Enjoy this selection:

Inspired by a photo and a boring, blank cinder block wall, sophomore Rebecca Salzman had the clever idea to liven up fellow sophomore Diggory Rycroft’s Claremont double using the simple tool of chalk. This mural adds a real personal touch to his living space and is a great conversation starter. Unlike paint, Diggory will be able to wash this artwork down at the end of the year (how sad though).

Music lover? Blank wall? Sale at Rhino Records? Just purchase some fun records from the $1 bin and liven up your wall. Here sophomore Brendan McDonald demonstrates such an idea with Elton John, the Temptations, and yes, the Sound of Music.

Senior Courtney Dern has turned this wall into something truly special. Paint color aside (by living off campus, she has the good fortune to paint her walls), she purchased an assortment of small frames from vintage stores. Then, by incorporating her favorite images and art, her wall collage adds a homey feel to her room. Courtney doesn’t have one common theme, but reports: “I guess I’m just into making mundane 2D objects more extraordinary.”

Speaking of not being able to paint, a quick way to add color to your room is to adhere inexpensive fabric to your walls. Junior Aviana Gracial bought this roll of thin yellow cloth at a fabric outlet in LA. The block of color gives a fresh splash of sunniness to this Green room.

Apartments RA Aleksis Psychas had the awesome idea to decorate his family room by organizing a community art mural. Pairing the event with a senior class brunch after 6:01, he stretched out a length of poster paper and set out paint.  Anyone could add their special phrase, image, home state, or whatever came to their mind. The resulting mural is the perfect way to add interest to the upper part of the apartment’s vaulted ceiling.

Imitating a similar idea from fellow senior Kristin Dessie, Sandy Russell is able to exhibit her study abroad memories by graphically linking them to a map of Europe. What a clever way to visually record one’s travels!

The off-campus home of seniors Courtney Dern, Madison Gonzalez, Aisha Shaikh, and Hazel Joyce is known for its fun themed parties. By writing certain words in twinkle lights on the wall, the girls can set a unique mood for their visitors. The wall is your palette!

Send any dorm design ideas to Gloria Chang (gchang10@cmc.edu) or Cameron Hanson (chanson10@cmc.edu)! We’d love to come tour your rooms!

The allegations, which were generated primarily on a series of comic blogs and quickly spread via sites like Reddit and Digg, could bring legal action against both Radical Comics and Simmons himself.  Incarnate, according to a summary that (until today) was published on Radical’s website, is billed as an action-horror type adventure.  Perhaps you’ll enjoy this little gem as much as I did:

They cannot die.  They feel no pain.  They hunger for human flesh.  They are Revenants.  Centuries ago, the Revenant known as Mot was worshipped as a God.  Now, he walks the Earth in search of a purpose to his immortality= but when a secret society discovers a way to kill Revenants, Mot and his fellow immortals must make a choice: hunt or be hunted.  Nick Simmons’ breakout American Manga title reveals a world that challenges even the imagination, planting its tongue firmly in cheek, then biting it off. . . And swallowing it.

Of course, there’s only one problem with this whole idea: it’s not actually his.  Tite Kubo’s Bleach is one of the best-selling comics (or, if we are going to get technical, manga) in the world, selling over 52 million copies worldwide.  Bleach has spawned its own TV spin off, with video games, full-length animated movies, and extensive licensing deals.  The plot of Bleach revolves around Ichigo Kurosaki, a teenager who does battle with supernatural “Hollows” who consume people’s souls.  Oh, and there’s a secret society too– the Soul Society, that hunts the Hollows.

These similarities in plot, while a bit suspicious, aren’t enough to justify the postponement of the series, as Radical has done.  Comics frequently contain a number of these elements; with so many authors generating stories involving such stock elements as “the undead,” “secret societies,” and “angsty teenagers,” one comic is bound to to feel like a derivative of another.  Indeed, yesterday (March 1) Simmons released a statement in which he claimed similarities in the works were intended as “an homage to artists I respect.”

