Category: Arts & Life

Trend Report: Spring Watches

By Kate Jansen

Are your accessories looking drab this season? This spring, watch out for these watches that will brighten up your wardrobe:

White accents: Adding white to your wardrobe is a huge trend this spring. Try out oversized watches with white wristbands and gold or silver accents. These add a fresh, professional look when paired with a pastel blazer and dark wash skinny jeans.

The wrap: Wristwatches with an additional flare are definitely my favorite accessories of the season. Keep an eye out for wraparound watches, especially those that have bracelets attached to them. Some retailers that sell these accessories are Piperlime, Bloomingdale’s and Zappos. On a local note, I’ve also seen them displayed at the thrift shop in Lewisburg and Dwellings. Target just launched an affordable La Mer line that features a variety of styles, colors and patterns of watches. Check out your local Target or Target.com.

Brights: Try mixing up your outfit with a neon watch. A bright watch band can definitely be a center piece in your outfit. These watches pair nicely with solid dresses and skirts, as well as jean shorts and tees for a more casual look.

Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” was this year’s winner for most Oscars won by a single movie, garnering Best Direction for Lee, Best Visual Effects for University grad Bill Westenhofer ’90, Best Original Score and Best Cinematography. The film has also been a runaway popular success, both for fans of Yann Martel’s fantastic novel of the film and first-timers to Pi’s heartwarming story.

The story of “Life of Pi” is told through the process of an interview conducted by a Canadian journalist with the grown-up title character. It opens with the somewhat fantastical beginnings of Pi Patel in Pondicherry, India. Named after an uncle’s favorite swimming pool in Paris (“piscine” is French for swimming pool), our young protagonist takes early action to end the unfortunate homophonic nickname assigned him by his peers, “Pissing.” Instead, he dubs himself “Pi,” invoking the immense mathematical figure to reinforce the new moniker, a choice with obvious repercussions for the film’s title as well.

That established, we are walked through Pi’s unusual childhood, a curious mix of zoology and theology. His father runs the failing Pondicherry Zoo, where we meet the other main character, the tiger Richard Parker, (so named for a comical clerical error). Pi adopts three different religions: his native Hinduism, Christianity and Muslim. Despite many jokes at his expense for taking up (simultaneously) three incompatible religions, Pi remains unperturbed by his unusual situation and continues practicing all three. The family moves from India after the zoo goes under, so they book passage for themselves and some of their animals on a Japanese steamship. A fateful storm sinks the ship, and Pi, a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and Richard Parker find themselves sharing a lifeboat.

What ensues comprises the majority of the film. As Pi’s skin darkens in the sun and he rapidly loses weight, he also deals with the very real danger of life. These dangers include not only life in a lifeboat on the open sea, but also sharing living quarters with a tiger. An important scene from the beginning of the film serves as a reminder that Richard Parker, regardless of the natural desire to personify him, is very much a dangerous wild animal. This fact is borne carefully in mind, as Pi and Richard Parker attempt, if not to become friends, at least coexist in relative peace under their unpredictable circumstances.

“Life of Pi” is probably one of the most visually beautiful films ever made. Lee’s tasteful use of 3D is purely an addition to the already sweeping imagery of the open sea and skyline. Many readers of “Life of Pi” would probably write the book off as unfilmable, myself among them, but Lee has defied us all, making a film that closely preserves the inexhaustible joie de vivre of the original work. The terrific ending is as jaw-dropping as the first time you heard about it, which is a relief for fans of the book.

“Life of Pi” begins with our journalist coming in search for a “story that will make you believe in God.” Whatever you believe in, though, “Life of Pi” is a truly wonderful film that I doubt many people would regret having seen.

Lasagna is a fantastic classic because there are so many ways to customize it. You can use all different vegetables, herbs, themes or proteins. The way I keep my versions lighter is by using lower fat (not fat-free) cheese and fat-free ricotta (or in this case sour cream). It takes a while to bake but just minutes to pull together, and it makes eight servings so pack up the leftovers for easy, healthy, delicious on-the-run lunches or dinners!

