OPINION 23 Jan. 2014 A2
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Online: www.hillsdalecollegian.com Editor in Chief: Caleb Whitmer News Editor: Evan Brune City News Editor: Taylor Knopf Opinions Editor: Sally Nelson Sports Editor: Morgan Delp Arts Editor: Abigail Wood Spotlight Editor: Casey Harper Web Editor: Alex Anderson Washington Editor: Sam Scorzo Circulation Manager: Daniel Slonim Ad Managers: Matt Melchior Assistant Editors: Macaela Bennett | Jack Butler | Hannah Leitner | Chris McCaffrey | Micah Meadowcroft | Bailey Pritchett | Teddy Sawyer | Morgan Sweeney | Amanda Tindall Photographers: Anders Kiledal | Shaun Lichti | Gianna Marchese | Ben Block | Carsten Stann | Ben Strickland Faculty Advisers: John J. Miller | Maria Servold The editors welcome Letters to the Editor but reserve the right to edit submissions for clarity, length, and style. Letters should be 450 words or less and include your name and number. Send submissions to snelson1@hillsdale.edu before Sunday at 6 p.m.
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Few books have had the power to make me reconsider my list of favorite books. “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” however, was one of them. Neil Gaiman has taken a story told from the view of a child and made it a magnificent tale for adults. With stunning finesse, he brings the fantastic and the ordinary together and gives us a story guaranteed both to delight us and tear our feelings to shreds. It’s about loss, and family, and memory; three things that, whether we realize it or not, go hand in hand. Gaiman’s book reminds us that, as grown ups, returning to our roots is just as important as moving on from them. And he does this all with beautiful, simple prose. It couldn’t be told in any other way, and that, perhaps, is the real shining point of this wonderful novel. - Maddie Overholtzer, junior 2013 was a great year for American satire, with George Saunders’ “Tenth of December” and Thomas Pynchon’s “Bleeding Edge.” Saunders’ “Tenth of December” is not only his most original book since “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,” it was far and away the best collection of short stories published last year. Whether he is satirizing the American tendency to take medications instead of developing virtues (one of his characters takes KnightLyf ™ to become more chivalric; another gains eloquence through the wonders of VerbaLuce ™), or the complete inability to take responsibility for one’s actions, Saunders shows himself to be our Juvenal, if not our Swift. However, he has never been a writer of satire only, and with the title story and several others in this collection, he writes of alienation and the melancholy of reconciliation in such a way that he sounds more like a contemporary spiritual writer rather than a satirist. - Dutton Kearney, assistant professor of English
In 2011, the recently Grammy-crowned members of Arcade Fire took a trip to Haiti to assist in earthquake relief efforts. The band already had ties to the Caribbean country (singer/multi-instrumentalist Régine Chassagne’s parents fled from there during the oppressive Duvalier regime), but their trip brought them closer than ever to the country’s people and music. There they encountered something that had been largely missing from Arcade Fire’s body of work: music without baggage. The Haitian street music known as Rara reminded the band that music doesn’t always need to serve a better purpose than to simply get people dancing. So to record “Reflektor,” their next album, the band that once titled an album “Funeral” loosened their black ties and donned carnival masks. The result was breathtaking: an ambitious double album that traced a path from reggae and disco to electropop and hit all the right notes along the way. The title’s a bit of a misnomer: the album is less reflective than it is kaleidoscopic. Not even a late contender from Beyoncé could match this one. - Ian Ostaszewski, senior I have long been an admirer of Sergei Rachmaninov’s rousing piano compositions, but I have only recently discovered the composer’s choral music. Rachmaninov wrote “All-Night Vigil” in 1915 as a response to the violence and suffering of World War I, but the liturgical piece was banned shortly afterward in the Bolshevik Revolution and has only become popular again in the last fifty years. In this new album, the 27-member Latvian Radio Choir under the direction of Sivgards Klava ably sustains the rich tradition of Russian Orthodox choral music by skillfully and emotionally interpreting a wide range of musical motifs, from the grandeur of the opening and closing movements to the poignant harmonies of several inner movements. Anyone who savors the unadorned beauty of the human voice should treasure this beautiful performance. - David Graber, senior
