The Harvard Crimson :: Arts

Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta

Fri, 15 May 2009 05:42:32 GMT

This unusual, timely and beautiful film, Journey to Mecca, presents a more sympathetic interpretation of Islam both to the West and to the East.

Saturday in Dixieland on the Charles

Tue, 05 May 2009 16:32:21 GMT

Find yourself wanting to just whistle some Dixie? Jonesing for some jazz? Then, get your fix during Arts First weekend at the Harvard Dixieland Ensemble’s “New Orleans to New England: Dixieland and Early Jazz” performance tomorrow in Memorial Church.

Johnson Does Noir

Tue, 05 May 2009 16:26:38 GMT

“When she got to her feet, the knees of her pants were frayed and bits of gravel clung to the fabric, but she didn’t brush them clean or in any other way distract her focus from the figure kneeling on the opposite bank. The dark shape across the water grew elongated, also standing. They faced one another with the Feather River in between. In two or three more hours? they would kneel again and drink.”

Acclaimed Poet Phillips Meditates on Life

Tue, 05 May 2009 16:24:43 GMT

Carl Phillips ’81 dramatizes the weeping of Patroclus’ horses at their owner’s death in the poem “Happiness”; “Immortal, / and yet earthbound, hovering around their disbelief, / around their instinct not to believe…” they weep without understanding, until the anguish recedes and they are returned to indifference. It is the analysis of sorrowful themes such as this, tinged with optimism, that characterizes his latest collection “Speak Low.”

Amidon’s ‘Security’ Probes, If Predictably

Tue, 05 May 2009 16:22:58 GMT

Early on in “Security,” Stephen Amidon’s most recent novel, security technician Edward Inman describes the changes in his job over the decades. “It used to be that a lock was enough to keep people calm; now paranoia dictates that every house be outfitted with cameras and sensors, wires under the floors, and reinforced panic rooms. No matter if Stoneleigh, Massachusetts is virtually crime-free—people want to know about every movement at every moment.”

Food For Thought

Fri, 01 May 2009 04:21:30 GMT

Carl Ehrlich ’09 has been eating the same burger almost every night for the past four years: a double cheeseburger with pickles, two packets of mustard and two packets of ketchup. Erhlich, captain of Harvard’s football team, a blogger for Go Crimson, and an aspirant novelist with a secondary in philosophy, was also the winner of b. good’s Cousin Oliver contest. He, in other words, is entitled to free burgers from the Dunster Street joint for the rest of his life.

Get Thee To A Nunnelly

Fri, 01 May 2009 04:20:41 GMT

When Michael Scott (Steve Carrel) of “The Office” talks about paper with that little twinkle in his eye, I admit I get a little choked up. Like Michael, I have an affinity for paper, and I love to hold it in my hands. That’s what she said.

Bernstein Bares It All

Fri, 01 May 2009 04:07:10 GMT

If you have any objections to the settlement struck between Google Books Search and the publishing industry, you better send it out soon. All objections must be postmarked May 5, 2009 or earlier. And objections, of course, are being raised from all sides.

Portrait in a Crimson Mirror: JOHN ASHBERY ’49

Fri, 01 May 2009 03:41:20 GMT

Reading a poem by John Ashbery ’49 for the first time feels like walking into the room of a stranger. The space is mysterious; the language, unfamiliar. There is some sort of order, but it is known only to the owner. Slowly, though, orienting details emerge. Ashbery’s words take on a reassuring rhythm, thrumming steadily, visually, against the walls of the mind. Gradually one gets one’s bearings, locating oneself within the discursive beauty. “How does it feel to be outside and inside at the same time, / The delicious feeling of the air contradicting and secretly abetting / The interior warmth?” asks Ashbery in “The Bungalows,” lines that could apply to his work itself.

Band Pays Tribute One Final Time

Fri, 01 May 2009 03:39:50 GMT

Despite their label as a cover band, the group slated to perform as the Rod Stewart Tribute Band during Arts First weekend has a surprisingly varied catalogue. Over the last few weeks, they’ve perfected a repertoire of pop hits—ranging from Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” to the Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” and Prince’s “Erotic City”— to be performed tomorrow at their multimedia event “Your Favorite Stars” in the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub.