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(11/30/23 3:46pm)
When Sharon Chepnego (W '26) strolled down Locust Walk's Student Activities Council Fair at the start of her freshman year, a particular table caught her attention. Its poster contained the word “KENYA” in big, bold lettering. Sharon, an international student, had just arrived at Penn from Nairobi, Kenya, and was only beginning to get accustomed to her new life at an American university. She only recently received her SIM card from T–Mobile and had just been taught how to use Amazon.
(11/17/23 1:58am)
Erika Acosta’s every pursuit unfolds like a series of nesting dolls, each layer revealing a new facet of her vibrant and dynamic personality. At the outermost layer is her role as the Political Chair of the United Minorities Council (UMC), where she ardently advocates for the representation of minority groups on campus. Beyond this, Erika delves into the complex histories and narratives of the Asian American experience as an Asian American Studies minor. Her involvement with the Penn Philippines Association (PPA) brings together her passions with Filipino advocacy.
(01/12/24 1:54am)
MJ Lenderman has had a busy two years. When I first saw him perform in Feb. 2022, he was playing in the loading dock of a bar in North Philadelphia to a crowd of, generously, a couple hundred people. Sharing the stage with three local Philly bands, Lendermen lent his guitar heroics to Florry’s rendition of “Dead Flowers” and watched Hooky and Snoozer alongside the beanie and cargo pants–clad masses with whom he blended in well enough not to draw any attention. He was promoting the forthcoming release of his album Boat Songs, via Philly’s own Dear Life records, itself home to 2nd Grade, Friendship, and other local indie stalwarts.
(11/29/23 5:00am)
You might’ve heard some rumbling about a new Beatles song that came out a few weeks ago. Billed as the “last Beatles song,” “Now and Then” features the voices of all four Beatles members, a curious product given the disbanded group had tragically lost two of their members within the last 50 years. However, with the help of artificial intelligence, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were able to isolate George Harrison and John Lennon’s vocals from demo versions of the tracks. Adding some additional production and a 2023 revamp, the group decided to release the song, to the shock of their fans, in tandem with a documentary film Now and Then – The Last Beatles Song that describes the process of how the song was made.
(11/17/23 5:00am)
If I want to get back to my hometown, Buffalo, NY from Philly, I have three bad options.
(12/01/23 12:00pm)
R&B singer Mariah the Scientist’s latest album "To Be Eaten Alive," is a testament to her growth and pen as an artist as she tackles her fame, life, and artistry. Released Oct. 27 off of independent label Buckles Laboratories, much of the record’s lyrical content is relevant to Mariah’s experience surrounding her boyfriend Young Thug’s incarceration on May 9, 2022, when Thug and other artists associated with music label and collective YSL were arrested on gang–related Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act charges, as well as her struggles handling womanhood and the music industry. This album is a step in the right direction, proving that her art can perhaps hold its own alongside generational contemporaries by the likes of SZA and Summer Walker. However, Mariah's work tends to reflect the tried and true motifs first developed by the genre’s predecessors, incorporating a love–letter style of writing and airy production.
(11/27/23 8:00am)
There are some who complain that America has gone woke—but when has it not been? The woke mob (Puritans) have been canceling (executing) innocent Americans (“witches”) since our nation’s founding. The original colonizers of New England were among the first to promote a “politically correct” culture in the U.S., rigidly enforcing Puritanical codes of morality and behavior under threat of exile or even death. This unique founding spirit has never really gone away—from the Hays Code to the Satanic Panic to Tipper Gore’s Parents Music Resource Center, the instinct to censor runs deep in American culture. But in recent years, a new outgrowth of this horrifying urge has manifested itself in an entity so cloaked in pizazz and saccharine pop sweetness that it almost defies recognition for the beast that it is. I speak, of course, of that devil Kidz Bop.
(11/27/23 8:00am)
As an avid secondhand–book buyer, I have certain rituals when I enter a bookstore. I always step into the horror section to see if I can catch a stray Stephen King; I walk through the classics looking for beautiful hardbacks and marbled pages; and, most importantly, I reminisce among the Young Adult shelves and see if I can spy the iconic black, white, and red–toned Twilight novels. If one part of my bookstore explorations is comfortingly predictable, it’s that I’ll find Stephenie Meyer’s infamous series—often, in its entirety. As of 2021, the saga had sold more than 160 million copies, and according to Publishers Weekly, Twilight was fifth on the list of top–selling books between 2004 and 2021 (just under Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go!). If you entered a teen girl’s bedroom in the 2000s or 2010s, chances were you’d find at least one copy—and maybe even a poster or life–size cardboard cutout of a character or two.
