As a long-time listener of The 1975, I was cautiously excited when the Spotify notification came up for the release of their new album, Being Funny In A Foreign Language. Because the sound of The 1975 has been known to vary quite a bit from album to album (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse), I approached the album with a careful optimism, not too hopeful that it would exceed any expectations while simultaneously praying that this would not be the album to flop and get The 1975 booted from the classic indie-pop-rock rotation. Pleasantly, my expectations for Being Funny In A Foreign Language were appropriately exceeded.

This week’s Lamron Lit Corner will be a bit different than usual—when tackling Lewis Carroll’s famous children's novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I thought to myself, “What can I add to the conversation around this book? What can I say that hasn’t already been said?” Then I looked at my bookshelf and decided that the answer was right in front of me, or rather, the question: for those who have never read this seminal work, what edition should you buy?

Though the Halloween season is coming to a close and the general public has shut their eyes to the grizzly and gruesome world of horror, Guillermo del Toro has come to deliver a timeless eight-episode monstrous spectacle. This newly released Netflix anthology series focuses on all things scary and bone-chilling, bringing several diverse subjects and narratives to the center stage.

“Red Cedar Wood”

The feeling somewhat tickles. It comes back and forth, up and down, over and over again until it becomes numbing.

Ever so often, on warm days plagued by rolling clouds and shade, it feels nice. It’s a trickle of water after a drought. I have time to drink it in.

“The Books at Heaven’s Gate” and “Pitchers of Water”

The movie Boo was a Halloween movie I watched frequently when I was younger, and while I personally did not find it too scary, mostly due to its computer-generated graphics and horror dramatics, it still makes the list of classic horror movies for the month of October.

Netflix released the movie Incantation for streaming shortly after the film’s release in Jul. 2022. It was directed by Kevin Ko who, according to IMDb, often “pushed the boundaries of good taste in Taiwan cinema with its fast cars, dismemberment and a Japanese adult video actress,” in the earliest short films of his college days; Incantation is no different in pushing that boundary. It received relatively good reviews upon its release—however, as it came to Netflix, the reviews shifted. 

These days, it’s rare to find a family-friendly movie that is beautifully made, deeply vulnerable, and still genuinely funny, accessible, and adorable. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On manages to accomplish each of these tasks with a grace and sweet magnificence that breaks the boundaries of the mockumentary genre.

Daniel Defoe, most known for his “novels” Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, falls into a sort of liminal literary space that few other authors do; despite being fairly recognizable (Robinson Crusoe being a well-known book), not many readers have the time or energy to read what can be easily seen as the “antique” or “unintuitive” pieces that he produced. Additionally, his work falls outside of strict fiction or nonfiction labels makes it difficult to even categorize, much less understand, what Defoe stood for back in the early 1700s when he wrote. I offer that instead of reading the more recognizable novels he produced, readers in the 2020s should instead look to his 1722 book Journal of the Plague Year to see not only why classic literature matters, but how human nature in response to large-scale catastrophe is nothing more than a horrid, never-ending cycle.

THE BLACK WOMAN

The Black Woman is often imitated, but can never truly be duplicated. From the swaying of the hips, to the shape of the lips, to the very essence of the way she speaks. The Black Woman possesses a history of being robbed of her innocence at a tender age, her body is criticized for its shape and humiliated for its color, violated in every sense of the word.

With the release of the newest Netflix adaptation of Jeffery Dahmer’s story gaining so much circulation, many people wonder if the morbid story is worth their time. The series is a ten-part episodic journey through the life of Dahmer and those who were closest to him as he took part in his beyond nefarious deeds. The story told here, though highly gruesome, tells a tale that we can apply to our own time, especially with the thematic undertones presented. This watch is not meant for the faint of heart, but is, in my opinion, the best recent adaptation of the Dahmer story.  

Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon: Learning how to read the largest fantasy saga ever written

Between drama on the set of Don’t Worry Darling, the newest seasons of the hottest reality TV show, and the tally of how many tattoos (or brandings) Pete Davidson has recently gotten to track his famous lovers, in this day and age, we are constantly inundated with the hottest celebrity gossip. Why is this the culture every which way we turn, and why do we eat it up by the spoonful?

The base operations of the expedition were little more than a compound of standard box-shaped white Confederation-grade shelters, broken up here and there with other improvised shacks and tents made from resources found in the nearby area. The state of the bivouac didn’t surprise the Captain; she had seen others like it before. But those were expeditions that had been vacant, abandoned, and devoid of scientists. Nothing like here.

Gandy Dancer, the SUNY-wide literary journal, is looking for submissions for its Fall 2022 issue! For those that work either in their major or extracurriculars in the creative space, Gandy Dancer is not only a welcoming and open space for you to submit to—for those who are accepted, it is a perfect resume/portfolio builder.

Northanger Abbey was published together with Persuasion in a bundle in Dec. 1817, less than six months after Jane Austen died. While these were the last of Austen’s novels to reach publication, Persuasion was the last novel Austen wrote, while Northanger Abbey was actually her first. Originally known as Susan, the book was sold for only ten pounds in 1803 where it sat in purgatory until Austen’s brother bought it back from the company where Austen was able to continue to revise it and prepare it for publishing.