WE MET ON TINDER, DIDN’T WE? f MEMORY, YOU OLD DOGLOVE’S DEATH f PARIS, YET AGAIN f VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1

DEAR READERS

Think of a moment when a bite of something hot and greasy—say, an empanada—grabbed hold of you and transported you to an afternoon in your grandmother’s kitchen or a late night at a food truck counter; when the scent of a perfume made you think of a close romantic encounter or a day at the beach; when the touch of burlap brought you back to middle school field day and potato sack races. All it takes is a split second of external stimuli for nostalgia to exit the past and enter the present.

Over the past few months, we at HOPSCOTCH have asked ourselves, what would life be like without memory? Our conclusion: It’s simply unfathomable. A defining quality of the human experience, regardless of personal background, is the mere existence of memory as something that occupies a space in our mind and our beings. Despite the content, it is undeniably a universal commonality. We all experience memory and nostalgia in different ways. Both our individual and collective memories amuse us, uplift us, and ground us, and for these reasons they should be celebrate.

In the following pages, you will find visual essays, creative non-fiction, fiction, interviews, reportage, and recipes that invite you to travel through our memories, and hopefully inspire you to explore your own.

Please read from cover to cover, as the editors intended their memories to be shared.

NATALIE CAMPBELL

ASTRID DA SILVA

MAXIMILÍANO DURÓN

ISABELLE ENGLISH

ETHAN JOHNS

KELLYROSE ZIMMERMAN

searching for memorieslorie novak’s work tries to make sense of our recordstext by MAXIMILÍANO DURÓN

AMID THIRTY STACKS of aging front sections of The New York Times, some of which reached well over 3 feet high, installation artist and photographer Lorie Novak tinkered with a seven-plus-year-old MacBook Pro. Crouching among the towers of newspapers that !lled half of her Brooklyn studio, she attempted to boot up the dead laptop that was precariously perched atop one of these uneven piles.

For her latest project, temporarily titled “Above the Fold,” Novak has divided her collection of !fteen-years-worth of papers into categories and subcategories, according to her interpretation of the front-page image. These categories range from the boring, “Politicians,” and the joyful, “Celebration,” to the haunting, “Grieving,” and the unsettling, “Men

(and 6 Women) with Guns.” Above these different-sized piles a screen will chronologically show every category’s lead photo.

Novak started this hoarder-like, obsessive collecting in 1999 in the wake of the Kosovo War and the related NATO bombing, as a way to make sense of the overwhelming amount of images of war and displaced families that appeared throughout The Times. These images haunted her, as many still do today.

“My original idea was to have a stack of papers that signi!ed the war,” she said. “When the war ended, it didn’t really seem like it ended, so I kept saving papers.”

Her use of repurposed newspapers to create layered photographs and multi-channel video installations follows from her previous work in

these media. In one series, “Collected Visions,” she compiled scores of people’s family photographs to create a website and installation at the International Center of Photography in New York that re"ected her vision of how photos affect how people remember certain events. What struck her were people’s relationships to these photographs, how they were etched in their minds, staying with them always.

“I’ve always been interested in how we so badly want to believe photographs,” Novak said after recounting a memory of her watching her baby sister come home from the hospital, which, she says, must have come from a home video, not her own memory. “When we have photographs, those events we remember more or become dominant.”

2 z SIGHT

bodies, 2012, archival ink-jet photograph. ©lorie novak

the wetter the paint

There’s something almost indescribable about standing alone in an art gallery, just after the walls have been painted. The walls are beginning to dry, as the industrial fans continue to roar. I spin around to look at all the works lined up against the walls, waiting to be hung. I close my eyes and take a deep breath to soak up that smell of fresh, white paint. - M.D.

It’s a typical Southern California day. The strong sun and warm winds are cut by the cool ocean breeze. The grass lawn is slightly moist from last night’s sprinklers. My six-year-old self was enchanted with this: sitting in damp grass, my mom setting up !nger paints, and a canvas on my yellow and red Lakeshore easel. - K.Z.

I liked my dirty walls, with pencil markings, tape residue, and doodles lining it; it had character. But my mother, well, she disagreed. She said it looked messy, that the once-white, now gray walls needed a makeover. “Fresh white paint,” she repeated. “It’ll look nice.” I can’t stand the smell, so I never let her do it. - A.D.

I’m in a diner in Dedham, Mass. staring at a stack of warm blueberry pancakes—syrup swimming down six "apjack stories, butter vanishing on their surface; when in the midst of my !rst fork raise, I get an unsolicited scent of solvent and toxic fumes. The culprit: a freshly painted, blown-up portrait of Elvis Presley eating, what else, pancakes. - I.E.

“There’s a jug of turpentine downstairs,” Dad says. As I descend to the basement, I rub my hands together trying to get rid of the lacrosse tape residue that clings to them. The chemical, gasoline-and-pine scent rises visibly from the mouth of the jug, and once on my hands, the tape residue glides off. - E.J.

My friend and I plugged our noses as we "ipped open the cap of the lavender paint can. Being ill-prepared, we jumped on buckets to reach the upper part of the walls. With no ventilation, the summer heat heightened the stench of the paint. Ironically, I ended up not moving into that house, and now a stranger has a spotted purple ceiling. - N.C.

