Rice University’s Student Newspaper — Since 1916
Tuesday, April 16, 2024 — Houston, TX

Sophie Newman, Arts and Entertainment Editor

NEWS 4/8/15 5:15am

KTRU prepares for 24th annual outdoor show

By Sophie Newman, Arts and Entertainment Editor

In the wake of announcing its return to the airwaves, Rice’s official student-run radio station, KTRU, now prepares for the 24th Annual Outdoor Show, which will be held on April 11. KTRU prides itself on exposing local, underground artists, and the 2015 show promises an indie-electro beat with headliners Objekt, Bok Bok, GoldLink and Ex Hex. Fat Tony, Stalls, Deep Cuts, Heaven Spacey and Battle of the Bands winner Fire Alarm. Returning artist FLCON FCKER will be providing visual entertainment. Concert manager Jake Levens said his goal for this year’s show is to incorporate more electronic music into the lineup, something the station hasn’t done in years past. “One of the things that I had in mind this year was bringing in more representation of electronic music,” Levens, a Will Rice College senior, said. “In the past we’ve had XXYYXX and FLCON FCKER, but in general, it’s skewed more toward indie rock. There were a lot of reasons to do that in the past, but this year, I thought, what if we explore some different options?”Levens predicts that the headliner GoldLink will be a crowd favorite. “GoldLink, I think, is going to be one of the biggest hits at the show,” he said. “[GoldLink] calls it ‘future bounce music,’ and basically it’s these really wild beats that he kind of just flies through rapping. It’s a lot of fun and it’s really high-energy.”Accompanying the EDM will be local visual artist and musician FLCON FCKR, who played at last year’s show.“As soon as it gets dark enough to be projecting, we’re going to have some weird, glitched-out madness going on behind the artists,” Levens said. “It’s especially important because we’re using [disc jockeys], and that’s a major audio-visual experience.”Levens hopes that the risks KTRU is taking with the EDM lineup will pay off. “We’re taking some risks this year with the lineup by having Objekt and Bok Bok there,” Levens said. “But ultimately I hope it works out, and that people stick around and watch the whole thing.”In addition to the music scene, the show will also feature student organization booths, sponsor booths and food trucks. Outgoing station manager Sal Tijerina said KTRU has plans to make this year’s show especially attractive with the food truck lineup.“We are aiming to make this a huge event,” Tijerina, a Lovett College senior, said. “We’ve got some really awesome food trucks, like Oh My Gogi, that everybody loves. So that could even be an attraction in itself.”According to Tijerina, KTRU also wants to make a special effort to connect to the Houston community this year, who has greeted KTRU’s return to the radio with enthusiasm. “We’re definitely going to make an effort to really tap into the community this year, especially in light of recent news of us returning to FM,” Tijerina said. “A lot of the community was very excited to hear that we’re coming back, and we want to make sure that they know we appreciate it.”

NEWS 3/11/15 5:08am

The ideal type: Portrait of an artist

By Sophie Newman, Arts and Entertainment Editor

When my friend told me we were going to meet her uncle, the artist, I didn’t know what to expect. For instance, I didn’t expect him to live in a whitewashed minimalist mansion or have an eccentric collection of cats and dogs with names like “Baron” and “Google Earth.” Nor did I expect that he would speak with a slight British accent and serve us three glasses of wine, homemade lamb pastries and fresh-out-of-the-oven lava cake.Don’t get me wrong — I’m not complaining. The experience was practically royal. But it wouldn’t have surprised me if, instead, the uncle lived in a basement, collected human embryos and subsisted on a diet of malt liquor and canned tuna fish. “Artist” is the most vague career definition imaginable. It takes a certain type of person to be an artist, but who are artists? What unites them? Although artists vary in almost every possible way, there are a few defining characteristics: pride, creative prowess and most importantly, an extraordinary perspective. All great artists, or at least all successful ones, take great pride in their work. When people think of artists, they think vanity: “People tend to think he’s a bit … self-righteous,” my friend said of her uncle when introducing him. Self-righteousness may be unacceptable ordinarily, but the art world demands it. As a commercial artist, you are marketing yourself — something people don’t automatically value — and winning dedicated admirers requires more than confidence; it requires that the artist love his or her work unconditionally. Artists are delighted with everything that they create, so much so that admirers can’t help but worship it also. The artist is dedicated to creation. All endeavors, even ordinary household activities, become opportunities to design and perfect. When the uncle served us fried fish, for instance, he insisted on making it himself (even though there was a cook in the house) because it was part of his “special recipe.” His is an attitude of artistic license. If everything has the potential to be art, the artist has the ability to harness that potential and trademark it. Most importantly, successful artists have extraordinary perceptive capabilities. This is no secret, but it is essential to their character. Part of this capability is hallucinatory: Artists have the ability to detect things that normal humans cannot. But sometimes this vision doesn’t add to objects; it reduces them to their simplest and most essential qualities. They pick up a piece of rusted metal, partially oxidized, and hold it like a holy sacrament, marvelling at the oblong shape, the uneven patches of blue and the mechanical potential. We admire artists because they invite us to be a part of their mysterious world, if just for a second. When they stop to smell the trash cans, or decide to empty 1,000 tubes of paint on a blank canvas, we feel a rush of excitement. What do they see that we do not? Are they crazy, or prophetic? Perhaps artists really are deranged, or otherwise mentally disturbed, but there’s no denying their vision. They stop to smell the flowers that we pass by without a glimpse. They seize opportunities we didn’t even know existed. They find beauty in every small gesture of human and nature, and though we may be incapable, they invite us to see it too.

