Skip to content

METROPOLIS

“”

4/30/2011 New Shuffle Saturday: Forget about you, loyal readers? Never.

METROPOLIS knows Snoop Dogg isn't all you wanted to hear this sunny Saturday, and if you're like us, you need a break from crying into your pillow about the sorry state of affairs that is your term paper/last problem set/final exam schedule. Never fear, METROPOLIS has all the answers, conveniently accessible in five song form. Remember, these last two weeks will be over soon, whether you like it or not, and you might as well spend a few minutes humoring us as we all try to ignore that ticking, ticking clock.

4/30/11 by NYC METROPOLIS on Grooveshark

1. To the Alps- Princeton
2. Blue Song- Mint Royale
3. People Like Me- K'naan
4. Blue Skies- Noah and the Whale
5. Fixin' to Die- G. Love

4/27/2011 CINEMATORIALIST: GRETA GERWIG IN ARTHUR


As my first year at Barnard draws to an end, I increasingly find that my peers and I have adopted the habit of feminist critique. A bit bored on the subway, I find myself pulling it out like I did my Gameboy in the fourth grade: "God, that woman's outfit is so offensive, 'Juicy' right across the butt. It's because of women like her that it took us 70 years to get the vote.

» » » Read more

4/23/2011 Shuffle Saturday: Do it, you won't

This week's Shuffle Saturday comes including the 90s one-hit-wonders without which any playlist is truly incomplete. It's all about the jams, man, and give yourself a chance to enjoy them this morning--I think we both know nobody's going outside today. METROPOLIS recommends that for all our sakes you pray to the weather gods, or pray to the Easter God, or raise up a fine shiraz, whatever floats your boat (and you're going to need one, assuming you wanted to go get a bagel from that cart on 107th today).

4/23/11 by NYC METROPOLIS on Grooveshark

1. In the Twilight- Alexander
2. The Wilhelm Scream- James Blake
3. Middle Brother- Middle Brother
--Two songs lost to the ether!--

4/22/2011 WORD TO THE WISE: GIUSEPPE ARCIMBOLDO

In the sweltering month of August, as I spent hundreds of dollars of my parents' money on textbooks, I made one very important promise to them: that I would not become a pretentious academic. If I was going to spend eighty dollars on my intro Anthropology textbook, that was fine, but they didn't want me to start throwing around words like "performative" over Thanksgiving dinner. Somethings, however, are too good to pass up and what, pray tell, is better than paintings of heads made out of fruit? A little ironic, a little psychedelic, certainly not overly academic! So here are the works of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, the sixteenth-century Italian composite painter for your enjoyment:

 
Spring

» » » Read more

4/22/2011 CINEMATORIALIST: The Style of "The Hours"

"The Hours" is kind of a mixed bag - alternately dreary and glorious, thoughtful and overtly sentimental, but it's a movie I'd recommend to most people, if you're into the mystery of the feminine psyche and all that. But the visuals are splendidddd and the costumes are no exception. I for one really loved the simplicity and dreaminess of the Woolf-period.


I call this "wispy elegance". Love the slightly disheveled chignon, the askew necklace, the brooch, and the orange drop earrings. Everything is so subliminal and adds to the look of the character, never taking away from Nicole Kidman's hypnotic gaze. Colors of pink and orange highlight her English-rose complexion.


» » » Read more

4/22/2011 Word to the Wise: A Love Letter For You

I doubt I’d ever choose Philadelphia over New York, except maybe when it comes to cream cheese or giant bells. (Once, a road trip wrong turn almost landed me and a friend lost in North Philly, in the middle of the night, not winning the city any points in my book). But if there’s one area where the City of Brotherly Love has us entirely snowed, it’s in incredibly charming public art installments. It’s been a city known for street art and murals since the 80s--Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program has been a unique tool to counteract graffiti and help at-risk kids for years—and the latest in the legacy is the absolutely lovely A Love Letter for You. 

» » » Read more

4/17/2011 Tipoff: Be Existentially Overwhelmed By Watching "The Tree of Life" and "Melancholia" Trailers Side by Side

Terrence Malick is a name you should know, because even if you haven't seen any of his movies ("Thin Red Line", "Badlands", "The New World"), his name will come in handy if you ever find yourself in the midst of cinephiles and feel the need to sound culturally highbrow, just say "Malick. I like Terrence Malick a lot", and all the aesthetes will murmur in agreement and look upon you favorably.

