Recent Excursions by Aleks Nekrasov
Math The Band – Described as “one part Atom and His Package and one part Andrew W.K.”, this couple makes ball-to-the-wall, crazy, fun music that can most aptly be described as a punk band that uses mostly electronic instruments, with some guitar in the mix, with lyrics covering light-hearted matters. Ever on tour (they’ve played over 500 shows in 5 years), this duo produces a live show, and really, an experience, for everyone to just party hard and have an unhealthy amount of fun. Don’t listen to them if you hate having fun. If you do like having fun, be sure to see them on July 3rd at Death By Audio with Peelander-Z, Anamanaguchi and Previously Lost (all, but the latter, of which I’ve never heard, also are very energetic and entertaining bands). “Don’t Worry” or “Tour De Friends EP” is recommended.
They even have a ludicrous music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F252BaenmYE
Streetlight Manifesto – Fronted by Tomas Kalnoky, this ska-punk band has a full horn section, lively songs, touches of world music (“If And When We Rise Again” has a Hungarian folk dance passage in the middle of it) and serious lyrics dealing with topics like religion and death. They also have a cool covers album released this year, but “Everything Goes Numb” is recommended as a first listening.
Song recommendations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2yeNzL7rTU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5mFjnj4j2w
mc chris – always lower-case and nerdy, this suburban white boy has some flow in him and makes songs about the vehicles that the bounty hunters of “Star Wars” own, and Reese’s Pieces, among other comedic/light-hearted lyrical themes. His voice is high pitched, which creeps out a friend of mine, but that might be just him. His 2nd most recent album, “mc chris is dead”, is recommended.
Song recommendations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqiasBVGtX8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d78UW1FPvWY
“Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue” by Paul Woodruff – Paul Woodruff defines reverence as the ability to be in awe of the transcendent – things or ideas we did not create such as God, Justice, Beauty, Truth, Nature and Death. He states that many modern people have lost this sense of reverence and so have forgotten their mortality and ability to err. All other virtues are derived from and are informed by this primary virtue. Justice, for example, is not the primary virtue, because it deals with equals being in some court or other being judged by equals – reverence has to do with a stronger and weaker person. An example he gives are of a lonely minority teenager stopped on a road late at night by a policeman, and the only thing stopping a terrible thing happening to him is the powerful person in his life having reverence. People (or nations or political parties or anything human entity) in power tend to lose touch with reality and think of themselves as infallible. History shows that great nations have stumbled from a mistake and fallen. Other examples are people playing a sport and it not being about the egos of the coaches and players and them knowing to respect each other and the umpire or referee, but it is a two-way street – the referee must practice reverence too; people coming together to playing a beautiful piece of music. A mandatory read for a society that is lacking in this cardinal virtue.
“Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” by Patrick Süskind – A novel set in 18th Century pre-Revolution France about Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, “one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages”. An unwanted orphan boy shunned by everyone for having no body odor (though they themselves do not realize why they do so), who himself possesses a supernatural sense of smell, grows up only doing the minimum to survive. When he discovers the most beautiful smell he’s ever encountered belongs to a girl, he murders her to get a closer inspection of her aroma. To his dismay, he finds that that beauty which he has discovered, ceases after some time. He dedicates his life to finding some way to preserve scents, and thus is beginning of this novel that explores Beauty, morality, the sense of smell, identity and communication.
“Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad – In this novella, Charles Marlow is a worker that takes on being captain for a boat in Africa. The story is modeled on stories like The Inferno, with the character taking a journey into madness and hell. Marlow is thrust into this world and only he sees it for what it is – broken. Critical of colonialism and emperialism.
“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe – The story of a African society driven by tradition that meets with Christian missionaries. Okonkwo is a man of tradition and his son, Nwoye, is considered weak by Okonkwo. Okonkwo’s father was a lazy and weak man, and Okonkwo fears becoming like his father and feels that same concerning his son. Nwoye later runs off to the Christians, which have invaded the native land and subvert and taint and destroy the culture. Achebe feels that Christianity being brought is a good thing, just the way it was done could have been different.
“The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy – The story of two young twins that are maligned by much of the people around thyem and of post-colonial India as seen through them. Critical of the caste system by having Velutha, the only adult in the novel that is pure, is in touch with his childhood, and seems to do actual work, be in a low caste. The social system in India and it’s relationship with women is also criticized and characterized as oppressive.
Book recommendations by Stuyvesant students for Stuyvesant students and readers around the world. Also known as Stuy Bookshelf/Book Box. Submissions are open—click on register below!