Students can look forward to a much-needed break this summer and there is no better way to spend that time than to kick back in a cinema to enjoy the blockbusting lineup of summer movies.
Doubts and existential crises of identity do not sneak up on us. They live and breathe around us, humming and whispering in the air.
Institutionalized religion has long had a history of predicting dire prophecies for the state of humanity if every choice and action of ours does not perfectly fall within its confines.
“The Sound of Music” is one of those things that you grow up with without being fully conscious of its presence, like the way your childhood house smelled; you never fully notice or remember it, unless the scent drifts to your attention through a lucky accident.
If you believed 2015 was an embarrassment of riches as far as literature and book releases went, you’re not prepared for what 2016 has in store.
The end of anything is perhaps as inevitable as the beginning of another—everything, at some point or another, comes to an end. Be it natural or forced, ends are one of the most inevitable things we can always count on. They’re either a savior from monotony, a respite from misery or a source of grief for something long gone and that we once held dear. Endings are as much a real part of our world and who we are as perhaps the world itself. And so, as we enter the last month, preparing ourselves for the end of 2015, we’re all left asking ourselves questions that obviously concern no one but us: What does this end mean for us?
It doesn’t seem too difficult a feat anymore for DJs, dubstep artists or electronic dance music creators to get a crowd to move with their rhythms and beats. It takes something more than just beats to transport people somewhere else though, or to introduce qualities that inspire more than just losing yourself to the music. ODESZA did that Nov. 22 in the Orpheum Theater, and they did so without ever losing the dreaminess that also accompanies their music.
It is said that the real tragedy is not when one man has the courage to be truly evil, but when millions lack the courage to be good. We all deal with tragedy in ways that make sense to us. Anger and a bitter disappointment at what man is capable of doing to man is always at the forefront. But we fail even as we profess to be better representatives of humanity. We fail when we allow tragedies to define us as a mob of angry and bitterly disappointed people. We fail when our own disenchantment reduces that tragedy to just oil that keeps the anger burning and the hatred spreading. Out of tragedy then should rise a better version of us. Out of tragedy there should be an even fiercer raging of hope. Out of tragedy should rise a world those lost to us would have welcomed and rejoiced in.
Human beings are notorious for their careless cruelty to each other—it’s what we’re good at. Being callous and exercising selfishness come easily to many. Is it any wonder that murder is still rampant in the world? We’ve educated ourselves and become the most advanced humanity’s ever been in every facet of technology, and yet we still kill. In many ways we’re still no different than the cavemen who came before us, bludgeoning each other with clubs. We do it with more finesse and sophistication now, but we still have the same blatant lack of respect for human life.
Bonding over the frequent mutual butchering of our names, Wyatt Cenac and I chatted on the phone a couple weeks ago about that grave injustice.
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Solutions by The State News
