About Young Audiences of Maryland (YA)
]]>Actress Brie Larson is now well-known as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But before joining the MCU, Larson achieved high success in previous films such as the 2017 blockbuster “Kong: Skull Island” and the 2015 independent drama “Room,” which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress. While working in the industry as an actress, Larson has slowly built up her prowess through co-directing several indie short films leading to her directorial debut in the 2019 Netflix-released fantasy comedy-drama “Unicorn Store.”
“Unicorn Store” stars Larson herself as the main protagonist Kit, an aspiring artist at a standstill after failing out of art school, forced to move back in with her parents and start over. As she takes a temp-job with a marketing firm, she receives notes inviting her to a mysterious store to meet a salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) that claims to sell exactly what she needs, a unicorn.
The concept matches the tone of the story. The bright visuals combined with the wacky characters and childish plot thirsts for something to either bring the film closer or further from reality. The film dances on the line and leaves audiences questioning what kind of story is being told. In the end, the film leans into the fantasy and stretches logic in favor of the titular plot device, clearly deciding what the message is with no room for interpretation.
The saving grace for the project is in the liberty taken by the cast. As the director, Larson had complete creative control over most aspects of the film. The best choices were made in casting. For most, the film’s lead and supporting actor are enough to reel in attention.
As an actress, Larson excels with the right script and direction. And as the director, Larson’s casting of herself in the lead allowed her envisioned portrayal of Kit to shine through in the film. Many movies throughout film history have had success with a star also helming the project as the director. Being both the star and the director enabled Larson to make creative decisions for the character and better express them through the performance.
Larson’s costar, Samuel L. Jackson, was cast during the filming of “Kong: Skull Island” where the two appeared together for the first time in a live-action project. Larson and Jackson bonded together on the set, leading to the casting of Larson in the titular role of “Captain Marvel.”
In the context of the MCU, it only made sense for the two characters to meet. That it would be Larson and Jackson, however, was not a coincidence. The chemistry that formed from the “Kong: Skull Island” filming carried on into the MCU’s Carol Danvers and Nick Fury, an intentional casting choice and pairing. The same pairing was realized in “Unicorn Store” where Jackson was cast in the extravagant role of The Salesman.
Though the two share fun and friendly chemistry in both “Captain Marvel” and “Unicorn Store,” there are clear differences in the versatility of their acting. The MCU is known to have a static brand, a more clearly defined style of humor and action, something that Jackson is able to portray with ease. Because of the uniform narrative structure of “Captain Marvel” and the directors’ (Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck) inexperience in the genre, the performance of Larson is less vibrant. Carol Danvers as an individual is only successfully characterized by Jackson’s role as Fury, which was used to humanize Danvers and add comedic situations.
As an original screenplay under the direction of Larson, “Unicorn Store” is not burdened by the same fundamental issues that affect “Captain Marvel.” In fact, Larson’s creative control enables a better performance individually, while Jackson’s role still supports and enriches her performance. Kit is expressive and likable without external help. As a duo should, both parts work equally to achieve its intended result.
“Captain Marvel” didn’t allow for both parts to work equally but relied on Jackson’s performance a bit more. Perhaps a potential fourth live-action appearance of the duo in the sequel film to “Captain Marvel” could field Larson as the director and she could perform better as a result.
]]>The views expressed in this article are the views of the author.
There is an ongoing conversation about normalcy; about what is and is not, what should and should not be. We are undoubtedly living in uncharted territory, with more countries sinking into nationalism each day. This prompts the question, why are we so far off balance? Can we ever get back to normal? This has been an age-old cry from nostalgics, who claim that things were always better “back in my day.” You can see this everywhere: in popular culture, with the resurgence of popular 90s television shows and 80s fashion. It’s in sports where fans think back to when the rules and regulations were lighter and the game was more organic.
This nostalgia has even been ingrained into our politics. From Warren G. Harding’s Return to Normalcy campaign to the basic structure of the Republican party, all throughout politics, there seems to be an urge to return to a Golden Age of America; a rosier time where things weren’t so damn different.
