Issue 4: Dirty Laundry

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   1. 1. 1. Hung out to dry: Why did US President Donald Trump cancel Pete Hegseth’s plan to publicly broadcast an execution?
            • Discuss the varying reasons why the idea of a public execution was even brought up in the U.S. Government. What is the ultimate goal of turning a brutal shooting into a so-called spectacle for the people. What kind of message is being sent?
            • Also investigate why Trump has called off the broadcasting. Were there political means or, as according to CNN, was it because he found out Hasan was paralyzed.
            • If the publicly broadcasted execution had gone through, what would that have set a precedent for in regards to their actions against terrosim on America. Would this have been a regular occurrence to “air out their dirty laundry.”
         2. Airing the grievances: Alberta has voted to stay, but what did they say YES to?
            • With basically 75% support, Alberta has voted in their latest referendum to stay a part of Canada. However, the other 9 questions found on the referendum lean closer to the yes column, including constitutional and immigration based issues.et genuine access to European markets despite not holding a vote in EU institutions?
            •  Why should UofT students worry about a referendum being held in Alberta? What implications does this vote hold on Canada’s unity as a whole and the seemingly anti-Canadian sentiments growing across the nation.
         3. Hiding the Dirty Laundry: The Red Zone at UofT Frat Halloween Parties
            • Each September, hard work is done by student organizations such as PEARS to publicize the dangers of frat houses near campus. Posters and online posts attempt to spread awareness about what they call the red zone; the 6-8 first weeks of school, when the majority of campus sexual assaults occur. Halloween parties mark the end of this period; with the recent legal battle of the 2019 Halloween frat stabbing bringing back bad memories, how will the following Halloween season go in the Annex? Will frats try to hide shady incidents of the past? How can UofT students stay safe this Halloween?

         Send your pitches to Ethan at [email protected]

1. Accountability Smells Good On You:
   
   
   •  With the world’s noses sensing the stench of fraternities and a culture that fosters a complicity in the barbarism of animals engaged in wolfpack-like social dynamics, an honest conversation needs to be had about the lengths we might go to enable uncomfortable dynamics in our own circles, be it for status, connections or even self-perception. If comfortable, share your perspective on the ugly emotional or psychological price to be paid when putting your relationships with people over transgressions they have committed, and how you learned to stop excusing them. How it feels to bury secrets or knowledge of what people are capable of can be distressing or shameful, so if you feel as if an incident you recall or a person you knew was involved is sensitive information, feel free to request anonymity or to write with a pen name if preferable.
2. I’ll Open the Closet When I Feel Like It.
   
   

    

   • Unfortunately in a North America rife with right-wing populism, legislation that encroaches on gay and trans civil rights and accessibility to services, and the promotion of hateful rhetoric that makes punching down a popular tactic, personal identity or expression can too often be pushed down as little more than a dirty little secret. It’s easier said than done to simply come out and lift months or even years of baggage off your back, allowing yourself to be comfortable in your skin, which makes how it is made public even more important, and who makes that announcement particularly consequential. With an interest in LGBTQ+ writers, share your perspective on what it means to live discreetly or wrestle with the idea of when and how to come out to friends or loved ones, how it affected you or how it changed any potential dynamics in your personal life. If comfortable, perhaps open up about having such information disclosed publicly without your consent and how it reinforced your self-image or relationships. If preferred, feel free to request anonymity or to write with a pen name for ease of mind.

3. Second-Hand Embarrassment – The Burden of Knowledge Carried by Eavesdroppers:
   

    

   • • It must suck sharing the awareness of an argument, altercation or affair that you aren’t involved in. Going from ambivalence to indirect investment in someone else’s hardships and conflicts can get pretty strenuous even if it’s from meters away as nothing more than passive eavesdropping, so why not at least have a place to drink the tea while spilling it? Have you ever been in possession of a major revelation or privy to some nasty infighting by complete accident? How did it feel having a seat at the table to some drama because the chair pulled you forward? Did you make you adept at solving other people’s problems in the privacy of your own home?
       

