I can’t remember the last time I went to an art museum (or any museum, for that matter). I miss walking down long hallways and through expansive rooms, admiring art from different times in different styles in different forms. And I’m not sure when I will next be able to go to an art museum—the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is still “temporarily closed.” But museums aren’t the only places to see art.
Spring of 2020. Birds were singing, COVID-19 was turning the world upside-down, and I was finishing my senior year of high school. On May 15th, Avatar: The Last Airbender dropped on Netflix in the United States, and I, like many others, rejoiced. Finally, an easy way to watch this childhood classic! Something else to fill the endless hours of quarantine! Without a doubt, convenience and boredom were two factors that prompted so many young adults to binge this kids show last year. They weren’t the only factors, though.
I first came to know about the Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli when I was a kid, having watched the English dubbed Ponyo. I was fascinated with the animation, the bright red for Ponyo’s dress and orange for her hair, the deep blues that made up the ocean. Little did I know, just a few years later, I would be completely in love with the other films coming out of the company.
The Enneagram Personality Test can be taken on various websites including EclecticEnergies.com (my favorite) as well as Truity.com and The EnneagramInstitute.com. It’s a personality test based in psychology that categories people into nine different personality types. However, there are also wings and when you take it you get a list and therefore can figure out a combination of the numbers. After all, personalities are complex, but learning more about yours (and those around you) can actually be life-changing.
Ravenna is a beautiful old city in the region of Emilia-Romagna near the Eastern coast of Italy. It is famous for its many churches, many of which hold the most breathtaking Byzantine mosaics. There are eight UNESCO world heritage sites in Ravenna.
Contemporary art has always been terrifying to me. I pictured abstract installations making social commentary that went right over my head, so I thought it was safer to stick with the popular classics that I knew and loved. Popular media shows the art world as super rich and super white, which is partly true, but there are also a massive number of contemporary artists today whose work is relevant to the lives of people who don’t go into galleries and casually purchase a painting for thousands of dollars.
It’s finally spring in D.C! The cherry blossoms are blooming and so are our hearts. Daffodils, hyacinths, pear trees, periwinkles, and magnolias are popping up everywhere and reminding us why we love this city in the first place. However, did you know that many of these flowers have hidden meanings? Floriology is a term describing the language of flowers. Throughout history, different cultures have used flowers as subtle symbols in art and even used them to convey secret messages. Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Europeans, and many more all have developed their own language of flowers.
Reality TV-- it’s commonly thought of as a “guilty pleasure.” Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Love Island, Marriage or Mortgage, Love is Blind, RuPaul’s Drag Race, are all supposed to be embarrassing to admit that you watch. For me, though, reality TV is an escape from reality itself.
A lot of people have heard of Laika, the famous Soviet space dog whose death has sparked the telling and retelling of her story as a tragic example of using animals in scientific endeavors. When telling her story, however, there tends to be a lot of other dogs left out of the story, both before and after her mission in Sputnik II. I work at the National Air and Space Museum, and here is my telling of the Soviet space dogs’ stories.
Phoebe Bridgers is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter known for her albums Punisher and Stranger in The Alps as well as her collaborations boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center. Carmen Maria Machado is a writer (and AU Alumna :P) known for her memoir In The Dream House and her anthology of speculative short fiction, Her Body and Other Parties. Bridgers often cites Her Body and Other Parties as a favorite book and inspiration for Punisher. As a fan of both Bridgers and Machado, I felt it was my obligation to do my best to pair stories from Her Body and Other Parties with songs from Punisher.
Mary Blair’s Disney Animation concept art coaxes color to the apex of its capabilities. The influence of her paintings sparked to brilliance the classic Disney features we know and love.
JoJo Siwa came out as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community two months ago, and her sexuality is a great representation for her young audience.
This year, The Bachelor has taken one blow after another in the wake of racist incidents from a contestant, just as the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum this past summer. The show has received a lot of backlash, but this isn’t the first time racist incidents and remarks have happened in The Bachelor franchise. In fact, they’re common, and happen implicitly every season.
Ginny and Georgia is a comedy-drama series that was released by Netflix on Feb. 24. It’s about the life of young free-spirited mother Georgia and her two children Ginny and Austin who move to Wellsbury, Massachusetts, for a fresh start. The ten-episode series is worth the binge-watch because of all the different topic areas explored such as new love, home, friends, and lies.
BookTok has quickly become a phenomenon in the literary world, and while it has created a large community of readers, the recommendations are redundant and restricted to a select few authors and common tropes.
Taylor Swift’s dispute over the ownership of her first six albums is finally coming to a close, with the announcement of her re-recording of Fearless being released on April 9th. In the meantime, fans are preparing to be hit with the nostalgia that songs like “You Belong with Me” and “The Way I Loved You” brings back.
Your one-stop-shop for those last minute gift ideas!
Accompanying the “Editor’s Choice” labels you will see in our Fall 2020 issue, this blog post contains an explanation from each editor, giving you a glimpse into the reasons behind their choice.
With the arrival of winter break and COVID-19 continuing to put a stop to our social lives, now is the perfect time to either dust off the books gathering dust on the shelf or buy yourself one that is stiff and new. The hunt for a good book can sometimes be a challenge with so many amazing options out there (so many books, so little time!), but fear not, for astrology solves all problems.
You may have heard of The Florida Project through TikTok. If you did, you probably saw teenage girls pose effortlessly in front of the famous South Floridian purple motel in technicolor edited videos on the app. The popular sound to the videos combines an indie track with the sarcastic free-spirited voice of Halley, the young mother in the film.
Solutions by The State News