Music – A wise man from a few decades ago said, “we can dance if we want to.” I embrace that maxim and admit my affection for *NSYNC’s album “No Strings Attached” without fear of undue ridicule.
I’ll take due ridicule, because the music targeted a demographic reserved nowadays for squealing schoolgirls with Hannah-Montana-stickered smartphones and acronym-dependent vocabulary, and fair is fair.
This music inspired the tight-pants wearing, heart-breaking pop dance choreographer inside me. My courage stirred whenever I heard the rising intro of “Bye Bye Bye” and the pounding rhythm of “It’s Gonna Be Me” at my school dances, and my feet flashed to the dance floor as if possessed by Michael Flatley.
Those singles weren’t the only tracks worthy of a “teeny-bopper” two-step. I blared my stereo to the club-hopping weekend anthem “Just Got Paid.” I declared my love to an imaginary girlfriend with the impassioned chorus of the title track. And despite my lack of glittered eye shadow and “Seventeen” magazine posters, I sometimes left the crooning love ballad “This I Promise You” unskipped, because only Narnia’s “White Witch” has a heart cold enough to resist Justin Timberlake’s falsetto forever.
There isn’t a song on the album that doesn’t have its catchy chorus, dynamic arrangement, pleasant harmonies or blood-pumping grooves. Even now, as a 26-year-old man, it’s difficult to hear the familiar synthesizers or silk-smooth vocals without feeling a rhythmic twitch in my feet.
The boy-band movement may be dead, but *NSYNC’s music is guaranteed to inspire this pop-idol-at-heart for years to come. No strings attached.
— matt maw
TV – In the pilot episode of “The Twilight Zone,” an Air Force officer finds himself completely alone in his base. He disintegrates from confusion to suspicion to paranoia throughout “Where is Everybody?” He finally completely disintegrates into a hallucinatory state. It is then revealed that he is part of a clandestine experiment by the military that wanted to prove that there is no artificial substitute for human companionship.
“The Twilight Zone,” which originally ran from 1959-1964, is a critically and commercially acclaimed TV series created by Rod Serling and originally aired by CBS. There are five seasons, with seasons one, two, three and five running half-hour episodes, and season four running hour-long specials.
Serling wrote or co-wrote the majority of the show’s scripts, working closely alongside Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson. However, many of the episode scripts featured guest writers such as Ray Bradbury, Montgomery Pittman and Earl Hamner, Jr.
Though the episodes were unrelated between themselves, they all featured paranormal, science-fiction, or dystopian plot themes, often with a surprising plot twist at the end. They are usually ended with an epilogue by Serling, whao stresses that the events were created by occurrences in “The Fifth Dimension.”
The show often used outlandish settings and paranormal events as a mechanism for political commentary, which would have been censored had it been more literally addressed. Monsters, aliens, time travel and telekinesis were used to address such issues as McCarthyism, mass-hysteria and nuclear war.
While the special effects are more campy than effective, the show is fun to watch. Anyone with an interest in science fiction, cold war-era politics or pseudoscience can find at least a dozen, if not 156, episodes to interest them. If they can’t, it might be because their personalities are locked in limbo between dimensions, between space, time and thought…. (cue dramatic music).
— nicole lichtenberg
Movie – The sign of a coward can come in many forms. Denoting who should be considered a coward can be done by anyone. But it is how a person reacts to the accusation that truly determines if they are, in fact, a coward.
In the 2002 release of “The Four Feathers” it is this exact dilemma that lead character Harry Feversham, played by Heath Ledger, found himself in once it was announced he and his fellow soldiers were being sent to war. His decision to abandon his position with the army causes his friends, particularly his best friend Jack Durrance (Wes Bentley) and fiancé Ethne Eustace (Kate Hudson), to send him four white feathers — the symbol of a coward.
In a short amount of time, the gesture sets in and Harry leaves Ethne behind in an attempt to redeem his nobility. The film, while receiving poor reviews when released, depicts a sincere message with quality acting if watchers are able to stick with a plot that can at times be slow. The story is one that requires attentive watchers, but ultimately proves to be an interesting insight to war as a soldier and civilian. And the sweet, yet not uncomplicated, love story is enough to bring in the romantics.
— elizabeth rudd
Book –
“The Haunted Car,” “Brain Juice,” and “Jekyll and Heidi,” are three of my all time favorite books, even though I read them in third grade.
They’re all part of the “Goosebumps 2000” collection, a group of horror fiction novels geared toward elementary-level readers, yet they’re still so fun to read. Author R.L Stine takes the horror genre and sprinkles a touch of sugar on top, making them great reads for youngsters — or college students — that aren’t afraid of the dark.
I’ll be honest — I just love to get scared. Zombies, ghouls, werewolves and vampires are only the beginning when it comes to Stine’s vast imagination. Stine’s inventive writing ditches the overused UFO sightings in favor of crafted alien juice that makes you brilliant, and swaps the generic haunted house for a sleek sports car possessed by a fearless ghost.
What I love most about Stine’s “Goosebumps” series is its ability to completely capture your imagination, no matter age. Plus, the small paperback books fit perfectly into a backpack, making a quick trip to “Fright Camp” simply seconds away.
Just imagine seeing a werewolf locked up in your living room, or having a computer chip in your head carrying the location of an ancient mummy prince. Stine takes it there — and even thought they’re written for children, it’s not hard to be head over heels for everything he writes. Diehard “Goosebumps” fan for life.
— chloe rambo