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(08/14/18 2:00pm)
The crisis at the United States border has dominated national news for months, but there is still confusion about the fate of separated families and what this means for immigration policy as a whole. Here’s a breakdown of what’s true, false and in between.
The government has been reuniting families.
Fact Check: While U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw issued that all families must be reunited within a time limit, the July 26 deadline has come and passed. Only 1,442 of the projected 2,500 children under the age of five have been reunited with their parents, according to TIME. Even 1,058 reunions short, there seem to be no real repercussions for the administration not fully meeting the judge’s deadline.
In immigration detention centers, parents were given a 1-800 number to call in order to reunite with their kids, but the centers have time restrictions on phone calls. A majority of parents who have been reunited with their children did so through the help of outside lawyers and advocates, according to immigration reporter Jonathan Blitzer.
“There is a real danger right now as parents go from criminal to immigration custody that they are losing the very advocates who are responsible or who are able to help them reunite with their kids,” Blitzer said.
There is also a bureaucratic obstacle to these reunions. The different governmental bodies responsible for immigrant minors and immigrant adults do not have solid avenues for communication. Volunteer attorneys have been having trouble getting answers from both departments on the whereabouts of the children they are trying to reunite.
"If you've got people from the best law firms in America who are struggling to navigate this system, can you imagine how difficult it is for people trapped in the system?" attorney Jennifer Rikoski said.
Immigrant children are being forced to represent themselves in court.
Fact Check: Usually children accompany their parents in court when waiting to be charged with illegally crossing the border or having their asylum plea heard. Under the “zero tolerance policy,” however, these children are appearing in court alone.
“The parent might be the only one who knows why they fled from the home country, and the child is in a disadvantageous position to defend themselves,” Lindsay Toczylowski said. Toczylowski is the executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles.
Little-Known Fact: Amidst the chaos, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled that asylum seekers could no longer claim domestic or gang violence as a legitimate case for citizenship.
“An alien may suffer threats and violence in a foreign country for any number of reasons relating to her social, economic, family, or other personal circumstances. Yet the asylum statute does not provide redress for all misfortune,” Sessions wrote in his ruling.
Sessions argued that since the violence was perpetrated by non-government officials, it was not a solid case for asylum. Under current legislation, one defining quality of a refugee is someone with “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
Sessions also denied “married women… who are unable to leave their relationship” as a valid social group protected under asylum law.
“I spoke to an asylum officer at the government agency that is involved in processing asylum claims. And this person said to me, 90 percent of the cases I get that I refer on to a judge as being legitimate claims... involve either domestic violence or gang violence as the grounds for someone seeking asylum,” Blitzer said.
Only 13 percent of all asylum seekers were granted citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That number is likely to go down in the aftermath of Sessions’ decision.
(08/13/18 12:00am)
Jittery Joe’s in Mercer Village announced it would be closing its doors July 29. The coffee shop will reopen in at the end of August as Z Beans Coffee, under the management of recent Mercer graduate Shane Buerster.
“The employees with Jittery Joe’s have all been offered jobs with Z Beans,” Buerster said. “However, we will be making renovations to the shop, which includes furniture from Mercer’s own Andrew Eck and his company, Georgia Artisan.”
The previous owner, Howard Collins, was ready to sell to someone new.
“I’m not a spring chicken anymore,” Collins said in an interview with the Telegraph. “I’m over 75, so I just decided to turn it over to some younger Mercerians.”
Z Beans started with a Mercer on Mission trip to Ecuador the summer of 2016. There, Buerster’s class helped determine whether growing coffee beans would be a viable alternative to gold mining in El Oro.
After returning home, Buerster kept in contact with their tour guide.
“(He) suggested I start a coffee business and begin importing Ecuadorian coffee,” Buerster wrote on the Z Beans Coffee website. “Through what I learned while on Mercer on Mission: Ecuador, I have been able to work with... the local coffee farmers to create a way to economically support the families of these impoverished Ecuadorian people.”
Z Beans Coffee will also be introducing Nitro Coffee, a drink patented by another Mercer alumnus startup, Phoenix Coffee Roasters. Buerster plans to keep the store open later, closing at 9 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.
Buerster has the Mercer Innovation Center (MIC) to thank for their guidance and connections.
