SEP UTPEDAT M B E RP U 2 5B, DAT 2026 E
POST-UNIONIZATION, RAS CONTINUE TO FACE WORKPLACE STRUGGLES By Sehr Khosla and Peyton Webb
PHOEBE BRIDGERS’ LOST WEEKEND IS HAUNTED By Sarah Cherlin
Contents
September 25, 2026 Volume 59 | Issue 3
Editor-In-Chief — Sydney Carroll Managing Editor of Content — Sophia Jacome Managing Editor of Operations — Chih-Rong Kuo internal resources Executive Manager for Staff — Imani Liburd Executive Editor for Resources, Diversity, and Inclusion — Kyndall Jackson Assistant Editor for Resources, Diversity and Inclusion — Bridgette Jeonarine Editor for Sexual Violence Advocacy and Coverage — Olivia Fanders Service Chair — Ryan Goodwin Social Chairs — Alex Lalli, Sehr Khosla Archivist — Elizabeth Foster
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news Executive Editor — Justin Higgins Features Editor — Bridgette Jeonarine News Editor — Sehr Khosla Assistant News Editors — Sabriya Attia, Minhal Nazeer, Bennett Gilhuly Assistant Features Editor — Evan Schleck
voices
The method ALEX LALLI
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Proposed changes to Georgetown’s enrollment bring parking crackdown and senior housing incentives
The summer of Freedom 250 is over, but our work has just begun
Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend is haunted
Post-unionization, RAs continue to face workplace struggles
leisure
editorials
news
SARAH CHERLIN
EDITORIAL BOARD
SYDNEY CARROLL
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SEHR KHOSLA AND PEYTON WEBB
on the cover
My meatless summer
Sydney Sweeney’s ad says nothing new—but it’s time we change the narrative
JACOB GARDNER
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AUBREY BUTTERFIELD, LILA GIZZIE, AND STELLA LINN
leisure
EXPO Magazine turns the tables on the service industry
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news commentary
Coffee chat culture on campus: Conversations or evaluations?
JULIA CARVALHO
15
leisure
HANNAH LEIMAN
7
“Ug(h)”
voices
MAGGIE ZHANG
People for and with others contact us
editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University 3700 O St. NW Washington, DC 20057
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voices
halftime sports
COLBY KELLY
news
Nolan’s Odyssey and the Semantic Dilution of a Title RYAN SLIWA
“EXPO subconsciously ties the struggles of today’s service workers to the plight of those who yelled, ‘I need hands!’ long before them.” PG. 13
The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty, or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Columns, advertisements, cartoons, and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright The Georgetown Voice, unless otherwise indicated.
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
opinion Executive Editor — Alex Lalli Voices Editor — Colby Kelly Assistant Voices Editors — Aaron Pollock, Maddy Sweet, Hudson Witte, Alise Fingal Editorial Board Chair — Darin Eberhardt Editorial Board — Imani Liburd, Kamran Darnall-Hirani, Paige Benish, Phoebe Nash leisure Executive Editor — Alex Hwang Leisure Editor — Quinn Ross Assistant Editors — Ryan Goodwin, Karcin Hagi Halftime Editor — Joaquin Martinez Assistant Halftime Editors — Elizabeth Adler, Alexandra Risi sports Executive Editor — Stella Linn Sports Editor — Eileen Weisner Assistant Editors — Vince Gude, Aubrey Butterfield, Julia Maurer Halftime Editor — Lila Gizzie Assistant Halftime Editors — Megan Geiger, Gabriella Matute, Anna Cordova design Design Editor — Shabad Singh Cover Editor — Maggie Zhang Spread Editor — Jacqueline Pan Assistant Design Editors — Michelle Wang copy Copy Chiefs — Isabella Baldwin, Madison Weis Assistant Copy Editors — Lila Wesner, Sonia Pensa, Avi Qin multimedia Multimedia Executive — Olivia Fanders Podcast Executive Producer — Katie Reddy Podcast Editor — Stefani Mucianio Photo Editor — Julia Carvalho online Online Executive — Maysam Ider Social Media Editor — Lucy Montalti business General Manager — Amber Bai Assistant Manager of Alumni and Outreach — Elyse van Houten support Contributing Editors — Paige Benish, Phoebe Nash, Michelle Lee, Elaine Clarke, Pia Cruz, Katie Doran, Emma Cameron
maggie zhang
queen of country by chih-rong kuo; layout by maggie zhang and michelle wang; doodles by shabad singh, elle marinello, and michelle wang
Queen of Country
ACROSS 1 With 26A, hit country song covered by Whitney Houston, originally by 34A 9 Actress Angelina 10 Director Anderson 11 ___ out a living 12 Yemen neighbor 13 Nine-digit ID issuer 14 High school course such as Calculus BC 16 South Asian lentil dish 18 Clue 20 1960s protest 21 History 23 Proof-ending letters 26 With 1A, hit country song covered by Whitney Houston, originally by 34A 27 One: French. 29 Regrettably 30 Type of chemical bond 32 800-mile river of Asia. 33 British grocery chain 34 Country singer who donated $1 million to Covid vaccine research
DOWN 1 Just kidding! 2 Stir-fry vessels 3 Trojan War epic 4 Hamilton creator ___-Manuel Miranda 5 Lawfulness 6 Exclamation of frustration 7 Like some dough 8 Nine-digit IDs issued by 13A 12 QB protectors, for short 15 Little girl, en español 17 Donkeys 19 Twin of Artemis 22 To no ___ (useless) 24 Kirsten of Spider-Man 25 Info-gathering mission 26 Put down 28 "The Velvet Underground & ___" (1967 album) 31 Poetic contraction
NEWS
Proposed changes to Georgetown’s enrollment bring parking crackdown and senior housing incentives BY SYDNEY CARROLL | DESIGN BY LUCY MONTALTI
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his year, Gorgetown University has cracked down on student parking restrictions and increased incentives for students to remain on campus for their senior year as the university looks to get community and government approval to increase its undergraduate enrollment. Washington, D.C. requires universities located in residential neighborhoods to create a campus plan to show how they will balance university life with respecting the surrounding residents. The plan, as well as any amendments, must be approved by the D.C. Zoning Commission (ZC). Georgetown’s current campus plan was launched in 2017 and is set to last through 2036. The university is currently seeking an amendment to the campus plan that would allow Georgetown to enroll an additional 100 undergraduate students and increase the School of Medicine’s enrollment by 80 students over the next four years. A university spokesperson told the Voice that they hope an increase to the enrollment cap will “allow more students to experience a Georgetown education.” However, the move also appears to be motivated by the university’s ongoing financial struggles, with the spokesperson adding that the increase will also help Georgetown “in the midst of uncertain times in higher education.” Parking enforcement Georgetown has long prohibited students from bringing cars to campus and parking on neighborhood streets. However, as part of the university’s pitch to increase enrollment and as a broader compromise with the neighborhood, they’re cracking down on the policy. A university spokesperson told the Voice that to increase enforcement of its car policies, they will begin to “utilize license plate reader (LPR) technology and vehicle registration data associated with student addresses to identify vehicles associated with undergraduate students parked within the prohibited areas.” This summer, students were also asked to sign an agreement that said they understood the ban on bringing cars and consented to this policy. Peter Sloniewsky (CAS ’27) serves as a Georgetown student commissioner on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 4
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
2E, a nonpartisan elected body that serves as an intermediary between the neighborhood and city government (in this case, the ZC). Sloniewsky wrote to the Voice that he is generally supportive of the policy if it helps the university’s reputation with the neighbors. “While I don't know if cars with license plate readers is the most effective way to spend university funds, it is clear to me that this is a hot-button issue for our neighbors,” he wrote. “If a marginal improvement in enforcement for a policy that’s been in place for almost a decade at least is all that it’ll take to build goodwill, I can’t in good faith object.” However, some students find themselves in a confusing position amid the crackdown. William Mead-McCaughan (CAS ’27) is a native Washingtonian. While he doesn’t have his own car, he often borrows his parents’ cars on the weekend to go home for dinner or run errands. Since the crackdown, he’s stopped parking in the neighborhood despite having D.C. license plates. He says that the university hasn’t made any public distinctions in the policy for students who live hyperlocally. “[Georgetown] needs to talk to D.C. people who have a right to park on the street, who may legitimately use their car all the time for really reasonable reasons,” he said. “For my entire life, anywhere else in this city, this is something I’ve been able to do. [For] the small crop of us, this is one of the few local student benefits that exists.” A university spokesperson also acknowledged that the Academic Resource Center considers requests for disability parking if students request an accommodation. Topher Mathews, another ANC 2E commissioner, said that he understands students’ gripes about the parking policies. However, he also said that neighbors see a massive shift in parking availability from the summer to the school year, which limits their ability to park near their homes or in convenient places. “We in the neighborhood would like to prevent there being close to a thousand [additional cars], if every student off campus had a car in the neighborhood,” Mathews explained. GUSA president Darius Wagner (CAS