But the evidence of outright plagiarism continues to grow.  Image comparisons, such as this one on LiveJournal present some damning side-by-sides of panels from Kubo’s title, which is drawn in black  and white, and Simmons’s, which is in color.  As if that’s not enough, this article on Topless Robot links to several other galleries, and also includes some tremendously unflattering comments Simmons (or an impostor) made on a Facebook group accusing him of plagiarism, including one that reads “I never even heard of Bleach! Who would name a comic after laundry detergent?”  So much for that homage.

That’s why, last Saturday, this photographer woke up at 5 AM and took the 20 minute drive to capture the mountain at sunrise. A sampling of the best shots are here for your viewing pleasure.

All of the photos can be found here.

Note: many of these pictures have been taken using a technique known as HDR photography (its really cool, read about it). Also all black and white pictures were originally color.

Lupe Fiasco at Bonnaroo 2008

Let us learn a little more about what Lupe Fiasco is about.  A Chicago native of West-African descent, Fiasco was exposed an array of experiential and ideological influences.  His father was, among other things, an engineer, a member of the Black Panther Party, and an African drummer while his mother was a gourmet chef at fine restaurants in Chicago. He was raised Muslim on the West Side of Chicago, a predominantly Christian and Catholic city, learning the tenets of the faith from his parents and the reality of the streets from his peers–the FNF crew.  Well-documented in Food and Liquor (2006) and The Cool (2007), Fiasco resented hearing only vulgarity and mysogonism in hip-hop during his youth.  The release of Nas’s modern-day classic It Was Written (1996) not only changed the entire game, but also provided extraordinary influence for the thirteen-year old Fiasco.  As a result, Lupe Fiasco is undoubtedly one of the most progressive names in the hip-hop game right now.

The first word that comes to mind when I think about the contemporary hip-hop community is “homogenous.” While that label is usually applied to Caucasian communities in the Northeast, I did not see a performance at the BET Awards where cars, women, clothing, and money were not rapped/sang about in excess. The Cool and It Was Written both focus on Mafioso narratives, street culture appraisal, and symbolism–content that sets Lupe Fiasco and Nas apart from field of hip-hop. Lupe Fiasco’s work to date is impressive; it does not fit the hip-hop mold for success. To the best of my knowledge, Fiasco is the only mainstream hip-hop artist to have crafted an “abstract conceptual album” in recent years. The Cool expounds upon three characters introduced in Food in Liquor that each embody a different aspect of street culture and symbolize the degradation of morality in the face of greed, opportunity, and poverty–sociological ideas that reverberate through the college demographic in the form of dissertations and discussions.

So whether you’re complaining to your suitemates about how ASCMC does not care about what the student body wants or actually just have no idea for what you are in store on March 5, take an hour out of your day today and listen to what Lupe Fiasco has to offer.  Listen to his lyrics, consider his message.  Hopefully you will find that he is not trying to be another “girl you stank” rapper, but rather a champion of a deeper, intellectual discourse within today’s offbeat hip-hop climate.

Wolf (1994)

I think an important element to any good monster flick is the actor or actress playing the monster, and I honestly can’t think of anybody I would rather see turn into a werewolf (or even a mermaid, for that matter) than Jack Nicholson. James Spader co-stars in one of his better roles pre-Boston Legal, as a wimpy, nerdy foil to Nicholson’s, well, Nicholson-esque werewolf protagonist. The movie does have its fair share of ridiculousness, such as the opening scene, where Nicholson’s character, Will the magazine editor, pokes a wolf with a stick until it bites him. That being said, the film provides some good suspense, the effects are solid, unexpected people die, and like I said before, Jack Nicholson is a werewolf. If nothing else, watch it for scenes like the clip below, where Nicholson realizes he has “heightened senses” (sounds like another good movie in itself).