NEWS 2/25/15 3:50am

Society self-destructs in 'Black Mirror'

By Sophie Newman, Arts and Entertainment Editor

“The world’s bloody broken,” says a nurse in the first episode of “Black Mirror” as he prepares to watch the prime minister have sexual intercourse with a pig on national television. This comment, in essence, is the message of “Black Mirror,” a British television anthology that has been dubbed the modern day “Twilight Zone.” If we all have at least a subconscious fear of the way that technology changes society, “Black Mirror” is here to validate our worries. Although each episodes presents a clear cultural critique, the creator, Charlie Brooker, artfully sidesteps condescension in his haunting exposé. The first season aired three years ago, but it became available for streaming on Netflix in December. Each episode (of which there are only six) features an entirely different narrative and cast of characters. The show explores everything from political scandal to capital punishment to failing romances, and doesn’t shy away from cringe-worthy issues (i.e., bestiality). That being said, “Black Mirror” is by no means fantasy. While the characters may live in a virtually unrecognizable world, they are at least not unfeeling. The technology they have to respond to those feelings, however, warps their moral judgments in unprecedented ways.Let’s look at the episode “The Entire History of You.” In this world, citizens have access to all the memories of a lifetime via a “grain” implanted in their heads. A couple, far into their relationship, recalls earlier memories of more passionate times while having sex, each watching his or her own private screen. It’s a haunting scene, to say the least, with the lovers’ eyes inhumanly glazed over. Booker seems to be mocking couples who complain, “I wish we could just go back to the beginning,” or at least asking them to reconsider their point.In this episode, Booker also considers adultery. The jealous husband questions his partner’s actions, leading to suspicion and irrational behavior — a familiar story. But in this world, the jealous lover is able to exact revenge by forcing his wife to replay her memories. Is he any better off knowing the truth? Is he justified in such an invasion of privacy? The audience is left with the choice to either sympathize with him or question his moral character.In “Be Right Back,” a woman grieves over the abrupt loss of her husband. She isn’t coping well, until her friend suggests a service to recreate her husband through bits of information he left in the virtual cloud. She shuns the idea at first, but succumbs in a moment of desperation. While we can identify with the protagonist up to a certain point, her coping mechanism seems outrageous and even a little gross. Her grieving is clearly justified, but there’s something disturbing about not being able to let go — especially if it means turning the memory of your husband into a machine.If “Black Mirror” is paranoid about societal judgments, this anxiety reaches a high point with “The Waldo Moment.” This episode focuses on the campaign tool of Waldo, a talking bear cartoon, whose crudeness is reminiscent of Ted. Waldo “speaks the truth” about politicians and “exposes” their lies and false promises (I speak facetiously, of course, because he is a bear, although he is controlled by a human with a legitimate point). In any case, citizens respond overwhelmingly positively to his presence in the political world, and even go so far as to support his candidacy. Is Booker hinting that the populace is idiotic enough to elect a talking bear to office, or rightfully outraged at political corruption? It’s hard to say. But the end of the episode, in which the man who voices Waldo becomes a homeless man and victim of police brutality, seems telling.“Black Mirror,” as its title suggests, presents an interesting paradox: While characters still have recognizable feelings, their ability to reason disappears with the influences of  technology and politics. In these dystopian visions, morality vanishes in the face of progress. The end result? Humanity self-destructs.