“When I first met Shane, he was one of the competitors at one of our student pitch competitions, the Next Big Idea competition. (He) did not win that competition, but went on and still continued to do work on his supply chain,” MIC Director Stephanie Howard said. “In a year, he was able to get his company to the point where outside investors were wanting to invest in Z Beans.”
Along with the aid of Mercer connections, Buerster was financially backed by Central Piedmont Investment Group, an investment group of local entrepreneurs who pool their money to invest in local startups.
“It was just making connections, I mean Mercer University owns that property,” Howard said. “It was Shane that made contact with the previous owner of the coffeeshop…it just so happens that they were transitioning out of that business and Shane was ready.”
Before acquiring Jittery Joe’s, Z Beans Coffee was sold exclusively online. Buerster worked on the supply chain during his junior year of college and launched the website September of 2017.
Although it’s soon to be replaced by another coffee shop, the news of Jittery Joe’s closing riled up the Mercer community. Their Facebook announcement had over 160 comments and 100 shares within days of its publication.
“My favorite studying spot on Mercer's campus,” Elizabeth Riggins wrote. “So many fond memories of writing there with a chai latte and a cinnamon roll.”
It wasn’t just current Mercer students reaching out. The decade Jittery Joe’s spent in Mercer Village meant something to a lot of alumni.
“This was my favorite job I have ever had. I met so many amazing people and always had a good day after working and chatting with everyone. I’m so sad y’all are closing, I always loved coming back to Macon and stopping by to see Jit Joes,” Caleb Morton wrote.
Updated Aug. 15. A previous version of this article did not include the details of Buerster's investors.
(04/21/18 9:18pm)
Gunshots were fired at 1:45 a.m. last night near Adams Winship apartments.
Several students reported the incident to Mercer police, but did not receive an answer from campus police regarding the nature of the disturbance.
Sophomore Justin Bloodworth said he heard somewhere from six to eight gunshots total from his room in Shorter Hall. He heard faint sirens afterwards, and listened to his police scanner to learn more.
“It was difficult to make out what they were saying,” Bloodworth said. “But I definitely heard ‘surveying Mercer University drive,’ then ‘spotted now on North Ave. near the Kroger.’”
There was no report from campus police clarifying what students had heard, which left room for speculation.
Senior Vice President for Marketing Communications Larry Brumley said in an email that, according to Police Chief Gary Collins, “No alert was sent out, per protocol, because officers on duty determined that there was not a threat to campus.”
“The security guards on duty in Mercer Village and at the bridge by the Winship Apartments determined the shots were being fired off campus. MerPo called the Macon-Bibb Sheriff’s Office to make them aware of the reports of shots fired,” he said.
Sophomore Marcus Strickland heard the gunshots while talking with a friend inside an Adams Winship apartment.
“I called to report the incident to Merpo at 1:50 a.m. however, when I called no one answered,” Strickland said. “I walked back to my building around 2:30 a.m. and… I noticed that I didn’t see any Merpo officers or Merpo vehicles on campus at all.”
Brumley offered an explanation for the lack of Merpo response.
“It may be that the dispatcher was on the phone with another caller when they tried to call,” Larry Brumley said.
According to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, the shots fired were on the opposite side of Mercer and were not near the school campus. A report was not generated for the incident, though deputies did patrol the area.
Editor’s note: This article was updated at 9 p.m. April 21 to include information from the Sheriff’s office.
(04/08/18 7:19pm)
Hawkins Arena, the 3,500 seat basketball court, was outfitted with carpeted mats and mammoth speakers. Students poured into the stadium awaiting the first concert of Bearstock since the day portion had been cancelled.
Because Bearstock coincides with Make it Mercer, there was no indoor space that the concert could have been moved to when the weather made it impossible.
DJ Throttle warmed up the crowd with a couple song mashups. When he began his setlist, the bass could be felt all the way to the top of the stands.
He was followed by Coin, a pop band from Nashville, Tennessee most famous for the 2016 hit single “Talk Too Much.” Their frontman, Chase Lawrence, brought a lot of energy to their performance, edging ever-closer to the crowd and climbing on top of things that perhaps shouldn’t have been climbed.
“I really enjoyed Coin.They were super sweet and agreed to take pictures with us even though they were tired,” Sophomore Elizabeth Daniels said.
Grammy-nominated songwriter and rapper, 6lack rounded out the night with songs from his album Free 6lack. After his first song, he took off his windbreaker and showed his Bearstock t-shirt underneath.
