sensed things were going to be okay.

Tranquility.

“So, Shin, we’re home. That much you’ve told me. But what are we doing here? Just sitting? Sleeping in front of this clock?”

Shin shook his head. “No, not really. I was thinking.”

“With your eyes closed?”

“Something wrong with that?”

Tai laughed again. “Of course not. Nothing wrong at all. What were you thinking about?”

Shin’s shoulders slumped. Remembering was never enjoyable for him. His eyes wandered vacantly along the snow-coated landscape, and he briefly touched the subject of his mind. He picked at it like a monkey trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube. No point in trying to keep it secret. He might as well share his troubles. 

“I’m ... lost,” he began.

“At home?”

“Yeah, lost at home. Everyone expects me to have the answers. Like I’m all knowing or something. But I’m just a kid, you know?”

“Answers? What do they want you to have the answers to?”

“Practically everything ...” Shin murmured.

Tai wanted to encourage him, but he couldn’t hide the blatant look of confusion on his face. He shook his head. 

“Uh, now I think I’m a little lost.”

“Really? Maybe you do get it then.” Shin exhaled a slow sigh of frustration. He breathed deeply and tried to think about his next words. Clearly, he wasn’t making sense. He had to try to explain this from an outside perspective, but how does one explain the way David felt when he looked at Goliath?

“You ever have a sudden realization that something is wrong? There’s an impossible task before you and you have no idea how to complete it. Kind of like when you have a ten-page essay due in the morning and you’re only on page two, or you just got paid today and you notice you can’t afford both rent and a week’s worth of groceries. It’s just like that. They think I’m the leader and I can solve everything at once, but I can’t. How am I supposed to know what to do when they’re mad? Sad? Lonely? They can’t figure it out for themselves and I’m supposed to see what they don’t? It’s not fair. I’m ... I’m just a kid.”

Tai could feel the resignation in the boy’s words, and it was painful to hear. That young heart was a sadistic tormentor racking its owner’s mind with emotion. Anger pulled at his fingernails, fear tore his hair from its roots, sorrow flooded his lungs with despair. Shin didn’t want to give up, but it was such a daunting task, and he was very obviously exhausted. Willpower was siphoned out of him like a mosquito draining blood from its victim.

Still, Tai waited. “Who are they?” he asked.

“The others? My friends. Dezzy, Null, everybody. We live together, or at least we used to. They all like to do their own thing from time to time, and generally that’s okay. As long as they keep me out of it, I’m fine. But they’ve gotten so pushy lately. They butt heads with each other constantly and they want me to choose whose opinion is more important. How am I supposed to do that? Pick one friend and hurt the others? It’s a lose-lose situation and it gets worse the more they argue. Everyone wants to talk and no one wants to listen. They’re like ... like ...” Shin stopped for a moment. He didn’t know what he was trying to say. How could he describe all of the arguing?

“Birds.” Tai responded.

“Birds?”

“Yup. A bunch of birds chirping at the same time trying to be the loudest.”

Shin giggled at the metaphor and agreed with a nod. “Yeah, a bunch of birds. I just wish I knew how to make them stop. I can’t do anything with their bickering and it’s tearing us apart. Now I’m the only one home. They all left me here.”

Disappointment was added to the list of emotions as well. Did everything need to be so depressing? This was starting to look like a tangled ball of problems. Poor Shin, Tai thought while being touched with a stroke of empathy. He had to help, he wanted to. “That sounds awful. No one enjoys being stuck between friends and I’m sure it must be a lot of pressure on you to have to try and be the leader.”

“Yeah, it’s not fun. That’s for sure.”

“Right, but this isn’t so bad, is it? I mean, it’s kind of nice here. Peaceful. And the way that clock ticks so softly is comforting, don’t you think?”

Shin looked back to the grandfather. It still watched them, its thin whiskers twitched with a stern judgment.

“Comforting? Comforting? What’s comforting about it? The way it mocks me? Laughs at me? I bet it’s just bouncing with joy to see me fail.”

