| Summary: | El 1/AB111- 11 KOS1i)V A WEEK TH SAT LECTURE SERIES: DUANE EMMEL 8PM HARRY POTTER lithe half•blood prince MOVIE RIGHT any COSTUME OMIT AGAPELLA \IG-T DISTRICT 6 (- brought to you by CEC CON CO RD1AN A&E, NEWS FEBRUARY 12, 2010 I I A few books to expand the winter reading list BY CHELSEA SPANIER At*E Writer The reading list never shrinks, only growing like some out of control fungus to the point you wonder, "Is this healthy?" Forget about summer reading lists: winter is the time to curl up with a paperback, hot chocolate, and remind yourself it might be a better idea to explore new worlds now while yours is still a tundra. Here are some hits, misses, and addi-tions worthy of any reading list. Tracy Chevalier, author of "Girl With The Pearl Ear ring" and "The Lady and the Unicorn," has a new histori-cal romance ready to whisk you away, but it falls short of being anywhere near interesting. In "Remark-able Creatures," a spinster meets a young woman, they become friends while find-ing fossils on the coasts of Victorian-era England, and an attractive fossil collector comes between them. "Can their friendship survive?" is the last nail-biting ques-tion on anyone's mind while the reader slogs through facts about (what else?) fos-sils. Chevalier fans will find treasures throughout, tak-ing delight in the structure, development, and style the author is so well known for. The rest of us might pass. "The Help," one of the PHOTO FROM BFGB.WORDPRESS.COM few popular accounts of the Civil Rights Movement and brilliantly written by Kath-ryn Stockett, was released in long awaited paperback last month. A collection of stories about African maids trusted with children but not dinnerware, Stockett raises spirits. Definitely a conversation starter, it also has become the gossip book of higher circles everywhere; instead of shrinking back and hoping no one preten-tious will ask you what you thought of the book, you can now choose whether or not you would like to pass that same uncomfortable mo-ment to someone else. Speaking of uncom-fortable, Leila Meacham's "Roses" is the multi-faceted romance novel made for the question "What in the hell is going on here?" Even with overtones of such classics like "Gone with the Wind" and the most in-depth char-acters of any best selling romance (I was surprised, too, that there were such things), the confusion is al-most too much to finish the book. Young heiresses, at-tractive plantation owners, and 624 pages of fictional people being ridiculous over the course of 5o years leaves readers divided: is the time, energy, and money worth it? Although my vote says "no," those who have a sweet tooth for this genre clamber for their copies. Elizabeth Kostova, au-thor of popular novel "The Historian," has pushed "The Swan Thieves" back into the realms of mystery, suspense, and national reviews lon-ger than the book itself. In short, a psychiatrist's newest patient is a famous painter who is going through some ;. SWAN THIEVES PHOTO FROM BOOKPAGE.WORDPRESS.COM difficult life changes and won't say a word to anyone. Through therapy, secret scandals are revealed about art and artists of the 19`h cen-tury. For anyone who ever read Kostova's first book, you know there are more pages than information but the whole thing is so neatly wrapped and carefully cre-ated that you don't want to put the book down. Very much like Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," once you wade through the facts given and re-read a few paragraphs, you're hooked. Anne Tyler's highly antic-ipated novel "Noah's Corn-pass" doesn't disappoint. A curmudgeonly, second-rate teacher with more baggage than an airport is attacked in his apartment, losing his memory. While trying to re-cover his past, he finds help and companionship with a misfit fashion disaster half his age. Pleasant style and just enough sentimental odd-ity to make you squirm, this book is a fantastic afternoon read you might just have to finish twice. Another tome you may not want to shelf before it goes ragged is Stephen King's "Under The Dome." With over woo pages, you couldn't possibly devour this tangled story in one bite, but the book is compelling enough to draw the reader back in STEP kNtAk U N D ER I At, 14 A NOVEL PHOTO FROM BOOKSONTHERADIO .WORD-PRESS. COM after a brief respite. Once again, something strange is happening in a small Maine town and a handful of cast members (they somehow re-fuse to feel like real people) must battle human nature while trapped under an in-visible force field. King isn't just pulling a rabbit out of a hat: he is the ringmaster of an entire circus. Although not as brilliant as his previ-ous projects, King