FLUX PLUS

Aries (March 21-April 19): Mercury is in retrograde and you know what that means… Wait, you don’t know what that means? Well, that makes two of us. Anyways, you’ve been having some highs and lows recently and you miss the sense of stability you used to have. But today that all changes. Go outside. Travel to the nearest forest and find the tallest tree there. Embrace the tree. Wrap your legs around its trunk. Climb it and sit among its lowest branches. This tree also has highs and lows, but it is rooted in the soil and stands strong.

Taurus (April 20-May 20): Your friends have all been assholes recently and you’re over it. Marcia has started seeing that awful boy Derek who farted once in psych lecture, and Audrey is so stressed out about studying for the MCATs that she did not even acknowledge your new haircut which was a bit of a risk for you and you really needed some affirmation. Don’t worry if you don’t have any friends named Marcia or Audrey. It’s not important. They’re metaphors. Anyways, you’ve been looking for companionship, and little did you know that the four best friends a gal could have are easily accessible online if you have an HBO GO account (or if you’re willing to break the law and watch television illegally). Start Sex and the City, wrap yourself up in female companionship, and don’t give up on the show before the fourth episode. Then go out there and confront Marcia and Audrey. Tell those bitches that you deserve bigger and better things.

Gemini (May 21-June 20): Pluto has shot his hot, sticky favor on you this month, Gemini. You’ve encountered some wonderful professional success recently, and you’re excited about what this means for your future. But don’t let this make you forget about what’s important in life. Call the mother figures in your life and thank them for their nurture. Suck on the teat of gratefulness. That is more nourishing than money.

Cancer (June 21-July 22): In the upcoming week, you will turn over a new leaf. Maybe you’ll start a new exercise regimen. Maybe you’ll cut out carbs and then you’ll tell everyone in your life about how you’ve cut out carbs. Or maybe you’ll try to say “no” more often and hope that it doesn’t make you look like a total bitch (spoiler: it does, but you’ll be a bitch that other people respect). But you’re going to fall off the train. Accept it: eat an ice cream cone and remind yourself that tomorrow is another day to not follow whatever regimen you put yourself on.

Leo (July 23-August 22): Recently, you’ve been stressed as hell and you’re just waiting for death to overtake you like a cold shadow. Here’s a hot tip courtesy of Mama Madame C: essential oils. Get yourself a diffuser and a variety of scents, put a cold compress on your forehead, eat a little piece of an edible, and give yourself some quality me-time. This sounds like hippie bullshit and guess what: it is. Lay there until you smell like patchouli, your hair starts to dread just a little and you find yourself in a bisexual orgy. Love is free. Forget about finals. You’d much rather hit the road with your folk band.

Virgo (August 23-September 22): Today is your day, Virgo. You’re gonna finally face your fears and send a vaguely sexy text to your hot TA. As RuPaul says in her hit (?) song “Sissy That Walk,” “And if I fly or if I fall, least I can say I gave it all,” and your TA has been giving you his boudoir eyes at least twice a recitation. Okay, maybe he’s just been slightly disturbed at how often you roll in hungover wearing last night clothes but like he touched your hand that one time when he gave you your exam back and his touch LINGERED. Maybe he’ll give you an oral exam. And an A in the class.

Libra (September 23-October 22): You’ve been in a rut. Baked chicken for dinner every night of the week. You and your significant other have been scheduling sex twice a week.You’re lost in an endless sea with no land in sight. Well, if Diane Lane in her tour-de-force performance in Under the Tuscan Sun taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you need a change of location and a hot Italian lover. Go to your local family-owned Italian restaurant, wear your most form-fitting clothing, and look in the kitchen for a guy in a waiter’s vest. Give him a wink and then step out behind the dumpster and wait for him to find you there. You’re a little let down: he speaks perfect English. He said he was born here in America and his family is third-generation Greek. Fuck. Oh well. Put your kneepads on and get to business. When you go home, you’ll look your significant other in the eye and finally have the strength to leave and start your new life. You’ll move two blocks away to a whole new view of the same street and you’ll never look back.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21): Scorpio, go to your local grocery store right now and buy yourself a pack of Little Debbie Nutty Bars and a tub of pistachio gelato. You’ll thank me later.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21): As Teresa Giudice once said, “family is family,” and you’ve been neglecting yours. Your grandmother misses you. Give her a call and try to avoid politics. She’ll bring up her hero Donald Trump, and you’ll remember why you stopped calling grandma in the first place. When she sees your new belly button ring this summer at the pool, she’s going to tell you that you’re going to hell. But stay strong and love thy racist neighbor. Grandma’s too frail to take a punch at this stage in her life.

