Arts & Culture

If I could charm the guys at my local In-N-Out to sneak some free fries in my order, how hard could it be to become extremely close to the most desirable and famous people in the country? There comes a time in every person’s life when they are called to do something higher. Many go […]

Staying six-feet apart in the streets and in the sheets Sex is a highly taboo subject in American culture. We would rather use euphemisms like “sleeping around” than that one syllable, three-letter word to avoid judgemental eyebrow raises from the stranger next to you.  But I’ll just go ahead and take advantage of its lexical […]

The Arts Desks’ weekly picks for movies, books, music and television shows Movie: “The Half Of It” dir. Alice Wu  Wallflower Ellie Chu spends her high school days writing papers for her peers in exchange for some extra cash. When a dim jock with a heart of gold, Paul Munsky, offers Ellie $50 to write […]

Exploring the possibilities of the music tracking website There’s a sense of mystery surrounding one’s musical habits. Sure, you know more or less what genres and albums you’ve been loving lately, but the actual statistics often prompt some sobering realizations. Even with the stats, I can hardly believe that I: a) have listened to “Pure […]

Like something out of a warehouse in early 2000s East Berlin. Do you remember the first time you heard something that would change everything? One can only imagine the sensation of Beatlemania, of experiencing Woodstock, of living in the Bronx during the rise of hip-hop. There is a palpable sense of weight, of a heftiness […]

Historic moments of political upheaval, social unrest marked by era-defining music  Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys debuted her new song “Good Job” during a CNN virtual town hall on April 24. Originally written for the personal heroes in her own life, Keys rebranded the song as an ode to the first responders and others who stepped up […]

Underlying implications of fads, changes over generations As a materialistic nation, embedded in American culture is a want for what we don’t have. Fads come and go, but their existence embodies memories of the past, specifically our childhood. Seeing that the majority of current undergraduate students are Generation Z, these post-millennials experience an “inside joke” […]

Watenpaugh focuses on UNESCO world heritage site On April 8, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation awarded UC Davis art history professor Heghnar Watenpaugh with a fellowship to support her research on the medieval city of Ani on the present-day Turkey-Armenia border. She is one of the 175 artists, writers, scholars and scientists awarded a fellowship, […]

Like horoscopes but for houses J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts houses are such a popular concept that just about everyone on the face of the planet knows what house they belong in. With that said, in these messy times of staying at home while handling schoolwork, housework and maybe even actual work, these are my guesses on […]

The Arts Desk’s weekly picks for movies, books, music, television shows Movie: “Death of Stalin” dir. by Armando Iannucci Scottish director Armando Iannucci refits the demise of Joseph Stalin to his own satirical lens, conjuring up either hearty laughs or prolonged looks of shock depending on your personal opinion of the late Soviet Union. Shenanigans […]

Pour yourself a cup of ambition and let’s get to it I’ll start with what the reader should take away from this article: Dolly Parton is iconic. Dolly Parton is the queen of country music. And I say this with the confidence of a relatively new fan — I only really began to dive into […]

The ascent of Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith and his generational group of artists Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith is a familiar face in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. He seemed to be everywhere in the community, from swap-meets to block parties to funerals. To many kids in the neighborhood, he was a paternal figure doling […]