Columns

BEARD | Men at Work 

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Like many off campus Cornellians, I began my senior year with the ritual of moving: leaving my home of the previous academic year and relocating to greener pastures. Or at least, I thought they would be greener pastures. In truth, while I love my new house, what I’ve moved into is hardly a home in a neighborhood and more like a waystation on the frontlines of Collegetown’s incessant expansion. 

I live in what is essentially a construction site. I share parking with heavy machinery, wake up to the sounds of jack hammering and my neighbors wear hard hats and work vests everyday. I’m not typically one to complain; I get up early anyways and the workers are nice enough neighbors. I usually can even catch a stray “good morning” or two from them (which is more than I can say for some of my actual neighbors). If the minor inconvenience ended here, it would probably be the end of the conversation and I would be out of a topic for this week’s column. But it doesn’t. As I’ve settled in for the year, I’ve noticed the constant, nagging presence of construction all across Collegetown and campus as a whole.

Arts & Culture

Get Lost: A Review of Naked Noise by an Art Virgin

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My boyfriend knew never to discuss with me the possibility that “noise” music could take any talent to create; he knew I’d say there was no kind of artistic value in a bunch of sounds that I could easily reproduce. He knew that I equated noise to contemporary art that consists of a blank canvas or an empty room or a single red dot painted with a shaky hand. And he knew very well that I was absolutely determined to stay ignorant. So I understood his shock when I notified him that I would be going to Ithaca Underground’s Naked Noise #7 on Saturday night. What changed my mind was basement duty.