I stood in line in front of Michigan Theater staring at a glass covered poster. The background was white and clean. A pair of dark sunglasses sat neatly atop a thick platform. Words in black and crimson typeface were organized into discrete pockets of space on the poster. I tried to make out the words behind the glass pane, but the cold night air made my eyes water. Before I could make my way closer to the poster it was my turn. “One ticket for ‘The September Issue’ please.”

The tag-line of the movie reads “Fashion is a religion. This is the Bible.” Though this may seem like a gross exaggeration, it is in fact the truth. Fashion is not only a form of artistic expression, but also a multi-billion dollar industry. Each issue of Vogue serves a forecast of sorts, determining the trends in business and retail that will affect the coming seasons. In fact to say it is anything but a holy text is an understatement. It is the golden standard of fashion and has catapulted the careers of many designers. But, you may ask, who is in charge of this revered publication? Her name is Anna Wintour and she is almost as legendary as the magazine which she runs.

The film “The September Issue” tries to uncover the mechanics of putting together the September issue (the biggest one of the year), while also introducing audiences to the people behind the publication. However, for ninety minutes, the documentary does not go beyond the surface with Wintour’s character and ultimately fails in shedding new light on her persona. Instead, the audience is treated to a constant parade of colorful clothes and even more colorful personalities. Though the larger than life Andre Leon Talley and witty Grace Coddington serve as consolation prizes for the audience, they both provide a window through which Ms. Wintour can be examined. However, this examination is purely professional rather than personal. The only scene where the audience gets a slight sense of  Wintour’s humanity is in the waning moments of the film. It is during those final moments where you see Wintour’s hard exterior crack as she describes her sibling’s negative attitudes towards her and her work. It is then that the audience starts to feel sorry for her and begin to see an almost insecure shadow of Wintour. However, this fleeting scene unfortunately does not make up for the 85 minutes spent recording the same chaotic scenarios of botched photo shoots and mismatched clothing.

To be honest, I was thoroughly disappointed in the execution of this film and left the theater wanting more. Though the movie achieved the easy goal of elucidating the process of publishing, it did not delve into the most interesting part of the fashion industry- the people, more specifically, Anna Wintour. As a fan of Vogue, I would have loved to learn more about the woman in charge and her own personal thoughts on the industry rather than witnessing her formulaic display of professionalism. However, I do believe that any fan of fashion and art would find parts of this film highly entertaining. If you end up checking out this movie let me know what you think in the comments section below. Have a great week!

P.S Check out the trailer here

It’s here, it’s here! *jumps up and down*

November is National Novel Writing Month, and I’m so excited. The rules, write a novel (175 pages aka 50,000 words) in the period of a single month. It has to be done from scratch, outline is acceptable, but the whole focus is the time limit.

I’m a huge writing fan, though my experience with original fiction is limited to a failed Hopwood attempt and public schooling assignments. I have a problem with coming up with original characters, so I admit I usually write fan fiction.

I am really pleased that my roomie shares my passion, though we exist in different fandoms (I’m Transformers and she’s Star Trek). So we decided that we will each write a total of 50,000 words of fiction this month. That’s over sixteen hundred words a day. I’m so glad midterms are over now >.<

It’s a great feat to attempt, and some have been very successful at it. Think Water for Elephants. While most finished manuscripts are poor quality, for obvious reasons, there have been some written during this event that have then later been published.

Obviously, that’s not my own goal here, I really just want to see if I can do it. Next year, I’ll actually write up one of the novel ideas floating around in my head. Having a book published is one of my life goals.

NaNoWriMo is actually pretty young as event, 10 years this November. It started with only 21 participants in the San Fransisco area. Last year, there were over 100,000 authors participating nation wide.

You’re welcome to join in the action here, or see how I’m doing! Look up Uniasus.

Your writer wanna-be,
Jenny

“Yeah, it’s Halloween, which means girls can dress slutty without seeming too slutty”, a girl once said.
–“Well, then you’re making it seem like all girls want to dress slutty and on Halloween, they seize that opportunity”.
———

Hmm….What happened to the days where Halloween was about dressing up as your favorite Disney character and getting lots of candy from your friendly neighborhood parents?  For us college students, is this what the time-honored tradition of disguises and spooky treats have become– an occasion for debauchery, drinking, and gluttony?  Is this what everything becomes in college?

I would have to say that the statement about women and slutty clothing does seem to apply for a fair number of females in the university setting.  It, of course, does not help that most adult female costumes tend to be on the sexier side, with high-slit witches gowns, low-cut bar maid tops, extremely short and skimpy French maid outfits, and slinky Cruelle de Vil dresses.  What about our culture today generates this desire for women to become sexy whores on an occasion when they can be anything but?  When they can step outside the bounds of our heavily sexualized and sex-dependent mass culture to become an entity entirely removed from mediated societal norms?  Is this continuation of the push for sexy women ever going to stop?  Is it right?

