Leisure

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

Leisure

Critical Voices: Jamie Woon, Mirrorwriting

It’s rarely fair to directly compare one musician to another, but Jamie Woon will likely find himself pinned next to James Blake on the reg with the release of Mirrorwriting. Which is a bit ironic—Woon’s first single was released more than two years before the hot-shot London producer appeared on the scene. But the pair’s combination of blue-eyed soul and dubstep—two of Britain’s biggest contemporary musical currents—landed them both in the BBC “Sound of 2011” poll, just months before each would release his full-length debut.

By April 7, 2011

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Critical Voices: Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues

Although they’re often lumped together with indie rock artists, Fleet Foxes are, at heart, a folk group. That folksy sound helped them develop a steady listening base with their eponymous 2008 debut, and they remain true to it on their sophomore release, Helplessness Blues. The album proves to be a strong follow-up, with shining moments that are pleasant enough to make even the grouchiest person smile yet powerful enough to get the lethargic stoners out of their seats.

By April 7, 2011

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Banger Management: More like Warped Snore

For millions of American kids, the Vans Warped Tour was the pinnacle of the adolescent summer. Founded in 1995, Warped Tour capitalized on the burgeoning popularity of extreme sports, combining the best of skate culture with the biggest underground punk, metal, and ska bands. In its inaugural year, the Warped Tour featured an impressive roster of alternative powerhouse acts, ranging from the West Coast stylings of Sublime, No Doubt, and Pennywise to the East Coast melancholy of early emo and post-hardcore forefathers like Seaweed and Quicksand. For many teens growing up the ‘90s, the Warped Tour became a comfort zone, where their music and hobbies, snubbed by the mainstream, were accepted and celebrated.

By April 7, 2011

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Internet IRL: iPhones: High-tech cocaine

I have a confession to make—I’ve been sleeping with my cell phone most nights. Yes, it may seem like we’re never apart. I can talk to it for hours, and I can’t keep my hands off it. I can’t be away from it, even at night. I think I’m in love. And I’m not the only one who’s been engaging in such a, er, modern romance. This weekend, I noticed my neighbor Tristan Deppe (COL ’12) had phone numbers written all over his arms. When I asked him about his interesting choice of body art, he told me that it was because his phone was broken due to “water damage.” Left phoneless, he needed a way to keep track of girls’ numbers, and this was his solution.

By April 7, 2011

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M&B is in too deep with Rabbit Hole

From its opening scene, you might expect Rabbit Hole, Mask & Bauble’s latest production, to be the stage version of a gender-reversed Knocked Up. Izzie, a carefree woman-child clad in a Beatles t-shirt and skinny jeans, recounts her most recent bar fight to Becca, her tightly-wound older sister. After Becca gives her a verbal slap on the wrist for profanity and some motherly chiding about her partying lifestyle, Izzie reveals the reason for her alcohol-fueled altercation—she is pregnant by the woman’s boyfriend.

By March 31, 2011

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We like Venus’s big butt, and we cannot lie

Although the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus arrived in D.C. last week, another sideshow act lurks just beyond Georgetown’s front gates. The set of Venus has transformed Walsh’s Black Box Theatre into the underbelly of a circus’ big tent, outlined by thick, red bands of fabric that drape from ceiling to floor. At center stage dangles a performer’s swing, where Tess Trotter (COL ‘14) plays Saartjie Baartman, or the “Venus Hottentot.” To reach the circus stage, however, the audience must first pass through a sobering setup chronicling Baartman’s life in a miniature mock-museum.

By March 31, 2011

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Local artists pop up in AdMo

In fiction, the vanishing shop is a pretty common convention—an exploring protagonist is surprised to find a store sitting where there might have been an abandoned building or vacant lot the day before, only for it to disappear soon after. Much like this proverbial protagonist, folks traversing through Adams Morgan over the next three weeks are likely to see a shop on the corner of 18th and Mintwood that isn’t normally there. However, there’s a more natural force at work here: a collection of Adams Morgan artists have turned the vacant space into a “pop-up shop” until April 16th, as a neighborhood component of the citywide Cherry Blossom Festival.

