Jude Ryan – Literary Arts Blogspace

Crochet: Remembrance Series

So, I have ADHD. My parents have known for a while, or at least entertained the possibility of me having it. My third grade teacher was the first one to mention it to my parents, but I think it kind of went to the back of their minds, as that teacher and I never got along. But, about a year ago, I got professionally diagnosed with ADHD. ADHD and ADD used to be thought of as different, but now they’re both under the same terms, differentiated as ADHD Hyperactive and ADHD Inattentive. I am the latter, and my parents knew something was off when my grades dropped drastically in about ninth grade and onwards. Now, I am intelligent (not to toot my own horn) but I barely got by with Cs and Ds, while also having high standardized test scores. My GPA was around a 2.5 something, and that was a problem. I got put on medication soon after, but during that small interim period of diagnosed and unmedicated, I picked up crochet! My aunt Peggy had crocheted for years, and those would always be her Christmas or birthday gifts, but she got tired of it and moved on to beading, and she makes some pretty insane stuff with it. She wanted to get rid of all of her yarn and called me and my mom over to take some of it. She had about 4 full trash bags of yarn, and I picked over it all happily. She gave me some crochet hooks and I got to work, teaching myself how to crochet using internet tutorials and patterns. Now, after almost a year of crocheting, I’ve gotten to be incredibly talented at it. I’ve done so many projects and it has helped me overcome my inattentive struggles by giving me something to do with my hands in class while I listened to my teachers. It keeps me from zoning out in a way that medication hasn’t been able to, to my knowledge. In my almost year long stint of crocheting, I’ve done lots of projects. My first one was a bag made out of granny squares, which I never really finished. It still works as a bag, but there’s no lining in it so I can’t really put anything small in it. My second project was a scarf-like wrap made out of a simple black yarn. I really liked it and I enjoyed making it, but I never really wear it because it’s always either too hot or too cold. My third finished project was a star-shaped swaddle I made for my cousin’s newborn, though I never sent it and now I’m sure he’s grown too big for it (sorry, Hannah!). My fourth and most recent project was a large triangle shawl, made with an ombre grey and stony blue yarn. This one, I try to wear often, though it’s not cold enough for it anymore. Right now, I’m working on a project with MSA’s Crochet Club as a whole which I’m incredibly excited for. My next article in the last edition of RISE will be about this.

Much love,
Jude.

Punk Music is Political???

Okay, I admit, the title is a bit of clickbait because I’ve known for a while that punk music is political. Punk music has been used as an anti-establishment protest device since its inception, using heavy rock and lyrical call-outs to get its point across. Now, I’d like to preface this by saying, punk music in its entirety isn’t political, and punk isn’t the only political music, but punk started out political.

Punk Rock had its start in the 1970s in small clubs in London, San Fran, New York, Boston, and LA, drawing inspiration from 50s rock and roll and 60s garage rock. Punk music has been anti-institution since inception, and has been used as a feminist device as well by the likes of Patti Smith and L7 (one of my favorite punk bands ever.)

Patti Smith was an artist and poet who was very active during the beginning of punk, being one of the pillars of the community, she toured North America with her band The Patti Smith Group, influencing punk artists of later generations.

L7 was another punk band, though functioning in the latter 80s. they were one of the first all-female punk bands in the game. They have been staunchly political since their beginning and are to date one of my all-time favorite bands. They formed the Rock for Choice movement in the 90s, aimed at holding concerts over a ten year period to raise funding for the pro-abortion movement of the time.

The Slits were the first all female punk band (to my knowledge) and had one of the defining releases of the punk era. They were heavily inspired by Patti Smith and toured with many punk bands of the time. The Slits cycled through members, having a total of 15 members in their time.

Now, being a bit sick has left me with little energy, so this blog post didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted it to, but I hope you enjoyed and maybe give some of these artists a listen!

