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

Jared Polis' Pink Ceiling

Jared Polis' Pink Ceiling

Article by Nathan Makela; art by Wayan Buschman

I discovered Congressman Jared Polis one afternoon while I was on the prowl—not for hookups, but for gay role models. As a gay man myself, with a disappointingly small amount of high-profile gay people to look up to, I find myself prowling quite often. Polis was brought into my periphery because he is the representative from Colorado’s 2nd congressional district. I have only lived in the state for about three years, but it’s good to know there are more of us out there. 

Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

I’d like to begin this letter with a hypothetical but familiar story. There’s a girl we probably all know. Let’s call her Sally. Sally is shy, demure, and would never step on anyone’s toes. You’ve never known her to be even the least bit confrontational, let alone shocking. Then, one day, in the middle of a casual conversation, Sally says something like, “Fuck that asshole.”

Letter from the editor - Ego

Dear Reader,

One of the things that makes writing both difficult and worthwhile is the way we all tend to identify with the stories we write. When I’ve worked hard on a piece and someone says something like, “Ethan, you write like a fourth grader,” something in me wants to curl up in a corner and die. And it gets even more complicated because we editors identify not only with our own work, but also with that of our writers. 

Views from Combaté

Photo essay by Leo Turpan

At 1 p.m. last New Year’s Eve I found myself fifty miles outside of Havana following a young Cuban man down an unkempt dirt road leading into the village of Combaté. His name was Johan, and I had met him an hour before agreeing to go. The town to which we were headed consisted of a hundred or so small concrete homes, and we were heading to Johan’s girlfriend’s cousin’s house, where he had assured me I would find authentic scenes of Cuban life.

“Inside the home, on a day of festivities, this is where real Cuban life exists, not out in the streets of crumbling architecture,” he had told me

Inked

Interviews by Eliza Fitz; art by Kat Gentry

Emily Fitzgerald / Tattoo: Five orchid flowers, on her right shoulder

It’s a remembrance of my grandpa. He was an orchid farmer for his whole life, and he died of lung cancer three years ago, and I wanted to have [orchids] on my body forever. My grandpa had one type of orchid that eluded him—these black orchids. He could never plant them, so technically it’s a black orchid on me. It’s a tradition in my family to have an orchid in every room of the house, and we only have this type of orchid in every room. So it makes me think about home, too. You wouldn't understand the tattoo just from seeing it.

"Ute Prayer Trees"

Story by Nathan Goodman; art by Caroline Li

After my first triumphant week of summer research, I started to freak out as I pulled up to the parking lot of the event site. As part of my research on the “Impacts of Public Lands Management on Indigenous Peoples of the Pikes Peak Region,” I was attending the tenth annual “One Nation Walking Together Intertribal Powwow.” It was my first stab at fieldwork. Naturally, I was terrified. What was I—some white, privileged, wannabe social justice warrior—supposed to do at an Indigenous community event?

Tu Hija

Article by Alesandra Tejeda; art by Olathe Antonio & Jia Mei

I am seventeen years old, and my boyfriend, Joe, and I are at the grocery store. We’re going to buy sushi, go back to his house, and watch a movie.

We’ve just reached the refrigerated sushi display and I’m absorbed, chatting away about our options, when I hear Joe’s voice, rushed and caught by surprise, say:

“Ale,” as he grabs my right arm.

I look up and scan my surroundings, confused.

Then my eyes catch my mother’s.

She’s maybe ten feet in front of me. In the hummingbird second it takes for me to internalize her presence, my heart drops to my toes. She’s wearing a familiar outfit: her tennis shoes, sweats, and Louis Vuitton hand bag—arms crossed, her toes face the deli counter as her torso twists to me. Staring at me. Her eyes are dark. 

I wonder what my face looked like before time unfroze. I burst out laughing, and follow Joe out of the store. I still wonder why I laughed. 

That was the first time I’d seen her since the restraining order was issued and the last time I’ve seen her since—at least face to face. I’ll often find myself seeing short, stout blonde women from behind, and my heart suddenly thuds like a drum in my ears as I flee in the other direction. 

"Is it really real, son?"

Article by David Andrews; art by Olive Welsh

As I pulled up next to a faded red Honda Odyssey, I noticed a hand protruding from the driver’s side window. I glanced over and saw a middle-aged Denver dad-type slamming his head into the headrest and rapping along to the beat of Kendrick Lamar’s “HUMBLE:” “Bitch. Sit down, be humble.” 

Stay humble in that Odyssey. Keep making moves. I hope the U-10 soccer league has gotten off to a good start this season, I thought. “DAMN.,” Lamar’s most recent album, is clearly a crossover hit if the dads of our world are rattling their Honda Odysseys with the politically-charged tracks of the most popular rapper in the world. 

Everything Changes

Article by Ethan Cutler; art by Isabel Aurichio

"A distinction that I make is between what I call identity-thinking and activity-thinking. And like you pointed out, an identity is something that stays self-same over time. So you can look at yourself this way, but you can also look at things in the world as remaining self-same over time. Let’s say there’s a tree in your front yard—the tree grows over time, and at some point it will also die and decay. But we look at the tree every day and we think of the tree as self-same. It’s that tree: that maple tree in the front yard."

American Anatomy

Article by Bridget O'Neill; art by Paige Talerico

I walked into my first day at the U.S. Senate apprehensively, but already I relished the click of my heels through the marble halls, the way I blended into the sea of well-dressed, preoccupied commuters on the metro. Even illusory power is intoxicating. Striding past the Supreme Court on my way to work and flashing a badge, I felt like a cog in a glamorous, powerful machine. 

When Wood Sings

When Wood Sings

Article by Ethan Cutler; photos by Caroline Li

Juan Mijares is not in it for the money. Granted, most people looking to make money don’t go into the violin-making business in the first place. But even within the profession, there are those who maximize their profit by churning out instruments as often as possible, and then there are violin-makers like Juan—those who earn the noble title of “luthier.”

The Diversity Myth

The Diversity Myth

Article by Drew Turley; art by Hannah Seabright

Major efforts to diversify CC as an institution started after Tiefenthaler joined us in 2011. After she heard the cry for more diversity, she started making changes. On the Diversity page of CC’s website, we report that in 2004, 14.3 percent of students identified as American ethnic minorities. In 2014, 24.7 percent of students identified as American ethnic minorities. In 2004, 1.7 percent of students were international. And again that figure rose to 6.4 percent in 2014. While these changes indicate institutional efforts to diversify CC, we certainly have plenty of room to grow. We are still an overwhelmingly white institution.

Dumb Idea:

Dumb Idea:

Article by Jackson Truesdale

I had to—wanted to—write an article. If I was to write, I wanted to go full-hog, chasing interviews and information. The first idea: Why is Colorado College expanding? CC is building out into the surrounding neighborhood. I could interview students, administrators, faculty and campus-neighboring residents. It would be great. But I also felt like turning inward, looking at CC and how the institution affects our lives as students. I would try to learn how the CC admission process affects socioeconomic diversity in the student body. Students informally commented on the admission process, on the odious “Admissions,” with general distrust and dissatisfaction. “CC sucks. They’re up to no good.”