’27) agreed with Mathews that neighborhood parking has been a big sticking point between neighbors and the university. However, with the introduction of LPR, Wagner also says that GUSA is hoping to ensure that the “technology is being used responsibly.” On-campus housing In order to mitigate the impacts of the increased enrollment cap on the surrounding area, Georgetown has promised that beginning in spring 2028, if more than 970 undergraduate students live in the Georgetown, Burleith, and Foxhall neighborhoods, the enrollment cap will be reduced the following year. The university is also taking additional steps to incentivize seniors to remain on campus, with an additional 278 beds created by the reconstruction of the Henle Residential Complex. Students have been required to live on campus for three years since 2015, and in the past the university offered no guarantee of housing beyond a student’s junior year, except for students displaying a high financial need. However, the university is now promising four years of guaranteed housing to students. A university spokesperson also told the Voice that the university is exploring even more incentives for students to remain on campus, including fee rebates and a preference in housing assignments. Wagner agreed that the university has been working towards offering students attractive options for living on campus. “Seniors and upperclassmen are being able to have better housing options, and that’s leading to more students choosing to live on campus,” Wagner said. Mathews says that he thinks the university’s proposal, while imperfect, is something that the neighborhood can support—and with them, the ZC too. “We’re happy with what the university is proposing here,” Mathews said. “We think it’s important for them to get this through.” "
HALFTIME SPORTS
Sydney Sweeney’s ad says nothing new—but it’s time we change the narrative. BY AUBREY BUTTERFIELD, LILA GIZZIE, AND STELLA LINN
DESIGN BY LUCY MONTALTI
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o everyone’s surprise, actress Sydney Sweeney starred in a controversial ad last week. Novig, a sports-focused prediction market, released the ad, and backlash to the overly sexual content unfolded immediately across social media and plastered itself across news headlines. In a world where women’s sports continue to fight an uphill battle against degradation, Sweeney and the ad have been rightfully critiqued for playing directly into harmful narratives through both her dialogue and appearance. In the video, Sweeney is oiled, tanned, and completely nude apart from wearing sports equipment, which conjures the false idea that women should be physically flawless in the midst of athletic competition. Moreover, Sweeney’s homogeneous dialogue—ie. the repetition of “sports” and “just sports”—implies that women lack diverse opinions or knowledge on the sports world. As Sweeney states in her ad, Novig emerged as exclusively a sports trading app that removes any other subject matter of trade. Thus, “just sports” became the basis for Sweeney’s ad. Novig is a prediction market, where users buy and trade event contracts priced between $0 and $1. It’s also now the subject of controversy. Apart from the video’s dialogue, Sweeney’s heavy involvement in the creative process sparked further outrage. Her direct contribution to the blatant objectification of women in sports left many feeling personally attacked. The true harm of Sweeney’s video is the way in which it reaffirms harmful stereotypes of women across the sports industry, from journalists and fans to the athletes themselves. Female athletes themselves have taken to social media to critique Sweeney’s ad, calling her out for oversexualizing and diminishing women in sports. Former NCAA champion gymnast Gracie Kramer has gained a lot of attention for her video showing her gymnastics, as well as other sports she plays, with the caption, “idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.” This video started a trend of many female athletes posting similar videos of themselves playing their sport and making statements condemning the ad. From Australian Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus
to English sprinter Amy Hunt, athletes from around the world are calling out Sweeney and highlighting the importance of women in sports. Her dialogue implying a lack of knowledge about sports is also precisely the stereotype many female broadcasters, such as Rebecca Lowe, have continuously battled in order to establish themselves professionally. Hailing from England, where women only entered the soccer commentating realm for the first time in 2007, her journey into the industry was no easy feat. Nonetheless, she landed one of the most coveted soccer broadcasting positions this past summer during the World Cup as part of FOX Sports’ coverage alongside Thierry Henry, Alexi Lalas, and Zlatan Ibrahimović. Lalas and Ibrahimović gained considerable attention for their waves of passive aggressive comments made live on air, but it was Lowe who arguably deserved greater recognition for consistently remaining professional and the most well-spoken among the group. And, despite Sweeney’s (and Novig’s) efforts to minimize female progress, women's sports in the U.S. have continued to see nothing short of historic growth over the past five years. The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Championship in 2021 had just around half a million viewers on CBS. Last year, that figure more than doubled to 1.84 million viewers, and many expect this year's final in late November to yield even higher results. Interest in the future of women’s sports isn’t restricted to well-established leagues like the NWSL; it has also manifested in the formation of new teams and leagues. Up north and out west, the Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL) just wrapped up its firstever season, selling over
55 thousand tickets across seven weeks of play. The WPBL contains four teams— Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles—and is looking to grow. The final took place on Sept. 22 in which the Los Angeles Queens took home the league’s first championship title. Despite increasing visibility and access to women’s sports, the narratives perpetuated by ads like Sweeney’s continue to do lasting damage to women in sports. Just last week, an AI-generated video went viral for depicting University of Texas head football coach Steve Sarkisian slapping longtime ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe across the face after he had walked away from their interview early. Not only did the video garner over two million views online, but when asked if he had looked at any social media following a major win against Ohio State University, Texas quarterback Arch Manning said he had watched this specific video and found it “hilarious.” In the postgame interview room after a primetime college football game, male reporters, coaches, and college players alike laughed at the video of a man with a multimillion dollar salary slapping a female reporter. We should also note the inherent danger of sports betting for women, which Sweeney fails to address. Domestic violence rates have been proven to shoot up 10% following unexpected losses in matches, with other statistics suggesting that violence increases regardless of outcome. In one case earlier this year, the game hadn’t even started before a husband shot and killed his wife for failing to switch the channel to Monday Night Football. Ads like Sweeney’s only further the culture that deems this violence okay. The reaction to cultural moments like the video of Rowe and the backlash to Lowe only solidify how important it is to uplift women in sports and fight against the status quo that keeps them out. However, acts of protest are not the only reason to watch women’s sports— watching them for enjoyment and rooting for your team is support enough. "
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
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NEWS
Coffee chat culture on campus: coversations or evaluations? BY HANNAH LEIMAN GRAPHICS BY QUINCY STANLEY; LAYOUT BY SHABAD SINGH
A
t Georgetown, the club application process seems to take over the freshman experience. Even before hitting “Submit” on a club application form, there’s one crucial step that seems to be informally obligatory: the coffee chat. After attending a meeting through Business Undergraduates Invested in Leadership Development (BUILD) discussing club applications and the coffee chat process, I glanced over at my friend Darby Hubner (MSB ’30) and noticed her disheartened expression mimicking mine. In our post-meeting debrief, we realized that neither of us truly understood the extent to which these little technicalities and mannerisms actually seemed to matter. My thoughts were clouded with what I would need to wear, whether to bring a resume or not, when to use a phone versus a notepad, what questions to avoid, and so forth. As the club application process has progressed, I’ve heard countless stories of students’ coffee chat experiences on campus. A few weeks ago, I heard someone describe a coffee chat as “successful,” only to later hear a rumor that the host of the chat thought it went “poorly.” These one-on-one chats have quickly become a “make-or-break” scenario for freshmen anxiously awaiting a spot in the coveted club of their dreams. While these conversations may parallel the kinds of dialogue that people have in professional settings, I worry about their artificial nature. Some
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