The animation was just fun and whimsical and portrayed bodies and sexuality in a really novel, euphemistic manner. Honestly, animation is super under-utilized for films for all ages. I loved the magical and fanciful imagery of this film—it’s like if Angela Carter became an animator, except way fewer empowered women (to be honest, she’s the only author I’ve ever read who could be considered as a writer working within “magical realism,” hence the name-drop). Watch this film if you’re a control freak and try to let go, or if you’re a member of the Republican party, and then vote for Hillary in the general elections.

“Ultraviolence”

Tiny Vikings break Jane Austen.

They play grab- ass in class, crash their dad’s Stratus

on the weekends. They come together

in clusters to imagine our overthrow, gossip about our bad

breath. They creep into our beds as we sleep, gut us

Staff member Liz Richardson wants to read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: “This book tells the story of the lives of a young, blind, French girl and an orphan German boy in occupied France during World War II.”

“Awakening in New York” by Maya Angelou

Staff member Connor Boyle wants to read Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine by Diane Williams (Short Stories): “These are Micro-fiction, short stories that are dense with imagery and leave you with more to chew on that you expected.”

pisces: it’s pisces season fricker !!!!!!!  ha ha!! wow have i got some news for you [spoiler alert] there are gonna be LOTS OF FEELINGS. i read on some random astrology website recently that one of pisces’ weaknesses is being sad. which is super fucked up imo. being sad is hard. be strong this month. be sure to show affection to your loved ones—it's been a long winter and they miss you.

sagittarius: the way grass emerges (the grass that isn't dead, that is) from under melting snow—looks like fingers kinda. i might recommend a small spell: write out the words of a wish or a regret all over and around your hands. if you wrote a regret, let the ink dry. wash your hands with plain soap until it's all gone. do this all at once and late at night. if you wrote a wish, do the same; it will be different.

cancer: big tip here: mashed potatoes with some beans in there. it’s so good. protein baby. this month i’d highly recommend getting highly fucked up on how so much stuff comes out of the ground. and we eat it. and like it’s so good. idk maybe that doesn’t fuck you up but it really should.

taurus: you’re still recovering from that brutal february, i know. please consider the warmth you might be experiencing this month as positive energy from all of those who love you. like i know it’s heat that comes from the sun or whatever lol but it’s also just energy from people around you. also consider the possibility that the warmth you feel from those who love you is from the sun. because, well, it’s the same. consider also less coffee this month and more tea. some of that good chamomile right before bed. yeah baby.

aries: your actions haven’t been lining up with your goals recently. this month is going to be tough, as you try to realign yourself. try some yoga imo—maybe you could find a free class somewhere bc those classes are pretty expensive sometimes. try to find a vintage clock radio—like a nice 80’s sony dream machine. might help with getting out of bed :0)

gemini: there are some people you owe apologies to. consider the possibility that you might owe one to yourself. march is a month of great change—like february to april wow that’s a lot. let yourself change too. this can be hard, especially for the people around you, but it’s essential; it’s human; you’re human.

virgo: buy more snacks honestly. like it’s actually not so good to eat big ass meals a few times a day, and it’s better to snack. i’m not a dietician so legally i can’t give you food advice, but snacks are also very important for the soul. march is a very good month for snacks. keep some snacks in your pocket or bag this month. you might make a friend or two lookin’ for a snack—they might be a squirrel or a goose or even a person lol remember that friend you made way back in the day because you had some snacks together? shoot them a text.

libra: the full moon this month is called the worm moon lmao that is so rad. meditate on that and also worms because they are very cool, so important, and moreover, extremely cute. idk if i’d normally suggest this, but actually read some poetry this month. i’d also recommend scoping out a library—one with some outdoor seating. read some poems (not by white dudes) and think about how incredible it is that people actually do anything at all. you’ve been struggling with this yourself. i think this month will be better for you.

