With a peak of over 300 members, the social club was run by volunteers who wanted “a safe space for women, lesbians and supportive straight women to gather without risk of harassment and violence” during a hostile period for those groups both in Binghamton and nationally, according to the exhibition’s webpage.

This hostility was represented in parts of the exhibition, with documentation that relates to the persecution that lesbians and queer women faced in Binghamton. A newspaper clipping included in the exhibition from August 1930 mentions “two women, including one dressed like a man,” being arrested for their “suspicious clothing,” who lived as “husband and wife on Henry Street.”

The exhibition also included information about the lesbian community in Binghamton before the opening of Herizon. A reproduction of Herizon’s 10th anniversary newspaper recalls that by 1974, the sole lesbian bar in Binghamton, the Green Onion, was open for only a year before a bomb went off inside after closing, which the writer Laurie Ryan and others believed was done by an owner for financial reasons.

Despite the risks and dangers of operating gay bars in the first years following the Stonewall Riots in New York City, a lively queer nightlife emerged in Binghamton, offering space for both college students and locals. They were “all owned by men and some by the syndicate,” had a “frantic sexual and alcoholic atmosphere” and “overt” gayness was often repressed by management, according to Ryan.

However, these bars were an inextricable aspect of lesbian life. It was where women “found friends, lovers, and a sense of belonging in an otherwise alienating society.”

This exhibition depicts how essential spaces like Herizon were then and continue to be today. Walking through the recreation of its front door, painted chalkboard black with no way to look inside, the materials on display, including posters, flyers, T-shirts, murals, records and a section dedicated to Herizon members who have passed, illustrate what the space meant to its 300 members at its peak and the lives that they lived within it.

Walking around the gallery, looking at materials from Herizon, provided an emotional experience, both because of what the club was and its closure. While there are several options for lesbians and queer people in general in Binghamton, they are limited. It can be especially difficult for college students seeking community, as the constant turnover of the student body also applies to bars and community spaces in Binghamton.

There were several reasons that Herizon had to close in 1991, among them the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, but there also simply weren’t enough people willing to work and keep the space going.

According to the author and professor Bonnie Morris Ph.D ‘89, who studied women’s history at Binghamton University and was a member of Herizon, by the late 1980s, it was difficult finding enough volunteers to keep Herizon open from Wednesday to Sunday.

Many wanted to keep it open to provide a place where a member could drop in spontaneously to find “warm sisterhood and cold beer,” but with many members having “gradually paired off, settled down, bought homes, adopted kids, and/or elected to get sober,” there weren’t enough people nor funds to keep it open. This was exacerbated by the raising of the New York state drinking age to 21 in 1985, which prevented college students interested in the space from attending.

Members wanted the space to continue to exist without providing the necessary support to do so. Morris wrote, “They simply expected that women’s cultural space would continue to be available to them as consumers, without their taking a role in it as producers.”

There has been a massive decline in the number of lesbian bars and women’s spaces in the past several decades, with an estimated 24 lesbian bars in the United States in 2021, compared to over 200 in 1980. Several factors contribute to this, like online dating, greater social acceptance of queer people and gentrification that prices out bars.

But they also close because people stop going. While there has been a small revival of lesbian bars and spaces, the loss of Herizon tells a fundamental lesson that people can carry both while at the University and beyond: participation.

Morris says it best: “cultural space that is woman-friendly and queer-friendly does not just happen: it’s a product of hard-won compromise with location, labor, outreach, budgeting, and communication.” It is arduous, but it is necessary. Whether your involvement includes attending events at lesbian and queer bars, working behind the scenes or helping others find community, it is all vital.

Tip your queens and the bartenders, and relish the queers spaces you find and make — they need you as much as you need them.

With works dating from the beginning of the interwar period to the conclusion of World War II, the show spans a particularly tumultuous quarter-century, which includes the Roaring ’20s, the Great Depression, the implementation of the New Deal and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The exhibition shows a particular strength of the Binghamton University Art Museum’s collection, many of which were donated by local art collectors Gil and Deborah Williams in 2016. There are also several loans included in the show, with pieces made available from the BU libraries, the Roberson Museum and Science Center and the Art Bridges Collection.

Originally conceived by Professor McDonough and Chelsea Gibson, the director of the Binghamton Codes! Program, the showcase is the result of a pandemic-era project supported by Art Bridges to create digital exhibitions and programming to make art more accessible. At the opening, Professor McDonough remarked that “[Gibson’s] fingerprints are still on this here tonight.”

The exhibition incorporates the original project’s thematic categories: Americans Abroad; City Life; Everyday Americans; Government; Labor, Modernism; Picturing Black Lives; Protest; Rural Life and Labor; The West; War Time; and Women.

The categories are roughly chronological, with the first artwork being Jane Peterson’s 1919 painting “Courtyard of the Doges’ Palace, Venice” of the American tourists that flocked to Europe and its “revered landscapes and renowned museums” from the home they deemed a “cultural backwater.” The exhibition concludes with “Landscape with truck and barracks, Oct 1st 10 A.M.” and “Landscape before the rain, Oct 10th, 1942 7 P.M,” both by Chiura Obata. The two ink drawings depict the Utah internment camp where Obata was detained for being Japanese American.

The progression of the two is one of the few cynical moments of the show, which otherwise details how American artists responded to the tumultuous moment and grappled with the concept of American art and who is included in the country’s hopes and ideals. While innovations of this period are seen across the many works of the show, Obata’s spare and unremitting landscapes depict one of the main constants throughout American history — the need for change and an expansion of the definition and rights of American citizens.

Beyond the limits that American artists like Obata faced during this period, the exhibition showcases how the art world welcomed individuals beyond the wealthy, white, usually male demographic. Women and Black Americans had more autonomy to live and work as artists, often representing themselves and their concerns in new and innovative ways.

One that does this in a particularly interesting manner is James Lesesne Wells’ “Untitled (Man Carving Idols),” dated to around 1929. In this work, Wells, a Black artist, depicts an image of the white artist in his studio creating his own idols. In this space, the idol is removed from its original context and purpose, which often was not as an art object, and used instead as a source of inspiration for “modern art’s experimentation.” He uses this “white European idiom” for this image, demonstrating the complicated relationship the artist likely had with the use of African imagery, divorced from its original meaning by American artists.

Another fascinating example of the ways the boundaries of American art shifted during this period, while still leaving room for change and growth, can be seen in Helen Torr’s self portrait on loan from Art Bridges. The portrait’s intense and arresting gaze is enhanced by the equally noxious and intoxicating green light that casts over Torr. This lets the portrait expand beyond the canvas, making a home close to its viewers, whether that is welcome or not.

While conceived of in a very different political moment, the tension that this exhibition explores surrounding questions of American art and identity are remarkably prescient in the current political climate, at a time where the federal government has attempted to revoke arts funding from programming that promotes “diversity, equity and inclusion” or “gender ideology” in favor of “[reflecting] the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President.”

“Those things [have] always been a question of who gets to fall under that umbrella of representation, and one of the exciting, inspiring things about American art is that you know art has been a space where that’s really been fought out, like, played out, you know, argued over,” McDonough said.

Once I got to class, I could articulate exactly what I wanted. I wanted an “innie” to take the exam for me.

The idea of an “innie” and its opposite, an “outie,” comes from the hit Apple TV sci-fi show “Severance.” In the series, the sinister Lumon Industries has invented a medical procedure known as “severance” that splits the minds of its employees into two. The outie lives their life as usual, except that when they descend the Lumon elevator to the severed floor, they immediately leave it and go home.

At work, their innie takes over, a version of themselves whose entire life is in the office — when they go up the elevator, they immediately walk out onto the severed floor. The procedure is sold as the ultimate solution to work-life balance by creating one person who works and one who doesn’t.

In the show, the innies are described as mere extensions of their outies and are told very little about the outside world. But the characters that we follow, the Macrodata Refinement team, complicate and eventually destroy the notion that innies are the same as their outies by having their own personalities, motivations, loves and desires. The narrative on severance that both the innies and outies hear is a lie, but they cannot communicate for much of the series, as intense surveillance by Lumon prevents information sharing and solidarity between the severed halves.

