The Howler - January/February 26

The HOWLER

FINALE REVIEW: STRANGER THINGS S5

After the release of the 5th and final season of Stranger Things, it became the most-watched streaming series in the world, breaking audience records on Netflix. The final season divided fan opinion, with most disappointed after watching the second volume and the finale.

Many fans loved the ending, but no one can ignore the fact that it had many plot holes, such as where all the Demogorgons and Vecna’s (the main villain) monsters were when he needed them most. We can only assume they took a vacation. The crew spent five seasons defeating Vecna, only to kill him in 10 minutes, and poor pregnant women who were being tested in the Upside Down, because they were dragged along, too. Poor babies had nothing to do with it.

Aside from the world-building being quite bad, we always knew that the series is more focused on the characters’ stories. It was clear that their focus this season was to close this cycle and say goodbye to the characters’ childhood phase, which is the part most fans identify with, making it emotional for so many people. Another thing that can’t be said to be bad is the immense production value: special effects, acting, direction, set design, but especially the choice of

music, including “Upside Down” by Diana Ross, “I Think We’re Alone Now” by Tiffany, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, “Purple Rain” by Prince (a song previously only used in the 1984 film Purple Rain, and for the first time

Prince’s family allowed a song to be used in the series), and finally, the series ended with “Heroes” by David Bowie.

On January 12, 2026, a documentary about the behind-the-scenes of the final episode of the series was also released, called One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5. The documentary makes it very clear that the creators of the series, the Duffer Brothers, were quite lost in what they were doing. They said they knew what

they were going to do with the series finale from very early on, but in the documentary, they themselves say they don’t know how to end the series. Not to mention the fact that they were still writing the final episode while filming, which delayed many people in production, and Netflix itself was putting pressure on them to finish writing the episode. Furthermore, they had practically three years to write the fifth season, which showed a great lack of responsibility and willingness on their part.

After the finale, fans, who considered it unworthy of the characters’ journey, began creating online theories that the series finale was actually an illusion created by Vecna to impose conformity on the characters and the audience, presenting a false happy ending, using supposed script “errors” and visual details as intentional clues. The theory became known as the “Gate of Conformity”.

Even though the ending didn’t fully meet fans’ expectations, and it fails in some aspects, Stranger Things succeeds because it stayed true to its focus on childhood and growing up, which is what made it so emotional and memorable for its audience.

HONORS PERFORMANCE SERIES

LAURA MILLER

Three freshmen at AC applied, auditioned, and were accepted to perform at Carnegie Hall on February 8, 2026, with the Honors Performance Series Choir. Gracie DiPalma, Oliver Fabrizio, and I filled out an application in March, recorded and sent in an audition in May, and received our acceptance letters in June. The program is a five-day trip, arriving in New York on Thursday, spending Friday and Saturday rehearsing, and performing at Carnegie Hall on Sunday. While much of the time before the concert is spent rehearsing, students also get to sightsee in New York, including museums, a Broadway show, and time to explore the city.

What I find most exciting about this experience is that students from around the world will be rehearsing and performing together. Going to New York to immerse myself in music and be with students my age from around the world who are as passionate as I am about music is an experience I am so grateful for and would highly recommend to other students passionate about music.

Apply Here: https://discover.envisionexperience.com/hps-v1

BAGEL SANDWICH IDEAS

SARA CORTES LUIS

January 15th is Bagel Day, so here are some ideas about different bagel sandwiches.

BREAKFAST BAGEL

For the first sandwich, add a fried egg, American cheese, and bacon. I would eat this for breakfast because it is warm and gives me energy to start the day.

LUNCH BAGEL

For the second one, the bagel has cream cheese, smoked salmon, cucumbers, and red onion. I would take this one for lunch because it is light, fresh, and still very satisfying.

DINNER BAGEL

For the next one, we would have a turkey bagel sandwich with turkey, cheese, tomato, and lettuce. I would eat this for dinner because it is a balanced, nottoo-heavy meal.