“QuadWorks is so happy to say Bearstock 2018 was a great time for everyone involved,” QuadWorks member Kimberly Gessner said. “Students loved the new mixed-genre show and our t-shirts were obviously a huge success... even 6lack was happy to wear one!”
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(03/27/18 2:44am)
(02/28/18 6:09pm)
Three-time Oscar nominee, “I, Tonya” is a dark comedy that depicts the life of American figure skater Tonya Harding and her involvement in the 1994 attack against her competition, Nancy Kerrigan.
Harding started her skating career young, and before her ex-husband orchestrated a hit on Kerrigan, she was best known as the first female figure skater to successfully complete a triple axel.
Lead writer Steve Rogers set up interviews with Harding and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly to figure out what actually happened in 1994, but their stories had glaring contradictions. Instead of depicting his film as indisputable fact, Rogers decided “to put everyone's point of view out there and then let the audience decide,” he said in a talk with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.
The film combines contrasting interviews, fourth wall breaks and reenactments into one cohesive narrative, while still maintaining good tension and suspense throughout its 119 minute runtime.
While “I, Tonya” has fast pacing, smart dialogue and stunning visuals that seamlessly blend stunt double with actor, it’s the open-ended direction that really makes it an engaging movie. It provides the audience with a lot of answers as to why Harding ended up the way she did -- absent father, apathetic mother, possibly abusive husband, her own innate nature -- but it never comments on which is right.
Margot Robbie, who stars as Harding, does a phenomenal job of embodying her character. It’s not surprising most of the nominations “I, Tonya” is getting revolve around Robbie’s performance.
Robbie follows the emotional nuances Harding goes through as she develops from an overeager and overbearing 15-year-old skating protege to an Olympic athlete on the verge of a breakdown. In her performance, Robbie seems to understand both the irredeemable and endearing aspects of the person she’s representing and doesn’t romanticize or demonize her, instead opting to portray her as a three-dimensional person.
This film is strongly cathartic overall, but its allowing the audience to look at all the facts and form their own opinion that makes this movie so dynamic and powerful.
(02/24/18 2:50pm)
Annie Fair first started doing lighting design her sophomore year at Mercer while taking a class on the subject.
The following summer, Professor Scot Mann offered Fair her first paid job as a lighting designer on a production of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” he was directing. Since then, Fair has worked with 10 theaters doing stage management, lighting design and assisting with stage combat.
Fair designed the lighting for Mercer Opera’s production of “The Gondoliers” last January. While switching between a children’s performance and an evening performance, she discovered that the light board had deleted all of her cues.
“Normally, you spend about two weeks creating and saving a design into the light board. For this performance, I had to make all of the lighting happen on the spot with a live audience. It was stressful, but I did it, and I received many compliments afterwards about my ability to create something so beautiful even while under stress,” Fair said.
Last summer, Fair worked on a production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at Macon Little Theatre. This show involves the main character murdering multiple people and for each time he killed someone, Fair made the lighting on the entire stage turn red.
“On opening night, I sat in the audience and I could tell they had gotten used to the idea that red lighting meant someone was going to die. I had conditioned them to believe this on purpose,” Fair said.
Halfway through the show, Sweeney Todd finally encounters the antagonist, a corrupt judge who ruined his life. He had been wanting to murder the judge the entire show, and he finally got his chance.
“As this scene progressed, I made the lights slowly turn red. I watched the audience around me watching the scene intensely and leaning forward in their seats, anticipating the murder they had been waiting for,” Fair said.
The lighting was almost completely red as the audience anticipated the murder, but at the last moment, he was interrupted by another character. Fair chose to flash the stage with white light.
“The audience reacted as I wanted them to: surprised, confused, and disappointed. They slouched back in their seats; they were so sure that the barber finally had him,” she said. “By using lighting, I was able to involve the audience so deeply in a show that I created in them the same emotions that the barber had onstage.”
Rosie Cooper worked with Fair as master electrician for Mercer Players’ upcoming show “Rhinoceros.”
“Annie is a joy to work with. It’s obvious she puts her heart and soul into her work and won’t stop until everything is perfect,” Cooper said. “I have gained so much from her.”
Fair is graduating this semester and has plans to pursue technical theatre as a career.
“This is my major and I definitely plan on continuing to work in theatre after I graduate,” she said. “I hope to find a job in lighting/electrics or stage management.”
