DEMOCRATS Hillary Clinton—“A Place In This World” “I don’t know what I want, so don’t ask me, ‘cause I’m still trying to figure it out.” As the presumptive Democratic nominee for 2016, Hillary Clinton is “a girl on a mission.” Democrats view the former Secretary of State, Senator, and First Lady as the heir apparent … Read more
Why is America so unwilling to love Taylor Swift? Generally pigeonholed as a feminist nightmare due to her ex-boyfriend-centric musical themes, critics such as Camille Paglia have been quick to condemn Swift: “Her themes are mainly complaints about boyfriends, faceless louts who blur in her mind as well as ours.” But with the release of … Read more
On October 17, 2005, I celebrated my tenth birthday. But more importantly, I learned about truthiness. That’s when, according to Stephen Colbert, you just feel what’s true “in your gut.” It’s stronger than the truth. Truthiness was the first feature in Colbert’s “The Word” segment, which became and remains The Colbert Report’s staple. And that … Read more
At New York’s 81st Street, it was crowded, loud, and, on this uncharacteristically hot September afternoon, muggy. Around me stood rows upon rows of people chanting, talking, beating drums, waiting to start moving. The People’s Climate March, which had started nearly two hours earlier, 17 packed blocks ahead at 65th Street, was in full swing. Organized over … Read more
“In Wonder all Philosophy began: in Wonder it ends: and Admiration fills up the interspace. But the first Wonder is the offspring of Ignorance: the last is the parent of Adoration. The first is the birth-throe of our knowledge: the last is its euthanasy and apotheosis.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aphorism IX, Aids to Reflection Language, … Read more
Hipsters. With their detached discontent and pseudo-vintage flannel shirts, they claim the spot as our era’s most visible nonconformist subculture. They pair the grunge, beatnik, hippie, and rebel movements from past eras with protests against today’s social norms. The hipster avoids chain coffee shops, frequents vintage stores, and checks her Facebook feed on her iPhone. … Read more
“Crown Of Love” hooked me from the very start, with a driving, edgy chord progression that continues essentially unchanged verse-to-verse except for the voices that are continually added to it throughout the song: first, drums and an out-of-tune piano provide a skeletal promise behind Win Butler’s ghostly narration. They’re soon joined by a sparse string … Read more
On September 14th, 2004, when Arcade Fire’s Funeral was released, most of this magazine’s writers had barely entered middle school. We each had our unique experiences of discovering the album—some first heard the songs over the speakers of their older siblings’ CD players, others at high school parties, and some only in college at the rabid … Read more
Once, when asked to describe his view of the world in eleven words or less, Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler responded simply that “Death Is Real.” The question at the heart of Funeral’s colossal penultimate track (and also, I would argue, at the heart of everything Arcade Fire has ever written) is a familiar one: … Read more
I’m only a few weeks into senior year, yet something about the phrase “getting ready for graduation” is already beginning to rub me the wrong way. After all, as experience shows, the true rites of passage, the ones with the power to transform, inevitably catch us unprepared, unwilling, or both. Even when we choose … Read more