Recent Contributions from Jonathan Lieberman

A Candle-Lighting Ceremony

Jonathan Lieberman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I’ll be the first to admit it. I slacked off. Instead of writing the traditional, post-Editor-in-Chief-behind-the-scenes-look-into-University-life column, I traded the proverbial typewriter for daytime drinking at CTB, spontaneous 2 a.m. road trips (siiccck!!!) and more-than-slightly-embarrassing appearances in senior prom promotional dance videos.

Nevertheless, with the final chapter in my collegiate career about to come to a screeching halt, I felt compelled to resurrect my old Daze column if nothing more than to provide some introspection into a lifestyle that only a handful of people experience.

Test Spins: Lucky

Jonathan Lieberman — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Since their 1996 cult hit “Popular” hit radio stations back when FM was good, Nada Surf has proven time and again they aren’t just another Marcy Playground. On Lucky, the band’s latest release, guitarist and vocalist Matthew Caws croons about loneliness and lost love. The album’s breadth and sonic dynamism keep Caws’ lyrics from sounding, well, too much like the One Tree Hill soundtrack. On the upbeat “Ice On The Wing,” a seemingly out of place brass section calmly brings the track to a close. The next song, “The Fox,” opens with an eerie and uber-reverberated guitar rift that ends with a healthy dose of jumbled string and guitar. One cannot help but feel simultaneously disoriented and satisfied.

The Great Shanghai Night Light

Jonathan Lieberman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

After a relaxing two-hour flight from Beijing to Pudong International, we made our way to the heart of Central Shanghai. Although our expectations certainly ran high now that we had entered a cosmopolitan metropolis, nothing could prepare us for the glitz and glam of the Shanghai night skyline — which, we concluded, made Times Square look like a haphazardly decorated Christmas tree.

Will You Join Us in This Photo?

Jonathan Lieberman — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Though the howling Beijing wind caused the temperature to consistently plummet into the single digits and below, it did not prevent this delegation of Sunnies from getting its 15 minutes of fame. At a number of tourist destinations, such as Tiananmen Square and the Summer Palace, the symphony of cell phone clicking in our direction could not go unnoticed. Sometimes the paparazzi in question would try and sneakily pass it off as a text message — but we quickly realized what was up.

Yao Ming: Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Jonathan Lieberman — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Though lines to get into Chinese university libraries form around daybreak — students have to scramble to get their work done by 11 p.m. before campus-wide electricity shut downs — plenty of time is reserved for Prison Break, Carrie Underwood and snooker tennis. One extracurricular obsession, however, seems to dwarf them all: basketball. At Southeast University’s central campus in downtown Nanjing, rows upon rows of basketball courts are packed with students scrambling to get a Saturday morning pickup game in. And at The Sun’s meeting with Southeast University students, nearly everyone told us that they played basketball everyday before class.

Convocation 2007 Preview

Jonathan Lieberman — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:05:11 -0400

Deckhead:

The Sun chats with Soledad O'Brien about media, speech

Article body:

Interview originally published May 1

This weekend, Cornell will hold its 139th Commencement, with CNN special correspondent Soledad O'Brien giving the Convocation address on Saturday. The Sun spoke with O'Brien recently about her career, the media today and her upcoming speech.

O’Brien Chats With The Sun

Jonathan Lieberman — Tue, 01 May 2007 01:34:40 -0400

Deckhead:

Convocation speaker offers thoughts on the role of media

Article body:

Soledad O’Brien will be the featured speaker at this year’s senior class Convocation ceremony. The Sun caught O’Brien while she was on assignment in Chicago for a brief interview on her perception of the contemporary media and a preview of her upcoming speech to the Class of 2007.

Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury

Jonathan Lieberman — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 22:39:09 -0500

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With Jay-Z proclaiming “30’s the new 20” and The Game speaking unrelenting praises of his West Coast forefathers, Virgina’s Clipse (brothers Malice and Pusha-T) have smartened up their drug-peddling tales, sneaking back into the lineup after four years to drop one of the most chilled out and cleverest hip hop albums of the year.

