Cipher Mag
Letter From The Editor: Bad
Letter From The Editor: Bad

Moanin'

Moanin'

Article by Abe Mamet; art by Alayna Altman

When I was nine, my eyes opened. Or rather, my iPod’s pre-set alarm clock woke me up from a bad nap. Just in time for dinner, yet my thoughts were ripped quickly and terrifyingly from my rumbling stomach as I realized I’d mistakenly queued my brother’s jazz playlist as my alarm instead of my AC/DC collection. What woke me, then, was not Bon Scott’s wailing on “Highway to Hell,” but the hellfire and brimstone erupting from a foreign baritone sax opening Charles Mingus’s “Moanin’.” Soon, more than my eyes opened. I realized that the music flooding my tiny closet of a room was different than any other music I’d ever heard. This song, I quickly realized, was Mingus’s tribute to freedom, and class was in session.

Unearthed

Unearthed

Article by Maggie O’Brien; photos courtesy of CC Special Collections

“Colorado College does have some skeletons in its closets,” begins former Colorado College Professor of History, Anne Hyde, in her 2005 article published in the Southwest Studies newsletter la Tertulia. “And like many other institutions in the United States, some of its skeletons were the remains of Native American people.” 

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sasquatch

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sasquatch

Article by Rebecca Twinney; art by Caroline Li and Jackson Truesdale

About two miles into the drive up Pikes Peak, there’s an official-looking brown highway sign alerting drivers to the crossing of a looming, hulk-like figure. With legs as thick as its waist and feet larger than its head, it’s unmistakably the infamous Bigfoot.

Underneath the figure reads, “Due to sightings in the area of a creature resembling ‘big foot,’ this sign has been posted for your safety.” 

Getting What I Want

Getting What I Want

Article by Anonymous; art by Isabel Auricho

Came to college a virgin. I didn’t stay that way for long. I started dating someone at the end of September, and we broke up when I went abroad junior year. Then I was in another relationship until this past February. I’ve essentially never been single in college. I’d never experienced “the hookup culture.” And now that I have, in this last semester at school, it’s easy to see why so many people hate it.

Prying Eyes

In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. received an anonymous letter which began: “In view of your low-grade, abnormal personal behavior I will not dignify your name with either a Mr. or a Reverend or a Dr. And your last name calls to mind only the type of King such as King Henry the VIII and his countless acts of adultery and immoral conduct lower than that of a beast.” The letter was written by the first director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home

What started as vague curiosity about the game (I’d come across a flyer in a corner of the Wooglin’s bulletin that read, “Play Go Here! The oldest Chinese board game……. All welcome! Fridays 5-9 p.m.”) turned to intrigue when I’d shown up alone to find an eclectic group of men hunched over boards, 18-to-60-year-old versions of high school chess fanatics.

Switchbacks

Switchbacks

In the rearview mirror, I saw blood spreading across the white of my left eye. A pretty scarlet—by now I was screaming, yelping maybe. And the pain was increasing. We were 8,000 feet above sea level, and as we gained elevation the pressure inside my terribly blocked sinuses increased as the atmospheric pressure decreased. In my panicking mind, there were two foreseeable outcomes: pressurized air would burst from my eye sockets in a spray of red goo, blinding me forever, or my skull would shatter.

Searching for Smoke

Searching for Smoke

I am a pudgy guy. It would be hard to picture me hiking up the side of a mountain in snow pants and a jacket, my inhaler safely in my pocket. But there I was, on a two-mile trek with an elevation gain of 2,000 vertical feet ascending Squaw Mountain, in Idaho Springs, Colorado, with a ranger from the Clear Creek district. Our destination was the Squaw Fire Lookout, a place I’d wanted to visit since I first discovered that these towers existed.

A Portrait for Palmer

A Portrait for Palmer

Even an unmoving edifice like Palmer Hall can be pulled into a new drama by someone else’s invention. Lukey Walden’s (‘17) Studio Art thesis show, “They! Them!! Here!!!” used the second floor landing and second floor of Palmer to display portraits they’d painted of transgender, queer and gender non-conforming individuals from the CC and Colorado Springs community. The title of each painting is the subject’s name, and a note reminds viewers to refer to each subject with “they” pronouns.

Static

Static

Simon’s oven mitts hadn’t been washed since 1998. They were originally patterned with clusters of blueberries and chickens, but time had splattered them with streaks of spaghetti sauce, grease from Sunday morning bacon breakfasts, wine from the fight about wedding silverware and soot from having burned the right thumb when he found Lucy crying upstairs on Thanksgiving.

Flag Man's Last Stand

Flag Man's Last Stand

There are many versions of the American Dream, but few are as unusual as Steve J. Bedigian’s. For Steve, “The American Dream is what the pilgrims did.” But living like the pilgrims is no idle fantasy for Steve. For the past few years he has lived in an American-flag-adorned hole in the ground a few feet off of Highway 24. Just like the pilgrims.

King and Kubrick

King and Kubrick

People long-in-the-tooth hover in pairs, waiting impatiently. Their scalps are coated with thick films of ever-drying Rogaine, and they scuffle around in orthopedic sneakers that hide gout-ridden feet. Ten million wrinkles stretch and compress in small talk. 

These people have planned a visit to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, and they have been promised a ghost.

Sense and Invisibility

I am not here to tell you a story of a desperate single girl or to have a pity party. I am not here to point fingers or to play the blame game. I can only tell you what I have observed from my time at Colorado College—I am here to tell you the truth. The truth about interracial dating and hookups on our campus from a perspective not often afforded a voice, that of a single Black female. I have talked to a number of students and have been through my own personal experiences, and it’s time for me to share these stories with you.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

Sophomore Biology major, third floor Barnes. 10:15 a.m., third Thursday, Block 4.

I’m sitting at my usual table next to two people I’ve known since freshman year and one that I met this block. My professor is lecturing, just like every other day. I’ve been here since 9 a.m., with a quick five-minute break at 10, a little early for a break, but nothing crazy. It occurs to me, though, that I’ll be sitting here for the next hour and 45 minutes straight. In this room. In this seat. Without moving.

Between a Cock and a Hard Place

I’m a feminist stuck somewhere in the middle of the porn debate. I agree with anti-porn activists that mainstream pornography is dangerous and with pro-porn advocates that censoring porn contributes to sex-negativity. Sex itself is a pleasurable act, not a bad thing, and censoring porn implies that sex is shameful. Regardless of where I stand, porn is a form of Constitutionally protected free speech, which renders the debate moot. People are going to—and have a right to—make and watch porn. What matters is the type of porn we choose to watch.