Michael Onwutalu — Houston, TX Illustration by Ines Alto I had been listening to a lot of Kelsey Lu in anticipation of their newest album, So Help Me God. Specifically, I had been hooked on the singer’s debut album, Blood, the music capturing a pre-Covid naïveté that I’ve grown fond of. “Due West,” the album’s 2018 lead single, is so 2019, and what was I doing then? I was completing the transition to high school, binging Game of Thrones, tuning in weekly to Euphoria, and prac

On taking yourself down the road. By Duda Kovarky Rotta Illustration by Iris Pope As it turns out, we need to take care of ourselves. We each have our ways to get by: journaling, a good-enough lover, a $28 salad, Korean skincare, confession, an IV-drip of self-pity, some lemon-ginger-hot-water-morning shot to wash down the Valium. Actually, no lemon in the water anymore—last week’s experts said it made you thin but now, turns out, it makes you shallow. Everybody needs a litt

By Duda Kovarsky Rotta Carlos Drummond de Andrade is a name every Brazilian child at least vaguely recognizes—most major cities have invariably named a street or a square after him. Some say he was our greatest poet; others, that he just was another rich intellectual brandishing communism and art as sword and shield. Either way, there is a stark contrast between his towering influence and the terribly insufficient translations of his work into English. The poem I chose to tra

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 students who are workers, workers who are students, and the recent Unfair Labor Practice complaints against the SWC. By Duda Kovarsky Rotta and Gabriela McBride Illustration by Derin Ogutcu Columbia is the birthplace of student employees at private universities being recognized as workers. In 2016, the National Labor Relations Board’s “ Columbia Decision ” granted graduate researchers, teaching assistants, and resident advisors the full breadth of rights that any other wo

Listening with your ear to the real thing. By Duda Kovarsky Rotta Illustration by Derin Ogutcu Please listen while reading: “Tributo a um...