At 5 p.m. on Nov. 15, 2024 at Buffalo Street Books in downtown Ithaca, Miklos Mattyasovszky and Sam Samakande of the Cornell MFA in Creative Writing program could be seen reciting their fiction and poetry respectively to an eager group of writing enthusiasts. I was among the crowd of young and old people alike who gathered to listen to these talented writers. I had to trek down from campus on foot but it was absolutely worth it. I sat through the event with ears that devoured every word spoken, every image described and every idea proposed.
I was in Atlantic City for a weekend with Kyle Wolf ’25. It was there, in the Bally’s hotel somewhere above the casinos, that I asked if he wanted to make some music. We both brought MIDI keyboards when we met at his car before the trip, pointing at each other like that Spider-Man meme.
Courtesy of Sofia Egol
He hadn’t made afrobeats before, but I was curious about his limits. We listened to Tyla’s “Water” for reference, and Kyle replicated the drums. I envied that he could do it without any serious effort — it was just a matter of listening to the first 30 seconds of the song and tapping the pattern on the piano. But he couldn’t let the song contain him; he let go of the reference and it became some sort of jazz fusion.
Yves Tumor played the 2023 Cornell Homecoming Concert this Sunday at Barton Hall for an extremely excited crowd of several hundred students and alumni.
Tumor, born Sean Lee Bowie in Miami, is an American musician with a cult following who has been releasing music under the Yves Tumor name since 2015. According to Dazed, Tumor began experimenting with music as a way of escaping the “dull, conservative surroundings” of Knoxville, Tennessee, where they grew up. The desire to break boundaries and escape traditional norms is evident in their music. Tumor’s discography covers a wide variety of genres, to the point that the only link between some of their songs is the fact that they sound nothing like anything you’ve heard before. However, Tumor is best described as a modern rock artist with experimental roots, blending the classic genre with electronic and psychedelic influences.
Tumor’s individuality is also displayed in the wide range of artists, engineers and producers they work with.
There is a very small chance that you are not aware of the crisis currently unfolding in Israel. Pictures of destruction fill our screens, and headlines continue to announce death tolls and count the missing. Many members of the Cornell community attended a memorial held by Cornell Hillel on October 11, and President Pollack has sent two emails about these events.
Unfortunately, the news often has a dehumanizing effect — instead of being thought of as real people, the dead and missing are reduced to numbers, and a country becomes only its actions. Sides arise, and issues become polarized; many forget that these are real people and real lives being destroyed, not simply pawns in a political game. The lack of understanding and empathy for Israel is nothing new.
In June, the Supreme Court struck down decades of precedent by gutting affirmative action programs at colleges and universities throughout the country. With college admissions becoming increasingly competitive, the recent ruling only increases the anxiety thousands of students feel as they curate the perfect application to gain one of the few coveted spots at the college or university of their choice. This world of paranoia and scarcity where identity is carefully crafted and weaponized sets the stage for Jiehae Park’s Peerless. Adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Peerless conveys the perils of Asian-American twins M and L’s unchecked ambition as they mercilessly manipulate and murder their classmates for the chance to attend “The College.” Although an overwhelmingly dark piece filled with toil and trouble, Angel Katthi’s ʼ24 senior thesis production of Peerless proved to be a poignant and surprisingly humorous rendition of this relevant play.
Held in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts’ Black Box Theatre on September 28, 29 and 30, Peerless featured an intimate cast of five phenomenal actors led by Noёlle Romero ʼ24 as the ambitious yet sympathetic M and Katherine Lynn-Rose ʼ25 as her conniving twin sister L. Even from the first moments of the show, the two actresses impressively tackled Park’s fast-paced, short staccato lines as they used the energetic language to enliven the obsessive and threatened world they inhabit. Throughout the production, Romero ʼ24 and Lynn- ʼ25 maintained the intensity of their performances, playing off of each other skillfully to create an interchangeable power dynamic in which the audience could never fully tell who was in control until the play’s shocking end.
Juxtaposing M and L’s unrelenting nature, D, played by the hilarious Oscar Llodra ʼ25, captured the geeky charm of a classmate who uses his 1/16th Native American heritage to claim M’s spot at “The College.” While many actors default to playing D as a stereotypical, annoying nerd, Llodra ʼ25 breathed life into his character, leading M to feel guilty about killing him for his admissions spot and creating an opportunity for Llodra to convincingly transform into D’s Brother who seeks revenge later in the play.
With the highly anticipated release of 1989 Taylor’s Version only a little over a month away, countless theories about potential featured artists have been circulating. Unlike previous albums, 1989 TV has an air of mystery surrounding the featured singers. For Red TV, Ed Sheeran and Gary Lightbody were obvious choices (although Phoebe Bridgers and Chris Stapleton were also included), and even for Speak Now TV, many fans were able to predict Hayley Williams and Fallout Boy. However, Taylor has recently been seen interacting with so many prominent artists that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the signal from the noise. For a while, fans speculated that Swift’s most recent ex, Matty Healey, would be featured, but Swift’s representatives have since shut this theory down, much to the relief of most of her following.
I’m obsessed with these Onion News Network YouTube videos that were released in the late 2000s/early 2010s. All two or three minutes long, they pretty expertly ape cable news personalities while still infusing that biting Onion satire. There are more recent ones, and in fact they still make some video content today, but as internet news has become more prevalent, and that cable imitation less fashionable, the form of the videos has altered, and no longer features that same charm.
Anyway, there’s one of these videos that strikes me in a “how did the Simpsons predict X ” kind of way (or perhaps just rubs me the wrong way as a satire that isn’t quite so funny as frustrating at the moment). From how many times I’ve seen it, I’ve almost memorized “Prague’s Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport.” My Squid and the Whale-esque pseudo-pretentious streak mixed with a love of in-your-face absurdist sense of humor makes it worthy to me of constant rewatches. I even showed it to my partner, way too early in our relationship, and watched her react stonefacedly as I cackled awkwardly.
I just rewatched the video again, at an airport for the second day in a row, having had my flight canceled and being unable to reach anyone with my airline or get my flight rebooked or figure out how to get my new hotel stay compensated, and, maybe I’m biased, but the video isn’t *that* funny, at least in the way it originally was.
Cornell recently held its annual Big Red Icon to determine which student band will get to play on Slope Day as an opener. I spoke with Josh Sokol, the saxophonist of this year’s winning band After Six, about their musical style and what makes them unique.
The Sun: How would you describe the type of music that After Six makes? Josh Sokol: I feel like we have a diverse style. We also change what we’re going for depending on the event, but we keep it centered around what After Six is. A mix between neo soul, funk and hip hop.
The 2023 Academy Awards marked the 95th anniversary of the annual award ceremony, and unlike last year, the night was calm and drama-free. The previous year’s ceremony gained attention for the “slap heard around the world” when Will Smith, who won “Best Actor” later that night, slapped actor and comedian Chris Rock on stage while he was presenting an award. This year’s Oscars were much more mellow, with celebrities on their best behavior and no real surprises as far as who took home awards and who left empty-handed. Of course, host Jimmy Kimmel made a few references to last year’s drama in his opening monologue, but luckily, nothing like that incident was seen this year. Instead of being overshadowed by scandal, this year’s ceremony celebrated some deserving and historic wins across all categories.