SMELL z 3

We asked our editors, “What comes to mind when you smell a freshly painted wall?” Here are their responses:

my valentinesweet corn falafel with raita and naan text and photography by ISABELLE ENGLISH

I SPENT LAST Valentine’s Day with two of my true loves: Le Marais and le falafel. It was raining in Paris, so I stood with my friend Emma and forty umbrella-shielded strangers in a single-!le line, waiting for what seemed like eight stormy hours to order lunch. When the man in the kelly-green T-shirt that read L’As Du Fallafel !nally came up to me with a pen and an order sheet in hand, I lit up with excitement. He spit words at me that I didn’t understand, so I said oui and non when I could and hoped for the best. Fast-forward twenty minutes, when the warm nest of crispy, golden falafel with smooth, tangy hummus and roasted eggplant was nuzzled into the palms of my hands, nutty tahini dripping down my wrists and my taste buds twitching with an unparalleled anticipation. I thought to myself in the midst of my !rst bite, Who needs a human valentine when you can have one made of chickpeas, cumin, and corn?

Needless to say, this falafel was the falafel I had been dreaming of. It was moist, crunchy, sweet, sharp, and before I knew it, it was gone. So R.I.P. to the best !ve minutes of falafel goodness, of chilly Parisian rainfall, and of my entire life; and hello to my own rendition of fried chickpea spheres of heaven. Made with sweet corn, wrapped in warm naan, and topped with peppery raita, this recipe will transport you to someplace magical, and if you fall in love, maybe even to the city of romance.

4 z TASTE

Falafel:

Ƒ Chickpeas (garbanzo beans), 1 16-oz. can

Ƒ Garlic, 5 cloves Ƒ Onion, 1 cup chopped Ƒ Fresh corn kernels,

1 cup (2 ears) Ƒ Fresh cilantro, 2 Tbsp.

chopped Ƒ Fresh parsley, 2 Tbsp.

choppedƑ Kosher salt, 2 tsp. Ƒ Ground cumin, 1 tsp. Ƒ Crushed red pepper,

# tsp. Ƒ All-purpose "our,

6 Tbsp. Ƒ Baking powder, 1 tsp.

Raita:

Ƒ Plain Greek yogurt, 2# cups

Ƒ Fresh mint, $ cup chopped

Ƒ Ground cumin, 2 tsp. Ƒ Kosher salt, $ tsp. Ƒ Black pepper, $ tsp. Ƒ Ground red pepper,

$ tsp. Ƒ Cucumbers, 2 peeled

and diced (2 cups)

Additional Ingredients:

Ƒ Canola oil, 4 cups Ƒ Naan, 8 rounds Ƒ Cilantro for garnish

1. To prepare falafel, rinse chickpeas; drain. 2. In food processer, pulse garlic until minced. Add

onion, chickpeas, corn, cilantro, parsley, salt, cumin, and red pepper. Sprinkle "our and baking powder over chickpea mixture. Pulse 10-15 times, or until blended. Transfer mixture to bowl, cover, and refrigerate 3 hours or until completely chilled.

3. In the meantime, stir together all raita ingredients in a small bowl. Cover and chill until ready to serve.

4. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.5. Pour oil to a depth of 1# inches into a large heavy

skillet. Heat to 350 degrees.6. In the meantime, shape cooled chickpea mixture

into 45 one-inch balls. 7. Fry balls, in batches, in hot oil for 1 minute, or until

golden and crisp. Once done, transfer to paper towel to drain.

8. In a single level, lay out naan on sheet pan and bake until warm (about 3–5 minutes).

9. Place 6 falafel balls on half of each warmed naan. Spoon about # cup of raita over falafel and fold in half. Garnish with cilantro and serve immediately. Makes: 8 servings

Active Time: 1 hour; Total Time: 4 hours

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THE RECIPE: SWEET CORN FALAFEL WITH RAITA AND NAAN

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hello, old friendwhen you’re the only thing that’s changed about paristext by ETHAN JOHNS

BACKPACKS WERE STOWED, seat backs returned to their upright positions, table trays lifted and locked. The last time I had been on a plane, I had been yelled at for tapping away at a game of Solitaire on my BlackBerry. It seemed as though two years had at least seen some progressive thinking on the part of the airlines, and as I slipped a pair of black headphones over my ears, joining the ranks of zoned out teenagers and middle-aged iPhone enthusiasts alike, I immersed myself in the low, steady, electronic hum of Paul Kalkbrenner’s Azure: !rst in a collection of songs that had kept me tied to Paris—my home for a year—from 3,625 miles away.

Ever since my !rst visit to the city turned out to be a perfect disaster (a classic story of a disappointing bus tour, rude waiters, and unfamiliarity), I have approached returning with an attitude of downplayed indifference —of de"ated expectations—so as to soften the blow in the event that she tries to break me as she has broken so many others. And as the orange glow from that city of light appeared on

the ground, it became clear that those songs in my ear were not touching me as they once had. The smoke-!lled room where they had !rst been played from booming speakers was the property of someone else now, the young man who played them having since returned to his home country. With dry eyes and arms free of goose bumps, I made my way through the terminal and to the bus that would carry me into the bourgeois heart of the city.

I returned to Paris knowing there would be obligations: family members to meet, hands to lend, and a party to attend. All of this I was happy to deal with, so long as there would be time to attain the true goal for my trip.

