Every February, like clockwork, literary institutions— mega-chain bookstores, Amazon, Oprah, and English departments—advertise the urgent necessity of reading a Black writer. Whether it’s Invisible Man, Omeros, or Things Fall Apart, these institutions commodify and repackage Black writers into a promise to the susceptible and well-intentioned reader. The hope? Upon turning[Read More…]
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
Black Theatre Workshop’s ‘Diggers’ is a tribute to essential workers
In a town, on a hill, within a graveyard, there are two gravediggers. Solomon (Christian Paul) and Abdul (Chance Jones) live, breathe, and work the graves, day in and day out, weathering torrential rains, pandemic, and death. They are overworked. They are tired. They continue to dig. Solomon and Abdul[Read More…]
Reframing nature with Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore
The exhibition is not organized temporally. The rooms move from bones to stones, from landscapes to recreations of O’Keeffe’s and Moore’s studios. It weaves and jumps through the 20th century, from New York to Mexico to Scotland, from gastropod shells to irises to pelvises. Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore: Giants[Read More…]
The best love songs for Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is not the time for chocolate or flowers or even love. It’s the time for playlists. Breakup playlists to scream at your ceiling, classy playlists for candlelight dinners, or salacious playlists for “late-night activities.” Whatever playlist you might be making, here are four great love songs to consider[Read More…]
Experiencing your relationship through the roles of Cate Blanchett
Spoiler warning for those who, unlike me, aren’t deeply entrenched in Cate Blanchett’s filmography. Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. For some, it’s a commercially well-defined opportunity to express their feelings to their loved ones; for others, it’s a bleak reminder of what could have been. Regardless of where[Read More…]
At the Grammys, Black artists continue to go unrewarded in the major categories
Every year, the Grammy Awards accompany the periodic discussion around their failure to celebrate Black artists, and this year is no exception. Jay-Z’s acceptance speech for the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award called out this disappointing pattern in the Grammys. He noted how, despite Beyoncé being the most awarded artist[Read More…]
GQ magazine’s absorption of Pitchfork is devastating for diversity in music journalism
Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ), the men’s fashion and lifestyle magazine, has absorbed one of music’s most influential journalism outlets, Pitchfork. Condé Nast, the parent company of both GQ and Pitchfork, is the driving force behind this move. Publicly announced on Jan. 17, this move came as a shock to the publication’s[Read More…]
Childhood through the ages
Aesop’s Fables (1571) is the oldest book in McGill’s Rare Children’s Book Collection. Written in Latin, with interpretive notes in Greek, it’s now housed in a collection of children’s literature—despite predating the Victorian conception of childhood itself. But this story also begins later, in the 1930s, with Sheila R. Bourke.[Read More…]
‘American Fiction’: A movie about movies about books
Spoilers for American Fiction “Nuance doesn’t put asses in theater seats.” At least, that’s what fictional movie director Wiley Valdespino (Adam Brody) says in the final scene of Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction. In the Cineplex that I trekked out to on a Tuesday after class, the audience let out a[Read More…]
2024 fashion is both futuristic and nostalgic
A threat of danger plagues the foggy underside of the stone bridge as a frenetic figure sprints into the audience’s view. The noir-like dimness of the cobbled structure conceals the silhouette, lit only by distant beams of pale moonlight over the bridge. The shadow stops abruptly, tripping over its feet[Read More…]