Much love,
Jude ♡

My Top songs by Hiatus Kaiyote

Over the past few weeks, I found that I was revisiting a band that I listened to a lot my sophomore year. Hiatus Kaiyote. Hiatus Kaiyote is a jazz/funk band from Melbourne, Australia. The Lead singer Nai Palm, born Naomi Saalfield, bassist Paul Bender, Simon Mavin playing keyboard, and drummer Perrin Moss, all comprise this wonderful band. Nai Palm and Paul Bender met after one of Palm’s solo shows and soon after duetted together and resultingly formed Hiatus Kaiyote. I’ve been listening to HK since about October 2023 and over that time I’ve gone through almost their entire discography.

Canopic Jar

Canopic Jar is one of my favorites because of the eerie melody and the poetic lyrics. It is the second track on an EP of the same name. The instrumentals of the song remind me of a suspenseful and almost… halloween-esque scene? That’s the best phrase I can think of to describe it. A Canopic Jar is a type of vessel used by ancient Egyptians to preserve their organs and by extension their souls for the afterlife. HK uses this idea of a canopic jar to symbolize preserving a relationship for another time, to come back to. This is shown by the lyric “I’ll keep your heart in canopic jar.”

Blood and Marrow

Blood and Marrow is the 12th track on HK’s album, Mood Valiant. Being the last track, it provides a dynamic ending to the album, moving through upbeat instrumentals and then tapering off at the end to provide a resounding finale to Mood Valiant. My favorite lyric from this song is “You could get through to the blood and marrow/ deeper than a cinder in snow.” Granted that lyric repeats plentifully but it doesn’t take away the meaning that this “you” can reach the singer’s deepest parts of themself.

Love Heart Cheat Code

Love Heart Cheat Code is the title track of HK’s most recent album, with the same name. Love Heart Cheat Code is like a musical poem, repeating lyrics in a sort of chant and an upward beat that doesn’t make it seem repetitive, at least to me. I find that I can’t stop thinking about this one line “Hotter than lava/ Slicker than lightning,” no matter how hard I try. I don’t know what it is about that line, but it’s like a worm in my brain.

Laputa

The song ‘Laputa’ is one of the more auditorily interesting songs to me, filled with deep imagery and a flowing beat, it pays tribute to the Ghibli film “Castle in the Sky.” In this film, there is a floating island named “Laputa.” This song provocatively illustrates a sort of longing for that island, or the idea of it.

Cinnamon Temple

Cinnamon Temple is one of my favorites because it blends many genres. This one feels very punk-inspired, and that draws me to it because I do listen to a good bit of punk music. My mom has told me that it sounds very chaotic, but I think that’s what makes me love it. I find that it’s very cathartic to move to the beat of this song. It is the 10th song on LHCC and begins the departure from Hiatus Kaiyote’s regular style into a more guitar-heavy and rock inspired vibe. This journey only really lasts for two songs, Cinnamon Temple and White Rabbit (which is a cover of another song of the same title by Jefferson Airplane), but I’d love to see HK take a deeper foray into this style.

Anyways, that’s my music rant! I plan to write many more of these, so stay tuned!

Much love,
Jude ♡

Wellness Culture. History Repeats Itself.

Wellness Culture is a huge part of our lives. From magazines at the counter of the grocery store, preaching about some nameless woman losing 15 pounds in only two weeks and how you can too, to ads on newspaper articles toting a new and “dietician recommended” weight loss pill with absolutely no side effects (which is untrue). Our society is rife with people claiming if you’re fat you’re ugly, and if you’re skinny you’re at the height of beauty. This has caused many health issues in women. Eating disorders, mainly, but also drug addiction. First it can cause people to take unhealthy or ineffective supplements, which can cause damage to your immune system.