“How I Met Your Mother” finally delivered on its promise to reveal the show’s namesake. Like most television series, however, show creators dropped the morsel of information in the last 10 seconds of the season 8 finale in May of 2013. It was long enough to spend the summer stewing over the choice. My first impression was one of slight disappointment. Maybe at the writers for leaving me hanging for three months, but perhaps it was aimed toward all of the elaborate hints at the mother culminated in a quick camera shot of a cute girl buying a train ticket to Farhampton. Alas, the show I had dedicated my Monday nights to since high school fulfilled its promise and peace would come at last. Now, let’s go to the mall, everybody! - Martha Ekdahl, senior
I thought that the best movies of the year were “12 Years a Slave,” “Gravity” (an amazing technical achievement with a very good performance by Sandra Bullock as well), “Captain Phillips,” and “Star Trek Into Darkness” (I had to include a science fiction film—I wouldn’t really count “Gravity” as science fiction—and I thought that the homage to “Wrath of Khan” worked better than some other fans thought that it did). I thought that the worst movies of the year were “A Good Day to Die Hard” (a sad fate for the once fun Die Hard franchise) and “Grown Ups 2,” about which the less said the better! - Donald Turner, professor of philosophy
Best Book
Although Hillsdale alumna Ruta Sepetys published her first novel, “Between Shades of Gray,” two years ago and has been winning awards for it ever since, it gained more popularity with the publication of her second novel, “Out of the Easy,” in 2013. “Between Shades of Gray” tells the story of a 15-year-old Lithuanian girl who is taken by the NKVD—the Soviet Union’s law enforcement during WWII—and kept in an internment camp in Siberia. The book highlights aspects of the war that are usually overlooked, specifically the brutality that occurred on the side of the Allied powers. The entire novel, however, is quietly beautiful and ceaselessly hopeful despite its heavy content, which sets it apart from so many contemporary novels. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of a new trend in literature. - Mindi Popovich, junior
My favorite thing about the Internet in 2013 is the fact that Yahoo paid $1.1 billion for the microblogging site Tumblr. As Tumblr users such as myself know, Tumblr is the strangest thing on the Internet. Forget Reddit, and scrub 4chan out of your brain. Tumblr is queen. There is something WRONG with this website. And Yahoo is so out of date that they still post articles like “Are your teens getting high on iPads?!?” and “Cute fashion trends that men HATE” (Editor’s note: these are not actual Yahoo articles). So after the purchase was completed in late spring, the rest of my internet year was filled with the usual Tumblr nonsense tagged, “this is what Yahoo paid $1.1 billion for.” I do not recommend searching that tag. - Anne Peterson, senior
Most Important Internet Moment
Best Album Creative depravity and excessive irony on the part of numerous well-established artists (Arcade Fire, MGMT, Kanye West, et al.) made room for Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor, better known by her stage name, Lorde, to steal 2013. Her freshman release “Pure Heroine” has snagged a fair amount of critical praise, as well as four Grammy nominations. Lead single “Royals” garnered much attention on alternative radio over the summer before being picked up by Top 40 stations, permeating the usually impenetrable line between artistic acclaim and mainstream popularity. Start to finish, “Pure Heroine” is genuinely inventive (a lost art in pop music) without any intention of irony (again, a lost art). In resurrecting a dull and lifeless genre, Lorde brought improbable truth to the following statement: the debut of a 16-year-old feminist from New Zealand was the best album of 2013. She is absolutely worth the hype. - Alex Eaton, sophomore
Arts
2013 was the year of the Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a digital currency, and finding one involves solving complex computer calculations. It has no government backing, so value is based on how the market is trading Bitcoins. Due to its infancy, the market is going through wild fluctuations, from $13 in January of 2013, to roughly $700 today. More and more businesses are accepting Bitcoins as payment, bringing a lot of speculation to the Bitcoin market. It’s free market oriented, digital, and almost untraceable. I am confident that if Bitcoin remains a strong currency, it has the potential to change how the world exchanges money, and possibly the Internet itself. - Brady Bellew, junior
While I’m not sure if all would agree with this, since by no means am I a fashionista, I would have to say that the the best fashion trends of 2013 would be sock buns, leather, and the return of grunge. It allowed people to pair denim/chambray with a skirt, or add a statement necklace to a crew neck sweatshirt or cute tshirt. A nice peplum top or dress (before it was overdone) was also a great trend. I also would say the worst looks of the year 2013 would be harem pants and crop top/cutout shirts or dresses. Platform or “flatform” shoes should not have returned either. - Corinne Wiggins, sophomore
