How to be naked among other people in the sauna. By Selma White-Pascual Illustration by Jacqueline Subkhanberdina Red curtains swing open, and I see a long wooden bench, lit by soft yellow lights. A dense fog smothers the stage and unfurls toward the audience. A breath: Ahhhhhhhh. Then, a recorded chorus of grunts, gasps, and groans begins. Two women enter from either side of the stage, wearing only towels and nude shorts. Their feet drag along the floor, their movements stic

Reflecting on Raising Cane’s first-year-anniversary in Morningside Heights. By Jack Bradner Illustration by Iris Pope Last September, Raising Cane’s stationed their fifth New York City location at 2850 Broadway, only a handful of blocks from the University. Like the roughly 1,000 other Raising Cane’s locations scattered across the globe, Columbia’s Cane’s is a place where disco balls always glitter, and your order’s called practically before you pay. Despite the restaurant’s

The Truth of the X-Files Fan Edit. By Magda Lena Griffel Illustration by Isabelle Oh Tessa LaFlamme was 14 when she made her first X-Files fan edit. If you beg her, she’ll show it to you. “It's violently bad,” she’ll preface. “I had a hip hop class where we learned a combination from the Backstreet Boys, and I thought, ‘this song’s great, how can I edit to it?’” The video is 30 seconds long, in 1:1 ratio, chaotic, and bouncy. There are way too many special effects, and the mu

Ethics in Columbia’s AI Minor By Isabelle Oh Illustration by Isabelle Oh Many of my classes have been transitioning away from essays, projects, and take-home tests, opting instead for the infamous blue-book final-exam format, handwritten notes in black pen, all in an effort to curb the use of artificial intelligence in class. But I see the technology used, regardless of our professors’ wishes, all over campus. In addition to the online shopping or spectacular fails at spee

Kevin O’Connor, Despair Fest, and the Columbia of years past By Neda Ravandi Illustration by Iris Pope In the darkest recesses of the Columbia University Digital Archives, beyond famed fine art collections and architectural vignettes illustrating a newly constructed Butler Library, there lies something even more Columbian: “Kevin M. O’Connor Student Life Collection, 1988-2022 [Bulk 1988-1992].” The lengthy name does little to inform what fills up pages and pages of “fliers, p

Nike Techs vs Quarter-Zips By Julian Rodriguez Illustration by Justin Chen Hanging in every Columbia student’s closet is their class sweatshirt, gifted to them by the Student Council. In recent memory, these have always been simple crew necks. However, in a March CCSC meeting, the Class of ’29 representatives announced that they would wear a new garment: the quarter-zip. This decision was made because a survey of the then-freshmen class revealed that an overwhelming majority

Illustration by Vanessa Zhou April 27, 2026 Dear Snails of the Hudson Valley, I have two of your brethren living in a small pot in my small room, about 100 miles from their home. I would feel compelled to return them to your railroad siding, but they are enjoying a higher quality of life in my spider plant. Why, might you ask, did I kidnap your compatriots? It is a long, treacherous story of heartbreak, exhaustion, and human perseverance. Last fall, my dorm was bare; the drab

By losing your headphones By Marvin Cho Illustration by Selin Ho Take a stroll down Broadway. What do you hear? A conversation among friends walking to lunch, whose precise words escape you, but not the ring of joy they contain? The wail of an ambulance heralding the crisis of a life, a turning point in one person’s story? Birds? The rustle of trees? The earthly tapping of your own shoes against the pavement? Or, do you hear, instead, a curated list of your favorite titles,

Thinking about Ambedkar by thinking beyond Ambedkar. By Maya Lerman Illustration by Truman Dickerson In May of 1916, a 25-year-old Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar wrote and presented a paper, entitled “Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development,” for a Columbia anthropology seminar. “ Subtler minds and abler pens than mine have been brought to the task of unravelling the mysteries of Caste,” Ambedkar remarked, “but unfortunately it still remains in the domain of the ‘un

Reflections on privilege and performance through the Ivy League Solidarity Memorial on Feb. 7, 2026. By Rocky Rūb Illustration by Ines Alto On Dec. 13, 2025, an active shooter entered a Brown University building and killed two students, injuring nine others. The gunman remained at large for nearly a week after taking the lives of Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, aged 18 and 19, respectively. Over the 48 hours following the shooting, Instagram was flooded with posts an