“Wellness” was a term coined by the so-called father of the movement, Dr. Halbert L. Dunn. Dunn defined wellness as the seeking of not just good health, but the personal well-being and betterment. Dunn’s program of “wellness” is not governed by the rules of medicine that we have developed, but some kind of intangible standard that shifts and changes with the individual seeking it. This standard began with the “life reform” fad in nineteenth-century Europe. One such European, Louis Kuhne, published a book in 1891 (yes it does go back that far) recounting his struggles with chronic pain and illness and spurning the medical establishment for his lack of improvement. In his book, Kuhne prescribed all sorts of phony, natural cures for seemingly every ailment. Hydrotherapy, cutting out salt and sugar, fresh air, and strict vegetarianism were just a few of these “cures.” He went on to open a clinic in his town of Leipzig, Germany and became successful peddling snake oil cures. Kuhne had absolutely no medical basis for any of these claims. He was a freaking carpenter, for Christ’s sake! He had no medical experience, no degree, no nothing, but still, his book became a famous best-seller. Now, Kuhne was not some sort of prodigy. He simply used the cultural zeitgeist of industrialization to manipulate people into buying into his holistic healing. Many Europeans saw the industrial complex as dehumanizing and damaging, and medicine of the time did not help, approaching patients from a strictly technical stance, rather than a personalized one, which many people craved. After 1874, Germany passed a law mandating the smallpox vaccine. Many anti-vaccination activists (I guess history does repeat itself, oh hello, 2020) protested that they were being “poisoned” by vaccines and moved heavily toward alternative medicine, which was readily available thanks to Peddler Kuhne and the ever-expanding health market. This doctrine morphed into something called “life-reform.” Groups of people believing in this new phenomenon – including Kuhne – played around with extreme veganism, nudism, open-air exercise, sunbathing, spas, and raw food diets. They subscribed to health magazines like Vegetarian Lookout and The Natural Doctor, spent time at resorts promising weight loss and better health, and disavowing white bread and other processed foods. “Life-reform” began as an admirable effort to lower inactivity and indulgences, morphed into a program that transformed the meaning of health from a lack of sickness into a lifestyle that paragoned self-restraint and moderation in every aspect of life. Good health became synonymous with self-fulfillment in the form of moderation, and a certain standard of beauty. It changed into something that made people incredibly body-conscious and anxious about how their bodies fit into the strict molds of society. Soon, health became a commodity, rather than a part of survival. Does all this sound familiar? I hope so, because here in the 2000s and beyond, “life-reform” morphed again into something called “wellness culture.” With the uprise of social media and instant connection across vast distances, wellness culture has been in the hands of anyone with the ability to open their phone and look at Instagram or TikTok. Those skinny women wearing beige yoga pants with a matching Stanley cup that has so much stuff strapped to it you can’t even hold it correctly? It’s a facade. Now, including the commodification of health, wellness culture has added more warts onto its ugly face. Overconsumption. See, you may think that the doctrine of moderation peddled to you by influencers is helping you to clear out your home, but it’s really just making way for new things to buy, linked on their Amazon Storefronts. They have propended supplements filled with meaningless leaves, objects for you to pay for that are completely bogus, and fasting yourself to the point of starvation and unhealthy weight loss. History really does repeat itself, from anti-vaxxers to fake supplements, we should all be more mindful of what we are feeding ourselves, brain and body.

Life is Strange: True Colors (Part 2 of Blog Post “Life is Strange”)

Continuing on my post from last week, this post is about the fourth installment in the Life is Strange series, True Colors. WARNING: THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE STORY!!!!!

In True Colors, players control Alexandra “Alex” Chen, a child previously stuck in the foster care system who has the gift of psychic empathy. Alex’s powers allow her to see and feel the emotions of other people, with those emotions presenting to Alex as an aura of colors in the air around a person. These abilities are viewed as a curse to Alex, as she gets lost in them, and feels the emotions as if they are her own. This has led her to view her powers as a curse. In the start of the game, Alex is fresh off a bus to Haven Springs, Colorado, where her brother, Gabe, lives. Gabe shows Alex around the town, introducing her to many residents. They town is mostly employed by a mining company, Typhon. Typhon is a prolific company, present in the entirety of the story and even before Gabe and Alex are even born. In the style of all the Life is Strange games, True Colors is set up in episodic style, though unlike other games it was released altogether on September 10th, 2021. Back to the game, Gabe leads Alex back to his apartment, which he gifts to her. They then meet Mac, an angry citizen who believes Gabe is in a relationship with Mac’s girlfriend, Riley. This is not true, as Riley is applying for a college, which Gabe is assisting her with. Mac attacks Gabe with Alex in the same room. Alex is soon “infected” by Mac’s anger and attacks Mac in animalistic fashion, driving him off. Afterwards, Alex explains to Gabe the nature of her powers.