If Trump has done one good thing in his candidacy and presidency, it is that he has completely exposed the truths about our society and our political systems. Whether intentional or accidental, he has taken advantage of a system that favors white conservative Christian men and imposed his will upon it. He has played upon the fears of many: the fear of change, of newness. Even his slogan, “Make America Great Again,” invokes a yearning for the past.
His rhetoric is a prime example of how he frames issues. For example, immigrants are fleeing war to seek asylum and start a life in the U.S. More immigrants can alter the demographics of the nation. So Trump attacks and belittles immigrants with every opportunity he gets and tells border patrol officers to turn migrants away.
Even on the left, there’s this idea of reverting back to business as usual; the belief that, once Trump leaves office, all the issues he’s caused will dissipate and everything will just snap back to normal. One phrase I used to hear often in small talk is, “I don’t really follow politics.” Once we elected Trump, we had to start to pay attention, whether for a class or for our own safety. But still, we wistfully long for the day that we can finally delete that CNN app, unfollow those news accounts on Twitter and go back to not really following the news.
I want to go in a different direction. I say, going back to normal cannot be an option. If we are to progress as a nation, we have to continue to press forward and change both politically and socially. Furthermore, I support radical change within our political systems. Our political system is antiquated and dysfunctional. There is no reset button. We have been exposed to glaring social and systematic problems dealing with finance, equality and sexuality, amongst a vast array of other problems.
The only way we can “come together as a nation” is to address the issues we have been avoiding for so long. We can no longer ignore what has been going on in our community, our state or our country. We need to remain engaged. We must have these tough conversations and provide solutions that help everyone.
Last month, I drafted an article entitled “The sad new normal,” where I criticized the U.S. government’s inaction on gun control. In it, I said that we need to be aware of what we see as normal. I want to take it a step further and say we need to change that normal. Daily mass shootings shouldn’t be normal. Extreme income inequalities shouldn’t be normal. Deadlocked congresses shouldn’t be normal. Political inaction shouldn’t be normal.
I know this sounds like a bid for a presidential run, but let me assure you, I’m not. I’m just optimistic for America’s future.
The way society and our government function are unacceptable, and we cannot afford to go backward. Moving forward is the only way to solve all the issues we are having. We must start having these tough conversations and being willing to let go of the past. We must start accepting others for who they are and what they believe. We must start to create a new “normal” to ensure we are building a progressive society, based on equality and understanding.
]]>A white shirt with a red hand-print hung on a clothesline, displaying the words “DO NOT TOUCH WITHOUT CONSENT.” Another, in pink, stated, “He was my best friend.” A third, red, proclaimed “It’s not my fault, but it’s still my burden.”
Every year since 2013, the Women’s Center organizes Take Back the Night, a sexual assault awareness event aimed to expose rape culture and to allow survivors and allies to share personal stories. For several years prior to 2013, UMBC students and faculty would take a bus to attend Towson University’s Take Back the Night until, one year, Jess Myers, the director of the Women’s Center, questioned why they were attending another university’s event instead of holding their own. “By not having it at UMBC, it sends a message that we don’t have sexual assault here,” Myers explained. That year, she applied for a Breaking Ground grant to fund the subsequent year’s Take Back the Night.
The first Take Back the Night marches were held across North America throughout the 70s and 80s, according to the Take Back the Night Foundation’s website. The event varies vastly depending on where and by whom it is being held; Myers notes that her conception of Take Back the Night draws from elements of Towson University’s and Colorado State’s, where she attended graduate school. She says that it is common from Take Back the Night to feature a survivor speak-out, in which survivors are invited to share their stories on either a public or confidential microphone, the latter of which guarantees that no attendees will take photos, videos or other recordings of their speech. Most Take Back the Nights also include a march.
According to Myers, one element unique to UMBC’s Take Back the Night is that, during its initial conception in 2013, the Women’s Center “incorporated Take Back the Night into a part of Greek Week, and so that’s why you’ll see a bigger Greek presence, because every year since then, Greek Week falls during Take Back the Night so that fraternities and sororities can have that be a part of their Greek Week tradition.”