Lars Von Trier is, for those unfamiliar with him, another filmmaker who carries a lot of cred in the cinematic circles, and whether he's a misogynistic sadist or the most visually distinctive and visionary director of our time, it's considered super chill to bring up his name in any film conversation.

ANYWAY. "Tree of Life" and "Melancholia" are beyond doubt, the two most anticipated movies for a good majority of cinephiles. It's really a Very Big Deal. The trailer for Malick's "The Tree of Life" was released several months ago, and once the internet got over its collective visualgasm, the trailer for Lars Von Trier's "Melancholia" came out. What struck everyone right away was 1) how much the trailers perfectly represented the heart and style of their respective directors and 2) how much thematic content of the two movies seem to complement each other. They're like twins, with "Melancholia" being the evil twin/dark counterpart and "Tree of Life" its sunny, shiny, good half.

Watch the trailers below. One after the other. It doesn't matter which order. Afterwards, eat something like a cookie, just so you can enjoy an act that is concrete and simple, the polar opposite of any Malick/Von Trier movie.


» » » Read more

4/16/2011 Shuffle Saturday: Keep on Keeping on

It's Saturday afternoon and time for a new METROPOLIS feature, in the hope of interrupting your dark days of research paper scribbling and coffee inhaling with a singular ray of light: a 5-song playlist that took less time to mix than this sentence just did to read (METROPOLIS has papers too). Shuffle Sat. represents the results of an utterly* random iTunes shuffle, left entirely** to the gods of chance (much like your paper grades may appear).
*that is, somewhat:

**with minimal human oversight--eg, removal of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers theme song. We have some dignity to preserve.

4/16/11 by NYC METROPOLIS on Grooveshark

In the interest of (retrospectively) preserving the list if songs fall out of the list on Grooveshark (bookkeeping, ladies and gents, we're all about it):

1. Anna Sun- Walk the Moon
2. Wings- Josh Ritter
3. Dog Days are Over- Florence
4. Harlem River Blues- Justin Townes Earle
5. Contact High- Architecture in Helsinki

4/15/2011 Word to the Wise: Arcadia (Tom Stoppard)

Here are some quick and informal thoughts on the production of Arcadia on Broadway, which I saw tonight with my English class. Essentially, it was mindblowing. In the most subtle way possible. Granted, its verbose and complicated nature makes it extremely inaccessible. I feel like everything my English seminar (titled “Science Literature & Culture) has been studying so far has been leading up to the sole goal of reading, seeing, and comprehending Arcadia, from reading Plato’s theory of education and Darwin and the chaos theory to Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio” and Zora Neale Hurston.

And maybe some of the people (or friends) of higher intellectual capacity will read this post and scoff at the idea that I needed an entire semester to train myself to understand Tom Stoppard. But it was so worth it. If you’ve ever had that feeling of complete and utter harmony, that certain “click” when everything slides into place and the universe feels infinite and beautiful, whether it be realizing the theme of a novel or the mechanism of a scientific process, then you can probably empathize with how I was feeling after watching Arcadia.

» » » Read more

4/13/2011 TIPOFF: SCIENCE AND ART AT COLUMBIA

The Columbia Science Review, Scientists and Engineers for a Better Society, Postcrypt Art Gallery and CU AMSA have joined forces to organize Through the Looking Glass – an art and science exhibit aimed at exploring these two seemingly disparate fields. With generous funding from the Gatsby Foundation and the P&P Fund,  we aim to break down boundaries and create meaningful interactions between artists, scientists and viewers. The world that we live in is becoming increasingly diverse and interdisciplinary.
 

We hope to take the idea of interdisciplinarity even further, and spark conversation between science and art. Like in last year's exhibit, we plan to bring together a diverse group of media and topics by Columbia students and affiliates. Each one explores scientific imagery and concepts in an attempt to bridge the gap between what we conventionally think of as two separate worlds. The event will take place on April 15th in Wien Lounge 5-7 pm. Refreshments will be served.  Free tickets are available at The Tic and online here.

