White Lotus review, new Writing Center hours, and the Mayoral Candidates Forum
plus a movie recommendation to keep you entertained
Welcome back to ‘In the Loop’! It’s your newsletter team — Kate, Emily, Faith, Lily, Cary, Lauren, Richie, Bridget and Monique.
Today, we have a review of the second season of ‘White Lotus’, updating students on the Writing Center’s hours and details on a local pledge to give hot food to migrants.
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In case you missed it, check out our most recent story by Richie Requena about a candidate for alderperson of the 26th Ward.
With that, let’s get into the news!
Review: ‘White Lotus’ Seduction and Sacrifice in Sicily
By Emily Figueroa
The second season of the HBO series “The White Lotus”, created by Mike White, came back with addictive characters and luring personalities. The White Lotus is an extravagant hotel promising delectable dinners, breathtaking views and blissful ignorance. Season one followed the hostile interactions between high status guests and employees, who acted more as their servants while vacationing in Maui. Although the first season set the high bar for the amount of drama and murder to occur at a hotel, the second season gave vacationing with the elite a new meaning.
I was captivated by the choice of Sicily for the second location of the hotel and the season would be nothing without it. In Sicily, we meet my favorite characters: Lucia and Mia. Lucia is a sex worker who finds her clients at the hotel and Mia is an aspiring singer looking to make a name for herself. Through seducing the hotel pianist and manager, Mia secures a permanent job signing at the luxurious hotel. Lucia convinces naive hotel guest, Albie, to give her $50,000 to escape the controlling relationship she has with a dangerous stalker, who turns out to be a friend of Lucia. Although the girls took advantage of the high class clients, I don’t blame them for one second.
Meeting Lucia and Mia was refreshing since they were not stuck up hotel guests. Instead of watching the guests complain about their hotel service in season one, I got to experience the connections between the guests and locals. Lucia did scam Albie, but she taught him how to break his shy shell of a man and take charge against his controlling family. Albie’s innocence, even though it worked against him, taught Lucia empathy and that men can want more than just sex from her. Putting myself in Albie’s position, I was hurting for him since a woman used his kindness and abandoned him with no explanation. I also understood that Lucia was scamming a wealthy person in her eyes and a couple thousand wasn’t the end of the world for him, but it was the start of her new life.
The same goes for Mia when she lured the pianist in for a quick hookup and ended up stealing his job. The pianist was infatuated with Mia’s beauty and underestimated her ambition to become a singer. She chose her moment and picked it wisely since both of the girls set out their dreams and accomplished what was meant to be theirs.
The women of Sicily came out victorious with riches and a career which I was delighted to see by the end of the series. The men fell victim to their tricks and had to sacrifice their old life to help start new beginnings for others. After this season, I believe this series is more than rich exclusive guests profiting off the labor of hotel employees. Sicily filled The White Lotus of dreams come true and of intelligent women taking their country back from lustful fleeting men.
DePaul News
By Faith Hennig
DePaul 2023 Innovation keynote speakers
The university announced the keynote speakers for DePaul’s fourth annual Innovation Day. Speakers Scott Fetters, director at 2112 Creative Industries Incubator, and Anthony Spina, co-founder of System Seltzers, will talk about community building and other collaborative pursuits. Marine Kei Green-Rogers, Dean of the Theatre School, will also be speaking. Innovation Day takes place in the Lincoln Park Campus on January 27. More information can be found here.
Writing Center reopens
The Writing Center reopens this winter on January 9, and both Lincoln Park and Loop Campus Writing Centers will be taking writers who need help this quarter. Lincoln Park hours are from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Sunday. New Loop hours resume Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. More information can be found here.
Demon Jam returns
For one day only, DePaul is hosting Demon Jam, a concert providing refreshments and merchandise. The headliner for Demon Jam this year is Spencer Sutherland. This event is for students only and a DePaul ID will be needed to enter. This takes place Thursday, January 12 6:30-9:30 p.m. in the Lincoln Park Student Center.
Lastly, here is your weekend sports update (Jan. 7-8)
Women’s Basketball postponed their game against Connecticut
Chicago Headlines
By Lily Lowndes
Mayoral candidates speak at disability forum — The field has whittled down to nine candidates, seven of which spoke at advocacy group Access Living’s disability forum over the weekend. Candidates in attendance, including incumbent Lori Lightfoot, spoke about topics including mental health programs and policies inclusive of people with disabilities. For the full coverage of the forum featuring Lightfoot, Chuy García, Sophia King, Kam Buckner, Brandon Johnson, Paul Vallas and Ja’Mal Green, read on at the Chicago Tribune. You can also watch the forum here.