It was imperative that I !nd my version of the madeleine. Proust may well have tasted his by chance, only to realize that he never even really liked that little cake in the !rst place, but for me this quest was to be no accidental discovery. After two years of disappointing New York City dollar pizza with its sweet red sauce, I was going to eat my old standard— ma crêpe viande hachée fromage —and my memories were going to come "ooding back whether they liked it or not.

The anticipation for that bite was bothersome. As Ernest Hemingway once supposedly said, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays

with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Paris was so moveable that I had picked her up, thrown her over my shoulder like a picnic bundled in a checkered blanket, and brought her back to New York with me. And when you can’t leave Paris behind, it’s hard to enjoy the feast at hand. You !nd it impossible not to compare everything to the way it was there, and the way it was there—in my mind—was always better.

Where, then, would I !nd myself if I tasted that crêpe—my usual triangular street eat, with its Swiss emmenthal, its seasoned Algerian ground beef, its spicy red harissa sauce that could bring tears to my eyes while I devoured it, alone, on my fold-out bed late at night—only to be disappointed? What if that crêpe—what if the city itself—had changed for me while I was away?

Yet as I walk through the Place de la République in the direction of my old apartment I realize that the Paris I knew is almost exactly as I left it. Young skateboarders speed by, cutting through the diverse groups of high school students who

you begin to s! the world di"erently as the Stockholm syndrome sets in.

“6 z TASTE

7

stand around the statue of Marianne smoking cigarettes and speaking a French largely incomprehensible to me: one "ecked with Arabic slang and inverted words that the government would rather have disappear than be spoken in schools or sung in the streets like a new Marseillaise. Le jour de gloire n’est pas encore arrivé.

Marianne, victim of the liberty which she symbolizes, is draped in tattered banners from the Charlie Hebdo manifestations. Pens and pencils are rubber-banded to the small hands of relief sculptures around her base. Je suis Charlie—a declaration of solidarity with the slain cartoonists to say that the liberty of expression cannot so easily be slain—is "anked by spray paint from the hand of one who believes in and fears the growing “threat” of French Islamicization. He fears that which he never learned to understand.

It is Paris as I lived it, yet not the Paris that I remember. In my short years away I had forgotten (or maybe erased?) the beggars who were still sitting on the same dirty corners of a street which, in that cool grey afternoon, had an air of impending destruction foretelling the coming hordes of young drunks pissed out of their heads and ready to vomit their dinners in the middle of the sidewalk, or the coming clown cars full of drug peddlers that would show up around 3 a.m. singing a chorus that sounded something like, “Cocah-een? Maree-wana? Em-day-em-A?”

I PUSHED THROUGH the blue door of the building that had retained its access code after all this time and all these new students, and when it swung open I was confronted by the face of a dear friend, smiling at me as I approached to kiss it on both cheeks. I knew how much had happened to that face since the last time I saw it here. Was he able to see a change in mine?

As Sidney and I walked down the small street and peered through apartment windows, we remembered how small and lonely those little rooms could be. Yet we also thought back on the long, laughter-!lled nights spent among friends: nights which would frequently turn into days as vision blurred and heads throbbed; as we screened !lms, played music, and smoked too many cigarettes. We were all so young, living off our savings with little responsibility, our heads full of dreams and ideals. There was innocence then. ETHAN JOHN’S PARISIAN RESIDENCE HALL IN THE 11TH ARRONDISSEMENT.

8

I walked past my old ground "oor apartment with its metal shutter rolled down. Asha lived two "oors above me in those days, and it would rain sometimes when she watered her plants. Aleck was two windows down, and I do not think I will ever forget the !rst of many times that he would somehow bypass the locked gate, bottle in hand and joint in mouth to come by and lean on my wrought-iron gate, listening rapt as I strummed my guitar and sang.

“Fuah mahn, zat is beauteeful.”In that tempestuous time, life was

paradoxically simple. To be thrown into a foreign country with its foreign language and its foreign pace of life is an experience of renewal and change. You begin to see the world differently as the Stockholm

syndrome sets in. Some are able to resist it; some are not taken under its spell. I did not resist. I loved it and ignored its faults.

Later as I stood alone, knee bent and foot "at against the blue door, I looked down at the crêpe in my hands. I felt its heat through the foil and paper towels and as I lifted it to my mouth, I smelled the 6 a.m. termination of a four-mile walk home from the other side of the city, long after the subway had shut down for the night. I felt the crunch of the cheese—left to crisp on the griddle as the interior melted around the beef—and the taste on my tongue of so many early nights, late nights, school nights, and early mornings when that soft, heavy funnel was the only thing that could fortify me.

Through the fog of returning memories, I realized that the crêpe tasted differently than it once had. There was a clash between the sweet, delicate pancake batter and the heavy, savory, spicy !lling: an affront to the classic idea of a structured, gastronomic meal. Flavor-wise, this multicultural fare made no sense.

Yet in the way that a love affair begins with the blissful ignorance of faults and inconsistencies, so too does it become reinforced when love remains despite them. My return revealed to me that my city is no glamorous !lm. Just like my crêpe, it is an amalgam of tastes and textures. It is a resistance against tradition. It has its faults and inconsistencies. But as I chewed I tasted Paris. And Paris will always be delicious.

