S T A T E M E N T The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Wednesday, January 19, 2022 — 7 Read more at MichiganDaily.com Click! This Moment Matters OSCAR NOLLETTE-PATUL- SKI Statement Columnist In the past few months, I have developed the habit of instinctually tapping my thumbs against my other fingers, as if I’m pantomiming a crab, or my hand is a pair of tongs grabbing at a piece of air. I think I adopted this mannerism as an iteration of something my friend Emily does, who got it from my friend Aviva. When they’re excited to see each other, their forearms fold upward and they rotate their hands and wrists with their fingers in a fist, in a celebration of mutual recognition. When I imitate them, I tap my fingers together, my arm folded upward on itself, with my fingernails pointing to the sky. The conclusion of the motion is reminiscent of the hand in the chef’s kiss expression. I’m not exactly sure what put this into my emotive vocabulary other than that it’s fun to pick up expressions from one’s friends. I have noticed myself tapping my fingers together more regularly, usually when something is particularly satisfying or memorable. They pressed each other to grab at the air when I stepped out onto my back porch and saw the white traces of the first snowfall of the season, and they seeked to lift the words off the page when I reached the ending of a short story that shifted my perspective. They picked at the chords of a song that caught me by surprise, and sometimes remembering the way a brick building looks against a blue sky ten years ago is enough to prompt my fingerprints together. *** When I was ten or eleven, teetering on the fulcrum between elementary school and adolescence, my parents signed my brother and I up for a day camp at our local Humane Society, a national organization of animal shelters. Inspired by our pet cat, Penny, we were to attend the Cat and Bunny Training camp at the Society’s West Michigan branch. Hopes and dreams of converting our cat from a wayward, kitchen-counter-wanderer to a living room star evolved quickly, and we imagined her leaping over couches and ottomans with grace. This would become even more marvelous once we told others that Penny was 13 years old, a feline senior citizen. We would prove our case against those that called cats untrainable and develop a repertoire of tricks that would be the envy of all. Our father drove us out to the camp’s location, at the animal shelter tucked in a dull office park near the expressway. We walked up to the brick building under a June blue sky, and checked in at the front desk. My brother and I were sent down the linoleum corridor to the multipurpose room where, upon opening the double doors, we were greeted with the echoing voices of dozens of seven to twelve-year-olds. The counselors, high schoolers simply in need of community service hours, tried to herd all of us into chairs at the long folding tables — but order was not truly restored until the woman in charge of the camp, Ms. Ashley, stepped into the room. Reminiscent of a principal striding into a rowdy school cafeteria, she first decried the noise level but then welcomed us “to the first ever Cat and Bunny training camp!” Announcing this before the glossy stares of eighty school-age children suddenly made Ms. Ashley aware of the difficulties this first-time effort would entail. Could she really promise these kids the skills to train their cats and rabbits to sit, stay and roll over? Her admittances of “we’ve never done this before” and “we’ll see how this turns out” certainly did not garner confidence within the crowded room; the high school counselors still dazed with the task of training children to sit and stay themselves. Nevertheless, we would set out to do what we signed up for, and after Ms. Ashley’s not-quite- inspirational speech, the room was split up by table group and we were sent off to the next activity. Activities at Cat and Bunny Training Camp varied by day, but all were accompanied by the overtones of the noxious smell of animal waste and a chorus of dissonant meows. Near the end of the week, we mainly just pet the bunnies and kittens, and fed them under the burnt-out guidance of program staff. In the beginning, however, a genuine effort was made to educate and indoctrinate the rabbits and cats on various commands in the English I’ll bite: Giving into the ‘Twilight’ renaissance Read more at MichiganDaily.com MACKENZIE HUBBARD Statement Columnist HALEY JOHNSON Statement Columnist I read the “Twilight” Saga out of order so my mom wouldn’t know what I was up to. I was in the sixth grade, a time in my life when if I wanted to access the Internet to pirate a book — or even look up the saga’s correct ordering — I had to sit down at the massive desktop computer in my kitchen before my entire family. Even in the unlikely event that the kitchen was vacant, the constant hum of the computer would surely expose me, alerting someone that I was online. Not happening. I was left guessing about the characters’ origin stories and relationships before I realized I had skipped an entire book. Years later, I would learn from mom that she didn’t even own a copy of the first book. Our next- door neighbor had fallen victim to Twilight-mania and insisted my mom borrow her copy; a few days later my mom ordered “New Moon” without even finishing “Twilight.” I read “New Moon” in the nook between my twin-sized bed and my room’s lavender walls, careful to conceal my reading. After finishing the series (and going back to read “Twilight,” courtesy of my local library), I feigned ignorance to every reference toward the books and acted disinterested at any suggestion that I read them. Simultaneously enthralled and unimpressed, I couldn’t get through the novels fast enough, but was also hesitant to cash in on any of the cultural capital — or lack thereof, depending on who you asked — that came with them. I wanted to say I had read the books everyone was talking about, but didn’t want to endure detracting remarks from critics. “Why would you read that?” “You know that they’re not any good, right?” Maybe I was in a “not like other girls phase,” where I rejected anything marketed toward women