students feel steered away by the idea of a coffee chat, while others feel encouraged by them. Intrigued by whether more students found coffee chats rewarding or intimidating, I decided to interview my peers to learn more about this ritual and gather data as to whether students considered them worth it. Standard coffee chats typically last around 15 to 20 minutes and frequently have an underlying, evaluative nature to them. For many of the competitive business-oriented clubs on campus, coffee chats can feel like a necessary step towards entry, determining whether one can secure an interview or not. Jack Gilhooly (MSB ’30), has participated in a few coffee chats for business-associated clubs on campus. “Coffee chats are kind of required as a way to track interest,” Gilhooly said. He mentioned the best conversations he has had were the ones that felt the most lively and genuine. Many students prepare for coffee chats in similar ways. Looking up specific aspects of the club, brainstorming questions, and searching for mutual existing connections to learn more about the person they are chatting with are all common preplanning tactics. While these preparations are helpful, they can also make a chat feel performative and disingenuous, as conversation can feel a bit too rehearsed. When students are genuinely curious about the topics they are discussing, the conversation can feel more natural. “It shows when the students are actually curious and have thought about the questions they want to ask, rather than doing a coffee chat just to check a box,” says Piper Frankiewicz (MSB ’27), the director of consulting for Hilltop Consultants. “The important thing is to ask what matters to you.” Frankiewicz has been on both sides of the coffee chat, as the person asking questions and the person answering them. She believes that the advantages of a coffee chat can really just depend on a student’s personality. “If you’re confident in your conversational skills and are looking to learn something specific, I’d say go for it,”
Frankiewicz said. “If you hesitate about making the wrong impression, I think it’s important to weigh your options and decide whether it would be worth it to you.” For less pre-professional organizations on campus, coffee chats often serve as a way to understand more about the people who are already involved. Some a cappella groups, for instance, hold coffee chats to get to know the singers after they audition. Still, coffee chats’ reputation on campus often influences how students perceive them. Bella Lombardi (SFS ’30) said she participated in coffee chats for the Phantoms and the Saxatones, on-campus a cappella groups, because of her interest in music. Lombardi said the coffee chats were intended as a “low stress” interaction, yet she still found herself writing down every musical experience she has ever had beforehand to prepare. “There are these unspoken idiosyncrasies that clouded my judgement as I am surrounded by people in the MSB that are having extremely evaluative coffee chats,” Lombardi said. While conversations about coffee chats can make the competitive nature of clubs feel substantially higher, I remind myself that the coffee chats I have participated in (and intend to participate in) are not driven by that pressure, but instead driven by genuine inquiry. As echoed by several students, the priority should not be to ask questions for the sake of asking them, but instead to demonstrate your interests, quirks, and reasons for why you’re sitting in front of the specific club representative that you are. In other words, be the most authentic version of yourself, but only if you feel inclined enough to do so. "
VOICES
People for and with others BY COLBY KELLY
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DESIGN BY SHABAD SINGH
alking into Hayden Hall, the person in front of me opened the door, walked through, then let it slam. Right in my face. This frustrating, though not uncommon, experience is part of a larger campus ideology of oneself and only oneself. But at a school founded on being People for Others, why are we acting only for ourselves? We have not always been this way. Once upon a time, when the only relevant information about each other was our name and favorite color, we were different. We talked to complete strangers, looking for any similarities to build a friendship on. We shared our resources and were always eager to lend a helping hand. As kindergarteners, we seemed to have it figured out more than we do now as young adults. Kindergarten prepares you for life, teaching you no real academics but rather how to be a good person for others. We learn to take turns on the swings, share with our desk neighbors, and communicate our feelings, making sure to hold each other accountable—we learn to be people for others. But as we grow up, whether in pursuit of greater scholastic knowledge or professional achievement, we neglect those simple, core values. The focus shifts from communal to individual success. We are so quick to turn on those around us, even in the simplest ways, to get ahead. Georgetown, of course, only exacerbates this flaw. Pooling together a bunch of overachievers desperate for success causes students to withhold lecture notes from each other, gatekeep study tools and locations, or hesitate to recommend others for jobs and clubs. If the issue was only about holding doors, our problem would be much smaller, but our selfishness has bled into most aspects of our lives. In our day-to-day lives, we don’t even make eye contact with each other as we walk around campus, failing at the most basic level of humanity: acknowledgement. Elevator rides are silent because everyone is in such a rush to get somewhere that we can’t spare the breath to ask the other passengers a courteous “how are you?” Even in the Healey Family Student Center, we spread our laptops and notebooks
across entire four-person tables as if we are the only people needing to work. We isolate and withdraw, cutting out any opportunity for community. While this problem is most notably seen between students, it proliferates into our interactions with our broader Georgetown community as well. What’s the name of the staff member who cleans your floor? When was the last time you thanked the Leo’s employee for serving you food? Or better yet, do you take out your headphones when ordering food? We make a commitment to uphold the Jesuit values by attending this school. We agree to be people for others, but looking around campus, that is hard to find. The Spirit of Georgetown is defined by ten values that are grounded in an over 500-year-old Jesuit education tradition. People for Others, though, stands out to me. Originally coined by Pedro Arrupe, S.J., this value emerged from the realization that graduates of Jesuit institutions had learned justice in theory, but not in practice. Arrupe called for all Jesuits to live a life committed to others. “The man who lives only for his own interests not only provides nothing for others,” Arrupe wrote. “He does worse. He tends to accumulate in exclusive fashion more and more knowledge, more and more power, more and more wealth; thus denying, inevitably to those weaker than himself their proper share of the Godgiven means for human development.” Although Arrupe’s rationale is questionable for nonbelievers, the core principle still holds. In living for only
yourself, you withhold the possibility of collective success and community. This is exactly what we learn in kindergarten: sharing is caring. Progress depends on collaboration, and that goes far beyond improving Georgetown’s atmosphere; it has shaped how people have changed the world. Prior to 1921, a pediatric Type 1 diabetes diagnosis was a death sentence; then three scientists—Frederick Banting, Charles Best, and James Collip—discovered insulin and assigned their patent rights to the University of Toronto for one dollar. They had the chance for wealth and power but instead chose to prioritize the flourishing of their community. Millions of people have had a full life because of that humility. We will leave Georgetown and become doctors, lawyers, and leaders who will face the same choices as them: hold onto what we know or put it to work for others. Just like them, we need to follow the bright example of kindergarteners. Imagine Georgetown is instead filled with kindergarteners. Not in age but in mindset: curious about the world around us, generous with what we have, and more interested in the person next to us than getting ahead. Leo’s, the once-dreaded dining hall, would become an opportunity to meet others and eat together—plus the ice cream machine would finally get the love it deserves. Dorm floors would have real community, acting more like neighborhoods and not just rows of rooms. Classes would be more collaborative, with a collective understanding that success takes more than just one perspective. Our day-to-day life could be taken less seriously, and we would be more creative, making room to “play” together rather than study alone. When everyone supports each other, the looming deadlines and ridiculously high standards begin to shrink. It sounds basic, but sometimes you actually have to be the change you wish to see. Hold the door, start conversations with strangers, share notes, and be nice even if they aren’t your best friend. We, if nothing else, are all students at this school and can create a community around that. You can be a Hoya, but can we be the Hoyas? "
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
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EDITORIALS VOICES
The summer of Freedom 250 is over, but our work has just begun
GRAPHICS BY JULIA SWANSON; LAYOUT BY JACQUELINE PAN
