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| 1 | Drinking outside the box by Nathan Sacks · News | Volume 129, Issue 9 After several years of campus alcohol policies that have effectively limited student drinking to certain dorm rooms on designated floors, steps are now being taken to provide students with social events on campus where drinking is allowed, with the joint intention of fostering more popular student events as well as providing a haven for students who might otherwise be encouraged to binge drink. Starting this year, a panel of administration officials, spearheaded by John Harp, Vice President of Student Affairs, has taken the initiative in providing certain student-run organizations with the opportunity to hold events on campus where alcohol is served. As of this publication, two organizations have successfully held events with alcohol, KRNL and Club eM. |
| 2 | Year-end hullabaloo: The ten best albums of 2008 by Nathan Sacks · AE | Volume 129, Issue 8 Though 2008 saw the release of several high-profile and heavily-hyped new albums from Fleet Foxes, No Age and Vampire Weekend, it occurred to me as I was compiling this list that the majority of my favorite albums from 2008 were made by veterans of all sorts of fringe music scenes from the past 20 years. It was a good year, I think, for comebacks. I call 2008 the year of the rock vets resharpening their tools and making sounds that seem to transcend what they were capable of in the past. Unfortunately, Axl Rose is not among them. |
| 3 | 5 New Order albums by Nathan Sacks · AE | Volume 129, Issue 5 With the holiday season improbably upon us (I’m being generous, based on the fact that I see candy canes already in stock at Hy-Vee), it only follows that Rhino Records would provide obsessive music lovers with deluxe packages that are as expensive as they are expansive. A good case in point is their recent rerelease of New Order’s first five albums, each of which is augmented with a second disc of 12” singles, demos and studio goofs that make about as complete a picture of this great 80s band in their prime as is possible. In all, ten discs make up this package, giving you all the New Order you will ever need, unless you happen to be a fan of their 90s work. I think it is safe to assume that most people aren’t. |
| 4 | A wide variety of musical acts are bound for Iowa by Nathan Sacks · AE | Volume 129, Issue 4 Decent live bands at Cornell, particularly those that have generated buzz from the music press, are a rare and exciting thing. While KRNL brings the bands Dressy Bessy and One for the Team to the OC today, it will be the first time in maybe a year that a non-PAAC musical act has made its way to Cornell. One can be forgiven, then, for noticing a lack of culture in Mount Vernon as well. Downtown Mount Vernon is a musical dead zone, and we are lucky if the occasional bar cover band comes through once in a while. |
| 5 | Legislation against gay marriage: Discrimination in the 21st century by Nathan Sacks · Opinions | Volume 129, Issue 4 I apologize in advance for writing an article supporting same-sex marriage, particularly given that last year’s editorial board already wrote an article that was heavily against any constitutional amendment that would infringe on gay rights. However, the controversy remains, and unfortunately, I think it’s important to notice none of the major presidential candidates have managed to go so far as to say they support the rights of consenting gay adults to get married if they wish. To their credit, I think both Obama and McCain hold more respect for gay people than a lot of their peers, but both of them are known to have said that they personally believe marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman, and we must consider why this is. |
| 6 | Bliss out to the dulcet sounds of TV On The Radio by Nathan Sacks · AE | Volume 129, Issue 3 Three albums and one extended play into what seems to be a disproportionately illustrious career, the Brooklyn art-rock band TV On The Radio seems to have settled into a comfortable and aurally pleasing niche: finding the inherent musicality in noisiness, and vice versa. As is often the case with bands labeled as “art rock,” TV On The Radio specializes in constructing soundscapes, devoting the majority of their energy and creativity into the overall color of the song, rather than focusing on chord changes or instrumental prowess. And what’s more, their songs are almost always fiendishly catchy. Their new album “Dear Science” offers more of the same in this regard, which may make you wonder if that’s a bad thing, given that TV On The Radio is supposed to be a very progressive-thinking band, at least texturally. I’d be hard-pressed to find any criticisms of this album, and, in fact, I am tempted to say that this record has the potential to be considered a classic album in the near future. Simply put, “Dear Science” is a mind-blowing, invigorating and eminently replayable masterpiece, a true riposte to anyone who declares albums irrelevant in this age of MP3. |