Later that night, Gabe, Alex, and another citizen, Ryan, search for a missing boy. The boy is found in an old Typhon mining facility, stuck on a rotting tree over a chasm. The boy believes that there is a monster hiding under the log, waiting to grab him. His fear makes him immovable. Alex climbs across the log slowly and attempts to coax the boy back to safety, but is unable to do so. She tunes into his fear, unlocking another facet of her powers, the ability to gently influence these emotions and use them to assist people through their trauma. When Alex taps into the boy’s fear, she begins to see through his eyes and views the “monster” in the chasm. She knows that the monster isn’t real, but the boy’s fear makes it seem tangible. Braving the boy’s fear, Alex leads him to safety. Gabe tries to rappel down to retrieve something, but blasts sound off. Earlier that night, they had told Typhon to stop blasting, but Typhon didn’t listen. They began blasting, causing the chasm to deteriorate and crush Gabe.

This is only a short summary of the first episode, so I implore you to play the full game, as it is a masterpiece.

Much love,
Jude ♡

Life is Strange

Over the summer, I did not have much to do. Being a teenager with no car and parents who work all day does not offer a thriving summer social life. So, like any teenager, I spent my time playing video games and watching TV. Two of my favorite games to play over the summer were Life is Strange, and Life is Strange: True Colors.

Life is Strange

Life is Strange began in January 2015, when Dontnod Entertainment released the first part of the game. Life is Strange was released in episodic form, spanning five releases. The story follows a girl named Max Caulfield who, during an altercation between two other characters, finds that she has gained the ability to rewind time. She goes on to use these powers to keep a girl from being shot via a fire alarm pressed at just the right time. Max realizes that the girl is her childhood best friend, Chloe, who she left behind when she moved to Seattle. In the following days, many irregular environmental phenomena and the recent disappearance of a local girl lead Max and Chloe to begin investigating both. I won’t spoil too much about the game though so that you will be able to play it through on your own! This game had so many good twists and turns that I just couldn’t get enough. My next blog will be about the fourth game in this series, Life is Strange: True Colors.

Much love!
Jude ♡

Excerpt from “dear, applicant”

The following blog post is an excerpt from my short story “dear, applicant.” I wrote this story for an assignment back in September and the excerpt is of a dream sequence. I was hurting for ideas while writing this, so I took something that is rife, here in high school. Anxiety about college. I’m a little afraid for college. I have no idea where I’m going to go, but at least I have some ideas of what I want to do. For the assignment, we had to write a short story with elements from a mentor text. The following is the excerpt.

The numbers swam, red LEDs skipped through the windows of the train. They smiled at her, waving as more got on. A crimson conductor pulled little people onto the train, seating them as they handed over tickets. The light got brighter, the small people growing and pushing at the train, screeching sounds of expanding metal filled the air as the train grew. She wanted to get on, but she didn’t have a ticket. How could she get one? The train started inching away, accelerating until it was steadily chugging away. She chased after it, her legs trying to go at a speed faster than her body could ever hope to achieve. She looked down at her watch. Hands of minutes and hours spun as if time was speeding up. Her eyes trailed back up to the train, wheels pushed against tracks, speeding down rails. As her sight traveled down the tracks, she witnessed a tornado spinning up from the dust. The tornado grew, heading straight down the rails to meet the train steadily gaining speed.

She tried to scream for the train to stop, veer off, something to save the red people in the compartments, but her voice grew hoarse and scratchy. She started running towards the train, but the tornado met metal sooner. The train was lifted into the air, twisted around and torn apart. People and iron screamed together in an unholy chorus of pain. The impact sent the twister off towards her. She turned and dashed away, trying to outrun what she knew she couldn’t. Her feet pounded against the ground, trying to push away at it, get ahead of Mother Nature and her penchant for destruction. She heard the ground crumbling and felt the torrent of wind at her back. One step on a rock sent her falling. She fell for what felt like forever, surrounded by the sound of screams and rushing air.