Claim a pitch or send your own to Yasha at [email protected]

1. Airing Out Your Dirty Laundry
   
   
   • Write a juicy grievance or hot take that you so desperately want to share with the class. Hang up your dirty laundry for The Strand and its dear readers to mull over. This idiom is used as a metaphor for describing someone oversharing, or broadcasting their personal information to the wider community. If you or someone you know has a crazy take, or story that you should have to narrate: Take this chance, to use us as your clothing line.

Claim a pitch or send your own to Julia at [email protected]

Arts & Culture welcomes reviews for any of the following campus theater, dance, and music productions:  https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=Y18yNzJjOGEzY2E2Mzk4ZTVlZjJiNTJmMmM2ZTgyMmUwNDdhOTYzZmM5OTkzNzAxYmI1M2JkZGU4ZDIyZjU3OGQyQGdyb3VwLmNhbGVuZGFyLmdvb2dsZS5jb20
This Month’s Highlight: Victoria College Book Sale We are also welcoming movie reviews for our TIFF Rollout.

1. 1. Freshly Laundered Food
      
      • • From the bar Dirty Laundry here in Toronto to the famed French Laundry in Napa Valley, repurposed laundromats have become popular motifs in the cooking world. What is the connection between laundry and fine cuisine? Does it start with the French Laundry? What are some of the unexplored possibilities of this association? This pitch is also open to an overview of The French Laundry, or reviews of any laundry-inspired restaurants in the GTA
   2. I’ll Keep You My Dirty Little Secret:
      

       

      • • People on the internet have been yearning for men to “return to their roots,” – the oversized t-shirt over longsleeve, fluffy haired, sneaking-in-through-the-window heartthrob style of the mid-2000s. This is exactly where the trend cycle leaves us in 2026, but the desire for men to return to this fashion style seemingly is beyond style, and comments on the culture of today. What is so attractive about the 2000s heartthrob? What movies and television shows make him so attractive to us today? What does our yearning for this version of men say about our society? What are some easy ways to adopt this style of fashion into your wardrobe?
   3. The “Filthy” Aesthetic
      
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        • • Musician Sofia Isella is noted for her politically charged music and her accompanying “dirty girl” aesthetic. With torn, oversized, and stained clothes and unbrushed hair, Isella’s aesthetic is inseparable from her music and message. The aesthetic that Isella uses comes from black communities, a reclamation of negative associations. What is the history of the aesthetics of filth, and what does it mean for Isella to use it today? What other artists throughout history have used this aesthetic? What does it say about the art itself? Why are we adverse to filth? Why are we less-adverse when Sofia Isella uses it?

      Claim a pitch or send your own to Sofia at [email protected]

1. 1. Fast Fashion:
      
      
      • A recent study found that fashion production accounts for about 10% of global carbon emissions. Write an article that outlines the environmental impacts of fast fashion; you can highlight the fashion industry’s effect on freshwater withdrawal and its contribution to aquatic microfiber content. Are these impacts expected to increase over time? Do some research about the manufacturing methods of major brand names (Zara, H&M, UNIQLO, etc.); are these methods environmentally friendly? How does a specific company’s lead time (time it takes for a product to go through a supply chain) influence their emission levels? You can also talk about slow fashion: the widespread ‘reaction’ to fast fashion and its environmental impacts.
   2. Science’s Dirty Little Secrets
      
      
      • Tell us about some of the “dirty” secrets of the science world – the parts of scientific history that have been sugarcoated or covered up. You can write about some of the research frauds in history, such as an event that happened in the 1960s: the Sugar Research Foundation paid Harvard scientists to publish a paper that downplayed the link between sugar and coronary heart disease. Or you can talk about the infamous project MKUltra from the 1950s, the CIA’s highly controversial and unethical attempt at creating mind-controlling drugs to contend with the Soviet Union. Or you can even tell us about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that was built in Switzerland to study particle physics, and eventually got blamed for triggering earthquakes and generating a magnetic field that could pull asteroids towards Earth.
2. “Clean Girl Aesthetic”
   
   
   • In the early 2020’s, the “clean girl” trend rose to new heights on several social media platforms (and is still quite present to this day), characterized by slicked-back buns, ‘glass skin,’ pilates, journaling, and minimalism galore. While the trend is incredibly popular, there has been some pushback; writer Violet Nygugen has called the aesthetic a “destructive ideology that reinforces classism, consumerism, and sexism disguised as self-care.” In this article, investigate the clean girl aesthetic from a scientific/psychological lens. Research the halo effect and its relation to this trend. What is the psychology behind the human desire for control, and for attaining the illusion of effortlessness? Are there specific cognitive responses to words like ‘clean,’ ‘natural,’ and ‘put-together’ that are triggered by this trend?