The Wolf Man (1941)

After seeing the original, it’s easy to understand why Hollywood would want make a remake. The Wolf Man really was a gem of the Golden Age with groundbreaking make-up, impeccable acting, and an ending that knocks the socks off viewers still today. The actors in the remake, by the way, creepily emulate the originals in a non-acting, natural sense. Benicio del Toro could be Lon Cheney Jr’s. son, and the original actor Claude Raines looks like a munchkin doing an Anthony Hopkins impression. The entire movie can be found online, but the clips are long and I don’t want to spoil anything for you. Just try to ignore the fact that everyone in Wales besides the father has an American accent.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

This is the undisputed greatest werewolf movie of all time. It has the comedy, the horror, the teen slasher elements, and the abrupt, awesome finale that has yet to be surpassed these 29 years. Boy gets bitten. Boy meets girl. Boy turns into wolf. That old story. The make-up is some of the best in the history of Hollywood, and every scene holds up when compared to the best a computer could create today. It’s probably better.  Also, the soundtrack is awesome. Every song has something to do with a moon.  I will leave you all with one of the greatest transformation scenes in movie history, to the pleasant sound of Blue Moon in the background. Be sure to take note of Mickey Mouse. I’m still trying to figure out that shot, but I like it.

An American Werewolf in London Transformation

Dave | MySpace Video

Greatest Rapper Alive?  You could make the case.  In terms of both quality and quantity, Wayne dominates his industry.  You want chart-topping singles?  Lil Wayne gave us just that with “Lollipop.”   You want underground cred?  A series of free mixtapes, including the recent No Ceilings, feature some of Wayne’s best verses.  You want show-stealing rhymes on other albums?  Weezy’s been featured on cuts by Jay-Z, Kanye, and Mike Jones.

You want Auto-Tuned vocals over 90s alt-metal influenced guitars? Um. . .

Well, regardless of whether or not you wanted it, Lil Wayne delivered Rebirth, something he’s been threatening for a while now.  Ever since the release of “Prom Queen,” this experiment have been both exciting and terrifying. Much of Rebirth is filled with the type of music one would never expect from Wayne.  Auto-Tuning is used liberally, likely to hide the fact that Wayne can’t really sing, and the guitars (which are mixed low in the speakers, likely to hide the fact that Wayne can’t really play guitar) grind over the top of nu-metal drums.  Bands like Korn and Linkin Park should hold their breath, as this sound could be coming back into style.  Most of the tracks lack anything resembling an actual identity.  It’s as if standard club anthems (that is, Auto-Tuned club anthems, as if there is a different sort these days) were noodled over on electric guitar.

Yet in spite being a trainwreck of a project, Weezy remains at the center, seemingly untouched by the noise all around him. After all, as Greatest Rapper Alive, much of his success has been built around the creation of a larger-than-life persona.  And in that regard, Rebirth is a triumph, a fantastic middle-finger to convention that exists purely because Lil Wayne possessed some sort of delusion that he is not only Greatest Rapper Alive but also a rock star.  As he said in an interview on the BBC recently, it’s determination that allows him to have the kind of success he’s experienced.

Despite dental surgery postponing his trip to prison by a short amount of time, we can still expect to hear plenty from Wheezy in the coming year. According to an article on MTV, Lil Wayne filmed a mind-blowing NINE music videos over this last weekend, with material from both Rebirth and the highly-anticipated follow-up to Tha Carter III, 2010’s Tha Carter IV. Even though Wayne will be behind bars, his music will live on, which is good news for rap fans. And seeing as Wayne doesn’t write down any of his verses, this could be a pretty remarkable gestation period for some great creative material. Perhaps his next move will be something revolutionary, perhaps a pairing of rap/R&B with a story line featuring twists around every turn? Let’s hope.