still leaves other authors in the dust. Some are groaning and others cheering at the an-nouncement there will be a fourth installment of the popular "Pirates of the Ca-ribbean" movie franchise, but until you're lined up in the theater, you can read Michael Crichton's "Pirate Latitudes." A finished yet rough draft the late Crich-ton's editor found on his computer, this read is more of a romp than a scientific discovery. Even though Crichton fans are grumbling and some writers claim this book should never have gone to press (it does read like a first or second draft, which is perfectly fine because Crich-ton probably never intended this thing to see the light of day), the book is still a best seller. If you aren't up for an adventure on the high seas, classics "Airframe," "Jurassic Park," "Prey," and "Timeline" are available in every thrift store and public library from here to anywhere. Mitch Albom reminds us yet again to play nice with the rest of the world in his new story "Have A Little Faith: A True Story" It really is a true story of when Al-born met a rabbi and a priest, one Caucasian and the other African-American, leading two very different groups of people to the idea of faith. Both committed to their re-ligions yet understanding of those who have lost faith, these two men taught Albom life lessons he then teaches us. Put it next to "Tuesdays With Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" for a trilogy of unforgettable advice. Now that you have a re-plenished reading list, what are you waiting for? Go bor row, rent, or buy but, above all else, thoroughly enjoy. SEA camp out Students play Halo to help Haiti BY LEIF STAVIG Staff Writer On the night of Feb. II, some Cobbers may have noticed that people were winter camping on campus close to the bell tower. To raise awareness for environ-mental issues, and to spend time camping outside in the winter, the Student Environ-mental Alliance organized a camping event. Carleton had a simi-lar camping event to raise awareness about conserving electricity. The purpose of the event is to encourage people to turn down their heat and save electricity. SEA wants students to know that there are other ways of keeping warm besides turn-ing the heat all the way up. Most of the preparation involved getting gear togeth-er for the nearly 20 people who planned to participate. Because most people don't bring camping equipment to school, it was challenging for SEA to round up the gear necessary to stay warm—or at least prevent anyone from freezing to death. Fortu-nately, several SEA mem-bers along with their advi-sor Stewart Herman were able to find enough gear to make the campout possible. Warm clothing had to be available for everyone, and each person needed to have a sleeping bag and sleeping pad. Herman, the faculty member who attended the campout, volunteered be-cause the idea of camping out sounded fun to him. He said that the optimal tem-perature range for the cam-pout would be between zero and 20 degrees. If that were the case, they wouldn't have to worry about melting snow or weather that was too cold. As of Feb. 7, the weather was forecasted for a low of about zero degrees. Sarah Kjorlien, a sopho-more in SEA, was one of the main people in charge of planning the event. She worked hard on planning for the campout and was en-thusiastic about it. When it comes to the cold-weather camping, she said that she was a little scared, but she feels prepared. The campers got a lot of advice about cold-weather camping such as staying dry, using lots of layers, and not using cotton. They intend to have some hot drinks and to take advantage of every-one's body heat by staying close to one another in the tents. "I'm super excited for it; it might be a little cold, but fun," Kjorlien said. She also added that while they plan on trying to raise campus awareness at the campout, it is mostly for fun. Erik George, president of SEA, also talked about how the goal of the cam-pout was to have fun. He said that the members have -m-e-ctirrgs-ai d cfcricrts-with each other, but rarely have the chance to get to-gether to bond. "We wanted to do some-thing fun and have public-ity," George said. He said that they wanted the campout to be visible for the other students on cam-pus to see. All three individuals re-marked that SEA has been more active than normal this year. Currently, there are a number of different projects going on such as updating the school's new Web page about sustainability, increas-ing recycling awareness in dorms, and planning out two gardens on campus. Herman emphasized the success of SEA as a campus organization run completely by students. He also said that this