Armageddon Monks' Revival

Jonathan Lieberman — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 23:24:42 -0500

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On their prerelease album, Revival, Ithaca’s Armageddon Monks create a high-octane sound with sharp guitars and piercing vocals from lead singer Aamir Baseer. Drawing obvious comparisons to arena rock megastars Metallica and Velvet Revolver, the Monks demonstrate their song-writing prowess best with “Get Your Fill.”

Creating a Cult Classic

Jonathan Lieberman — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 21:04:12 -0500

Deckhead:

Daze chats with Snakes on a Plane writer John Heffernan

Body:

Daze: How did you go from writing blurbs for Cornell Cinema to writing the “cult hit of the summer?”

John: I always wanted to do something in film, which is why I worked at Cornell Cinema. I bought this big, blue child molester van with no windows from my neighbor for about $1200 and drove across country to California — it took about three months to get there. I had 500 bucks in my pocket, which was enough to move into this hotel in Little Moscow in Hollywood. I got a job teching, which led to a job working at USC as a production coordinator for about three years. From there, I got another job working as an assistant at DreamWorks, and one of my bosses then was a producer named Craig Berenson — he read some scripts of mine and really liked them. He had actually read a script five years before in which one of the subplots was about some snakes that got loose on an airplane. The script wasn’t really that good but I said (to Craig), “What if we make the whole movie about snakes on a plane?” and he said, “yeah, okay” so we pitched it around, developed the story line and finally we sold it as a pitch to MTV Films, which had a production deal with Paramount. Just when we were about to get green-lit to go into production, September 11th happened and that was devastating for so many larger reasons than just the movie. When I saw it on the news, I wasn’t even thinking about the negative effects it would have on the movie, which of course it did. Paramount put the film to turn around, which meant that they weren’t going to do anything with the script. Luckily, one of the executives who was working on the film, Don Granger, left Paramount to become a producer and co-president of Mutual Films — he bought the rights, asked me to do a few rewrites and we sold it to New Line. After that, everything started happening really fast.

A Cult-like Following

Jonathan Lieberman — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:25:56 -0500

Deckhead:

Your Cali-Bud

Body:

Even though Halloween has officially passed, the spirit of horror films is still in the air. I got a chance to chat with independent filmmaker Seth Landau, whose horror film, Brian Loves You, has already started to receive substantial media attention despite its low budget.

The Black Keys' Magic Potion

Jonathan Lieberman — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 20:09:19 -0400

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More often than not, in today’s world of mainstream indie rock, what is “vintage” and “oh-so-cool” consists of grabbing a Bruce Springsten guitar riff, throwing some synthesizers into the melting pot and cleverly calling it “retro-rock music” (cough, cough The Killers) — but then there are The Black Keys.

Save Our Independence

Jonathan Lieberman — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:03:17 -0400

Deckhead:

Your Cali-Bud

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Right smack in between the non-holiday that is Fall Break and Thanksgiving came a glorious Saturday of Big Red Debauchery known as Homecoming — a momentous excuse for alums to rip off their corporate cloaks and retreat into the shell of their former selves, when everything was oh-so-college and awesomely fratastic. However, while most of Ithaca was (intoxicatingly) enjoying the spirit of Cornell’s legacy, downstate in New York City, another legacy had officially crumbled over the weekend due to skyrocketing Manhattan rent: CBGB’s.

Jet's Shine On

Jonathan Lieberman — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 23:15:17 -0400

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I’ll admit it. 2004 would have been a lot better year had it not been for six little words: “Are You Gonna Be My Girl.” But luckily, there was a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel. After thousands of hours of airplay, dozens of stereotypical long drives down stereotypical beach highways and countless appearances on the same party mix as “Somebody Told Me,” it looked like the world was finally starting to forget about the shaggy boys from Down Under.

Freshmen Fridays

Jonathan Lieberman — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:52:55 -0400

Deckhead:

This one's for the fellas

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It’s almost that time for the Cornell administration’s biggest deception of the calendar year, that gloriously coveted long weekend known as “fall break” — or, should I say, “A great opportunity to procrastinate in one’s indigenous environment and consequently, fall further behind in school work.” All things aside, it’s safe to conclude that fall break is the perfect way to transplant the debaucherous, 3-hours-of-sleep-a-weekend mentality of the Cornellian socialite to some far off exotic place like Scranton, Pa.

