Archive

  • By Month

All posts


Leisure

A new tune for Burns

Several months after Radiohead challenged the way music is sold by self-releasing the download-only In Rainbows, the film industry has followed suit. Purple Violets, the latest movie by writer/director Ed Burns (The Holiday, The Brothers McMullen) passed on a theater run and was released directly to iTunes on November 20 with a price tag of $14.99. While it’s not as revolutionary as Radiohead’s offering—it doesn’t allow users to choose their own price—it nonetheless opens up an intriguing new possibility for independent films hoping to find a larger audience.

Leisure

Deadbeats

Clunky genre tags are often a source of confusion. “Post-punk” and “post-rock” are the epitome of vague (there’s a reason we don’t call lunch “post-breakfast”), and the term “new rave” is as despicable as most of the music that scene has produced. “Dubstep,” an offshoot of the UK Garage scene, likely provokes similar head-scratching—especially among American listeners. The genre purports to combine dub—reggae’s reverb-soaked offspring—with a type of electronic dance music known as 2-step, a subgenre of UK Garage. To these ears, the dub claim is a stretch, but the dance-music influence is spot-on: while dubstep isn’t a sure recipe for getting sweaty bodies on the dance floor, it is built upon the same microscopic clicks and booms that define house music.

Leisure

It really is “All in the Timing”

Three days before Friday’s scheduled opening for Mask and Bauble’s “All in the Timing”, the mysterious process of assembling a theatrical production was underway in Poulton Hall. A girl walked by carrying a ladder and called to someone across the hall, “Oh, don’t worry, we found a bucket of chains.” The cast lounged around, putting on and taking off costumes, telling complicated stories about making out with the lights off. Tyler Spalding (SFS ‘08), the producer of this whole venture, wasn’t there yet, and it seemed he was the only one who knew what was going on.

Leisure

One Fish Two Fish no more fish

One Fish Two Fish suffers from a severe case of culinary attention deficit disorder. The restaurant offers almost every type of Asian dish you could think of, from standard Chinese take-out fare, to udon, Singapore rice noodles, pho, bubble tea and sushi. While I was excited to find a place that served all of my favorite foods under one roof, I was apprehensive about the extreme levels of variety. Multitasking doesn’t usually yield the best results, and this restaurant is no exception.

Sports

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Stag party no fun for Georgetown

Empty seats were not hard to come by Saturday afternoon at the Verizon Center for what looked on paper to be an easy blowout victory for Georgetown against the Stags of Fairfield.

Editorials

Every vote counts (including yours)

It’s been a couple of years since P. Diddy told us to vote or die, but even without a death threat, it’s time for another stab at the democratic process. If you haven’t already obtained an absentee ballot for the upcoming presidential primaries, pick one up while you’re home for Thanksgiving break.

Editorials

Let WGTB run its own concerts

GPB should not have control over concerts, especially if groups like WGTB, which has a history of putting on solid shows, go through the trouble of booking the artists.

Editorials

Keep athletes safe by fixing Kehoe

A field that is unsafe for visiting varsity athletes is equally unsafe for Georgetown’s club and intramural athletes, and the University should not be this careless about student safety.

Voices

This man is living the dream, occasionally

After graduation, I moved to the big city with three friends from high school to play our own radical take on the music we grew up listening to together. Our band was called … let’s just say it starts with L and ends with Zeppelin. Fortunately, one of our members had spent some time touring with the Yardbirds while I was in school, so we were entering the game with a pretty high level of professionalism. Our debut album drew a little bit of noise from the press and the fans alike, we toured here and there, and before you could say “alcohol poisoning” it was all black magic and mud sharks. Then our drummer died in a pool of his own vomit.

Voices

I wanna really, really, really, wanna zig-a-zig ha

My most enduring memory of elementary school is not learning how to read or memorizing multiplication tables, but rather my complete infatuation with the Spice Girls. Their first album, Spice, was the first CD I ever owned. Along with my two best friends, I spent most of second and third grades obsessing over the group.

Voices

Hey baby, want to run a race?

Once D.C. turns cold, I bring my workout routine to Yates. What I have learned from my time spent there, though, is not the secret to great abs, but rather that Yates is a place of strange occurrences. If you have ever heard the barbaric cries from the varsity weight room or thought a man lying next to you on the mats was dead (is that just me?), you know what I’m talking about.