With a scream and a gasp, she stood, yet her desk, laptop, and papers sat in front of her. The train clock sat there, the artificial whistle sounding off repeatedly. 6:30am.

Remembrance: Once in a Lifetime Experience

This is the first installment of a new series of blogs I’m going to be writing, focusing on remembering different events in my life through a narrative/diary like style.

I’ve been to a concert before. December 20th, 2019, I saw Greta Van Fleet at the UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, LA. It was mediocre. For one, I wasn’t super interested in them, I really just went because my dad and my stepmother wanted to. The music was okay. I felt that GVF was really only popular because they sounded extremely similar to Led Zeppelin, so they didn’t strike me as incredibly original. There was also the fact that I was eleven and had a terrible sleep schedule, so I was exhausted from waiting in line and I fell asleep intermittently throughout the show. The people sitting in front of me were chainsmoking as well, so a headache made it a not very fun experience. Not to say that all concerts are like that, but I did not enjoy it.

Leaping forward into the year 2024 A.D., November 2nd, to be precise, I am in Atlanta, GA. Waiting in my hotel room, I do my makeup. Navy blue liner in my waterline, teal eyeshadow with seafoam green and blue glitter in my inner corners, and electric blue wings accentuate my eyes. I pick out something to put on my lips, a dark grey, almost black, lip-gloss. With my outfit pulled together, me and my dad walk about 20 minutes to the State Farm Arena through the somewhat crowded streets of Atlanta, with advertisements on the surrounding screens for Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard And Soft” Tour. The tour we’re all going to see. The foremost thing in my mind, There’s a lot of people here. I haven’t even stepped foot in the building yet. There is a line of people around the block, all waiting to get inside to see a woman on stage. It’s so odd how we idolize regular people who share talents with a large handful of the population. I love music and singers, but sometimes I think, maybe they were just in the right place at the right time to reach stardom. I say that as if I hadn’t been out of my mind with excitement the entire time, as if I wasn’t one in the throngs of people waiting anxiously to see this woman sing on a stage hundreds of feet away, less than that if you’re rich and lucky. It was absolutely astounding. I loved dancing around with crowds of people, singing along to songs written by someone who would never know who I am. I enjoyed how I couldn’t even hear my own singing, so of course it sounded terrible. The setlist also had some of my favorite songs by Billie Eilish, along with opener Towa Bird, who I’d heard a little bit before the concert but not much to say I enjoyed her music. Now I can confidently say I love her album American Hero. The music was amazing and I was really glad to have time to hang out with my dad in an environment like that. We both love music and it was really nice to have something that I can share with him.

Disconnection: A Journal Entry

So. We’re here. I broke my phone. It was bound to happen. Made out of simple glass, plastic, and lots of computer parts, it wasn’t the strongest thing on earth. I’m reasonably upset about it, I feel. It’s a big part of my life. It’s how I connect with the world, my friends, how I speak to my family, and how I keep myself in check. I use it for reminders, alarms, emails and the like. It’s an incredibly important part of my daily life. I use alarms to wake up and to keep track of time. I use my calendar to plan for things and to make sure I don’t have anything going on when I’m trying to schedule things. Music is an insanely big part of my life, so that’s another thing that I use my phone for. I text and call my parents and family with it. I scroll through social media, which admittedly, isn’t the best use of my time. I jot down notes in it, which now really sucks because I had a lot of writing ideas in my notes that I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to get back. I’m sure this is how it felt when the Library of Alexandria burned down but on a much larger and more dramatic scale. I wonder why I’m so attached to my phone and then I realize, it’s my everything. My parents had the luxury of growing up without all these devices but I’m sure they had something similar. I’m sure their parents thought they had something they were unreasonably attached to. It’s interesting to see how many people tell me, “You have an opportunity to disconnect, now!” I don’t enjoy disconnecting. It highlights how easily bored I get, and how much I don’t like people. It’s also a little difficult to watch everyone be on their phones and not be looking around, even though I know the minute I get a replacement phone, I’ll be exactly the same.

