Uncategorized – Dais’s Digital Portfolio

An Actually Good Gift Guide For College Students

December 6, 2018 No Comments

I love gift guides, I really do, but boy do they leave something to be desired in the college age range. Even on Goop it’s like “here’s some trendy headphones for teenagers, bish bash bosh.” We don’t need trendy headphones. We need headphones that won’t break and earbuds that won’t lose the little ear condom part. We need wireless headphones because the tech world hates 3.5mm jacks, and wireless headphones with a battery that will last from my first class until rehearsal ends at 9.

No, actually, let’s address this. Every gift guide for teenagers lists headphones as their first item. We have headphones! We need headphones in our day to day lives! When we need headphones we don’t say “Oh well, maybe Santa will bring me some.” We buy new headphones!!! How else are we supposed to not bother our sleeping roommates while we listen to the Far Cry 5 soundtrack again??? How else are we supposed to signal to freshman we see on our way to class that no, we don’t want to talk? Please do not buy your college student headphones unless they specifically say “I care about the quality of audio I receive and would appreciate the investment in an expensive piece of equipment.”

1. A Candle Warmer

Give your best college acquaintance the gift of getting RAs off your back. Dorm living sucks no matter which way you cut it, but one thing that always really bothered me was that no open flames are allowed. At least, not in most old dorms like mine. Enter this candle warmer, found in the clearance rack at target. I stuck a candle under it, and not only does the candle melt, it doesn’t melt down as quickly so it lasts longer. Consider buying them a few fun scented candles to go with it like The Boyfriend Candle or wax melts scented like literary figures (just stick the melts in a jar under the lamp)!

A Weighted Blanket

Look, you can’t give a college student the gift of fixing the incredibly anxiety-making environment of college education, but you can get them something to help them forget it. Weighted blankets make it hard to get out of bed but we’re college students! Getting out of bed is the hardest part of our day regardless! Also, if you are someone who likes to entertain bed guests, I see no cooler pickup line than “This blanket will make you feel calm it’s on my bed go ahead and try it ouuuuut.”
Always ask for clear confident and enthusiastic consent, friends!

Food. Delivery. Gift. Cards.

I know, I know, they’re not “personal” or whatever, but let me tell you: if someone bought me a doordash gift card, I would think about how great they are through every single greasy bite of Wendy’s Swawesome Fries. The gift of delivery is the gift of Treat Yo Self, and the gift of Treat Yo Self is what we all deserve.

A Bed Tray

Look, I’ll be the first one to say that the college student I know best is me, the kid who never leaves his bed and does alllllll work while lying down. But bed trays are great for sitting on the floor, making your dorm desk a standing desk, claiming a spot in the library, you name it. Bed trays are the new lap desk, you heard it here first.

An Apron

We should all be working in aprons.

A Teddy Coat

I don’t just enjoy things that make your dorm room cozier, although that is a major motivation of mine, I also keep an eye on the trends. This fall, fortunately enough, the trend is Teddy Coats: plush, shearling, or faux fur coats that make you look like, well, a teddy bear. Worried about sizing? Don’t be! Oversized is everything now, and thank god, because I’ve been rocking that trend since my growth stopped at age like 14.

Tickets

Look up what’s going on near the college during the school year, and buy them two tickets (for a friend, or, if you’re nearby, you!) for something they’d enjoy but wouldn’t necessarily be able to afford. For most people, that would be concerts, I will admit most of my classmates aren’t as jazzed about our local theatre troupe putting on An Octoroon as I am. But this is a bingo choice for Pretentious Art Kids like me. Film Student? Gift card to an arthouse theatre or, come on, who are we kidding, buy them tickets to The Favourite. Music Major? Hello symphonies. Really, the more pretentious the better when it comes to tickets. The jackpot is opera tickets, nothing says “I am a Sophisticated Student of the Arts” like rolling into class like “oh, well, I was at the OPERA last night…”
Please only go this route if you know the student well enough to guarantee they’d enjoy it.

A Nice Liquid Receptacle

We have meal plans, we get access to a beautiful soda fountain 3 times per day. In between that, we gotta make do. Enter: My beautiful Yeti mug, who I fill with 72 oz of lemonade at 11:30 and 8:00 every day. She is beautiful, she is strong, she’s as cold as ice, willing to sacrifice, etc. You like S’well? Get them S’well. You like some other brand? Buy them another brand.

Vine Reference Stickers

I have yet to meet a college student who doesn’t know the EXACT inflection of the phrase “fre shavaca do,” get them stickers to communicate to others that they understand internet humor. Ask them their favorite vines, a totally normal thing that people do, and then redbubble that shit! But if you do, buy 10 because 50% offffff yessssss.

LED lighting fixtures + Smart bulbs

I don’t need to tell you that dorm lighting SUCKS SO BAD. You get one fluorescent light and that’s it. It’s lucky for us, then, that we’re living in an LED golden age. Everything is so dirt cheap, you can get 5 feet of app-controlled LED strips and set your own mood lighting! Or, if you know they’re like me and do everything to the light of their bedside table, try a Smart Bulb!