THE HOWLER

Silence is often taken as something negative. People worry they aren’t engaging enough or adding enough to a conversation. Sometimes, they are right. Being silent all the time is absolutely a negative; it’s about finding the right balance, like everything in life. However, when used correctly, silence can be a silent weapon that can change your life. When you are silent, you often begin to observe your surroundings more closely, and retaining important information becomes easier. Silence often reveals a person’s true intentions. The human mind often dislikes silence, as it can trigger anxiety and overthinking, leading a person to fill the silence by revealing things they might not have revealed before. This does not mean a person should be silent around everyone and just stare into someone’s soul; you would become a weirdo. It means practicing restraint. It is the ability to recognize that not every thought requires a voice, and that not every action deserves a reaction. Based on my experience and what I have learned from people like my dad, I want to share three rules about silence that I try to practice every day. The first rule is that your words should be powerful, not plentiful. Anyone

TOP THREE DRAKE ALBUMS SILENCE: A WISE PERSON’S SUPERPOWER

VIEWS (2016)

Drake, dressed in a heavyweight shearling coat and high-cut boots, pays homage to Toronto’s infamously cold winters by gazing down from the top of the city’s CN Tower on the cover of his fourth studio album, Views. He seemed more like a distressed king than the superhero he had transformed himself into during his roughly sixyear rise to fame as a singer-songwriter. Views, which came after two extremely popular projects in 2015 that he had labeled as mixtapes—If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and the Future collaboration What a Time to Be Alive—would confirm him as both, with his gift for flawless songwriting still fully intact, and the pressures of being both his hometown’s most successful export and the most well-known voice in rap.

can talk about random things for a long time, but that devalues your words. Knowing when to say the right things and what to say puts you in a position of power, where people will truly value you for the words you speak. The second rule is that silence is information; listen before you speak. Silence gives you access to something people often miss or disregard: information. When you pause instead of rushing to respond, you give others the space to truly reveal what they think, what they value, and who they really are. The final rule I try to follow is based on an old Buddhist saying: “Silence is often the best reply to a fool.” This one is the hardest for me. It is easy to react to things; it’s hard to stay poised. When someone tries to elicit a reaction from you and you simply stay silent, they often end up looking like the biggest fool of all. This does not mean tolerating every kind of disrespect; it means that wasting energy trying to reply to silly things makes you look desperate and unconfident. Staying silent does not mean shutting yourself out from everything; it simply means giving your words weight in a world where people don’t even weigh their own.

TAKE CARE (2011)

Take Care is a tribute to the idea that the finest work takes a lot of time, as the title implies. Drake returned to his own musical origins after receiving negative reviews for his studio debut Thank Me Later, an album he felt was rushed. He hired musical genius Noah “40” Shebib to lead his second studio album. Drake’s critically praised 2009 mixtape, So Far Gone, was characterized by the “Toronto sound” that Shebib and Drake had invented. This sound fell in between R&B and rap. Drake’s honesty and sensitivity allowed him to rap his way into the hearts of millions of fans across the world, ushering in a new generation of commercial hip-hop infused with vulnerable emotion.

CARE PACKAGE (2019) Drake’s 2019 compilation album Care Package, a collection of popular songs spanning 2010 to 2016, is an insightful time capsule for both new and returning fans. The album uncovers a number of nearly ten-year-old tracks, such as “I Get Lonely” and “Dreams Money Can Buy,” for those who recall Drake’s early days. The tracklist offers new fans a glimpse into Drake’s musical and personal history, back when he was simply Aubrey Graham, an ambitious young singer set to revolutionize the rap genre on his own. Arriving one year after his pop-and-rapheavy Scorpion, the re-release of Care Package’s 17 tracks was a fan-driven reminder of the “old Drake” who captured a generation of fans and redefined what it meant to be a rap superstar.

