A Site to Remember
by Alex Kahn
PSCS has recently relocated to a new site. Students and staff alike seem to enjoy the upgrade from U-Heights. This great new change in scenery has sparked new energy within the school environment. The furnishings of the new school are much better than the previous site. Examples of this are; tables and stools in the common area, which have been great for studying. There is now a projector that has been wonderful for presentations and seminars at school. Additionally, the school's surroundings have provided a new frontier for the community to explore. This new community provides new connections including service opportunities, additional space, and maybe even chances for more fund raising.
Entering the building is a pleasant sight. When you first enter, you see a window with regular glass and milky glass contrasting to spell “PSCS” with the mission statement (turning passion into achievement) underneath. Next you see a wood bench with computers and tables called the “Commons”. This impressive area provides the proper environment to work on projects independently or as group. Surrounding the “Commons” are rooms that are usually utilized for classes. The furnishings that inhabit the site are all new sleek modern designs, which gives a pleasant vibe. All the rooms provide a much more functional space than the previous site. They are more functional because you can have a room with a closed door which is nice, multiple large rooms for hands-on work, and additional outlets make the site run much better.
The surroundings of the school have both pros and cons. One pro is that there is a community center and library located within 2 blocks of school. The community center provides us with a gym that is quite nice and provides an environment to release energy and run around. A con of the new space is that the streets surrounding the site are pretty dirty and old and don’t seem to be improving, which is unfavorable to us. There are many restaurant options, however they are heavily weighted towards one category of food.
All in all this new site is a positive move for the school. It has new options and possibilities for students and the community as a whole to grow and thrive.
Frost Nixon Goes Deep
by Jared Laird
When I first walked into the theater, it was crowded. We looked around until we found a seat up in the front that didn’t have any big people sitting in the seats ahead. As the movie started it was kind of hard to catch on to what was going on, until about 20 minutes or so into the movie when you’re introduced to a character named David Frost: a small time reporter played by Michael Sheen. Then later on you meet the man who played Nixon, Frank Langella. As the movie progressed, I started to notice subtle facial reactions from the actors. For instance, during the interview you could almost read Nixon’s thoughts by the way he reacted, and the way he moved and the look in his eyes.
Also, the way the writers portrayed Nixon was interesting. For instance, in the beginning of the movie he focuses on David Frost’s shoes, asking his advisor what kind he thought they were. He went on to say, “They were too feminine.” This attention he had to small details surprised me. Someone with so much on their mind, focusing on shoes?
Then the interviews started, and one of my favorite scenes came up. It showed Nixon’s advisors on one side of the room, looking over at the other side where David Frost’s researchers and managers were, and they seemed to just sit there glaring at each other. It was like a showdown between teams.
Something else I liked about this movie was that whenever Frost asked a good question that pinned Nixon to answer, the camera would go to a small room where Frost’s team was and they would cheer, then it would go to Nixon’s room, and his advisers would frown at the monitor. This technique served as a guide for people who didn’t really know the facts.
As the movie went on, the climax got better and better, and so did the acting. You could see the sternness in Nixon’s face and the intent in Frost’s. It was like that scene at the beginning where the Frost and Nixon teams were staring each other down and you wonder who’s going to win. As it came to an end, I was aghast. I didn’t think Nixon was going to tell the truth or confess to anything.
And as we left the theater you could hear people talking about what happened, and how it happened. There was lots of conversation going on. Overall, I’d give this movie 4 stars out of 5, simply because it mainly focuses on the Watergate scandal. Even if it was a big deal, it would have been nice to have them focus on other things that Nixon did wrong, like attacking Cambodia, saying there’s some, “communist headquarters” there when there wasn’t. Which was something like Bush did with Iraq, except he was looking for “Weapons of Mass Destruction” but Bush never found any.
In some way, I think this movie was released at this time to relate Bush and Nixon. Neither of them thought they did anything wrong, and neither will admit to it.
The Institution of Weirdness
by Andrew Marques
Album: Nude With Boots
Artist: Melvins
Genre: Sludge Metal
Year: 2008
Label: IpecacThe Melvins are an institution of weirdness. They’ve been around forever now, since 1983, I believe, that’s forever in dog years, right? Right. The band is more or less comprised of guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osborne, drummer Dale Crover and a random third member. Over the years, the band’s membership has been in flux, the inconsistent piece being the bass player. For whatever reason, the Melvins seem incapable of holding onto one for more than a few years at a time, and they’ve got quite a few ex-members.
The most recent departure was Kevin Rutmanis, also of The Cows and Tomahawk, who was booted out of the band for drug use, supposedly. This left Buzz and Dale in a quandary: what to do next, right? Being a Sludge Metal band, it seemed important to have a bass player to provide a weighty end to the music. But as long as they’re getting a new bass player, they thought, why not get another drummer as well. So began the latest era of Melvimania, the era of the double drums of peace. The new members come in the form of Coady Willis (drums) and Jared Warren (bass) of low-end Assault Metal duo Big Business.
Incorporating Big Business into their band was the best decision that Osborne and Crover have made in years as these two young bucks decisively augmented their already impressive sound. They’ve since released two albums with this new configuration, the supremely awesome (A) Senile Animal and the supremely bizarre Nude With Boots. We’re here to talk about the second one.
