In the 60s it was all about the Brits – the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the Zombies were some of U.K’s finest musical exports that found tremendous success stateside. Now, another crop of talented musicians from the other side of the pond have once again invaded our airwaves. Here is a brief overview of the artists that are leading the British offensive:

1. V V Brown: Those of you who read Perez Hilton religiously (like me) might have heard about this Northampton native a few months ago. Recently featured in the SXSW festival, Brown promises to definitely be a top charter soon enough. Part Estelle and part Amy Winehouse (the part that isn’t a crazy crack addict…), VV has a style and soul that is very retro (think Dita Von Teese, but less sass and more class). To get your feet wet, be sure to check out “Shark in the Water” and “Game Over.”
2. Tinchy Styder: The best way I can describe this rapper from East London is that he is the British version of Akon. Though his rhymes (yes, I said rhymes!) might not be as intellectual as Lupe Fiasco, he is pure pop/hip-hop perfection. I dare you guys to listen to his collaboration with Amelle Berrabah (“Never Leave You”) and not get it stuck in your heads! Most of his music has definite traces of dance music (ex. “Number 1” with N-Dubz) in it, so be sure to keep this guy in mind when you are doing those all nighters near finals time.
3. Cheryl Cole: Though one-fifth of the mega girl group Girls Aloud, Cheryl Cole has unfortunately made international headlines recently for her husband’s extramarital activities. However, regardless of her husband’s affinity for the Tiger Woods’ way of life, Cole is set to put out her first solo album sometime this year. Like Justin Timberlake and Beyonce, Cole is the first from Girls Aloud to go solo, and judging from her first single “Fight For this Love,” she will definitely be successful. Most of the album is produced by Will.I.Am/ Taio Cruz and has a pop and hip-hop vibe. For a first time listener I would definitely recommend listening to “Parachute” or “Boys.”
4. Taio Cruz: Most of you have heard Cruz’s collaboration with Ludacris (“Break Your Heart”), but he has a ton of other musical gems worth listening to. My personal favorite has to be his collaboration with Sugababes (think Destiny’s Child combined with the Spice Girls) and Busta Rhymes on the track “Like a Star.” Like Pharell and Ne-Yo, Taio Cruz is a singer-songwriter/rapper/producer and has worked with artists like Cheryl Cole, Justin Timberlake, and Britney Spears. A lot of his own tracks have a heavy bass line that is perfect for the clubs (ex. “Come on Girl”). So, when you are in need of taking a dance break from your life, be sure to put on a Taio Cruz track and proceed to shake your groove thang!

This list is by no means a definitive collection of the newest and best in British pop/hip-hop, but I hope that it piques your interest. Happy listening and let me know what you think in the comments section below 🙂

Paper has been a part of my life since I can remember.  It filled the pages of the books by parents read for me and later the coloring books I scribbled all over.  And even in today computer driven world it fills my textbooks, houses my notes, and displays my assignments.  It has become such a part of my life that now I really only pay attention to it when I get a paper cut or realize my printing allocation is not going to last the semester.

Peter Callesen is a true artist, able to see the unique and beautiful in the ordinary.  Those who can breath new life into objects, can step back not only see things in a different light but share that view with others are extraordinary. Callesen breaths new life into paper.

All of his work are made from A4 paper, the common variety that is usually used in printers, and not a single bit of it is wasted.  Callesen usually limits himself to using just the paper and sometimes uses glue stick things together when creating these works of art and I am amazed at the detail he can create at such a small scale.  I suggest checking out In the Shadow of an Orchid (detail), he even managed to show the hair on a spider’s legs.

Callesen doesn’t limit himself to the small detailed work however, some of it is quite large. This paper castle is over seven meters tall and was constructed from a single piece of paper. Big Paper Castle is the tallest piece in Callesen’s portfolio, but not his most detailed.   Even so, I’m impressed.  He didn’t even use glue for this piece of art, everything is folded into place.  I would never have the time to create something like this, nor the patience.

Callesen was born in Denmark and while he has worked with other medium that paper, it is by far his most favorite.  He gives the following reason on his website:

Lately I have worked almost exclusively with white paper in different objects, paper cuts, installations and performances. A large part of my work is made from A4 sheets of paper. It is probably the most common and consumed media used for carrying information today. This is why we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper. By taking away all the information and starting from scratch using the blank white A4 paper sheet for my creations, I feel I have found a material that we are all able to relate to, and at the same time the A4 paper sheet is neutral and open to fill with different meaning. The thin white paper gives the paper sculptures a frailty that underlines the tragic and romantic theme of my works.