Not exactly the reaction Tai was hoping for. “Whoa, I didn’t mean—”

“Happy they’re gone, aren’t you? Stupid hunk of wood. My friends are missing and you just chat up the forest like nothing’s wrong.” Moisture was gathering in the wells of his eyes. He stomped up to the faded timepiece and kicked at the front of its glass casing. “It’s your fault they started arguing. Your own fault they yelled at me. Are you satisfied? My family is gone!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tai interrupted. He tugged the boy away from the clock and held onto his shoulders. He tried to calm him with an assortment of soothing whispers. They were warm, loving, and understanding. Shin’s tide of emotions receded at this mere touch of compassion, and the waves subsided to a casual ebb-and-flow. 

“Look,” Tai spoke softly. “I don’t really know what’s going on with you and your friends, but it’s going to be okay. They’re only a little lost. Just like you, right?” Shin nodded while trying to slow his shallow breaths. “Good, a little lost, but not gone. Nothing you can’t help them with. All you have to do is show them the way home. And hey, we’re already here.”

Tai stretched out his arms wide, displaying the vastness of the meadow. His words were encouraging, but Shin was still scared.

“They won’t listen to me,” he whimpered.

“Really? Do you know that for sure?”

“They didn’t before.”

“That was before. Did you try again?”

“I ... ”

“See? There you go. Try again, it might be different this time. They’re all separated now, right? This might be exactly the opportunity you need.”

Shin gulped heavily. “I don’t know ... ” He was so tired of trying, tired of failure and rejection. He loved his friends, but seeing them so self-destructive made him long for a time when they were all happy. Could they go back to that? Did he have a chance to change their minds? The thought of it might even be worth the risk of failure. 

“We can do it,” Tai said. “I know we can.”

“We?” Shin examined Tai again. He was smiling, but there was a layer of strong resolve behind it. “Don’t get me wrong, mister. Talking to you has made me feel better for sure, I mean, who are you anyway? Why do you want to help me? To be honest, I don’t even know how you got here.”

“You and me both ... ”

“What?”

“Oh, it’s no big deal right,” Tai coughed. “And please, I gave you my name so you can use it. No need to be formal.” He briefly stretched out his arms as if he was antsy from all of the talking. He scratched his scalp lazily. “I’m here. I may not understand what’s really going on, but I think I can help. You know, be your support, Together, we should be able to convince your friends to put their differences aside.”

“Help me, huh?”

“Yeah!” Tai said enthusiastically. “Like a guardian angel.”
“Right ... ”

What was this to him, some type of game? Not to Shin. To him, this was serious. These were his friends, not some silly puzzle. Still, Shin couldn’t help but feel compelled to relax by Tai’s gentle demeanor. Trusting him or not was a difficult debate. It was a gamble, but if Tai could help Shin rest at ease, maybe he could do the same for others.

Indecision ping-ponged in the boy’s mind until it took shape in the form of flustered name calling. “You’re really weird, Tai. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Weird?” the man asked in surprise.

“Yeah, a total oddball, especially with that goofy smile. You just show up out of the blue, act like you know what you’re doing, and offer to help people randomly. That’s not normal. I’ve never met a bigger weirdo in my life.”

They stared at each other in total silence. No retaliation from Tai, no “just kidding” from Shin. It was a poker face showdown. The sun shone up above and the meadow still shimmered. In its exquisite reflection, a melting patch of snow slid off a nearby branch and fell to the ground below with a merry plop. The grandfather clock gave out a dozen mechanical clinks.

Suddenly, Tai fired back with a blazing passion. “Oh yeah? Well you look like you’d be really good at slam poetry. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Poetry? Was that supposed to be a compliment? Shin was so caught off guard, he erupted in a fit of laughter, breaking his concentration. He arched his whole body back and cackled at the sky with a high echo. It persisted only for a few moments, but it seemed he was struck with a genuine sense of joy. He only talked after he got the chance to take a breath.

“Is that the best you could come up with? I figured you had something good with the way you looked at me. You’re such a dork!” he guffawed.

This was the guy he was worried about? Shin almost felt bad for considering him a threat. 

“Hey, come on now. Don’t tease me. I couldn’t come up with anything mean, I panicked.”

“No, it’s okay Tai, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I guess I just wanted to see what you would say.”

“Well? How’d I do? Did I leave a good impression?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

The giggles spread to Tai and for the first time in a while, the meadow was filled with the presence of happy company. Two strangers shared a laugh and the sound of the ticking clock was lost in the clamor of harmony.