MA

XIM

ILÍA

NO

DU

RÓ

N

flashbackphotography by KELLYROSE ZIMMERMAN

SIGHT z 9

10

SOMETIMES IT’S THE quickest and seemingly insigni!cant moments that trigger a "ashback. The scent of the wind as it wafts by, the "avor of a food as it hits your tongue, the sensation of a piece of cloth grazing your skin, all momentary experiences that contact a time passed and trigger the "ash of an image. These transient memories that traverse our mental terrain often lack detail and instead draw awareness to the sensation of a memory, emphasizing the "eeting moments that could otherwise be forgotten.

11

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text by NATALIE CAMPBELL

photography by MaxiMilÍano dUrÓn

RIGHT?you swiped right,

text by NATALIE CAMPBELL

photography by MaxiMilÍano dUrÓn

ISN’T IT THE worst when someone tells you that you remember something incorrectly? You are positive that the Trader Joe’s cashier was hitting on you while bagging your chips and hummus or you are certain that your friends ignored you at a party because they stayed on the other side of the room the whole night. Everyday we look back, certain of our recollections, until we !nd someone who was at the same place, at the same time, and contradicts our memories with their own version of past events.

Here is a prime example: a millennial story of boy meets boy. I met this article’s Indecisive Lover the !rst day of college, watched him transition from metro to openly gay, and now, have witnessed his relationship with the other main character of this piece, Tinder Cutie. The unfolding of the relationship between Indecisive Lover and Tinder Cutie demonstrates how perception in"uences memory and how these seemingly pivotal decisions can be recalled with clouded stories. This lovely couple dukes it out over who liked the other !rst, who made the !rst move, and the events leading up to their now happy coupledom. These personal accounts will also discuss other important topics of meddling friends, eating at NYU dining halls, and the effects of too much alcohol consumption. I sat down with boyfriend and boyfriend to discover who really knows the truth about how they began dating.

TOUCH z 13

“I knew him before we matched on Tinder, but I’d never actually spoken to him. He was my roommate’s Little in his fraternity. At the time, I had a different boyfriend, thought I was happy, and did not have plans to make any moves. I saw him a couple of times in the dining hall, Downstein, over the summer, but we’d never spoken. I thought he was cute, but, I was with someone else, so nothing could happen.

But then all of the sudden, I’m single, and as one would do, I re-download Tinder and buy a bottle of Trader Joe’s !nest: Three-Buck Chuck. With a bottle of wine gone, and a semi-broken heart, I swiped right and within !ve minutes: bam! A match.6 I had previously talked to some of our mutual, meddling friends, so I knew that this match was not completely random. I knew that he knew me, and he knew that I knew him, yadda, yadda. This part of the story we can agree upon, but after our Tinder match, we start to disagree.”

BOYFRIEND B (a.k.a. Indecisive Lover)“It could be true,

it could all be true..”

BOYFRIEND A (a.k.a. Tinder Cutie)“Look at the Tinder messages, I have a very good memory...”

“I obviously know I swiped right because then we would not be a match, but allegedly, he claims I started it all with a ‘hey there!’9 Now, if you conducted this interview three days ago I would have said BULLSHIT. But we were actually having this argument, and he showed me the picture evidence. The little dick screen-shotted my !rst move on May 26th. Also, this initial match was late at night, and he answered so quickly. I just want that on the record.

We drunkenly messaged on Tinder and exchanged numbers at some point, but then one night I may have gotten drunk and FaceTimed my ex-boyfriend three times.

“I remember the next part so vividly: I am tipsy, walking to Palladium, listening to “Chandelier” by Sia (LOL), when I get a noti!cation that he swiped right, so, no surprise, I did the same. He then messaged me with a ‘hey there!’ and out of excitement, I kept walking in circles as I !gured out my answers. The best part of our !rst conversation was that we were both texting the same mutual friend, telling her the details. So I chose the aggressive approach, and messaged him next, ‘don’t act like we’re both not texting her right now.’

Over the next few weeks, we drunkenly messaged each other three other times. After those weeks, we !nally exchanged numbers when he was pretty shit-

“I knew who Indecisive Lover was, and it may1

have been through Facebook stalking. When I !rst got my Big,2 I started looking through his Facebook friends. Between my Big and my other girl friend, I heard about this Indecisive Lover character frequently, but I didn’t form an opinion.3 So, I knew who he was before I saw him on Tinder, I just didn’t know how I felt about him.

I remember everything leading up to our match differently than he does. I do this thing with Tinder, or I did this thing with Tinder, in which I only match with people I know (because Tinder creeps me out),4 and cancel out of the app if I’m unsure about a potential match. When I re-register, Tinder reshuf"es potential matches so you view them again. I actually was matched with Indecisive Lover four times, but would cancel out because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to potentially talk to him.5 Then, I saw him in the NYU dining hall, Downstein, and thought, Oh, he’s cute! I am going to swipe right later tonight.”