The best fashion trend in 2013 was the increased prominence of my favorite pattern: gingham. If you are unfamiliar with the pattern, you should Google it immediately because The best TV moment of 2013 probably had to be the Red Wedding you are missing out. This past year I have seen gingham ties, scene in the “Game of Thrones” episode, “The Rains of Castamere.” gingham shirts, gingham phone cases, and even gingham This scene was so powerful and gut-wrenching. Since the majority of socks! Gingham apparel has become not only acceptable but the episode seemed a bit lazy and unfinished, the ending blindsided also necessary in the wardrobe of anyone who has aspirathe viewers. I was in shock for a good hour after the massacre of the tions of becomoing an extremely sharp dresser. Starks in Lord Frey’s home. Following the airing of this episode, the I can’t think of a particular worst fashion trend of 2013 Internet universally agreed that George R.R. Martin was to be the but I will say that I am not a fan of the whole male capri/ most reviled person in the world. This episode makes the wait until the next season, which starts in April, unbearable. rolling pants up to the bottom of the calf thing that seemed to show up everywhere (especially in the spring and sum - Elise Steffke, sophomore mer). I am not trying to offend men who do this but I just can’t seem to grasp why guys would want to show off their ankles… - Kadeem Noray, junior
Best TV Moment
Kevin Ware’s Leg, March Madness: The game against Duke shuts down in horror when Louisville’s guard, Kevin Ware, shattered the Tibia and Fibula in his right leg — easily the most graphic and gruesome injury suffered in College Basketball. Kanye West on BBC 1: Kanye calls himself bigger than Michael Jackson, claims he’s a civil rights movement, followed by another #KanyeTwitterRampage when Jimmy Kimmel mocks him for it. The Nelson Mandela Memorial Fake Sign Language Interpreter: The deaf community points out that the sign language at Mandela’s memorial had been total gibberish. The interpreter, Thamsanqa Jantjie, claims to have suffered a schizophrenic episode which rendered him incapable of signing. - Whittaker Dunn, senior Two movies that vie for “Best of 2013” that are not in the obvious category are “Frances Ha” and “All Is Lost.” The first is a charming story of post-college challenges (starring Greta Gerwig) that didn’t go blue the way so many of these productions do (see “Girls”). “All Is Lost” stars Robert Redford in a story about survival in a busted yacht somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Both show that you don’t need special effects or high drama for a good movie. - Darryl Hart, assistant professor of history
Best Movie
Fashion Trends Best Fashion Trend of 2013: Chambray Worst Fashion Trend of 2013: The “mullet” dress. These are the dresses that are short in the front and long in the back. - Rachel Fernelius, junior
I believe the best song of 2013 would have to be Lady Gaga’s song “Venus,” off of her new album “ARTPOP.” Not only is it catchy, but also it is different from all other “pop” music released over the year. She successfully combines pop and art into the song by combining Greek mythology with a psychedelic and futuristic beat. Of course, you do get the typical Lady Gaga sexual imagery as well. Also, if you feel like Pluto deserves its position as a planet again, you would enjoy her inclusion of it in the song. - William Persson, freshman
Best Song
It’s a brag, goal, and summertime anthem all at once. Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” topped global charts for its universal dancebility and easy listening, for good reason. The electro-pop song combines retrospection with the disco sound of Nile Rodger’s guitar and the robot-duo’s signature futurism. - Sally Nelson, senior
My pick for best song of 2013 is “Smooth” by Vinyl Thief. This is from their debut album and is a classic indie rock tune. They were a Dr. Wolfram band pick of the week and are making a breakthrough with this song. - Gary Wolfram, professor of political economy
“American Hustle”: David O. Russell, the director who brought us “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” has again struck gold. The most impressive part of this movie was the cast, and its standout performance from none other than Jennifer Lawrence. “Her”: Spike Jonze gives an interesting and believable take on what the future might hold for us. Although the idea behind “Her” might not be for the majority of Hillsdale, I think everyone can relate to its heartfelt, raw emotion. “The Wolf Of Wall Street”: Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio team up again to create a movie driven by testosterone, this time depicting the life of a power hungry stockbroker in the late 1980s. Yes, it is vulgar. Yes, it is raunchy. Yes, it is wrong. But it’s also hilariously entertaining. WARNING: DO NOT SEE THIS WITH YOUR PARENTS. - Michael Carter, senior