Shin had to trust him. He didn’t know why, but this man had a peculiar way of filling him with confidence. He called himself a guardian angel. Maybe not so dramatic, but he definitely seemed to be a good friend. At the moment, Shin was in need of someone like that.

“What do you say?” Tai was wiping a tear of laughter from his eye while he reached out his open hand. “Let’s give it a shot, you and me. Beats sticking around here waiting for something to happen.” 

There was a brief flicker of mistrust, but it dissipated as soon as it appeared. Shin stood tall and completed the handshake. “Okay,” he responded. “Okay, let’s give it a shot.”

There was an uncomfortable fear in knowing what the possible outcome could be. Victory or defeat, happiness or sadness. How long would it last? How long until the next collapse back into a dark night of snowfall? These rare glimpses of joy were treasures in an ocean of life. Who knew when the next one would show up? They were tempting to hold onto, but the only way to find more was to let the current one go. Shin was stubborn. He didn’t want to leave, but his friends were calling.

Please work this time, he thought. Please, please, work this time. 

There was a door. 

“Huh, that wasn’t there before, was it?” Tai asked. The door was behind them. His lone footprints that had been stamped in the snow earlier fell behind it, chopped in two by the wooden monolith’s sudden appearance. It was painted pale ivory with brass handles off to the side. There were no designs on its surface. No smooth or jagged textures. Plain as can be, it was a basic, simple door. 

Without another word, Shin took the lead. He wrapped his young palm around the knob of brass and twisted. The lock gave way with a click and Shin gingerly pushed it open.

Tai didn’t need to walk through the door himself to cross to the other side. It was symbolic, he supposed, but really it defeated the purpose of having a door in the first place. The meadow of trees and snow dropped to infinity like melting globs of paint. Splotches of the grandfather clock twisted away in reluctant portions. It didn’t want to go. It didn’t want to be left behind. The gong of its bell at the top of the hour resonated passionately into the encroaching void, but as the forest tumbled down, the tone swerved to lower octaves.

Deeper, deeper, the bell chimed, hoping to stay with them forever, but its cries were futile. With each vibrating call, the noise became more distant.

Fading.

Fading.

Until it was completely gone. Darkness.

They stood in a room.

A den. Pillows were strewn across a commercial carpet and a soft glow pulsed out of an old tube television. Off in the corner was an unused fireplace, cold and caked with ashes and soot, it whistled the squeaky tune of an unclosed vent.

Mediocre Issue | November 2019

Without a Nest

I have died and been reborn ten times over, yet not many know the whole story. People consider me an optimistic person, the modern happy. Yet not many know the whole story. I have died and been reborn ten times over. Twice in a year I lost my home. A bird without a nest. I was faltering and recovering. Yet no one knows the whole story. Unpacking and unloading became my life. There were no more walls to hang our family pictures. No more trash of our own to take out. No mailman to greet. No more watching my little brother playing basketball in the front yard. No more Littlelion spending the night. No more kissing behind the cubbies. No more secrets. No more home. We were homeless.  

EVICTION. I despise seeing that word, knowing the power it holds against the broken. I partly blame my mother’s sickness, just as I blame myself: a few years prior, when I was 14, my mother suffered a mild stroke at age 30. Her health has been going downhill since then and continues to decline. Her main cancer: stress. I was tossed into her care, followed quickly by my brother. Then she became pregnant. That pregnancy was the spark that set our life on fire. Yet not many know the whole story. My mother’s pregnancy dragged her through hell and back. It became a constant pattern: if she wasn’t at the hospital, then she was working one of her two jobs. Yet did she want sympathy?

Okay, we can get through this. We will be fine. It’s just a test from the divine, right?

I am okay.

I repeatedly brainwashed myself, saying I was fine. Deep down, though, I was broken. I thought that when men were broken, they were weak, so the phrase, “I am okay” became my melody.

Did my mother want sympathy?

Soon after our first eviction, we were blessed to find another home. Prior to that, I stayed with my friend, Littelion, for about two weeks. Our new home was a downgrade. We came from a three bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom house to one with four tiny bedrooms, one bath, and barely a driveway. Still, all I cared about was us being together. I was grateful to be back “home.” That was my version of sympathy, spoon feeding myself false hope. 