Nude With Boots is the latest release by the Melvins and it shows them to still be a powerhouse of Sludgy glory, a swamp beast from deep within the bog, come to ooze it’s way out onto civilization and take us back to a time when all that mattered was that your guitar could riff and your drums could pound. There is a sort of primal simplicity to their music and it doesn’t need to be complicated to be good. The Melvins are very technically proficient though, as is evident in the dueling drums of Crover and Warren. The pounding fury they generate is dynamic and potent, each one augmenting the other with their banging battery. The Melvins are one of those bands where you can actually hear the double drum sound, especially in the bass drums, which rumble and roll like nothing else.
Besides the drumming, the most recognizable aspect of the Melvins music is Buzz Osborne’s booming vocals. Melvins lyrics rarely if never make sense but, boy, do they take up space in the mix. On this album, like the last one, Osborne’s deep, resonant bellow is backed by each other member of the band, quadrupling the effect and giving the weighty vocals even more girth.
But a Melvins album wouldn’t be complete without the raging riffage created by Osborne’s guitar. It’s grungy but not dated, hardcore with more then three chords and it solos something fierce, but not in that masturbatory, egotistical way. Without it, the Melvins wouldn’t have a prayer.
The Melvins are not a Grunge or Hardcore band though, and Nude With Boots is considerably more jammy than (A) Senile Animal was. With (A) Senile Animal, each song had a very tight structure and that was only broken for the ends of songs in which almost every track dissolved into a drum battle between Warren and Crover.
But Nude With Boots is different, looser in many circumstances and with less of the grounded feel than it’s predecessor possessed. The jammyest track is probably the upbeat “Suicide In Progress” which begins life as… well… a jam, before changing tracks and devolving into the Melvins version of haunting minimalism, complete with Osborne intoning dark remarks about “little animals floating in the air”. The whole album has a more energetic (almost weirdly happy) atmosphere that has previously been unheard in their music. It contrasts starkly when weighed against other pieces of their work, especially the dark Pigs Of The Roman Empire, which was just about as menacing as you can get with the Melvins.
The finest moment on Nude With Boots comes with the thunderous screamer “The Smiling Cobra” which contains the chorus “There is no ending! And there’s no wonder why!!” which could very well be the finest description of the Melvins I’ve ever heard. Nude With Boots is an excellent continuation of the wonderful strangeness that is the Melvins, if you’re already a fan, you’ll love it. If you’ve never heard them before, it’s an excellent blend of their straight-ahead Sludge Rock and odder more experimental fare. Regardless, you should get it. Why? Cause I said so.
Heart Beats, Light Turns
by Gracie Morton
Heart beats in the stomach, behind the eyes.
Light turns to dark, day turns to night.
Lions hunt zebras, cats hunt mice.
Black and whites are nothing like pink sunsets.
Water is ice, water is snow.
Pickles and cucumbers are greener than emeralds.
Souls are in passions not in heads.
Falling Skies
by Gracie Morton
Falling skies make stars beastly.
Solid lakes make diving difficult.
Melted faces make expression nonexistent.
Loud sounds make quiet hard to hear.
Brick pillows make sleeping unheard of.
Sharp feathers make tickling tender.
Greedy devils make people give up love.
Real and fake make no difference at all.
Just like stuffed bunnies to rabbits make a child's imagination grow.
Drink before you Think
a review of Oasis Bubble Tea by Tynor Fujimoto
Bubble Tea. Who would think of that?
"Oh, lets put black-tea-soaked tapioca into a cold drink. But what do we call it?
Hmm, well, the tapioca kind of looks like bubbles, and we do soak it in tea. Why not Bubble Tea!?"
The name is very misleading. There are a plethora of items on the menu; very few are actually tea. Even then, it's iced. When I first heard of "Bubble Tea", I thought that it would be like tea that you have in the evening to calm down. Except with tapioca floating in it. To my surprise, when I saw it for the first time; it was not tea in front of my eyes, but rather a drink that looked like a slurpy with black spheres on the bottom. It didn't look anything like tea!
The menu is huge, just giant. It'll have you stunned for a few seconds at how many different flavors you can get. There's iced tea, snow, slush, juice, and the list goes on. When you order, they also offer to add tapioca to your drink, which is the "bubbles". I highly recommend this as it is very tasty.
Another notable feature of the drinks is what they come in; it's the most unique cup I've seen (it's very tall and is made of plastic with a thin heat-sealed plastic cover). Maybe it's just a bubble teacup? It's fairly flimsy, but it holds a lot for the price (a drink is between $2.50 and $4.00).
Oh, and it comes with a colorful large-caliber straw, just the right diameter for sucking up the strange tapioca pearls at the bottom of your drink.
There's limited seating but most people order to go so that's normally not a problem. They also have a pool table, if you enjoy pool. Bear in mind that you have to be 18 to play. Service is very quick, there's ordinarily only two people manning the blenders so if there is a large line then it can take a while, but if it's just you then it's just a minute or two.
Oasis is very good for a quick drink on the go. Very tasty, and there's enough variety to keep you coming back for more. Don't forget to shake your bubble tea before you break the seal or you will get nothing but the tapioca sitting in the bottom for a while.
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