Leisure

Culottes for you lots: The circle of fashion life

New life is in the air. Flowers are starting to pop up all around campus, baby animals are being born and bodies are beginning to litter the lawns around midday. Now that spring is upon us, it’s finally time to get crazy with daring cuts and diaphanous fabrics without the risk of freezing to death or having to wade through snow banks (although wading in spring mud can sometimes be a worse fate). But as fun as all the new stuff is, one of my favorite things about any new season is the chance to perfect and streamline the trends of the year before.

By Katherine Norton March 27, 2008

News

News Hit

Cabbies take meters to court In a continuation of the months-long struggle between D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) and the city’s taxicab drivers, a hearing will be held today in... Read more

By Crystal Chung March 27, 2008

Leisure

Forte: Music family matters

Reflecting back now, though, I realize that my family’s taste left much to be desired. Where were the Beatles? Or Miles Davis? Or Johnny Cash? How did I miss all of these artists in my youth? I certainly don’t feel embittered—there was no conscious “withholding”—but I still wish I’d had a more eclectic musical upbringing.

Given this want, I’ve begun to introduce a broader range of music to my little sister, Elizabeth, who’s nearly nine years old. The selections are nothing drastic, just artists she wouldn’t typically encounter until an older age, all conveniently uploaded on her iPod Nano.

By Daniel Cook March 27, 2008

Leisure

Don’t be so p-noid, son

The very first shot of Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park imparts that delicious feeling of being in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. The credits roll demurely next to a Portland bridge, cars whoosh by, light plays on the water and the trees, glitchy electronic atmospheric music drowns out any natural sounds. Like many shots in the carefully constructed movie, every second feels perfect—crafted, like a painting. Every color, every trick of the light feels true and drastic.

By Shira Hecht March 27, 2008

Leisure

Drilling for funny money

Hollywood’s usual gameplan is to find a formula for success and then use it tirelessly to cash in at the box office. The recent offerings from writer/director/producer Judd Apatow demonstrates how leaning too heavily on one template will inevitably decrease the quality of a filmmaker’s work, even as he produces new films at a rate that would put Henry Ford to shame. Just look at Drillbit Taylor, the latest project from Apatow Production, which has popped out a staggering 15 films in the past three years.

By Eliott Grover March 27, 2008

Features

The Fall and Rise of Trinity Washington University

One cold Saturday morning in March, Trinity Washington University was hosting an Open House. But I couldn’t see any signs or volunteers showing the prospective students where to go, and on the first day of spring break, the campus was eerily quiet. After walking past the shining new gym, accidentally entering the deserted dining hall and wandering through a handful of gardens that were empty save for miniature statues of the Virgin Mary, I finally spotted a woman carrying a coffee urn and asked for directions.

By Anna Bank March 27, 2008

Crosswords

Crossword Answers

By Cal Lee March 27, 2008

Voices

Rebuilding New Orleans

My last few spring breaks have consisted of lounging around, drinking heavily and doing a lot of nothing. I was sick of it, so last week I chose to mix it up and head down to New Orleans with GU’s Habitat for Humanity group. The 24 of us were excited to get down to business and build some houses when we arrived.

By Justin Hunter Scott March 13, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

The El Salvador Experience

What I heard at dinner on the first night of spring break was hard to believe. A group of seven other Georgetown students, two leaders from Campus Ministry and I spent the break in El Salvador as part of the “Magis Immersion and Justice Program,” and to kick off our trip we went to a small restaurant with our guide and bus driver. I was practicing my Spanish and chatting with our driver, Santos, about how much I was looking forward to the week. It was Santos’ response that took me by surprise. Rather than returning my excitement or laughing along with me, he became very solemn and told me this would be one of the most important weeks of my life. He told me that our group would be learning and seeing so much during our time there that our lives would be changed afterward. I found Santos’ statement touching, but couldn’t help but think he was being a little dramatic. I knew I would be exposed to different lifestyles and challenges during the trip, but it seemed unlikely that one week could change my life.

By Brandi Streauslin March 13, 2008

Voices

Time to live up to Catholic justice

An institution has got to live by a code. That goes for Georgetown, too, and its Jesuit ideals.

By Tim Fernholz March 13, 2008

Editorials

How to repair our national lawn

Although the National Mall is home to memorials to our nation’s Founding Fathers, it is treated like Washington’s ugly stepchild. The facilities are neglected and dirt patches grow faster than grass. As the front yard of the nation’s capital, the Mall deserves better than its current disgraceful state.

By the Editorial Board March 13, 2008

Editorials

Bill leaves D.C.’s workers ailing

Last week, Washington became the second city in the country to force businesses to provide paid sick leave to their employees. While the Council should be commended for following San Francisco’s lead and protecting the city’s working poor, it should reverse the pro-business amendments that dramatically reduce the legislation’s effectiveness.

By the Editorial Board March 13, 2008

Editorials

Hard time has come for reform

Prison, meant to be a punishing interlude before a return to society, has become a way of life for too many Americans. The Pew Center on the States released a report last month that found the United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world, with one in every 99.1 adults an inmate in a federal or state prison.

By the Editorial Board March 13, 2008

Voices

Blogging your way to the rich and popular table

In the space of a year and a half, I have managed to further the independence movement of a small African country. Am I staging a die-in in Red Square? No, I’m doing something that actually achieves results: blogging.