On Susan Sontag, the Wild West, and spring break. by Luke Zinger Illustration by Em Bennett Up until about a month ago, my vision of “the West” was a hazy ideal constructed by half-remembered scenes of galavanting cowboys in network television Westerns, and a hedonistic, rambling set of passages I’d earmarked in my copy of Kerouac’s On the Road. I had dreamlike imaginings of shriveled tumbleweeds crawling down horsetrod desert paths in New Mexico, and giant, thundering tornad

On Filipino connection at the corner of 5th Ave and 46th St, and across the Pacific By Selma White-Pascual Illustration by Jacqueline Subkhanberdina It is 30 minutes past the 2 p.m. start time when the program begins. The protesters gathered in front of the General Consulate of the Philippines on 5th Ave joke, “It’s actually early for Filipino-time!” An organizer steps forward and tells us through a large megaphone that we will run through the chants together. I share a print

The Beginnings of Ntozake Shange and her Literary Elsewheres. By Nnema Épée-Bounya Illustration by Iris Pope On the fourth floor of Milstein Library, in box nine, folder three of the Ntozake Shange Papers sits a stapled, slightly stained, magazine. Tucked between the manilla folders of Barnard’s Archives, its cover is a loose sketch of a nude Black woman—her arms delicately wrapped around her body, her hip popped to the side, her featureless face turned toward the reader. To

On small moments of love that lie solely within a New York City park. By Sayuri Govender Illustration by Jacqueline Subkhanberdina In each of the parks around campus are pockets of us—people-watching with our neighbors, sharing inside jokes, and breathing out with the trees. I have dozens of different trail loops memorized, and I know exactly which one I need when. For a long, contemplative moment, I’ll walk down to the bend near 99th where Riverside Park meets the Hudson R

On a priori truth and looking at the moon. By Duda Kovarsky Rotta Illustration by Justin Chen Read while listening to Billie Holiday's I’ll Be Seeing You. Ever since I spent a semester reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason for class, that Prussian virgin's words have loitered in my mind. The thick Critique weighed heavy on my bag from class to class, and on my peregrinations to see the woman I love. Over the course of our medium-distance New York-Boston relationship, we

On college love, temptation, and heartbreak from a Muslim-American perspective . By Sara Omer Illustration by Kathleen Halley-Segal I exist in a rift between two vastly different worlds, straining to hold them together. The first world was introduced to me by my parents. I can only reach this one through focus and expert dissociation. I awake from my slumber in the middle of a silent night while everyone around me is snoring and dreaming. I splash unnervingly cool water on

Some names have been changed, some haven’t. By Rocky Rūb Illustration by Em Bennett Three and a half years ago, I started making a playlist for every semester. It’s a maladaptive practice, in which I imagine that each 14-week stretch of time makes up a television season, and that each playlist makes up its soundtrack. I’m the main character, obviously, but a couple tracks focus on my friends, the featured cast members. There are times that I actually can’t listen to the playl

How to drink from the heart. By Iris Eisenman Illustration by Justin Chen In anticipation of a date, I watched my friend, who never smokes, tuck a cigarette into her purse. When I asked her why, she told me it was her first date routine. Something about the small ritual gave her a comfortable distance from the moment, like someone else was experiencing the night in her stead. I immediately recognized her desire for a switch to be flipped, for romance to exist in a compartment

On relationships, labels, and keeping love alive . By Ana Sorrentino Illustration by Iris Pope The names in this piece have been changed to respect the sources’ romantic privacy. Upon reading, I’m sure you’ll understand why. In high relief against the outer wall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, white birds bathe in shallow pools of melted snow along the plaza’s edge. In soft crowds they stretch wings, pivot, and stare. Two take off flying around in a frantic chase to th

On the inexplicable obsession with the perfect ballet dancer. By Magda Lena Griffel Illustration by Iris Pope As a child, Grace Li, CC ’28, was transfixed by the role of Clara in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker . For Fiona Witty-Daughtery CC ’28, it was the older dancers at her first summer intensive. For the late ballerina Michaela Mabinty DePrince, it was a magazine cover of a prima ballerina that flew to the gate of her orphanage when she was four. She joined ballet classes a