A few months passed and life started to get back to normal, as if it had gone to therapy. My mom was working. My brother was watching “Five Nights at Freddy’s” on YouTube 24/7, while I worried about life as usual. But there it was again when I came home from school one day: EVICTION written on a neon green tag. The fire in my heart ignited with rage. 

Yet, I am okay. I am okay. I am okay, right? 

Okay, but did she want sympathy?

It was around November that reality hit us like a freight train. It was a couple days after Thanksgiving that we were given the warning. My mother told us that we had to leave and start packing. The process was hell, but we survived it. The night we moved some of our things into my grandfather's home, I felt like I had not slept in ages. My body was sore, and my spirit was faltering.

Man, no more of this, my heart whispered.

Then and now, I gave myself false hope and sympathy. 

Christmas finally crept its way in, and that day, peace was on our side. That day, there were no arguments­—at least not between my mother and grandfather. My favorite memory of that day was helping prepare Christmas dinner. I can still smell the macaroni cooking. Before, I had no memory of cooking with my grandmother. We created one that day.

My family reminds me of the Greek gods. We love and cherish each other, but from a distance. Like the gods, we have brutal wars against our own blood. However, when an enemy interferes with our kin, we always stand beside one another. Yet, not many know the whole story.

On New Year’s Eve, I received an angry text from my mother telling me to block my grandparents’ numbers. I was angry, but I took a deep breath, put my phone down, and headed to my mat. That day I did yoga. New Year's Eve is the last day of the old and the transition into the new. I blame myself because the subject of my mother and grandfather’s argument was me.

I am sorry.

I have died and been reborn ten times over. Yet, not many know the whole story.

Did the Divine look down on me and have pity or disgust? What could I have done to do better? How could I have been a better son?

Many parents do not ask to be parents, but they still try. 

I have died and been reborn ten times over. Yet, not many know the whole story. It’s strange to experience how everything you receive can be taken away so quickly.

Please be grateful and kind.

I am considered an optimistic person. The modern happy, however, call me broken.

Mediocre Issue | November 2019

Coal is King

In April of this year, electricity generation from renewable resources surpassed coal in the United States for the first time ever. For years, the global coal industry has been declining due to lower natural gas costs and greenhouse gas regulations. In Europe, coal usage has dropped drastically since the 1990’s; France has chosen nuclear energy as an alternative, accounting for 40 percent of its energy production, while Scandinavian countries have invested in wind and solar power. This January, federal and state leaders in Germany agreed to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038. Growing public concern and frustration regarding climate change and pollution has resulted in governments taking action to curb emissions throughout the West. 

Asia, home to half the world’s population, is moving in the opposite direction, digging and burning three fourths of the world’s coal. Southeast Asia’s demand for coal is growing at the fastest rate in the world, driven by strong economic growth, a burgeoning middle class, and exponential population growth. Indonesia, home to the region’s largest economy, has been digging up more coal to fuel China’s energy needs. The two countries recently signed a new trade deal, allowing for Indonesian companies to expand further into China. Additionally, another Asian country, Vietnam, is ground-zero for foreign companies to invest in new power plants. Just this year, South Korean and Japanese banks have invested several billion dollars into coal-fired power plants in Vietnam. $150 billion is expected to be invested over the coming decade to meet demands for the projected population and economic growth. Vietnam’s coal usage from 2012-2017 increased by 75 percent, faster than any other country in the world, according to a research paper by Harvard. The country’s energy sector is projected to surpass Britain’s in the mid 2020s. 

China is the world’s coal juggernaut, accounting for around half of global consumption. The government has pursued an ambitious initiative to reduce emissions domestically, but has recently cut back on its efforts to reduce carbon emissions and invest in renewable energy. The energy-demanding steel, cement, and chemical industries remain the drivers of economic growth in China, making reductions in coal usage less likely. As a part of the country’s Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese companies are investing and seeking projects in foreign nations. China is currently building or planning to build upwards of 300 coal plants around the world in places such as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt and the Philippines. China's financial institutions are providing $36 billion to fund this project, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. In March, the largest power producers in China asked the government to allow for the development of 300-500 new coal power plants by 2030 in a move that could single handedly jeopardize global climate change targets. The proposal would enable China to build two coal power plants a month for the next 12 years. This would grow the country’s coal capacity to nearly twice the size of Europe’s. This would destroy any chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. While the Chinese government has not adopted the industry proposal, it is under consideration.