Billed by both the Ath and her own website as “the last protege of Ansel Adams,” Cook is clearly a talented photographer, and her work reflects her studies with Adams. For example, like Adams she shoots in black and white and does some landscape work. Beyond those base similarities, her work echoes the clean style, high contrast, and simple subject matter of Adams. Even if I didn’t think her art was notable — lots of important museums do; her works are part of the permanent collections at the Met, MoMA, and the Smithsonian, to name a few. Her art is not in question here, but rather her (in)ability to reveal something about herself and her work.

For her talk, Cook showed a number of her portraits (most of which, if not all, were readily available on her website) and said a few words on each photograph, sometimes only mentioning the subject’s name and occupation. That was it. Though her commentary revealed some clues as to her methods, working style, and occasionally short anecdotes about her notable subjects, she gave almost nothing of herself to the audience.

Katherine Graham, Jorge Louis Borges, Francis Crick, Merce Cunningham, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jamaica Kincaid, Lillian Hellman, Sidney Janis, Philip Johnson and David Whitney, Francois Mitterrand, Dorothy Norman, Mirium Rothschild, Steven Spielberg, Dorothea Strauss, Maya Lin and Daniel Wolf — do those names mean anything to you? I only knew about 7 out of 17 of those names and I consider myself to be at least moderately culturally literate. How about a little context? A good speaker neither overestimates nor underestimates the audience’s intelligence (or in this case, cultural literacy). For an address to a school with limited theater opportunities, no arts programs, almost complete neglect for creative talents (save Ath events like this one), Cook might have tailored her comments to a more ignorant, but curious crowd.

Her background as a fine art photographer was also unclear. To have had the opportunity to photograph really important, influential individuals, such as the publisher of the Washington Post, a founding member of the Beat movement, the former president of France, and a three-time Academy Award winning director, one must ask– how? why? Cook never addressed how she was able to gain access to these individuals. For example, Cook photographed Michelle and Barack Obama in 1996 as part of her book featuring images of couples– how did the young politician and his wife come across her radar?

These were the only facts I could gather about her:  she had a wealthy background as her parents collected art and owned a De Kooning, she speaks excellent French, she’s well-traveled, and most importantly, she has friends in high places.  Now clearly not all speakers come to the Ath to talk about themselves, but at least they speak at length about their work, their research, their industry, or something, no?

Though Cook admitted that she chose an arbitrary title for her talk (“What is a portrait?”), her insight on what makes a good photograph was pretty unoriginal. “I felt like I revealed something of who he was,”  she said of photograph of a bookstore owner Jacob Zeiltin.  “He thought the portrait looked more like him than he did.”

Maybe I’m a jaded art history major, or maybe, Cook doesn’t have a whole lot to say and should stick to what she does best — taking beautiful portraits.

That all has changed. Owen Pallett, performing under his own name for the first time, released his magnificent debut album, Heartlands, earlier this week and if it doesn’t propel him to the type of recognition achieved by his peers, then I don’t know what will. Pallett is a tremendous talent. He has a gorgeous voice and his album features some spectacular arrangements covering all aspects of the emotional spectrum. The Czech National Symphony contributed greatly to the record with some truly memorable hooks propelled by a full host of woodwinds, strings, and brass. As several concert videos demonstrate, this is a great contrast to Pallett’s live show, which consists of him, a violin, and a loop pedal to fill out his songs.

Comparisons to others in the indie world are, of course, inevitable. On paper, Pallett resembles another violin-toting musician, whistler Andrew Bird. Yet their musical differences are evident on the first listen to Heartlands. Where Bird’s voice dominates sparse arrangements, his whistle and violin dueling for melodic dominance, Owen Pallett fills his songs with fantastically quirky melodies and a decidedly classical tone. There are sweeping crescendos, tension-building tremolos, and few (if any) gaps between songs. This is a complete work, flowing with the dreaminess of another classically-minded indie figure, harpist Joanna Newsom. Yet one does not need the immense patience required of Newsom’s last release, the cryptic and druggish Ys, to enjoy Heartlands. Tracks like the plucky “Lewis Takes Action” are memorable and catchy.  Pallett’s ever-so-smooth voice mixes beautifully with  the staccato orchestral plunks.

