Talia M. Blatt
Latest Articles
Dropping Out and Cashing In: The Rise of DAOHQ
Lucas Chu and Emmet Halm, Harvard drop-outs and founders of crypto startup DAOHQ, see themselves as part of a new vanguard of anti-institutional entrepreneurs. But have they really distanced themselves from the institutions they critique?
Therapize Me?
What would accessible, meaningful, comprehensive mental health care at Harvard entail? How can our existing services be used in concert to provide a more tailored safety net for students? And what responsibility does the University have in providing this network of care?
Bad Plant Mom
Plenty of people kill their plants, but I shouldn’t be one of them. Plants motivate much of my art and writing; I’m taking a plant biology course and researching forests for my thesis. There’s an embarrassing dissonance between how much I care about plants and how little I manage to take care of them.
Shelter Skelter
Councilor Quinton Y. Zondervan points out that an end to the pandemic could come with a surge in homelessness, as the eviction moratorium expires. “There’s going to be a wave of evictions, of people who couldn’t afford to pay their rent. It’s a horrible disaster waiting to happen,” he says. “[It will] disproportionately impact Black and Brown community members ... We can’t go back to normal,” he adds. “We have to [do] better, because normal was unjust.”
Classically Abby is a Shande Far Di Goyim
"Pretty much every girl I know has seen advertisements for these videos. Her ads are like the Shen Yun fliers of YouTube: ubiquitous, pretty, and vaguely cult-like. All of her thumbnails somehow look identical, even though she is wearing slightly different hairdos in all of them."
New Roommates
I have also watched, uninterrupted, as they grew through cat adolescence. I can’t see their ribs when they breathe anymore, and there is a new fleshiness to their jowls that I press my fingers into when I scratch their chins.
Vision: in the forest (self-portrait)
Imagining the diffusion of the self in nature
A Reel in Gray
I tell myself that film photography, through its materiality and delayed gratification, connects me more meaningfully to other people than digital communication can — as if I’m subversive because I can hold a moment in time in my hand, rather than degrade it on a screen.
Strange Homecomings
It is finally Thanksgiving — a time to celebrate and express gratitude for our most familiar faces. And yet, as per usual, I’m thinking about strangers.
Songs in the Key of Zoom
The Passim School of Music has offered classes, workshops, and private lessons to the Cambridge community for 20 years. All of its offerings have been virtual since March.
Latest Media
Talia Endpaper 1
A box of various plants the author's friends entrusted to her to take care of.
Talia Endpaper 2
The author shows off the red bell pepper she grew but forgot to eat.
Talia Endpaper 4
A colorful bowlful of tomatoes the author grew and gave away.