India, home to seven of the world’s top ten most air-polluted cities, is the second largest consumer of coal in the world. India’s consumption has been increasing consistently for the past decade, and is expected to be the country’s primary fuel source through 2030 and beyond. While the Indian government is aiming to quadruple its renewable energy development capacity by 2022, like China, it also has a large stake in the coal industry. Coal India Limited (CIL) is the world’s largest coal mining company, still providing about 85 percent of India’s domestic production of coal; the government owns about three-quarters of CIL, which provides revenue to the treasury through dividend payments and taxes on coal production. Coal-producing states are among the poorest in India, and CIL provides significant tax revenue and employment in these areas, making it difficult to transition to renewable energy sources. India’s energy policy currently focuses on bringing affordable power to all homes; India’s per-capita electricity consumption is only 1/3 of the world average, and millions of homes still lack electricity. 

In Australia, domestic demand for coal is declining as the country invests more in renewable energy, with $37.5 billion expected to be invested in the next three to five years. However, Australia is a big producer and the largest exporter of coal in the world, last year’s coal accounting for 38 percent of global exports. About 75 percent of the coal it mines is exported mostly to Asia.  Last year the country made $42 billion, the second largest national revenue source after iron ore. 

Avoiding the most serious damage from climate change requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, according to the United Nations. By 2050, coal as a global energy source must drop from 40 percent to between one and seven percent. “This report makes it clear: There is no way to mitigate climate change without getting rid of coal,” said Drew Shindell, author of the United Nation’s report from last year. Asia’s heavy and increasing reliance on coal could negate global progress toward preventing catastrophic climate change. 

 ———

BANKING ON COAL 

The cost of renewable energy is falling so fast that it is expected to be consistently cheaper than coal by next year. Solar power costs have dropped nearly 73 percent since 2010. Soon, coal will make no economic sense for its backers. Why, then, is coal use still on the rise in parts of the world? The answer is complicated, but in short, the infrastructure is already there, and there is still a large profit to be made from it. 

Starting in 2015, the largest American banks vowed to cut back on lending money to the coal industry. “Bank of America recognizes that climate change poses a significant risk to our business, our clients, and the communities in which we operate. As one of the world’s largest financial institutions, the bank has a responsibility to help mitigate climate change,” said the company in its coal policy statement in 2015. But these statements and trends were made in a different time in a different America. Three of the largest coal mining companies were in bankruptcy, and the United States was signing new pacts to reduce climate emissions. Now, with the coal industry making a small resurgence under the Trump administration, banks have begun re-embracing the industry. While loans are still lower than the rates in 2014 and prior, they have been increasing since their all-time low in 2015. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and CitiGroup combined have issued about $1.5 billion in new coal-related loans last year, according to Rainforest Action Network. “It wasn’t an environmental policy,” said Alex Bozmoski, managing director of RepublicEn, a conservative environmental activism group. “It was financial and risk management policy that was used by communications departments.” 

The Trump administration has indirectly influenced banks to re-confide in coal, a trend that was in decline under the Obama administration, when the coal industry was going bankrupt due to the administration’s policies. This shows that the move to stop loans to coal industries was never about helping the environment, it was for PR and financial reasons. Obama-era policies are responsible for the positive trend in renewable energy use in America today. The recent change in financial policies may indicate that these renewable energy trends may also decline in the future. 

——— 

THE COMPANY KEEPING ASIA ON COAL 

Powerful companies backed by governments are trying to maximize profits before it’s too late. For example, the Adani group, an Indian industrial giant with interests in energy, resources, logistics, agribusiness, real estate, financial services, defense and aerospace, recently acquired long sought-after mining rights in Australia. Their Carmichael project plans to extract coal from Australia, transport it to power plants in India, and sell this power to neighboring Bangladesh. The project would ensure that coal will connect these three economies for decades to come. The company’s founder, Gautam Adani, defended his company in a recent interview: “India doesn’t have a choice,” he said, citing the affordability and reliability of coal. Mr. Adani stated that coal is indispensable to feeding the energy demands of big developing countries. 