As the show continues, we get a greater sense of the true intentions of Lumon. We are originally told the technology is less than a decade old, but we learn that it is likely much older. And while severance is presented as used solely by some Lumon employees for a refined work-life balance, Lumon clearly has different goals.

This turns even more eerie when we meet Gabby Arteta, wife of a Lumon-supporting senator who has severed herself to avoid the pain of childbirth. Indeed, as the series continues, the severance process only gets more sinister, and Lumon appears to be seeking a kind of global control.

The show’s theme is that severance is dangerous because it forces an unwilling person, the innie, to work only so the outie can avoid their labor. But what makes it so compelling is that many of us can relate to a desire to not work, making severance seem, while sinister, a desirable method to escape an inescapable part of life.

We do little things to lessen work and make our lives easier, whether we plug essays into ChatGPT or put off studying to engage in things we enjoy more. It is a universal desire to want more for less and to try accomplishing our goals by doing as little work as possible. We want the results of our labor without having to work for it.

As individuals become increasingly alienated from their labor, going from farming the food they eat to manufacturing items they might use to merely inputting text into online databases, we are less connected and have less access to the fruits of our labor, which we increasingly cannot access in our daily lives.

So why wouldn’t you want an escape? Why not take the route that lets you leave the office as soon as you enter and still get paid? Members of the MDR team all have different reasons for getting severed, but all experience missing eight hours of their day before leaving the elevator from the severed floor. But the issue is that this doesn’t solve the character’s alienation and instead forces someone else to perform their labor, and the only way for an innie to quit is to essentially kill themselves since their existence is tied to the severed floor.

But in that escape, you lose much more than just eight hours. It warps your perspective — when your work is easy and you can get away with the bare minimum, any increased hardship or difficulty seems insurmountable. Just as social media warps our idea of what real life is actually like, getting away with the bare minimum, whether through severance or just by not doing your readings, makes actual work seem all the harder.

This is where I’d like to return to my midterm. As I opened the question booklet, I still hoped that by some miracle, I’d open my eyes to a completed test in front of me and bypass taking it. But because this is real life, I didn’t.

Evidently, the exam wasn’t as bad as I thought. It certainly didn’t breeze by, but it wasn’t the arduous task I’d built up in my mind. It was difficult, but it also helped me make connections between topics that I hadn’t thought of before and reminded me of areas that I needed to improve.

But what would I think of the exam if I had been severed and assigned an “innie” to the task? I would still see an impossible task and I would not know my actual strengths and weaknesses, just my perceptions of them. I would not have grown and evolved but remained stagnant and unable to advance my understanding of the subject.

So, the next time you are typing in ChatGPT to give you answers or even just to provide you an easy way to start your paper — or you find yourself in the “Severance” universe and are seriously considering the procedure — pause.

You will not learn from your dependence on technology. It will only leave you as you were, insecure about your abilities and skills. Instead, rely on yourself and the myriad resources you have around you — talk to your friends, go to student support offices or consult online resources created before ChatGPT. Don’t avoid intellectual labor or difficult experiences — they shape who you are.

When I say “at the club,” I do not mean it in a literal sense. Originally coined by an X user surprised that the mother from the “Berenstain Bears” was only 27, it spread as a shorthand way to say that a fictional character or figure wasn’t living out their youth. Instead of being at the aforementioned club, they were raising a family or stressed out about their job, occupied by expectations meant for a later age.

For real people, the “club” is your hobbies, your hangouts, the places that you make your own with your friends. It can be an actual club or a pottery class or book club. What it definitely isn’t is bed-rotting — the act of scrolling in bed for hours at a time.

Let me backtrack to the recent trends I mentioned earlier. While bed-rotting is a term that encapsulates much of the negative cultural trends in recent years, it includes a variety of impulses that people seem to be gravitating toward more and more. Instead of trying to make friends in the real world, you scroll. Instead of hacking away at an essay, you stick it into ChatGPT and make some edits to make it seem more “you.” Instead of writing, reading, laughing, crying, painting, dreaming, drinking or eating, you consume, one eye on a Netflix original and the other on your phone.

These impulses to stay inside and consume media, avoiding the outside world, are usually caused by a sense of dismay at the state of the world that makes them want to just be inside and do nothing, feel nothing. While a single TikTok comment can’t serve as an indictment on the state of the culture, the comment, “I just want to eat, lay in bed, watch my shows and not feel guilty about not wanting to do anything else,” gets close.

We all have those days where we want to do nothing but lay in bed — but ask yourself, “How do I feel after three plus hours scrolling on my phone?” There are days when I will watch the sun set and the sky turn black out of the corner of my eye as I scroll, scroll, scroll, and I’ve never not felt like complete shit afterward. I lose track of time, I wonder what use I got out of the time I spent in my bed and how I could’ve read one of the many books on my shelf or texted my friends to hang out.

But I never think about those things when my eyes are locked on my phone. With something so curated to your interests and dislikes, you become trapped in a world where you are the only real person — everyone and everything else is trying to keep you there to serve you ads and get you to spend money. In the words of TikToker Serena Shahidi, “name a single hobby of yours outside media consumption.” And that is what bed rotting and so much of the culture today fundamentally is — consumption.

The worst part about this constant consumption is how fulfilling it can be. You can be served up exactly what you want and what will keep you on TikTok, X or Instagram for the longest possible time. Yes, it can feel enjoyable or fun sometimes, but it is still an act of consumption that distorts your sense of what the real world actually feels like. When everything online is moderated and controlled, the fact that the real world is awkward, uncomfortable and annoying at times feels like a personal attack. Any sense of vulnerability or cringe feels like a humiliation ritual.

The digital world warps our comfort zones and makes us less tolerant of the little indignities of life. Rather than providing an outlet for life’s challenges, it magnifies them, making it more difficult to sit in the real world with real people who aren’t filtered through digital profiles. The comfort zone social media and slop provide is dangerous and manipulative, all to sell you an escape through consumption that will never satiate your hunger.

Combatting this can’t be a solo mission. The hyper-individualism heightened by social media must be combated by acts of collectivism. You should text your friends to hang out and turn your phone off when they come over. You should go to a meeting for a club you’ve never heard of and introduce yourself.

You have to be the one to reach out, to extend a hand of companionship away from the individualist digital world. Go to the club, make mistakes and regret them the next day, get rejected by someone, go to an event by yourself and make friends there.

What should our readers know about you and Hotbox if they’ve never been (they totally should btw)? 

“Readers should know that I am Class of 2018 — double major in Graphic Design and English Rhetoric & that I won the Rainbow Pride Union drag show in 2016! I also served as Photo Editor for Pipe Dream from 2016-2017.”

Q: How did your career in drag begin and what was that experience like? 

“When I moved here for school in 2014, I sought the New York City drag energy I had at home. From sneaking into shows at the local gay bar Merlins, to winning Binghamton University’s Drag competition to 2016, to becoming club kid at Tranquil’s Trash Tuesday, to working as house photographer for The Cave, Rosalind, and Chatterbox shows; Drag has inevitably become part of my identity. Working both the technical part of nightlife and now more recently the performance aspect of it; I feel I have a well rounded perspective.

I’m grateful for the community it builds and the space it creates where Queer people can live their authentic selves free of judgement. There was a period of over one year without a regular drag show/gay social night in Downtown Binghamton, so I created one! I’ve dabbled in drag for the aesthetic sense but never regularly performed. I basically started performing when HOTBOX began January 25, 2024. It’s been a labor of love for sure and I’m learning every day.”

What’s the best experience you’ve had as a performer?

“Best experience I have as a performer is when people tell me how important HOTBOX is to them and how they see it as a safe, Queer-prioritized nightlife experience. Truly, my only wish for the show was to be a safe haven for our Queer community to mingle, have fun, and boogie on the regular. So when people tell me that’s how they experience it, I get all warm inside. It’s all I’ve ever wanted!”

What is essential for a good drag show as a performer? 

“As a performer, HAVING THE NERVE is essential for a good drag show! I love getting in peoples faces; good drag captivates the audience and keeps them on their toes!”

What is essential for a good drag show as an audience member? 

