Columns
Rebecca Clarke, Margaret Bonds & Sally Whitwell
Welcome to Canon in She, a column that celebrates the beautiful music of composers who identify as women. In this edition, we have a violist who wrote for a variety of instruments, a resourceful African American pianist who wrote a Christmas cantata, and an Australian pianist who writes lyrical and quirky music for various instruments.
2 December 2020
A Third Culture Kid’s Experience: An Ode to Overthinking Choices
In my dream, I stand at the triple crossroads. Oily yellow light spills down onto the bitumen, barely illuminating the roads’ beginnings. To the eastern fork, I see the klongs of Bangkok, hear an echo over the long-tail boats: “this way to your past”. To the western way, the Australian countryside stretches infinitely, drowning in heavy rainfall: “this way to your future”. To the northern road, a Janus-voice of twin-speaking conjurers, beckoning me to choose their shadowed path: “our ways are unknown”.
24 November 2020
The Curtain Calls for You to Think: #BoysDanceToo
Pre-COVID-19-lockdown-reality, I meant to go see Billy Elliot the Musical, based on the 2005 film of the same name. Not-so-surprisingly, I didn’t end up going. Instead I read about it, watched the movie, I even signed up for free at-home ballet lessons – this one wasn’t really followed through – and I got to reflect on the subtleties of the plot and the songs in the musical’s soundtrack.
24 November 2020
The OTHER Theory of Evolution: How to Make Mice from Scratch
These recipes are paraphrased from 17th-century Dutch chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont. Luckily, he is remembered for discovering gases such as carbon dioxide, not for conjuring mice and scorpions.
24 November 2020The Curtain Calls for You to Think: Self Acceptance
If you have Netflix, which I assume the majority of you do because what else is there to do during a lockdown and pandemic, you’ve probably seen an ad or the trailer for the new Joe Mantello & Ryan Murphy film “The Boys in the Band”. This modernised adaptation tells the story of a group of homosexual men in the 1960s and how a birthday party in a small New York apartment can become the epicentre of self truths and confessions of old loves. It becomes the intersection of the diverse narratives and personalities of homosexual men everywhere.
24 November 2020
The OTHER Theory of Evolution: The Greatest Failed Experiment
During iso, I’ve bounced aimlessly through Wikipedia long enough to land on an article titled the ‘List of Discredited Substances.’ It includes the Philosopher’s Stone, a universal solvent, and even a unicorn’s horn. With each entry, is an explanation of how the substance was discredited, usually through various experiments (We apparently know unicorn horns don’t […]
24 November 2020
A Third Culture Kid’s Experience: The Art Upon Gallery Walls
The art upon gallery walls speak of deep histories, people immortalised in paint, lingering in their own mythologies. My feet always take me to the eighteenth-century European section, desiring to stand before illustrious portraiture of affluent women in creamy gowns, or poised families before pastoral landscapes, their homestead grandiose in the distance—beautiful, amorous, unified.
24 November 2020Four Ways to Make Parties Eco-Friendly
Okay, I don’t want to be a party grinch, but will you not agree with me on this: I think parties are repetitive. Someone calls for a party, we all plan, we go to a place, we eat a few snacks, drink a few somethings, laugh and talk for an hour then come back home — a standard party (of course, there are variations). I believe that if something is repetitive, we should make an effort to make sure it’s better.
22 November 2020Difference Between Being Proactive vs Reactive About Climate Change
Proactive is when you actively make sure that things don’t go wrong, reactive is when you react when things are going wrong. Here is an example so we are on the same page —say you keep up to date with lectures every day and develop your assignment every week — you are being proactive. Say […]
22 November 2020Yeah, Nah, Not Vibing with Fast Furniture
ecently, while moving in with my parents to a faraway suburb, I realized that I’d bought waaay too many books during my time alone at university. The point was: I needed a bookshelf. So, I went to Target— saw an 8-cube storage unit— 39 dollars only— great reviews online— sweet!
22 November 2020