year has been ex-ceptional in terms of what the students have been do-ing and how their attitudes have been. "The students want to send a positive message, and are reluctant to point a finger in any direction," Herman said, concerning the non-judgmental attitude that SEA has had. Kjorlien hopes that the SEA campout will become an annual or biannual event. BY CALEB GIESEN Staff Writer Matt Rauhauser hunkers down on the edge of his futon in Hoyum 204, eyes locked on the r9-inch TruTech tele-vision in front of him. Bod-ies litter the screen among scattered rifles and ammuni-tion of fallen men, remnants of the macabre bloodshed he intently follows. Derek Steinke, his room-mate, sits opposite an LG computer monitor as well, fiercely grim as images of the same scene reflect from the lenses of his black-rimmed glasses. Both are silent. A bomb blast suddenly shakes Steinke's monitor - hot blue flames swirl and arc and engulf everything on the screen, a lethal embodiment of the death the two have es "Dude, D.you suck," Rauhauser says. Steinke tosses down his Xbox controller, defeated, and lets out a sigh. "I know, man. I haven't played in a long time," he says. The two roommates, who normally devote their time playing video games to Call of Duty, recently cracked the case on Halo 3 - a game that sat as nothing more than a coaster for months on the TV stand that straddles their wall. The Haiti catastrophe, of all things, changed that. Both affected by the im-ages they've seen in the news and on the internet, Rau-hauser and Steinke recently found a unique way to con-tribute to the relief efforts of a country racked by natu-ral disaster: taking part of a massive movement of Xbox players to donate money to Haiti simply by playing Halo 3. The donation came from the game's creators, the Bun-gie Company, based in Wash-ington. In announcements on the company's weekly blog update, Bungie offered online players a 48-hour op-portunity on Jan. 20- 21 to contribute to Haiti relief efforts by playing any ver-sion of their Halo franchise. Bungie would len donate Sioo for every 1,000 gamers who went online, with up to a maximum of $77,000 going to Haiti relief and the Ameri-can Red Cross. The result: Estimates of just over a million garners worldwide, including Rau-hauser and Steinke, flooded the game, easily reaching the $77,000 cap. The two roommates were impressed with the outcome, and Bungie's overall donation campaign. What was signifi-cant, they said, was how easy it was to contribute. "We're usually online any-way and hadn't played Halo in awhile, so we thought it would be cool," Rauhauser said. "And this way, all you have to do is play a video-game to help out, ya know? It's not like it's hard." Derek agreed with Rau-hauser. "It's actually a really smart idea, I think," Stein-ke said. "I'm surprised that more people didn't do some-thing like this, or that they don't do this kind of thing for other causes. I think it could be really popular." The two, who found out about the effort through posters hanging up in Hoyum Hall, were among online users like "nipplah," "beesKneesi7," and "rob-bieBobBob" who played on the-Jan. zo 21, markin Halo characters with a heart emblem on the sleeve as a tally to be recognized in the effort. It came as a request from Bungie, urging players to "show your hearts for Hai-ti," where players tailored their characters with hearts to be counted towards the donation goal. Twitter posts on Bungie's Web site showed an enthu-siastic response from its on-line community. Users like clayfoot - "come kill people in Halo 3 w/ me! It's for Hai-ti," and vontoxic - "Don't be a Haiti hater!" voiced senti-ments of the contributions being made. Both fans of such a unique way to give back, Rauhaus-er and Steinke think it has helped raised awareness in a demographic of people who may not otherwise have the resources to contribute. 'When you think about it, this lets us give back in a significant way," Steinke said. It's not like we have a bunch of money to donate to Haiti, but we can at least do this." Rauhauser agreed with Steinke, adding his own sen-timents. "Yeah, college kids aren't going to have a lot to give," Rauhauser said. "But it still gives them a chance to help in a way they can." If that way involves face- It battle rifles, plasma pistols, and energy swords to spill computer-generated blood in the name of a good cause, then the more power to them. "Hey, at least it's some-thing," Steinke said, struck down once again on-screen by a few shots from some space-age weapon. "Every little bit counts, you know?" He's got the heart on his sleeve to prove it.
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