NEWS 2/4/15 4:08am

The pick list: Netflix indie gems to satisfy every taste

By Sophie Newman, Arts and Entertainment Editor

Indie films can be a bit of a gamble for the avid Netflixer. Fortunately, the Thresher has done some of the grunt work for you in sorting through the Netflix filler to find some high-caliber (or at least highly entertaining) titles to fill your beginning-of-the-semester free time. If you’re tired of watching Mean Girls or Friends reruns for the umpteenth time, check out these obscure yet worthy picks.  

NEWS 1/28/15 4:15am

Student theater initiative sheds light on sexual harassment

By Sophie Newman, Arts and Entertainment Editor

Rice students prove that theater can be more than a recreation of fictional narrative — it can connect students to pressing issues within the Rice community, like sexual harassment and assault. The Speak Up Project is a new student-orientated theater initiative that shares anonymous stories from sexual harassment survivors. The project’s authors, Wiess College senior Vicky Comesanas and Hanszen College junior Lindsay Bonnen, hope that it will add to Rice’s already-established sexual harassment initiatives, like campus policies and Project Safe.According to Comesanas, the Speak Up Project addresses the difficult “after the fact” part of sexual violence, which she believes is missing from many discussions.“We want to start a conversation,” Comesanas said. “A lot of people don’t realize that victims are on campus.”Student survivors confirm that the Speak Up Project addresses an issue that is absent from the Rice conversation about sexual assault. “The fact that Vicky was easily able to receive stories from so many Rice students about their experiences [shows] that this happens all the time,” a student, who submitted a story and asked to remain anonymous, said. “Imagine how many more stories are out there having no audience.” The first part of the project involves gathering anonymous stories from Rice students about situations that have occurred at Rice or elsewhere. The stories, unedited and anonymous, will then be recreated by actresses. Comesanas believes theater is the perfect medium for difficult conversations. “Theater has an ability to represent [someone] without forcing that person to be on stage,” she said. “Over the summer, I began thinking that there [are] ways to use poetry and theater for social activism.”The project has two main goals: to create a community to talk about sexual harassment on campus and to provide victims with a safe forum through which to share their stories. “If someone can’t raise their hand and say, ‘Hey, this happened to me,’ that person can write it down,” Comesanas said. “Someone else then shares that burden and acts out that story — that can be healing.”Writing also provides student victims with a way to share stories that are often difficult to bring up with family members, friends or even professionals. “I felt like every time in the past I had to try to talk about my experiences, someone had shut me down or silenced me in some way,” another anonymous student writer said. “I’m not angry at these people — these are all normal reactions to a very hard issue. That being said, it was very hard to have something so traumatic happen and feel like it was so shut inside of me. This project gives me a chance to truly put all these feelings and thoughts out there.”Comesanas hopes that the Speak Up Project, although not a solution for sexual harassment issues, will at least break the ice on a difficult discussion. “Obviously, it’s not a solution,” Comesanas said. “There’s not a magical cure-all. But if this can help and this can get people talking and being sensitive about things that happen on campus, I think it’s a good start.”The Speak Up Project is set to premiere March 18

NEWS 10/28/14 4:07pm

MFAH presents Monet and the Seine

By Sophie Newman, Arts and Entertainment Editor

I attended a preview of the new Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, exhibit “Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River” amongst a crowd much more knowledgeable than I, both in the works of Monet and art in general. Slightly intimidated by fluent French speakers and people who have mastered the furrowed-brow-painting-examination method, I resigned myself to enjoy the impressive collection in my own, plebian way. While I cannot exactly quantify the pleasure I took from the paintings, I can say that, despite my lack of expertise, I was undoubtedly moved by Monet’s depictions of the Seine that are precise yet abstract, realistic yet magical.  The exhibit divides Monet’s works into a series of rooms that follow a chronological and geographical progression, highlighting both his fascination with the Seine and his evolution as an impressionist painter.According to MFAH Director Gary Tinterow, the Seine became instrumental for Monet in developing his style of impressionist painting. “The Seine was without question [Monet’s] most important motif,” Tinterow said. “It is Monet’s river, and for that we treasure it.”Because his subject is water, Monet fixates on the idea of reflection. Present in almost all of his paintings of the Seine is a horizon line dividing the canvas in half, which enables him to project mirror images of the landscape onto the water.“It was critical to his career and revelation as an artist,” Tinterow said. “He discovered that putting his horizon line more or less midway … was an inexhaustible device.”Helga K. Aurisch, curator of European art and co-curator of the exhibition, also spoke to this uncanny symmetry. “Some of these we could’ve hung upside down and you would never know,” Aurisch said. The reflections, for me, were truly the most remarkable and beautiful aspect of the paintings. Short brushstrokes, characteristic of impressionist style, exquisitely capture water’s reflective qualities. The exhibition, which includes more than 50 paintings in total (an impressive feat, considering the difficulty of achieving Monet loans), culminates with one of Monet’s more famous series, “Mornings on the Seine”, which was also the inspiration for the project. According to Tanya Paul, Isabel and Alfred Bader Curator of European Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and co-curator of the exhibition, the series was instrumental in securing his role as the father of French landscape painting. The exhibition will be on view through Feb. 1 in the Law Building of MFAH. Student discount tickets available.

