Author Archives: Rebecca Arzoian

“Ching Chong Chinaman” — the name alone lends itself more to discrimination than to political correctness, but for Lauren Yee ’07, it signals a space for questioning what it means to be Asian in the United States. This August, Yee had the opportunity to see what began as her senior thesis go up during the »

“They say that all good things must end some day / Autumn leaves must fall” laze Chad & Jeremy on the wistful rhapsody “A Summer Song.” So as the dog days of summer grind to a humid halt, hopefully memories of the summer’s warm nights and distant lights can defrost the bitter cold of the »

“Les ailes de la Rolls effleuraient des pylons/ Quand m’etant malgre moi egare/ Nous arrivames ma Rolls et moi dans une zone/ Dangereuse, un endroit isole.” So begins Serge Gainsbourg’s 1971 masterpiece “Histoire de Melody Nelson,” his ode to the eponymous nymphet. And though he opens with an image of a winding Rolls Royce, it »

One day last summer, crisis struck the Marc Jacobs’ 15-person Soho main office, where Brynne Lieb ’07 was one of the company’s four interns. The office sent a bag filled with hand-sequined strips of embroidery to their Midtown manufacturing workshop, where the strips were to be sewn onto a gown for the Winter Cruise collection. »

Since the ’60s, it seems that the vocal qualities of women rock and roll artists have lost their rough masculine edge, becoming progressively more feminine. The Age of Aquarius witnessed the rise of the rough growl of Janis Joplin and the melodious bellow of Nico. Joplin’s emotive roughness was followed by ’70s punk and ’80s »

Seeing David Byrne in a “human” context, let alone an “academic” one, is absolutely surreal, as all in attendance at his Tuesday lecture in the Green Room of the Art School can verify. There stood Byrne in skinny black jeans and a purple silk button-down, his thick white hair sprouting atop his head, catching the »

Kings of Leon is synonymous with home-grown southern rock. Bound by blood, the Followill troupe — three sons of a Pentecostal preacher man and their token cousin — makes sure their roots drip through their music, resulting in a messy twang and drunken drawl. Their first albums, 2003’s rollicking “Youth & Young Manhood” and 2005’s »

There is no warming up for James Murphy. Life is charged with an electric current, an ever-schizophrenic and seizured flow, and on his latest album, “Sound of Silver,” not a single dry beat is spawned before he launches full throttle into his signature vigorous swell of anxious synths and panting falsetto. Above all, Murphy’s music »

It’s usually not difficult to predict what happens in a two-person play entitled “The Dance of the Fireflies.” It would include a boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back story with just enough poetry and passion balanced against solid doses of chemistry and confusion. But this “Dance of the Fireflies,” the fourth production this year by the not-yet-one-year-old »

The Frames are desperately seeking a soulmate on the opening track of their latest record, “The Cost.” On “Song for Someone,” lead singer Glen Hansard moans “And if we’re all for someone/ And if we’re both for someone/ When will she come, that someone?/ And put things in their place?” It’s a relief that the »

There are times when sitting in a near-empty movie theater can be nice. You’re 13, sitting beside Jnco-clad Bobby Thompson during “Scream 3,” and the two of you have just discovered how much fun making out can be. Or you’re a menopausal 50-year-old, blubbering your way through “The Bridges of Madison County.” It’s a good »

Have no fear of the Explosions in the Sky. Rather than signalling the demise of our humble little planet by earth-bound asteroids, they channel all the power and majesty of Fourth of July fireworks. Like their previous albums — namely 2003’s “The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place” — their latest release proves that »