(11/17/17 9:42pm)
A crowd of people gathered around the stage in front of Stetson, bundled up in layers but still shivering from the cold. Bands took to the stage, one by one, each more different than the last, all performing for the chance to win QuadWorks’ Battle of the Bands.
“I think it was definitely different from last year,” Sophomore Kimberly Gessner said. “With everything from classical piano to worship music, it was a great showing of the diversity of talent at Mercer.”
In the end, Christian worship band Three 17 won the title.
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(11/10/17 8:11pm)
If there’s such a thing as too topical, “American Horror Story: Cult” is it. Every season, “American Horror Story” (AHS) has different themes, plots and characters using the same pool of actors.
This season follows a cult leader who uses the fear and division of Donald Trump’s presidential win in order to expand his following. Broiled with political and social scandalism, the current events it mocks are too current for the show’s poor handling.
Cult feeds off the sensationalism of current events without making a statement about their deeper implications. In one or two cases, this could be fine, but events like these make up the entire season.
The fact that eight episodes in, plots fueled by political buzzwords are still being thrown at the audience in a jumble instead of straightened out and commented on, makes it seem like the writers never wanted to create a solid allegory. All they wanted was the shock value.
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Following jokes that Ted Cruz might be the Zodiac Killer, “AHS” wasted an entire episode on portraying the real Zodiac Killer as a band of radical feminists. This particular cult had very little to do with the actual plot, and the little traction it did carry stops five minutes into the next episode.
Fictionalizing real events like this is tricky, and “AHS” has blurred the lines between what’s appropriate and what’s Lena Dunham playing Valerie Solanas.
One episode had to be edited in the wake of Las Vegas’s tragedy because of its graphic depiction of a mass shooting. The writers of “AHS” couldn’t have known this episode would air so close to the biggest mass shooting in history, but considering America’s history of gun violence, they could have handled it with more respect.
It’s a parody without satire, mirroring real life mass shooting, hate crimes and serial murders without offering any solid message about what’s behind these acts. So concerned with trying to appear “moderate,” “Cult” attacks all sides of the political spectrum, even if that means framing hate crimes and the overuse of social media as if they were equal grievances.
Although it may still have all the grueling deaths and creative gore that “AHS” is known for, the effect of trying to juggle so many contradicting ideologies, characters and current events is that it doesn’t even cover the basics of its genre. It fails to be scary.
For the first couple episodes, “Cult” follows Ally Mayfair-Richards, a woman with debilitating phobias who is being harassed by the cult. As the hero of our horror story, she’s the one with the least amount of information, the one clutching a kitchen knife and wandering around her dimly lit home, trying to find the source of that noise and she’s ultimately the only one who makes us feel suspense, as we wait to see what will happen to her.
We lose focus of our hero early on, and so the trajectory of the show is off, instead consumed by a variety of half-hearted political commentaries, heavily appropriated religious symbols and random sex scenes.
(10/03/17 5:34pm)
“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas had topped the New York Times Young Adult Bestseller list for six consecutive months, until an unknown author’s debut novel bumped Thomas down to number two. The only problem? No one had even heard of “Handbook for Mortals,” a supernatural romance about a Las Vegas magicians love triangle.
“Handbook for Mortals” is a first for both author Lani Sarem and publishing company GeekNation. It currently has a 1.2 out of 5 on Goodreads and 10 percent on approval rate by Google users while “The Hate U Give,” a politically charged novel about a black teen witnessing a police officer murder her friend, has a 4.6 out of 5, a 94 percent approval rate and a movie deal in the works.
Young Adult writer and freelance editor Phil Stamper first noted the suspicious circumstance around the book’s ascension on the New York Times’ list.
“I find it... strange that a mediocre website can decide it wants to be a publisher, and one month later hit #1 on the NYT Bestsellers list,” said Stamper on Twitter.
Stamper also went on to say that several bookstore employees had direct messaged him on Twitter, telling him that people had been calling their stores, claiming that it was being adapted into a movie and ordering large quantities of the book—5,000 copies to be exact—the goal that most books on the New York Times’ Bestsellers list hit.
Sarem used to be a music manager for the band Blues Traveler. Once news of Sarem allegedly fabricating sales broke, their official twitter spoke out about it and then deleted the tweet soon after.
“We fired her for these kind of stunts. Her sense of denial is staggering,” said Blue Traveler’s tweet.
