Leisure

Reviews and think pieces on music, movies, art, and theater.

Leisure

Off the Hilltop and into the Distict: delightful day trips for the daring

Botanical Gardens You might overlook the Mall’s U.S. Botanic Gardens (take the Blue/Orange Metro line to Federal Center), figuring that plants are lame and you’d rather see the Spirit of... Read more

By September 10, 2009

Leisure

Lez’hur Ledger: Polo, meet punk

No one ever cracked his head open on the I-shaped metal beam, I had been assured. I was at the Corpse Fortress, a house turned punk rock venue in Silver... Read more

By September 10, 2009

Leisure

Extract eludes expectations

Mike Judge knows stupid. In fact, he’s made a career out of reminding us that our neighbors, family, friends, and co-workers are painfully dumb. Dumb enough to make American Idol... Read more

By September 10, 2009

Leisure

Culottes for you lots: Bobo a go-go

Senior year means big things on the horizon for me. I’ve been doing a lot of growing up and changing over the past few years as I prepare to enter... Read more

By September 10, 2009

Leisure

High Fidelity: A ticket to ride

By the time you pick up this paper (or read it online), millions of children, adolescents, adults, and seniors worldwide will have congregated in dens, dorms, living rooms, and basements... Read more

By September 10, 2009

Leisure

Critical Voices – Raekwon: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Part II

Just going by the album cover, which features Raekwon and partner-in-crime Ghostface Killah recreating the unforgettable pose they struck 14 years ago on the front of their original classic, Only... Read more

By September 10, 2009

Leisure

Critical Voices: Drake – So Far Gone EP

You’ve probably heard Drake and his song “Best I Ever Had” at least once, if not two or three times an hour this summer on most pop radio stations. This... Read more

By September 10, 2009

Leisure

Hello, reruns

The television DVD set hasn’t been around for a long time, but in its short lifespan, it has changed drastically. Initially, the DVD set of a television series was merely... Read more

By September 10, 2009

Leisure

Miyazaki and the animated bowl of delights

The magic of Hayao Miyazaki is impossible to describe in a straightforward plot summary. I can only write “magic” or “bowl of delights” so many times, and it won’t really... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

After these previews: the fall in film

If, like me, you view the world through the prism of Zac Efron, and if summer is the season for Zefron to be in big budget star vehicles with his... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

Cowabunga: The Voice satisfies your late night pizza craving

Every Georgetown student faces difficult food choices: Booey’s or Wisey’s? Weekly or block meal plan? Snaxa or Vittles? Each has its own ardent defenders, but generally disagreements will pass politely.... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

Bottoms Up: Secret drunk

As classes begin, don’t waste the few remaining weeks of warm weather that we have left on books and papers­—midterms aren’t until October. One of the best ways to take... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

Witness at the Kennedy Center: Georgetown student theater on display

Miranda Rose Hall (COL ’11) identifies herself as an indulgent writer—the kind who wears socks and drinks tea while she works. Those details are telling: her work is as comforting... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

Dress up your dorm room

Now that you’re in college, you have much more than a sad, small locker with which to act out your fantasy of becoming an interior decorator. Decorating your college room... Read more

By the September 3, 2009

Leisure

Critical Voices: Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3

Jay-Z has an unfortunate habit of releasing half-assed, guest-filled victory laps following great albums. After The Blueprint came its overlong, overreaching sequel. After The Black Album came Kingdom Come, often... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

Expressionism in the District

The Smithsonian’s Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Phillips Collection, a private art gallery near Dupont Circle, are partnering for a two-part discussion of the work of Philip Guston... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

Low Fidelity: The end of another Empire

“What came first, the music or the misery?” John Cusack asked the camera as embittered and lovelorn record storeowner Rob in the ever-endearing 2000 film High Fidelity (not to be... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

Critical Voices: Polvo – In Prism

When Polvo split in 1998, they had carved their own distinctive niche into the hodgepodge of mid-90s alt-rock. With their noisy and dissonant but oddly melodic riffs, Polvo’s sound owed... Read more

By September 3, 2009

Leisure

Culottes for you Lots: School supplies

Some people follow football or the stock market or Congressional politics; I follow fashion. The colors, the shapes, the possibilities—fashion is creative expression for the artistically challenged. Like Legos, you... Read more

By August 28, 2009

Leisure

While we were out: a summer arts retrospective

The dark days of summer film Maybe it’s the desire to get out of the heat, or the fact that kids are busy not thinking about everything they learned in... Read more

By the August 28, 2009