“As an audience member, being able to scream, shout, hoot, & holler is essential for a good drag show. Performers ride the energy of the audience, so essentially a good audience gets a better performer.”

What drag essential for you is way too underrated?

“Redness relief eyedrops! In the midst of doing makeup and wearing enlarging contacts, my eyes tend to get red before showtime. Redness relief really helps my eyes pop — it’s the small things that help elevate the fantasy.”

If you only had one song to perform for the rest of your life, what would it be and why? 

“Burning Up by Madonna. That was the first song I performed to open HOTBOX so it’ll always hold a special place. I know that song like the back of my hand. Plus, Sativa … Burning Up?! It just makes sense.”

What piece of art has made the most impact on you? 

“The robot suit by French fashion designer Thierry Mugler from his Fall/Winter 1995 fashion show. It’s so gobsmackingly outer-worldly. If you look like a femme superhero goddess in drag, I love you.”

What’s your dream drag show?

“My dream drag show would be one where a cast individually performs each track from Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor (the Non-Stop Edition).”

What would your three wishes be?

“1. Bring back 24-hour Walmart

2. Have a body double

3. Unlimited supply of broccoli”

What trends in queer culture do you love?

“I love that we’ve been accepting sexuality as fluid rather than binary.”

What trends in queer culture do you hate? 

“Thinking drag is always a competition.”

How do you define camp?

“Over the top, larger than life, ridiculousness that is theatrical and exaggeratingly playful.”

What does your ideal day look like?

“Show day for me consists of getting out of bed by 1-ish, preparing my luggage for the evening, printing out the setlist and writing out my show notes. A shower later, it’s 5 p.m. and I’m sitting down at my vanity. Painting the mug until about 8 then it’s time to get to the gig. Change into costume, take the pictures for social media, then host a damn show for the town of Binghamton!”

What else do you think our readers should know? 

“Drag is fun. Drag should be fun. If you’re not having fun, either doing drag or watching drag, you’re doing it wrong.”

What do you want people to take away from your shows and the HOTBOX experience? 

“Life is stupid. So just have fun with it all. I love being unserious. The world is already so painful that if I can look like a million dollar fantasy or land a joke for someone to smile a little and escape the cruelty of reality, then I did my job.”

What does drag culture mean to you, as queer person? 

“Just existing as a community and uplifting one another. And having fun!”

The short readings, performed in part by students, were provided by Say Gay Plays, an organization that provides royalty-free plays by queer playwrights to not-for-profits like the University.

The organization was formed in response to a Florida state law, also known as “Don’t Say Gay,” which prohibited classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade. They hope theater activism will give communities tools to combat anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and laws, all the while raising money for local queer-focused organizations.

David Bisaha, director of the play “The Greenhouse” and an associate professor of theatre, wrote about the damage that such laws create and how theatrical programs can combat hate.

“Where theatre can contribute is in telling relatable human stories, in making audiences understand in a different kind of way than what we see on social media or hear in political speeches,” Bisaha wrote in an email. “I think that, for most people, listening and knowing the other is a bridge to understanding. And, while it’s hard sometimes, understanding (even while disagreeing on some political issues) is necessary for a functioning society.”

Six plays were read and performed throughout the night and donations were collected for the Southern Tier AIDS Program/Identity Youth Center. These included “Happy Endings for People Like Us,” “i love the shit out of you,” “Principal’s Office,” “An Address to the Florida Legislature” and “question (ˈkwɛs.tʃən) vb., the imperative form.”

One of the highlights was “An Address to the Florida Legislature.” The sole character was John Q. Public, a man who is addressing the Florida legislature about various things that must be added to the Don’t Say Gay law to prevent queerness from being promoted to young people.

His suggestions included banning children’s books written by queer people like the “Frog and Toad” and “Harriet the Spy” series and films with queer subtext and appeal like “Legally Blonde” and “Grease.”

It would be easy for a one-man play about homophobia to depress an audience, but the crowd was enraptured by the charisma of the only actor, Ansa Akyea, a senior lecturer of theatre said. Every time he said a book or film or some other thing that should be banned, a substantial segment of the audience loudly gasped and chuckled at the preposterousness of the ideas.

Akyea played the ugly outrageousness of a fired-up politician without relying on pure menace and thus created an easy character to laugh at without feeling dejected. Indeed, if a real politician came to a podium and demanded that we had to clean up homosexual-filled professions like florists and flight attendants, it would’ve been much harder to laugh along with him.

After a short break, Elizabeth Mozer, an associate professor of theatre, introduced Amin. In her talk, she discussed their life growing up in Iran as a girl who could play soccer and liked other girls and their later political exile.

While she was only a child during the Iranian Revolution, Amin was nonetheless opposed to it after her mother, who was against the intermingling of religion and government, said, “When they come [to] power, we will lose our freedom as women.” After being arrested for hanging out flyers opposing the government, Amin took a circuitous route out of Iran that ended with her claiming political asylum in Germany. It was there that she began to be even more involved with humans, women and specifically, LGBTQ+ rights.

Amin sees the work of Say Gay Plays as deeply connected to their work at I-GMAP and believes that the arts, including theatre, have a great role in society.

“I feel these art forms deeply, whether it’s ‘Bella Ciao’ in Italian, a painting by Frida Kahlo, the German film ‘[Aimee] and Jaguar,’ or a dance performance by an Iranian artist,” Amin wrote in an email. “I connect with them, even without fully knowing their history or language. Art and culture have the power to bring people together; it’s as if all your senses are engaged, allowing you to analyze and appreciate on multiple levels.”

With the chilly and comfortable days of fall slowly arriving in Binghamton, many students have been turning in their shorts and tank tops for jeans and hoodies. Here are some ideas on how to dress to impress this fall without breaking the bank.

A pop of red 

Match the colors of the changing leaves by including a red piece in your usual wardrobe to enhance your look. This can be done with accessories like a maroon headband, scarf or necktie or through more deliberate pieces like a solid crimson sweater or patent leather shoes.

Red can look amazing with denim, black, white and many other colors, so it is very easy to give your outfit a little something extra. Given the broadness of a splash of red, it is easy to find pieces from all fashion eras.

For kitten heels, the Joy Ballet Pumps at Target are a great choice both for your style and your wallet. For something easy to thrift, look for a vintage red crewneck cardigan with a distinct knit pattern. For an accessory, ransack your dad’s closet for a red baseball hat — the more random the branding, the better.

A cute boot 

Steve Madden’s Rocky Brown Distressed boots are one of the many pieces here to stay this fall.

This is definitely something harder to find for cheap or secondhand, so take your time before buying and make sure they fit you and/or have a good return policy. But there are still myriad amazing options that fit everyone’s preferences.

For a tall and heeled boot, check out the Vince Camuto Sangeti Boot in dark mahogany, which can work with absolutely everything and everyone and occasionally can be found for a discounted price at Nordstrom.

For a simpler but still distinct moto boot, check out Target’s Connor Harness Buckle Ankle Boots.

To incorporate your own style, look for Chelsea boots in your favorite color or material. A ton of different brands make Chelsea’s in very different ways at various price points.

A unique coat

Whether your style is more masculine, feminine or androgynous, a good coat can elevate any outfit. There are a ton of options when looking for these, from physical to online secondhand.

Look for second-hand leather jackets in red and other distinct colors. Whether sleek and blazer-like motorcycle jackets or oversized bomber jackets, these are great for layering and keeping warm and stylish.

Peacoats are a great way to wear a coat without feeling engulfed by a longer piece. Colors like dark green and light brown are great for fall and will work with most pants.

If you’re ready to take the jump, scour the Goodwill NYNJ Store & Donation Center on Vestal Parkway East for a full-length wool overcoat. While it can be intimidating to wear for the first time, it will make your dark academia fantasy a reality.

A cozy flannel 

Flannels are an eternal fall trend for a reason — they are comfortable, cute and work with almost anything. They are also great because they can be incredibly easy to find in thrift stores. You can give grunge or “Gilmore Girls” depending on what you layer them with, so style to your heart’s desire.

With warm days still unfortunately here, go with thinner and lighter colored flannels until the days cool down. Colors like light brown, baby blue and dark green are great places to start.

