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Culture

CULTURE

Notes of nostalgia: From campus to quarantine

By David Kwiatkowski and Jenna Calderón | April 3, 2020

When I came to college, I thought I was an adult.  I thought, as most of us probably did, I had it all figured out. Though I was only 17, I was on my own, free from my parents’ roof.  I lived in Hepburn Hall during my first year, and while it was nice, I longed for the day I’d be able to live off campus, avoiding sticky dining hall tables and crowded dorms with communal bathrooms.

CULTURE

OPD on GBD: policing a ghost town

By Emily Dattilo | March 25, 2020

Even before the stay-at-home order, on GBD last week, uptown was quiet. There were no lines stretching out of Brick Street Bar & Grill. There were no queues spilling out of Bagel & Deli. There were parking spots available. Sidewalks were nearly empty.

CULTURE

It's a beautiful bidet in the neighborhood

By Jenna Calderón | March 17, 2020

The bathrooms of college students can be downright gross.  Toothpaste lines the bowl of the sink, the trashcan overflows and the toilet paper roll is notoriously empty. But, at the very least, Miami University sophomore Seif Boulos can fix that last problem.

CULTURE

Silence on the sidewalk

By Emily Dattilo , Will Gorman and David Kwiatkowski | March 17, 2020

Some stories delve deeply into the lives of their subjects. Others seek to capture the human condition in just a few words. Modeled after journalist Brady Dennis’ 300 word stories that explore the unfiltered intimacy of the everyday, these pieces offer a glimpse into the untold experiences of college life. 

CULTURE

‘Heavy metal will never die’: Community for Miami metalheads

By Lexi Whitehead | March 17, 2020

  In a classroom on the second floor of Upham Hall sit 10 students. They drum their fingers on desks, bob their heads and tap their feet while the song “Heading Out to the Highway” by Judas Priest plays. Instead of the regular sounds of muted lectures and shuffling students, the raw chords of the song reverberate throughout Upham’s hallways. At the front of the room, the music video dances across the whiteboard.  This is what a meeting looks like for Miami’s heavy metal club known as the Newly Woken Organization Based on Heavy Metal (NWOBHM). The name is a nod to certain metal subgenres like NWOTHM (New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal).

CULTURE

Notes of Nostalgia: a different kind of commencement

By Erin Glynn | March 17, 2020

  I’ve always loved a ritual. Proms, bat mitzvahs, confirmations, swearing-in ceremonies, quinceañeras, masses, weddings, funerals. And graduations.  Rituals help us take what is ordinary, what is necessary, and transform it into an event. A moment that helps us step out of our everyday selves to recognize that the momentous has happened. Now, it looks like the chance to pause and feel how momentous graduating is might be taken away.

CULTURE

Notes of nostalgia: the times are a-changing, but that’s okay

By Rachel Berry | March 17, 2020

  Going off to college, my soon-to-be roommate was texting me, excitedly talking about future plans and how she couldn’t wait to get to Miami. It seemed like all my friends from home were the same way, counting down the days until they would leave for school.  I was the complete opposite. I was terrified to leave the only place I had ever known to move 300 miles away and live with complete strangers. When my parents left me, I cried the entire walk from their car back to my dorm, before wiping my eyes and trying to pull myself together as I met the people I would be living with for the next year.

CULTURE

Mutts can go a little nuts, as a treat

By Owen Berg | March 10, 2020

After a brief introduction, four dogs ran out onstage to blaring rock music, taking their places on four wooden crates in a line upstage.  Dog-loving families had packed the seats of Hall Auditorium to see Mutts Gone Nuts, a traveling comedy dog show, at 7:30 p.m. last Friday. Founder Scott Houghton entered in a red velvet blazer, introducing the dogs to the audience. Their lead trainer, Samantha Valle, stood behind the mutts, directing the tricks and sneaking them treats from her pocket.

CULTURE

Theatre production to build community around women, politics and soccer

By Michael Smith | March 10, 2020

 “The Wolves,” a one-act play by Sarah DeLappe, follows a girls indoor soccer team as they warm up before their game each week. The nine girls slide tackle big political questions and social topics with the energy and awareness of high school students. The cast consists of ten women: nine teammates identified by their jersey numbers and a soccer mom played by professor and Chair of Theatre department Julia Guichard.  