Regardless of whether coal is actually indispensable to India, Mr. Adani’s army of mines, power plants, and ports depend on it. A huge investment has been made by Mr. Adani to ensure coal remains crucial in India and other countries. 

In campaigning for the new Australian mines, the Adani group sold to local Australians this message: India’s need for coal would boost the area’s economy. The group donated to community organizations, made campaign contributions to local politicians, and hired political aides to lobby on the company’s behalf. 

The Adani group achieved unusually good deals and help from the state government. In March, it acquired coal mining contracts in a vast and previously off-limits forest. The company also has close ties with Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. For example, when coal prices rose a few years ago, it put a strain on power companies. In an unusual move, Indian regulators allowed the company to charge its customers more than originally contracted. Last year, India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence started an investigation into a $4.4 billion alleged fraud by 40 Indian power companies, including six Adani subsidiaries. The companies allegedly used fake middlemen to inflate the price of coal they were importing from Indonesia. The scheme allowed the companies to charge higher tariffs by exaggerating their production costs, the investigation claimed. The alleged scam would also have allowed the companies to siphon billions of dollars from India into offshore bank accounts, making it difficult for Indian authorities to tax or account for the money. Attempts were made during the investigation to prevent Indian authorities from accessing the Adani group’s business records. While the government lost the case in a customs tribunal, it is now appealing in a higher court, where it accuses the Adani group of obstructing the investigation. 

The group’s newest coal-fired plant is being built in the state of Godda, it is where coal from the Carmichael mine in Australia will be burned. The Godda power plant will be part of a special economic zone, the only zone in the country with only a power plant. Other economic zones have factories making duty free products for export. This plant would not provide power to any Indian household. This one would only generate electricity for Bangladesh, a small, densely populated nation to India’s east, allowing the company to escape some taxes. 

The land where the plant is being built was once home to India’s poorest farmers. A cell-phone video uploaded to Youtube shows locals pleading with a company representative to spare their land. At one point, several women drop to the man’s feet, crying. Eventually, police came and arrested five men who had refused to give up their land with charges of criminal trespassing. 

——— 

AFRICAN COAL  

While Africa’s economy has doubled in size since 2000, more than two thirds of people south of the Sahara still live without electricity. Africa has begun to embrace coal because of this. Renewable energy, on the other hand, has had mixed results in Africa. For example, Kenya’s 800 megawatts of hydropower (one third of its total capacity) has become increasingly unreliable due to a recurrent drought and is virtually inoperable at present, according to Richard Muiru, an advisor to Kenya’s Ministry of Energy and Petroleum.

According to data compiled by CoalSwarm, an industry watchdog, more than 100 coal-fired plants are being developed in 11 African countries; this exceeds the region’s existing coal capacity by eight times. Nearly all of these plants are fueled by foreign investment, and roughly half are being financed by the world’s largest coal emitter: China. China has invested in coal projects in eight African countries. Most of these countries have no existing coal power plants or coal infrastructure. Diminishing demand at home has led Chinese state-owned companies to invest overseas. Of the 400 companies worldwide planning to expand coal operations, 161 are Chinese, according to environmental groups, meaning China plans the most new coal power projects globally. 

That being said, China’s plan for coal infrastructure in Africa has met strong local opposition; Lamu power station, Kenya’s first planned coal plant, has been put on hold. In response to public concern, a Kenyan court withdrew a key permit for the project, meaning it now lacks a necessary license for construction to begin. Social and environmental risks were cited among the reasons for the license being withdrawn. China’s largest bank, ICBC, was planning to finance $1.2 billion of the $2 billion needed to build the now halted coal plant. A Chinese company, Power Construction Corporation of China, was also contracted to build the plant. 

This decision illustrates the growing public concern and awareness, globally, over pollution and climate change. Public interest triumphed here, showing hope for those in similar predicaments.

Mediocre Issue | November 2019

44th and Lowell

Situated on 44th Avenue and Lowell Boulevard across the street from a Safeway gas station and next to an orthodontist’s office in Denver is a one-story grey building. Around the corner, there’s a mural of a man hidden on the wall adjacent to a comically small and ridiculously-difficult-to-navigate parking lot. In the winter, the mural is the only visible color in the area. Pink plumes painted in delicate strokes frame the outline of the head, while various hues of blue, purple, and orange detail the rest of the depicted traditional dress, which pays homage to the Osage Nation of the Midwest. The man depicted on the mural is alone, seated with no background or other people. He is totally on his own.  