Chicken Fajita Lasagna

8 servings

295 calories, 6 g fat, 35 g carbs, 26 g protein

Ingredients

• 9 pieces Barilla no-cook lasagna noodles
• 1 jar (15 oz) organic chipotle salsa
• 1 can low sodium black beans (rinsed)
• 1/2 cup corn
• 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into strips
• 1 packet low sodium taco seasoning
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1 cup diced green pepper
• 1 1/2 cups low-fat Mexican blend cheese
• 3/4 cup fat-free sour cream

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375 F and mix together corn and beans.
2. Over medium heat, cook onions, peppers, chicken and taco seasoning (with 1/2 cup water) for 8-10 minutes until completely cooked.
3. Build your lasagna: 1/4 of the salsa, 3 noodles, 1/2 of the bean mixture, 1/2 of the chicken mixture, 1/2 cup cheese, 1/2 of the sour cream, 1/4 of the salsa; 3 noodles, 1/2 of the bean mixture, 1/2 of the chicken mixture, 1/2 cup cheese, 1/2 of the sour cream, 1/4 of the salsa; 3 noodles, remaining cheese and remaining salsa.
   
4. Cover loosely with tin foil and bake for one hour. Remove tin foil and bake 15 more minutes.

 

I’d like to begin this review by saying that “Django Unchained” was my favorite movie of 2012. Quentin Tarantino’s latest is equal parts fairy tale and grotesque spectacle, blown to truly epic proportions. Like similarly huge works before it, it sparked controversy prior to even hitting theaters, but was duly rewarded at this year’s Academy Awards with Best Original Screenplay for Tarantino and Best Supporting Actor for Christoph Waltz.

“Django” opens in the antebellum South, as a group of slaves are marched through a dark forest. From this darkness emerges Dr. King Shultz (Waltz) riding in a dentist’s wagon topped with an absurdly large bobbing tooth. He’s looking for a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx), whose assistance he requires in identifying a trio of wanted brothers from Django’s past. The good doctor speaks with characteristic Tarantino verbosity and buys Django’s freedom, shoots up the slavers and points out the North Star to the remaining slaves. With that done, he’s on his merry way.

The doctor, we soon learn, is not so much a practicing dentist as a successful bounty hunter and forward thinking opponent of slavery (a convenient plot loophole for Tarantino) and for a time, Django becomes his business partner. Along the way, Django reveals his quest to rescue his beloved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from her new owner and Shultz offers his help.

Broomhilda is not the property of just any plantation owner. She has been sold to the monstrous Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), sadistic proprietor of Candyland, the largest and most dreaded plantation in the area. Based on this knowledge, Shultz and Django come up with a gutsy plan to get them on Candie’s good side, but whether they’ll successfully fool Candie’s sniveling, self-loathing slave-butler, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) is another question entirely.

Tarantino has been soundly criticized by many for the flagrant use of the N-word (over 100 times in this film), as well as the proliferation of disturbing imagery, even by his own standards. “Django” absolutely deserves its R-rating, but I for one disagree with stances that the film is too flippant about the ever-present American issue of our national slave-owning past. Honestly, the N-word would have been standard vernacular for most of the antebellum South well into the twentieth century. Also, the most startling and uncomfortable role in “Django” casts Jackson as a traitor to his own race, serving as a brutal reminder of minority enforcement from within the minority itself. Jackson plays the part brilliantly, and the effect of his combined performance with DiCaprio (who is very possibly at a career-best as Candie) is blood-chillingly awful. Scenes of slaves fighting to the death for their owners’ pleasure and of a man being eaten alive by hounds are juxtaposed against Django’s heroism and shows of bravado that are necessary reminders that the backdrop of that familiar tale of rescuing a fair maiden in distress is catalyzed, not by some evil witch or overprotective parent, but by the violence inherent in the system of slavery. Critics seem unilaterally to agree that “Django” more closely approaches the goal Tarantino set out to achieve in “Inglourious Basterds” and the result is a more mature, if similarly eccentric, final product.

