1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Last August, during the thick of NSO, two white male students broke into another student’s apartment and refused to leave. The victim spoke on the condition of anonymity, but her story reveals a malignant societal truth that also infects campus life at Penn: white privilege exists unchecked.
There are a lot of ways in which men hurt women. There are even more ways in which men hurt Black women.
It is said that “the eyes are windows of the soul,” but then again, whoever said that never had to make a habit of wearing face masks in the modern day. Even with the experience of wearing a mask almost every day for five months, I find it impossible to tell what kind of face a person is making just by looking at their eyes. I second–guess what kind of expression people are making underneath their masks as I see their eyes crinkle either at the onset of a smile, the bright sun, or by something I may have said. The pandemic has created a new collective experience that would have felt ridiculous just last year.
Mike Polizze’s Long Lost Solace Find is utterly without pretension. There are no heady concepts and few complex metaphors: Polizze simply quietly reflects on things that have happened to him and things that he wants to do. It’s confessional in that way; Polizze says exactly what he feels without obscuring it behind unwieldy rhetoric.
COVID–19 has contextualized a society enduring what feels like a hopeless new era— one of a pandemic, an economic crisis, and civil unrest. For some, it has also opened a time for tremendous and much–needed introspection. The aftermath and cataclysmic effects of this virus have forced people to reexamine and reassess our world—its industries, systems, norms—and the way we have been living.
Evan Thomas (W ’20) has been soloing for decades. As a kindergartener, he was already stealing school stages singing “God Bless America." Throughout high school, unsatisfied by the absence of an a cappella group, he created his own and started doing arrangements. It’s no surprise that he has been Dischord A Cappella’s co-music director for years, even soloing Sam Smith’s “Fire On Fire” in quarantine isolation for the group’s Zoom concert last May.
Taylor Swift, for once, has thrown a curveball. Announced just 24 hours before its release, completely disregarding the lengthy release campaigns of her seven previous albums, folklore is a strange little gem in Taylor's long and illustrious career. Created remotely with Aaron Dessner and longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, folklore sees Swift diving headfirst into folk pop and soft rock. Although an unexpected turn from a global superstar who perfected her craft in synth pop, it's not completely without precedent.
Going into my fourth month of lockdown, I felt like I didn’t have much to look forward to. That is, until I realized that July 23rd, One Direction’s ten–year anniversary, was coming up.
In decades past, signing with a record label literally meant having a company produce and distribute a musician’s records. The nature of music production and dissemination made musical fame a club that was difficult, if not nearly impossible, to break into. According to Statista, the "Big 3" music companies, Universal, Sony, and Warner Music, “exert control over nearly every aspect of the music industry by serving as music distributors, owning record labels, and coordinating artists’ performance rights.” Today, however, shifts in music consumption and production seem to be tempering the stronghold that the “Big 3” have over the musical world.
Quarantine has certainly sprouted a lot of trends. Whipped coffee and Tiger King feel like relics of the past, replaced by tie–dye sweatsuits and the Netflix show Unsolved Mysteries. One quarantine trend, however, might just stick around long after COVID–19 is relegated to the diseases–of–the–past archive: pet adoption.
Justin Horn (C ‘20) was standing in the back of the room at Joe Biden's campaign headquarters in Philadelphia, suspense gripping him, as he watched the Vice President’s team receive some race–altering news. Philadelphia’s long winter was melting away on the early spring night, the office packed shoulder to shoulder with enthusiastic Biden staffers, eyes glued to the news. Beto O’Rourke just endorsed Joe Biden, as did Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar, shortly after dropping out of the race for President. The once twenty–eight candidate Democratic primary field was narrowing down to just one, and Justin was watching it happen in real-time.
“This will pass over soon. We’ll be able to hang out like normal by July, and we’ll definitely come back to school in the fall.”
When the spring semester took an unexpected turn, student groups were left to figure out how to finish the semester remotely. This posed an interesting challenge for groups such as the Pennchants, a performing arts group that was in the middle of planning their spring show when everyone was sent back home.
Very little compares to the enthralling experience of attending a concert. The feeling of singing along to your favorite songs until you lose your voice, looking towards the stage and realizing that your idol is, in fact, a real human being, is indescribable. But what truly creates the buzzing atmosphere is the crowd, a huge group of strangers who unite for a couple of hours of pure happiness, dancing along to what will likely be an unforgettable night.
The Chicks, composed of lead singer Natalie Maines and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, were cancelled. Emphasis on the word "were": before the term became ubiquitous in social media vernacular, the trio faced backlash in 2003 for Maine's critical remarks of President Bush eight days before the U.S. entered the Iraqi War. Her simple expression that she was "ashamed" Bush was also from Texas at a London show sparked outrage among country fans. Radio stations arranged for protests burning the band's CDs, and their discography was banned from airplay itself. The women were called traitors and "Saddam's Angels." In response to the controversy, The Chicks released 2006's Taking the Long Way, with the bitterly defiant hit "Not Ready to Make Nice." Taylor Swift, a recent collaborator and clear successor of the the Chicks, has said that she was told not to be like them.
Given their meteoric rise in popularity, the duo 100 gecs has often been described by music critics as ‘abrasive’ and ‘genre–crushing.’ But, at the heart of things, all 100 gecs want to do is chug a Monster Energy, make music they want to mosh to, and have fun.
Today, snapping a quick picture is easier than ever. Camera rolls are filled with thousands of photos, many of which are completely insignificant (hello photos of powerpoint slides that will never be seen again). Pictures no longer hold the sentimental value they used to hold, nor represent people’s special moments— Paintru is here to change that.
The pandemic brought about difficult changes for everyone. At worst, it led to death and major economic complications. At best, it led to being stuck at home for months, with no clear end in sight. As students were forced to evacuate campus and go home, they had to reinvent their daily routines, letting go of their usually packed schedules.
He had written that paper. In his own words, of course. No cheating involved. He was a diligent worker and a smart kid who never even needed to cheat. Why would he? He had made it to Penn on his own, after all. Nevertheless, as the young, doe-eyed Penn freshman, Rick Krajewski (E ‘13), stood in front of his professor, he was being accused of plagiarism. To make matters worse, Rick knew he was being singled out as a Black man. The professor just assumed Rick couldn’t have written a paper that good.
“The most important part of writing, and really life, you said, is revision.”
Solutions by The State News