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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his summer, while many of us were far from campus, our city was turned into a monument to the nation’s 250th anniversary. While this presented an opportune moment for national reflection, the Trump administration instead spent millions reaffirming its model of U.S. identity through the celebration of cisgender white men. Despite an end to the “Summer of Trump,” America’s 250th year continues. As students at an elite institution in our nation’s capital, we have the opportunity and imperative to resist attempts to sanitize, commodify, or exceptionalize this anniversary. When despots attempt to rewrite our nation’s history to exclude and harm, our responsibility is to stand in opposition. We should spend the rest of this 250th year celebrating our nation’s progress and acknowledging its failures. We did not get to this point by accident—in fact, we nearly had a very different national celebration of the country’s anniversary. For a little bit of backstory: in anticipation of the occasion back in 2016, Congress created the bipartisan U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, known as America250, to put on a patriotic celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary. However, President Trump undercut the bipartisan plans in favor of his own celebration agency called Freedom 250. While America250 celebrates American exceptionalism through a more palatable concoction of tradition, service, and entrepreneurship, Freedom 250 was much more on the nose in its showcase of American greed, corruption, exclusivity, and excess. Essentially every Freedom 250 event, from an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) on White House grounds to Trump’s “America Prays” campaign, flattens American history and identity. Worse, our own city of Washington, D.C. was the designated breeding ground for much of this flattening, from the National Mall becoming inaccessible for months because of the Great American State Fair to road closures for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix even delaying our Capitol Campus’ move in. We will never know exactly how America250’s celebrations would have compared to Freedom 250, but we can be pretty sure based on its website that it would not provide the kind of critical introspection that the country 8
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
so desperately needs. There is simply no escaping the fact that the U.S. was—and still is—a settler colonial project founded and built upon genocide and slavery. Any history that does not begin with that uncomfortable fact fails to fully grasp what this country continues to be after two and a half centuries. Our indignation and efforts at cultural change cannot, however, end with Trump. Whether it is the Smithsonian museums or Georgetown University, institutions that historically supported white supremacy are often guilty of their own sanitization, much like America250. The Smithsonian’s and Georgetown’s reckonings with their slaveholding pasts are monumentally better than the alternative proposed by Trump, but most university students know that. History is surely not something to be forgotten or revised to make it neater. For the most part, museums and universities avoid these revisionist practices, but they risk making other formidable mistakes. The U.S.’s common tendency to run from its history manifests across our communities. The National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture paint pictures of past brutality, which cannot be forgotten but are ultimately in the past. Georgetown, likewise, treats its Race, Power, and Justice course like a history lesson, failing to tell students about its present worker abuses, genocide funding, and erasure of Black history. We don’t mean to carelessly liken Georgetown’s administration to our fascist government, but rather point to the fact that Trump’s attempts to flatten and censor history are not unique. The issues present in our nation’s founding are just as clear today, and the single most patriotic thing we can do is organize against them. There is no doubt that the white supremacist views propagated by Trump normalize racism and hatred in the name of patriotism. That kind of sentiment emboldens our peers to spew the same bigotry and hate, seen mostly clearly when a university-funded club publicly proclaimed that “Muslims have no place in American society.” At
Freedom Plaza, the Trump administration re-erected a statue taken down during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests of a lesser-known founding father named Caesar Rodney, who enslaved up to 200 people. On campus, descendants of the more than 314 individuals enslaved and sold by our university continue to fight for adequate reparations, while the university has failed to fully implement a 2019 student referendum to establish a student reconciliation fund fee. There are lots of other things at Georgetown and in our country that are less than spectacular, but we don’t need to tell you that. What we may need to remind you of, though, is that our country and our university are not just those things. Countries are not borders or governments or financial institutions, and universities are not administrations or political clubs or even student newsmagazines. All we are, at the end of the day, are people, and that is spectacular. Every single moment, the U.S. is created and reshaped and begun anew as the people within it change. The forces that plague the U.S. have been around for far longer than 250 years, and in 250 years they will still exist. But—here’s to hoping—we will too. We will change and grow, and our country will, too. Honoring our country means honoring each other. Stand up for those around you—workers, minorities, queer people, immigrants, women, the disabled, unhoused, and everyone else too. After a summer meant to sow division, the best thing we can respond with is unity and solidarity. #
design credit
LEISURE
Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend is haunted BY SARAH CHERLIN
DESIGN BY RIYA SUNDARAM
I
n the six years since Phoebe Bridgers released her critically acclaimed sophomore album Punisher (2020), a lot has changed for the pandemic-produced indie darling. From the public scrutiny sparked by her breakup with actor Paul Mescal to the return of supergroup boygenius—fronted by Bridgers alongside musicians Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker— with its Grammy-winning debut the record (2023), it’s safe to say Bridgers’ almost three-year-long disappearance from the public eye was well earned. With her rapid rise in popularity, Bridgers has returned, ready to take on an international arena tour. But her comeback has been entirely on her own terms. After playing a series of secret pop-up shows, mainly across small-town America but culminating in an acoustic performance at Madison Square Garden, Bridgers announced the release of her latest LP, Lost Weekend (2026). The album opens with Bridgers’ voice, heavily distorted, electronic, and echoey. On “The Outside,” listeners will immediately recognize her distinct songwriting style and dry humor as she sings, “Crying in a suit and tie / But you should see the other guy,” in reference to her late father—to whom the record is dedicated—at his own funeral. Her father’s death garnered unwanted media attention while she was between solo projects. Bridgers was reportedly harassed and filmed at an airport while traveling to her father’s wake; the songwriter’s experience of grappling with a profound loss while constantly being publicly perceived haunts the album. On “The Governor’s Waltz,” she recalls “hiding in the bathroom like Shelley Duvall,” reflecting her feelings of vulnerability and a desperate attempt to escape the limelight while simultaneously rapidly rising to fame. Inviting back her boygenius collaborators, Bridgers credits Lucy Dacus as a songwriter on “Haunted,” and both Dacus and Baker provide backing vocals on the track. Revisiting her disillusionment with the realities of fame, Bridgers warns that “If you’re gonna make a wish / Then you better be specific / You’re gonna have to live it every day.” Despite this sentiment, “Haunted” is undoubtedly one of the happier songs on the tracklist. Featuring a comparatively
upbeat tempo and a bluegrass-inspired melody, Bridgers comes to a hopeful conclusion about moving forward after heartbreak in the most powerfully succinct lines on the album: “You won’t have to open a heart that’s broken / Water’s gonna flow in either way.” Aside from her bandmates and best friends, Bridgers also introduces new voices on this record. She credits “Son-John Johnson” on “Kill Me” and “I Can’t Wait,” which is believed to be a pseudonym for Cameron Winter, lead singer of the Brooklyn-based rock band Geese, because of the familiarly Winterish voice on the background vocals. On the outro of “Kill Me,” Bridgers’ and Johnson’s voices intertwine over a buildup of electric guitar and pounding drums, sharply contrasting the bare acoustic guitar and simple vocals Bridgers begins this song with, as they repeat the Persian phrase “Tamám Shud,” which means, “It is over.” On “Still Standing,” Bridgers directly addresses her tumultuous relationship with her late father. With her signature blunt lyricism, she cuts straight to the truth, admitting, “Feeling indifferent, wearing black / Sometimes I want you back / But not today.” Over a hopeful, intimate acoustic guitar arrangement, Bridgers seamlessly captures the emotion and nuance of grieving someone who has caused you pain. She confronts the reality of learning to process his death as she sings, “I can’t imagine you dead / But you are every day,” before finally resolving with gratitude for the experiences she shared with her dad, ending with a plain yet heartfelt, “Thank you for everything.” Amid the ubiquitous themes of loss and heartbreak tying the album together, a source of joy suddenly emerges when Bridgers sings about a budding romance with comedian Bo Burnham on “Bobby,” a track that immediately hooked me. Bridgers comes in hot with a full band and a catchy shoegaze-inspired melody. She employs her typical dark humor once again, this time in a striking display of codependency early on in their relationship. She assures her lover, “If you didn’t like either one of my friends / I’d kill them, I’d kill them.” Her lyrics feel ironic given her typical support for female solidarity, as exemplified in her recent year-long run with boygenius, an all-female band. Yet her emphasis on the