(12/07/23 4:11pm)
"To collect photographs," wrote Susan Sontag in her book On Photography, "is to collect the world." Photography has always fascinated me, particularly in one specific context: when photos adorn book covers. While the saying goes "Don't judge a book by its cover," I can't resist an enticing visual. Hanya Yanagihara's 2015 novel, A Little Life's cover, achieved just that for me. The book delves into the lives of four college friends as they navigate the turbulent waters of success and suffering in New York City.
(11/29/23 2:00pm)
All great love stories seem start with fate: two people existing in the same room, two eyes meeting for a split of a second, fate dealing them lucky hands in a great cosmic card game.
(11/19/23 8:48pm)
Three tracks into Sufjan Stevens’ newest album, Javelin, he asks one of the most simple and honest questions that perhaps anybody can ask: “Will anybody ever love me? For good reasons, without grievance, not for sport?” He isn’t looking for forever, or for massive promises. He just wants someone to be able to “pledge allegiance to my burning heart.” The fittingly titled, “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” may be one of the best songs of Stevens’ long and varied career.
(01/29/24 5:00am)
There’s no way around it. You live in a world where Drake songs can be recorded without Drake, paintings are born from DALL–E prompts, and ChatGPT will write an apology text to your girlfriend.
(11/30/23 3:26pm)
Why should you care about King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard? With the recent release of The Silver Cord, the Australian psychedelic rock band has released 25 albums since they formed in 2010, which averages out to almost two albums per year for 13 years straight. In 2016, King Giz frontman Stu Mackenzie shattered the minds of fans and reviewers alike when he announced that the band would release five albums in just one year and then actually followed through on that promise in 2017.
(11/22/23 1:00am)
My professor recently remarked that there’s only been one noticeable difference in the student body since he began teaching creative writing classes in the '70s. The only change? Students no longer gather around his seminar table, each clutching a pencil and paper copy of the last assignment. Today, they settle into their seats with laptops at the ready and water bottles within arm's reach. It’s unlikely you will sit down in a college class without your neighbor whipping out a water bottle only to place it on the table, take a sip, and leave it alone for the rest of class.
(01/05/24 3:10am)
Every October, the best of world cinema visits the Bourse theater on a quiet street of old city and the Philadelphia Film Center beside Rittenhouse Square. The annual Philadelphia Film Festival celebrates cinematic splendor and brings together filmmakers and audience in conviviality. This year, our writer Aden Berger and I sat through multiple screenings at the festival like we have for the past few years, and selected what we believe to be under–the–rader gems from this year's extravagant lineup.
(11/15/23 5:00am)
“I feel perfectly at ease with everything feminine,” Marie Laurencin wrote in her Le Carnet des Nuits. “When I was small I loved silk threads, and I stole pearls and spools of colored thread which I hid carefully and would look at when I was alone. I would have liked to have had many children to comb their hair and dress with ribbons.”
(12/01/23 5:00am)
I walked into the Philadelphia Print Center in Rittenhouse Square to a welcoming crowd, off a small cobblestone street that made me feel like I had stumbled upon some small European gathering. When I went upstairs, I sat quietly as Alan Nakagawa chatted with the front row of the audience. I could tell he was grateful to be making connections, grounded in experiences, and anxious to talk about his career as an artist. This gratified excitement immediately helped me understand Nakagawa’s ability to find steady success in the ever–unpredictable art world.
(11/16/23 5:00am)
Time in South Korea moves fast. As quickly as Gangnam Style skyrocketed past the one billion view mark on YouTube, the Korean economy rallied from the trenches of a post-war depression into its current status as a G20 country. The nation has transformed into the highly urbanized culture and tech factory that we know today.
(11/20/23 2:00pm)
Popular media has always been a means for discovering and understanding worldwide conflict. In fact, most of the world has arguably encountered every major global event of the past century through news, television, propaganda, photo, and film. News of the scandalous Iran–Contra Affair exploded in print and ricocheted through TV airways, Vietnam War photography made its way from newspaper to protest poster to Congress, and the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 were more defined by its infamous imagery than any before.
(11/27/23 5:00pm)
Philadelphia is widely known as a city of medical firsts. Over 250 years ago, America’s first hospital, Pennsylvania Hospital, was founded in Philadelphia. Nearly a decade and a half later, the University of Pennsylvania established America’s first school of medicine. 109 years after that, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania became America’s first teaching hospital.