By March 31, 2011

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Critical Voices: The Mountain Goats, All Eternals Deck

Listening to All Eternals Deck, the latest album from indie rock institution The Mountain Goats, is a bit like flipping through a photo album chronicling a stranger’s entire life. Each track is a snapshot—a single image, light on context but with an emotional weight that rings clear. Depression, isolation, fear, and despair permeate the album, but are always tempered by lyricist John Darnielle’s trademark touch of guarded hope. So when Darnielle sings “Rise if you’re sleeping, stay awake/We are young supernovas and the heat’s about to break” on “High Hawk Season,” it’s hard not to feel stirred, even if you aren’t entirely sure why.

By March 31, 2011

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Critical Voices: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Belong

When listening to an album for the first time, people often find it helpful to ignore the lyrics to better get a feel for the album’s musical merit. However, in the case of Belong, the sophomore release from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, this proves an impossible task—the trite, clichéd lyrics mar the album from its very start. The album’s opener, “Belong,” sets the tone for the rest of the tracks, complete with uninspired lyrics that sound like they come straight from the pages of a dramatic high-schooler’s diary. Although it begins hopefully with a pop-friendly guitar introduction, it takes a turn for the worse soon thereafter, with scratchily mixed overtones and the murmurs of lead singer Kip Berman’s repetitive and dull chorus of “we don’t belong, we don’t belong.”

By March 31, 2011

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Fade to Black: Kicking and streaming

Movie studio execs must be keeping America’s psychiatrists pretty busy. I imagine all their therapy sessions start out with a discussion of the same recurring dream: their spouses have lost all interest in them and have fallen for the small, evil red envelopes that have been moving in on their territory for years. Of course, when they first met, the movie execs thought the envelope was awesome: it babysat the kids, walked the dogs, and trimmed the roses. Then, boom! One day, said executive catches the little red bastard in bed with their better halves!

By March 31, 2011

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Amuse-bouche: Whole Foods, entire budget

When I read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma for a class last week, I violated one of the few rules I live by: eat in near-complete ignorance of where your food comes from. As a rule, I don’t want to know how my chicken was treated before it became a component of my McNugget, which species of fish are farmed unsustainably, or which vegetables are still awash in pesticides when I buy them at the supermarket. I don’t eat any foods specifically for its locavore … ness, and I just barely can argue that I eat healthy.

By March 31, 2011

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Stellar expectations for Tenn Cent Fest

These days at Georgetown, it’s all about Tennessee Williams. A flag proclaiming “A Season Named Desire” has been flying over the Davis Center since the beginning of last semester, mysterious signs for the “Glass Menagerie Project” have popped up all over Red Square, and the Department of Performing Arts is bracing itself for an influx of Williams scholars, actors, and enthusiasts this coming weekend. All this hubbub seems a tad confusing at a school with few theater majors and no affiliation to the playwright. It’s this confusion that Performing Arts Artistic Director Derek Goldman hopes to eradicate with this weekend’s Tennessee Williams Centennial Festival, or Tenn Cent Fest—the climax of the Williams- focused “Season Named Desire,” and the first large-scale festival in the history of Georgetown’s Department of Performing Arts

By March 24, 2011

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All Win Win does is win

Produced in an industry where the average blockbuster offers a surreal narrative alien to daily life, the low-budget Win Win centers on the meaningful relationships formed around rather unremarkable circumstances. The film follows a familially frustrated high schooler and a financially unstable lawyer-cum-high-school-wrestling-coach as they form an unlikely bond. And while there is nothing too profound or exciting about the premise, the film’s down-to-earth characters and ability to remain light-hearted yet poignant distinguish Win Win from the average feel-good comedy.

By March 24, 2011

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Texas BBQ from NY

There are two ways to approach a meal at Hill Country Barbecue—you can get one meat, or you can get every meat. So when I stopped by the new, Gallery Place location of this Texas-style BBQ joint, I opted for the greasy, heart-clogging latter. Since opening its first location in New York, the restaurant’s aim has been to recreate the down-home feel of an old-fashioned cookout. Hill Country cooks all of its meat sans-sauce, opting for dry rubs cooked over hickory. Traditional sides compliment the cuts, from corn bread to delicious green bean casserole.