By Will Sommer March 13, 2008

Sports

Hoyas win big at home against the Blue Hens

Georgetown’s 12th-ranked Men’s Lacrosse team beat the Blue Hens of Delaware University 18-10 in its fourth game of the season yesterday. The Hoyas, who suffered a tough double overtime loss to Syracuse this past Sunday, got back on the winning track against the 7th ranked Blue Hens (5-0). The win was the Hoyas’ first against a ranked opponent in three tries. Delaware, which made a surprise run to the Final Four last season on the heels of junior face-off specialist Alex Smith, dropped to 3-1 against ranked opponents after knocking off UMBC, Rutgers and Albany.

By Corey Sherman March 13, 2008

Sports

What Rocks

With the score tied at 52 and one minute to play, the Hoyas had at least one possession left to try to take the lead and let their top-ranked defense do the rest. But with 40 seconds left, on their first drive downcourt, sophomore guard DaJuan Summers took an open shot that went straight down the center of the cylinder, catapulting the Hoyas to their first back-to-back regular season Big East Championships in their 101-year history.

By Joseph Richman March 13, 2008

Sports

The Sports Sermon

When it comes down to it, the players are the people on the court making the decisions when the seconds are running down. But it is one man’s plays, advice and training that channels the players’ talents into hardcore skill.

By Liz Kuebler March 13, 2008

Sports

Outside looking in

When Georgetown kicks off its Big East Tournament run and takes the floor at Madison Square Garden this afternoon, there will be one nagging, unspoken thought in the minds of Hoya fans everywhere: If only Octavius Spann’s mohawk were still around to laud during televised timeouts…

By Phil Perry March 13, 2008

Sports

Welcome to the Major League:

In a cross-town pairing relocated nearly a thousand miles to the south, Georgetown played an exhibition game against the Washington Nationals at Space Coast Park in Viera, Fla. The Hoyas lost the contest 15-0 in the first action of Spring Training for the Nationals, who compete in Florida’s Grapefruit League. And while it may have been a walk in the park for the likes of Dmitri Young, Ronnie Belliard, Austin Kearns and Ryan Zimmerman, it was an important litmus test for a Georgetown team poised to make great strides in 2008. The game was the Hoyas’ first taste of baseball’s highest level since 1901, when they last competed against a major league franchise.

By Tom Philipps March 13, 2008

Sports

Taming the Wildcats

The Big East Tournament, like any other bracket-based affair, is designed to give the top seed the easiest road to victory—a right that team has presumably earned throughout the season. This might have been difficult to stomach for Hoya fans when the conference tournament bracket was finalized earlier this week. Top-seeded Georgetown (25-4, 15-3 BE) would face the winner of the 8/9 game between the Syracuse Orange (19-13, 9-9 BE) and the Villanova Wildcats (20-11, 9-9 BE). Both teams step up their game against longtime conference rival Georgetown, and the Orange had already defeated the Hoyas at the Carrier Dome earlier in the season.

By Anthony Francavilla March 13, 2008

Leisure

Boys and death in a City of Men

In an early scene from Brazilian director Paulo Morelli’s City of Men, best friends Ace and Laranjinha pester Laranjinha’s grandmother for clues about his absent father. The grandmother scoffs at the questions, asking them what good could come from a father who abandons his own child. Ace (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlen Cunha) exchange a terrified look, run out the door and scramble through the favela shouting the name of Ace’s young son, Clayton (played by twins Vinícius and Vítor Oliveira), who has been dropped off with acquaintances somewhere in the slum. His father has no idea where he could be.

Ace and Laranjinha’s frantic quest to find Clayton reflects the film’s central themes of fatherhood and maturity. City of Men is based on the TV series that was inspired by Fernando Meirelles’ 2002 film City of God. City of Men shares with that movie its setting in a favela of Rio de Janeiro, an area of violent gang crime; the characters differ, although some of the actors return. While City of God made gang wars the centerpiece of the film, though, City of Men accepts them as a part of life in the slum and focuses on what Morelli sees as the root of the problem: absentee fathers.

By Sara Carothers March 13, 2008

Leisure

Not very “Impressed by Light”

The National Gallery’s new photography exhibit, which displays British calotype photography from 1840 to 1860, may be called “Impressed by Light,” but whether you’ll be impressed by the collection is up for debate. Though the 120 photographs presented in the exhibit are historically important as some of the first photographs in British history, their subject matter is often fairly unadventurous and most of the photos are too small and modest to make an impression on our minds, which have been conditioned with flashier modern work.

By Justin Hunter Scott March 13, 2008

Leisure

State of the brain, in one act

This year’s Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival features last year’s winner of Mask & Bauble’s one act play contest, “Lost in the Brain of A Great Man,” written by Seamus Sullivan (SFS ’08). Inspired by watching the furrowed brow of President George W. Bush while giving last year’s State of the Union address, this precocious play chronicles the brain activity of an unspecified president before giving the address.

By Ryan Maye Handy March 13, 2008

Leisure

Critical Voices: Destroyer, Trouble in Dreams

Dan Bejar, the chief songwriter and musician of Destroyer, is a weird fella. But he’s smart, and it sells—the raspy David Bowie voice, the deliberately obscure lyrics, the meandering array of yelps and proclamations. And it helps that his band is just getting tighter. Trouble in Dreams generally eschews the hard-charging hooks of his lastshy;shy;—and arguably most accessible—album, Rubies, but it’s still Euro-pop blues for the masses.

By Tim Fernholz March 13, 2008

News

New prez, new plans

After being officially sworn in at Monday night’s GUSA senate meeting as the new GUSA President and Vice President, Pat Dowd (SFS ’09) and James Kelly (COL ’09) laid out an ambitious timeline for accomplishing their three major initiatives: a “GUSA Summer Fellows” program, a take-your-professors-to-lunch program and a modification of the alcohol policy.

By Juliana Brint March 13, 2008