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Marvel Universe

Jordan Brown Leave a comment

The newest Marvel Movie, The Black Panther, is coming out this weekend (2/15).  This movie is the last one to come out before the much anticipated movie The Avengers: Infinity War.  This new Avengers movie will bring together the entire Marvel Universe to try and defeat a common enemy: Thanos.

The Avengers: Infinity War will feature and bring together characters from the majority of the Marvel movies since Iron Man in 2008.  This first Iron Man movie rebooted the Marvel brand.  In the first several Marvel movies after Iron Man each one faced a new and different villian, the movies do not seem to connect much.  As the movies continued they began to mention other Avengers and superheroes’ names to show that they are aware of each others existence and that they are indeed in the same universe.  The first Avengers movie that came out in 2012, and was the first movies that truly connected some of the characters.  At that point the main Marvel characters were Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor.  Iron Man has remained the main Avenger throughout the Marvel reboot up until the movies in 2017.

Since the start of the Marvel reboot in 2008, Marvel has greatly expanded their universe.  After the second Avengers movie they have branched out to show other characters than the major four of five with movies such as Ant-man, Dr. Strange, and more recently, Deadpool.  These movies all seem very different and to be fighting very different enemies.  As the universe expands, the villains get bigger and the audience can slowly see connections between villains through subtle comments and calls from their bosses.  This foreshadowed that there could possibly be a connection through the villians in these seemingly different movies.

There has also been many crossovers or cameos of other superheroes in single superhero movies.  The most recent example of this is Thor: Ragnarok featured Thor, but the Hulk was also a major part of the plot and the movie.  Spiderman Homecoming also heavily featured and depended on the timeline of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ironman.  These cameos and features of other characters in each others movies show how dependant they are on one another.

This dependence on one another is a thread that was slowly entwined into the franchise since 2008.  It started out subtle and will now end with a big bang in 2018 when all of the characters come together to fight the same powerful enemy.

Snow Fall

Corrina Lee Leave a comment

Snow falls from the heavens like a thousand discarded angels. Snow falls to land on grey pavements and yellowed winter grass and disappear in a few short-lived moments. Snow falls, feather-like, onto my face and leaves gentle scrapes of coldness on my skin.  I breathe out. My revenge melts some of my tiny antagonists. But still snow falls. They are drawn in an ever downward spiral. I am no longer sure where they come from. The invisible grey sky is secretive and perhaps, more importantly, I no longer care. I only want to keep walking through the blowing sheets of falling whiteness until I finally reach my destination. But even that has become unclear. Snow falls, making distances and time stretch longer into infinity.

Somewhere, I sense other beings, bravely traversing the winter storm, with faces tucked into warm coat collars. They make no sound, other than the muffled crunch of boots on fresh powder. No one dares to exchange words as we hurry past each other. The snow is deafening in its silence. The great University and its students are cowed by the weather. The distinguished brick buildings are thrust underneath fluffy caps, transforming them into childish caricatures of their normal selves. They surely cannot withstand the impact of a thousand icy cuts. Soon, they must fracture and crack. Their pipes becoming brittle and bursting. I imagine the world around me exploding silently, unseen as I walk by. Perhaps there will be no warm haven awaiting me. Perhaps it, too, has already been broken and absorbed. My imagination strives against the cold that numbly urges me to stop. Snow falls ignorantly past me. Sometimes, I spot footprints where they should not be, in four-foot-deep drifts. I also spot cars where they should not be, making slow progress through greying slush. The machines do not belong here, in this natural world of cold crystal and hot, humid breaths. Those passengers watch the snow from behind a barrier, separated from this pure battle between woman and Earth.

It is usually so easy to ignore or at least compromise with the weather with t-shirts when it becomes too hot or umbrellas when it rains. But when the snow begins to fall in earnest, it exploits every vulnerable chink of our armor. Every minute in the snowy air becomes another reminder of all that we have built as protection, and how useless it all proves. The plows push futilely, only able to move snow from place to place. Its presence accumulates. It comes and leaves of its own accord, gradually melting from existence. Ashes to ashes, water to water. We treck through this ethereal gift with heavy boots and track it into the soggy carpets. We kick it to the side and ignore it. But as I take a final look upwards, at the snow, falling, a ridiculous wonder fills me. Snow falls as I enter the building. Snow falls eternally on unseen spinning tracks. Snow falls, and I wish I could fall with it.

A chair versus a skyscraper… how different could they be?

themichiganarchitect Leave a comment

I was at the Start Up Career Fair last Friday, talking with a few representatives of the furniture company Floyd, and my conversation with them struck my interest in the question: how different are architecture and furniture, really?
People say that architecture studies humanities to build spaces for humans to live their lives in. Sounds good. But when it comes to furniture, it’s almost as if nobody really cares about it; we take it for granted.
To me, my conversation with the Floyd team resonated with our beliefs that architecture and furniture design are really basically the same thing- the only difference is their sizing scale. This is our argument, which I’d love for any of you readers to comment on whether or not you agree!
1. Both architecture and furniture deal with societies and their habits.
2. Both architecture and furniture’s goals are for the design and aesthetics to be one and the same thing within itself.
3. Both architecture and furniture have the power to change our lifestyles.
4. Both architecture and furniture require stable engineering and general understanding of physics in order to function.
5. Both architecture and furniture fields have the power to influence one another throughout history.

Let me know what you think! I’d love to hear some thoughts!