The answer is that the sexualized women is not always right.  Of course, women have come such a long way in political as well as personal liberation, allowing for the open discussion and acceptance of sex and the sexualized female.  However, once that liberation becomes a means of exploitation, then that is where the line must be drawn.  And, I believe, on Halloween, this exploitation is more evident than ever.  It is true that as women, the choice always exists– we can be that fairy tale princess or we can be that half-naked Minnie Mouse.

For this Halloween, my friends and I decided to forgo the sluttiness this year and become Disney princesses.  With a party themed as the classic Disney Romances, we had friends who dressed as raggedy Cinderella, shy Christopher Robins, Giselle from Enchanted, Alice in Wonderland, bookworm Belle from Beauty & the Beast.  It was a nice change to see people fully clothed and having fun without the desire to seem as sexy or seductive, but merely cute and enchantinng.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad thing to be sexy or seductive.  I fully agree that women should always feel comfortable being sexy and seductive, that we have every right to be open about sex and sexuality.  But, perhaps, on Halloween, we can get away from the normal societal claims of the overly sexualized woman to return back to our childhood dreams of being Disney princesses*.

*It is acknowledged that Disney princesses are not always the ideal; this is another topic for another time.

—–

Gabby Park likes to eat and make short videos with her friends.

They told me that the truth of the universe was inscribed into our very bones. That the human skeleton was itself a hieroglyph.
— ‘Something to Remember Me By’ from Collected Stories, Saul Bellow

Generally, when my roommate and I find a breath of a space between the obligations of academia, we declare that we must experience a wider, bolder swath of life — a swath of life beyond the innocuous margins of the text, the pedantic erudition and the giant, intellectual abstractions digestible only in quiet rooms steeped with the aroma of books. In these moments of vast aspiration, we have been known to turn to art — to experiencing this genre of life on our own terms under no overarching formalities or fine, symmetrical theories.

On most days we are terribly conventional pair, opting for UMMA or the DIA to set up our inevitable encounter with a masterpiece of leviathan proportions. Under the shadow of this work of art we would stand, humbled and bemused by its catastrophic beauty, yet unable to intelligently articulate why we felt the way we did. It might’ve been the subtle variations of color, the bluntness of the visual narrative or something more intuitive, like our individual capacity to identify with it that made it so poignant and remarkable. Regardless, our aesthetic senses were piqued. Our goal achieved, we would meander back home to tend to our books.

Traditionally speaking, art grasped our attention in the context of a museum, under soft bright lighting, backdropped with wide expanses of benevolently-hued walls. An air of legitimacy bound the place together.  Yet, perhaps the most ruthless art, the art that had stricken me and had made me feel that terrifying unshakeable vulnerability in the depths of the marrow, occurred most peculiarly in my physics class.

The subject in question was the human body.

Time and time again, I am enthralled by Nature’s wit, manifesting in tasteful, charming creations in every taxonomic branch of life; I am rendered utterly incapable of verbalizing its sheer grandeur. Oftentimes, I don’t think we truly appreciate how miraculous our bodies really are and how come a century or two, the frontier of science will hardly come close to imitating every complexity of our human anatomy. On the most basic, structural level, we are composed of a series of levers and wedges and joints which collectively, so to speak, cheat the inexorable downward pull of gravity. I lift my arm and my mind can only hope to understand the mechanisms that have just transpired beneath this opaque coating, the sliding and pulling and pushing of tendons, exerting a perpendicular force with the radial length of our forearms. And something so plain like hands – these sculpted specimens of extension have created and destroyed and pantomimed across tables and surfaces for centuries. Musicians, with their combination of crisply abrupt tips and taps of fingers on taut strings, of fingers alighting on piano keys to produce a swell of seamlessly strung chords, can give thanks to every delicate and carefully placed sinew, tendon entwined on bone. Further, our ears are capable of capturing these ghostly waves of sounds traveling at amplitudes and frequencies, ethereal and impalpable, yet absolute. (If only I understood what sound looked like inside myself.) One cell proliferates so our growth accelerates, pieces all compiling together to create exquisitely contoured masses constituting as life. What a daunting endeavor Nature has taken, refining era after era, for all these laws come together and combine to culminate in a fully functioning human being. (And here we are, suspended in this strange position as observers and corporeal manifestations of these laws. It is an innately human conundrum exclusive to our species.)

Nature’s ingenuity is perhaps the best coalescence of science and art that I have encountered. It is an art that reaches a degree of personal relevance beyond what can be found in traditional museums. Needless to say, my roommate and I are thrilled about the Arts & Bodies focus by the Arts on Earth program happening this semester and will be traipsing around campus to attend the various events.