Sugarcult's Lights Out

Jonathan Lieberman — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:22:10 -0400

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In the flurry of new music that has arrived on the scene in the past weeks, there appeared a disc that brought me back to my good ole pop-punk roots: Sugarcult. Yes, the fratastic foursome from Santa Barbara is back and thankfully, they have veered away from the sappy-pop sound of 2004’s Palm Trees and Power Lines. On Lights Out, the band explores a darker lyrical side and serves it up with a healthy dose of thrashing guitars and head-bobbing drum beats.

The Album Leaf's Into the Blue Again

Jonathan Lieberman — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 22:12:09 -0400

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With a series of releases under a multitude of pseudonyms, Jimmy LaValle has always tried to create atmospheric music that is neither static nor stationary but rather, dynamic and floating. On Into the Blue Again, the latest record under LaValle’s most recently formed group The Album Leaf, the three-piece accomplishes this goal in a manner that their French cousins, Air, could only dream of. Bits and pieces of sound emerge from the ether of keyboards, pianos, drums, synths and violins, and blend together perfectly in an ethereal nebula of resonance. Instead of relying the electronic multi-tracking, LaValle insists on an entirely acoustic ensemble.

Ballin' On a Budget

Jonathan Lieberman — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:06:59 -0400

Deckhead:

Your Cali-Bud

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Every week, I diligently prepare myself for my bi-weekly attempt to ramble about some sort of semblance of American/ Cornellian culture. This week, it suddenly occurred to me how inane our fragile conception of What Is Hip has become. Case in point: A beleaguered and pleading attempt by four of Slope Radio’s finest and most professional, DJ Woods, DJ AZ, Joey and, well, this very uncritically acclaimed guest DJ, to give away two tickets to The Strokes. (Read, two hours of crowd surfing, pushing people and rocking out with a drug-induced and internationally infamous Julian Casablancas). How long did it take to give away these hallowed tickets, you ask? The entire two hours of airtime on Friday evening.

What's Really Good

Jonathan Lieberman — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 21:01:36 -0400

Deckhead:

Your Cali-Bud

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Every so often, the quintessential dilemma “what’s worse for you, ‘X’ or ‘Y’” emerges, and usually ends in a vociferous debate between the pot and cigarette smoking camps. Yet, last Thursday, as I attempted to relinquish the weight of the week in front of the television screen, it suddenly hit me that there existed something far more poisonous to humanity than the occasional hit of weed, casual puff of cigarette or friendly fix of heroin (wait . . . scratch that last part): the VMAs. Like most people, I don’t particularly have high hopes for such low points in American pop culture; after all, it can’t get more inane than awards shows. Yet the VMAs struck a nerve, mostly because it attempted to elicit laughs in a manner that seriously compromised any sense of wittiness/ intelligence that any viewer might have possessed (even the I-called-in-and-voted-50-times-for-Taylor-Hicks girl from Idaho who watches these things professionally). Case in point, the sketch comedy shtick at the start of the show, when Justin Timberlake steps out of a shower, runs into a moonman-clad Jack Black who then proceeds to strip down into an Elvis costume, burst out in song and introduce Montel Williams (how the hell is this funny, and don’t you tell me, “you had to just be there, bro”).

Leaving and Living L.A.

Jonathan Lieberman — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:39:05 -0400

Deckhead:

Your Cali-Bud

Body:

Congratulations. You have successfully made it back to our beloved ’Nell, where learning is (for the most part) paramount, where a night’s success is measured in the number of milliliter-sized plastic-cup-shots taken at Johnny O’s and where studying hungover in a Red Bull/ Aderall induced haze is as routine as breathing. Yet as enchanting as it has been to get reacquainted with some of Cornell’s finer traditions, I cannot help but feel a longing for the long, drawn out days of June and July, when all that mattered was rolling out of bed just in time to catch World Cup highlights.