Search Results
Below are your search results. You can also try a Basic Search.
(08/04/23 12:47am)
Every once in a while, a great movie battle shakes the foundations of the Internet. There are classics like Star Wars vs. Star Trek. There was the Epic Rap Battles of History duel between Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock (and Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick, and Michael Bay). But in 2023, the film gods have blessed audiences with an instant classic: Barbenheimer.
(08/04/23 12:48am)
Growing up, summers consisted of going to the playground every evening, reading at my dining room table as my parents grilled barbecue chicken in the backyard, and playing with Legos in my living room while Good Luck Charlie played in the background. But summer has changed. College marks an end to our childhood, and our perceptions of summer shifted with it. Rather than being a season for leisure and family time, summer is now a period where productivity and building our resumes takes ultimate priority—internships, research opportunities, career preparation, academic obligations, financial responsibilities. Gone are the memories of relaxation and play, replaced with professional development and productivity.
(08/14/23 10:09pm)
What happens in college a cappella doesn’t always stay in college a cappella.
(07/28/23 6:26pm)
As the sun rises over Penn’s campus, the smell of hot coffee, toasted Sizzli breakfast sandwiches, and fresh Amoroso rolls wafts through the air. It’s not coming from a local West Philly kitchen, and definitely not from campus dining. The source? Wawa.
(08/01/23 10:57pm)
You don’t tend to hear drivers honking their horns in LA. It’s just another example of the stereotypical laid–back nature of Southern California that my East Coast upbringing hasn’t prepared me for while working here this summer. But I was easily guided to the picket lines by the sounds of supportive beeps flooding downtown Culver City on Friday, July 14, as I headed to the Sony and Culver Studios lots to march with the strikers.
(07/21/23 5:00am)
Whenever I’m in my hometown, I can’t help but indulge my curiosity and walk into the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) to explore their newest art exhibition. The historic building is centered in one of the most beautiful places in my city, Belo Horizonte. With its pastel yellow paint and dazzling Greek–style pillars, the tower attracts tourists from all over the country. Throughout the years, the CCBB has become my second home—I know the location of every single bathroom, where every staircase leads, and have taken dozens of pictures on the multicolored glass mural.
(07/21/23 1:05pm)
Music floats through the air: hyperpop remixes of Charli XCX, bubbly EDM, Beyoncé, Lizzo, pumping club beats. Around thirty people have just started an extremely energetic Cupid Shuffle, and even more are dancing around them. Pride flags, most of them in trans colors, swing through the air. Every so often, a chant ripples through the crowd: “Philly is a trans city! Philly is a Black city!” This is not your average rave.
(07/21/23 12:56pm)
My life lives on Google Calendar. Each hour of my life is carefully measured and categorized in beautiful color–coded blocks that account for everything from my class schedule to lunches with friends to “Rotting in Van Pelt.” During the school year, I would play a solo game of Jenga on Sunday night, attempting to figure out how to fit everything on my to–do list into the 168 hours I had in a week. In some ways, my Google Calendar is a diary of my existence, a catalogue of how I spend my waking days—or at least intend to, considering the plethora of 6 a.m. runs scattered throughout my calendar that I've definitely slept through.
(07/19/23 5:00am)
“Peel slowly and see,” reads the tiny text pointing to the tip of a bold yellow and black banana peel. Underneath the sticker, at least on the original copies, is pink, fleshy fruit. This phallic imagery and tongue–in–cheek humor—a signature of Andy Warhol's aesthetic brand—make up an iconic cover artwork that has earned the nickname "the Banana Album," but for those who have spent time justifying their pretentious music taste and idolizing the ’60s art scene of New York City, it's better known as The Velvet Underground & Nico. It’s the kind of album cover that has become ubiquitous with the music world, and one that you recognize without ever having listened to the band.
(07/14/23 5:00am)
By many metrics, the Western has been one of the most important genres in cinema history. Tales of the Old West were hot commodities in Golden Age Hollywood. Similar to the superhero movies of today, it wasn’t stars or exciting stories that made these movies popular; it was the genre itself that sold tickets and made people like John Wayne stars. And the idea of a Western proved adaptable, especially with European Spaghetti Westerns, which in turn incorporated elements from Japanese samurai films. The Western even served as a launching pad for other genres, with Stagecoach being the prototype for the Hollywood action movie.