-Allison Cohen 

4/11/2011 ONLY IN NEW YORK: THE CLOISTERS EDITION


PHOTOGRAPHS BY AIDA LALEIAN

4/11/2011 Word to the Wise: Up There

If your morning is missing some beautiful views of the city, sharp and funny commentary from unconventional New Yorkers, and insight into an art form you didn't know existed, have we got some (old) news for you.  For three weeks in 2009, Sky High Murals partnered with Stella Artois to document a traditional Belgian beer-pouring ritual on a 20x50 SoHo wall. And this is one ad that actually deserves more than a passing glance--in fact, it's earned a beautiful short documentary film: Up There. 

» » » Read more

4/11/2011 WORD TO THE WISE: BIUTIFUL SMOKE AND MIRRORS

While filmmaking is a massively collaborative endeavor, there are some remarkable individual performances by enormously talented actors which can largely determine the audience's experience of the whole work.  Javier Bardem gives such a performance in Alejandro Inarritu's film, Biutiful, and that gets as close as would be possible to saving this irredeemably flawed film.  

Biutiful carries us into a grim world inhabited by undocumented workers struggling to survive in contemporary Barcelona.  The cinematography renders the world with a convincing, gritty realism, and the desperate circumstances of the characters unfold with a brutal, directness. Bardem portrays Uxbal, a small time criminal, working in the pay of a Chinese underworld figure, marketing the exploitation of undocumented Senegalese and Chinese laborers. It goes without saying that this system has devastating effects on the lives of the all the workers and their families, and no one can be surprised when this leads to a catastrophic, lethal event; a horror for which Uxbal is at least partly responsible.  

» » » Read more

4/09/2011 ONLY IN NEW YORK

1. THE PEACE FOUNTAIN SCULPTURE AMSTERDAM AVE.
2. SATAN'S STRINGS
3. VIEW DOWN 111TH ST.

4/06/2011 WORD TO THE WISE: POPOVERS- A SWEET SENSATION


I am someone who loves good, reasonably priced food, and sometimes in New York City, depending on the area, the only good food is expensive, and the only cheap food is greasy. Consequently, one of my favorite places to eat is Popover Cafe (Amsterdam Ave. & 86th St.).
Like the name connotes, their delicacy is popovers, with strawberry butter. I like to consider myself an afficionado of popovers, and have found those at Popovers to have a certain warm, moist taste. The average popover is dry and crunchy on both the inside and out, creating a rather bland flavor. Popovers’ popovers are not like that at all, and the strawberry just enhances the moist flavor and adds sweetness. The other food to be found there is on the more ordinary side, but well made.
Admittedly, the interior does have a somewhat musty smell, which can detract from the food and comfort of the environment. Yet, Popovers’ food and prices do make up for the smells and slightly grungy décor, making this a necessary stop on any Upper West Side visit.


-Esther Brot

4/06/2011 If You Like, Then You'd Like: Adele and Paloma Faith

Two gorgeous English redheads, two soul singers with 2011 edge? These ladies are practically screaming for an If You Like, Then You'd Like! Onwards, readers, into another pairing designed to expand your distinctly American horizons, featuring an artist the Brits have been loving since '09. I, your steadfast matchmaker, offer you once more a musical love connection--Here's a  solid and sturdy link among those cocktail party recommendations and blind Pandora guesses that form the fringes of your musical awareness: If you like Adele, then you'd like Paloma Faith.

» » » Read more

4/04/2011 Tipoff: JANE EYRE 2011


The Beginning:
Reader, I am a fan. On Friday night, when I should have been drilling political science theories into my resistant mind, I went to see Jane Eyre. It was not so much a matter of whether or not I had time (who does in college?). It was more about how many of my Jane-Eyre-loving friends could come with me.

I ended up going with two other lovers of 19th century novels, one of them an avid fan of Jane Eyre, with high expectations and whole chapters memorized. I promised her that if she said lines along with the actors, as she warned that she would, I would create a buffer between us (in the form of our third friend). I dreaded hearing Rochester’s declaration of love suddenly develop an undertone of femininity from the voice next to me. I did not carry through with the plan. As the seating arrangement went, my friend made endearing gasps and chest clutches throughout, while an older lady next to me showed some matured version of that same reaction (which manifested itself in orders to her husband to take back the popcorn and shushes all around.)

» » » Read more

4/03/2011 ONLY IN NEW YORK



  1. View through the window of Two Little Red Hens bakery
  2. Dragon door of a 5th Avenue apartment 
  3. Abandoned milk jug on a Bronx sidewalk

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)