second repetition of “kill” evokes a slightly concerning sense of sincerity. She circles back to the lingering theme of her gripes with fame yet again on the closing track, a reprise of the title track, as she solemnly sings, “When a dream comes true, a fantasy dies.” While her naive, idealized perception of fame may have been shattered by the reality of being surveilled by the paparazzi, even during her most intense moments of personal hardship and grief, she still lives out her younger self’s dream every day. After taking the listener on a journey through her own cycles of loss, grief, and newly developing joy, Bridgers leaves her fans, who waited with bated breath for some sign of life from the singer, with a final piece of advice: “But if I ever come out of hiding / You won’t have to know how to find me again.” Phoebe Bridgers has come out of hiding this time, but her public presence is not a certainty; she does not owe the world her presence nor her art.!
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
9
NEWS
Post-unionization, RAs continue to face workplace struggles BY SEHR KHOSLA AND PEYTON WEBB
DESIGN BY KATIE REDDY
I
n April, Georgetown’s resident assistants (RAs) launched a petition through the Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition (GRAC) criticizing Georgetown for “union-busting activities” and calling for changes to Residential Living’s treatment of RAs including higher compensation, job security, and a voice in the policies governing their work. A semester later, some RAs say the protections they fought for have not resolved many day-to-day frustrations of the job. Despite receiving greater compensation and protections through their first union contract over a year ago, current and former RAs described persistent communication breakdowns within the office of Residential Living, frequent turnover among professional staff, anxiety surrounding disciplinary action, and policy changes they say are made with little input from the students they affect. While RAs acknowledged that unionizing has brought meaningful changes, including the introduction of a stipend and more resources in disciplinary proceedings, they say tensions with Residential Living have persisted into the new academic year. Due to concerns of potential workplace repercussions for students interviewed, they have been granted anonymity by the Voice and each assigned a random initial. Improvements and discontent after union contract RAs’ relationship with Georgetown has changed substantially since organizing and negotiations with the university began in March 2024. Unionization created formal channels through which RAs can raise workplace concerns. GRAC-elected steward and Georgetown RA Victoria Allen (CAS ’27) pointed to GRAC’s Labor-Management Committee, created in Sept. 2024, which brings RAs and university officials together to discuss workplace issues and develop labor proposals, as well as RA participation in training committees and a formal complaint procedure for disciplinary action. “The university, prior to the union, did not have to listen to RA concerns, but now we have avenues to voice grievances,” Allen wrote. But the contract has not eliminated all disputes over how Residential Living manages RAs. 8 10
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
Georgetown RA F, who was among the RAs who supported last semester’s GRAC petition, said that outside individuals have pointed out the university’s contentious relationship with RAs. “[Our parent union] works with multiple unions, and student labor unions and multiple RA unions across whatever colleges that they represent, and they have let us know that Georgetown University is more on the union-busting side, in the realm of the students that they work with,” F said. Nevertheless, F expressed that the union has been beneficial for RAs, giving them greater security in challenging disciplinary decisions and helped secure changes including stipends and expanded eligibility for RAs studying abroad or enrolled part-time. Allen similarly emphasized GRAC’s role in representing individual RAs when workplace disputes arise. The union can accompany an RA from an initial grievance meeting through arbitration, she said, with its parent union, Office and Professional Employees Professional International Union, providing additional assistance if an RA chooses to pursue arbitration. Still, for K, a first time RA, the enduring tensions from past disputes between RAs and Residential Living have shaped their experience. K entered the position following the implementation of the CBA, yet hearing returning RAs’ experiences has made them more conscious of the consequences of making mistakes as they learn the job. “Making mistakes and learning is part of the process,” K said. “But just hearing how they’re being more strict with enforcing whatever accountability process makes you less willing to take a risk or just scared to ask questions.” A university spokesperson wrote to the Voice affirming the university’s commitment to the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the four-year contract ratified in May 2025 between the university and GRAC which outlines RA duties, management policies, and employee protections. “We deeply value the contributions of Resident Assistants (RAs) to our living and learning communities. We are committed to upholding Georgetown’s Just Employment Policy and honoring
the [CBA] between the university and [GRAC],” the spokesperson wrote. Policy changes raise questions among RAs For F, the concern is not the protections contained in the CBA, but that a rigid interpretation of the agreement can sometimes undermine those protections in practice, which they say has sometimes worked against the RAs it was negotiated to protect. “Even though the point, the purpose of the contract was to benefit RAs, it’s sort of being followed in a way that doesn’t guarantee benefits for us still,” F said. One recent point of contention has been holiday duty, where RAs from each residence hall must decide who will stay on campus for each holiday break. F said that before the CBA, multiple residence halls could be grouped into one community, meaning fewer RAs were required to stay on campus. Under Residential Living’s current interpretation, they said at least one RA from each building must remain on campus, meaning more RAs have to give up portions of Thanksgiving, Easter, and spring breaks. GRAC’s Labor Management Committee (LMC) recently put forward a holiday duty proposal submitted jointly by union and university representatives calling for a change in policy, which they say was rejected by Residential Living. The proposal would have reduced the number of RAs needed to be present on campus by returning to the current building group system for holiday duty. According to the lead member of LMC and GRAC Vice President Anna Holk (CAS ’27), Residential Living management suggested that this upcoming Thanksgiving be scheduled according to last academic year’s system, but that this proposal is still being discussed. Holk highlighted the importance of university holidays for all students, including RAs, emphasizing that “they can be students’ only chances to go home, spend time with their families, see friends, and truly recharge off campus.” Another policy change affected RA K before the semester even began. After becoming an RA for a building with fourperson suite-style living, K could only pull in their direct roommate from their
previous building last semester, following the policy change decided upon in Nov. 2025. The policy ruling has affected RAs living in suites, allowing them to choose only their direct roommate, rather than all of them. Their other two intended suitemates ultimately had to live elsewhere after two other students claimed the adjoining room. K said they have heard other RAs characterize the restriction as a retaliatory response by the university to unionization, though they do not know the university’s rationale firsthand. But still, they believe that the change ultimately stems from a lack of transparency between Residential Living staff and RAs. Allen, however, rejected the term “retaliation” on the university’s part, as she said it would imply violation of federal law, which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees in their employment or working conditions in order to encourage or discourage union membership. Instead, Allen characterizes many ongoing tensions as “disagreements over the interpretation and implementation of the CBA.” The disagreements presented to Allen include disputes over workload distribution and what constitutes reasonable expectations for RAs who are simultaneously full-time students. Communication gaps persist Beyond disputes over the CBA, current and former RAs described broader problems with communication and management within Residential Living. According to P, a former RA, some RAs were not informed that their summer RA positions had been approved until a few weeks before the end of the spring semester, leaving their work and housing plans up in the air until the last minute. Documents reviewed by the Voice confirm that this was not announced until the last week of April. Although RAs did have the option to accept or decline the position once it was offered, P said that many potential summer RAs made alternative plans when they did not hear back from the university and hence could not accept the position when it was finally offered. And once the summer began, P described further issues. P said that summer RAs “were in charge of basically the whole campus,” including having to manage high school students in summer programs, a task outside their job description. A university spokesperson disputed that summer RAs were responsible for managing or supervising high school students, saying
summer programs employed their own staff to oversee participants. The spokesperson said summer RAs may have assisted high school students who got locked out of their rooms, but characterized this as part of RAs’ existing responsibility to assist residents with lockouts rather than an expansion of their role. P felt this treatment was part of a recurring pattern demonstrating a lack of respect for RAs. “I don’t think the university cares about RAs too much,” they said. “I feel like we’re always kind of an afterthought.”
