Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
April 25, 2025
April 25, 2025 | Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896

arts




OFFICIAL LE WEB PHOTOS/CC BY 2.0
German artist Karl Lagerfeld is creative director of the fashion house Chanel.

Plastic fashion reflects modern fears

We live in a plastic world. Many of us are surrounded by plastic wherever we go. We wake up and use plastic toothbrushes, buy food in plastic containers and shower with soap contained in plastic bottles.


SASHA KARGALTSEY/CC BY 2.0
Iconic actor Willem Dafoe plays Bobby in Sean Baker’s newest film, The Florida Project.

The Florida Project is Americana at its best

It’s easy to think that there aren’t any films being produced that capture the mundane aspects of everyday American life. However that’s not entirely true; we do get these films, but they are often independent.



GORVELL/CC BY-SA 4.0T
Norwegian DJ Kygo performed at the Rio Olympics closing ceremony.

How I learned to love EDM as a way to escape

People generally have very specific and arbitrary tastes; I am one such person. I think that J. Cole makes simple, boring music, but you can find me on any given day listening to Famous Dex and Lil Xan. I say that I hate melted cheese, yet adore pizza. I enjoy funk and poppy dance music, but don’t give EDM a chance.


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Musician and actor Jack Black starred in the film version of School of Rock.

Film Society stages lively School of Rock reading

School of Rock is not a movie about sitting down. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a comedy about a man who teaches a group of elementary school students how to play rock and roll music while pretending to be their substitute teacher.


COURTESY OF MARGARET MOON
Biddle teaches non-fiction in the Writing Seminars Department.

Professor Wayne Biddle’s pop culture picks

Professor Biddle is a Baltimore native who teaches in the Writing Seminars Department. A former reporter for The New York Times, his speciality is non-fiction writing. He teaches a variety of courses including this fall’s “Non-fiction in the Post-Factual Era.”




Black female poets discuss race and sexuality

Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse hosted a poetry reading by The Black Ladies Brunch Collective for a reading of poems from their book Not Without Our Laughter: Poems of Humor, Joy & Sexuality. This group of black female artists celebrated the importance of art, love and laughter in resisting oppression.



GEORGES BIARD / CC BY-SA 3.0
The cast and director of Meyerowitz Stories attended the film’s Cannes debut.

Sandler’s new Netflix film has promise

Back in 2014, Netflix signed Adam Sandler to a four-picture deal. This meant that Netflix would finance and exclusively release four new, original films created by Sandler. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I found this out I couldn’t contain my frustration.


COURTESY OF THROAT CULTURE
Throat Culture opened its season last Saturday with asthma-based sketches.

Throat Culture hosts a comical season debut

Throat Culture, the only on-campus sketch comedy troupe at Hopkins, had its first show of the semester on Saturday, Oct. 14. Let me tell you, it had everything: inhaler jokes, back tests, vegans, inhaler jokes, witches and even more inhaler jokes.


COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERY
Amy Sherald, The light in her is easy to love. Oil on canvas, 2017.

Local painter challenges Euro-centric focus in art

In recent years, the United States has seen a resurged emphasis on identity in politics. This lends greater national attention to many provocative visual artists, particularly those who seek to subvert the tenets of an oppressive society, like the lack of representation of marginalized groups in media.






SIANKEVINS/CC BY-SA 4.0
Joshua Davis discussed various activist-entrepreneurs at Red Emma’s.

Author Joshua Davis explores ties between activism and business

Red Emma’s Bookstore hosted a talk on the history of social enterprise and fair trade in Baltimore, on Oct. 5. The event was centered around a new book titled From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs written by Joshua Clark Davis, a professor and researcher at the University of Baltimore.


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