JROTC enrollment drops after CPS crackdown — The number of freshmen in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) participating in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps has fallen by more than two-thirds at some schools. This drop is likely due to CPS banning schools from automatically enrolling students in the military training program. Some students at South and West Side high schools were found to be placed in these programs without a choice as a substitute for physical education classes. Alex Ruppenthal of WBEZ has the full story.
The Wiener’s Circle pledges hot meals — The Lincoln Park restaurant delivered food to a group of 60 migrants who were bused to Chicago from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott. According to the Refugee Community Connection, shelters, where migrants are staying, provide meals, but it’s all cold food. The Wiener’s Circle owner said it was a New Year’s resolution for the hot dog joint to rally “friends and other restaurants and groups throughout the city,” to deliver warm meals to migrants every Tuesday. Mitch Dudek of the Chicago Sun-Times has the scoop.
National Headlines
By Cary Robbins
Students return to University of Idaho after murders — Students will be returning to campus this week at the University of Idaho just a couple weeks after suspect Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested in regard to the murders of four University of Idaho students. Students are returning to campus and some students are planning on carrying flashlights and mace while walking around campus, according to an NBC article.
North American Presidents and Prime Minister meet in Mexico — United States President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be meeting in Mexico to discuss “issues of migration, illegal drugs, climate change, manufacturing and trade” in the North American countries. Amnesty International, a non-profit organization focused on human rights, has asked leaders to make refugees and migrants the top priority. You can read more about why this meeting is important in this article written in Al Jazeera.
Protesters storm Brazil’s capital military compound, Congress and Supreme Court — On Sunday, supporters of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, set up in front of the Brazilian capital’s military compound, Congress and Supreme Court. In an AP article, it is said that what started as a peaceful protest soon changed, and people began to destroy the building. The article parallels the events to the January 6th incident in the United States when former President Trump supporters came into the Capitol. Protestors in Brazil are said to have “set fires, smashed windows, crushed furniture and damaged artwork.” Former president Jair Bolsonaro claims that he has no role in the encampment. He is currently in Florida, where he is said to be in a hospital with abdominal pain due to a stabbing that occurred in 2018.
$9 billion donated to help Pakistan flood devastation — Last year, Pakistan experienced devastating floods, and donors at the international conference in Geneva have pledged to give more than $9 billion to help rebuild and recover devastated parts of the country. Pakistan will be hosting the event in Geneva on Monday with the United Nations and is seeking money for half of the total $16.3 billion recovery bill. According to an article written in Al Jazeera, the floods “affected more than 33 million Pakistanis, killing more than 1,700 people and pushing about nine million others into poverty.”
Hey, Check This Out!
With Featured Columnist Lauren Sheperd
Welcome back and happy 2023! I’m excited to share my first recommendation for the quarter. Over break, I was lucky to have some time to myself to catch up on movies and shows I was waiting to watch. I was able to curl up on the couch next to a nice fire back home and watch Cavs games, Friends and, most importantly, Glass Onion.
Glass Onion is the first sequel to Knives Out, which came out in 2019. However, it wasn’t your typical sequel and it didn’t follow the original cast or family. Instead, it followed my favorite character from the original film: detective Benoit Blanc who was played by Daniel Craig. Similar to the first Knives Out movie, Blanc was mysteriously hired to solve some sort of murder mystery. While it doesn’t seem like he’s doing much throughout the first half of the movie, he’s observing, and his observations are shown in the second half of the movie.
My favorite part of this movie was how it was laid out. The movie is split into halves. The first shows the entire plot and event from a third person perspective, so the viewer misses most of the vital details to solving the mystery. However, once the conflict is over, the viewer is taken back to the very beginning of the mystery and is able to see the conflict play out from the perspective of Blanc. You become aware of all of the details Blanc saw that viewers may have missed, and as his slow southern drawl is retelling the story, everything starts to come together. The last 20 minutes of the movie end the conflict after Blanc mysteriously lets himself out.
Though a murder mystery, Glass Onion uses humor throughout the entire movie. Blanc is funny, and most of the other characters are ridiculous and unbearable. The film is also set during the beginning of the pandemic, and the humor surrounding that time is key to the entire movie.
Before school starts to pick up again, I would recommend watching Glass Onion with some friends. It’s funny and entertaining, but the social commentary throughout the entire movie is well done and interesting.
Resources
Need resources regarding cooling centers, rental assistance, abortion access, COVID-19 testing and vaccines or mental health? Check out our complete list here.
That’s it for today! See you next Monday.
The 14 East Newsletter Team