Arts & Culture

SOLAR FLARE | Warmer Days Ahead

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This assortment of songs remind me of summer and the weeks leading up to summer. I put these songs together because I wanted to capture the warmer, freer, more exciting days ahead. Some songs remind me of a luxurious summer nap with the windows open, and others sound like a techno beach-side dance club. 

Justin Bieber, Daniel Caesar and Giveon: Peaches

This song brings me right back to my high school senior spring. A lot was still closed down because of the pandemic, but whenever the weather hit 60 degrees I would head to the beach after school. Plus, Giveon’s verse in this song really scratches my brain in the right way.

Arts & Culture

WILLIAMS | Light in Boston

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I was depressed in Chicago when I did the interview. I sat bleary-eyed in front of my computer screen trying, and so desperately failing, to look as animated as possible. The position was as an assistant for a high school journalism program at an Ivy League university. My job would be to invite speakers from the journalism industry, coordinate travel and lunches, shepherd the students around campus and ultimately scaffold the program from conception to execution. “What stories have you been following in the news?” the interviewers asked.

Arts & Culture

From Pain to Poetry: ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ in Review

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All is fair in love and poetry, but both are not without torture. Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department is finally here. Tortured Poets presents an ethereal collection of hushed midnight musings that are vulnerable, brutal, unhinged, hopeful and, of course, tinged with torture. Swift provides us with a look into her life as she struggles with emotions determined to drown her while continuing to go above and beyond for her fans. Tortured Poets is a revealing and cathartic album that comes with claws that spare no one, even Swift herself.

Arts & Culture

Manicured Nails, My Right to Abortion and a Damn Good Iced Coffee

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Girlhood. It’s a terrain as complex as it is universal marked by its commodification, demonization and idolization. In its essence lies a social and biological experience more fraught than any other. Recently, my reflections explored the politics of girlhood — essays laden with dense jargon, lamenting the systems that uphold its persistent scrutiny and sexualization. And while not dismissing the relevance of this discourse, in the midst of it, I found myself losing sight of its fundamentals.

Arts & Culture

Elfbar Ideology, Pt. III: Notes on Extinction

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Imagine if Paul Revere rode into Lexington only to realize that the British had already begun to sack the town. He continues into the fray: “The British are coming! The British are coming!”

This seems to be the situation of climate activism today. The British are already here: Some scientists say that we have already hit the “point-of-no-return” for the enduring health of our climate. The Paris Climate Agreement pinned it at 1.5 degrees celsius past pre-industrial levels. Now that we have smashed the ceiling, we are left to wonder why the sky didn’t fall.

Arts & Culture

“Immaculate”: Not Your Average Scream Queen Story

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I thought I was done with horror movies, but Immaculate had me hooked from the first scene. The viewer is lifted over the rolling pastures of the Italian countryside and plopped within the iron fences of a Roman Catholic convent. Right from the beginning, I felt a sense of entrapment and dread. After Sister Mary’s (Simona Tabasco) attempted escape rife with emotional agony, the viewer is literally pulled right back into the convent. The scene cuts to black, and we meet Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), a wide-eyed American nun invited to join the convent.  From there, I elected to watch the rest of the movie through my fingers.

Arts & Culture

SOLAR FLARE | Here Comes the Sun!

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It is the long awaited time of year again: Spring has technically sprung, according to the schedule of the equinoxes. 

The following playlist is meant to capture the fleeting hope that comes with spring. It is light at first, short lived yet giddy before the heaviness of summer begins to set in and temperaments become relaxed.

Arts & Culture

Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts Tour Comes to New York

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It’s hard to find big-time concerts in Upstate New York, so when I noticed that pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo’s arrival to New York City was perfectly timed to line up with Cornell’s spring break, I jumped at the chance to get tickets. I have been a fan of Rodrigo since her Disney Channel days, and attended her first tour in 2022, so I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to see her again.  

Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour celebrates the release of her second studio album, Guts. The album, which was released in September 2023, contains 12 eclectic tracks.  Some are slow heartbreak tunes like much of her first album, Sour, while others are more upbeat with a punk-rock like sound to them.  Rodrigo’s fan base has definitely expanded since her first tour, with most audience members dressing in her signature look of a short skirt, leather jacket and knee-high boots. Before Rodrigo came on, the show was opened by The Breeders, a 1990s alternative rock group fronted by Kim Deal. To me, the band seemed like an interesting choice, as most of the concert attendees were teenagers or young adults born long after the band’s peak.

Arts & Culture

92% Surge in Book Banning Attempts Indicative of Enduring Battle for Basic Rights

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On March 14, 2024 the American Library Association published a report highlighting a dramatic 92% increase in efforts to ban and censor books across the nation in 2023. Censorship attempts have risen consistently in the past years with each year topping the previous for the number of titles challenged. These trends reflect a growing battle pitting libraries and booksellers against those wishing to silence diverse voices. These attempts are rooted in individuals feeling threatened by progressive ideas that challenge the inequality entrenched in society. These attempts are appalling. The insecurity conservative minds feel passes on these troubling beliefs to children because they never see the books that would allow them to form their own opinion, causing the cycle of inequality to continue. 

Arts & Culture

Filming Loneliness, Watching Alone

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I’ve always liked watching movies alone; I haven’t had trouble going to the theaters alone since before I turned 18. But for a time earlier this year, I’d never done it quite so much, or in quite such a specific way.