Though Myers initially conceptualized the event in 2013, much of the organization falls onto the shoulders of the student staff. This year, Samiksha Manjani, a senior political science and sociology major, and Alexia Petasis, a senior interdisciplinary major, took on that role. The pair did much of the event’s logistical heavy-lifting, helping to reserve tables for the event, acquiring cardboard for the sign-making, brainstorming new ideas, communicating with other organizations that helped with the event and more.
The event itself was held in the evening on Mainstreet in the Commons, where dozens of chairs were set facing a clothesline, upon which hung various colored shirts with painted words. These t-shirts were a smaller selection of the shirts painted for the Women’s Center’s bi-annual Clothesline Project, in which survivors of sexual assault are encouraged to share their stories on t-shirts “to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women,” according to the Clothesline Project’s website.
After emcees Autumn Cook, Morgan Mullings and Calista Ogburn made their opening remarks to the crowd — including an impassioned poem performed by Mullings — speakers came up one by one to share their experiences. Myers emphasized the importance of this part of the event, stating that, “each and every year, I meet a survivor who, for the first time, is sharing their story. And they’ve shared with me after the fact that this is the first time they felt like they could take a step in their personal healing.”
Alex Shawn, freshman gender, sexuality and women’s studies and theatre student, was pleased to see the diversity of experiences represented in the speak-out. “It was very good in demonstrating the diversity of the types of people who experience sexual violence and the ways sexual violence presents itself,” Shawn said. This is thanks in part to the efforts Myers and the event’s other organizers take to reach out to “cultural organizations or ethnic organizations,” as well as the LGBTQ Student Union, after receiving feedback in previous years that the speak-out had not been inclusive enough.
After the speak-out, students marched from the Commons, heading first past the residential halls before proceeding onto Academic Row. Protests read chants out of a blue booklet distributed to all attendees; organizers shouted “yes means yes!” through megaphones and were answered with a choir of marchers exclaiming “no means no!”
At the conclusion of the march, attendees returned to the Commons to find that space had been transformed; it was now rearranged to fit tables for the “craftivism” section of the event. This allowed participants to complete self-care activities, such as lavender sachets, coloring pages, or even to write letters to survivors.
This year’s Take Back the Night held increased significance due to how shaken the campus was by last fall’s lawsuit. Though Myers made no major changes to the event’s programming in light of this, the timing was significant to gender, sexuality and women’s studies and theatre freshman Mason Blacker, who noted that the protest held last semester was vital to him becoming aware of the situation. “One of the things campuses like to do is not tell the new people what’s going on; they just want to put the good things on the front page. So, [Take Back the Night] was good to let the students know that this is something that’s happening and not let it fall into the shadows,” he explained.
Savannah McShane (smcshan1@umbc.edu) contributed to this article.
]]>To celebrate Earth Week, you are invited to a free, public screening of Paris to Pittsburgh this Friday, April 26 at 6:30 PM. Please join us at the SNF Parkway Theatre (5 W. North Ave.) for this free screening presented by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Maryland Film Festival. We hope that you will join us and share the invitation with your colleagues and students.
The conversation about climate change, sustainability, and environmental crisis is more important than ever. You can watch the movie trailer on YouTube here.
You can register for free at EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/paris-to-pittsburgh-tickets-060596755527
Following the film, we'll hear remarks from Professor Marsha Wills-Karp, PhD, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The three musical talents Audrey Andrist (piano), Nathan Williams (clarinet) and James Stern (violin), who have been playing together for 25 years under the name Strata, performed selected pieces of “New American Music” at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Earl & Darielle Linehan Concert Hall on Thursday night.
Strata performed five selections of music, one of them specifically written for the ensemble by Jonathan Leshnoff in 2003 titled, “Seven Glances at a Mirage.” The movements flowed through each other without pauses, creating impressionist harmonies and tone colors.
Before each piece, one ensemble member would describe what to look for in the music as well as some history on the composer and his/her inspirations for writing the piece. The opening piece titled, “A Thousand Whirling Dreams,” written by Dana Wilson in 2014, employs various jazz techniques and changes in tempo.
The piece was inspired by the Langston Hughes poem “As I Grew Older,” focusing on the expressive and poetic lines “to smash the night / to break this shadow / into a thousand lights of sun.” As Strata performed each movement with emotive dynamics and sliding notes, or glissandos, the concert hall was left with a bittersweet feeling, described as something close to melancholy.
