Leisure

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

Leisure

OutKast’s ‘The Love Below’ is candyland

Buttery, lacquered-piano plays over top of a strings section. As the sound rolls out with timpani drums, we’re left with Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic wet dream on a very electrified guitar, before a brass flourish somehow transforms it all into a smooth jazz-inflected number.

By the October 2, 2003

Leisure

Looking for a futbol fix?

Soccer is immaculate. It’s a sport that combines strategy and physical prowess to such an extent that it becomes an art form-the only art form capable of igniting drunken pub fights and reviving latent country rivalries. But aside from all the international hype, there exists a small cult of jersey-clad Americans religiously waking up to watch their teams play live.

By the October 2, 2003

Leisure

Queer? Aie!

Around the early 1900’s people thought minstrel shows were really funny. And seriously, what’s funnier than a white guy in black face imitating one of those darn funny blacks, right? White racists laughed and blacks probably laughed, too. Even some white people who had black friends laughed.

By the October 2, 2003

Leisure

Prosit!

To the chagrin of the flip-flop loving students of Georgetown, the cold waltzed in this week in all of its frosty glory. But if anything makes college students happier than warm weather, it’s cold beer. The advent of fall finds consolation on this front, as Oktoberfest rolls in along with the chill in the air.

By the October 2, 2003

Leisure

OutKast’s Big Boi on the ‘Speakerboxxx’

LEISURE BY KEVIN O’DONNELL These days rappers have traded in their 40s for Cristal, and their fixed-up Impalas for Escalades with spinning rims. Shallow materialism has compromised the integrity of a genre that remade the music industry in the ‘90s. OutKast’s last was one of the most relevant albums the hip-hop genre: the content of their songs eschewed the high-life consumption of their rapper compatriots.

By the October 2, 2003

Leisure

G’town warehouse hosts film fest

LEISURE BY CHRIS NORTON AND MARY KATHERINE STUMP An non-air-conditioned warehouse with exposed plumbing isn’t the ideal location to hold a film festival. But with the south of France already taken, this warehouse, situated next to Blues Alley, was the next logical choice.

By and September 25, 2003

Leisure

A bride in Jerusalem

It’s morning. Roll out of bed. Walk out the door. Five soldiers with Kalashnikovs lounge idly against the rubble of a stone wall, joking among themselves while they carefully watch your apartment complex.

No, it’s not DPS on a power trip, at least not this time.

By the September 25, 2003

Leisure

RJD2 revealed

Hip-hop’s underground rattled when rapper El-P ever so bluntly declared on his acclaimed solo debut last year, Fantastic Damage: ” Signed to Rawkus? I’d rather be mouth fucked by Nazis unconscious.” Rawkus Records, the home of late-90s landmarks Soundbombing, Mos Def and El-P’s group Company Flow, was losing its grip on the ” it” label for underground hip-hop.

By the September 25, 2003

Leisure

‘Cat celebrates

If you went to Georgetown ten years ago, you would have just traded in your acid-washed jeans for plaid flannel shirts, and would be rocking hard to Nirvana. If anything, Georgetown today is more Avril than Kurt; the only plaid on campus exists in the form of miniskirts.

By the September 25, 2003

Leisure

Lost treasure

LEISURE BY KIM RINEHIMER Unprepared and much less enthused than your average GU junior abroad, the characters of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation find themselves in exotic and chaotic Tokyo. Lost in Translation brilliantly explores cultural disparities as well as the gulfs that can divide individuals.

By the September 18, 2003

Leisure

Palahniuk woos target audience with ‘Diary’

Art is effective when it admits to the full extent of the human condition, that the something in the air has a name. Keeping this in mind, read a few pages of Chuck Palahniuk in a well-lit and crowded area, and look in the direction of your choice. You will see a girl with good hair and an uneven gait-this girl is always there, appearing less frumpy than she thinks, and she is always a sex addict.

By the September 18, 2003

Leisure

Being the top dog

Questions plague mankind. What are we doing here? What do we know? What are we waiting for? Topdog/Underdog, a fierce new play penned by Suzan-Lori Parks, follows closely in the footsteps of playwrights Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard by delving right into such inquiry.

By the September 18, 2003

Leisure

Eat this

From Atkins to South Beach, there’s a diet out there for just about everyone. While most popular diets help you lose weight by controlling caloric intake and portion size, diet programs of the past took a much more effective approach: make the food so unappealing that you literally can’t eat it.

By the September 18, 2003

Leisure

Thrifty thrills

A hefty price tag has come to denote the following: quality goods, a designer outfit, or a new piece of clothing that looks 20 years old. Evidence of this phenomenon abounds in stores like Abercrombie & Fitch and Urban Outfitters, where retailers strive to make costly clothes that look like they were produced decades ago.

By the September 18, 2003

Leisure

Britney does D.C.

LEISURE BY JULIA COOKE Football is the quintessential American sport. It makes sense, then, that the Capitol would be the backdrop for the NFL-America rally that took place last Thursday evening on the National Mall.

By the September 11, 2003

Leisure

This charming band

I’ve never met a person who isn’t at least a closet fan of the Cure’s great pop music moments. It’s almost impossible not to love songs like “Friday I’m in Love,” or “Boys Don’t Cry,” or, of course, “Just Like Heaven.” Each is a masterful pop achievement that combines the perfect mood of melancholic longing with appropriately sentimental lyrics.

By the September 11, 2003

Leisure

‘My spoon is too big!’

If you’ve ever enjoyed the quirky antics of Comedy Central’s Adult Swim you are guaranteed to love Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt’s Animation Show. As Adult Swim enlivens an otherwise humdrum Sunday night, so Animation Show provides an amusing, creative alternative to mainstream cinema.

By the September 11, 2003

Leisure

‘Gyroscope’ defies convention

No one visits art museums for the permanent collections anymore. Museums employ a simple formula: special exhibitions attract visitors who feel they “must see” shows with compelling themes or “big-name” artists. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, in preparation for its 30th anniversary, rejects this trend with its new exhibit, Gyroscope, a revival of the Museum’s permanent collection.

By the September 11, 2003

Leisure

Filmsy excuse

In case you didn’t get the memo-post-Soviet cinema is thriving. It’s unsurprising that there are two separate film festivals in D.C. this month that deal with the tragic beauty and realities which linger over much of the former Soviet Union. Recently emerged from the shroud of centuries of empire, the Newly Independent States of Central Asia boast a surprisingly rich cinematic tradition.

By the September 11, 2003

Leisure

Hybrid Restaurants

As Georgetown students, we all know how to multitask. Whether we use Palm Pilots or Post-Its, read history reading in theology or talk to our parents as we walk to a party on O Street, doing just one thing at once is never enough. Most of us have even ventured into the world of multitasking while eating and drinking, planning group meetings at Darnall or breakup conversations over coffee.

By the September 4, 2003