For cold November nights, keep an eye out for a thick, weighted flannel. They work great as “frackets” or for daytime looks. Vintage pieces can be best for these.

If flannels aren’t your thing, incorporate plaids into your skirts, dresses and accessories. An oversized plaid scarf can elevate a comfy basic outfit.

The department of art and design and the Rosefsky Gallery welcomed Sean Caulfield, an artist and a professor of fine arts at the University of Alberta, for the opening of his exhibition “A Tragedy of the Commons.”

The exhibition featured multiple large-scale text and image linocut, inkjet and silkscreen prints and sculptures made from recycled and found wood. Caulfield’s work incorporated some of the eight points for avoiding tragedies of the commons developed by Steven Hoffman, a York University professor of global health, law and political science, in response to Nobel Prize-winner Elinor Ostrom’s work on the same subject.

The printworks were originally created for the book “Planet for Sale,” written by Hoffman, drawing on works like Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” and Dante’s “Inferno.” Caulfield explained his vision behind “A Tragedy of the Commons.”

“My intent was to create an exhibition that offers viewers a wide range of artistic experiences,” Caulfield wrote in an email. “On the one hand, there are prints that utilizes a bold graphic language that speaks to the history of print in the realms of activism and political satire, with reference to historic artists such as Durer, Hogarth, as well as contemporary visual languages found in graphic novels and manga.”

Much of Caulfield’s work reckons with the social and political dimensions of the transition from fossil fuels. He said that given Alberta’s reliance on oil, it is deeply important to balance ecological and social concerns as oil dependence weakens.

“A major part of the province of Alberta’s economy is connected to resource extraction, and as a result there [is] a considerable amount of research at the University of Alberta focused on issues connected to the oil industry,” Caulfield wrote. “Both in relation to making the industry more sustainable, but also in relation to the challenge of balancing the economic growth that this industry brings with the need to consider environmental impacts, and [considering] alternative modes of energy production, alongside societal shifts that can occur to foster more sustainable economic and political systems.”

In addition to his work with Hoffman and Sue Colberg, a professor of art and design at the University of Alberta, Caulfield pulled from several influences to inform his work. The background of these works, which peek around the edges and through the prints, are taken from 18th-century Spanish colonial landscapes to comment on the colonial legacies present in modern-day resource exploitation and environmental decay. His sculptures incorporated images appropriated from Andrea Vesalius’ “On the Fabric of the Human Body” to explore the human body as an empirical scientific form versus the human body as a self outside of quantitative analysis.

The exhibition was set up with the assistance of interns from the art and design department. Sebastiano Marini, a senior double-majoring in cinema and art and design, described the experience.

“I don’t know if all the artists will be like this, but he would give us a lot of freedom and ask for a lot of input,” Marini said. “He installs stuff differently based on the space so he’s making decisions as he installs, and he also referred to us a lot to help him make those decisions.”

The Rosefsky Gallery was packed with students, faculty and community members for the opening and Caulfield’s talk. The exhibition, which is open until Sept. 26, is a part of the Rosefsky Gallery’s efforts to host artists working in a variety of media, according to co-director Sarah Nance.

Nance, also an assistant professor of integrated practice in the art and design department, expects the gallery to be just as busy when its next exhibitions open. Dan Hernandez’s “Warp Zone” will debut on Oct. 17.

“We usually have a great turnout, so I’m happy to say that that’s not a surprise,” Nance said. “I’m always pleased at the depth of the questions that come from the people attending the exhibitions. People always seem very engaged with the work and have different perspectives that sort of draws out different aspects of the work by them inquiring about it.”

Upon walking into Alexander’s Cafe, located on Chenango Street in Downtown Binghamton, you are immediately greeted by the massive chalkboard menu that hangs over where you order your food. All of it is enticing, from the student-oriented meal deals named “The Freshman,” “The Sophomore” and so on, to the many homemade soups and sides. My photographer, Karlie, and I were able to choose from the Restaurant Week menu, which allows you to get a three-course lunch for $18. After ordering with some assistance from owner and chef Alex, we were able to seat ourselves in the dining room. The cozy and casual atmosphere allowed us to quickly get comfortable. We were surprised and pleased with the quick service of the restaurant, clearly geared toward on-the-go students and workers in Binghamton.

After starting with ice-cold Cokes, we got to our meals. I chose the cheeseburger soup, the Rosalie panini and the vanilla raspberry cookiewich for my appetizer, entree and dessert, respectively, and Karlie ordered the tomato basil tortellini salad, the mango chicken burrito and the chocolate peanut butter ganache brownie. It was difficult to make our decisions with the variety of options on the menu, which also includes shrimp po boy and the Italian stallion panini. Nevertheless, we were both very satisfied with our choices.

I didn’t exactly know what to expect with the cheeseburger soup, but I really enjoyed it. It was light and savory, making the hot soup more enjoyable on one of the first hot days of the year. The broth has the texture and taste of Chef Boyardee without the taste of heavy processing, and the chunks of burger, potato, onion and other aspects of cheeseburgers were pleasant and did not weigh down the soup. Karlie felt her salad was the perfect start to the meal, as the tomato and basil worked together well as was a great compliment to the cheesy pasta.

The Rosalie panini, which included apple cranberry chicken salad, smoked gouda, fresh spring mix and red onions, was the perfect lunch for the hot day we were having. The chicken salad immediately stood out, pleasantly cool and both savory and sweet, thanks to the apple and cranberry that is included. Together with the rest of the ingredients, especially the spring mix, the panini had multiple different flavors and textures that melded extremely well. The panini was the exact right size to make a filling meal with the appetizer and dessert, making sure that you aren’t too full by the end.

Karlie’s burrito had an unexpected flavor that she would come back for anytime. The sweetness of the mango paired with the other savory ingredients to make for a great balance.

My absolute favorite part of the meal was the dessert. Raspberries are one of my favorite fruits, and as soon as I saw the option on the menu, I knew I had to get it. The cookiewich is made of two sugar cookies with raspberry mousse and spread between them. The incredibly crumbly cookie was held together by the sweet and lemony raspberry puree, which allowed me to savor it without the cookiewich falling apart. The raspberry spread in the middle was a pleasant surprise and added to the sweetness of the dessert. It was the perfect end to the meal, especially after the savory appetizer and entree. Karlie also spoke especially highly about her dessert.

“I love the pairing of chocolate and peanut butter, so the obvious dessert choice for me was the chocolate peanut butter ganache brownie,” Karlie wrote. “The chewy brownie held a soft peanut butter center, and was topped with rich chocolate ganache, the perfect treat to end any meal.”

Alexander’s Cafe is a great option for all Binghamton students, whether permanently on campus or constantly Downtown, since its fast-pace and casual vibe gives students the ability to race out of the restaurant with their food or to lounge over their meal. Their Restaurant Week menu provides a variety of options, allowing almost everyone to find something they’ll like — especially for just $18.

The Broome County Arts Council’s (BCAC) newest shows showcased two very different kinds of art, merged into a single space.

The opening receptions for both exhibitions were hosted this past Friday, April 5 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m in the galleries at 223 State Street. In the Artisan Gallery, the BCAC hosted the second stop of the inaugural exhibition for the Studio Art Quilt Associates’ (SAQA) NJ/NY region. “byCONTRAST” was juried by Massachusetts mixed media and fiber artist, Merill Comeau of Concord, Massachusetts, and featured the quilt of 33 artists. Previously hosted at the View Arts Center in Old Forge, New York, and later going to the Bethany Art Community in Ossining, New York, the works were organized around the concept of contrast.

“Contrast is a powerful tool used by artists to enhance the visual impact and overall quality of a work,” according to the exhibition brochure. “By juxtaposing elements of obvious elements or concepts of striking dissimilarity, contrast creates visual interest, drama, emphasis and adds depth to a composition.”

The works were chosen by Comeau according to three main characteristics — visual appeal, connecting to the theme of contrast and whether the viewer wanted to know more about and engage more deeply with the work after seeing it. Comeau also added positive notes when artists used particularly interesting or challenging quilting methods, as well as compelling and relevant social messages.