But what should not be forgotten, above all, when watching “Django Unchained” is the amount of fun Tarantino invariably has with his films. It is at turns madcap and deadly serious, but it has that irrepressible je ne sais quoi which keeps audiences returning again and again to see explosions, bloodbaths and general mayhem, and really, who could do it better?

Indian Dance ensemble

By Laura Crowley

On Friday night, the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble will perform for the public in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts. The group, which is from a small village in India, is known throughout the world as one of the most elite dance companies from the country, with performances in Hawaii, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, the Middle East, Singapore, New York and Japan.

In English, “Nrityagram” means dance village. Dancers from the ensemble live together and practice eight hours a day for six days a week since “dancers in India are required to reach a high level of skill before they ever perform,” Kathryn Maguet, executive director of the Weis Center, said.

The founder of the group, Protima Guari, purchased 10 acres of land in 1990 for the ensemble to live and dance on. The ensemble first performed for a foreign audience in 1996 in New York, where they were quickly critically acclaimed. In addition to dance, the ensemble learn yoga, mediation, Sanskrit, mythology, martial arts and literature.

“[The Nrityagram is] a community of dancers in a forsaken place amidst nature. A place where nothing exists, except dance. A place where you breathe, eat, sleep, dream, talk, imagine dance. A place where all the five senses can be refined to perfection. A place where dancers drop negative qualities such as jealousy, small-mindedness, greed and malice to embrace their colleagues as sisters and support each other in their journey towards becoming dancers of merit,” Guari said.

Gurus and students are welcome in the Nrityagram and contribute to its functional and spiritual upkeep.

One New York Times reporter noticed the effects of the their living styles on the dancers, as he wrote that they “performed with a burnished grace, a selfless concentration and a depth that reflected their intensive training in dance, music, literature, language and philosophy.”

Traditional Indian dance centers around seven dance forms: the residential school offers training in Indian classical dance forms, Odissi, Mohiniattam, Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathakali and Manipuri. The ensemble stays loyal to these ancient dances, yet incorporates a modern feel to its dances by exchanging dance styles with other artists.

Choreographers, musicians and other artists such as sculptors, painters, writers and actors from throughout the world visit the village to exchange art forms, which has given the group a more intercultural feel while still “maintaining a feel of traditional Indian dance,” Maguet said.

University students are among those artists who have been able to share their culture with the ensemble. The group arrived on campus Feb. 26 and has been running workshops for dance and music classes for the past three days.

“This exquisite company performs with exceptional synchronicity, compelling physicality and emotional honesty,” Maguet said. “This overwhelmingly beautiful program will leave audiences in awe of the dancers’ powerful imagery and captivating movement.”

The performance will be Friday night at 8 p.m. at the Weis Center. The event is in part sponsored by Gary and Sandy Sojka. Tickets will be $20 for adults, $16 for seniors over age 62 and $10 for children under 18 and can be purchased at any Box Office location, or by calling the Campus Box Office at 570-577-1000.

Tip to Beat Exam Stress

By Anna Jones

With midterms right around the corner, everyone is beyond stressed. Although a little bit of stress can be a good thing, everyone knows that if you get too worried, disaster is inevitable. Here are a few tips to beat the strain of midterms.

 

1. Set out a schedule

If you go to the library with the intent of studying everything you’ve ever learned, chances are you won’t be very productive. Instead, plan out your studying time. Devote an hour to focusing on Spanish verb conjugations, an hour to memorizing history dates and an hour to outlining your English essay. If you really focus on each topic during its assigned hour, you’ll learn exactly what you need.

2. Take breaks

It’s important to stop studying sometimes. After hours of cramming, you will reach a point where you just can’t take in any more information. When you hit this point, stop. You end up being less productive and learn less overall if you don’t take breaks periodically. Even just 10 minutes to get up and walk around, get a snack or some water can be extremely helpful.

3. Do what works for you

If you work well in groups, try to organize a study group with a few friends from your class. Having other people to explain confusing concepts or even exchange ideas can be really valuable. If you know you’ll do better by studying on your own, do that instead. (Even if your classmates are pushing really hard for you to be in their study group.) It’s important to know what study tactics work for you and use them to your advantage.

