To quote my close friend and role model, Morgan Freeman: “You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” Black History Month is coming to a close, but the sentiment echos. You see, March is Women’s History Month. While I feel obligated to divulge that I am not necessarily a woman, you get ...
The two primary characters of Ida, the most recent Polish language film from director Paweł Pawlikowski, appear to perfectly contradict each other. “The slut and the saint,” says one of the two. On the eve of pledging her life to a Catholic monastery, Ida, an orphan approaching adulthood, is told ...
Impressive archery is a frequent “wow” factor for the big screen. From Robin Hood to Legolas to Hawkeye, masters of this highly specialized weapon intrigue and entertain us, providing the opportunity for diverse and pretty badass fight choreography. In Bernard Cornwell’s book The Archer’s Tale, ...
Amidst the flashy festivities of Winter Carnival, this past weekend marked the second annual performance of The Vagina Monologues in the Hepburn Zoo. An episodic play written in 1996 by Middlebury alum Eve Ensler ’75, the production delves unabashedly into various elements of the female experience, ...
There are few disciplines which naturally complement each other as well as theatre and English, and an exciting inaugural event aims to bridge the literary and performing arts worlds while creating deeper connections between the student body and the larger Middlebury community. On Tuesday, Feb. 24, ...
This past weekend ushered in the College’s 92nd annual Winter Carnival. Alongside the spectator sports and high-energy dances, the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) presented a concert in Wilson Hall on Friday, Feb. 13. The show featured three musical acts across a myriad of genres and ...
“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” — Henry Thoreau Or, in the words of Albus Dumbledore, “Ah music, a magic beyond all we do here.” As I sit in Davis, writing this article with the melodies of ...
How do you confront the unthinkable? How do you persevere in the darkest situation imaginable, when everything familiar and comforting is warped and erased? How do you face the destruction of the human race? Like so many other works of fiction, The Last of Us tackles these questions and tries to present ...
The end of this year’s whirlwind J-term brought in the highly-anticipated Ragtime musical, a co-production by Town Hall Theater (THT) and the Middlebury College Department of Music. Dealing with the turmoil, tensions and triumphs of early twentieth-century America, Ragtime follows the lives of Harlem ...
In addition to the ice show, ski races and fireworks that have become synonymous with Winter Carnival, the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) always presents unique entertainment that elevates the weekend from just a winter celebration to a campus-wide excuse to relax and mingle at the beginning ...
In my last column, I talked about which games from the holiday season I liked and disliked. Now that I have gotten a few hours of playing under my belt, I will discuss one of those games in detail. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a series of all the numerical Halo games, one through four. It includes ...
Few Winter Term traditions enjoy as much student and community popularity as the J-term musical, started a decade ago by Town Hall Theatre (THT) Executive Director Doug Anderson and Department of Music faculty Carol Christensen. In celebration of its tenth anniversary season, Director Anderson and Music ...
In a society dominated by technology, it is oftentimes difficult to distinguish between what is possible and what is necessary. Critically-acclaimed monologist Mike Daisey brought this complicated question to the forefront of the audience’s minds in Faster Better Social, a 75-minute performance on ...
There are few better or more interesting ways of dealing with Harold Pinter’s work than handing it over to a group of improv comedians. The complexity and confusion of language, the situational farce, the importance of timing and the general feeling of burgeoning absurdity that come inevitably attached ...
J-term is generally recognized as a time for intensive academic exploration of typically non-traditional subjects, and the unique format of the four-week semester allows for a variety of options not present during a full semester. This year, Isaac Baker ’14.5 is spending his last J-term leading a ...
Who doesn’t love dragons? (Well, apart from Bilbo Baggins.) Naomi Novik’s rich and exciting Temeraire series is, at first, a basic concept. She writes about the Napoleonic Wars, but with dragons. Out of this simple premise Novik creates a complex, suspenseful and interesting world to explore. Although ...
“On Tuesday, January 13, about 45 people gathered in front of Mead Chapel for a ‘rejection rally’ against the Keystone XL pipeline, joining over 130 rejection rallies nationwide. Encouraged by 350.org and 350 Massachusetts, rallies took place all across the country in the wake of Nebraska’s ...
I’ve experienced my share of existential crises in my life, not surprisingly. But rarely have I had to confront questions of my own physical and mental existence. This is my body, and I’m inhabiting it. My mind controls my body, my consciousness is a part of my mind. Thus, I, my mind and my body ...
I look around me and so much of what I see is divided into separate categories like academic and extracurricular, useful and useless, justice and injustice, natural and artificial, rational and irrational, mind and body. These kinds of binaries can be useful as a way of understanding what is or is not, ...
During a recent survey, an overwhelming percentage of students said they wanted to see more storytelling events like TEDx, Moth and Cocoon. This Friday, Jan. 16 and Saturday, Jan. 17 in Wright Memorial Theatre at 8 p.m., students will have that opportunity. Mike Daisey is a monologist who demands ...