Disorganized leadership Aside from internal communication, RAs expressed concerns about gaps in administrative positions and general confusion over management protocol that add unnecessary stress to the job. According to Allen, 19 RAs in three residential communities are missing a Community Director (CD) as of Sept. 18. CDs serve as RAs’ direct supervisors, overseeing their individual residence hall teams and acting as a primary point of contact for questions, workplace concerns, and day-to-day responsibilities. Without a consistent CD, RAs can face longer response times and greater difficulty building the manager-employee relationship that typically provides support throughout the year. One first-time RA, J, said they view a confusing chain of command and a “revolving door” of CDs as the source of the problem. “RAs were essentially suffering from a lack of being able to communicate directly with community directors, assistant directors, and everyone else
involved in the process,” J said. “It’s the classic issue of middle management essentially also being kind of powerless to do anything except to deal with the people below them.” Under volatile leadership, J said many issues fall through the cracks. On one occasion, for example, they were unable to obtain timely paperwork for several weeks due to the absence of a Residential Living staff member. J described frequent disorganization and poor communication from upper management as persistent problems. “There isn’t this clear structure of who’s in charge of who, who replaces who, and how do we communicate between buildings, how do we organize things ahead of time,” they said. “It’s very much an improvising-as-we-go type of situation.” Navigating lingering tensions Despite remaining challenges, GRAC has seen collective pressure produce policy reversals. Allen pointed to Residential Living’s attempted changes to the RA placement process last year, which were ultimately unsuccessful following opposition from RAs and other students. A university spokesperson wrote that the university aims to follow guidelines set in the CBA to address RA grievances. “We regularly engage with RAs and their union in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which provides a forum for union and University representatives to come together and discuss issues of mutual interest and concern,” the spokesperson wrote. “We are committed to working in good faith through the processes established in the CBA to discuss and address concerns.” Still, RAs continue to feel that the protections gained through unionization and the petition have not always translated into feeling heard by the university. “A lot of times, we just kind of have to lie down and take it,” A said. “I think Res Living has a lot to do to remain accountable to RAs.” #
SEPTEMBER 25, 2025
11
VOICES
My meatless summer BY JACOB GARDNER
GRAPHICS BY BRADLEY WONG; LAYOUT BY JACQUELINE PAN
L
ast semester was one of the worst periods of my life. My reprieve was found in the company of Voice photo editor Julia Carvalho (CAS ’29), from whom I acquired both a craving for cheese quesadillas and a rather persistent desire to become the thing I swore I would never become: a vegetarian. My vegetarianism got off to a surprisingly strong start. Since all freshmen are required to purchase the all-access meal plan and I was (am) broke, dining on campus was my only option. At the Epi’s buffet I was delighted to discover that finding vegetarian options was not nearly as difficult as I had feared. Under this guise, I also assumed maintaining my vegetarianism through the summer would be simple. Yet even after giving up on it in the first few weeks of break, I still felt an emptiness, some nebulous terror looming over my head. Turns out, I was craving a different kind of meat. We talk about the “Gen Z sex drought” as if it’s some enigmatic event, a cultural dry spell falling equally upon the just and the unjust. But aggregate statistics are a coward’s way out of naming the hell that has become modern youth shagging. A dry spell is more than an abstract data point about declining hookup rates; it’s an active audit of your market value. And for me, that audit has been running in the red. I grew up in a conservative corner of Florida where the prospect of being openly queer, much less queer and sexually adventurous, was hardly something to take for granted. So when I first arrived at Georgetown, I assumed that at least the latter part would become easier. D.C. is full of gay people, and Georgetown is full of young people. I was finally in a place where, statistically speaking, I could finally have a piece of the pie. Alas, I've discovered that proximity to possibility is not the same as possibility itself. On paper, Georgetown is a vibrant hub of ambition, but in practice we know it to be yet another university where students treat their resumes like bodies and their bodies like resumes. People have internships to secure, organizations to lead, events to 12
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
attend. The queer community is hardly nonexistent amid all this; if anything, it’s remarkably organized, with affinity groups and social circles sprawling across campus. You can know plenty of queer people and still feel perpetually one degree removed. Somewhere in the sauce, as it turns out, having someone to fuck is not exactly a graduation requirement. However, I am wary of blaming Georgetown for my lack of game. These frustrations certainly predate my arrival on campus, but being here has elucidated just how difficult they can be to escape. In my hometown, the problem was largely one of scarcity: being gay was complicated enough, and the pool of people with whom I could explore was small. At Georgetown, that scarcity has been replaced by something arguably worse—abundance without access. No matter how you take your tofu, there is an irrefutable blueprint for being young and desirable: skinny bodies, illusions of wealth, specific performances of gender. Falling outside that blueprint can make the queer culture you were promised feel considerably less inclusive than advertised. Georgetown simply makes these expectations feel particularly pronounced; affluence and social capital are difficult to miss. Then there is the most frustrating deterrent: time. Sex is a luxury, not only because it requires finding an empty evening. When you are balancing a full course load, trying to maintain even a shred of a social life, and acutely aware of how poor you are, the spontaneity that makes sex possible can feel completely inaccessible. Being first-generation and/or low-income not only means less access to financial resources, but also less freedom to treat time as discretionary, leaving little room for the inefficiency of intimacy. Sex demands privacy, transportation, money, time, and the willingness to let something happen without knowing whether it will even be worth it. When your schedule is hyper-optimized, sex becomes just another impossible side gig. None of these obstacles would bother me quite so much if I did not want sex as badly as I do, and that is the part I find most difficult to intellectualize. It is easy to morph virginity into a sociological problem, to blame Georgetown, capitalism, the internet, or Jake Shane. It is harder to admit that I would die for someone to want me even just a little bit. I want to feel
fuckable! Instead, I have become extraordinarily talented at explaining my own deprivation–– which is sadly not the sexiest skill. So, my meatless summer came to an unceremonious end over a greasy piece of chicken. The dietary experiment failed. I gave up the moral high ground of black bean burgers because, eventually, pretending I wasn’t hungry became more exhausting than giving in. My deeper hunger, of course, remains unresolved. I am still irritated, and still navigating the peculiar alienation of sexual deprivation on this campus. I even have a single dorm room, which I had once imagined would be an asset to my sex life but is instead essentially a chastity chamber. Maybe Georgetown is just not built to proffer sexual opportunity. Maybe there is nothing particularly wrong with me, or with Georgetown, or with being twentysomething and horny, or even with being a virgin. Maybe sometimes you can take all the steps you think will make you happy and discover that it cannot manufacture the thing you wanted most. And maybe that’s really what being vegetarian and being a virgin have in common: you never stop wanting meat. $
LEISURE
EXPO Magazine turns the tables on the service industry BY JULIA CARVALHO DESIGN BY MICHELLE WANG
W
hen someone asks for my “Georgetown intro,” it takes everything in me not to let “Hi, my name is Julia, and I’ll be your server today!” slip out. EXPO Magazine knows why this phenomenon occurs: service work is a language, a culture, and a craft—it should be treated as such. EXPO Magazine is a new publication designed in response to the 2025 repeal of Initiative 82, a law created to raise the wages of D.C.’s tipped workers to match the city’s minimum wage. The zine, written by service workers, for service workers, engages the full breadth of life and labor in a restaurant. For the price of $18.40—the rate of one hour of work at the minimum wage—you can get your hands on articles, narratives, comics, poems, and crosswords relating to the restaurant industry. As someone who spent most of my formative years bussing tables and running food, I was intrigued but skeptical. Upon opening the cover, I was reminded of when my manager cut me early so I could make it to the Eras Tour, when the executive chef helped me with my college essays, and when the owner dropped donuts off for us at the expo counter on a busy Saturday morning. The stories inside inspired the collection of memories that long ago designated restaurants as “home” to come flooding back to me.