The actual book was compared to excerpts of “My Immortal,” a 2008 Harry Potter fan fiction that gained notoriety for its typos, plot holes and all around terrible writing. There was enough speculation that Lani Sarem wrote “My Immortal,” that it forced the actual author out of hiding.
“Because I've received several messages asking this, and predict I may receive more, I'll answer it here. No, I am not Lani Sarem. Really bad fiction simply tends to read the same,” she posted on her old LiveJournal account.
“Handbook for Mortals” has since been retracted from the New York Time’s Bestseller list.
(09/26/17 11:50am)
It was the first home game of the year. Football fans sat in the stands, suffering through the 80 degree weather in order to watch Mercer face off against Wofford.
During halftime, the band was getting ready to play “Georgia on My Mind” when the announcer interrupted to list the accomplishments of Mercer Drum Major Maia Nichols.
“I honestly didn't know what was going on or why they were doing the announcement,” Nichols said, “As soon as they said 'your boyfriend Zach has a question for you,' I saw Zach walk onto the field. It was so exciting that I was completely oblivious to what was going on around me. I didn't realize that the band had started playing until halfway through the song.”
Zach Mikos came out onto the field and got down on one knee.
“I knew that a proposal was coming at some point, but Zach had told me it was going to happen closer to October,” Nichols said, “There were definitely a few things that seemed unusual about this game, but I had chalked this up to being our first Saturday game.”
One of the drum majors pretended to be sick and while Nichols helped her, their director let the band know what was going on
“The whole experience was so amazing, and so many people put so much work in,” Nichols said, “There was so much love and support from both our families and all our friends… It was a moment that both of us will remember forever.”
Nichols is especially grateful to Doug Cowden, the Marching Band Director, and Daniel Tate, the Assistant Athletics Director, for helping make the proposal happen.
“I was thrilled that everything went so perfectly,” Mikos said, “It was truly a moment I'll remember for the rest of my life.”
(09/21/17 7:25pm)
[caption id="attachment_22206" align="aligncenter" width="475"] Marianna Bacallao. A Native American dancer entertains the crowd at the Ocmulgee Festival.[/caption]
(09/05/17 7:55pm)
The lines were long and the sun was hot, but the QuadWorks Carnival still attracted hundreds of Mercerians to the lot behind the baseball fields.
QuadWorks was fully equipped with carnival staples like funnel cakes, bumper cars, rock climbing walls and even a rollercoaster.
The QuadWorks Carnival replaced the annual MAC Party, a semester kick-off event that was cancelled this year.
“[The] MAC Party went away [because] the other schools [Wesleyan College and Middle Georgia State] declined to participate this year so we decided to do an event on campus for Mercer students,” said Carrie Ingoldsby, director of Campus Life and Student Involvement.
Sophomore Elizabeth Daniels said that she enjoyed the change.
“The carnival was a great way to jump start a new year with my lovely fellow bears,” she said.
Marianna Bacallao
Marianna Bacallao
(09/04/17 1:34pm)
The Mulberry Market hosted a Back to School Bash on August 23 that was designed to showcase what the market has to offer. Students who found their way to Tattnall Square Park found face painting, live music and food trucks, in addition to the artisan goods and produce usually found at Mulberry Market.
The Market is in Tattnall Square Park every Wednesday from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. For more information, check out their Facebook Page.
(08/17/17 10:00am)
Marvel’s film canon has survived off of the portrayal of superheroes as rich and famous upstarts, fighting wars of cosmic importance while remaining severed from the people they affect. Even in “Civil War”, where accountability to the public drives the story, our heroes still remain separate from the people on the ground.
Their plots are always complicated and the collateral damage is always massive, but there has been a distinct lack of consequences for our heroes, and a lack of depth for our audience.
The plot and characters of “Spider-Man: Homecoming” exist, literally and metaphorically, in the shadow of Avengers Tower. This angle explores what happens to the buildings that tumble and the people whose lives are ruined by the extravagant fight scenes prior movies shrug off.
It gives this Spider-Man a unique sense of world building; living in a world where, not only do superheroes already exist as an accepted part of life, but those superheroes have money, experience and a monopoly on heroism.
Tom Holland’s Peter Parker enters, and by following his perspective, this world Marvel has spent multiple motion pictures creating starts to feel like a real place.
They take time to show Peter’s relationship with the people of the city, and his role within his community. It highlights the fact that, although this world is filled with reality-bending weapons and costumed miracles, the people are still people.