Around the corner from the mural is a glass door with three purple handprints and the words “Tocabe: An American Indian Eatery” printed below. Inside, the restaurant is reminiscent of a Chipotle, with large overhead menus detailing various plate options such as Indian Tacos, Melting Pot Salads, Stuffed Fry Bread, and Medicine Wheel Nachos. Posu Bowls of Wild Rice or Red Quinoa are also listed alongside Berry Braised Bison Ribs and Wojapi cups. The fare tells a story, speaking to both the yield of the land and the traumatic and painful history of the West. 

Tocabe first opened its doors to the public in 2008, when owners Matt Chandra and Ben Jacobs of the Osage Nation decided to test out a more permanent home for their recipes, which had previously won multiple awards at the National Indian Taco Championship in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Now, they operate two restaurants in the Denver metro area that are committed to their vision of embracing “the traditions of American Indian Cuisine and ingredients by building community through food.” In creating Tocabe, Chandra and Jacobs sought to create a contemporary space for traditional Native American cuisine, and were conscious in their decision to cultivate an atmosphere that is open, warm, and unapologetically connected to Native cultural elements. 

With over 560 different federally recognized and hundreds more unrecognized Native American tribes in the United States, it’s difficult to conceptualize how “An American Indian Eatery” should manifest itself in today’s food scene. The sheer diversity of Native groups with their distinct ingredients and cuisines makes representation complicated, which is why Chandra and Jacobs emphasize that their recipes should be understood as merely an introduction to North American Native cuisine. To convey this, Tocabe incorporates various ingredients and flavors that appear across Native cultures.

Fry bread, for example, is a staple in many Native tribes throughout North America and can be made a variety of ways ranging from with or without lard to based in yeast and cornmeal or all-purpose flour and baking powder. "Fry bread is an easy introduction," Chandra says, also explaining that "it's universal," which is why the restaurant chooses to highlight it. Using the fry bread as the base, Tocabe then builds upon the more complex flavor palettes of specific tribes, offering fry bread options with pinto beans and green chile or sweet corn, radish, poblano, and green onion on top. All of the ingredients are trademark “Made by American Indian,” a certification bestowed by the Intertribal Agricultural Council that identifies food products made by federally recognized tribes. 

Tocabe continues to explore ways that food can advance the dialogue surrounding the treatment of Native cultures in the United States. Chandra and Jacobs are purposeful in their planning of every aspect of the restaurant, not just the menu. Their design choices are especially meant to create space for and highlight indigenous iconography in everyday American pop culture. Outside, the mural exalts the archetype of an Osage man, while inside, the walls are decorated with framed works by Kiowa-Choctaw filmmaker, graphic designer, and writer Steven Paul Judd. Judd describes his work as “Native pop art” because it transforms contemporary US cultural icons by re-envisioning them through a Native lens. He attributes the creation of this style to his childhood, during which he often looked for reflections of Native culture in mass media. In an interview with Ron Castro of the Arkansas CW, he explained that “In popular culture, I didn’t really see the representation of myself that I wanted,” promising his childhood self that he would make consumable media that reflects Native traditions and values. He seeks to create a space for Natives in the world of mass media, and he now deconstructs icons such as Dr. Seuss’s Fox with Socks, replacing him with Dr. Sioux’s Fox with Mocs. 

Judd’s artwork operates as a means of resistance against white supremacy and Native erasure in the same way that Tocabe itself is revolutionary for fostering a space for Native cuisine in Denver’s food culture. In a city where the emergence of new restaurants is often synonymous with gentrification and the continued oppression of low-income residents of color, Tocabe strives to steer Denver’s culinary scene in a more representational and equitable direction. The current mainstream and whitewashed understanding of the American West perpetuates the erasure of indigenous people by promoting images of white cowboys in a pastoral West that derives a particular holiness from being uninhabited and untouched. Tocabe is flipping that narrative, reminding clients that the preservation of the landscapes of the West has only been made possible by Native management of the land. Before white people began committing genocide and mass murder against indigenous people, the relationship that existed between Native groups and the land was one built on mutual respect and dependence.