THE HOWLER

Jack Reed Showcase

NOA LUNG

On Saturday, January 17th, the HAC Wolves competed in the Jack Reed Showcase against highly ranked schools across New York State. The Jack Reed Showcase is standards-based, requiring athletes to meet established standards to compete, bringing the best competition to the meet. The HAC Wolves had a great meet with some superb performances. Jess Chapados finished 3rd in the 3000m, setting a new HAC school record, and became the #2 3000m Section V runner along the way.

Noa set two school records in the long and triple jumps and placed 3rd in the triple jump. He jumped the mark, reclaiming his spot as the #1 sophomore in New York State.

Sydney set a new school record in the weight throw and tied the school record in the shot put. Ranking her #2 and #3 in the weight throw and shot put among all freshmen in New York State. The Boys 4x400-meter relay team (Noa, Leo, Mateo, Ted) set a new school record. Underclassmen Heba, Caroline, and Maddie also qualified for the meet, which is an achievement in itself, and are definitely ones to watch in the upcoming years.

SENIORITIS

After winter break, students reach the final homestretch of the year. The seniors are getting their college acceptances, the juniors are working on their big research paper, and the sophomores and freshman are finishing their piles of homework before next week comes. A lot of students face mid-year burnout right as the first semester comes to a close.

As a senior in high school and my final months at Allendale Columbia come to a close, I feel like I have started to slow my pace in completing work and being adamant in school. As a second-semester senior, I am only taking 5 classes, one of which is an independent study. One of my favorite classes is Journalism, connecting to Digital Media Production. Although this class has just begun, we were each prompted to create and research our own news story; whether these will be published or not is still in question. I focused on bias, interviewing a few seniors, a bunch of juniors, and three teachers. Bias comes in many forms, but the two I chose to focus on were political and gender bias in the classroom. It’s hard to include political bias and current events in the STEM department, so I chose history and English teachers to interview. I cannot wait to see what the final article looks like and how I shape my insights.

Allendale Columbia offers classes that fit specific interests and can prepare you for what you would like to major in. I would recommend taking advantage of these classes to help prepare you for the next 4 years at college!

LIAM MITCHELL

SPORTS ROUNDUP: CAPS

This past week, Kyle Tucker signed a six-year, $240 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The baseball world has been up in arms about the sport’s finances for years, and this has fueled their rage even more. Unlike most sports, baseball does not have a salary cap. In 1997, Major League Baseball introduced a “soft cap” called the luxury tax because, during the 90’s, the gap between the highest and lowest payrolls had become too wide for small-market teams to feel they could not compete with the top markets.

This tax is not a solid way to penalize teams for overspending, as it forces them to pay a tax on the total amount over the limit. For example, this year’s threshold is $244 million, and if a team spends up to 20 million over the limit, it must pay up to a 20% tax. For teams like the Dodgers, whose payroll is $413.6 million, the tax rate is 110%; however, for their owner, this has little to no effect.

The disparity of wealth puts restraints on small markets. For example, the Dodgers’ owner has a net worth of $12 billion, the Mets’ owner has $23 billion, and the Reds’ owner has $400 million. This is the problem with baseball. Owners of the Dodgers and Mets have so much money that the luxury tax does not affect their ability to have the highest payrolls. Similarly, teams like the Reds, whose owner’s net worth is only $400

million, don’t have the money to sign as many big-time players as the top teams.

There should be a salary cap in baseball, but sadly, this will likely never happen. The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the MLB Players Association and the Owners is up after this year. The Players will never agree to a salary cap because it would mean earning less. The Owners will push hard for this, and the most likely outcome will be a lockout next year, which could last more than a year. This would be the first time the MLB season has been cancelled since the 1994 strike. A salary cap would be a great way to close the gap between the top teams and the bottom teams. However, the players argue that even though there have been calls for a salary cap because the top teams are winning too much, there has actually been a lot of parity this century. This past year included the first back-to-back champions since the 2000 Yankees. The most likely outcome would be a salary floor, which would force every team to spend a certain amount of money to improve their chances of competing and limit tanking. This would be a good compromise, but something has to be done, as otherwise the gap between these top markets and the smaller ones will continue to widen.