PRE!TINDER

THE MATCH

1 “This ‘may’ should be deleted. We all know that he knew who I was through Facebook stalking.”—Boyfriend B. 2 Reporter’s note: This reference is derived from Greek life diction. In order to get a Big (like a big brother or sister), one must join a fraternity or sorority and get randomly matched with an older member who then acts as a mentor. In this story, Tinder Cutie is a part of Kappa Sigma Fraternity, an organization not af!liated with NYU.3 Boyfriend B agrees that A is indecisive.4 The reporter wishes to highlight the irony: Boyfriend A is creeped out by the very medium that facilitated his current relationship.5 Boyfriend B claims that A had made up his mind, but he was just too shy to act upon it. 6 “This is not verbatim. I’m not that articulate. Lol.”

15

“He then got back with his ex again, and again, and wait: again.”

“On July 4, I told my friend, ‘We are going to this party and it’s going to be horrible.’ So, naturally, me and my friend watched Parent Trap10 and ripped shots to get wasted before showing up. To be honest, I don’t remember a lot of this party, but I do remember Indecisive Lover, with his ex, glaring at me.11

When I arrived home, I got a text from him, which I thought was gross:Why are you texting me when you have a boyfriend? One of the reasons why

“Oh shit, I forgot about July 4th...”

“So basically, too much tequila consumption occurred. My ex was so paranoid about me being at this party, that he came into the city after his play rehearsal. I don’t know if it was out of spite or protection, but he started talking to my now boyfriend about Instagram and random things.17 It was annoying, and I remember squeezing my ex’s leg so hard to let him know how angry I was. I reacted by drinking tequila straight from the handle, which I regretted when I was over the toilet later that night.

POST!TINDER

7 Tinder Cutie knew what the ex-boyfriend looked like through previous Facebook stalking.8 “Oops...”- Boyfriend A 9 Boyfriend A states there is picture evidence on Facebook. Working on !nding the image for factual support.

faced. He kept writing ‘don’t get the wrong idea; people are judging me.’ At the time, I really didn’t think anything of these messages. I decided to ask him out on a date and cut off this other person I was talking to at the time. But then I saw him eating at Downstein with his ex-boyfriend.7+8 Fuck.”

After that, me and the ex planned a lunch and decided to give us another go. I wanted it to be known so I was not leading anyone on. Tinder Cutie texted me about getting dinner one night, so I couldn’t ignore the message. Instead, I answered something like ‘you’re great, it’s not you, see you in Downstein tonight.’ And that was the end of us for the summer.”

“If we’d never !rst talked on Tinder, I don’t think we would be a couple. I never view friends as possible love interests, so since we met on Tinder, the context was always sexual—he would never just be a friend. I think that helped bring us together regardless of all these petty conversations and obstacles. We !rst spoke over a year ago, and I have not been back on Tinder since.”

“If we never !rst talked on Tinder, I do not think we would be going out. I know I would have known him through our friends, but we both have problems making the !rst move. He does this thing where he makes sly moves20 that actually aren’t really moves, but he thinks they are.21 Anyway, I think neither of us would have had the courage to initiate a relationship. So, thanks Tinder?”

IF YOU DID NOT MEET ON TINDER, DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD STILL BE TOGETHER?”

10 Boyfriend A wants it to be known that this is “the best movie, ever.”11 Indecisive Lover wants to clarify that “He did not!! His ex was responsible for the staring.”12 Tinder Cutie claims that he never said this, but after the reporter re-listening to the transcription, he indeed said “again, that is very gross.”13 Reporter’s note: Fishbowl is a group party game that is similar to that of charades although there are a lot of different ways to play this game. In this story, Celebrity Fishbowl was being played, in which each person writes down three celebrities, places these slips into a bowl, and takes a turn picking a celebrity. Then the player gives clues to their teammates so they can accurately guess and gain points.14 Boyfriend A thought that only members of Inter-Residence Hall Council were invited to this game of Fishbowl. Boyfriend B is not a part of this club at NYU.15 This girl friend is the same mutual friend as before.16 He is still unsure about the ‘gas leak,’ even after reading his boyfriend’s account.17 These other ‘things’ included: the ex’s summer job as a daycare assistant, Tinder Cutie’s Fraternal Big, and tequila. These are the other important topics the reporter promised to discuss in the opening.18 “Ew!!!”- Boyfriend A. The reporter agrees with this reaction. 19 Tinder Cutie begs to differ.

20 Boyfriend A disagrees and wants our readers to know that he is “very, very sly.”21 “YES! HE DOES!”

I still liked him was because of his honesty when he !rst got back together with his ex. I felt like I was being used in their relationship. Again, gross.12

Anywho, time passed, and I hadn’t seen Indecisive Lover until he showed up at a game of Fishbowl.13 He was not a part of our club,14 so I didn’t know why he was there. I also didn’t know that he and his boyfriend had broken up until the night was over and my girl friend15 thanked me for being there for Indecisive Lover during his breakup. I was beyond. . . I felt like I was a rebound. I yelled: ‘Who does he think he is? I am not waiting!’

Six weeks later, he and his ex are still broken up, and I still liked him. So, one night I am at the same girl’s apartment, and I !nally tell her that I have a crush on him. And then ten minutes later he shows up! (Allegedly because of a gas leak?!)16 You have to see how suspicious this seems from my perspective. I was like, ‘You texted him about this you bitch.’

Regardless of the ‘leak,’ the evening brought us into the same room again. It wasn’t awkward like before. We started talking again, and this time never stopped.”

I was so pissed because my ex wouldn’t sit with me when I thought I was going to throw up, so I lashed out and started texting Tinder Cutie. I know I shouldn’t have texted him, but it wasn’t like I was sending ‘come over big boy.’18 They were completely harmless texts, and I told my ex in the morning. But after that I didn’t hear from Tinder Cutie for a while.

In the following months, I break up, and get back together with my ex a lot, but my indecisiveness is irrelevant to this story.19 I also don’t want that story in print. But, after my ex and I !nally broke up, for good, I kept thinking maybe I should ask Tinder Cutie out on a date. I waited for about a month, but then, one day, he followed me on all my social media accounts. So I thought maybe it was time. One night there was a gas leak in my apartment, so I texted my girl friend if I could come stay at her place. When I arrived, he was also there. We were talking, and I knew I wanted to ask him out on a date. So, we started texting after that incident, and one night, I just asked if he wanted to go out on a date. And now we are here.”

THE MEMORYQUESTION

THE MEMORYQUESTION

text and art by ASTRID DA SILVA

NYU psychology and neural science professor, Liz Phelps, discusses the validity of memory

YOUR MEMORY IS not what you think it is. That’s what psychologist and professor Liz Phelps wants you to know. For the most part we assume our memory is reliable. We assume we can count on our individual memory to recite the past in an exact (or close to exact) manner. But studies show that no matter how con!dent you think you are, you’re probably !fty percent wrong in the accuracy of your memory of any particular event. Don’t be scared, your memory isn’t trying to fool you; it’s helping you survive.

SIXTH z 17

18

At a very basic level, can you explain how one processes an event and encodes it into our own memory?

It’s important to note that psychologists like to think there are several different forms of memory. The ability to recollect information like an event, that’s a speci!c type of memory and that is how most people use the term memory.

The !rst stage of that memory is of course, attention. If something doesn’t come in, if you don’t receive it and attend to it, then you won’t remember it later. That’s not to say that the only things that you remember are the things you’re focusing on. But there is this initial processing that has to occur in order for you to remember anything.

Next comes the storage process. It’s seems passive, you have no knowledge of the processing occurring, but it’s actually a very active process in your brain, in the hippocampus. Storage processing doesn’t happen instantaneously,

it takes time and we call that time consolidation. Lots of things can in"uence how well things are stored, lack of sleep for example. Different aspects of the situation or event are being activated all over your brain due to your senses. Each region [activated] forms a network of all these representations. Those networks are connected because you’re experiencing them as an event, all the components, that visual information, that audio information, what you’re thinking at the time, all that gets connected. If there’s something that interrupts that process of storing connections, if I could do something to stop the synapses from processing during the consolidation process, I can essentially erase that memory.

Then you have the last stage, which is retrieval. Some memories are so strong that they come back to you seemingly automatic; some don’t come back until you’re reminded about certain things. The

thing about retrieval is you can have a memory where it’s “I kind of know that happened” or like “I remember where I was and every little detail,” so you de!nitely have this feeling that goes along with retrieval, that to you signals something about the quality or the strength of that memory. What causes one to feel that a memory is stronger or less strong than another?

Generally people feel that their memory is very strong if they have a lot of detail. There’s evidence that shows that the more, at least with mundane, non-emotional things, the more you’re able to remember different little details that go along with a memory, the more con!dent you’ll be about the memory, the stronger the association is. Now, there are other things that can in"uence con!dence. If something is being retrieved a bunch of times, it gains con!dence, even if it was wrong the !rst time, because now

you’ve landed at that memory a bunch. If something is highly emotional, it gives something a strong sense of con!dence. So people will often think that they know, for example, exactly what they were doing on 9/11. But what studies have shown is that you’re probably about !fty percent wrong in what you really remember. I just can’t convince you you’re wrong because it has that super strong feeling. So one thing emotion does is it makes you view things with a strong sense of con!dence, and that’s because all the vividness in detail gives us a sense that we’re con!dent about that memory. Can you talk about the ongoing research on 9/11 memories?

So the !rst people to study personal memory were these Harvard researchers [Roger] Brown and [James] Kulik, they didn’t study just one event but they were looking at people who remembered the assassination of JFK or Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. They brought people into a laboratory and had them recollect those events and they ended up coming up with this term, “"ashbulb memory.” The way people described those events was almost as if it was a picture taken with a "ashbulb. They’d tell you these detailed memories that were just not normal. The thing about Brown and Kulik is that they assumed, which turned out to be wrong, that these memories were accurate, because they certainly felt accurate. It’s next to impossible to know how to measure someone’s memories, personal memories.

So what researchers have done since then, starting with Ulric Neisser and the Challenger explosion, is not to measure accuracy but to measure consistency. If I ask you right after what you were doing, and I ask you a year later what you were doing, and you changed your story then at least one of those is not accurate. But it’s not that people forgot the event it’s the details surrounding them, how you found out, who you were with, what were you doing before and after. What Neisser found was that people weren’t that accurate after a year, but they were completely certain they were accurate, con!dence was through the roof. We’ve done studies of memories from 9/11, and found the exact same thing. There have been lots of studies of lots of different public events consistent with this idea that what makes [these memories] different isn’t the accuracy per se, but the con!dence in these memories.

If we can’t expect our memories to be consistent, what purpose do you think our memory serves?