The paper cut sculptures explore the probable and magical transformation of the flat sheet of paper into figures that expand into the space surrounding them. The negative and absent 2 dimensional space left by the cut, points out the contrast to the 3 dimensional reality it creates, even though the figures still stick to their origin without the possibility of escaping. In that sense there is also an aspect of something tragic in many of the cuts.

Sadly, at the moment Callesen does not have an exhibits here in the United States, but that doesn’t mean you can’t check out more of his work at his homepage. I recommend taking a look at the floating castle that was large enough for Calleson to walk around it.

Your paper loving blogger,

Jenny

You are what you eat.  You are who you hang out with.  You are what you do.  You are what you wear.

Which one of these are true?

Well, I’m sure most of them are relatively true.  But recently, I’ve been wondering about the last one: You are what you wear.  How true is this?

If we look to society, there are arguments both for and against this expression.  For instance, there are so many “poseurs” out there who attempt to mimic others’ style of dress when that isn’t even their preference at all (think back to middle school when A&F was all the rage).  However, in many cases, what we wear does define who we are– to a certain extent.

At masquerade balls, during Halloween, our costumes give us the advantage to be whomever we choose.  We can be that silvery masked beauty who smiles mysteriously or that frolicking, bubbly princess who grins widely.  Under this disguise, we are made more free to become someone we normally are not, and to do things we may not do regularly.  Even in regular daywear, certain things render us more or less confident in ourselves, thus shaping our personalities for the day.  Wearing a spiffy new sports jacket or a pair of sexy heels can make us more outgoing or willing to put ourselves out there.  When we perhaps would not want to be noticed, that day, we do.  Should we have a bad hair day or wear ill-fitting pants, we feel self-conscious and fidgety, wishing to be overlooked so as to avoid embarrassment.

With this notion in mind, then to some degree, our outward appearance does influence our own inward personality.  Many times it can be a reflection of our personal traits, characteristics, or preferences.  At others, it can be a reflection of society’s.  Or both.  For example, in the case of the hijab for Muslims, it is both a personal choice and a socio-cultural value.  It is quite possible that one could wear it because of societal pressures although she may not wish to or that one would wear it in spite of cultural norms to pursue her own personal convictions.

What, then, becomes of a law that restricts the right to wear “ostentatious symbols of religion”, as such exists in France?  After reading several articles and a book on this subject, I couldn’t help but wonder, who is right?  Which belief holds precedence over the other?  Is the desire to unify a secular country greater than the desire to express one’s religious affiliations?  If an individual’s choice in clothes represents her choice in self-expression, her visible manifestation of her invisible qualities, is that a right to be protected or a privilege to be lost?

If we are what wear, then is such a law that restricts our ability to wear what we choose a law that denies our own intrinsic qualities as unique human beings?

—–

Gabby Park is a both a rationalist and an idealist, who occasionally wrestles with the understanding of deeper questions of human nature.

Writing is not an easy task, unless you are of the 0.01% of the population for whom words simply descend from the Heavens and pour into your lap into perfectly constructed, syntactically adventurous, yet tasteful units. Unfortunately, I must confess that I belong to the other group, papers and hair askew from the daily frustrations of trying to lay something worthwhile onto a sheet of seemingly innocuous paper.

I hope that one day my thoughts will grasp the empty, beckoning lines vigorously – sensing it and exploring it – discerning its every crevice, every minute thread of fabric to better understand the medium unto which my consciousness is reflected. One day, I hope fail to shrug and sit complacently like they do latent in this fickle specimen that is called a “mind”. To write with alarming alacrity, to write so vibrantly in the subtleties, to abate the appetite of allowing time to sift like sand, idle and tired through my fingers. I hope that these commodities are not purely congenital. I hope that in part that it can be acquired, much like the refined and beautiful tastes tapering out of every ethnicity. I want to write because to pantomime for half a century will not suffice; I do not want to be Possibility Girl and bask in the adulation of my potential.

And what does Lady Caroline, say about all this? She would say, shrilly:

“…and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel if she does not practice a good deal.”

Although I claim to enjoy writing a great deal, it is still a common struggle that I confront with nearly every day to commit myself to sit down and produce something of my own, fresh and original. The ideas, so pristine, so perfect – how could I ever lay them down in risk of tarnishing them with the wrong words that misguided intuition sometimes selects from my internal lexicon? Many writers like myself, are trapped in this guilty paradox of yearning to write but finding ourselves making excuse after (albeit, creative) excuse not to write today because of reason X. Replace X with anything from actually desperately needing to study for that biochemistry exam looming like hawk around the corner of the weekend, to feeling inexplicably compelled to making sure that the entirety of the iTunes library has the correct album art and meta-data. Yet, that elated feeling that one gets when a sentence is successfully wrestled onto paper, that sense that it has been perfectly grafted from the mind to a language that can be conveyed onto others – that’s what keeps the craft of writing alive for the vast majority of us all.

