A surprise to many who may know him only from television, Keery’s music career did not start with ‘becoming’ Djo, or even as an actor on Netflix. He was originally the guitarist for the “Post Animal” rock band from 2014 to 2019, but decided to leave the band due to his acting commitments with “Stranger Things.” Keery continued his career as a solo indie rock artist while acting. He released his first official album, “Twenty Twenty” (2019) featuring 12 songs, including “Chateau (Feel Alright),” which drew many of his current fans into what is often referred to as ‘retro psychedelia meets modern indie rock.’ His songs often explore the themes of personal transformation and reflections on identity, and have been described by reviewers as a “nostalgic and retro synth-pop style that transports you into another realm of funk.” His newest releases explore similar themes but his style has transitioned more upbeat compared to “Tentpole Shangrila” and “Roddy” from his “Twenty Twenty” album. Although it might sound different from his previous albums, his music still has a retro charm. 

During the release of his debut album, Keery performed six concerts, many of which occurred during music festivals, including Lollapalooza and the Boston Callings Festival. Djo reappeared at the end of January 2025 for a surprise show in New York City, where he teased his newest release, “Basic Being Basic” from the Crux album, as well as several other songs from “Decide” and “Twenty Twenty” albums.

Djo’s “The Back on You” World Tour started on Feb. 6 in Auckland, New Zealand, and will end in Amsterdam in June after a North American loop. He will perform in Boston on May 2 with his old bandmates from “Post Animal,” who will open the show at Roadrunner. Fans should expect an exciting mix of his older music and some songs from his newest album. Although Djo’s presale and general admission tickets are sold out, resale tickets are still available for a relatively reasonable price.

Contact the editors responsible for this story: Ivy Buck, Anabelle Meyers

“The purpose of the light show is to introduce people who normally don’t come into the greenhouse to plants and recognizing their beauty and admiring them with the Wellesley community,” Husaani said. She emphasized the importance of making  Global Flora accessible to the public, reinforcing its role as a community gathering spot. In that spirit, the event extended an open invitation to all local Wellesley residents. 

Each year, the interns come up with a new and exciting theme inspired by nature. Last year’s “Evolution of Love” explored themes of love and self-healing. This year, “Plants in Motion” took inspiration from a popular movie franchise. “The original idea was ‘Night at the Museum’ where the plants come alive, and so we kind of pivoted to focusing on how they move and the journeys they’ve taken,” Husaani explained. 

A key educational aim of the show is to spotlight specific plant characteristics. As such, the main focus of this year’s event was the movement of the various flora on display. To fully capture the plants’ motion, the interns and botanical garden staff turned up the speed of the huge overhead fans from 25% to 75% to create a swaying effect on the leafy, tropical plants in the wet biome.

One such standout was the sensitive plant, a favorite of Sanchez’s. “It was the most visibly on-theme plant we have,” she noted, referring to the way it curls inward when touched. To complement the plant and create a keepsake memory, guests were given the option to decorate and plant their own pots of sensitive plant seeds to bring back home. Apart from decorating plant pots, students and guests were encouraged to share snippets of poems and passages on the mezzanine to fully immerse themselves in the magical night.

In addition to emphasizing certain plants using string lights, the event featured artwork by Wellesley alum Isaac Zerkle ‘18, a printmaker and installation artist. The pieces, inspired by global flora and crafted from wires and printed paper mache with original illustrations, were internally illuminated to showcase the seed history of various plants. Among the depictions was the mangrove propagule, displayed near the Mangrove Tank in the Wet Biome, and the Durant Camellia seed in its dedicated exhibit. 

Although the lights have since been removed, the lightshow leaves behind certain remnants for students and guests to enjoy, including Zerkle’s art installations and the mesmerizing sensitive plant. For more information on visiting hours, students and guests can check out the College’s website.

Contact the editors responsible for this article: Norah Catlin, Nita Kelly 

Upon entrance to the exhibit, a large red wall displays an introduction to Dalí himself, along with his paintings. Each section of the following exhibition room corresponds to a different theme; from “Fantasy and Nightmare” (1927) featuring horror-esque paintings like “Apparatus and Hand,” to “Mining the Past” featuring post-impressionism Dalí classics like “Self Portrait in the Studio” (1919), the MFA houses a full breadth of Dalí’s work. 