To say that they are not always consistent is not to say that they have to be 100 percent accurate to be useful. The function of memory is to be able to use the past to act more adaptively in the future. Nobody forgot that 9/11 happened, what they forgot were probably the things that don’t matter. One of my favorite books, The Seven Sins of Memory written by Dan Schacter, a professor at Harvard, talks about all these things that people !nd puzzling about memory. What he argues is that for all these things we call memory mistakes, there’s actually a good adaptive function for it. For example, every time you retrieve something, the memory might be modi!ed slightly by the current situation. It may, in fact, be the case that how you’re storing it now “incorrectly” is actually relevant for the function of that memory in the future. These things are not necessarily memory mistakes. We want to be able to generalize from experience as opposed to remembering every little detail. It may not be good for the courtroom but it’s better for when we’re faced with a threat.

How much do we know about what triggers memory?Anything can be a trigger. Sometimes they come from outside of you, like being in a place

you once were, or seeing somebody you

once knew, but they can be internal, “I’m in a bad mood, so I’m thinking of all the bad things that happened.” There’s not a sophisticated science of triggers, except to say that certainly the way I evoke a memory changes what the memory is. I can cue you in different ways that can coax different memories out of you. What do you want the public to know about memory?

I expect memory to be "uid and dynamic [because] I know that that’s a good function of memory, ultimately. To me, I know it’s not just a record of the past. It’s a record of my past combined with my present and all that happens in between. Most people kind of think memory is supposed to be like a tape recorder and are annoyed with the idea that their memories might change and shift over time. But if something matters to you, there are ways, techniques, and strategies, that you can use to help remember details. People think of memory as this immutable thing and I think it’s pretty mutable. It’s mutable in everyday life naturally, and it’s actually something we can have some control over if we choose to.

it may not be good for the courtroom, but it’s be#er for when we’re faced with a threat.““

tuscany to nycbrutti ma buoni cookies (“ugly but good”)text and photography by ISABELLE ENGLISH

MY FIRST FOOD memory revolves around, what else, but stuf!ng myself with delicious, crumbly cookies when my parents weren’t looking.

It is my third birthday and I am on the outdoor patio of my parents’ friend’s restaurant in Tuscany. Digging head!rst into a giant platter of crispy rabbit stew and rosemary patate fritte, I feel only the warmth of the southern sun and the salty tang of rabbit on my tongue.

When I !nally stop to come up for air, I spot a waiter carrying an enormous glass jar of tiny, round cookies. My eyes follow his movement as he places the container on the "oor

next to the hostess stand. I drop my fork, climb down the legs of the old rustic dining chair, and run full speed across the restaurant and toward the jar. On tiptoes I reach my chubby, sunburned arm into the cookie vault and scoop out as many as I can. I hold them close to my belly and walk slowly back to the table, making sure not to leave a crumb trail. My parents !nish off the rabbit as my brothers and I sit on the sun-warmed stone sharing sweet and nutty cookie clusters until we fall asleep.

Almost eighteen years later, I’m sitting in my New York City kitchen trying desperately to remember the exact "avor of those Tuscan cookies—to return to the moment on the patio

when I !rst tasted their incomparable sweet and nutty pungency. After many failed attempts and hours of research, I !nally stumble upon a recipe for Italian hazelnut cookies called “ugly but good,” the English translation for brutti ma buoni. Out of frustration and despair, I decide to try it. And about an hour later, after roasting, stirring, and sifting, when I eat one, I am transported immediately back to my chubby sunburnt arms, the Tuscan heat, my brothers, my parents, the rabbit, and, most importantly, the rich and sugary taste of hazelnuts. So without further ado—I present to you brutti, the ugliest, yet most delicious, cookie on the face of the earth.

YOU NEED YOU DOƑ Hazelnuts, 1# cupsƑ Pure vanilla extract,

3 teaspoons Ƒ Egg white, 1 Ƒ Confectioners sugar, 1% cups Ƒ Pinch of saltƑ�Dark chocolate, 12 oz. (optional) Ƒ�Unsalted butter, $ cup (optional)

Makes: 2 dozen Active Time: 30-45 minutes Total Time: 1 hour

THE RECIPE: ITALIAN HAZELNUT "UGLY BUT GOOD" COOKIES

1. Set a rack in center of the oven and preheat oven to 400 degrees. 2. In a large baking sheet pan, spread hazelnuts in a single layer and toast for about

15 minutes (or until skins blisters). Transfer hazelnuts to paper bag or towel to let cool, and then rub them together to remove skins.

3. In the meantime, beat egg white and vanilla in small bowl. Set aside. 4. In a food processer, pulse cooled hazelnuts, confectioners sugar and salt until !nely

chopped and combined. Scrape hazelnut mixture into a medium bowl and stir in egg white and vanilla until fully combined (the dough should resemble a thick, nutty paste).

5. Line a baking sheet pan with parchment paper. Spoon # tablespoon-sized mounds of hazelnut dough onto sheet pan about 1–2 inches apart.

6. Bake cookies for about 12–15 minutes (until browned in spots: 12 for chewy cookies and 15 for crisp cookies). Let cookies cool completely before serving.

