Issue 35 (Spring 2025) – The Catalyst

Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

Sometime early in Winter Quarter, I became obsessed with an aesthetic which relies on unconventional and impractical uses of everyday objects, optical illusions, and apparently, fruit. I love the creative efficiency involved in using ordinary objects to resemble something new, and create interesting art. If you begin asking yourself questions like: “Why am I shaping letters out of Q-tips and a pregnancy test? What’s happening?” then you’re probably on the right track. There is something delightful, and much funnier in hindsight, about zooming out on yourself as you frantically stab toothpicks through rotting fruit, desperate to get just one good photo, and desperately aware that this is your tuition dollars at work. I guess what I’m trying to say is, one enormous gift from The Catalyst has been the privilege of creating art without the burden of having to question why it might matter. In many ways, it’s a return to the blind ambition of a child, behaving and creating without fear of embarrassment or judgement, spending the whole day outside touching bugs, filming music videos and skate tricks over and over with your friends. You’re sweaty, wearing Red Dye 40 on the perimeter of your mouth like lipstick. No one asks you when you’re nine years old why that stuff is important. Issue 35 explores a return to that child mind: a state of blinding creativity, honesty, and most important, play. The paradox here, though, is that these creative impulses, governed by spontaneity and even frivolity, are nonetheless political acts, interventions that challenge stagnation and the meek acceptance of the way things are. In our hands, toothpick fruit, children’s games, and most of all, poetry, are all active agents. At the start of Spring Quarter, I posed a question to the group of artists who made this magazine: what is America craving? It’s not a trick question, but it’s easy to complicate. I suspect most of us have participated in this feeling: a generation which has everything at our fingertips and still feels starved for meaning, consumed by the thoughts of what we consume, obsessed with what we can prove to one another, what we might accomplish, the stale truths of growing up. No matter how hard we resist, there always awaits a new temptation to turn off our brains, to disengage, scroll, wake, work, rinse, repeat. This America too often views happiness as an impossible reality without giving ourselves a chance to make something of our lives right now, and I suggest nothing more extraordinary than just being human: to create, and to allow ourselves to see things differently. Plenty of Americans don’t get the choice between work and play, but the privilege of The Catalyst is that the two have always been intertwined. And in many ways, I’ve been so desperate to get to the finish line, to hold this magazine in my hands and pray for no earth-shattering mistakes, so terrified of fucking up that I might have missed the entire point. I guess we always learn lessons in hindsight. Th e Catalyst taught me that the “work” is a privilege, and as I close out my final quarter as EIC I’m trying to savor it because I’m learning it doesn’t last forever.

I’m enormously humbled to pass along the torch to my dear friends Natalie Riley and Claire Trask, whom The Catalyst has given me, and to one last time address the editorial team, Adam D, Adam G, Amanda, Ashley, and Isis, who are all so flooded with talent, enthusiasm, and creativity that I can’t help but expect that we’ll all cross paths in the future, wherever our choices take us. Special thanks to our TA, Olivia Bievenue, who is the image of humility and kindness and has made a wonderful addition to this team. Finally, thank you to Brian Donnelly, who has gathered some sort of cult-like following in the English Department for being entirely wonderful, and who has never once doubted this team. Thank you, Brian, and to all of you for your dedication, without you none of this could exist. I’ll cherish it forever!

Ali Korahais

Editor-in-Chief

† Content Warning: Please be advised that some of the material in the magazine may be disturbing or traumatizing to some readers. The magazine contains language and addresses themes that may not be suitable for young readers. We would like to provide our readers of the UCSB community with additional resources: