Author Archives: Baobao Zhang

C’est une épidémie! You know obesity is a serious problem when the French are worried about it. According to The New York Times, in 2005, 11.3 percent of the French are obese and nearly 40 percent overweight. You can just imagine the numbers for 2010. That brings us to France-based Honkytonk Films’s new Web documentary »

My reading pattern revolve around book reviews. I don’t spontaneously go into Barnes and Noble and randomly pick out a book. Rather, I analyze The New York Times Sunday Book Review and The Washington Post Book World to carefully pick out my reading list. I follow The New York Times 10 Best Books of the »

Since I spent my childhood in communist China, I never played Oregon Trail. (What is this capitalistic land grab?) But whenever people wear those “You Have Died of Dysentery” t-shirts, I pretend to go along and joke about the game. I obviously can’t tell them that nearly 30 million people within my parents’ generation, including »

Two years ago, I heard a friend play Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor as part of his high school graduation showcase. It was more of an obligation than anything. Oh boy, I thought to myself, as the pimpled-faced school orchestra tuned up. The beginning of the first movement was a blur: »

The trip down Highway 45 to Columbus, Miss., was a kinetoscope of pine trees, boxy buildings and snowbanks against hillsides. Country receded into suburb. We passed a large flagpole bearing the Stars-and-Bars. The Californian inside of Taylor Giffen ’09 winced. “They’ve got a lot those flags down here,” he said matter-of-factly. He paused. Then he »

The douchest thing I did was back in 10th grade when I told a girl she was fat. Vicky — let’s call her — was trying to lose weight although she played two sports and was at a healthy size 8. She snapped at me one day for eating in front of her. I snapped »

Have you ever opened up a page of the New York Times and suddenly realized you have the attention span of a gnat? After 150 pages of poli sci reading, your brain is fried and your eyes are blurry. Sure you want to keep with the latest news development in the country and in the »

If American popular music were a winding road, it’d be a highway full of hijacked cars. In the beginning, there was the “akonting,” a lute with a skin-headed gourd body played by the Jola people in West Africa. It got hijacked and became the banjo. Then there were the back porch songs passed down through »

Couldn’t get into ART 136 but still want to take semi-artistic photos? Got a SLR camera as a present and doesn’t know what to do with it? Never fear. In this digital age, you can learn just about anything on the internet. While YouTube has plenty of how to guides, most of them are too »

Robert Lamothe ’77 teaches Creole to independent language study students at Yale University. Heavily involved in Yale for Haiti, he spoke at Monday night’s “Help Can’t Wait” concert in Woosley Hall. Q. Did you grow up in Haiti? A. I grew up in Haiti. I came to the U.S. as a teenager and lived in »

Alan Jackson and George Strait declared the death of traditional country in 2000 with “Murder on Music Row.” “Ol’ Hank wouldn’t have a chance, / On today’s radio,” they lamented. So I turned off the radio and turned to alt-country and newgrass. Ten years later, I reflect upon Taylor Swift’s glam guitar, which probably outshines »

The Yale Repertory Theater’s world premiere of the musical “POP!” last weekend was underwhelming for New York Times critic Charles Isherwood, who described the Andy Warhol murder mystery as “canned camp” in his Dec. 9 review of the show. “In trying to show both the madcap excesses and the psychic cost of Warhol freakdom, the »