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A Catholic Review of Janelle Monae’s “PYNK”

December 6, 2018 No Comments

From Torch, the Catholic Music Reviewer:

Janelle Monae, known for often wearing suits and men’s clothes, takes a comfortingly feminine lens to her new video for PYNK. Cruising through what looks like the hills between Victorville and Barstow (color-corrected to be pink) in a pink Corvette hovercar with her own personal #girlgang, they pull up to a restaurant with a sign out front: GRRLS EAT FREE AND NEVER LEAVE.

Already, this music video is promoting generosity between women: they are offering to feed and house any woman who needs it.

Monae then appears in uber-feminine frilled pink pants, meant to blur the line between masculine and feminine, because they may be pink and frilly, but they are still pants, and therefore masculine. She sings “Pink, like the inside of your baby” honoring the sacred role of women to be mothers. “Pink, behind all of the doors, crazy” obviously referring to a woman’s terrain: the home, and whatever “craziness” it may include. “Pink, like the tongue that goes down, maybe” in reference to the tongues of fire from Pentecost.

Tessa Thompson, close friend of Monae, appears between her legs, a celebration of the divine feminine and the power of birth.

“If you got the blue, we got the pink” in the chorus emphasizes the role of Eve as a counterpart to Adam.

The rest of the video is a blur of women celebrating their close friendship.

Exercising together…

Having a sleepover and discussing biology…

There are also a number of images that refer to penetration, perhaps the penetration of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost, as referred to previously?

There is a frankly worrying sign labelled “PUSSY POWER” but fortunately a cat was shown previously, so this is a clever joke meant to subvert a political message.

DISCUSSIONS TO HAVE WITH CHILDREN:

Before showing this video, talk with your child about Theology of the Body and celebrating the female form without undermining the Church’s teachings.

There are a number of images referring to Pentecost, so perhaps show this to any Confirmandi you may know. How does Confirmation mix the blue of the profane with our mundane pink?

Rating: 6/10

Catchy, but it’s no Oceans.

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Welcome to The Dais

November 23, 2018 No Comments

Dais Johnston (he/they/she) is a 21 year old senior theatre major at Agnes Scott College. When they aren’t getting in spirited conversations with their professors in class or tweeting, they direct and act in plays and web series and write a lot.

Like, a lot. Once they got an idea for a one act play at 1:00 am and then wrote all 30 pages of it before 7:30. You can read that (very rough draft) here.

Raised extremely Catholic, they survived on a restricted television diet of TV Land reruns and I Love Lucy box sets, so now they are in college, they spend as much time as possible watching whatever they can get their hands on, and writing down all their thoughts. Their dream is to write about television for a website like Vulture, or any pop culture site. They love culture in general.

Due to their education, Dais is extremely skilled in social media and building an audience, as they have around a thousand twitter followers. They also have a wide breadth of theatre knowledge, with a extremely indepth knowledge of Shakespeare and a passion for adaptation theory. They love telling stories and writing plays and scripts, and love acting and directing those stories even more.

Dais has been published on BUST.com and has contributed to Time.com and Autostraddle. Their published work and the highlights from their other humor writing can be found under “Best of Dais.”

Aside from their constant work trying to graduate, they also run a weekly newsletter about what brings people joy entitled Unapologetically Enthusiastic, and a fashion blog entitled Thanks, it Has Pockets! When they want to write something that doesn’t fit on either site, they write humor articles about TV and Film on their Medium blog.

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Final Reflection

May 5, 2016 No Comments

During this class I learned many lessons, but probably the key lesson I learned was on the concept of the traveler. My favorite reading in this class was the Baudelaire reading, I loved this concept of this fly-on-the-wall idea of the dandy. Throughout my travels in Europe over my life, my family would try our hardest to avoid portraying ourselves as “ugly americans”, which is quite futile when you’re a large family of six. The idea of a “man of the crowd” was interesting to me, as this was the first time I would be travelling without my family and could actually avoid looking glaringly like a tourist, at least a portion of the time.

In this project specifically, I learned about the relationship between clothes and the senses, and about my own connections to New York and the concept of the senses. I thought the senses theme would result in a dress covered in ears or a sandwich board that looked like a sandwich. As I thought more about the unique environment that is New York, I found conceptual and avant-garde meanings to the senses that I could interpret in clothes. Going fabric shopping taught me more about fabrics, which I had a passing knowledge of but actually shopping and comparing weights and prices gave me well needed experience.

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Reflection Logs pt 2

May 1, 2016 No Comments

Week 5: In Life and Debt we heard this quotation near the end of the film. How do you respond to the following words now that you have seen both films based on events separated by a century?

