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The name implies something sharp: a quick left turn or a jagged, jutting movement into a new terrain. In baseball, from which the name derives, the change-up pitch refers to several individual acts happening all at once. In sequence, the pitcher frames his body and arches his release, projecting a sense of where the ball might arrive.
Many of the players who helped Columbia to 23.1 points per game last season are back in the fold. The pieces are there; they just need to come together.
The offense has to start roaring.
She is completely vulnerable and emotionally naked with her readers, writing: “This year I cried at everyone's table / I spit on the street and was late on purpose / Stepped in glass and my dog died / I saw minutes over and over.”
When I finished reading the collection, I kept returning to one word: urgency. The poems all possess this sensibility, like Parker is desperately trying to be seen.
This is what we need — more depictions of Black youth simply existing in the world — because in the United States, Black youth are criminalized for their existence. DuVernay reveals how something as mundane as childhood is a luxury for many Black and brown boys and girls that can have it snatched away at any moment.
Listen in as Henri and Zach interview Mamadou., one of the most exciting voices Columbia’s music scene has to offer. Blending influences of poetry, hip-hop, soul and R&B, Mamadou.’s music is versatile in both genre and mood. His ability as a storyteller is fascinating, and despite the somber subject of Mamadou.’s rhymes, it’s difficult to not find yourself singing along to the grooves he creates.
DormStories speaks with Naomi Hollard, the leader of Sunrise Columbia. Sunrise is a climate change activist movement. They have an upcoming town hall this Saturday on the Green New Deal. We talk about the creation of Sunrise Columbia, Hollard's path into activism, the fact everyone has something to lose from climate change, and The Green New Deal.
Each morning of fourth grade—her first school year in Louisiana—the eldest Thompson child had to be dialed in. There was no way Ms. Maniscalco could’ve known, but the chocolate kisses she gave to the first person who finished their multiplication and division problems were Annie’s only potential source of food until dinner.
2019 has been an eventful year for music. Big names from a variety of genres have released projects, ranging from the electronic pop of Billie Eilish’s WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? to the hardcore trap anthems that Rich the Kid brings in The World Is Yours 2. While the year has only just begun, we have seen releases from both established industry names like Sia and newer independent artists like HappyBirthdayCalvin.
Gabe Stefanini began the basketball season an unknown quantity and quickly emerged as Columbia’s glue, a life raft keeping the Lions afloat. For a program desperately needing a steady hand, Stefanini’s exemplary play offered a glimpse at the team-wide sea change that can occur when a role player becomes a star.
The first thing that stands out about Forrest is his shooting, which helped Lower Merion to a 28-6 record, ranked 23rd in Pennsylvania, in his senior season. The guard has a very clean shooting stroke and a tight, quick release that should translate very well to the college game.
Before this spring, I had never been on the water with a crew. I trained for months on the indoor ergs, all in preparation to finally hold an oar in my hands.
Now, a portrait of the vibist as a young man. From Southern California, J.C. started on piano when he was six, but it wasn’t his main passion (get it?). “I wasn’t a good practicer,” he told me. “It was casual.” That is, until the day his middle-school band teacher asked if he wanted to play vibes. And he’s been hip ever since.
Yet Dubus gave me a vocabulary and an understanding of fear that I would have never encountered if not for him. Love is mysterious, wonderful, and hard work. Why can’t fear be all of those things as well? A darkness within our selves that is intertwined with the possibility of wonder and mystery.
For the first time in my life, I had something that centered myself. I could walk the streets of Harlem, removed from fear. I couldn’t define what sparked it, either, this sentimental sensation whenever I placed my pen onto the canvas. And I got addicted. It was my release. My weapon.
On the fourth episode of DormStories, hosts Viggo Blomquist and Aunnoy Podder sit down with Professor Geraldine Downey and Jarrell Daniels from Columbia’s Center for Justice.
In the second episode of The Up&Up, Henri and Zach talk to Bacchanal student opener Oswald Fresh. A senior from Houston, Fresh describes his sound as “a mix of Jack Johnson and Juice WRLD.” Topics cover Bacchanal, finding his sound, influences, and much more.
Nonetheless, with just three seniors (Adlesh, C.J. Davis, and Peter Barba) departing at the end of the semester, Columbia’s future looks bright. But one only truly knows how bright the future looks by examining it; let’s do that by comparing two of the team’s brightest first-years with two of its top upperclassmen.
I didn’t notice the small memorial the first time I walked into the building, but when the flickering candle caught my eye one night, I was reminded of Awn’s omnipresence. He is everywhere in Lewisohn Hall, and even now I find myself waiting for him to bound down the stairs or waltz through the glass door of the GS lounge.
Hollard’s infectious energy snakes its way through Hamilton 503. By the eleventh principle, “We shine bright. Changing the world is a fulfilling and joyful process, and we let that show,” everyone in the room is clapping in support.
“When it comes to reality, these athletes are really the heroes that it comes to, because they're the people that [young black kids] are gonna be. It's not Batman, Superman. We want to be LeBron James.”
Fencing does not appear to be a sport that relies heavily on communication between teammates during competition. No one calls any plays, no one yells across a field or court to pass a ball or set up an opportunity to score. But communication between fencers is crucial to securing a victory in any given bout.
Going into last weekend, Columbia was ranked the weakest team in the Ivy League by our Elo model. The Lions went on to beat Brown and topple first-place Yale to pick up two wins on the road for the first time in recent history.
My grand-family and Barnes & Noble share disasters. B&N announced its worst summer quarter ever around the same time Candy had a heart attack. She survived, and so far B&N has too, but she spent a week in the hospital and B&N condensed its Sci Fi section to fit toys.