The Vulture is no longer a cackling, evil-for-the-sake-of-evil villain hell-bent on revenge. He’s a family man whose ability to provide for his family is compromised.
His vendetta against Spider-Man isn’t personal, and this allows him to deliver the first “We’re not so different, you and I” speech to actually have some substance behind it.
Flash Thompson, classically portrayed as the hulking bully, doesn’t steal lunch money or give swirlies; he acts like every kid you didn’t get along with in high school; occasional jabs, passive aggressive comments here and there, but nothing so unrealistically violent, something that seems harmless when Peter puts it in perspective.
And the notorious MJ. While the first cinematic Mary Jane was known for the famous Spider-Man Kiss, this MJ will be remembered for her own character. Although she spends the movie taking a backseat on the action, her scenes are definitely memorable, and her role to play in future sequels will undoubtedly be just as fun.
Not all new character iterations can be seen as an improvement, of course, swapping Aunt May out with a newer, younger model has uncomfortable, sexist undertones, especially when the script goes out of its way to remind you that men are attracted to her.
Tony Stark is also there to tug on heart strings and deliver a couple of one-liners, although the movie could have easily survived without him. He shows up almost as a reminder that although he doesn’t plan on making amends to his shady business practices that created the Vulture, he is still a good guy because he gives Peter quasi-helpful advice and makes casual passes at his aunt.
Being the third Spider-Man reboot, and the newest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming had some big shadows over its release, but it’s able to shine both on its own, and in comparison to its predecessors.
(03/21/17 4:19pm)
Sophomore Chase Moore has branched out as an actor during his time at Mercer, and is currently directing his own play with a professional acting job on the horizon.
Moore’s first experience acting was in high school, but his school’s theatre program was relatively small and underfunded.
“I never really started acting until college,” Moore said. “I was in a one-act play in high school, but half the cast never learned their lines, so we never performed.”
It was during this time that Moore started creating short films with his brother.
“Before I ever entered the theatre world, I always wanted to go to film school and become a movie director,” Moore said. “I've been making my own short films since high school, but I've never been supported on that front, so going to film school was something I wouldn't have been able to do, financially speaking.”
Moore got his chance to pursue both acting and directing at Mercer. When he saw the Mercer Players at Bear Fair, he grabbed a flyer for auditions.
“I just thought to myself that it would be something good for me to do, to keep me busy and make some friends,” Moore said.
He was cast in “A Flea in Her Ear” and has since been in six plays at Mercer, with his seventh now in the works. Earlier this semester, his directing class put on a showcase for 11 short plays, allowing each student to direct a play according to their own vision.
“I directed a show called ‘4 AM (Open All Night),’ and I believe I had the perfect actors to pull off the most technical of the 11 [plays],” Moore said. “I am really proud of my first show, and in many ways it was a dream come true.”
After “11 x 10” wrapped up, Moore began directing another play, this time a full-length production of the play “Tracks” by Peter Tarsi.
“Being on the other side of the stage as a director is different, and while I really want to be back on stage acting, I'm thoroughly enjoying being at the helm and banding all these amazing actors together to form something only we can make,” Moore said.
Moore’s experiences in the Theatre department has made him reconsider what he wants to do for the rest of his life.
“Midway through my third show here at Mercer, I quickly began to realize that acting was something I would never be able to not do,” Moore said. “I vividly remember sitting in the dressing room getting ready for a performance of ‘Hedda Gabler,’ and I saw myself in full costume, and I knew that I would never be able to do anything else if I wasn't acting.”
This past January, Moore drove up to North Carolina to audition for multiple theatre companies looking to cast their summer shows. Moore got a couple of callbacks, and a little over a week ago he was hired by one of the largest outdoor theatres in the country: Tecumseh Outdoor Drama, a 3000-seat historic venue in Ohio.
“It's really surreal, to go from only imagining something like this, to actually being paid to go and act at a place like Tecumseh,” Moore said.
A week after class ends this semester, Moore will drive up to Ohio and join the cast of Tecumseh.
“Deep down, [acting] was something I always wanted to do, but I always viewed it as something unattainable, just a fun little dream that I never really considered as something I could do and be good at.”
(03/21/17 1:53pm)
The Cox Capitol Theatre is a place of great history, and it shows in the atmosphere. With the red velvet accents and gold crown moulding stylings reminiscent of the 1930s, mixed with a modern brand of LED lights lining the floors and curtains, the theatre creates an anachronistic aesthetic that works in its favor.