4.  Eat right

Although it can be tempting to stock up on brownies and goo cake from the Bostwick Marketplace to nibble on while studying, eating healthy foods during exams is very important. Fruits, vegetables and protein give your brain fuel and help avoid crashes while studying. Plus, you won’t feel guilty after four hours of snacking on carrots.

5. Work out

Exercise can be a great study break. If you feel yourself falling asleep while in the library, get up and go to the gym. It will help get your blood flowing and energize you to finish your studying. If you feel like you have too much to study and can’t take time off to go work out, bring a book with you. You can read your geography textbook or study math formulas while on the stationary bike, which kills two birds with one stone.

6. Sleep

This is probably the most important tip on the list. Many studies show that students do better on exams if they are well-rested. Your brain actually organizes the information you’ve studied while you’re sleeping, so it’s important to get rest. Although studying 24/7 seems really important, sleep is even more of a priority. Plus who wants to fall asleep during the middle of an exam?

7. Do something fun

Last semester, my friends and I went out to dinner at Elizabeth’s right before finals. Getting out of the library to have a good meal was so much fun and got my mind off of the impending exams. Allowing yourself to indulge in a fun night out with friends can help you feel calmer and do better on your exams!

Campus-Wide Epidemic Imminent

The warning signs have been building for some time now: dried vomit on sidewalks, beer-can-littered streets and stray beer-pong balls rattling around campus. Yet we ignored them. We wouldn’t admit what was happening, no matter how obvious it became. We swept it all under the carpet of school pride and now who has an epidemic on their hands? We Do.

Word from Student Health Services is that the abandoned shoes that can be found lying around campus and Lewisburg’s student district on Friday and Saturday nights are the latest in a progression of signs indicating an outbreak of the Otis Campbell Plague (OCP) at the University.

Named for the pitiful, disheveled town drunk on “The Andy Griffith Show,” OCP is rampant on campuses throughout the United States.

“We’ve been projecting the progression of OCP, using SUNY Albany as a model,” explained Dr. Avery Parnell of Student Health Services. “Bucknell appears to be in dire straights. SUNY Albany is the textbook case study of OCP, and there, the students have descended into anarchy. The footage researchers have brought back is disturbing. One particularly haunting image was a student wearing a kilt and standing on a car while playing bagpipes.”

In short, the University is facing an epidemic of sadly cartoonish drunkenness.

“The appearance of abandoned shoes on campus and downtown tells us that not only is a percentage of the University student body infected, but that some individuals have progressed to a critical stage,” said Dr. Parnell, who would not comment as to what percentage of the student body is infected. “These students must be located and quarantined before they spread the illness further.”

To facilitate such quarantine, the Department of Public Safety has enacted its “Cinderella Protocol.” On Sundays, students will be required to report to the Public Safety office and try on the shoes that were found that weekend. If a shoe fits a student, that student will be reassigned to housing in Larison Hall, which has become the University’s designated quarantine zone.

“The Cinderella Protocol is vital to the survival of the University’s good name,” Public Safety Officer Patrick O’Brian said. “Things are going downhill. It begins with missing shoes and ends with students staggering around campus singing ‘How Dry I Am.’”

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that OCP is prevalent among first-year students but also occurs in students suffering from “senioritis.” WHO’s website provides the following list of symptoms:

• Use of the phrase “I feel like” rather than “I think” (It is believed that OCP inhibits students’ ability to form definitive opinions.)
• Overuse of the word “bro”
• Overuse of “cray cray”
• Overuse of hashtags on social networking sites
• In males, a penchant for khakis
• In females, a penchant for North Face jackets
• A craving for Bison Dogs
• Missing shoes
• In the final stages, waking up on a couch many miles from one’s campus with no recollection of how one got there

Students are urged to contact Health Services immediately when these symptoms are noticed on or near campus. In the meantime, Health Services, Geisinger Medical Center, Evangelical Community Hospital, Public Safety and the Buffalo Valley Regional Police Department are coordinating to brace for a full-on outbreak of the epidemic.