When I saw Big Mouth for the first time, I thought, “This was the show that I needed.” After watching the second season, I wonder if it would have been as funny were I still living it.
Join us for the debut episode of The Change-Up's resident movie podcast, Maddie's Game, as host Maddie Covino and regular guest Ethan DeLehman go on a multigenerational treasure hunt with the 2004 Jon Turtletaub classic, National Treasure.
It’s a painful experience. Every time I click the little “read email” button, I am greeted by a grainy snapshot of a young black man or woman somewhere on Columbia’s or Barnard’s campus. Next to the picture in big red letters is the one-word description of their alleged crimes: ROBBERY, BURGLARY, ASSAULT.
This week’s “New Music Mondays” playlist compiled The Up&Up’s favorite new music from the week of March 1st 2019. Numerous genres are included, from London grime-hip hop to West Coast rock to alternative folk-pop to retro disco-funk.
We try to move through the terms quickly, but we are running on 5 hours of sleep (for the second night in a row) and it's hard to concentrate. We walk across campus while discussing the material, all while also debating if we should try to sleep during the 25 minute journey to Baker Athletics Complex or just continue to study.
Columbia’s win over Penn—which we predicted would happen 22 percent of the time—was its second win out of six of its Ivy games this season that have been decided by three points or fewer. While this victory was an improvement, it wasn’t enough to start talking about an Ivy League Tournament bid.
At around 9:00 pm, the bass of the background music subsided and the excited screams of the audience filled its silence. Soon, the LED screen was filled with a greyscale live feed of the spectators’ faces, some flailing their arms around for attention, others grabbing at their phones to get a photo, and still others patiently waiting for the main event.
For a Columbia team that’s mostly suffered tough loss after tough loss, a weekend road split has to be a positive outcome. In a season where few bounces have gone Columbia’s way, the Lions engineered enough overtime luck to walk out of the famed Penn Palestra with a 79-77 win before running out of good fortune in a disheartening 79-61 loss at Princeton.
We have more power than we know. With every taco we eat, every manicure we get, and every space heater we buy, we have the chance to either create or destroy. I’m talking, of course, about the postmortem that comes after so many capitalist exchanges. I’m talking about online reviews.
From New York City to Arizona, I explore the interactions between environment and the individual. I found we often rely on atmosphere and dress to differentiate individuals, not their own individual characteristics.
Widen the frame and the screaming only increases in volume, hitting a fever pitch and coalescing into what sounds like thousands of voices. Refocus, and it becomes clear that it was never the artist screaming at all, but everyone else at them.
Instead, I reminded myself that her parents paid $20 per hour plus fare for a cab back to school, that her mom didn’t care how much YouTube she watched, that they were my friend’s primary babysitting gig and for her sake I couldn’t piss them off. And so I kept watching a six-year-old who had more toys than most people have skin cells watch other people unwrap cheap gifts. She had the glazed eyes of an addict numbed by her latest fix.
With just six games remaining in the 2019 Ivy League men’s basketball season, Columbia needs its performance down the stretch to be much stronger than it has been thus far this year.
There is nothing quite like finally learning how to play that one guitar solo, or figuring out the time signature a song should be in and rushing back to your computer to hastily record a take on it. For young artists, this near-instant actualization of original music is entirely new.
New semester, new tunes. This is the first edition of The Up & Up's editors’ picks of the week's best new music. The playlist includes hits and slow jams from a multitude of genres, including hip-hop, pop, alternative, R&B and more.
Despite the disheartening stretch of poor play and bad luck, there remain reasons to be optimistic about head coach Jim Engles’ young squad. While the basketball gods aren’t smiling on Columbia just yet, let’s take a look at five things that still provide some hope for the Lions.
In two places—an off-grid RV site outside Questa, New Mexico and a Benedictine Monastery called Our Lady of the Desert—I looked around for something worth worshipping.
If we imagine the rest of the men’s basketball season playing out in one million separate worlds, is there a world where Columbia qualifies for the Ivy League Tournament? That’s the question behind The Change-Up’s statistical strategy of forecasting this year’s Ivy season, and the short answer is: yes, but don’t count on it.
For the next thirty minutes, she is in complete control of her audience, moving from one side of the small stage to the other with alluring grace. When watching her it becomes clear she is a seasoned performer, though she has only been performing for a little over two years. At her shows bay b. Bop is always witty, vulnerable, and utterly self-aware.
On any given day, Lewisohn Hall is full of former ballerinas and motocross racers, single parents wrangling children, and Navy SEALS. But it also houses a community of international military veterans who served their home countries due to mandatory conscription. You have undoubtedly sat next to these students in your classes and had no idea.
He weaves tales of pain, blood, and loss into an atmosphere of acoustic guitars, distorted 808s and blaring, high-frequency hi-hats à la Tay Keith. This combination frames the experimental Wicca Phase Springs Eternal as a shepherd of the burgeoning emo-rap movement, a founding father of a genre still in its infancy.
45 seconds into the contest, Columbia has the ball on offense. The Lions snatch an offensive rebound and Casey bolts to the three-point line before commanding the ball from her teammate. She gets the ball, shoots, and swishes a three—Columbia’s first basket of the day.
In a world where you can order food at the tap of a button, more and more restaurants find that food deliveries account for most of their revenue, according to conversations with local restaurant owners. With rent skyrocketing every year, these places find it harder and harder to keep up, as the number of diners willing to eat-in decreases.
This may not seem like much, but in a sport that can often seem solitary, Columbia fencing makes it seem anything but.