Voices

Carrying On

Quinn’s criticism is extreme. While the war in Iraq may not be the topic of conversation every day of the week, Georgetown has not forgotten about it.

Leisure

Post-punk isolation, insight

Post-punk outfit Joy Division has risen to near-legendary status in the twenty-seven years since lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide. It’s easy to view the band’s work through Curtis’ death, which often overshadows the music. Although it’s less a movie about Joy Division than a documentary of Ian Curtis’ short life, Control refuses to indulge in melodrama, forcing viewers to confront the abject tragedy of his suicide.

Leisure

Art Brut talks to the kids!

English foursome Art Brut play stupidly fun rock and roll for the intelligent—but fun—music fan. The band’s 2005 debut Bang Bang Rock & Roll garnered critical praise at home and across the pond for its faux-metal guitar heroics and churning punk rhythms. This year’s It’s a Bit Complicated refines the debut’s pop formula while retaining its dry wit. The Voice spoke with lead singer Eddie Argos in anticipation of his band’s concert with the Hold Steady on November 20th at the 9:30 Club.

Leisure

Goes Down Easy: A Bi-Weekly Column on Drinking

It’s cold outside, and I’m sick. I don’t favor medicine as a solution for illness since it just weakens the immune system, but I am determined to beat this microorganism into the ground somehow.

Sports

Preview: GU vs. UM

Last week’s opener against William & Mary wasn’t exactly an instant classic. It was a predictable first game for a highly-touted team looking to find its form. While the game tape—which shows a Georgetown team at times careless of the ball and unable to penetrate the zone—won’t be shown at Leo’s next year to pump students up, it may give hope to the upset-minded Michigan Wolverines and their new coach, John Beilein.

Sports

The Sports Sermon

The Detroit Lions’ PR department would like you to think that their organization survived a brutal northeastern winter, crippling disease and crop failure with the help of a kind Indian named Squanto, and then celebrated their salvation with feasting and merriment and maybe some football. After sixty-seven years of Thanksgiving Day football, the Lions are integral to our modern tradition entwining the pigskin and the Pilgrims.

Sports

GU volleyball falls to UConn

Georgetown’s volleyball team lost its final conference match 3-0 last Saturday to the UConn Huskies. Despite strong defensive blocking by sophomore Kiersten McKoy and junior Caitlin Boyd, the Lady Hoyas were unable to overcome offensive errors to defeat the Huskies.

Sports

What Rocks: Jessie Sapp

Tucked away in a corner of Harlem on the edge of the East River, in the middle of the Woodrow Wilson projects, Jesse Sapp learned to play basketball. Hard-nosed. No referees. No specialization. There are no defensive replacements or three-point line lingerers. It’s a game as raw and unforgiving as the concrete it’s played on. The kids just play.

Sports

FAST BREAK

The Georgetown University women’s basketball team tipped off the season on the road this past week, dropping their opener at Hampton College last Friday but bouncing back to win over Gardner-Webb on Tuesday evening.

Sports

Switch Hitting

Mid-November, the time for post-season play for fall sports has lost some of its magic on the Georgetown campus. With the men’s soccer season at an end and no play-off appearance from football, spectators and fans might be temped to move onto winter sports. There is, however, still something to celebrate this fall.

Leisure

Parlez-vous Malajube?

Mathieu Cournoyer, bassist in the Montreal-based indie rock outfit Malajube, joined the Voice for a phone interview to talk about his current tour, band and future plans.

Leisure

East meets West

Alvin Lau, a performance poet armed with a B.A. in poetry from Columbia College Chicago and a love of hip hop, is sure to pop-lock his way into your heart with an earnest energy to match his moves.

News

Millions stolen from city tax department

Two city tax officials were arrested last Wednesday for allegedly stealing tens of millions of dollars in what law enforcement officials called the largest fraud in District of Columbia history. The full extent of the scam is not yet known, but it has already resulted in the resignation of four top officials in the Office of Tax and Revenue.

News

Finding humanity in technology

In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina, a group of tech-savvy citizens created the Katrina People Finder, a website that helps family members of New Orleans residents locate their loved ones. The project suffered from mass input problems as millions of e-mails flowed into the server until an anonymous good samaritan corrected the problem.