Tucson snips and socializes giving his clients a unique haircutting experience.
CULTURE

Barber in the bricks

By Jenna Calderón | March 10, 2020

  Tucson DeShon drapes a white apron across a boy sitting in a dorm room desk chair.  “What are we looking for today?” he asks.  DeShon, a sophomore marketing major, started cutting hair during his junior year of high school. He’s a triplet, and one of his brothers, Turner, was tired of going to a barber to get his haircut.

Amidst the numerous GBD apparel accounts, these two do their best to stand out from the crowd.
CULTURE

Sky of blue, sea of Green (Beer Day shirts)

By Sam Cioffi | March 10, 2020

Starting in the wee hours of March 19, Miami University students across Oxford will begin celebrating Green Beer Day (GBD), a “holiday” where students dress up in green clothing or wear shirts sporting pop culture references related in some way to drinking beer colored a ghastly shade of green. 

While Robert isn't competitive, he isn't shy either. He's happy to share his music with whoever will listen.
CULTURE

Oxford’s piano man: a legacy of loving music

By Leanne Stahulak | March 10, 2020

Sunlight beams in through the large windows at the front of the living room as Robert Schonlau sits before the gleaming ivory keys. His face, reflected in the glossy black finish above the ivories, is contemplative and serene as he adjusts the large-rimmed glasses on his face.  Back straight and feet reaching for the pedals, the 16-year-old pianist sets his fingers to the smooth keys. 

Incoming littles experience a week of mystery before their bigs are finally revealed.
CULTURE

Sista Sista!: The journey of finding your ‘big

By Briah Lumpkins | March 10, 2020

  Every year, a new wave of first-year students are invited into the realm of sisterhood. Through the four seemingly never-ending rounds of sorority rush, girls search for a place to call home. But this search does not end when they receive their bid.  Through lunch and study dates, a week full of being spoiled with surprise gifts and the final big reveal, sorority pledges go on the search to find the person to guide them on this new journey of sisterhood. 

CULTURE

Ringing in the New Year at Miami’s own Shinnenkai Festival

By Izzy Owen | March 3, 2020

The warm scent of chicken, dumplings and other homemade cuisine hung over the crowd of students packed into the Armstrong Student Center’s Fritz Pavilion. The aroma wound its way through the numerous booths set up throughout the room, wrapping itself around brightly colored paper decorations and ornate ceremonial garb. 

After decades of tradition, both the Miss America and local pageants are starting to shift their focus.
CULTURE

Pageantry in a new era: Redefining liberation

By Maya Fenter | March 3, 2020

There was  a small gap between the floor and the edge of the back curtain on the stage of Leonard Theatre in Peabody Hall. Just a few minutes before 7 p.m., a line of heels paraded from one side of the stage to the other, stiletto clicks ringing clearly through the theatre.

Mixing lip-syncs with lecturing, Vagistan educated, entertained and encouraged.
CULTURE

Lessons in Drag: An Evening with LaWhore Vagistan

By David Kwiatkowski | March 3, 2020

Imagine a silent, patient audience, partially comprised of students required to attend an event for a class and partially of eager LGBTQ+ community members ready to “get their life.” Now imagine that silence interrupted by three powerful words sung by Teyana Taylor.

CULTURE

‘You don’t know squat’: Freedom Summer documentary premieres, panelists urge students to study Black history

By Sarah Grace Hays | March 3, 2020

  In the summer of  1964, hundreds of students gathered on what is now Miami University’s Western Campus to learn how to register African American voters in the South, specifically Mississippi. Among them was retired Miami philosophy professor Rick Momeyer. Arrested three times, indicted by a grand jury and assaulted with various weapons in the South, Momeyer is an expert on Freedom Summer and its significance. “If you don’t know black history, you don’t know American history,” Momeyer said. “It’s not a separate history.”

CULTURE

Wandering into the major I now call home

By Emily Dattilo | March 3, 2020

Around three years ago, I committed to Miami University as an education major.  I had attended Make it Miami, surrounded by lines of chattering high school students — red lanyards with name-tags hung about their necks, accompanied by anxious parents asking countless questions.  It didn’t occur to me at the time that I would want to change my major before I had even gone to my first class. 

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