A crowd has gathered on the floor, and a privileged few sit in the box seats flanking either side, attended to by a cocktail waitress.
The opener comes out first, a three-man band called Greyhounds that hails from Austin, Texas. There is a murmur of surprise throughout the first row of the balcony; a couple of audience members mutter that they had either never heard of this particular opener, or that they hadn’t expected City and Colour to use one.
Whether they were advertised or not, they start out strong with a set that, while not necessarily complementary to the band they’re opening for, manages to capture their audience’s attention.
Roadies rearrange the stage, swapping drums with different drums, guitars with different guitars, and keyboards with different keyboards — but they ultimately change little about the the instruments at play. City and Colour use the same ingredients — drums, guitars, keyboards — but are able to create a unique blend of acoustic and post-hardcore instead of blues.
The show was backed by ten powerful lights shuffling through the rainbow, the fog catching its colors and making the illusion of low-hanging, color-changing clouds — fitting for the band’s name.
Their music has more folk influence than its opener and, while both are pretty laid back, City and Colour is more of something you expect to hear around a bonfire in the woods, while Greyhounds is something that would play in a niche coffee shop up north.
City and Colour rounded out the night with a setlist from the band’s most recent album, “If I Should Go Before You,” which got frontman Dallas Green an Artist of the Year nomination.
City and Colour will be touring the United States and Canada until July 2.
Show Rating: 3.5/5
(02/22/17 10:30pm)
The Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences unveiled its newest art exhibition Feb. 3, a collection of works aptly called “Emerging Artists.” It is the museum’s fifth showcase of its kind.
This new installment houses over 40 art pieces from seven artists across the southeastern United States. From paintings and sculptures, to mixed media and abstract art, this display sets out to show the true breadth of southern art.
There is a meld of different artistic and political statements. Jerry Smith’s paintings and mixed media installations, in particular, stand out against the white backdrop of the museum.
Smith’s mixed media art is made from recycled trash. There are the tiny faces of C-3PO and other beloved pop culture icons, all assembled in a mosaic of a bald man with thin-rimmed glasses. Resting on his forehead is a wooden sign with the vintage image of a woman telling someone, presumably her hypothetical children, “Eat your peas! There are children starving in Africa…”
Sharing the top corner with her is a rocking chair, a disembodied foot, a rooster, and the personal account of the artist’s descent into madness as he has a “nightly rodent bedtime story.” Below them is the message: Whether Vain.
It seems a hodge-podge of strange and disconcerting images, like the visual equivalent of two Cracker Barrel ads played on top of each other. It makes something unfamiliar out of the familiar.
It clearly has an anti-consumerist message with some relation to the humanitarian efforts in Ethiopia, but there are so many threads of it that don’t connect, the artist fails to make any strong point.
Smith’s painting is a different beast. In an interesting, Smith depicts Jesus as a white man, holding a rifle, and standing in a field, flanked by cows and oil rigs — a visual representation of a quote by former President Barack Obama, included with the work:
"It's not surprising — then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," Obama said of the hard-pressed rural population when running for president in 2008.
“So it’s not surprising they get bitter, cling to guns or religion,” is how Smith chooses to shorten that quote. At the bottom of the painting he writes “CLING.”
Not everything in the exhibit carries such strong political sentiments, but Smith’s art pieces take up a lot of space, and a lot ideas.
(02/03/17 4:39pm)
A large oak tree looms over the gravel expanse of the parking lot, various metal chairs, bicycles, and oven paddles hanging from its branches, like the project of an overworked and over-caffeinated art student. Ingleside Village Pizza, the sign reads in a mismatched font. The quiet colors and tinted windows are, whether intentional or not, misleading, because the inside is so colorful and vibrant it’s almost like walking into a different world.
The Good
Atmosphere
There are, by my calculations, at least a billion different sets of string lights, lamps and glowing neon signs in total. Every inch of the walls are covered by some sort of poster, mirror or painting, with a vast array of musical instruments, lights and art pieces hanging from the ceiling. A medieval suit of armor guards the restrooms, his body filled with multicolored christmas lights. It honest-to-god looks like the set of an ISpy Book, if the theme was “inside the mind of an indie filmmaker.”
The Price
Ingleside Village Pizza has definitely earned the single dollar sign by its name. With a party of seven, splitting the cost of two pizzas and a basket of breadsticks, each person only had to pay $3.25. I don’t know how this is possible, considering how expensive the electric bill must be to maintain their aesthetic, but I won’t question the miracle.