I had the opportunity to sit down with the minds behind the magazine, Gary Zottoli and Rachelle Yeung. Zottoli, a local food runner and former writer for the Democratic Socialists of America, conceptualized the project last year. After his stint in nonprofit work, Zottoli was called to return to the restaurant industry for both its unconventional lifestyle and its desperate need for organization. During his shifts behind the bar, he noticed that coworkers weren’t doomscrolling, but rather, were reading magazines and completing crossword puzzles to pass the mid-afternoon lull. That’s when inspiration struck. “When you’re at the bar after hours or after shift, it’s a lot easier to just drop a sick-looking magazine on the table and say ‘Hey, look at this!’” Zottoli explained. EXPO Magazine is a frank and honest portrayal of service work. Unpretentious and easily digestible, the zine highlights not only the intensity of labor—as well as the skill and talent of the industry’s employees—but also the joy found in collective organization. EXPO understands that the last thing fulltime employees need is more to do, which is why the zine’s call to action lies embedded in a collection of literature that simply reminds you of how much we have to celebrate, and, alternatively, how much we have to lose. When working on the project, Zottoli refused to shy away from its true purpose: “We Want You” propaganda. Wielding an affinity for Italian poetry and the labor organizing texts of the 1920s, he imagined EXPO’s simplistic, captivating style. Even if you don’t spend your free time consuming socialist propaganda, there is something strikingly familiar and hypnotic about the large text, sharp lettering, and contrasting color palette. EXPO subconsciously ties the struggles of today’s service workers to the plight of those who yelled, “I need hands!” long before them. After a quick skim, my first impression was that the length of the articles is where the magazine falls short. Though as I began to sift through page after page of carefully researched information and statistics, I came to appreciate the length as something else entirely: freedom. In our conversation, Yeung, a former journalism student turned local bartender, noted that the worker’s voice is missing in mainstream media.
No wonder these contributors wrote with such depth—no one had ever given them the chance to. The endless stream of uncensored information is the key to EXPO’s charm. After years of the teacher never calling on them, writers each got their turn to admire, ramble, research, ponder, complain, and educate. Restaurants have always afforded me the luxury of being able to show up as my unfiltered self (a million things to do, last night’s makeup under my eyes, a cigarette in my hand). It’s time that we offer the same to the people who make us comfortable. In each page’s smattering of words, drawings, and colors, readers are lucky to finally get to know a community of people who work hard, struggle, persist, and find joy in the little things. After an introduction to the zine’s conception and purpose, the issue kicks off with a piece by Yeung. “State of the Industry” offers a comprehensive overview of the crisis restaurants are facing under the Trump administration. Stories of creative co-ops, reflections on the closing shift, hand-drawn graphics, startling recounts of ICE raids, and light-hearted comics follow suit. Closing out the issue, “Sacred Work” highlights Chef Gerald Darling’s, also known as ‘Chef G’, community-oriented cooking at World Central Kitchen, standing as the emotional axis of the zine. As a dedicated organizer, chef, and activist, he believes good food has the power to reaffirm humanity. When being served a good meal, people recognize, “I’m getting something nice because I deserve something nice,” as Chef G puts it. Don’t the people who craft those special meals deserve to feel the same? Chef G argues, “Food is sacred. Food heals us, restores us, brings us closer together in community, and allows us to live another day.” EXPO Magazine is building a brilliantly rose-colored reflection that does the same. If a restaurant and the characters inside weren’t worth the heartache, the shin splints, and the shitty pay, we all would’ve walked out the door a long time ago. EXPO serves to remind us why we stick around and why the world of the service industry is one worth fighting for.!
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
13
VOICES
The Method BY ALEX LALLI
DESIGN BY LUCY MONTALTI
I
magine a triangle. Picture each side stretched equally between three points. The beauty of the triangle is that it exists in perfect tension: no preference to one side, no complicated stipulations. The triangle method is a simple threesided breakdown of one of the most agonizedover parts of the human experience: romance. Indeed, I’ve discovered dating can be as simple as one of the first shapes you learned in kindergarten. This is how you meet people, this is how you have fun, and this is even how you find love. This is the method. To disclaim, I’m no expert when it comes to dating. I’m more of a wannabe Carrie Bradshaw who just can’t help but wonder why dating in D.C. seems harder than surviving orgo. Sure, it’s no Manhattan, but in a city full of intelligent, interesting young people, what’s to explain such a lack of love? Yes, the rumors are true: we’re in a culturally weird place for dating and romance right now. It seems like there’s always a new think piece, movie, or show (looking at you, Callum Turner sex purge movie) puzzling over why our generation isn’t finding love, or at least a night of fun flirtation. If you ask me, we’ve become afraid of sacrifice and, more honestly, feelings that could eventually hurt us. We’ve invented countless anxiety-ridden rules to keep us comfortably secure; our vocabulary has even expanded to define the undefinable— situationship (n.): guy who can’t commit. This summer, I decided to conduct heels-on-the-ground research to answer the question: is it that hard? Without even realizing it, I built my triangle: the three types of people you should look for and hold in rotation when embarking on your dating journey. If I can do it, so can you. I. The stranger This is the rando you meet at the bar whom you approach when conversation’s slowed, drinks have flowed, and it’s that time of the night when everyone suddenly becomes attractive. This person has no connection to you. Whether they go to another school or are working a real-person job, you don’t care to 14
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understand; you will never see them again, unless you really want to. They’re your “I’m bored on a Thursday night,” and ideally, they have a car. The stranger can add a perspective without the pressure that comes with premeditated attachment. The points of a triangle rely on each other, and in the case of the stranger, their job is to relieve the pressure from the other two points. As much as you may find them endlessly fun and easy, the stranger must be rotated out about every month or so to avoid the skeletons that emerge from the closet around month three. Maybe my favorite thing about the stranger is that they give you an excuse to explore D.C. in search of them. So please, schedule a triangle night with your friends to find your stranger. II. The class crush I’m especially fond of this point of the triangle, which sits right at the bottom, grounding the operation. This is your day-dreamy, always-bemy-maybe. They’re around, but not everpresent, and it’s a thrill to remember that they exist. You could deliberately select the perfect class crush, but I recommend letting them come to you. Whether you’re bored in lecture or wanting to connect with your cohort, just start chatting—you’ll find that person who you keep falling into giggly conversation with instead of completing the assignment due at 11:59 p.m. The class crush has benefits beyond balancing out your love life. There is no better feeling than remembering your class crush exists when your actual crush is fumbling.