| 7 | Philip Roth’s “Indignation” is not indignant enough by Nathan Sacks · AE | Volume 129, Issue 2 If one were to attempt some sort of internal Roth classification system, with the goal of grouping Philip Roth’s books according to their most obvious stylistic tropes, it would seem that his latest book, “Indignation,” contains most if not all of Roth’s most senescent themes. Yet somehow, it seems like a far more muted book than most of its predecessors. To bring up the most obvious of Roth themes, there is of course the Jewish factor, but most of the cultural Jewishness that characterized Roth’s protagonists has been replaced with an abiding love for Bertrand Russell. The protagonist grows up in Newark,N.J., as did Roth and virtually all of his characters, but the majority of the book is set at Winesburg College in Ohio. Roth had recently acquired a habit of explaining, with an almost staggering beauty, the various working class functions Jews took part in, such as the description of the glove factory in “American Pastoral” and the jewelry shop in “Everyman,” but this time Roth spares few words in describing the inner workings of his protagonist’s father’s butcher business. |
| 8 | Why not to vote Republican by Nathan Sacks · Opinions | Volume 129, Issue 2 With all the vicious, shameful lie-slinging that has characterized this presidential campaign, I would hope at least that an unofficially mainstream publication like The Cornellian would remain above this nonsense. I would be mistaken. Vincent Anderson’s recent article “McCain-Palin: The Real Reform Ticket” is a sycophantic puff piece unworthy of any recognition outside, perhaps, the McCain campaign’s web site, as it is loaded with the kind of petty partisan posturing, if you will forgive my alliteration, that characterizes propaganda. Not that he is particularly wrong about anything, but what purpose does such an article prove in this paper? Why go through all these lengths, to deliberately obfuscate facts and to parrot half-truths from the McCain campaign that should, if not be proven false, at least be questioned? This seems particularly egregious given that McCain has been running campaign commercial after campaign commercial of straight-up lies, and in this regard, Obama doesn’t come close to competing. |
| 9 | Check out the great comic book events of the summer by Nathan Sacks · AE | Volume 129, Issue 1 After repeatedly teetering close to the edge of irrelevancy on several occasions, comic books seem to have found a comfortable place in our cultural consciousness, embodying what David Hajdu called in his book “The Ten-Cent Plague,” as “the DNA of the culture of today.” It’s not immediately apparent, but comic books are as popular as they ever were, at least since the medium was almost destroyed by Dr. Fredric Wertham and his book “Seduction of the Innocent,” which said in 1954 that comics were being made to destroy the moral fiber of our nation by including stories about masked homosexual adventurers (Batman and Robin) and women who clearly don’t understand that their place is inside the home (Wonder Woman). Effectively, the resulting hoopla all but neutered the vibrancy and danger of comic books, at least among the two titans of the industry, Marvel Comics and DC Comics, for several decades. |
| 10 | “Third” time’s a charm with new Portishead album by Nathan Sacks · AE | Volume 128, Issue 15 One can forgive Portishead for releasing a new album — their third total and first in eleven years — just in time for the spring season. While their mixture of spy movie inflected melodies, soulful singing, surprisingly direct lyrics, dark atmospherics and off-kilter hip-hop beats, it doesn’t sound like it would be in its best element as the days turn warmer. One must give credit to them for anticipating what might yet turn out to be a darker season than expected. Simultaneously a block of extremely solid songs as well as a massive step forward in terms of production, “Third” already seems to be Portishead’s masterpiece, although its charms may not be as immediately apparent as they were on Portishead’s first two albums. |
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