and felt silly for picking the books up in the first place. Maybe I just didn’t like “Twilight.” By 2011, around the time I was reading the books, the “Twilight saga” had sold over 120 million copies and turned into a blockbuster film franchise. It had also received widespread criticism for its portrayal of toxic relationships, religious undertones and appropriation of indigenous culture. In 2009 and 2010 it made the American Library Association’s list of most commonly banned books. Simultaneously loved and hated, the media couldn’t stop talking about “Twilight.” Young adult fantasy-romance was admittedly not to my usual taste; I was in the middle of a love affair with historical fiction at the time, and basically all I read was “Little House on the Prairie” knock-offs. I’m not sure if I would’ve picked up the saga if it hadn’t been all around me. I remember classmates wearing “Twilight” merchandise in sixth grade and their impassioned fights over Team Jacob vs Team Edward. I was eleven, I wasn’t even the franchise’s target demographic. It was nearly impossible to exist in the late 2000’s without absorbing some knowledge of it. After the media frenzy died down, it seemed like the saga was destined to die the same quiet death most mid- 2000s young adult novels did. A whole era of teen literature — ranging from major successes like “The Hunger Games” to mediocre variations on stories like “Divergent” — became media empires, immortalized in film and merchandise, only to quietly fade into pop-culture obscurity. The merch goes on clearance, the discourse dies down, something else takes its place. Then came the Twilight Renaissance. A catch-all term for the series reemergence, the Twilight Renaissance was sparked by fan’s creativity and unapologetic love for the saga. Despite my ambivalence toward the original saga, I was an early convert to the second wave of “Twilight” hysteria. In my mid- teens, about three years after I read “Twilight,” I was border-line addicted to Tumblr, but felt a weird sense of shame about being on the platform. I hardly mentioned the hours I spent working on my blog making GIFs, themes and text posts to any of my real-life friends. Tumblr was also where I accidentally discovered that a “Twilight” community was still alive and thriving. I began seeing posts from @keepingupwiththecullens on my dashboard, a blog that bravely asks “what if twilight [sic] were a trashy reality show?” The blog edited the movie cast into Kardashian-style confessionals, perfectly combining the absurdity of the original books and reality TV. It was funny and nostalgic, it breathed life into some of the flatter moments and characters. I was hooked. Some writers have traced the Twilight Renaissance back to May 2020, when Stephanie Meyer Read more at MichiganDaily.com I stab my friends Few people have seen me quite as messy like the captain of the foil fencing squad has. She’s seen me dissociated at parties after a single shot of vodka, glitter on both of our eyes, making conversation about shared Irish heritage to ground me without even knowing. She’s seen me gasping for air after a bout, telling me to guard my highline to stop getting stabbed in the neck. She’s seen me crying outside of the Sports Colusium, disclosing incidents of sexual harassment. I joined the fencing team in fall 2019, having never touched a weapon before. By the end of the first practice, sweating more than I ever had in my life in a claustrophobically hot gym, I decided these were my people here on this campus. For somewhere between six and nine hours a week, fencing was my safe place — a place to be angry and stressed, a place to take out aggression and to laugh harder than I had any other time that week. *** There is a certain mindset that you have to tap into the moment you step on the fencing strip. No matter how many touches your opponent gets, no matter how far behind you are, the bout — the three minutes (or five touches) you spend facing an opponent — isn’t over until the referee calls the final touch. In short, you make every touch count. You do not think about the score; you act as if each round is the only round. It is a mindset that works in two ways. If you are behind in touches, and it seems impossible to win the bout, you don’t give up. You stay concentrated. Your opponent could get overconfident and slip up, leaving the target area open. Likewise, if you are ahead in touches, you can’t get cocky. A single moment could be the difference between having a formidable lead and your opponent closing the gap. It also works to keep you grounded in the moment because time seems to move differently on the strip. Notoriously, there was an Olympic fencing bout with one second left on the clock that continued on for several more minutes. Seconds stretch out, and three minutes feels never ending. Five points feels impossible. But you can’t think about that. You can only think about the next touch. I’ve heard the sport described as physical chess. Sometimes it feels like that — planning your attack five steps ahead. Sometimes it feels just like you’re just trying to stay on your feet until the bout is over. *** While every second on the strip counts, club sports as a whole are a different story. Club sports on the University’s campus are often overlooked. As a Big Ten school, really the only sports anyone pays much attention to are varsity sports, mostly football and basketball. Occasionally swimming will get a mention. Maybe soccer or hockey is noted. But nowhere on The Michigan Daily website is there a tab for club sports; you have to search for tidbits. Despite being incredibly competitive, having won the Big Ten title in 2019 and the bronze medal in NCAA championships in the same year, the rowing team only has 4 pages worth of content dedicated to their sport. Most of the other club sports are not mentioned at all. Fencing, which won the USACFC national title in 2019, hasn’t been mentioned by The Michigan Daily since 2006. I’m not bitter. There are 30 club sports at the University, but I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of students here Illustrations by Sam Turner, Sarah Chung, and Meghana Tummala Page Design by Sarah Chung and Paige Hodder