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Serenity Now! Serenity Now! Serenity Now!

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Frank, Estelle and George Costanza are driving in a car. George drives, Frank sits in back:
Frank: I got no leg room back here. Move your seat forward.
Estelle: That’s as far as it goes.
Frank: There’s a mechanism. You just pull it, and throw your body weight.
Estelle: I pulled it. It doesn’t go.
Frank: If you want the leg room, say you want the leg room. Don’t blame the mechanism!
George: All right, Dad. We’re five blocks from the house. Sit sideways.
Frank: Like an animal! Because of her I have to sit here like an animal. Serenity now! Serenity now!
George: What is that?
Frank: Doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high the man on the tape tells me to say ‘Serenity now.’
George: Are you supposed to yell it?

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BANFF: Bad Ass 'n' Film Festivities

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On Friday, Feb. 22, the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour arrived in Call Auditorium for its annual appearance at Cornell University. For those of you who are (sadly) unfamiliar with the Banff Festival … it is the shit. More officially though, the festival is an annual film, book and photography competition held in November at Lake Louise ski resort in Banff, Canada (near Calgary). Two years ago on Feb. 22nd, I was actually skiing at Lake Louise. Now I just live vicariously through the films, though they are usually bad-ass to the point of making me feel bad about myself.

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Local Bands Rock the Haunt

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Monday night (yes, I know it’s an weird night for a show), three (mostly) local bands lit up the stage at the Haunt, drawing in an audience despite a long day, piles of work and a looming Tuesday morning. The night started off rather slowly, the floor oddly populated by young girls (we’re talking tweens here, maybe 15 years old) and a few punk rockers. But as each band did their thang, the crowd picked up, leading to a rockin’ finale by Another Day Late.

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Cornell Connection: With Another Day Late

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Monday Night, once local band Another Day Late rolled into town to melt some faces at the Haunt. The band is made up of Kohl Hegmann (vocals), Scott Kircher ’05 (guitar), Justin Talbott (guitar), Chad Philipps (bass) and Josh Hubberman (drums) and is managed by a fellow ’05 grad. They made a quick stop-over in Ithaca this week, en route to NYC, as part of the national Pac-Sun Tour they’re currently rocking with The Audition, Envy on the Coast and Danger Radio.
The show kicked off at 7:30 on Monday, and featured two other awesome local bands as well — Fairway and Aficonado. Another Day Late played a super set, providing living proof that Cornellians don’t HAVE to be doctors or lawyers.

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Magical Manifesto

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Although Wizard’s First Rule is, strictly speaking, a fantasy novel, sci-fi buffs and laypeople alike will find themselves riveted by the gripping and insightful fiction of Terry Goodkind. The incredibly long novel is the first in an equally long series of books known as the Sword of Truth Chronicles, by The Times Bestselling author.

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Cold War on the Rocks

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Charlie Wilson’s War is a very good movie. The overarching message is an important one, and especially pertinent to our time, as we reap the benefits of having ignored Charlie Wilson (and good sense). It is inspiring, but tempered with reality (it is based on a true story, after all), enough so to make the movie rather depressing at the same time. It was unexpectedly and refreshingly funny.

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Native Guard

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“Today the ants are busy/ beside my front steps, weaving/ in and out of the hill they’re building./ I watch them emerge and –
like everything I’ve forgotten – disappear/ into the subterranean – a world/ made by displacement. In the cemetery/ last June, I circled, lost –“

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MAKANMANIA!!! AAGHAAHHHH!!!

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This past Saturday, some 100 plus students lined up in Willard Straight to attend Makanmania 2007, this year’s version of the annual Singaporean Food Festival, put on by the Singapore Student’s Association. The SSA has recently grown into a thriving, 150-student organization and Makanmania (makan means ‘eat’ or ‘food’ in Malay) has become their traditional way of bringing together not only their fellow Singapore natives, but also the greater Cornell community.

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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

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Barbara Kingsolver, in The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, has written two of my favorite contemporary novels. Both stories are beautiful reads with straightforward and simple narrative and breathtaking imagery, set in Kingsolver’s native southwest (though The Poisonwood Bible actually mostly takes place in Africa). Now she is branching out, though her prose is as eloquent as ever — Kingsolver has gone east, to the green summers and white winters of a small farm in Virginia.

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Celebrating Our Roots with a Side of Grass

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As your friendly native-Ithacan-still-in-residence I’ve decided to let you in on a local secret (although it’s not really a secret) — a four-day hippie-fest that absolutely must be attended once in your lifetime (like seeing the Pope or making pilgrimage to Mecca). The GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance, held annually in my lovely hometown of Trumansburg, N.Y. (about 20 minutes outside of Ithaca, and home to the infamous Rongovian Embassy bar), is, to say the least, an exceptionally unique experience. The festival takes place over a weekend in late July and goes nuts from Thursday around 5pm until Sunday (well, really Monday) at about 4am.