RobSoJuicy

Reimagining Precautionary Safety Robert Gao Could you imagine having Sean “P. Diddy” Love Combs as your next-door neighbor? Neither can I. But in an ideal world—one that only knows whimsy and the American Dream—this want transcends mere imagination. In this world, I am a poet-physician, returning every day from a little hospital on the Chicago River to a wonderful suburban home—white-picket fence, beautiful family, landscaped magnolias and all—with, yes, P. Diddy living and breathing next-door, five steps away, within crawling distance. Indeed, the genius of this decision may not strike readers immediately, and so let me explicate its guts into granular pieces. Due to Combs’ involvement with numerous horrific scandals, including freak-offs and so-called “Diddy Parties” (functions that involve highly prevalent sexual innuendos and numerous cartridges of baby oil), the oiled elephant in the room suggests this decision as undyingly blasphemous and reckless.  And to that elephant’s poi...

On the Most Beautiful Cumbia Robert Gao Do you wish you could return to a moment from your past? National YoungArts Week—a week of interdisciplinary collaboration between classical musicians, filmmakers, singers, fashion designers, dancers, and writers—still presents itself as the most influential week of my life. Indeed, there exists an intangible power in the arts. Through divergent mediums and the rawness of being human, we as artists can act as agents of change—imbued with the ability to romanticize the mundane, turn the trivial beautiful. Yet, this euphoric epiphany is not always self-discovered—instead, it quietly manifests within the artist individually, only releasing itself when artistic souls converge. At YoungArts, under cerulean Miami skies and a city infused with jazz and soul, I began to play disciple to this notion—networking with artists, developing my craft, remaining unshakably curious. Although only one of a few sophomores in a junior and senior-heavy cohort, I never...