Arts & Culture

XU | Tales of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

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It is impossible in these times to sit down quietly and write about a piece of media, pretending nothing is ever political. What does film say about history? Vice versa, what does history say about film? Are movies doomed to be an art medium purely for aesthetic enjoyment, or is there space for political engagement? These are a few of the questions that ran through my head as I watched I Am Cuba (1964), an epic film about pre-revolutionary Cuba told in four vignettes.

Arts & Culture

XU | What it Sounds Like When Men in Their Forties Pine

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I am super excited for Sufjan Stevens’ new album Javelin, scheduled to come out on Oct. 6. The New York City-based artist has an aesthetic that fits with the lush waterfalls of upstate New York; Stevens did, in fact, relocate to the Catskills for a period of time in the middle of the pandemic. Based on an interview with Vanity Fair, the move did him a lot of good in terms of creating, living and thriving. The first single from Javelin, “So You Are Tired” came out in August, followed by a second, “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” released two weeks ago.

Arts & Culture

XU | Long Way Without Friends: A Moment in 90s Rock

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As someone born after the year 2000, could I genuinely be nostalgic for the 90s? Or anything that came before? I think about that every time I listen to my dad’s music, downloaded into his thick iPod classic. I can almost recite the lineup: Alan Tam, Jacky Cheung, Dave Wong, Chyi Chin. A rock band named Black Panthers (unrelated to the party, sadly) spearheaded by Faye Wong’s ex-husband, Dou Wei.

Arts & Culture

XU | It’s a Lovely Day for alt-J

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I have been hunting for a specific kind of lyrical, melodic, soft electronica. I went through Sufjan Steven’s The Ascension (think “Video Game”), Jamie xx, a bit of Tame Impala and lots of Joji before remembering alt-J. The British band combines elements of electronica, rock and pop to create the distinct texture of their music. I knew their most popular song, “Breezeblocks,” but I had never really listened to their albums seriously up until now. It was down this lane of rediscovery that I stumbled upon alt-J’s version of Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day.”

Alt-J peaked around 2015.

Arts & Culture

XU | Broadway’s Fat Ham is a Twist on Shakespeare, But it’s Also Much More

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There is only one thing that makes me wish I wasn’t studying abroad this semester — Fat Ham, a comedy written by James Ijames, is on Broadway and I really want to go see it. The play ran from May to July last year at the Public Theater in New York, after premiering as a streaming production (thanks, pandemic) at Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater and winning the Pulitzer Prize in drama. Fat Ham, a comedic reinterpretation loosely based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, caught my eye for two reasons: I had just finished writing a paper on a modern-day Shakespeare adaptation, and Colman Domingo (who plays Ali in Euphoria) is co-producing the play. He posted about it on Instagram — and yes, I follow Domingo on Instagram. Memorable adaptations of Shakespeare are few and far between.