RESURGANCE OF THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS

SHOURYA PENAKALAPATI

On February 8th, the Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots 2913 in Super Bowl 60. This is the second Super Bowl Seattle has won as a franchise, with the other one being in 2014. The difference between the 2014 team and the one that won recently is that no one thought the Seahawks even had a chance of winning the Super Bowl before the season started. Many critics had the Seahawks going last in their division with records like 6-11, not even making the playoffs. After the Seahawks lost their starting quarterback, Geno Smith, and star receiver DK Metcalf, no one thought that this offense would hold up against top defenses. However, Seattle was quietly making some genius decisions in the front office, and that, combined with elite coaching, led to one of the most dominant seasons ever. The changes really started in 2023, with the drafting of Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Devon Witherspoon. JSN was one of the top receivers in his class. In his first two seasons, he was overshadowed by DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. This season was his first season as a true WR1, and boy did he show out. In the regular season, he accumulated almost 1,800 receiving yards (most in the NFL) with 10 touchdowns, earning offensive player of the year. Devon Witherspoon has been a stud at cornerback since his rookie season. He is one of the cornerstones of the Seattle defense and is the CB1. Seattle also signed and drafted great players such as Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy, Demarcus Lawrence, Grey Zabel, and Nick Emmanwori. These signings worked out well, so big credit goes to GM John Schneider

as well for this incredible season. John Schneider also did not skimp on coaching. In 2024, he signed Mike Macdonald as the Head Coach of Seattle, who is an incredible defensive mind. He also signed Klint Kubiak in 2025 as the Offensive Coordinator. Still, people had major doubts about Seattle’s potential as a team, one of the main reasons being who they signed at quarterback to replace Geno Smith, Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold has long been unsuccessful as an NFL quarterback, bouncing around 5 different teams. He did, however, find his footing in Minnesota for the 2024 season, leading them to a 14-3 record. But when it was time for the playoffs, he played extremely poorly against the LA Rams, which further fueled speculation that he cannot perform in the playoffs. Seattle shut out all the doubters, mainly because of their belief in one another. The whole team created an incredibly strong bond with each other, even coming up with the tagline “M.O.B.” The defense was one of the most dominant ever in the NFL, allowing the lowest ppg to opposing offenses. Klint Kubiak also allowed the pressure to be off of Sam Darnold with his run-heavy scheme, while also allowing him to throw the ball when he is comfortable, which worked out incredibly well for the team. Overall, Seattle won the Super Bowl against all odds because of genius signings, great coaching, and belief in each other.

THE HOWLER

BAM: BLACK HISTORY MONTH

CALLA SWARTZ

The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

I read this book at around age eight or nine, and it has stuck with me since. This book is based on the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963, but the Watsons are a fictional family. The story follows Kenny Watson, a fourth grader who lives in Flint, Michigan, with his brother Byron, his sister Joey, and his mom and dad. Byron is a troublemaker at school and at home, so his parents decide to bring him to live with his strict Grandma, Sands, over the summer, hoping that she will fix his bad behavior. The whole family takes a road trip to Birmingham to drop off Byron and visit Grandma Sands, but they are soon traumatized when the church down the street is bombed in a terrorist attack. I would recommend this book to younger readers, since it’s told from the point of view of a nine-year-old, as well as people who enjoy fiction but are still interested in real-world events. Overall, I would give this book 5/5 stars.

Billie Holiday’s self-titled album from 1957

Billie Holiday is an artist who made vocal jazz music. This album is 35 minutes long, containing 12 songs. I would recommend this album to people who enjoy oldies and relaxing jazz music. Overall, I would give it 4/5 stars.

Sinners (2025), directed by Ryan Coogler

This movie has the most Oscar nominations in history, with 16 nominations. Sinners is about twin brothers, Smoke and Stack, who open a juke joint in Mississippi with their cousin Sammie, a singer and guitarist who will be their main source of entertainment. Unbeknownst to them, Sammie’s music opens a gate between the living and the dead, leading evil straight to their door. The vampires in this film are an allegory for colonialism and racism, and how white supremacists figuratively, and literally in this film, drain the life out of the black community. I would recommend this film to people who enjoy blues music, as well as period pieces. Sinners is R-rated, so I would not recommend this to viewers under 15. Overall, I would give this film 5/5 stars, and I hope it wins best picture at the Oscars.

