The King Without a Crown at the State Street Theater

Posted on 12/11/2015 by Ramon Guadalupe

I’m still surprised that I watched Matisyahu in concert at Ithaca. I haven’t heard about this artist in years. When I was in high school he came out with his major hit called King Without a Crown. This song was major, especially in New York City in 2005.

Matisyahu was extremely popular for two reasons. The first is that his music is dope. The second was that prior to this I’m pretty sure not too many people heard an Orthodox Jewish man sing reggae as if he was born in Kingston.

Being a Jewish man living in Crown Heights Brooklyn, NY prior to his success, the Big Apple found another reason to love his music. Of course I had to attend this concert not only to listen to some dope rhythms but also to represent Brooklyn.

I really didn’t know what to expect from the concert. I had not listened to his music in years and even when I did it was pretty much that one song. I also didn’t take the time to listen to any current music of his. I was surprised to see how entertaining his performance was. Honestly, I only intended to stay for a few songs. I ended up staying for the entire concert, plus the encore performance he gave after the crowd cheered him back on to the stage.

His music has a great sound to it. I can’t forget to shoutout the band that he brought because they were on point. During the solos for drummers and guitarists, Matisyahu would dance around doing what I called “crazy legs.’ I can’t really describe it in words, but he basically jumped around while swinging his long legs. It was fun to watch, I’m not going to lie.

I took some videos, but my phone isn’t letting me upload them. In the meantime, enjoy the photos below.

^^The concert was held at the State Street Theater, which is right across the street from the Ithaca Commons. You must watch a show at this place before you graduate. It’s a beautiful theater. The usher told me that it was opened during the 1920s and originally was a car showroom. The theater tends to bring some low-key big name acts every now and then.

^^This is just a photo of the band that opened up for Matisyahu. I can’t remember the name of the band. They were pretty decent.

Into the Hood!

Posted on 11/01/2015 by Ramon Guadalupe

Everyone has to participate in Into the Streets at least once during their Cornell career. Into the Streets is basically one day of service that is done during the Fall semester.

I always wondered what kind of difference one day of service can truly make.

For that reason, I never participated until this year because in the past I thought I was a bit too involved with community service. I used to work at the Southside Community Center (an after school center) which is similar to GIAC in many ways. I have tutored kids with the PSC’s Reach Program at the Ithaca Youth Bureau, and one year my frat hosted an entire indoor Carnival at Southside. Fun times.

This semester I took a different approach. I decided I won’t participate in any community service during the semester (to focus on better grades, and a full time job offer) except for Into the Streets.

Here’s what one day of service can do:

^Just one of my small piles of leaves. This was only my second time raking, ever. I’ve lived in a high rise in NYC my entire life. We just don’t have enough space in Brooklyn to rake anymore.

^End result: About 10 full bags of yard junk filled. We ran out of bags, so I’d say we did a pretty good job.

Doesn’t really look like much right? I didn’t think so either at first, but after speaking with the coordinator at GIAC, she explained to us how much that really helped. GIAC (Greater Ithaca Activities Center) has been around for many years and plays a pivotal role for many low-income families in the community. The center offers many programs such as tutoring, ESL, boxing classes, guidance for parents, etc. It was pretty impressive to hear about the many different services they offer, and to see how large the building is.

GIAC has way more funding than Southside does, however GIAC’s budget is really limited in terms of maintenance. They haven’t been able to fund consistent yard work, so what we did in just a few hours alleviated the pressure that their few maintenance workers face (I think the coordinator said that there are only three maintenance workers). The Rose House group pulled all of the weeds around the premises, and raked as much as we could.

There’s one thing I learned about myself at this event. Landscaping is hard work that I am not built for in this life 🙂

The Laws of War

Posted on 10/19/2015 by Ramon Guadalupe

On Wednesday October 7th I attended the Rose Cafe featuring Professor Jens David Ohlin on “What should you know about international law?” This was a really interesting talk. We began the discussion with a talk about the current situation the US is facing with the accidental bombing of a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. This is a really messy situation because hospitals are considered safe zones in a war, and technically it’s a war crime to bomb such places. The group that ran the hospital, Doctors Without Borders, is calling for the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to be activated in order to declare this incident a war crime. President Obama has apologized for the mistake, but it is still unclear whether or not the military was aware that the building was a hospital before approving the attack.

Professor Ohlin gave us a pretty in depth analysis on the implications that this could have for the US. I found it surprising that there are certain technicalities that must be addressed when considering what acts of violence can be declared a war crime. I found the definition of collateral damage to be interesting, since it is pretty vague to declare how many people it takes for a catastrophic event to be collateral damage or not.

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Unfortunately I couldn’t stay for the event in it’s entirety (I have a class that starts at 7:30pm), but I’m glad that I was able to stay for at least half of the discussion.

The Faces on the Wall

Posted on 09/23/2015 by Ramon Guadalupe

Unfortunately I am not as cultured as I appear to be, so this was my first art show and reception ever (yes I have been to art museums). It was a pretty cool event. I mean, I guess anything can be pretty cool when there’s free wine involved, but that’s not the point.

I didn’t really know what type of art to expect when I got there, so I was pretty impressed to see some of the details in Nicholas Carbonaro’s work, especially his artistic style. The vibrant colors definitely add emotion to all of the pieces. I’m intrigued by the different emotions present in the different faces. Most of them resemble exactly how I feel now that it’s prelim season. Maybe that’s why…

Check out the dopeness of some of this work below:

This lady is a bit scary. I can’t tell if she’s angry, or just finished an intense pilates workout.

I asked Nicholas about this picture in particular. His response wasn’t really what I expected. He said some of the inspiration behind the work was the many different directions that students go after they graduate. I didn’t really get it.

She looks like she’s not in the mood to be bothered.

This guy. He looks really worried or scared. He’s also making the same face that I do when I call Wings Over Ithaca just to find out that they are closed. Why answer the phone?!