I turn my eye again to public art on Penn’s campus.

When talking about Covenant by Alexander Liberman, more commonly known as “the Tampons,” it is important to note that this sculpture cost over $100,000 to install on Penn’s campus. This information is easily accessible through Google, you can trust me on this one. So already, we have to think about this in terms of cost-benefit analysis (I never took ECON 001—am I even using this term correctly?). I am completely unqualified to determine whether this sculpture was “worth” the money in terms of Penn students’ enjoyment, but that number should be in the back of all of our minds as we look at this staple of Penn’s public art with a critical eye.

I love this piece’s title. It’s hysterical. This harsh (“crude” is not quite the right word for the sculpture’s geometric appearance, but I think it somehow applies) red archway has such a poetic and symbolic title! This is no mere eyesore—it’s a covenant! Suddenly this piece has Biblical connotations. Yikes.

This piece makes me think of stalagmites holding hands. I can’t really qualify that image—it’s intuitive, but I do gather a sense of “togetherness” from this piece. These weird lipstick-like tubes growing together to form this archway. Maybe I just completely offered a defense for this piece’s title.

This piece is not pretty—to put it more bluntly, it’s an eyesore. It is painted perhaps the most garish shade of red I’ve ever seen (I know I suggested the Button get painted pretty much this exact shade of red, but what would be campy in one context becomes unsettling in another). But I think it gets its point across rather well. You don’t need to put your thinking hat on for this one.

“Miley Cyrus or Manatee?” by James Reidel

“Long Marriage” by Gerald Fleming

Staff member Julian wants to read Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory: This is a collection of short stories that serve as an autobiography for Nabokov from 1903 until 1940 when he emigrated to America. It mostly deals with his childhood, and is dedicated to his wife Vera.

Staff member Sam Myers wants to read To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: “Explore one family’s trials and tribulations in their trips to the Isle of Skye in Scotland, as well as the complexities of experience and human relationships.”

taurus: there’s no shame in wearing earplugs to a gig, or even the club. loads of places give them out for free because it’s a good idea to wear them, plain and simple. don’t worry about what anyone else will think, it’s probably not worth having friends who want you to have tinnitus.

gemini: cancer, except with interpersonal relationships

cancer: be wary in public toilets. every time you sit on a wet seat or find out something’s broken you swear you’ll be more careful in the future, but honestly, do you ever remember until it’s already happened again?

leo: i know it's tempting to put food you can't get often or that you really love on a pedestal, always saving it for the perfect time to eat it and thinking any moment you fancy it isn't good enough, but it's way more imperfect to let it go out of date than to eat it while watching buffy in your underwear.

virgo: lie to strangers. not big ones, and not in a mean way, just for a harmless bit of fun. see if you can convince someone you'll never see again that you're a different age, from a different city, that you worked with katy perry early in her career, that you're in town because you run some ludicrous startup company doing experimental marketing for a secret michael bay project or you make kickstarted bluetooth enabled minimalist bikeseats. could be exciting.

libra: allow yourself the simple pleasure of reading up about random shit on wikipedia and following whatever links come up. did u know boris johnson claims to have boxed against the dali llama? there’s a whole page for “alternate forms of the name John”. have some fun with it.

scorpio: use the moments u fake text in public when yr trying to look busy or trying to avoid social stuff to actually write stuff. u could get a fairly sizeable online following for making introverted microfiction tbh.

saggitarius: you can do it pal. 

capricorn: try and find your old social media accounts this month. who gave u bebo luv? what’s your myspace looking like? check out what was important to 14 year old u and the conversations you had, reminding yourself of your old passions could be really heartwarming. or it could be the most soul-crushingly embarrassing thing in the world, in which case, now is the time to plan your response if other people find them, or try and annihilate every sign that younger you (and most importantly, your old hairstyles) ever existed.

aquarius: if you kept a notebook in the toilet you could probably make a zine with all the time u spend in there. you could call it ‘shit lit’. or ‘toilet paper’. or ‘flush!’. something to think about.

“Mary and Her Child,” Anonymous