(07/14/23 6:46pm)
What motivates graduate students to become graduate students? Unquenchable curiosity, a love of their field, or a desire to push the boundaries of human knowledge? Any grad student would probably point to their passion for learning. But in the same breath, that grad student would also tell you that passion doesn’t pay rent. When it boils down to it, graduate students are workers for the university they attend: they’re people who have bills to pay, need healthcare coverage, and vacation time. And at Penn, in order to wield their collective power as graduate workers and have control over the terms of their employment, Graduate Employees Together at the University of Pennsylvania (GET–UP) are seeking to form a union.
(07/14/23 5:00am)
As historians Alvin and Heidi Toeffler first posited—and my middle school history teacher eventually taught me—there have only been three great changes in all of human civilization. The first came around 12,000 years ago, as humans moved from hunter–gatherers to farmers, allowing permanent settlements and trade specialization. The second occurred around 200 years ago, as the steam engine began the Industrial Age, with urbanization, factory life, and ultimately, electricity. And the third change—in whose shadow we currently live—was computing. Once the personal computer was popularized in the mid-1980s, the Information Age could begin, allowing for global communication and instantaneous dissemination of information.
(07/07/23 12:22pm)
My whole life, Taylor Swift has been an omnipresent refrain in my life. As each new album was released, everyone in my life—be it classmates, family members, or coworkers—would arrange listening parties and obsess for hours about the intricacies of each song, lyric, and supposed easter egg. All that time, I was left out, declining to participate as Swiftie culture conquered nearly everything around me.
(07/07/23 5:00am)
BASEL, Switzerland—What are the telltale signs that someone’s made it? Is it inscribed in the way they dress, their choice of silk scarf, or seasonal handbag? Or if wealth truly whispers, it might be in the way a person carries herself—head high, shoulders low, unperturbed calm. It might be something else entirely, some mixture of pedigree and learned etiquette. But when I found myself shoulder to shoulder with the world’s most well–heeled art collectors, there was another question on my mind: Can you fake it?
(07/07/23 5:00am)
Everyone in Asteroid City is obsessed. Each character is achingly devoted to their craft, be it writing or acting or pushing the bounds of scientific innovation; and, just as Wes Anderson does himself, everyone is telling their story.
(07/07/23 5:00am)
Inside a building full of art galleries and artists’ studios in the northern edge of Chinatown is Iffy Books, a small independent bookstore filled with all things “hacking, free culture, gardening, zines.” While they may seem unrelated, this tagline summarizes the many passions of founder and Penn alum, Steve McLaughlin (C ‘08).
(07/08/23 5:19pm)
Noah Tanen eats, sleeps, and breathes food. But, it hasn’t always been this way. It wasn’t until his twenties that Noah realized his greatest passion lives in his kitchen.
(06/30/23 2:22pm)
The 76th Tony Awards, which took place on Sunday, June 11, went a bit non–traditional this year. Beyond simply taking place for the first time in the United Palace in Washington Heights, the awards ceremony was aired entirely unscripted. Despite the lack of script, the show went smoothly, with historic wins for transgender performers and awards that confirmed that audiences are thirsty for original material.
(06/30/23 2:21pm)
“I started as a bus girl and, you know, I just fell in love with it,” Ellen Yin (W ‘87, WG ‘93) says when I ask her what inspired her career in the restaurant industry. “People always say ‘Oh, I’ve got the bug, the restaurant bug.’ It’s one of those things that’s very satisfying, because you’re taking care of customers; you see people celebrating important occasions whether it be birthdays or anniversaries. It’s very satisfying to be a part of those celebrations,” she concludes.
(06/30/23 2:20pm)
Nothing can dominate pop culture forever. No matter how good the plot, how passionate the fandom, or how high the box office, eventually, all stories run their course. Westerns were once considered a permanent moneymaker. Then it was musicals. Star Wars was thought to be invulnerable to the public: now over six films and television shows have been sent back to development.