Kylie Jenner and Relating to Celebrities

Ana Lucena Leave a comment

If you don’t follow celebrity news, you may (fortunately) be unaware that socialite Kylie Jenner gave birth and announced it on Super Bowl Sunday with the release of a touching video to her daughter. As someone who is mystified by the continued popularity and success of the Kardashian family despite the wide-spread disdain the average Joe seems to have towards them, I want to dissect my experience of seeing people actually care about this birth.

Kylie is 20 years old, making the announcement feel more personal to me as someone who is also 20. She is not the first person my age to get pregnant, with Facebook keeping me up to date on the surprising number of engagements and childbirths that have occurred in my graduating class since we left high school. But I am fascinated by how much difference class seems to make when assessing individual success.  While I struggle to finish essays to graduate, Kylie is already the proprietor of a lip kit line despite the backlash her latest ventures in cosmetics have received. Though the material success at such a young age is impressive to me even as a privileged middle-class college student, the fact Jenner’s family was already wealthy before she came of age due to “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” makes the profits made on the lip kits less a story of individual triumph than corporate strategy. Following in her sisters’ footsteps, she has used her family’s overexposure on television to make lucrative business deals. Knowing how little social mobility there is in America, I am not surprised that the rich only find ways to get richer.

This makes the warm welcome and excited buzz for Jenner conflict me. On the one hand, I am of course happy to hear of a child being born healthy to an enthusiastic mother. This is evidenced by how Jenner managed to keep her entire pregnancy a secret despite being in the media spotlight and rumors being leaked and dismissed for the last few months. The way she did not prioritize making a profit off the attention her pregnancy would have generated is an encouraging sign she wants to put her baby first. However, I deeply question if a young, unmarried mother at 20 years old would have been met with such fanfare if she had been poor or Black. The stereotype of the “welfare queen” painted young, Black single mothers as a huge drain on government aid and was a tool of rhetoric in the public discussion about welfare throughout the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan. What keeps us from calling Jenner irresponsible as opposed to some of the women most in need in our society — the money she is raking in now, or the financial stability we assume her upper-class status will guarantee her in the future?

I hope that Kylie will be a wonderful mother and has a happy future with her daughter. I hope that Travis Scott is a supportive father even after he will inevitably leave the picture, following what I’ve seen in Hollywood relationships. But what I hope more than this is more critical discussion of how we talk about the way race and class defines the way we talk about women’s agency. It’s clear that the media won’t.

The Original Digital

jbaz Leave a comment

Digits….Can I get yo’ digits; How many digits are significant; Composing digital screen play; We recognize digital in this context, but do you know the original meaning of “digital”?

Latin: “digiti” means “fingers”.

Spanish: “dedos” means “digits” which indicate “fingers”

Cartoonist Lynda Barry has a saying that “In the digital age, don’t forget to use your digits!” In the 2000s, digital has adopted a new meaning of being a projection through a device, but the truest, most organic form of digital comes from your own mind through your fingertips. This is where you access the purest form of creativity.

Author Austin Kleon in his book Steal Like an Artist capitalizes on this concept of losing yourself to a computer. He says that it robs us of the feeling that we are making things, and in addition to stealing this feeling, it also robs us of many of our ideas as the delete button is so easily accessible we don’t give ourselves a chance to give potential what initially seems like a useless idea. Oh but honey, every idea is worth something. It won’t be complete when it first strikes you. Follow me in this analogy:

Idea is to seed.

Thinking is to water.

Elaboration is to growth.

Product is to fruit. An idea seed isn’t a substantial diet for your entire creative capacity, but it is the core to a satisfying creative feast.

The artist Stanley Dogwood, who has designed every album artwork for Radiohead, believes that computers are alienating because they put a sheet of glass between you and whatever is happening;  it’s hard to feel connected to something when there is a screen between you and the product of the creativity.

A couple weekends ago, the Power Center hosted the Cadence Dance Co. put on an incredible demonstration of the original digital: a pure exhibition of the channeling of inner creativity through their own digital devices: their bodies. Activating every part of their body with  astounding strength yet notable grace, the dancers moved to twelve songs, each with its own story.

Encore, Rhythm, the Friars, and Funktion performed between songs by the Flux crew, also exhibiting their own digital creativity. The human body is a reservoir of digital potential. Very cool to see.

 

In Defense of Being Brutally Honest

vle Leave a comment

As the saying goes, honesty is the best policy. I have always been blunt and concise. Among my friends, I am known not to sugarcoat things, and to get straight to the point. If I’m having trouble with a paper, I’ll talk to my professor. If a friend asks me for my opinion, I will tell you what I truthfully think. Although it can be quite uncomfortable to be unabashedly honest, I believe that confrontation is sometimes necessary. For me, one of the worst feelings is having something to say and letting it bubble up inside of you. Plus, letting your friends and family know the truth is important.

Honesty with people builds stronger relationships. To let people know how you truly feel, and to let yourself be vulnerable is one of the most liberating experiences in life. I’ve broken up a relationship because of distance, and told my crush how I really felt about them. I could not keep mulling these thoughts over and over in my mind, to have them bottled up. This anxiety would lead to greater tension between us, in both instances. It was nerve-wracking, but relieving. Of course, the outcome is not always positive, but I feel that the best way to deal with such issues is to have both parties on the same page and not let honesty be obscured by secrets and lies.

I want people to be honest with me, and I’m honest with them. Sometimes, telling the straight truth is incredibly painful. Everyone wants to avoid awkwardness. But to get the most out of an authentic life, and to reach for what you really want, being brutally honest can be one of the best tools you have.

As William Shakespeare wrote in All’s Well that Ends Well, “No legacy is so rich as honesty.”