By March 24, 2011

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The Sweetlife of a new D.C. music fest

Perhaps as a side-effect of the beautiful weather, spring in the District boasts an impressive collection of outdoor music festivals. And this year welcomes a brand new, highly anticipated addition to the annual repertoire—the Sweetgreen-sponsored Sweetlife Festival on May 1, 2011, aptly described as “a festival with a conscience.” With its humble beginnings in a parking lot behind the DuPont Sweetgreen, Sweetlife’s organizers are thrilled to be holding this year’s event in a much more accommodating venue, Maryland’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. Located smack in the middle of the 40-acre Symphony Woods, this venue creates an appropriately green atmosphere for the environmentally-focused festival.

By March 24, 2011

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Critical Voices: Wiz Khalifa, Rolling Papers

Wiz Khalifa has his own “line” of rolling papers. His breakout mixtape was called Kush and Orange Juice. In 2010, he bragged in an interview, “I might spend, like, ten grand on weed a month. Easily.” Cool story bro. It’s not that drug-obsessed rap is inherently bad—Jay-Z made his name repping a drug dealing past and Clipse’s coke-rap opus Hell Hath No Fury is a certifiable classic. Even non-peddlers like Gucci Mane can turn massive amounts of consumption into something genuinely intimidating: a 6’3”, 220-lb former convict on codeine is not the kind of person most of us want to mess with. Bragging about weed, though?

By March 24, 2011

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Critical Voices: Of Montreal, thecontrollersphere

Thecontrollersphere, the latest EP from indie pop staple Of Montreal, is in many ways a compilation of rejects. Clocking in at only 23 minutes, the five-song record was primarily composed of tracks cut from their last release, the critically-acclaimed False Priest. Sadly, while False Priest witnessed the band successfully blending funk, electronic, and R&B influences, the tracks that made it onto TCS don’t mesh nearly as well, and the EP feels discordant as a result. But the news isn’t all bad—in fact, this lack of cohesion makes TCS interesting, in a clinical sort of way.

By March 24, 2011

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Internet IRL: The Internet is for porn

Whether you’ve been looking for it or not, I am going to make the rash assumption that at some point, you’ve seen porn on your computer. It’s there. Your most skewed sexual fantasies are your Google search bar’s command. What once could only be found in the pages of a secret stash of dirty magazines or vaguely-labeled, grainy videotapes is now available in unlimited—not to mention free—quantities. And it’s not just of your normal, interpersonal variety. From bestiality to tentacles, extreme porn that used to be seen as a unique fetish now has an audience.

By March 24, 2011

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Banger Management: Empire state of rap

In today’s rap scene, it might appear that we’re witnessing the Swag Revolution—exemplified by newcomers like Lil’ B and Odd Future Wolf Gang, it’s a movement largely defined by Internet hype and a “fuck the mainstream” attitude to fame. However, there are still some out there who have avoided this path. Among these deviants are a handful of rappers from New York City out to resurrect the classic sound of ‘90s Big Apple hip-hop. And so far, they are doing a pretty convincing job. Underground heavy-hitters like Roc Marciano, whose debut LP Marcberg received impressive reviews across the Internet, have spearheaded this throwback styl

By March 24, 2011

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Film festival provides good, green fun

In our generation, going green has gone from a hippie-centric fad to a full-blown industry. From celebrity-designed reusable totes to trendy organic food stores, it seems that “saving the planet” is, to some degree, on everyone’s mind. But beyond our Sigg water bottles, what do we really know about the problems facing the environment today? For those yearning to learn more, look no further than D.C.’s 19th annual Environmental Film Festival, which runs Mar. 15-27. With 150 events taking place in museums, libraries, theaters, and universities all over the District, the film festival invites viewers to step back and join in a “celebration of the natural world” that is both varied and thoroughly 2011-pertinent.

By March 17, 2011