Author: livmatson
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Clancy, Creativity, and Purpose in the Twenty-One Pilots Universe
TW: discussion of suicide As the much-anticipated album Clancy is set to release on May 17th, I’ve found myself revisiting all my favorite Twenty-One Pilots songs. During a routine trip to the local health food store for groceries, I sang out –- error-free – the impassioned and esoteric lyrics of “Polarize” from their fame-finding album,…
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Cookies, Cache
Church-sanctioned confessions no longer piquant or priestly sins don’t even need diaries nowadays no ink and ebony quill to quell, and no wrinkled face to tell My transgresses are typed up clearly in the blue light of a search bar – an engine from the gods of the Industrial Revolution My confessional reads: “how to…
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Gifted Kid Burnout and The Fear of Becoming Average
Have you ever found yourself Googling something far from criminal, yet it’s embarrassing enough (should you be found out) that you’d want to clear your search history, throw your phone in the ocean, and move to Canada? Perhaps that’s some undue shame, but in the throes of a mental and physical slump on a suffocating…
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Follower
I love dependence on you to tie my shoe make the food drive my Subaru All eyes on you, a leader in the theatre of public peoples. You see faces filled with hurt, readily help, and you pause for people: More pious than the Steeple – my lover loves people
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3 Mangas: A Compare-Contrast Review
My first exposure to Japanese media was a tween magazine that my uncle brought back to the States. I remember thinking “It’s facing the wrong way!” I found its format rather unsatisfying and irksome. Cross-cultural media education is one of the most valuable writing practices I learned in college. More art exists than the Western…
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Contentedness Saves the Earth: How to Hop Off the Sustainable Fashion High Horse
As a college student, moving back and forth between home and my various dorms / apartments each year is always accompanied by some form of purging. Where I go to school up in the Virginia mountains, thrifting culture is HUGE. Because of this, clothing is usually the first to go. With as many Goodwills as…
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Garden Soil Sheen
New Jersey Uncle Who found the ring I wear today Has a darker skin tone Than the rest of my Sicilian relatives. My grandfather saw when my hair dyed jet black “you look like a real Sicilian from New Jersey!” And I kept it that way For almost a year – a year where I…
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What is Creative Jealousy?In Praise of the Five Nights at Freddy’s Movie
With the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023 and a new season for Arcane: League of Legends on Netflix coming this year, it’s no secret that gamers ADORE watching their worlds come to life on-screen. Although game-to-movie adaptations have been a thing since 1993, I’m a relative newcomer to the genre. For…
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Take Note: Thoughts on the Human Mosaic Philosophy & Why You Shouldn’t Shun Poetry
Life gets way more magical when you view it as a human mosaic. I know it’s easy to become disenchanted nowadays. Living is expensive, we consume way more than we create, and rich social connection is hard to come by. Art is dead, or AI-generated. With countless streams of (unnatural) amounts of information, there is…
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Why is it called OysterBed?
OysterBed is a bed to rest and place to purify, just like the beloved oyster does every day! I grew up on the Elizabeth River with oysters aplenty, and I love their dual function: rest in the oyster bed and purify the surroundings, with the occasional pearl emerging. Oysters consume actively and discern the debris.…