Opinion: Pro-choice at Calvin
Since learning about the founding of a new anti-choice group on campus, the Calvin College Students for Life, I have been pondering what the proper response from pro-abortion rights students should be....
View ArticleBeck’s new ‘Morning Phase’ impresses
To call Beck a folk musician, you would have to make a point of clarifying what you mean. Someone more familiar with his fragmented collage pop-art — albums like “Odelay” come to mind — might rightly...
View ArticleSynthetic funk act Com Truise’s ‘Wave 1’ impresses
Though our culture is beginning to embrace the ‘90s as a source of nostalgia, the long reign of the 1980s over our collective imaginations soldiers on. For one, we still seem to have an appetite for...
View ArticleScientists find 30,000-year old virus in siberian ice
While it is far from the nightmare portrayed in the movie “The Thing,” it is still exciting news. Scientists working in Siberia have discovered and revived a virus that had been entombed in ice for 300...
View ArticleFacebook to acquire virtual reality startup company
Last Tuesday, Facebook announced that it would acquire virtual reality startup company Oculus VR, Inc. for $2 billion. While the company’s founder, Palmer Luckey, and its chief technical officer, famed...
View Article‘Rising Son’ is an unqualified success
Though mostly known as the prime modern jazz label since the 1940s, the venerable company Blue Note Records has assembled a formidable base of young talent. These newcomers, most prominently trumpeter...
View ArticleReview: U2 – Songs of Innocence
As U2’s career lasts into another decade, it starts to resemble more a papacy than a typical tenure in the rock business. I doubt Bono would shrink from such an honor, given that his band has reigned...
View ArticleReview: Moodymann
Moodymann’s new self-titled release centers around the artist’s city of origin. Of its 27 tracks, many are soundbites describing Detroit’s past and current crises. Most of Moodymann’s career has...
View ArticleReview: Art Official Age
Last year, Prince appeared as a guest artist on Janelle Monáe’s album “The Electric Lady,” and at the time I took it as a sign of how far Prince had declined relative to his own legacy. His work since...
View ArticleNanoscopy pioneers win Nobel Prize
Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in honor of their contributions to the the development of microscopes. Erik Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and W. E. Moerner all separately created...
View ArticleReview: Party Worker
As Bambu tells it, he became politicized while on tour, not as an artist, but deployed as a soldier in Okinawa, Japan. As a Filipino, he was taken aback when he heard about Filipino sex workers...
View Article‘Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper’ album is a feel-good trip
Noah Lennox, the Lisbon-based musician who releases his solo work under the Panda Bear name, takes pains to avoid sending out bad vibes with his music. Following the radiant work of psychedelic...
View ArticleKepler telescope finds multi-planet solar system
The Kepler space telescope has detected the first distant solar system containing more than one planet. One of these five Earth-sized planets orbits inside a habitable zone, meaning that liquid water...
View ArticleOpinion: ‘Old-Fashioned’ an example of pseudo-Christian filmmaking
Before using my acid pen against the current crop of Christian films, I want to discuss why people create and patronize Christian films and at least partly define how these films function in the...
View Article‘Yuri Kuma Arashi’ anime drama has an eye for truth and beauty
“Yuri Kuma Arashi,” which is most appropriately translated as “Lesbian Bear Storm,” is an animated romantic drama. Viewers follow the life of Tsubaki Kureha, whose mother and girlfriend Sumiko have...
View Article‘Steven Universe’ an enlightened cartoon fantasy
“Steven Universe” is first of all a fantasy — dreams filtered through the lens of technical studio production and broadcasting. Its protagonist is Steven, a portly preteen boy who resides with a trio...
View ArticleSufjan’s ‘Carrie and Lowell’ does not live up to the hype
I beg the reader’s forgiveness for beginning this review by talking not about Sufjan Stevens but about Soren Kierkegaard. French philosopher Henri Lefebvre writes of Kierkegaard, the great Danish poet...
View ArticleAlbum review: Steven Wilson’s ‘Hand. Cannot. Erase.’
Whether progressive rock was ever truly progressive (or ever truly rock for that matter) is a point of much tedious debate among admirers and detractors of the music. It might then be to his benefit...
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