The story of the student movement, from Columbia JVP’s biggest diva. By Maya Lerman Illustration by Selin Ho If you’ve been tuned in to Columbia’s activism scene the past two years, you’ve probably seen Cameron Jones. Maybe in person, wearing a brightly colored crop-top and keffiyeh, wielding a megaphone at protests outside the campus gates. Maybe on the news—NBC, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!—or speaking confidently to the camera on your Instagram feed. Or maybe you’ve seen his

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,

By Rocky Rūb and Maya Lerman Illustration by Selin Ho Saturday, April 4, 2026 5:00 a.m.: Affirmative: I’ve just concluded my five-step bedtime skincare routine and am tucking myself into bed after a lovely night at BASEMENT. There’s something serendipitous about the fact that the mushrooms have exited my system at the exact moment I wanted to go to sleep! And it’s not every day that a gay boy finds Trade with free K in Brooklyn! Well, maybe it is everyday, but because the tra

Lessons from the Lab By Jack Bradner Illustration by Selin Ho At the beginning of my first American Modernism class with Professor Rachel Adams, she asked the room for a quick show of hands: how many prospective or current English majors were present? Aware of a heavy majority of the class, I tentatively raised my hand. Professor Adams then asked how many STEM or Biology majors were present. No hands this time. Before getting into the details of the course, Professor Adams n

Applying Self-Disclosure to Columbia’s Couples By Jack Bradner Illustration by Selin Ho In 1997, psychologists Arthur Aron et al. published their seminal study, “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings.” To investigate how self-disclosure affects relationship-building, Aron et al. devised a set of 36 questions to probe closeness between unacquainted participants. Two of the participants in Aron’s study were married s

By Hannah Lui Illustration by Selin Ho Turtle-necked at the Kawai where he learned to waltz&rag. And compose and doodle and dance but I only hear Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf tortured from the copper When I think of him here At the piano I am looking at his post-op face on my phone. Not as bad as I expected Mom says When he left two days ago the last time I saw the face she bore, his&this hits me now Now, Fog bruising purple, his nose is not the same Thick hanging hea

The Maysles Documentary Center keeps the spark of Harlem’s art film scene alive. By Caroline Nieto Illustration by Selin Ho I ran to the M60+ to hitch a ride to the intersection at 125th street and Malcolm X Boulevard–a locale that was once called “the Mecca of Harlem,” an artistic hub that spawned from the fallout of the Harlem Renaissance. The intersection got its name from the inception of performance spaces there during the latter half of the twentieth century, with the A