Tocabe upholds this relationship in its vision as a restaurant. Chandra and Jacobs boast an important goal: according to their website, they are striving to become “the Industry Standard of American Indian Cuisine by offering the highest quality food, service and atmosphere at an affordable price that does not compromise the integrity of the product, staff, culture, and community.” Tocabe dares to create a restaurant atmosphere and mission that marries the land, its yield, its people, and its history. 

Operating a restaurant like Tocabe is no easy feat: Chandra and Jacobs are dedicated to amplifying voices that have long been marginalized at the expense of US expansionism and white supremacy. As the only Native American restaurant in metro Denver and one of only a handful located within the United States, Tocabe is faced with the unique challenge of simultaneously reconciling the bloody and violent history of the US while elevating the recipes and narratives that have been stifled over centuries of colonization. The restaurant is a vessel that brings Native American cuisine to a wider audience in a new and innovative way. 

People from all over the country come to Denver to indulge in shredded bison with Chile beans, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, and red onions topped with an Osage Hominy salsa, hot green chiles, and the Ancho Chipotle sauce—but the restaurant is about more than just its menu. Tocabe is a new manifestation of resistance to colonialism and white supremacy that honors the Native Americans who have suffered for centuries in the United States. Intergenerational trauma has resulted in the inheritance of injustice, which the restaurant is working to reconcile through both food and space by providing a platform for cuisine that white settlers have attempted to erase. The backs of the employee uniforms read, “My heroes have always made fry bread.” Tocabe honors these heroes through food, bringing their revolutionary, unapologetic dedication to Native representation to a new audience.

 Mediocre Issue | November 2019

Lettitor

Dear Reader,

I hope this letter finds you in a state of exhilarating mediocrity. Most people don’t plan on being mediocre, at least in the long run—but arguably, there’s nothing wrong with being only half-decent at most things. I bet you’ve never actually mastered most of the skills you’ve learned over the years, whether that be water coloring, calculus, or Nordic skiing. Instead, you gave yourself the chance to try your hand at something new and get a few laughs at your own clumsiness. You got to spend a nice afternoon with friends or a block strengthening some atrophied part of your brain. You were able to broaden your experience of the human condition and develop a little bit of precious humility. 

We cannot undervalue the beauty of an accidental water splotch on a painting, a totally-wrong-but-good-try math proof, or a glorious, shrieking tumble down a ski slope. We are simply trying, getting better slowly, content to be one of many other people who are simply just trying.

In this issue, we celebrate the vast array of human mediocrity. Joshua Kalenga roots for the underdog teams in the professional soccer world, who are probably more laid back and having more fun anyway. Georgia Grellier recalls her experience teaching young girls how to be mediocre divers, and how this gave them the invaluable gift of courage—being the best was never the goal. Courtney Knerr finds that the Block Plan is no better than the pedestrian semester plan that everyone else uses, but rather just has a different set of pros and cons to contend with. In the face of eviction, Mar Wilson longs for the stability of the kind of mediocre normalcy that so many take for granted. S. Verda, an inmate at El Paso prison, writes the first installment of his short story, which will be published throughout the next several issues of Cipher. He offers a surreal picture of resisting the carnivorous monster of total apathy and explores how the mediocrity of everyday life can feel confining, but in the end, it’s worth fighting for.

Here’s to the Jack of all trades, master of none. The appreciation of things not far from the ordinary, the rough-hewn personality not yet squashed in the quest for perfection. Here’s to a planet of eight billion’s lopsided pottery and B- math tests, burnt chocolate chip cookies and scuffed-up sneakers. To be mediocre is to be human, and that’s something all of us can relate to. 

We all have our lofty childhood dreams of Olympic medals, revolutionary discoveries, or innumerable riches. Some of us will rise to achieve them, armed with admirable determination and probably a touch of luck or raw talent. But on your way to the top, if that’s where you want to go, don’t forget to cherish that beautiful place of mediocrity. It’s a place of growth and unimaginable potential where you still have people to look up to and you’re still allowed to make mistakes.

Unexceptionally yours, 

Hannah Stoll and the rest of the Cipher staff

Mediocre Issue | November 2019