“With several works, I noted and appreciated makers’ social justice messages as an expression of care for others and the world around us,” Comeau wrote in the juror’s notes. “Overall, artistic talent, personal expression and skilled craftsmanship rang out loud and clear.”

While having to narrow down on the works selected was challenging for Comeau, she nonetheless considered it a fruitful and enjoyable experience.

The exhibition came to Broome County by coincidence after SAGA member Jean McCreary, who has previously had her work shown by the BCAC, suggested the show to the council, who approved it and began organizing it with NJ/NY representative Lisa Maria Noudéhou of Mount Vernon, New York, and New York regional representative Linda Stern of Somers, New York.

“We were really happy to find a venue in Binghamton, because it’s really important to us to show this work across New York [state],” Noudéhou said.

They spoke of their love for the space and the possibility of returning.

“First of all, the venue’s beautiful,” Stern said. “It’s got stunning light. It’s got really good spaces. Big enough walls to hang quilts. So we really appreciate this space. And the people at [the BCAC] have been fantastic working with us to get publicity and just to make sure it goes smoothly. It’s been very well-received. We would look forward to coming back in two years.”

Eva Gindlesberger, a student at Vestal High School and volunteer with the BCAC, spoke about her appreciation for the quilts shown in the gallery having been surprised by them when she came to help hang them on the gallery walls.

“When I first walked in on the day that I had to help set it up, I was like, ‘Wow! I like these. I like the difference,’ because I’m used to walking into galleries and seeing paintings or photographs,” Gindlesberger said. “But I liked [that] it was all quilts, and I thought that it was kind of interesting how it’s different.”

Colette Chermak’s second solo show, “Slivers,” was shown in the BCAC’s Artist in Residence Studio. A native to Binghamton, Chermak is an interdisciplinary painter and photographer who recently graduated from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Focusing on quick and fleeting moments, Chermak is inspired by the work of Claude Monet and works to capture the beauty and fragility of nature, translating the sublime to confront humanity’s role in our current environmental crises.

“One of my major influences is Claude Monet,” Chermak said. “I just really enjoy how individual brushstrokes are the focus of that artistic period. Not mixing colors, but just placing them in proximity with each other and using color theory to manipulate what the image looks like.”

The work that the title of the exhibition comes from, the silhouette of tree branches against a dusky, gray sky, investigates the relationship between painting, reality and perception, with her process including taking pictures of quickly passing moments and later putting them to paint.

“When I take photos on a device of any kind, I’m looking through that thing at the scene,” Chermak said. “I can, in the moment, look away and actually perceive it directly with my own eyes. But through a machine, our perception is always being manipulated in some way … and also taking a real thing and translating it into paint in itself it’s not, say, a tree anymore. It’s painting, it’s image, it’s object, it’s all these things that it wasn’t originally before, even though I’m trying to depict it as I saw it. In a way, it’s thinking about how our hands, as humans, influence our world.”

“byCONTRAST” will be on display at the BCAC Artisan Gallery from April 2 to April 27, and “Slivers” was on display in the Artist in Residence studio on April 5 and April 6.

Almost 20 years after its founding, First Friday provides an amazing opportunity for the public to see and engage with a number of arts events and creates an outlet for artists to showcase their work.

March 1 to April 27 at Anthony Brunelli Fine Arts, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (186 State St.)

The main gallery features a group show of ABFA artists, including newly represented artists Antonio Cazorla and Doug Webb. In the gallery’s project space, viewers can see an exhibition of Stephanie Schechter oil paintings. Influenced by posters from the Works Progress Association, her Precision Series utilizes a limited palette and limited details to create minimalistic natural imagery.

April 5 to May 25 at Orazio Salati Studio & Gallery, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (204 State St.)

Michelle Schleider’s show, “Botanical Odyssey,” showcases naturalistic, floral paintings that “transcend the traditional still life.”

April 5 at Southern Tier AIDS Program (STAP), from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (208 State St.)

STAP’s free testing event and health fair will provide a chance to get tested for those who are unable to during the day. The event will also have vendors from local businesses and agencies.

April 5 to April 27 at Cooperative Gallery 213, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. (213 State St.)

Two artists will show paintings and photographs focusing on natural flow.

April 2 to April 27 at BCAC Artisan Gallery, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (223 State St.)

The New Jersey/New York Studio Arts Quilt Associates will have the inaugural exhibition, “byCONTRAST.” The show will feature the quilt works of 33 artists and was juried by mixed media artist, Merill Comeau.

April 5 to April 6 at BCAC Artist in Residence Studio, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (223 State St.)

Colette Chermak’s Artist in Residence studio exhibition, “Slivers,” will open on April 5. Her work focuses on intermediary moments in life and works with and through the chance and growth inherent to nature.

April 5 to June 4 at Binghamton Photo, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (32 Cedar St.)

“Frenetic Life” by Sam Muré documents five years of memories through the medium of experimental film photography.

April 5 to April 30 at The Bundy Museum 3rd Floor Gallery, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (129 Main St.)

“Past on Paper” opens on April 5, showcasing Kevin McGoff’s collage works. Inspired by abstract painting, the collage pieces weave elements of nostalgia and features of contemporary expressionism together.

April 5 at Phelps Mansion Museum, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. (191 Court St.)

The Phelps Mansion is hosting a collaboration between itself and Binghamton University’s opera workshop. “An Evening of Arias, Duets and Art Songs” will be led by David Carl Toulson, instructor and director of opera, and John Isenberg, musical director and accompanist. A one-night event, the workshop members will present a variety of vocal music, such as Opera, Art Song and Musical Theater.

March 7 to Oct. 1 at Roberson Museum and Science Center, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. (30 Front St.)

The Roberson’s exhibition of local ceramic artist Andrew Fitzsimmons work continues. The works in the exhibition, “Metropolis and Nature: Stories in Clay,” blend the 1927 film and figures from folklore.

April 5 at the Discovery Center of the Southern Tier, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. (60 Morgan Road)

To celebrate the first night of their annual Read-A-Thon, the Discovery Center will host a pop up exhibit of children’s works. “Pages to Masterpiece” will include the work of young artists who created art based on their favorite books.

Students, faculty and BU community members attended the event on Wednesday night, which was sponsored by the Visuals and Material Worlds Transdisciplinary Areas of Excellence Seed Grant, filling the main gallery of BUAM. The night included a presentation of how Stiles has created works that encompass both analog and digital methods of artistic expression in our modern world.

Stiles, who lives in the New York City area, began the event by talking about how her interest in pushing the limits of conventional poetry led her to become interested in the potentials of AI technology.

“As I was doing research into experimental poetics and computational poetics and generative poetics, I started to learn about an area of [AI] called natural language processing,” Stiles said. “I immediately became intrigued by the idea of what this kind of [AI] that could write language humans, what that could mean for creativity, what it could mean for authorship and also what it could mean for my craft and my technique.”

Later on, she shared some of her work, which included a poem from her new book “Technelegy” that was generated by AI from the prompt she wrote. “Completion: When It’s Just You,” began with Stiles’ question, “When it’s just you / will you be lonely? / How lonely? / Just how lonely / will you be?” A portion of the 100-line poem was presented as a “poetic film,” which Stiles spoke about as an extension of her practice of integrating technology into poetics.

“For me, one of the joys of my practice is being able to take the text of a poem and to see how it can sprout new forms — how it can take new shapes and sort of become new experiences across different mediums, how it can metamorphosize in different directions using technology as a canvas and as a page,” Stiles said.

A short discussion and Q&A period followed the unconventional poetry reading, where Stiles and the event organizer, Director of Creative Writing Tina Chang, delved deeper into her work. As Stiles’ former poetry teacher, their conversation was marked by their casualness as they discussed Stiles’ first encounters with AI in 2018 and 2019, how the digital nature of some of her work allows for greater mobility and transmission, her use of the blockchain, NFT’s, the metaverse and much more.

Chang discussed how they met each other and how Chang’s interest in Stiles’ work began.

“When she studied with me both in classroom settings and independently, she wrote in analog, and I was intrigued by her voice,” Chang wrote in an email. “In recent years she has become invested in the intersections of art and technology, and began to integrate digital tools and artificial intelligence into her work. With the rise of [ChatGPT] and discussions about AI at universities nationwide and globally, I saw this as an opportunity to have a conversation at the University campus with a poet who is utilizing AI tools to welcome varied perspectives.”