20 z TASTE

Chocolate Note: If you would like to make these cookies slightly prettier and exceedingly more delicious, melt chocolate and butter in double boiler until thick but creamy (medium heat). Remove from heat and let cool for 3-5 minutes. With a spoon or knife, spread chocolate over top of cooled cookies. Let dry and sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

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SIGHT z 23CLOTHING GENEROUSLY LENT BY: TIA CIBANI, KORDAL, & SUZANNE RAE; VENUE: THE CLEMENTE SOTO VÉLEZ CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL CENTER

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STOP. STOP. STOP! At this point in your reading of this !rst issue, you’ve been inundated with other people’s thoughts, ideas, and ruminations about memory. Why the fuck should I care, you think. Well, now for a bit of you time. Close your eyes for a few seconds, take a deep breath, and then keep reading.

Take a minute to think about that !rst person who really made your heart race and your stomach "utter. She could have been your childhood sweetheart or the guy you went home with last night. What about them made you tingle? Perhaps it was his electric smile or the smell of her perfume; the boom in his voice or the sparkle of her eyes.

Whatever it was, you were attracted to them and something in them made you almost feel even more attractive.

Now, imagine something a bit more morbid. Pretend the next day you died. Would that person be on your mind as you made your way to the pearly gates? Would you do anything to see that smile, smell that perfume, hear that voice?

WHEN CASEY FIRST saw her, she had to get close to her. She wanted to know her name, what she liked to do on a Sunday afternoon, the things that made her tick. That gorgeous face said it all—different from any other she had ever seen.

Casey didn’t dare journey to the other side of the room to talk to her. What do I even say, she thought. All she could do was stare. Eventually the girl came over and started talking. She said her name, but Casey didn’t process it right away. Her short-term memory wasn’t the best, so all she could do was search her head for that combination of letters. Did it start with a J?

As the night progressed, Casey couldn’t help but think this girl could be it. I mean, she was sweet and cute—not to mention a great kisser, despite how sloppy it must have looked. Casey couldn’t wait to see J again. (Or was it N?)

The taxi on First Avenue had other plans, seeing as it crashed into her. Shit. It wasn’t meant to be. Unless, she could convince J to vanish with her.

pursuing the livinga chase for what might have been, what should have been

photography and styling by MAXIMILÍANO DURÓN

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SIGHT z 29TEXT BY ETHAN JOHNS

booze on a stickminty mojito pops

text by ISABELLE ENGLISH

YOU NEED

YOU DO

Ƒ Superfine sugar, % cupƑ Light rum, 5 Tbsp.Ƒ Fresh lime juice, $ cup Ƒ Water, 2 cups Ƒ Fresh mint sprigs,

3 large coarsely chopped

THE RECIPE: MINTYMOJITO POPS

1. In a medium bowl, stir together sugar, rum, lime juice, and water until combined. Stir in mint.

2. Pour mixture evenly between 8 (3-ounce) plastic pop molds. Top with lids of pop molds and insert popsicle sticks, leaving 1# to 2 inches of each stick exposed.

3. Freeze 4 hours or until sticks are solidly anchored and pops are completely frozen. Serve.

Makes: 8 servings Active Time: 30 minutes Total Time: 4! hours

WHEN I THINK of a summer day as a kid, I think of three things: scabbed knees, sunburns, and popsicles. When I think of a summer day as a pseudo-adult, I think of another three things: my unhealthy dependence on air conditioning, carefree evenings, and cool, minty mojitos. One unbearably hot night last summer, as I was sitting on the porch with a group of friends chatting over watermelon, bbq, and rum mojitos, I came up with the idea of a frozen cocktail. Original…?

Well as it turns out, not at all. But regardless, absolutely delicious.

In elation, I got up from the table, went into the kitchen and placed my half drunk drink in the freezer. About two hours and three regular mojitos later, I went to check on my masterpiece. And it was, as you can imagine on a heated, humid night, remarkably refreshing. However, as I was chipping at the mojito iceberg with a spoon, I thought, what could make this even better? The answer: a stick. The entirety of

the next day was spent working on the perfect mojito popsicle, one that was equally strong as it was fresh and fragrant. It took some testing, some rum adjusting, and some sugar adding, but I !nally got the most "awless, most favorable result—learning that too much rum doesn’t freeze and not enough rum doesn’t, let’s say, satisfy! The pops have since become a summer staple—one that combines the childhood joy of sticky !ngers and the adult joy of booze infused anything.

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SOUND z 31

ISABELLE ENGLISH

CONTENTS

You have made it to the end of issue 1 of HOPSCOTCH. At first, we invited you to read this issue from cover to cover in a linear fashion. Now, we invite you to hop back and forth between the stories to discover new ways of reading and seeing the contents of HOPSCOTCH 1.1. Start with “Tuscany to NYC,” and see where the journey takes you.

an alternate route

BOOZE ON A STICK, 30

FLASHBACK, 9

MEMORY QUESTION, 17

SEARCHING, 2

MY VALENTINE, 4

TUSCANY TO NYC, 20

HELLO OLD FRIEND, 6

PURSUING THE LIVING, 23

LETTER, 29

YOU SWIPED RIGHT, 13

MIX OF THE ISSUE, 31

WET PAINT, 3

UNINTENTIONAL, 22

TASTE TOUCH SIGHT SOUND SMELL

CONTENTSan alternate route