Plus, cheeky flirtation motivates you to pay attention or actually speak up in class because you want to impress your crush who happens to be an anthropology nerd. Suddenly ancient artifacts are so sexy. Long-term is not off the table for the class crush; the stakes are just lower. A semesterly rotation, provided that it hasn’t crept into anything real, is recommended. III. The slow burn This needs very little explanation. In some ways, the triangle itself is built around keeping this point in check. You most likely met through a mutual friend or a roommate. Or, maybe they’re someone you’re already close to but have always wanted to be more. Whether you’re in a riveting talking stage or have just crossed into dating territory, the slow burn hinges on the fact that you care. A lot. The slow burn holds genuine stakes because you feel the most for them; you want this to work out. And that’s ok! If anything, it’s exciting to feel so strongly about someone. I wish I had more advice on how to be chill about a slow burn, but unfortunately, that has never and will never be me. And at a certain point, for deep feelers like myself, you come to accept that trying to be cool about it hurts more than anything else will. The purpose of the other points is not to invalidate or ignore the potentially Jane Austen-worthy yearning you have for this particular person—hold onto that. It’s important to feel deeply, and it’ll make for some good stories down the line, success or not. Of course, take your time with the slow burn—it’s easy to assume perfection in the people you want, even if they don’t deserve it. Desire requires perspective, and that’s where the triangle excels. The triangle is really there to remind you that one person can’t be everything. The triangle needs the tensions of each point to exist (even if they think they’re all just lines). You can’t fall in love without the stranger, and you can’t have fun without the risk of something more. But most importantly, the triangle doesn’t exist without you to draw it. "
LEISURE
Nolan’s Odyssey and the semantic dilution of a title BY RYAN SLIWA
DESIGN BY ELLE MARINELLO
T
he Odyssey (2026) has a language problem. This isn’t some esoteric issue buried in the script, nor even a fault of the filmmakers. Rather, it arose before the idea of a new Homeric adaptation crossed Christopher Nolan’s mind and is a consequence of a long tradition of romanticizing ancient literature. With The Odyssey, this runs so deep that the word “odyssey” has taken on a meaning disconnected from the capital-O Odyssey, as a catch-all for a sweeping adventure. This has led to a fundamental misunderstanding of Homer’s Odyssey rooted in our vocabulary, fating Nolan’s film to thematic flatness from the start. “Odyssey” was first used as a common noun in Stevenson’s Kidnapped (1886), when the protagonist’s adventures are called “a great Odyssey.” The proper noun would later become a common noun that typecast a complex narrative into a generalized hallucination of itself. “Odyssey” no longer described what happened to Odysseus but rather what we expect to happen to the Odysseus figure. “Odyssey” became generic because of its distinctiveness. Semantically diluting a title into a common noun degrades the source’s complexity in the cultural consciousness. “Odyssey” dilutes The Odyssey to its most superficial characteristic and discounts the deeper human questions fundamental to a modern retelling. Much has already been said about Nolan’s film’s faithfulness, or lack thereof. But within the context of the semantic dilution of The Odyssey into “odyssey,” the question is not whether Nolan’s adaptation is accurate to the “original” story, it is whether a modern adaptation can recover the cultural nuance of a story whose very title has been appropriated by a vague concept of adventure. Homer’s The Odyssey is a man’s pursuit of nostos, or homecoming, but achieving nostos requires him to face what he has spent the journey trying to escape. The destination and departure govern the significance of his journey. An “odyssey,” like Nolan’s, however, focuses on the events between departure and destination, placing emphasis instead on kleos, or war-won glory, with nostos being secondary. Nolan flattens these episodes into miniature, morally neutral adventures. Homer’s Odysseus exhibits his selfdestructive hubris in his confrontation with
Polyphemus, but Nolan’s Odysseus does not boast of his name. In Homer, Odysseus’s encounter with Achilles in the Underworld instills doubt about valuing kleos over domestic happiness; Nolan cuts this entirely. Calypso offers Odysseus a painless alternative to returning to Ithaca; in Nolan’s film, this feels out of place after a lack of attention to what truly stands between Odysseus and nostos: not an external threat, but his own altered personhood. Through his trials, Odysseus continues pressing for Ithaca, despite knowing the journey and the return will cause him anguish. This directly contradicts the modern “odyssey.” Odysseus’s voyage in Homer is an obstacle, not an adventure. The journey allows him to realize precisely how important nostos is despite the loss, trauma, and identity crises he suffers. Nostos becomes an introspective consideration of whether one truly wishes to return to a home that is fundamentally different from the one he left—and as a fundamentally different man, himself. The notion of kleos that the “odyssey” glorifies stands in direct opposition to this. Why this shift from the Odyssey as a personal journey to an “odyssey” as a geographic one? It is easier to romanticize adventure than to address its consequences. The modern construction of the hero demands a dulling of moral ambiguity. Odysseus must be portrayed sympathetically to be accepted as the hero by a modern audience. Homer’s Odysseus is a far cry from the homesick husband of modern imagination. In ancient Hellas, kleos made a hero, regardless of how it was won. Today, heroism has taken on a moral connotation incompatible with the Homeric hērōs. If it seems impossible to reconcile this ethical disconnect, why do we always return to Classics? People continue to claim mythological stories as their own because they excite and fascinate us; deeper, they make us feel connected to mythical worlds, traditions, and figures greater than anything we can tangibly experience. Yet, in bruteforcing that connection, the story’s nuance becomes collateral damage. This problem is not unique to The Odyssey. Any text so distant from the reinterpreter will undergo thematic adaptation to make it more palatable to a new audience. To some extent, this is necessary, but there is an acute difference between the changing
and the reframing of a story’s facts to do so. The former attempts to erase the source’s unsavory implications, while the latter addresses them to provide contemporary audiences a constructive perspective of the source and its implications for today. I am not suggesting that we should stop retelling ancient stories. However, when doing so, one must recognize how their reinterpretation has been influenced by shifting cultural values and, in the case of The Odyssey, by language itself: we have already decided what an “odyssey” is. Furthermore, the interpreter must be willing to confront the ancient story’s most uncomfortable elements and to reconcile them with the present through acknowledgment, not erasure. It is in this, not in the mere retelling of a story, that the adapter’s role lies. Christopher Nolan is not to blame for the philosophical flattening of his Odyssey; his film is only the latest in a long series of moral oversimplifications of Homeric legend that have arisen through the semantic dilution of the title. But the fact that The Odyssey, a story about the consequences of an unjust war on those unwillingly drawn into it, was adapted in 2026 shows that we are approaching the correct way of retelling ancient stories. And if there is one lesson that ought to resonate with audiences across space and time, it is this: Odysseus doesn’t want his adventures. He wants to go home. "
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
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