THE HOWLER

MARDI GRAS

LAURA MILLER TORI ADAM FEIX

Mardi Gras (Celebrated the day before Ash Wednesday) is a day to celebrate and party before the start of Lent. If you are a student at AC who takes French, you may notice that the word “Mardi” is a part of the French language, meaning Tuesday, and Gras being similar to “Grosse”, translating to fat, which is why Mardi Gras is also known as Fat Tuesday. The Roman Christians originally celebrated Mardi Gras as a way to have one last “free day” before the 40-day stretch of Lent from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday because Roman Christians would not only fast and have one meal a day, but also avoid all meat, dairy, and eggs. Fat Tuesday was a day to indulge before a period of fasting. Nowadays, Mardi Gras is celebrated with parades, carnivals, costumes, and, of course, indulging in rich foods. The three main places that celebrate Mardi Gras are San de Janeiro, Brazil, Mobile, Alabama, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Although celebrated more intensely, Mardi Gras is a tradition that has been passed down since its origin.

FEBRUARY 28, 2026

CARNAVAL 2026: Music, Samba, and national pride

Carnaval is the most important cultural celebration in Brazil; for Brazilians, Carnaval is the highlight of the year, and it is almost like the year has not started until Carnaval. Every year, millions of people celebrate it with music, parades, costumes, and street festivals. It is more than just a party; it represents Brazilian culture, community, and tradition. At the center of these celebrations are the samba schools, which spend an entire year preparing for their performances.

The samba schools, more commonly known as “escola de samba”, are Brazilian carnival community-based organizations with roots in Rio de Janeiro (late 19th century). They prepare for Carnival all year long. They organize rehearsals and social projects throughout the year, presenting a storyline with sambaenredo (a type of samba song), costumes, and floats in competitive parades. Some famous schools are: Mangueira, Salgueiro, and BeijaFlor.

In 2026, Rio Carnaval ran from Friday, February 13th, to Saturday, February 21st. It features massive street parties called “Blocos”. Over 65 million people attend the parades every year. One of the most commented parts of Carnaval 2026 in Brazil was the songs and the parades. Brazilian artists release songs especially for Carnaval almost every year. The biggest hits of this year’s Carnaval was “CARNAVAL” by Marina Sena and Psirico, “Vampirinha” by Ivete Sangalo (voted best song in Salvador), and last

but not least “JETSKI” by Pedro Sampaio and Melody, which reached 13 million views on youtube, surpassing one of the hits of Carnival 2025, “Resenha do Arrocha” by J. Eskine, which accumulated more than 7 million views on YouTube.

Not a lot of people know the meaning behind Carnival, while in Brazil, it symbolizes the representation of the country’s culture, collective identity, and joy. Carnaval is a rite of passage with pagan and Christian roots, marking the “Farewell to meat” (carne vale), a period of festivities and excesses before Lent. Historically, it celebrated fertility and the end of winter, evolving into a moment of social inversion and liberation.

In conclusion, Carnaval is much more than just a festival in Brazil; it is a powerful expression of Brazil’s history, culture, and identity. Through the dedication of samba schools, the energy at the blocos, and the music that brings people together, it’s no coincidence that everyone says Brazilians live in a musical. Carnaval reflects creativity, unity, and the joy of the Brazilian people. For Brazilians, Carnival represents pride, community, and the spirit of a nation that comes alive through music, movement, and shared tradition.

Vitòria Adam Feix, Sara Luis Cortés, Ari Hagelberg, Ethan Hildreth, Clark Lovett, Noa Lung, Kate May, Ethan McAuliffe, Laura Miller, Liam Mitchell, Mackenzie Opira, Shourya Penakalapati, Calla Schwartz, Marc Voloshin