"Beauty and the Beast" fables are good at breaking hearts and haunting viewers. Beloved by many and berated by others, Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water" is the latest installment of film's foray into this common fable.
A few days before we left for break, Miami University's Symphony Orchestra put on "The Two Titans," a powerful concert presenting both Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Mahler's Symphony No. 1, "Titan." As I looked around me in Hall Auditorium during that concert, I saw hundreds concentrating on Beethoven's abrupt harmonic shifts and Mahler's magnificent symphonic form. Not everyone was enraptured -- in fact, I spotted several slumped heads sleeping through the heavenly performance.
It's no secret that the American people want change. For all the trouble and terror it's caused, our current political climate has sparked a longing for civic, healthy communities and less hostile hometown politics in the average American. Whether they want "the good old days," or a promise of "a new day on the horizon," every heart has its hopes for a better tomorrow. You can see these hopes in a neighbor's wave, a friend's face, a teacher's desperate lesson on civics.