Blogs

POP CULTURE, POLITICS AND PERCEPTION | Paris est une fête

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By SARAH PALMER

The attacks of November 13 seemed to strike at the very heart of Parisian culture. The violence left France trying to capture and secure its cultural values. In the midst of this crisis of the French mind, the city is attempting to re-establish what Paris is, a query that was resolved by American author Ernest Hemingway: “Paris is a moveable feast.” This was a poetic answer produced by a Western mind threatened by World War I.

From the words of a 1920s writer comes the image of Paris as a cultural smorgasbord, a meeting place of every artist. This memoir is an impressive testament to the creativity of the Western mind. Hemingway wrote from a world that had barely escaped the destructive might of modern warfare.

Blogs

GOOD TASTE ALONE | The End of the World

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By SARAH CHANDLER

It’s the last day of publication and, as with birthdays, first and last days of school, moving days and other era-markers, I find myself gripped by the anticlimactic. (Which may come as a surprise considering that I just began a clause with “I find myself,” and if that isn’t an indicator of a flair for the dramatic and climactic — even where it doesn’t exist — I don’t know what is.) Most people seem to feel this way, myself included. On the biggest days of our lives we are left disillusioned. Largely because we are still alive, I would guess. Although this is my last blog post of the semester, the world will keep turning, unlikely as that may seem.

Blogs

MEDIA STOMP | A Brief Look at Superhero Films Part 2: A Flood of Tights

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By MARK KASVIN

In my last post, I went over the relatively brief history of superhero films starting with the 1974 release of Superman. Now, keep in mind that superhero films had been relatively successful before 2008. Films like X-Men established superheroes as a reasonably popular and profitable cinematic subject, but they were not as ubiquitous as they are now. The year 2008 was saw the lighting of a powder-keg. The release dates for Iron Man and The Dark Knight were close and both were adaptations of properties from competing rights-holders.

Blogs

WATCH ME IF YOU CAN | December Finals As Told by HIMYM

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By MARINA CAITLIN WATTS

After the tease of a Thanksgiving break, 

 

Classes for the fall semester have finally ended. 

Time to get your party on!  

You only have so much more time here until you can go home. 

 

But first, FINALS.  

You practically live in the library. 

 

You lose focus.  

 

Your study group won’t contribute ANYTHING.  

 

Sleep becomes a myth.

Blogs

HERMAN | Senior Year Reflections

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By HEATHER HERMAN

My blog for The Daily Sun centers on activism. Responses from any degree of the spectrum, either support or disagreement, are equally rewarding because any stance sparks the conversation necessary to incite change – change in perspective and ultimately change in reality. We can’t usually rush out and enact immediate revisions, but maybe it’s enough if we at least begin talking about it. After one year of writing about activism, now, as the semester draws to a close, I am turning inward. Cornell has been both extraordinary and challenging.

Blogs

GUEST BLOG | An International Student’s Plight

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By YVETTE NDLOVU

“Wow, you speak really good English. Did you learn it over there?”

Me thinks: “Why shouldn’t I? … Over where?”

Am I the only one who cringes when someone “compliments” my English proficiency and asks whether I only learnt English when I came to America? Why would I not be perfectly fluent in one of the predominant languages in my country? If you are guilty of this “compliment,” please don’t do it again (snaps fingers in Z-formation).

Blogs

SHEN | Tradition and Modernism

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By ZHAO SHEN

I recently participated in a discussion on a forum for composers where one person ridiculed the trailer music for the new Star Wars movie, especially focusing on how irreverent it was to force John Williams’s beautifully orchestrated themes for the original films into the modern trailer music formula. This sparked quite the debate. On one side were the people who loved Williams’s work and couldn’t stand to see it “dumbed down” into the pounding, epic and often-formulaic genre that is modern trailer music. On the other were the defenders of the new age, those who saw trailer music as a format of music just as legitimate as any of Williams’s scores and who felt put down by the ridicule presented. The argument is rooted quite deeply in the music industry, so a little background might be helpful.

Blogs

TALK IS CHIC | We’re Making a (Guest) List and Checking it Twice

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By GRETA OHAUS and ELENI TOUBANOS

From mid-December to New Year’s Day, we all find ourselves attending dinner parties, ugly sweater parties, awkward office parties, awkward family gatherings, cookie exchanges, secret Santa reveals, Santacons and fancy galas with chic after parties (okay, not everyone, but two girls can dream). With the holiday (and party) spirit in mind, we end up answering the age old question, “If you could invite any historical or fictional figure that has ever existed to a party at your apartment who would it be?”

ET: The O.G. queen (literally) of glitter and glamour to me is Cleopatra. The Queen of the Nile would be carried on a gilded pedestal, mainly because she couldn’t walk in her skin tight gold gown and Chloe shoes. GO: Wow, can totally see that… and being honest, I would be so jealous because you know how much I love attention. Not to mention she would beeline to Cary Grant, the king of 1940s glamour, who would obviously be wearing a beautiful wool suit, a black foulard tie, red pocket square, Gucci fur lined loafers and that stunningly handsome smile.

Blogs

MANGA MONDAYS | All According to Keikaku

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By MICHAEL MAUER

Translator’s note: keikaku means plan. For those of you who didn’t scroll past this post due to the awful meme in the title, thanks for bearing with me. Before I get to the business of today’s post, I need to mention that this will be my last one for the semester. Finals and whatnot. Anyways, I’d better get around to justifying dredging up such an old Death Note joke.

Blogs

CHOU | What the Pineapple!

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By VICKY CHOU

Two weeks ago, I blogged about how I was distracted from my studies because of the drama that I was watching. Today, I am going to blog about how I am – again – distracted from my studies, but this time because of a certain YouTube channel a K-pop idol created. Sometime over the summer, f(x)’s Amber announced that she was launching her own YouTube channel, namely What The Pineapple!, in which she and her friend Scott would vlog about pretty much anything they felt like. When the news about this first came out, I, honestly speaking, ignored it because I didn’t think it would be anything special. Good thing one of my friends from high school sent me a link to one of their videos last week, because Amber and her friends are hilarious.