Culture
Culture
Cringe comedy finds a home in ‘Nathan For You’
Nathan Fielder walks up to a model. The model is clad in a soft-shell jacket designed specifically for the company Nathan has just started. Nathan pulls the model aside and says, “Six million Jews died in the Holocaust, approximately.” The model, confused, stammers out, “OK.” “So, how many Jews died in the Holocaust?” Fielder asks. […]
Culture
Varga’s ‘Energy, Mass, Light’ shines
“Energy Mass Light,” by Katherine Varga ‘T5, took a long road to get on stage. The play, which closed this past Saturday, was originally selected to be a staged reading as part of Geva Theatre’s Regional Writers Showcase last spring. Varga, who will graduate this spring, has now collaborated with UR theatre group The Opposite […]
Culture
A conversation with Keith Elder, the Eastman Director of Concert Activities
Aurek Ransom: What do you think is important for us to know about what you did before [coming to] Eastman? Keith Elder: Prior to Eastman, I worked 18 years in the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops. While working there, I got a degree in law, so I’m a lawyer as well. While working, I […]
Culture
Light pierces darkness in “Beasts of No Nation”
“Wherever the hero may wander,” Joseph Campbell once wrote, “whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence—for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness.” In Cary Fukanaga’s long-awaited “Beasts of No Nation,” out via Netflix and in selected theaters on October 16, Agu (Abraham Atta, […]
Culture
Skylar Spence keeps it fresh and funky on ‘Prom King’
Skylar Spence was once a vaporwave producer known as Saint Pepsi. Under his previous handle he was a big fish in a very small pond – the small pond being Reddit’s vaporwave subreddit. Now, Saint Pepsi has got a new name and is a medium-sized fish in a much bigger pond. On his new release […]
Culture
Beach House album rolls with the tides
When “Thank Your Lucky Stars” was announced via Beach House’s Twitter account last week, they stressed that the album was not a “companion” to their recently released “Depression Cherry,” nor was it a collection of b-sides. Slipped into the announcement was the claim that this album was not a “surprise.” Given that “Depression Cherry” was […]
Movies
‘Sicario’ strikes at the zeitgeist
In Denis Villeneuve’s bleak new film “Sicario,” the FBI’s attempts to sedate the drug war across the United States-Mexican border serve as a metaphor for general American idealism. Centering on by-the-books FBI agent Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt, her typical luminance dimmed, but still present), the film follows her experiences as she’s recruited to a task […]
Culture
Aasif Mandvi talks American culture through humor
Immediately following his audition for “The Daily Show,” Aasif Mandvi was hired by host Jon Stewart to be the “senior Middle East/Muslim/All Things Brown correspondent,” much to the confusion of his parents and himself, as he admittedly spent more time at bars than at mosques. This past Saturday night, Mandvi amused students, parents and alumni […]
Culture
‘Hamilton’: a cultural phenomenon
If you haven’t heard of “Hamilton” yet, you will, even if you decide to ignore this article and skip ahead to the Sports section. “Hamilton” is a new Broadway musical that uses a multi-ethnic group of actors to tell the story of Alexander Hamilton and the Founding Fathers through a well-crafted hip-hop and rap-infused score. […]
Culture
Father John Misty’s grotesque museum of truth
On a busy block of East Avenue Friday evening, a line of painfully hip patrons snakes from the door of Anthology, one of Rochester’s newest music venues, and well around the corner. After a curiously long wait outside—the opening act already began—the queue hiccups to life and crams inside the long hall of the theater. […]