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Columbia staff shows off
First showcase of staff work a success
The spotlight shined down on Martha Meegan July 9 as she crooned fiery cabaret songs to an audience of Columbia administrators and faculty. Meegan is not a professional cabaret singer, at least, not anymore. She is Columbia's director of campus safety. But that night, she was a star, a singing sensation as part of the school's first ever staff showcase. Look out, Liza Minnelli.
Columbia is billed as the “premier visual, performing, media and communication arts college” in the country, so it's no wonder that student work is constantly on display. But what about the highly touted “working professionals” that comprise the school's staff? Why haven't we seen what makes them so special? This concern was addressed with the Partners in the Arts Staff Showcase—an exhibition of all staff work.
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It’s
just your friendly neighborhood box office hit
For all anthropomorphic arachnid aficionados, action
junkies and lovers of good cinema, Spider-Man 2
is easily one of the best movies to be released this
year, hands down.
While the original film was limited in its scope and
ability due to the cumbersome task of fashioning an
origin story, Spider-Man 2 is virtually free
of many of the clunky elements that hampered the first
film’s progress. Director Sam Raimi has preserved
the original’s kinetic energy, ratcheting it up
a few ticks with the addition of cinematographer Bill
Pope (The Matrix trilogy, Army of Darkness),
successfully widening the film’s boundaries...
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‘School’s out for summer’ ... now what?
With more than 40 different
citywide summer festivals to choose from, which will
you attend?
Finally, the school year is ending. Summer is the time
to unwind, unless you’re one of those junior/seniors
taking a full courseload this summer to get out of school
after six years. But if free time is on your side, Chicago
has plenty of summer activities lined up to keep you
entertained. Here’s some of the things that’ll
be keeping us busy until deadlines start coming up next
year:
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ICE,
ICE baby
International Contemporary
Ensemble mentors Columbia students
The history of the International Contemporary Ensemble
is as diverse as the music its members perform.
And its history in Chicago begins with Claire Chase,
ICE’s executive director.
When Chase moved to Chicago shortly after graduating
from the music program at Oberlin College in Oberlin,
Ohio, she didn’t know what she wanted to do with
her life, she said.
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Summer of not so special effects terrorize the multiplex
Hugh Jackman fights against it in Van Helsing. Dennis
Quaid is a minor character working with it in The Day
After Tomorrow. There would be no Spider-Man 2 without
its triumphant technology. It’s the computer-generated
image, a special effect that has more screen time than
the likes of Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts.
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Second City cult classic on DVD
Get out the backbacon and put on your tukes, hosers—“SCTV”
is back on the air.
Fans who have been waiting patiently for as long as
15 years for an official release of the Canadian series
that flipped the bird at television stations—and
served as a launching pad for comedians such as John
Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Martin Short and Catherine
O’Hara—will finally get their wish. On June
8, the first selection of nine episodes will become
available on DVD along with a multitude of minidocumentaries,
audio commentaries and a reunion special hosted by Conan
O’Brien.
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Self-indulgent ‘chaos’
The once grungy, angst-ridden singer-songwriter
turned spiritualist Alanis Morissette has once again
changed (or attempted to change) her style. On her fourth
Maverick Records studio release, So -Called
Chaos, Morissette seems to have taken some ideas from
Moby—making her overly introspective songs fit
for a rave. As for the album’s subject matter:
We “oughta know” the songs are pretty much
the same as those of hers we’ve heard before.
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