With how fast AI has advanced and adapted in recent years and ChatGPT being released to the public in November of 2022, Stiles has consistently been on the forefront of its use, especially in creative spaces. While she acknowledges that AI art can be basic and surface-level in its meaning, she hopes that, as a tool of collaboration, artists and the public will begin to engage with the technology on its own terms.

“Unlike when I started, there are now a plethora of wonderful, powerful platforms and interfaces that enable almost anyone to experiment with creative AI,” Stiles wrote in an email.

Stiles went on to mention sudowrite.com, a tool created by her friends, and ChatGPT as particularly useful tools for creative writers and art enthusiasts, respectively.

The event had an impact on Luciana Carvo, a senior majoring in English, leading her to question the distinct categories that she had placed poetry and technology into.

“I just never really thought about artificial intelligence and how to use it in poetry,” Carvo said. “I thought that they were technology and poetry, two separate things. I also thought we should be inspired simply by our mind and not influenced by technology and I think I’m now rethinking that entirely and am glad that I am.”

This change of thinking is central to understanding the ambitions and works of Stiles, whose ethos can be distilled into a few of her words on Wednesday night that “poetry is technology, our most ancient and enduring data storage system.”

Following this principle, Stiles has been able to utilize AI to preserve her Kalmyk heritage. By training and mentoring her personal AI and co-author about her family’s heritage, languages and traditions, she has been able to replicate her memories and experiences and harness them with AI.

“My mother is Kalmyk-Mongolian, and she speaks a dialect called Kalmyk that is not very well known and that’s very endangered,” Stiles said. “A lot of the stories, the rituals that I remember from my childhood are not practiced anymore, but they’re still very deeply embedded in who I am, and I’d like to … keep them going forward. So I’ve been experimenting with using [AI] for translation and voice coding and things like that to try and create systems that can help me decipher and preserve some of these family stories, some of these very personal kind of moments, these sounds and these languages.”

Stiles’ work in “Technelegy” and the digital aspects of her presentation give new meaning to the word “memory,” connoting both the human and the mechanic, both nerve endings and binary code. With the ability to create a replicable repository of family history, perhaps the meaning of the word will no longer seem so contradictory.

Once widely understood in the world of film marketing, the phrase “sex sells” seems to no longer be a guarantee. A recent study by the UCLA Center for Scholars and Storytellers found that 47.5 percent of adolescents surveyed said that “sex isn’t needed for the plot of most TV shows and movies.” Amid wider discourse about the presence of sex on screen, many have attempted to understand why Generation Z has begun to cause cultural shifts regarding the acceptance of sex on screen and the impacts of increased negative attitudes regarding the presence of sex in films.

First, this is not the only area in which Gen Z seems to be trending toward what seems to be ambivalence or negativity toward sex. A recent study found that the number of people who had recent casual sex declined between 2007 and 2017, with men going from 38 to 24 percent and women from 31 to 22 percent. With 29.6 percent of adolescents reporting that they look for relatability and circumstances that mirror their own in the films and TV that they watch, perhaps the increasing irrelevance of sex has spurred Gen Z to reject it from the content we watch.

It is not just that the audiences have changed, though. In the wake of the streaming revolution and COVID-19, which upended film releases, studios are often seen as increasingly wary of projects that do not have universal appeal and cannot play to all audiences, limiting the appearance of sex and sexual desire in films in constant quest for PG-13 ratings. Franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which last July has grossed a total of $29.55 billion across its projects, are increasingly massive parts of the cinema landscape, with massive budgets to boot. In the words of Sunny Teich and Raqi Syed for Salon, “astronomical budgets ensure that these kinds of films must target the largest possible global audience and shy away from controversy.” With Marvel movies and other franchise films being “your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen” according to Martin Scorsese, you’re increasingly unlikely to find films that are explicit about sex and sexual desire on the big screen.

With increasing ambivalence from studios toward projects that do not have existing intellectual property to rely on to guarantee major profits, a victim of the MCU and other franchises has been the theatrically released mid-budget, implicitly adult, film. Defined as films that “don’t have the extravagance of larger-budget movies or the quirky minimalism of independents,” mid-budget films were once box office staples and incredibly influential, with thrillers like “Silence of the Lambs” (1991), dramas like “Whiplash” (2014) and comedies like “Neighbors” (2014) all generating massive returns on their relatively low budgets as compared to today’s top films. Not all showcased explicit sex, but they were nonetheless adult — the kind of films that your parents would watch once you fell asleep. Films that were deeply invested in sex and its dynamic, erotic thrillers such as “Basic Instinct” and “Fatal Attraction,” still had major box office success. While similar films now often appear on streaming services and are less likely to appear solely in theaters, the act of visiting a cinema to watch a film is decidedly different than picking what’s on your Netflix home screen. The longevity of the mid-budget adult film has also shifted, from maintaining their presence in theaters for several weeks to falling into the content abyss of the home screen of streaming services.

It is not only that the avenues for sex to be represented have narrowed with the loss of mid-budget adult film, but the propagation of incredibly sex-negative and censorship-heavy social media platforms that have made anything that openly features sex or sexually suggestive material seem to be out of the norm. Social media platforms are quick to take down sexually suggestive content, with comments like “wanna have sex [followed by an eggplant, water and peach emoji]” and sexual imagery making your Instagram liable for suspension. With fewer avenues to engage in sexually suggestive material, it seems all the more shocking when sex does appear on screen. This potentially repels people from depictions of sex due to their plain irregularity, preventing audiences from seeing how they change the ways that we interact with cinema and how they impact their respective film plots.

But despite warning signs that we could be in the final days for sex in cinema, multiple sexually explicit recent releases such as “Saltburn” tell us differently. The release of films like “Poor Things,” “How to Have Sex” and “May December” led one film expert to claim that this could be the “sexiest awards season in years.” These films all explicitly show and deal with sex, showing the ways in which sex may appear on screen in a shifting cinema landscape. Sex has been reframed “for a contemporary sensibility. It is now often there to shock, amuse or confuse, rather than to titillate or denote romantic love.” Films that deal with the messiness of sexual desire and its intrigue like “Saltburn” have become cultural phenomenons, inspiring as much fan fiction as horrified reaction videos.

The changes that have occurred in the representation of sex on screen are a testament to their survival. Art has never been stagnant and has always changed in response to developments in society and culture. So just as the creation of cinema changed how the arts represent humanity, cinematic representations of sex will no doubt continue to shift in response to the sensibilities of a post-#MeToo, post-Roe and post-streaming world.

SHADES, an on-campus organization serving LGBTQ+ students of color, hosted their third annual Vogue Ball on Friday, Nov. 11.

The event was themed around Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album and was stated in SHADES’s program as “a time to honor the spirit of inclusivity, creativity and empowerment that defines our vibrant community,” with energetic performances and an equally energetic crowd.

The event was a celebration of all things ballroom-drag culture, especially the art of voguing. Ballroom-drag culture was created by William Dorsey Swann, a Black, formerly enslaved man. Swann’s balls in the 1880s included many of the same elements associated with balls and drag culture today, including walking and competing for prizes.

These balls continued for decades, eventually creating voguing. The dance emerged from the Harlem, New York ballroom scene around the 1960s, based off of the poses seen in fashion magazines such as Vogue, evolving into a “highly personalized, free-styling house dance.”

The entire night was emceed by Derek Jorden, resident director of Rafuse Hall, who provided entertaining commentary and introduced the many performers and categories during the event. Jorden introduced the first performer of the night, Ms Vivi Nox, a local drag performer who lip-synced and danced to “Hair, Nails, Hips, Heels” by Todrick Hall.

The first category of the night, Runway/Face Card, followed Nox’s performance. Akunna Njoku, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering, was the first entrant, walking into the Mandela Room wearing a red lace dress and gold circular necklace, prompting a thunderous applause. After showing her face to the judges, professional performer Nuci entered, taking off their hood for the first time and revealing their face before posing for the audience and the judges. “COZY” by Beyoncé played after the two main entrants were done, and any audience member who wanted to was able to walk the category. After some deliberation by the judges who included two audience members, Njoku was chosen as the winner and given a trophy. It wasn’t Njoku’s first time modeling or walking in the show, but it was nonetheless thrilling.

“It was a good feeling,” Njoku said, “I’ve walked a lot of runway shows, but I was looking at the other contestants and I was like, ‘Okay, she ate that, she gobbled me up.’ But I was surprised because I thought Nuci was incredible when I was watching from the window out here.”

A number of performances followed, starting with the Binghamton University Black Dance Repertoire (BDR) dancing to a mix of multiple songs including SZA’s “The Weekend” and “CUFF IT” by Beyoncé. Ending the mix with “Attention” by Todrick Hall, BDR got even more applause and cheers from the audience as they vogued and death dropped to conclude their performance. Next, Joe, a professional performer at the event, lip-synced and performed Doja Cat’s “Wet Vagina,” which included floorwork and voguing.

There was a short intermission, where Jorden asked audience members trivia questions about Beyoncé, such as her birthday and the names of her first five albums. The winners received condoms and advice from Jorden to always “wrap the willy before you get silly.” After a quick outfit change into a black blazer, Nuci was the only person to walk for Femme Queen/Butch Queen, entertaining the audience with voguing and death dropping as the room lit up.

A performance from Major Noire, Binghamton’s black majorette dance team, followed, dancing to a medley of songs, including “HERE COMES THE HURRICANE LEGENDARY KATRINA” by Kevin Jz Prodigy and “Flawless” by Beyoncé. Once again, there were few silent moments in the room with how many people were applauding and cheering for the dancers.

The final category of the night, Lipsync, followed Major Noire, with a number of performers competing for the trophy. Njoku performed “Rules” by Doja Cat and Joe vogued to “America Has a Problem,” ending the song with a death drop that had the audience roaring. The winner of the category was Ayman Habib, a freshman contestant majoring in computer science.

Habib explained how he chose to dance to “ALIEN SUPERSTAR” by Beyoncé because of the meaning it has to him.

“It was kind of the message behind it,” Habib said. “As LGBTQ+ people, we’re special and I wanted to make the audience feel special. I wanted to make myself feel special.”

After the final performance by Nox to “Formation,” many attendees and participants in the Ball lingered and enjoyed the space that had been made in the Mandela Room. The event space included a cardboard cutout of Beyoncé in front of a shell à la “The Birth of Venus” by the painter Sandro Botticelli and multiple prime photo-ops.

When asked about what they hope the attendees and participants of the ball would get out of the event, two winners, Njoku and Habib, shared similar sentiments.

“You know, life is performance art,” Njoku said. “And I think it’s just a fun getaway from doing chemistry all the time. [I hope they come away with] a more secure feeling in queerness, being LGBTQ+, being a part of the Alphabet Mafia. I think it’s just a great space where you can be your best queer self, wear funky makeup, be really creative.”

“For me, this was a way to see that there is a community for you here,” Habib said. “Because when you come to [BU], you don’t really see a lot of LGBTQ+ things, like gatherings. There’s so many people like me, and it was just really heartwarming.”

“Over the Garden Wall,” from creator Patrick McHale — and its soundtrack, imagery and characters — are what you would get if you made a show based on those vintage Halloween postcards that cost 50 cents at antique stores. In fact, they were a major influence on the design and art of the series.

In the almost 10 years since the premiere of the series, the show has maintained a large but quiet fan base, with many citing its autumnal visuals as the thing that makes them return to the show every fall. The annual appeal of the show can be found most succinctly in its title sequence.

Rather than introducing the main characters of the series, we are instead treated to vignettes of the minor characters and fleeting settings that appear throughout the show’s 10 episodes — a cat in a turkey-drawn carriage, wooden toy versions of townsfolk, candlelit catacombs and the haunting forest that our main characters, Wirt and Greg, find themselves lost in.

The soundtrack of the series, composed and performed by The Blasting Company, also plays a role in the appeal of the series. According to the show’s creator, the soundtrack “finishes [the show] off and makes it the right feeling for the audience’s experience of this place where we can delve into, sometimes, genres of music that might not match what we’re watching but give you a certain feeling.” Despite the fact that the songs on the soundtrack can vary from each other, they are so unique from other soundtracks and distinct in the eclectic style of the show that it works wonders.

It is very easy for us to connect media to very specific feelings or times. The album you played the fall of your junior year will always be entwined with what you were going through at the time, good or bad. The songs you listened to during COVID-19 may not have an intrinsic element of anxiety or stress. But if that’s what you were feeling when those songs were on repeat, those emotions become embedded in your mind and resurface whenever you listen to them.

“Over the Garden Wall” possesses two different kinds of timeliness. There is the fact that the entire story is revealed to take place on Halloween, with pumpkins, mysterious forests and autumnal foliage making the season in which the story takes place very obvious. After all, that is the intended effect. In the words of McHale, “[i]t was definitely intended to be a Halloween special that could be revisited every year — we knew we weren’t making … SpongeBob … but we hoped that the series could become some sort of cult classic.”

What is more ambiguous is when the story takes place. With Wirt wearing suspenders, a cape and a cone hat, and his little brother, Greg, using a teapot as a hat à la Johnny Appleseed, it isn’t easy to parse the decade or even century that the characters find themselves in. The fantasy elements of the story certainly don’t parse it.

The ambiguousness of when the story takes place is central to its annual appeal. Whereas other shows include pop culture references or use technology that can date a series, the only piece of technology that is highlighted is a cassette tape, giving the single episode that takes place in the “modern day” the possibility of occurring anywhere from 1963 to today.

The rest of the show fully buys into its premise — Wirt never looks at the camera to deliver a witty one-liner. You are able to become fully immersed in the world’s fantasy, without thinking that a meme reference hasn’t been relevant in 10 years.

By being so out-of-time, the show can be placed into any time and related to by anyone. As the brothers walk through a dark forest, you remember both cool autumn days spent outside with friends, and the nervousness you felt when, for a split second, you thought you were lost. The fall memories you make when you’re six, 13 and 19 all have their place in the story, combining our cultural understanding of the season in a honorific, if slightly haunted, way.

The horror elements of the story are central to the show, but they do not overpower it. Well interspersed with character-focused and beautifully animated sequences, it strikes a wonderful balance. After all, you can’t have the beauty of fall foliage without some slightly scary costumes and spooky forests.

Rather than the current, trendy, fall ephemera you might find in Target, the story beckons forward the mystery and terror of fall, especially as it is in the Northeast — the harvest season before the bitter cold, the last hurrah before you had to hunker down in front of the fire. When the series antagonist, the Beast, begins to suck the hope out of the characters in the story and nearly succeeds, the whimsy of the earlier episodes disappear to a white expanse of terror.

But those times of walking down the ice in front of your dorm as carefully as possible only to fall are not here yet. So as the temperature continues to drop, the leaves begin to glow and everything goes purple and orange, transport yourself back in time to a terrifying yet heartening season with “Over the Garden Wall.”

This past Friday and Saturday, Binghamton University hosted the Haudenosaunee Festival, a two-day celebration, on its campus for the first time.

With the Haudenosaunee flag flying over campus — which will remain permanently — the events featured Indigenous speakers, dancers, vendors and more. The program was in the spirit of the Two Row Wampum — Gä•sweñta’ or The Silver Covenant Chain of Friendship — the treaty signed by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Dutch colonists in 1613 to establish a relationship between the two nations. Hosted in collaboration with the Vestal Museum, it was the seventh year that the festival was held.

BrieAnna Langlie, an associate professor of anthropology, an affiliate of Latin American & Caribbean Studies and environmental studies and the director of the Laboratory of Ancient Food and Farming, described the process of creating the partnership with the University.

“[University] President [Harvey] Stenger was approached by a community member, Bob Carpenter — who has been involved in previous festivals at the Museum — about moving the festival to campus,” Langlie wrote in an email. “Due to our garden being such a successful collaboration, Stenger contacted myself and Barrett Brenton from [the Center for Civic Engagement] and suggested we would be campus partners on this. It took Stenger no less than [5 minutes] to agree to moving the festival to campus. And we have had unwavering support from the President’s Office on the festival ever since.”