Strata also performed a piece titled “Slang,” by Libby Larsen. The music was highly rhythmic due to the big band, boogie and blues influence of Larsen’s background. She explores the correlation between slang in language and slang in music by incorporating new and old styles of music.
In addition to the unique works of music performed throughout the night, Strata used some unconventional techniques in the Leshnoff piece as well as in “Trio,” written by Margaret Brouwer in 2005.
In Brouwer’s piece, divided into three movements, Andrist used a squeegee to play muted strings on the piano by reaching in and physically pressing the squeegee onto the strings. It created a totally different sound that helped convey the different emotions of the movements.
Alongside this unconventional technique, Williams played his clarinet into the open hood of the piano in Leshnoff’s “Seven Glances at a Mirage,” creating an echoing and deeper sound to his playing.
The closing piece of the night was another Trio, this time composed by Paul Schoenfield. Based on traditional Eastern European Hasidic melodies, the four movements were what Stern called an “exuberant expression of joy as a religious duty.” A dance, a march, a slow introspection and a Kazakh dance created a truly unique performance.
After a round of applause, Strata gave the audience “some dessert” and played a well known piece titled “Easy Winners” by Scott Joplin. Thursday night’s performance was met with smiling faces and tapping toes, but Friday night’s performance was another special night dedicated to the music of UMBC.
Strata performed all original pieces of music written by UMBC music students Friday night, staying true to their dedication to “New American Music.” Keep up to date with more upcoming music performances at UMBC at music.umbc.edu/events.
]]>This is a work of satire.
The highly anticipated Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building, first scheduled to be opened in the Spring of 1988, had to be pushed back over and over again. There were a variety of reasons for the delay, ranging from unforeseen construction issues, to employee strikes all the way to orange and yellow construction pixies who have been causing bricks to disappear and dried cement to liquefy.
To add salt to the wound, many students have decided the best coping mechanism for all of the construction and waiting comes in the form of sarcastic comments. “At this point, they might as well just tear it down,” said one student, who felt particularly bamboozled by the copious amounts of time the construction has taken.
Despite the upset, there is an amount of what one could tentatively call excitement. “I guess it will be cool to see the inside of a building,” one freshman said. When asked if they’re excited for the construction to end, they shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”
The seniors, however, have a different perspective. Before the construction began, students used to play frisbee and soccer on the patch of grass that is no longer visible. Thus, one of the seniors, when asked about the new building, said, “I hope there will be room inside to play frisbee,” said one student. “Not that it really matters,” they concluded. “I’ll be out of here by the time it’s finished. If it’s ever finished.”
The administration, however, have decided no more. “Those punks will learn their lesson,” said President Hrabowski, who has had enough of the snide and sarcastic remarks everyone has been spewing about the lengthy process. “These ingrates think they’re so clever with their quips and jokes.”
Hrabowski was not the only one who was fed up with all of the sarcasm. The vote to tear down the building was unanimous amongst the administration, and will begin in approximately one week from today. “We’re tired of all the complaining,” one administrator said. “And the only way they can really and truly understand that is by punishment. Harsh punishment.”
Another administrator was reported to be seen stomping on the plastic model of the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building, laughing maniacally as he said, “so much for your precious green building now.”
Upon release of this news, the student populace broke into celebration for the return of the quad which, as one student so eloquently put, “was a better use of the space, anyway.”
]]>GSA is hiring for the Communications Manager Position. This is a Graduate Assistant position - The student is required to commit for AY 2019-2020.
*The successful candidate MUST be eligible for Federal Work Study, determined by the student’s FAFSA (must be a U.S. citizen or a Permanent Resident).*
This graduate assistantship is the manager for all communications between GSA, OGSL, graduate students, and the greater UMBC/Baltimore community. This includes e-mail inbox management, GSA Bi-Weekly Newsletter, updating social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the MyUMBC portal). This GA manages logistics of all GSA events.
Please read the full job description found HERE (also attached below).
To apply you will need the following documents :
*Please follow application instructions carefully. Your application will not be reviewed unless all of the following materials are submitted electronically*
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