Editor's Note

Dear FM, In a blur of a few months, we have arrived at our last issue for this semester. Yet ironically, our pieces this time aren’t centered on closing doors. Instead, they’re focused on our theme for this special issue: revival. What does it mean for something to be revived? What weight might a revival itself carry? How do we start anew while carrying the vestiges of the past? Our pieces this week poke at some of those questions and more. In a funny yet profound introspection, AXN opens the issue with reflections on how shaving her head in high school taught her what attempts at starting anew are — and aren’t — about. Coming out of FM retirement — a revival in itself! — BWF examines how Disney’s rendition of the “Percy Jackson” series does and doesn’t respond to the ways the original books are more about America and its mythology than Ancient Greece. It is incisive, critical, and will absolutely make your brain gain more wrinkles just from reading it. Classic BWF! Speaking of wrinkly brains, OGP speaks to Zoë K. Hitzig ’15, an economist and prolific poet, about her interests in algorithms, privacy, poetry, and their intersections. Over the course of their conversation, Hitzig explains the “encryption” of academia and poetry, shares her worries about algorithmic control, and reveals her “classically Gen Z” niche microinterest. Writing from Rome but soon to return to FM — yet another revival! — MG blesses us with yet another yearly installment of her reflections on the past year. This time: Dear Junior Year. It is tender and genuine, a story of what it means not to grow from, but around, grief and its cold haze. (Oh, how we’ve missed you, MG, and how we love to hear how amazing your year has been.) Wrapping up our issue is one of our beloved resident creative writers EMK and her beautiful prose. This time, she reflects on translation, what is lost in it, and what a name — and thus a being and a heritage — carry. Profound and poetic, this piece invites you to think about what it means to express the untranslatable — to revive it, perhaps — through one’s life. Some big thank yous are in order for this beautiful issue! THANK YOU SET, LJPE, XCZ, JND, AND OWZ FOR ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL GLOSSY AND BEAUTIFUL DESIGNS! You carry us again and again with this, and it never fails to amaze me. Thank you all especially for your patience with delays and all the little hiccups along the way. Thank you LLL and BHP for the portraits you brought us way before we ended up needing them :’). Thank you MJH, CY, and EJS for proofing despite the boatload of news on your plate. Thank you IYG for taking in stride a piece we assigned to you last minute and for being the diligent and steadfast editor you are. Thank you AEP for so quickly churning out an awesome crossword. Thank you JL and YAK for the editing and emailing and planning help. What would we do without you? Thank you HD for problem-solving and crisis-managing with me this issue (and every issue). Last but certainly not least, THANK YOU ALL FM EXECS IYG, SSL, DRZ, AEP, GRW, STB, AEP, CK, JKW, EKS, JL (the EAL), JL (the inquiry editor), YAK, and SEW for such an amazing first semester! See you all in the fall. FMLove, HD + KT