Claim a pitch or send your own to Shivantika and Mashiyat at [email protected]

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING POETRY PITCHES: To pitch to the Poetry Section, please include a draft of the poem you plan on writing AND/OR a poem you’ve written in the past as a writing sample alongside your regular pitch (refer to Vol. 69 Contributor Guide). Your draft or sample does not need to be formal, finished, or polished—we are just looking to get a preemptive feel for your writing style. Pitches that do not include a draft or sample will not be accepted for the Bloodsucker issue.

1. 1. 1. “In Another Life, I Would Have Really Liked Just Doing Laundry and Taxes With You”
         
         
         • In Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Evelyn reflects that, in another life, she would have liked to do laundry and taxes with Waymond. Sometimes love isn’t like the grand gestures from movies, it’s more to do with the quiet accumulation of ordinary life: folding someone’s clothes, bringing home groceries you know they like, loading and unloading the dishwasher. Write a poem about the mundane rituals that become special once they’re a part of a collective act instead of an individual one.
      2. What Doesn’t Come Out in the Wash?:
         
         
         • We wash our clothes to remove the traces of where we’ve been, but some stains are more stubborn than others. Write a poem about something that can’t be scrubbed away like this. What remains when everything else in the wash bin has been cleaned? Consider making the form of your poem take on the shape of this metaphorical stain.

          

      3. Handle With Care:
         
         
         • Clothing-care labels are full of tedious instructions: wash cold, do not bleach, tumble dry low, handle with care. What if we treated our lives like that? Write a poem structured as a set of laundry-care instructions. Consider the rules we invent to protect ourselves, the things we are told never to do that we do anyways, and the parts of ourselves we try (and ultimately fail) to preserve in their ideal form. What would the care label for the relationships in your life look like? Perhaps you could separate your stanzas into White, Colours, and Delicates, ultimately allowing that rigid structure to dissolve into a single load.

       

      Claim a pitch or send your own to Reina at [email protected]

1. 1. Write a scathing piece airing out dirty laundry, but written by someone with a very literal understanding of ‘dirty laundry.’
      
      
      • Do you know someone who doesn’t separate their laundry?
      • Are you itching to let the campus know about your roommate who always leaves their clothes sitting in the washing machine?
      • Write a raving expose about the poor laundry habits you’ve seen running rampant.
      • (You’ve heard someone is still using fabric softener and you will not stand for it)
2. Write a scathing piece airing out dirty laundry, but written by someone with a very poor understanding of what counts as scathing gossip.

 

• • Have you heard that someone around campus uses…plastic straws?
  • Is there a celebrity couple who is doing pretty okay actually?
  • Similar to the prompt above – write another expose, but this time from someone who’s got the spirit to dish it, but maybe not the right intel to serve up.
3. Write from the perspective of a gossip columnist who’s a few decades (or maybe a few centuries) behind.
   

    

   • Have you heard they might be letting women vote soon?
   • Have you heard they might be letting women study at UofT soon?
   • What’s the scoop on that Napoleon guy? The funky one, with the hat?
     
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4. Write a few laundry tips as someone who’s mommy was still doing their laundry up until last week.
   
   

    

   • Give our readers a tell-all on how to end up with a shrunken sweater (it’s super chic, okay, French or something)
   • Is there a right way to overflow the washing machine (sorry downstairs neighbours)
   • Are there alternatives to laundry detergent you’ve discovered – like a dish soap or the strongest cologne known to man?
   • Please give our readers a helpful (if you squint) guide to doing laundry on your own like a big boy

Claim a pitch or send your own to Victoria and Elizabeth at [email protected]