The art of nature – and the art of bodies makes me certain that science is the artist that I revere and am enthralled by the most.

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

The Art of Balance…

The other night my roommates and I were talking about the role of food in our lives.  To say the leas,  we titled it as the leading actor.  Now, to give you some context, none of my roommates or myself is fat, but we do enjoy eating.  We noticed trends of binge eating, which tend to occur around stressful periods such as midterms and finals.  What is it about the comfort of food that seems to fill that ‘void’ in our tummies?  The urges that make us want more even when our jeans won’t allow it?  Ah, yes it’s a little thing I like to call the inability of self-control.

Food is a comfort.  It acts as a best friend, a stuffed animal, a lover…but like any of these, overuse leads to destruction.  Life is all about balance.  In college you do not want to find yourself labeled strictly as a partier, nerd, or slacker; but hopefully a mixture of all three..thus a balancing act.  Eating is no different.  You need to make sure you intake fruits, vegetables, carbs, meats, and sweets all in moderation in order to succeed in a well balanced diet.  My Dad always says, “Everything in moderation is a good thing.”  I agree because it gives you the right to indulge!  (In moderation of course)

Just remember back to the 90’s when the food pyramid was the iconographic symbol of the decade.  The thing was popping up everywhere, in grocery stores, on purses and on cooking accoutrement such as aprons.  Ah yes, the food pyramid was the pioneer for labeling possessions, the precursor and grand poo-bah for modern Andy Warholits who think they are oh so original.

The food pyramid has taken a back seat and has allowed dietary nuances to sprout in its place.  Through American discourse about food, they feel like they can alter its dominant presence.  In actuality it is the obsession with the discussion that leads to more overeating. Our society is obsessed with eating, and it shows through obesity.

As you go through this next week count the number of times the topic of food is brought up.  I assure you, you will loose count due to its frequent occurrence.  Try balancing the amount of time you talk about food with other comforts, like love lives, wicked professors, or lazy landlords, and just maybe, you will see those pounds fade away.

Good Luck!

Sara Olds majors in Art History and enjoys long walks.

It happened a few days ago and it was utterly magical. I was sitting at my desk underneath a warm sky of flickering Christmas lights (a dorm necessity!). Every so often, the heater next to me would loudly croak, letting out soft puffs of air which tickled my nearby toes. Both hands cradled my face as I tried to make sense of reaction mechanisms. In an attempt to keep myself awake and focused I had decided a little bit of Taylor Swift would do the trick (don’t judge- you know you love her too). It unfortunately didn’t, as I still managed to doze off a half a dozen times. I finally gave up and felt completely defeated by the fact that organic chemistry was still a mystery to me. Hopeless and tired I went to shut my computer off and that’s when I saw him. His tiny face was smiling back at me from below the related videos section. Curious as I was, I clicked on the link. That’s when I fell in love.

His name is Gabe Bondoc and he is ridiculously talented (did I also mention ridiculously adorable-check out his kick ass glasses!). Most wannabe singers on YouTube belt out covers of the latest top 40 single with a downloaded instrumental in the background. Gabe doesn’t (that’s right- I’m on first name basis… at least in my head I am…). He accompanies himself on every song with his guitar (occasionally with a ukulele) and sometimes creates unique versions of the songs he covers by using his own lyrics (listen to his cover of “Love Story” to see what I mean). Part John Mayer (the talented guitarist and musician, not the self-obsessed tool) and part John Legend, Gabe is a breath of fresh air in the usually tired realm of YouTube covers. Plus, those of you who have a musical taste as eclectic as mine (my iPod playlist has stuff ranging from Ravi Shankar to Ray J) will definitely find something to your liking in Gabe’s collection of covers. My personal favorites have to be his cover of “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” “So Fly,” and ”Part of Your World.” He even manages to make the music of the Jonas Brothers sound soulful! If you get through all of his amazing covers, be sure to check out his original songs (Listen to his song Dorm Room and try not to hum along). In addition to having a great voice, Gabe can most definitely write. His originals have the melodic temperament and lyrical intelligence that can be best described as a hybrid of Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait. Plus, on a completely unrelated side note, EVERY video is done in ONE TAKE- how can you not be impressed?!

Gabe Bondoc is truly a fantastic artist and is one of the few YouTube cover artists that has the potential to have a successful professional music career. If you become as obsessed with Gabe as I am be sure to check out his Myspace (MySpace.com/ImGabe), Tumblr (GabeBondoc.Tumblr.com), or Twitter (Twitter.com/GabeBondoc). Let me know what you think of this “Youtube Star” (which by the way is the title of one of his originals) in the comments sections below. Enjoy and have a great week!

P.S. Dear Gabe- in the off chance that you search your name in Google, find this post, and read it I just want to say “Ello” 🙂

To get started check out the video that started my obsession