“Once you cease to be a master, once you throw off your master’s yoke, you are no longer human rubbish, you are a human being, and all the things that adds up to. So, too, with the slaves. Once they are no longer slaves, once they are free, they are no longer noble and exalted; they are just human beings.” (Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place)

Life and Debt greatly impacted me because I went on a vacation to Jamaica when I was seven. It was on a private resort, all inclusive, everything the film warned against as bad for the community. I was the typical tourist. I stayed on the resort grounds, got (ill-advised) cornrows that made my scalp burn in stripes, and was generally ignorant of what was happening outside the shiny floors and white beaches. The only time I truly saw the “real” Jamaican population was on the flight to and from Montego. The only flight available from Cuba was a military cargo flight in which earplugs were required and Motion Sickness Kits were handed out by the dozen. There, we saw a whole plane full of migrant workers with bags of american toys and snacks traveling home to see their families. The government paid for them to go home once a year, and you can tell by the look on their faces how much they had looked forward to this.
These people escaped the economic devastation of Jamaica, but their families and loved ones didn’t. Because as happy as the people looked, there was a glimmer of something worse, the knowledge of the situation they are in.

Week 6: Our panelists each offered advice for the trips. Whose advice do you think it most relevant to your experience in New York? What was the advice? Why is it relevant?

Though it was repeated ad nauseum, the phrase “okay, good” stuck with me. I am an extremely anxious traveler who does not like situations I have not planned for, and with this trip there’s a large possibility something unexpected will happen. Even if I don’t deal it like an absolute champ, forcing myself to see the bright side will, at the very least, distract my brain from completely panicking.

Week 7: Complete your learning contract and email it to Katherine at your earliest opportunity! Write a reflection log entry about the process of creating the contract.

I am in love with my Learning Contract, it’s great. I get to write poems and design costumes and get credit for it. I love the fact that I can tailor this class to focus on the academic areas that I want to excel in instead of writing papers on assigned topics. Also, this way I can learn from other people’s choices of Contract choices. I really feel like an artist now that I’ve solidified my contract.

Week 8: Considering the common discussion on Tuesday and the in-class discussion today, write about one thing that you confirmed about what your learned from being in New York AND one experience/perspectives shared by one of your peers (in another class or in ours) that is different than your learning experience. Be sure to articulate the “so what” of your ideas – why is the first (yours) significant for you and why the second (from your peer) is noteworthy to you.

I kept using the term “independent” in my conversations about this trip. I hate to say it but I now feel more comfortable using the public transit in New York than in Atlanta. I trust myself to be able to source what I need and problem solve if there is an issue, instead of giving up and panicking, something I’m afraid I do often. Someone else in my group used the word “empowering” and I feel that too. I feel like everyone who traveled came back as more of themselves. Themselves but with the volume turned up. I left agnes a theater major and I came back an aspiring designer with an interest in art history. If that doesn’t speak volumes about the values of summit I don’t know what will.

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Mapping Project

April 13, 2016 No Comments

This image is composed of a elizabethan style gown on a black foam mannequin. The dress is scoop necked, with elbow length sleeves, embroidered with two large gold peacocks with tall tail feathers, the left one’s extending all the way up to the neckline. The fabric looks like a gold satin with lace cuffs and embellished trim. This costume was worn by Dorothy Kirsten in the title role of Madame Lescaut. It is a part of the Metropolitan Opera’s archives, on display in the landing of the first mezzanine. I chose to take this image because I am incredibly interested in fashion design and theater costuming, and I could use this image as inspiration for a look. I grew so much as a person on this trip, and began actually designing ready-to-wear and couture hours after taking this picture. This image represents how when you travel to learn about others’ lives, you learn more about yourself. This trip cemented my decision to follow my path of fashion design. This image shows my learning as a student because I stopped taking pictures of art for its own sake, and began thinking about how it could inspire me to create. -Daisy Johnston

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New York Performance Reflections

March 28, 2016 No Comments

I grew more than I ever thought I could in completing my Global Contract objectives. I loved every poem I wrote, every outfit I drew, and I ended up switching my goals quite a bit. Instead of using descriptive writing to express my feelings towards paintings, I used a different medium to express myself: fashion design. Flipping through my journal, I can see my growth in those handful of designs based on artwork. My first design, the Lady with the Rose, is just a slightly updated version of the one in the work. My latest piece, the Piet Mondrian piece, is a vastly updated piece that takes into account the movements in fashion I learned from a book I bought in New York.

Creating looks based on art pieces and whole museums inspires me the way listening to poetry inspires me to write poetry. I had never really experienced that sort of fluidity from what I see to what I had in my mind to what I put on paper.

My definition of a global citizen has definitely changed. As someone who was lucky enough to live abroad, I had always subconsciously looked down upon people who never were able to live internationally. I now realize, especially after dinner at the tenement museum, that global influence can truly affect you without leaving your country. I had an authentic Cuban sandwich and authentic German Spatzle in the Lower East Side. These things instantly reminded me of my international homes, and just prove that you can be plenty cultured and become a global citizen without leaving your own country.