The Food
Our breadsticks came to us in a green basket, insulated by wax paper and swimming in a pool of butter, oregano and shredded mozzarella cheese. A generous container of marinara sauce followed, and the picture was beautiful enough to make my eyes water. The bread itself was soft and doughy, without the fear of being undercooked. Combined with the sauce and cheese, it tasted as otherworldly as everything else in the pizzeria.
The main event, the pizza itself, lived up to the high standards that its butter-laden predecessor had set. The sauce to cheese ratio was perfect, and while I don’t think the seasoning made much of a difference taste-wise, it definitely made one aesthetically. The crust had the same softness I had come to expect from the breadsticks, and after months of just scraping by using pepsi50 for Papa Johns, I have grown to appreciate a good crust.
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The Questionable
Wait Time
This is definitely not the place to go if you’re on the verge of collapse and need something fast. The wait time was somewhere upwards of 20 minutes, but I’m willing to excuse it because they are making a pizza from scratch, and these things take time. I suggest using an appetizer to fill this gap.
The Service
I only saw our waiter twice, but since the soda fountain was out in the open, this wasn’t as big of a deal as it might have been otherwise.
The Mosaic of Elvis Presley Hanging in the Bathroom
This isn’t so much of a complaint as it is a question. Why? Why is there a puzzle where every individual piece is a picture of Elvis’s face, which fits together into a larger picture of Elvis’ face? Why does it exist, and why did anyone think directly above the bathroom toilet was a good place to put it?
The Bad
First Impression
The outside decor and small, gravel parking lot were the only things that put me off to Ingleside Village Pizza, but since they were the first things I noticed about the pizzeria, they could easily put potential customers off.
The Calories
This restaurant probably isn’t the place to go if you’re trying to keep your New Year's’ resolution.
“I think the breadsticks increased my cholesterol, but in a good way,” says Monica Stephenson, a member of our party, and none of us were inclined to disagree with her.
Overall, Ingleside Village Pizza has all the makings of a college student’s type of restaurant; delicious, affordable and aesthetically pleasing.
Rating
Marianna: 4.5/5
Monica: 5/5
(10/09/16 11:16pm)
Before Mallory Sammons’ first field trip, her father gave her a small camera.
Its tiny reel could only hold 30 images at a time, but Sammons made the most of that space, filling it so often that her parents had to buy her something a little bigger.
Sammons’ second camera was a Sony Cyber-shot.
“I used to spend hours walking through the yard taking photos of things,” Sammons said, “I won a photo contest for the school newspaper with my little camera.”
Sammons would receive her next camera as a Christmas gift — a Nikon D3100, which she still uses today.
“I was unstoppable with that camera,” Sammons said. “I photographed everything. I remember the first photo I ever took with it was on Christmas Day while the candles were being put out, and the image was so clear that I could see the curls of smoke.”
“Walking into someone's home and seeing a photograph I took hanging on the wall gives me so much joy,” Sammons said. “The most rewarding moments for me are the times I take someone's photo and show them the back of the camera, and they see themselves the way I see them through my camera, that they have a good smile or beautiful eyes and that they are photogenic after all.”
Recently, Sammons has begun work on her Mercer Character Portrait project. She originally sought models by posting on the Mercer Facebook Group, and received 67 total volunteers.
She asks her models to pick a place on campus that’s personally significant to them and to wear something that represents them.
“It was secretly a way for me to get to practice shooting and get more portrait practice, but I made a project out of it,” Sammons said, “I have met them after class or before work and spent 10, 15 minutes snapping portraits. I intend to post them on Facebook as a sort of publication, so everyone can see. So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Avery Davis, one of Sammons’ subjects, said, “Mallory and I went to the park because every Saturday I go watercolor in the park. I was very excited to be a part of her project because she is very talented.”
Taking photos has given Sammons many opportunities. She has photographed several weddings, engagements, family shoots, and children.
She won British Virgin Islands Property & Yacht Magazine’s “Best Overall Photo,” and was featured in the 2014 issue.
Over the course of a three-week mission internship in Honduras, Sammons amassed more than 2000 photographs.
For Sammons, photography isn’t about the recognition. It’s about capturing moments.
“Memories are some of the most precious things we have, and capturing those for other people is a joy and pleasure,” Sammons said.