Staff Favorites
These are our favorites of the past year.
Perhaps not Broadway-ready, but an enjoyable evening nonetheless
Last weekend, The Two Orphans, penned by Theresa Rebeck (M.A. '83, M.F.A. '86, Ph.D. 89) with music by Kim D. Sherman and lyrics by Rebeck and John Sheehy (M.F.A. 89), began its world-premier run as the Brandeis Theater Companys first mainstage musical, under the direction of Dennis Garnhum. There will be slight spoilers in this article. None of the major plot twists will be revealed, but those seeing the play this weekend may want to observe the warning before reading on.
True to its roots in melodrama, The Two Orphans has a particularly deep (although fairly easy to follow) plot that gradually comes to connect all of its major characters. Heres the quick rundown of the major characters without giving away anything that happens after the first twenty minutes: Two ex-slaves, Henriette (Lindsey McWhorter GRAD) and the blind Louise (Nicole Brathwaite), arrive in New Orleans shortly after the Civil War. Henriettes fiery spirit arouses the interest of The Marquis (Robert Serrell GRAD), who enlists the aid of his ex-slave sidekick Stone (Sheldon Best 08) in his quest to sleep with her. The action of the play soon grows to involve the family of La Frochard (Liz Terry THA), a small-scale crook with two sons, the crippled Pierre (Eli Schneider 06) and the violent Jake (Josh Mervis 08), as well as the family of post-war Reconstruction official Bloodgood (Luis Negrn EQUITY) and his wife Diane (Jennie El-Far 07). Other key characters include Bloodgoods nephew Armand (Aaron Costa Ganis 06) and Jakes battered mistress Marianne (Jordan Butterfield 07).
The top 10 of 2005
With remixes, collaborations, comebacks, reunions, and double albums, 2005 has presented one of the better years of music in the last decade. Although there was still a considerable amount of mediocre (Dave Matthews Bands Stand Up) and downright terrible (50 Cents The Massacre) releases, the past year has seen an extensive rise in well-thought, brilliantly composed releases. In the hundreds of releases that come out every year, a small number take the proverbial music cakehere are the top ten for 2005.
E pur si muove: Themanwhosawthroughthedarkness
First Light: It is the moment when a new telescopes lens is first exposed to the light of the heavens. Light, made of photons, particles that have no size, travels through space fast enough to travel in a second seven times around the world. It could reach the moon in under two seconds. The time it would take to reach us from Jupiter: Forty-five minutes. Thus, long ago, did photons travel from there to the eyes of a man in Italy, through a small tube he had fashioned and now held in his hands, gazing at the sky
Jenny Feinberg’s State of the Union Address
Here is the transcript of Jenny Feinberg's complete State of the Union Address on December 6, 2005:
I woke up this morning to find F-Board member Harrison Chizik and
Senator Brian Paternostro passed out, still in their clothes, on the
couches in my Ridgewood. Scattered around the table and floor were
half-eaten late-night snacks, empty coffee mugs, and pages of my
speech. Based on the evidence before me, there was no question that
Harrison and Brian had stayed up the entire night, making edits and
additions to my speech for this evening. At that moment, I realized and
reminded myself what makes our Student Union different from past years'
Unions. We are a Union that cares;
we care about each other, we care
about the message of this organization, and most importantly, we care
about making Brandeis a place students love to study, work, and live.
Jamele Adams
When Jamele Adams is in a room, you know it.
After only three months at Brandeis as Assistant Dean of Student Life in Support of Diversity, Adams is already everywhere. This is because, as he says, you cant just have an open door policy, you have to go to where people are. He accomplishes this by doing various hall programs to encourage diversity, performing his spoken word poetry around campus, and hosting major campus-wide events.
The Brandeis Brief
The Shapiro Campus Center will not be open 24 hours a day during finals due to the budgetary constraints of the Division of Student Life. Assistant Dean of Student Life Alwina Bennett is expected to make the announcement this Sunday to the Student Senate.
December Darfur Conference
Students and experts from across the nation converged on Harvard University last weekend for the December Darfur Conference. The conference was organized by students from Brandeis, Harvard, Wellesley, and Georgetown and attended by two hundred and fifty students from 20+ colleges and high schools.
Stein staff stungby WPD
The Stein restaurant was caught serving alcohol to underage individuals on November 10th and may lose its liquor license, according to Waltham Police.
Attacks in Village, Massell
The rooms of four female residents of the Village and Massell quads were entered last weekend by an unknown college-age assailant, and one resident was assaulted, according to Ed Callahan and the Waltham Police Department. The victim of the Village assault was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital to treat her injuries.
At approximately 4 a.m. Saturday, according to the first of two safety alerts Public Safety sent to the Brandeis community, a student in the Village A residence hall was repeatedly punched by an individual who then quickly fled the building.
Mbasketball hits road on .500 note
The Judges rebounded from their disappointing overtime meltdown against Tufts to knock off host Clark University 69-48 Tuesday night. Brandeis got off to a slow start on 33.3 percent shooting from the field that found them down 26-25 in a very even first half.
NFL week thirteen recap
Last year if Peyton Manning had thrown for less than two hundred yards in a game, the Colts certainly wouldnt have won the game 35-3. However, this year they have gone 12-0, scoring an average of more than 35 points a game over the last 10 weeks. Many believe that the Colts will achieve a perfect season, which no team has done since the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Winning those last four games will be no small task, even for the Colts, as the next three teams they face have records of 9-3 (Jacksonville), 8-4 (San Diego), and 10-2 (Seattle).
The NBAs 1st Quarter
The NBA season is heating up now as we enter the middle of December. Its a bit early to know who will win the most games or the MVP or Rookie of the Year awards, but ideas are forming.
Good, bad and the ugly from ’05
With Eli Wallach visiting the campus back in October, we at Hoot Sports decided to borrow from the title of probably the most famous film Wallach starred in: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and apply it to a look back at 2005 in sports.
This Week in Sports
Baseball
The Toronto Blue Jays signed A.J. Burnett for 55 million dollars over five years.
The Florida Marlins traded Paul Lo Duca to the New York Mets for a minor league pitcher.
Swim Notebook
This past weekend was the Wesleyan Invitational. Brandeis took part in the meet, along with Wesleyan University, Bentley College, and MIT. Both the men and women had 23 events each.
Fencing Notebook
Last Sunday the Brandeis fencing team welcomed Vassar, Yale, Brown, and St. Johns to the Gosman sports complex to participate in the first Brandeis Invitational of the season. Both the mens and womens teams produced some highlights during the day, but the final results were ultimately disappointing. The mens side went 2-2, with an 18-9 victory over Vasser and a 17-10 win over Yale coupled with 14-13 and 16-11 losses to Brown and St. Johns, respectively. The women only managed to generate a 20-7 win over Vasser while losing their other three matches, including a 21-6 blowout at the hands of St. Johns.
Track Notebook
Both the mens and womens indoor track teams spent last Saturday at Northeastern University participating in the New Balance Winter Carnival. The meet was the only one scheduled for the Judges before the upcoming winter break, so the coaching staff used it as an opportunity to see where the teams fitness stood without having to worry about scoring, which was not kept. The indoor track season officially resumes Jan. 14, when the Judges travel to an invitational meet at Bowdoin University in Brunswick, Maine.
Club Hockey Report
While the Brandeis club hockey teams record of 5-4-2 may not seem as good as one might expect of a team who won the NESHL Championship last season, the club is still playing exceptional hockey thanks to the contributions of players like forward Josh Levine 06, goalie Jeff Wieskopf 08, and forward Alex Botwick 08. The team has hit a somewhat rough patch with a 1-2-1 record in the last four games, despite an impressive 8-3 victory over the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Nads. This can be attributed to the team not always playing a full roster for various reasons. Wieskopf, who led the division in goals-against average at least through the first nine games, said, Overall, things are going well, but without consistent rosters, its hard to build up team chemistry. All things considered, were all happy with where we are right now, near the top of our division.
Deadly snow safety tips
Today we will discuss: Snow. In my experience, I have found that after you have been outside in a blanket of falling ice for twenty minutes merely trying to get from point A to point A-and-a-half on foot (I say on foot and not on feet because by minute seventeen, the other foot has broken off and shattered into thousands of frozen fleshy Terminator 2-like shards,leaving, inevitably, one solitary foot left), you slowly start to realize that the reason you are suffering from worse brain-freeze than had you just wolfed down a bucket of soft-serve in three seconds is because you are trying to inhale air that freezes your lungs to the point that they begin to form a spider webbing series of cracks.