Regardless of your musical tastes, the album is worth a listen. It blends seamlessly into the background, incorporating elements of electronic music and straight-forward rock with its subtle classical roots. The entire album rewards repeated listens, and some of the most memorable moments come not from the vocal melodies but from their engaging counter-play with the orchestra. If any of Pallett’s other credits have made their way into your playlists over the last several years, there will be something to love on Heartlands. The future looks bright for this violinist; at the very least, you’re unlikely to catch another album this year which uses the spectacularly un-sexy nasal timbre of the oboe to such great effect.

Of course, Band of the Decade isn’t a designation one just throws around (regardless of what it looks like I’m doing here). From a purely musical perspective, the group is responsible for some of the best records of the decade. At the forefront is Kid A, the band’s 2000 release which has been hailed by everyone from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork as the best album of the 2000s. The ten tracks marked a departure from previous guitar-based rock music, with the band exploring the possibilities of computer synthesizers, sampling, and even autotuning of singer Thom Yorke’s vocals. Instead of releasing a single and promoting the album conventionally, the band released a series of video blips that were circulated on the Internet and played on music television stations.

Perhaps this was a fitting way for such an album to be released.  Kid A was a complete and utter shock to the music world at release. While record sales were successful (USA Today called it “the most eccentric album ever to debut at No. 1″), it was panned critically, with many longing for a return to the tranquillized rock roots of OK Computer (which, incidentally, is frequently cited as the best album of the 1990s). Kid A’s layered electronic textures and lack of traditional verse-chorus song structure makes it difficult on first listen. Radiohead pioneered the use of the internet in distribution of the album, which leaked in its entirety online prior to its physical release. The album was accompanied by a website that very well may be the most bizarre text-based site to hit the world wide web.

Radiohead followed up the immense artistic success of Kid A with Amnesiac, an album pieced together from the same marathon recording session that spawned Kid A. Despite being made at the same time, the latter group of songs has an entirely different feel, and had a successful single in both Britain and the United States with the haunting “Pyramid Song.” In spite of the changes to Radiohead’s sound, with horns and upright bass finding a spot right next to Johnny Greenwood’s Ondes Martenot. In 2003, another album, Hail to the Thief, attempted to find a semblance of balance between experimental electronics and traditional rock structure. Many of these songs were born out of live performances, as opposed to using the studio as an instrument as on previous efforts. The result was a return to a more conventional sound, with guitars and drums taking the spotlight on tracks such as “Go to Sleep (Little Man Being Erased).” With their contractual obligations to record label EMI completed, the band took a hiatus, and many fans feared the permanent dissolution of the group.

Yet in 2007, Radiohead returned in a manner that made international headlines. With a new album, the catchy and likable In Rainbows, the band announced they would be distributing the record without a record label, straight from their website. Additionally, the band instituted a “pay what you want” principle, with fans able to download the tracks for any price (or for free). The result was a resurgence in Radiohead fandom, with many new listeners finding the band through this free music distribution. It turned out to be a great pairing, as critics hailed In Rainbows as one of the bands best albums, with songs that redefined the band’s style without compromising the roots of their previous efforts.

The future of the group is currently uncertain, with members pursuing solo opportunities: guitarist Johnny Greenwood provided the musical score for the film There Will Be Blood, while Thom Yorke’s solo work found a way into Twilight: New Moon, of all things. Regardless, the band has released several stand-alone tracks in the last year, and made appearances at music festivals like the All Points West Music and Arts Festival and UK’s Reading Festival. There could even be a new album in the works according to various members of the band in recent interviews. It will be difficult for the group to follow up on their immense success in the recording studio, but with a new decade at hand, other artists will have a difficult time keeping stride with the World’s Greatest Band as we enter a new decade.

PS: Radiohead makes some of the best music videos out there.  

Knives Out

There, There (The Boney King of Nowhere)

House of Cards