The exhibit also displays Dalí’s various inspirations, most notably his Spanish predecessor Diego Velazquez. Velazquez, a court painter to King Philip IV of Spain, painted portraits in the 17th century of royals such as King Philip IV’s daughter, whose 1636 portrait lies alongside Dalí’s work.

One piece in particular that stood out to me was Dalí’s “Living Still Life” (1956), held in the exhibit’s post-impressionist and cubist-themed section. In “Living Still Life” (1956), Dalí experiments with “nuclear mysticism,” an artistic style which shows the relationships between quantum physics and the consciousness of mind. Nuclear mysticism evolved in the aftermath of World War II, after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski in Japan, devastating the country and its people. “Living Still Life” captures fast-moving action and lively qualities, going hand-in-hand with Dalí’s watch or time motif seen in “The Persistence of Memory” (1931), as well as the recreation of his 1931 painting “The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory” (1954) painting, also featured at the MFA’s exhibit in Boston. 

The concluding section of the exhibit showcases a large number of pieces featured as “Higher Callings,” where Dalí explores surrealism and the connections between Catholicism and humans. An entire wall displays Dalí’s “Ecumenical Council” (1960), which took two years to finish and stands at an astounding 118 x 100 inches. Similar to “Living Still Life,” Dali reflects in “Ecumenical Council” on religious leadership following the devastation of World War II. 

“Dalí: Disruption and Devotion” is a must-see exhibit for art lovers and newcomers alike, inviting all to experience the enigmatic world of Dalí. This exhibit will be available for general admission at the MFA in Boston until Dec. 1, and Wellesley students get free admission to the museum with an active OneCard!

Contact the editors responsible for this story: Anabelle Meyers, Ivy Buck

Charli XCX’s album, “Brat” sparked a viral trend of “brat green” and “brat summer.” Together with Troye Sivan with his long-awaited full album “Something to Give Each Other,” the artist Charli greeted fans across the world with her latest “Sweat” tour. 

In Boston’s TD Garden, singer and DJ Shygirl opened the show with an energetic set, featuring songs like  “4eva,” “FREAK,” “thicc” and more. Unfortunately for her diehard fans, she did not play “Coochie (a bedtime story).” 

At exactly 8:30 p.m., Troye Sivan greeted us with his first song of the night, “Got Me Started,” which prompted an explosion of screams and excitement from the sold-out venue. 

After Troye’s three-song solo set,  he handed off the stage to Charli, who emerged from behind a four-walled, three-story “Brat” green curtain. She launched into  “365,” followed by an unreleased remix featuring Shygirl. Charli’s “Brat and it’s completely different but it’s still brat” remix album, coming out Oct. 11, will include this Shygirl collaboration. The “Sweat” tour has a unique advantage; by having two separate artists switch back and forth throughout the show, there were ultimately no breaks in between songs, which kept the audience on its feet, screaming out lyrics for the entire night. Stunning, close-up camera work followed Charli, Sivan and their dancers around and off the stage. Large TV screens on both sides ensured that each audience member had a clear view of the artists.

At the end of the concert, Charli and Sivan returned to perform their encore songs: “I Love it,” “Track 10,” “Honey” and Sivan’s hit song that dominated parties lately – “Rush.” The duo closed the night with Charli’s “Talk Talk” remix featuring Troye Sivan, a preview of her upcoming Brat remix album.

If the “Sweat” tour is coming to your city and you don’t have a ticket, I highly suggest that you enter your local radio station’s contest. You never know – you might win the opportunity to have a brat fall.

Contact the editors responsible for this story: Ivy Buck, Norah Catlin

WNDR curated exhibits “explore themes of introspection, human connection, and emotional well-being,” tackling challenges like mental health and self-reflection. Yayoi Kusama, a contemporary Japanese artist and 2006 recipient of the Praemium Imperiale Award, created the exhibit “Let’s Survive Forever” (2017), which resonated well with the theme of introspection. It showcased a private mirrored room filled with suspended stainless steel mirror balls of various sizes –– appearing to comment on the interconnectedness of all things, like how each dot is a star or a universe, and how we are viewing an infinite amount yet also viewing ourselves at the same time. Kusama has other exhibits on display as well; one in particular utilizes her polka dot motif, inviting guests to leave their mark on colorless surfaces of the showroom with colorful circular stickers. 

Visitors can physically interact with the museum in other ways, too. The ever-expanding “Wisdom Project” wall allows for visitors to write words of wisdom, or even random declarations of love, and post them for future viewers to see. Visitors are also able to get a close-up photograph of their eye taken at the “Iris Exhibit,” which is then projected onto two walls alongside the eyes of past visitors. Cloud mentioned that “Iris” tends to be the exhibit that most visitors linger at; they often gaze in awe at the “unique patterns, colors, and textures in each iris like miniature works of art.” Cloud highlighted how “eyes are not just windows to the world –– they’re windows to creativity,” and hoped that guests feel inspired and curious about the art they made and have seen at WNDR.

I found WDNR’s AI exhibit to be one of the most interesting. The exhibit produces five images from a visitor-generated prompt. I prompted the computer to visualize a mouse and a rat sharing a piece of cheese on a rainy day, and the computer generated five different variations of that scene on nearby television screens. From far away, it looked surreal –– almost like a hyper-realistic painting. However the more I looked at the images, the less perfect they became. There were rats with multiple sets of hands, a mouse and a rat morphed together, and mice with comically large ears. While this exhibit highlights the power of AI to create art, it also crucially displays the imperfections of AI. 

My advice — as long as you go into the WNDR Museum with an open mind, you’ll find an exhibit that speaks to you. The museum is open seven days a week and tickets can be purchased at wndrmuseum.com.

Contact the editors responsible for this story: Ivy Buck, Anabelle Meyers

For the students who encountered Clapp’s Recreational Reading collection prior to the library’s ongoing renovation, it may have been a bit underwhelming. I remember wanting to participate in the annual Goodreads reading challenge during my first year at Wellesley in 2022. However, I was surprised that Clapp did not offer a wide array of ‘fun’ fictional books. I saw popular titles like “The Selection” and “Hunger Games: Catching Fire”, but almost no newly published books. During conversations with Wellesley students, I discovered that many felt the same way. Some redirected me off-campus to the Wellesley Free Library and Wellesley Books for a fix of recreational reads. Some were unaware that we had an on-campus recreational reading section at all. 

But what is a recreational reading area, really? Clapp Library’s Resource Acquisitions Specialist, Kayla Valdivieso, described the Recreational Reading collection as a resource for our Wellesley community to interact and relax with popular and fun reads which represent a variety of voices and experiences. From fiction and nonfiction to graphic novels (including the full collection of the “Heartstoppers” series) and manga, Clapp’s Rec Reads has expanded despite the temporary shutting of the library’s physical doors. Located in the Mods until Fall 2025, Clapp continues to offer borrowable books (most of us just have to walk a bit farther). I personally utilize the Rec Reads section to revive my tired, braindead self after reading countless fascinating (though hard to digest) scientific and economic papers. I find it refreshing to be able to read fifty pages of a fiction book in the same time that it would have taken me to read six pages of a research article. I let the storytelling take over with my recreational reading, allowing my brain to go on autopilot for a bit. 

During our conversation, Valdivieso mentioned that out of the many new titles that the library purchased for the Rec Reads collection, she is most excited for “True Biz” (2022) by Sara Novic. This YA novel takes place at a boarding school for Deaf students, highlighting the use of cochlear implants, the evolution of Black ASL, experiences of children with Deaf parents, and more. Moving forward, Valdivieso hopes to purchase new titles every month for the Rec Reads collection. Already available are best-sellers such as “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus (2022 B&N Book of the Year), “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” (2023 B&N Book of the Year), “Remarkably Bright Creatures” (Wellesley Book Club general pick for the month) and a collection of TikTok-famous romance novels by Emily Henry. 

If you would like to see your favorite titles amongst the Wellesley College Rec Reads collection, Valdivieso recommends that students share their interests with the library using this form. The form is also available in QR format on the Rec Reads shelf in the Mods (room M406, right across from the thesis carrels). Currently, there are fifty newly-acquired titles available, ready to be borrowed by any Wellesley student looking to enjoy a cozy read over some hot chocolate this fall!

Contact the editor responsible for this story: Ivy Buck