Arts
Archived Stories
Risley’s 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' Puts the ‘Tran’ in Transylvania
November 18th, 2009“Are you a virgin?!” No, it’s not an advance of any sort. It’s an audience filter for the innocent, a means to weed out and expose Rocky Horror seedlings to the comically sensuous light of a theater experience unlike any other. A gleaming stripper pole, a monitor fashioned out of scored cardboard and a human torso, tasseled pasties and the Time Warp. A typical weekend, right? And what better way of spending it than seeing your classmates decked out in fishnets, body-glitter and six-inch platforms? You’ll find yourself compelled to stand up and boogie with your fellow confused but excited patrons, and you’ll be impressed by how many guys have it in them to rock a corset and a garter belt. Read More
Rude Awakenings: Cheers to Merlot and Knit Sweaters
November 18th, 2009The quandary I find myself in as a fifth-year architecture student is a contagious middle-aged syndrome that has instigated a plague-like epidemic affecting both my fashion and manner. Though I still go out during my semester in New York City, I have recently begun to prefer soft Merlots over countless shots of vodka, Feist and my dear friend Fiona over loud Top 40 hits and sweaters and boots over skimpy tank tops and heels. Read More
Why Apocalypse Now?
November 18th, 2009We are obsessed with our own destruction. Somehow, perhaps, we know we can’t keep cutting down rainforests, driving vehicles with single-digit MPGs or allowing Disney to keep unleashing clones of Raven and Miley upon us. How do these societal fears of worldly limits curbing our unlimited desires manifest themselves? In fiction. The big screen. Lots of CGI. Read More
Cale Parks Rocks Tech-Heavy Fanclub Show
November 17th, 2009It’s incredible how much music you can make just using some drums and electronics. In a blend of the primal and the technological, four distinct performers brought their unique blends of genre-defying music to the William Keeton House last Saturday night, courtesy of Fanclub Collective. These four musicians, DJ Dog Dick, Ed Schrader, Adventure (the three of whom are in the midst of their own tour) and Cale Parks, doing a one-off solo show, brought the goods to a crowd eager for any opportunity to dance. The performers delivered, making for a night filled with blips and bleeps and quick-footed dance moves. Read More
Nabokov’s 'The Original of Laura' More About Readers Than Writer
November 17th, 2009Vladimir Nabokov’s posthumous The Original of Laura, released nationwide today, is marketed as “A Novel in Fragments.” A more accurate title may have been “Fragments of a Novel” — as a collection of detachable notecards with little continuity, they represent only the bare outlines of the master’s final, unfinished work. Read More
It's Always Sunny in Glasgow
November 17th, 2009Tucked away in a side street off the Ithaca Commons is the new Wildfire Lounge. The exposed brick walls and industrial piping that greet you after you walk up the steps to the bar seem out of place in a décor marked by mini-chandeliers and couches with oversized pillows. This was the perfect venue to see Why the Wires and A Sunny Day in Glasgow, who played the Lounge last Sunday night. Both bands took traditional genres of music and added their own style and flavor to it, although one group had more success than the other. Read More
Against Against: Be Young While You Can
November 17th, 2009Today, Nov. 17, is by all accounts an unspectacular day in the calendar year. But it, like each passing day now, is momentous for us seniors, for it brings us another pace closer to adjourning our undergraduate experiences. Read More
Country Crooner Serenades the State
November 16th, 2009Throughout my childhood, I spent an undeterminable amount of time driving from here to there in my father’s forest green Ford Explorer. It was during this time that my musical preferences first began to take shape, as my dad had a static selection of albums that I was forced to listen to time and time again. Of course, there was the classic assortment of adult favorites: the Talking Head’s Stop Making Sense, Elvis Costello’s My Aim is True and Paul Simon’s Graceland. Besides these, my dad’s music taste seemed to deviate from the norm (read: The Phantom of the Opera). Finally, there was his brief foray into the country world with Lyle Lovett’s 1989 album Live in Texas. Read More
Big Red Readers and Writers
November 16th, 2009The Cornell English Department has become a staple in the American literary tradition. Although it isn’t readily apparent walking around the streets of Ithaca, American literature has benefited greatly from the work of notable Cornellians, some within the now 105 year-old Creative Writing program. The program offered to students its Centennial Plus Five reading series this semester in order to celebrate their impressive literary legacy and offer students access to the wide array of literary studies Cornell has to offer. Read More
The Artist and His Axe
November 16th, 2009You can tell quite a bit about a musician from the guitars he plays. This is not, as it may seem, a superficial judgment of a book by its cover. Rather, an instrument is a legitimate indication of an overall attitude towards the experience of playing and creating music. Read More