Arianna Huffington Hosts Q&A Session with Students

By Anna Jones

Though many students and guests had the privilege of hearing Arianna Huffington’s speech for the University’s “tech/no” series on Feb. 19, only about 25 students had the chance to get up close and personal with the media powerhouse. When Huffington arrived on campus, she went straight to the Elaine Langone Center to host a question and answer session with students.

Huffington started off the session by joking about the several inches of snow we’d just accumulated. After a few minutes of small talk, she jumped right into the session. The first question was about polling and how Huffington’s views have shifted over time. She answered with an interesting statement about how polling techniques have weakened journalism.

“It’s much easier for a journalist to just stay at their desk and collect the latest polling results instead of doing real research,” Huffington said.

“The response rates [of polls] are plummeting … most people don’t want to spend 20 minutes in the middle of dinner talking to a stranger,” Huffington said. “I would place polls in the same place as horoscopes … have fun and read polls like you have fun and read your horoscope. Few people plan their day based on their horoscopes though.”

Once the ball got rolling with the first question, the Q&A took off. Many students had questions on topics ranging from international media to journalism to career advice.

After a question from Kathleen Lenox ’13 on the Huffington Post in different countries, Huffington began to explain how the Post is run internationally.

“We are now in six countries … [and aside from the UK and Canada] we launched with a media partner … as a joint venture,” Huffington said. “We wanted every edition to be very grounded in the culture of the country … so we hired journalists from that country.”

Next, she fielded questions about technology, emphasizing that technology increases access.

“It can give a voice to people who didn’t have a voice before,” Huffington said. “But there’s something different about being live or in print.”

She continued to explain how easy it is to get caught up in technology and only stare at your computer screen.

Huffington went on to talk about the importance of blogging. Blogging has created a tremendous opportunity for anyone who can produce quality writing. Huffington even told one story about a homeless girl who began blogging and was eventually noticed by Harvard. The university offered her a place all thanks to blogging for the Huffington Post, and she is now a successful young woman.

She wrapped up the talk with a bit of advice when a student asked about how to enter the business of journalism.

“It’s all about doing what you love and working your way up,” Huffington said.

If you missed the speech, check it out online at: http://storify.com/BucknellU/arianna-bucknell

New Courses in the Works

By Ethan Weber

The latest sounds coming from the Sigfried Weis Music Building are neither opera recordings nor the plucked strings of harpsichords, but rather rumors and chatter of a new course to be offered to University students. The course? MUSC 147: “Introduction to Caf Music.”

“For quite some time now, we in the Music Department have been becoming increasingly aware of a disturbing trend among Bucknellians,” Dr. Irving Carmichael said. “The majority of non-music majors possess little knowledge of music history prior to the 1990s.”

“They’re incredibly egocentric,” Prof. Stevland Manilow said. “If it’s from before they were born, it’s as if it was never written or received airtime. This became all too clear at last year’s Chrysalis when it was learned that a large percentage of University students didn’t know who The Village People, the featured act, were.”

“It was really embarrassing,” Carmichael said. “The one that dresses like a construction worker even had to correct the students on how to do ‘Y.M.C.A.’ It’s like these kids have never been to a wedding reception or anything.”

After surveying University students about their knowledge of 20th-century popular music,  Carmichael and Manilow observed that Bucknellians do seem to be familiar with some of the older songs played over the radio in Bostwick Dining Hall.

“They like Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin’ on a Prayer,’ The Commodores’ ‘Brick House’ and most things by Michael Jackson. Some of them even admit to not hating KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘I’m Your Boogie Man,’ which plays in there several times a week,” Carmichael said. “Still, most of them didn’t know who many of these acts were.”

“We hope that by opening an intellectual dialogue about these songs, we can lessen students’ need for auto-tuning and dubstep,” Manilow said.

Even though this course is still only in the planning stages, it has already prompted a parallel movement within the English Department. There, professors are designing similar courses, ENGL 236: “Films and Television Shows That Premiered Before You Were Born but Are Nonetheless Iconic and You Should Really Be Familiar with Them,” and ENGL 240: “Paper and the Printed Word: Where Are They Now?”

Both departments hope to offer these courses by next semester.