NEWS 10/28/14 4:05pm

Dear White People sheds light on racism on college campuses

By Sophie Newman, Arts and Entertainment Editor

Dear white people. With so much meaning behind these three tiny words, Dear White People has the potential to move in many directions. Director Justin Simien, a Houston native, must have agreed, working an impressive array of characters and subplots into his first film. Although the character development is not extensive and the plot not entirely smooth in execution, Dear White People is undoubtedly an important film. In an era in which films that bring up the issue of racism tend to be dark, depressing and difficult to watch, Dear White People attacks the issue from a completely new angle — humor. But the film is much more than a satiric attack on racist white college kids — it is an exploration of identity, activism and acceptance. The film follows the lives of four students at Winchester University, an Ivy-League-type school on the East Coast with few black students. First, there is Samantha (Tessa Thompson) — formidable, funny and invariably well-dressed. Samantha is the host of her own witty radio show, “Dear White People,” whose first broadcast reads, “Dear White People, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two.” Immediately, Sam comes off as bold and unafraid to speak her mind, a trait that is both her weapon and enemy at various points in the film. Troy (Brandon Bell), the son of the dean of undergraduates at Winchester, is the popular college president who aims to please his demanding father. Coco (Teyonah Parris) wants to be famous above all else and refuses to be defined by her race, going out of her way to isolate herself from her black peers. Finally, there’s Lionel (Tyler James Williams), the gay black kid who doesn’t feel like he fits in anywhere. Racism takes many forms in Dear White People, not just in obvious ways, although these do happen, but also in more subtle ways. The most blatant example is an argument between Sam and Kurt (Kyle Gallner), the ignorant, privileged white boy and son of the president of the university, over whether he and his friends can eat in the historically black dorm. While this incident is an explicit attack, racism also appears in subtler ways and even in positive contexts. In one instance, a girl tries to complement Coco on her hair, making the horrifying pitfall of asking, “Is it weaved?”, a comment which Coco later addresses in a blog post: “It’s weave. Noun. Present tense.” Case two: Troy’s white girlfriend makes a comment about her boyfriend’s penis size in relation to his race and is confused when he is offended, saying she thought he would enjoy the compliment.The issue of identity and how black students feel as though they must “pick a side” is probably most vivid in Lionel’s case. Being black and gay, he doesn’t feel like he fits in with the white homosexual students or the black activists. In one scene, in which the BSA questions him about his refusal to join, he comments, “I listen to Mumford and Sons and watch Robert Alton movies; think I’m black enough for the union?” Race and identity emerge again when Troy asks Lionel, “Is it harder to be too black for the white kids, or too white for the black kids?” His reply is simple yet poignant: “Both.”But if the issue of racism at Winchester wasn’t clear before, the final scene, in which white students throw a black-themed party (this is loosely based on true events), drives the point home. Sam decides to take a new approach to her activism here, a much more subtle one, while Lionel takes a more active one. At this point, the movie completely transforms — witty comments and jokes seem distant now, and the audience must face the harsh reality of racism that is offensive, scary and disheartening. The slow-motion shots and lingering cinematography make this scene especially uncomfortable and important in demonstrating that racism is still alive and well, even among bright and future-driven students. The movie hit a soft spot for me here — if it hadn’t made me think critically and seriously before, it certainly had my attention now. Answering the “Who am I?” question is challenging enough for college students, but Dear White People shows how this already difficult journey can be even further complicated by racism. I think it’s important and humbling, especially for us as students at a top university, to think critically about these issues and remember that the conversation about racism is far from over. In fact, with Dear White People, it may have only just begun.

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