If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.

— Ray Bradbury

This is the reason I had signed up for an English workshop class this semester; the pressure to produce something that would be halfway decent for another human being to read keeps the words coming. It’s an entirely nervous ordeal at times, to present these words and ideas that are lovingly yours to a group of (mostly) strangers for them to scrutinize and turn over in their hands. And yet, despite the anxiety, I could not be more thankful for this same group of people, whom inspire me to write and take the time to thoughtfully write suggestions in the margins. If you don’t belong to that other 0.01% of writers in the world, I highly recommend taking a writing class if you are truly interested in the field. Writing prompt websites like Write One Leaf, are quite useful as well.

Here’s to a week of words!

Sue majors in Neuroscience & English and tends to lurk in bookstores.

Last night I took some of my own advise and went to one of the many interesting lectures this campus offers. It was called The Social Museum: online community-building and the future of museums, hosted by Matthew Fisher, the founder and President of Night Kitchen Interactive. His discussion was in the plush UMMA auditorium where I found myself comfortably intrigued. I must say I had other motives for attending this event. First off, I have to attend three out of class events this semester for one of my museums classes and secondly the discussion pertained to my current internship at UMMA.

His work deals with forward thinking in museums and calls it a push towards a ‘social museum.’ UMMA was attracted to Fisher and his forward thinking and hired him to work on the project that turned into the Dialog Table as the final project. The Dialog Table is an interactive technological device located on the museum’s first floor. The hand gesture activated system allows you to open up any image in the museum’s collection to learn more about its location in the museum, how it was accessioned and a blurb about its meaning. There are also movies you can watch and links that can be made from one object to another.

The brains at UMMA behind this project are Lisa Borgsdorf and Ruth Slavin, my two lovely, smart, and intelligent supervisors. It is because of their collaborative work with Fisher that the museum has one of four Dialog Tables in the U.S. We are fortunate to have such a gem at our University. The basis for the table is to learn about art through a new, interactive, entertaining medium. The museum hopes people play with the table and strike a dialog with their family or other visitors to the museum. People can learn from each other and share an experience that is not found in many museums.

The table is located in an open area where people can move freely and speak as loudly as they want. The desire is for people to socialize through this technological device. Museums are in transition. They are changing from quiet environments to more social and upbeat settings where complete strangers can meet and interact. The experience is truly unique. Go to the museum and take a look for yourself!

Have a great weekend!

Sara majors in Art History and enjoys long walks!

Two concert tickets: $300

Dinner consisting of dorm food with one of your closest friends: $10

One concert T-shirt to be shared with your brother: $30

An evening spent at MSG watching your younger brother awkwardly “dance” to the sounds of one of the greatest rappers alive while simultaneously getting showered by alcohol and enveloped in a cloud of smoke: Priceless

Two weeks ago my brother and I made our way to New York City to see Jay-Z in concert. To prepare for the blessed event I listened to the “Blueprint 3” album non-stop for two weeks and taught my brother how to properly shake his romper to the beat (unfortunately this proved to be a useless endeavor). This was going to be my first concert ever (Live Earth doesn’t count!) and I couldn’t wait. Luckily for me the expectations were for once far exceeded.

Not only was Jay-Z live was almost as good as the recorded tracks, the various surprise guests really made the evening special. After Jay’s first set Young Jeezy came out along with NICKI MINAJ, DRAKE, AKON, and Lil Wayne (who somehow managed to stall his jail sentence just long enough tot perform at MSG!). Though I wasn’t able to stay for the whole concert (overbearing parents… what can you do?!), the highlight for the entire evening had to be Jay-Z’s performance  of Empire State of Mind- the entire arena was literally rapping/singing along with him word for word (A close second would be when President Obama’s “dirt off your shoulder speech” appeared on the large screens on the stage)!

Although Jay’ part of the concert was great, the opening act Trey Songz left a lot to be desired. Every song was literally the same (all were some variation on the themes of women, sex, and more sex) and his act dragged on for almost an hour! It was so bad that I found people watching more appealing than listening to him. However, Jay-Z definitely lived up to the hype as he performed all of his new and old hits. I definitely came away from that concert with a sense that he truly is “the best rapper alive” and I recommmend that you all check him out on his BP3 tour.