Vanity
‘Long Live’ (Anna and Allison’s Version)
AM: “Long live all the mountains we moved.” ASP: “I’ve had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.”
Arts Vanity: (I Smell a Rat) Why Geronimo Stilton Is A Classic
Another feature of Geronimo Stilton is its characteristically cheesy (haha) mouse puns.
Arts Vanity: The Steps to Writing Your Final Paper About a Movie
The options are endless, but I find myself frequently going for the glimmering idea on the hill: Why not write about a movie?
Arts Vanity: The Perfect Moment for Every Song from my Summer 2023 Playlist
This feels like a good starting point. It’s been the spring, summer, and fall of “Tití Me Pregunto.” Please, everyone, stop in your tracks and play it on full blast wherever you are in order to secure a “Tití Me Pregunto” winter. I’ll be honest, it’s no “Yo Perreo Sola,” but nothing gets the people going like this song (sorry, “N*ggas in Paris”) — even if they speak absolutely zero words of Spanish.
Arts Vanity: What Your Favorite Song Length Says About You: A Musical Montage
Welcome. Have a seat! Given that my tenure as music executive soon begins, it is now my time to judge you on the most important minutia of the musical world — song length — and tell you what this means about your worth as a person. Let’s begin.
Arts Vanity: Items On My Harvard-issue Bookshelf and their Friend Archetype
Though it’s only seven panels of wood haphazardly stapled, glued, taped, and otherwise forced together, the Harvard-issue bookshelf may be one of the greatest cultural phenomena of our lifetime.
Arts Vanity: My Art History Obsession Has Gone Too Far
Spawning from the glorified fan fiction that I shared at the HUAHS event, I present: If famous artists were students at Harvard, here is who I think they would be and why.
My Semester in 300 Words
There are times in the course of a young editor-at-large’s life he is tasked by the Arts Board to pen a vanity piece for its year-end publishings. He may be burnt out from thesising with nary a Celsisus in reach, or busy frequenting Western Front to study for his pharmacology final. He may, despite having risen to the occasion before, find himself presently lacking in the idea department.
Arts Vanity: The Stage Play ‘Life of Pi’ Converted Me
As an English concentrator, sometimes I joke that I don’t even believe what I argue in my essays. Yet “Life of Pi” convinced me that multiple truths can coexist in the same space.
Arts Vanity: An Attempt to Decipher My Monthly Playlists
I am a creature of habit. So are, apparently, many of my friends. In February, when one of said friends kindly introduced me to the concept of creating “monthly playlists” to document one’s favorite songs from each month of the year, I was hooked. It’s like Spotify Wrapped, but 12 times a year. Joy.
Arts Vanity: Rereading is Cool
Even though I loved these books, they had failed me… they failed to be new.
Arts Vanity: Buyer Beware: Top Ten Scams in Harvard Square and Beyond
You don’t need me to tell you that money’s tight nowadays. Between inflation and holiday shopping, it’s not easy being the little man. Every dollar counts! And that is why, dear consumer, I am here to save you from some of the biggest scams that lurk behind the pleasant exteriors of retail stores in Harvard Square and Boston at large.
Arts Vanity: An Introduction to the Modern Joni Mitchell Fan
A cursory catalog of select favorite Joni Mitchell fan types I encountered at The Gorge this summer.
Arts Vanity: The Top 5 Bad Bunny Songs You Don’t Hear at Every Party
The next time you’re on aux and you face accusations of “latinophobia,” consider switching things up by playing any of these five Bad Bunny classics that deserve more airtime.
Arts Vanity: “War and Peace” Characters as Songs From My Fall ’23 Playlist
Despite its setting in the early 1800s Russian aristocracy, Tolstoy’s 1200 page beast of a novel, “War and Peace," is rife with universal moments and substantive characters that remain salient today.
Arts Vanity: What Would Buffy Do? Buffy Quotes I Live By
My favorite Buffy quotes — from inspirational speeches to witty quips at her enemies to random musings.
Arts Vanity: The Art of the Perfect Plane Film
A film must be perfectly curated to be chosen 30,000 feet in the air.
Arts Vanity: Ranking My Obscure Musical Instruments
I have 16 obscure musical instruments stored within my approximately 100-square-foot dorm room.
Arts Vanity: I Am the World’s #1 ‘Wicked’ Understander
All this is to say: Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked” is one of my favorite books, and I don’t think you should read it. But this is a call to embrace your problematic faves, the stories that comfort you despite their flaws, the media that you genuinely believe is a masterpiece but would never recommend to a friend. Even if it leaves you feeling a little wicked.
Arts Vanity: Four Historical Moments that Should Have Been Creep-ified
Four historical moments that I think would’ve benefited from Radiohead's “Creep” playing in the background.
Arts Vanity: Excerpts from the Book of Eccl-eal-siastes
Verily, it is said by the EAL: “Say thou to them, and to the after-comers of them, Each article of your section, that nigheth to those things that be hallowed, in which is uncleanness, it shall perish before the EALs.”
Arts Vanity: Smith Campus Center’s Confusing, Acoustic Disney Music
There has been some new bravery and audacity in whoever chooses the music that hundreds of students will listen to while studying.