The festivities began at the Three Sisters Garden on Friday morning, where volunteers and community partners harvested the corn, beans and squash grown in the traditional manner of the Haudenosaunee Nation, after a blessing of thanksgiving by Tony Gonyea, a Wampum belt maker and a faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation.

Hailey Faurot, a sophomore majoring in environmental science, said that she felt fortunate to witness the event.

“I think it’s really awesome to have a partnership with Native Americans and these newer established college campuses,” Faurot said. “Being thankful and giving thanks is something that transcends all cultures, and it’s really cool to be a part of that.”

In the afternoon, the Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation hosted their Witness to Injustice Historical Program. Adapted from a similar program developed by KAIROS Canada, it engaged students, faculty and community members to foster truth, understanding and respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The color of the ribbons given to participants represented the different Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, North America and the Caribbean. Attendees stood on blankets, which were slowly taken away, pushing participants together as some sat down — representing the loss of land, life and culture that Indigenous peoples have faced over the last 500 years. Quotes from Indigenous people throughout history were read, showcasing a different perspective of history.

Cindy Squillace, one of the founders of the Witness to Injustice Historical Program, said that she hopes that the participants and observers will continue to educate themselves about the stories both, past and present, of Indigenous peoples through avenues, such as the Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center in Liverpool, New York.

The second day of the festival was on the Peace Quad from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., featuring numerous booths with goods made by Indigenous craftspeople and samples of traditional foods made from the harvest of the Three Sisters Garden. It also highlighted several organizations, including the Roberson Museum and the Public Archaeology Facility.

Mia Cucci, a second-year graduate student studying biomedical anthropology, volunteered at the event. Cucci spoke about the interest of students and community members for the festival.

“The students seem to be really enjoying it,” Cucci said. “They’ve asked a lot of questions, and I’m always excited to answer them. I love to see the curiosity. It’s not even just the students. There’s a lot of young kids here as well that seem very engaged with the culture and interested in learning about it. I feel like it came out really well. I love to be a part of it.”

T. Gonyea and Wendy Gonyea, a clan mother, also spoke about their work to repatriate the remains of Haudenosaunee people found in museums and private collections all over the world.

“They’re our ancestors, and we have to take care of them,” Gonyea said.

Chris Thomas and the Smoke Dancers performed several celebratory social dances accompanied by Thomas’s instrumentation and vocals. The women’s shuffle dance, the alligator dance, the smoke dance and more were performed before those in the crowd were invited to join.

The festival concluded with words of giving thanks from Chief Samuel George of the Bear Clan. The family structure of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is based on the clan system, with families starting from a common female ancestor and all members of the clan in a nation traditionally living in her long house.

Festivities took place in conjunction with an increase in collaboration between University faculty and regional Indigenous peoples. Langlie said that through the garden and the festival, the University’s network with Indigenous people has grown exponentially.

“The impact these folks are having on the [campus] community is growing,” Langlie wrote. “Faculty are collaborating with a few from [the] Haudenosaunee on research and grants. Faculty and students have helped out at the farm. The respect for one another and the intercultural and education exchange is enormous.”

Many organizers see the opportunity to increase collaboration between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the University. Carpenter hopes to organize a game between the Haudenosaunee Nationals, who won bronze at the 2018 World Lacrosse Championships, and the BU men’s lacrosse team for next year’s festival. Langlie would like for the festival to drive interest in classes and curriculum on Indigenous peoples and continue to foster the relationship between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and BU.

“We hope this is just the beginning of collaborations, partnerships and friendships,” Langlie wrote. “We hope the festival honors the Haudenosaunee through a celebration of their culture and through educational experiences at both the Witness to Injustice event and the garden harvest. We hope that the festival creates a groundswell of interest and attention to Native American and Indigenous history and culture. We hope the festival provides a foundation for the formation of Native American and Indigenous Studies, research, curriculum, collaboration, scholarship and even faculty hiring initiatives.”

“The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” comes on the heels of tumultuous years for Mitski. Following some mainstream success after “Be the Cowboy,” Mitski announced that she was going on an indefinite hiatus.

That certainly did not stop her from becoming an indie darling. After she gained even more prominence on TikTok, Mitski returned with “Laurel Hell,” an album she was contractually obligated to create for her label Dead Oceans. Despite speculation that it would be her final album, she returned on her own terms.

Mitski realized that she wanted to continue creating music — according to Pitchfork, she was willing to take the “difficult stuff with the wonderful stuff — like any … worthwhile thing in life.” So where “Laurel Hell” was a work that seemed to ready Mitski for an increasing distance from the limelight, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” fully realizes the duality of humanhood, the inescapable good coupled with the inescapable bad. For Mitski, the album is in an attempt to make the love she has “created [and] built” in her external world, with the hopes that “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” will represent that love even when she’s gone. It reflects the innumerable ways that the love we create, share and lack makes us who we are.

The album starts low with the plucky chords and a keen chorus of “Bug Like an Angel.” Mitski singing “sometimes a drink feels like family” suggests that she is trying hard to find closeness, even as she breaks her promises and they break her right back. Despite this, she keeps hope, singing in “Buffalo Replaced” that nothing can hurt her while she still has hope. It might sometimes be easier to abandon hope, but Mitski works hard on the song and keeps it alive.

This back-and-forth between the hopelessness of love and yearning for it continues throughout the album without becoming overwrought.

Tracks seven and 10, “My Love Mine All Mine” and “I’m Your Man,” demonstrate this dichotomy at its best. In “My Love Mine All Mine,” Mitski makes a country lullaby out of the fleeting nature of life and the wish to keep her love shining long after she’s gone. Serenading “nothing in the world belongs to me / but my love, mine, all mine, all mine,” Mitski makes good on her central theme of the album — to leave behind the best of herself and the love she chose to nurture and hold dear in her heart.

In “I’m Your Man,” she considers the fact that as much as you can fall in love, you can also fail at it. She finds herself no longer the object of another’s affection and her sense of self-worth collapsing, as she writes, “So, when you leave me, I should die / I deserve it, don’t I?” Believing herself worthy of punishment, she apologizes to her lover, regretting that she had been unable to reciprocate their love. Even as she yearns for it, Mitski sings of the difficulties in keeping love alive, regardless of the tiring efforts. The stories Mitski sings about are familiar ones, not the blockbuster movie version of life, but the quiet and desperate moments that we all know too well.

In “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We,” we find ourselves surrounded by the outside world. Where Mitski’s previous albums tended to focus solely on the subject, usually love, at hand, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” is fascinated by what is going on outside the singer’s bedroom. From midnight walks to personifying rain, the narrator tries to find a balance between the love they wish for and their worry that they will not be able to keep it once found.

Mitski does eventually make peace with love. In “Star,” the narrator is able to commiserate with their former lover about their past together. Their love is “like a star / it’s gone, we just see it shining.” She finds that love is not just its brightest moments, but also the impact it has on us when it’s gone.

The final track of the album, “I Love Me After You,” revels in Mitski’s newfound independence upon becoming single. More comfortable with herself than ever, she sings of walking around her house naked, without a care in the world. This is a strong departure from a previous song “Blue Light,” in which her nakedness served to convey how much she yearned for love. Now, she welcomes the darkness both outside her windows and inside of herself, unafraid of what either could bring.

Mitski’s seventh album possesses unexpected self-assurance. While previous works ended in stagnancy like the hopeless “Last Words of a Shooting Star” or the regretful “Class of 2013,” “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” ends having considered the good and bad of love and having made peace with it.

With such striking lyrics, powerful vocals from both Mitski and the 17-person choir found on “Bug Like an Angel” and the wonderful instrumentation from a full orchestra, the glamor of the album is never understated. The songs function both individually and all together, allowing listeners to find their favorites and listen to them on repeat. It’s an album that demands multiple listens with its ability to draw you back into the trials and tribulations of Mitski.

Both comforting and piercing, “The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We” is no doubt one of Mitski’s best albums and a stepping stone in her musical career.

Rating: 5/5