On a visual level, "Avatar", James Cameron's latest epic, is close to perfection. He and his crew have taken computer animation to the next level, crafting a world more realistic, distinctive and downright gorgeous than any other animated film, period. This world will suck viewers in the moment it jumps out of the screen (for once, shelling out a few extra dollars for 3-D glasses is worth it, even essential).
In the wake of the catastrophic 7.0 M earthquake that has devastated Haiti, the Skidmore Community has endeavored to raise money for the island nation's hundreds of thousands of injured, starving and homeless people. As part of this monumental effort, a plethora of Skidmore musicians are set to perform at a "Harmony for Haiti" concert in Ladd Concert Hall, the newly opened Zankel Music Center on Thursday, Feb.
Burrr! I'm not saying that because it's winter; rather because the king of ice, Gucci Mane, is out of prison and has finally…wait, scratch that first part (more on that later). Anyway, he has finally released his newest album. Why care? Well, because Gucci Mane has become a Southern rap star, his ad-libs ("burr") becoming omnipresent on the radio and surpassing most others in output and guest appearances.
Before there was mainstream "emo," there was Morrissey, Robert Smith and Stephin Merritt. The last of the lot may be the least well known, but he certainly merits mention among the musical pantheon of gods and generational icons, owing largely to the success of his 3-disc concept album "69 Love Songs," with group The Magnetic Fields.
Drawing a parallel between Vampire Weekend and President Barack Obama may not be entirely apt, but it is at the very least intriguing. In the same way that Obama is considered one of the most popular politicians of the last 20 or 30 years after energizing the youth base and garnering comparisons to such legendary icons as Lincoln and Kennedy, Vampire Weekend have quickly become the "it" band for a certain segment of the twenty-something crowd.
Don Delillo - "Point Omega" - Feb. 2 Don DeLillo, widely regarded as one of the most important novelists of his generation (and who just so happens to have been at Skidmore for a book reading last October), describes the inspiration for his new novel to The Wall Street Journal: "I began to wonder about how we see and what we see, and what we miss seeing when we're looking at things in a more conventional format… So I placed characters in the gallery and began from there.