I’m not good at journal entries, so I took to this as more of a conversation, or just me rambling and talking at someone.

-Jude

A Note on Suicide…

The following is an article I wrote for MSA’s school newspaper, RISE. I am one of the co-heads of the Health & Wellness section. Please go check out the entire paper and help support Journalism in schools.

TW: Information about suicide.

Suicide Helpline numbers will be included at the end of this blog post.

In honor of the end of Suicide Prevention Month, I am writing a post on suicide. This is a very grim topic, and I apologize if this is uncomfortable for many of you, but this is something that is a very real threat to our lives. Nobody is completely protected from the causes of suicide, but by talking about it, we can be more aware of it and make it less of something to be hidden. Hiding these feelings, normally called suicidal ideations, is how they go unnoticed. This is dangerous for reasons that I shouldn’t even have to explain.
Suicide, by definition, is the act of harming oneself with the intent to kill. Suicidal ideation is the continued thought of this act. Suicidal ideation is incredibly hard to diagnose or prevent, given that we cannot monitor thoughts. We can monitor behaviors, but if the affected individual is adept at hiding these behaviors, then it can be nigh impossible.
We can look for warning signs, though. These are some of the most common warning signs of suicide: speaking about killing oneself or wanting to die, talking about feeling trapped or hopeless, acting anxious or agitated; being reckless, increased use of alcohol or drugs, extreme mood swings, self-isolation, drastic change in sleep such as sleeping too little or too much, displaying increased aggression, rage, or seeking revenge, and finally, searching for a way to kill oneself, such as searching online, buying a gun, or commonly buying an excess of sleeping pills.
These signs are easily dismissed as being a teenager, and sometimes the sudden influx of hormones do share the signs, but recognizing these signs in family, friends, or children is paramount to their safety. I’m not asking that my readers be constantly vigilant, but somewhat. If anyone you know has had a drastic change in mood, personality or behavior, please check up on them.
This is a topic that is difficult to even write about, much less discuss, but I implore you, dear readers, to be careful. If you notice these signs in yourself as well, please talk to someone about it.
Suicidal thoughts can arise during long periods of excess conflict, change, high local suicide rates, or loss of relationships or a job. Cultural and religious beliefs can also increase the likelihood of suicide by bringing a stigma to the discussion of it, or by making a person believe that it is a noble solution to a personal or interpersonal problem. This is highly incorrect.
Dear reader, if you are struggling with these feelings, I have something I would like you to know. I don’t care if you feel that you have nothing to offer the world. You do. You may not see it, but I know for a fact that you have things to offer the world and others around you. Your smile is beautiful, even if you may not show it, and you have the ability to brighten the day of the people you meet. Even just in a passing smile, or general compliment, you can make someone’s day so much better. You could prevent someone else from feeling the same way you do.
This article is intended to be both a warning and a message to those struggling with suicidal thoughts or those who believe they are completely unaffected by them. Nobody is completely invulnerable to anything, but if we as a society can move past the stigma about suicide, we can make this a world worth living in. I believe that everyone has something to offer our world, even if they do not see it themselves. With that, I will leave suicide hotlines at the bottom of this article. If you need help, do not be afraid to seek it. You deserve all the help that you can get. You matter.

Dial 911 if you are in immediate danger.

Suicide Lifeline
Dial or Text 988 for Hotline
Or, visit chat.988lifeline.org to chat online.

Dial 211 if you are in crisis and need emergency referrals to social and community services but are not currently experiencing a life-threatening emergency

The Youthline specializes in teen-to-teen crisis support, and can be reached from 4-10pm PST for peer services by texting ‘teen2teen’ to 839863, otherwise, it is staffed 24/7 by adult crisis responders at (877) 968-8491

The Trevor Project for LGBTQ+ and questioning youth
1(866) 488-7386