An ode to strawberry tea, snakes, and running 
Posted inEssay Featured

An ode to strawberry tea, snakes, and running 

It’s the small things that help you survive. Sometimes, life has to become a silly little game. Maybe you can’t imagine enduring a study-abroad semester with the man who assaulted you—but maybe you don’t have to. Maybe all you need is to hold out for your next cup of strawberry tea. 
We made blackout poetry with your college essays
Posted inCulture Featured Poetry

We made blackout poetry with your college essays

Since high schoolers nation wide are making their customary announcement Instagram posts, we thought it'd be a good time to revisit application essays from GW students. We wanted to turn our pain into art, to honor the parts of ourselves we cut out just to get in. WARNING: Shit gets deep.
Local bands have a ball at Mosh Madness
Posted inFeatured Local Music

Local bands have a ball at Mosh Madness

I spent the Saturday before starting my last semester of college watching a bunch of out of shape local musicians play basketball in a church gym in Takoma, MD. It was the first ever Mosh Madness, a half-court single elimination tournament organized by Ian Donaldson and Reid Williams of Dorinda. Fourteen bands competed while five bands (three of who also balled) – Flowerbomb, Pretty Bitter, Massie, Pinky Lemon and Spring Silver – played sets during the matches. The event raised over $2,600 for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Flooded in stale lighting, the smell of sweat growing exponentially worse each hour, you could barely hear conversation because the acoustics of the room weren’t prepared to host some of the DMV’s best and loudest. After whining through a semester abroad with no real live music, this was the perfect scene homecoming.
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Blogging)
Posted inFeatured Movie Reviews

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Blogging)

Everybody, even the people who hate him, pretty much agrees that Bob Dylan is the greatest songwriter of all time. Some will attach asterisks to the moniker (*living/rock/American/white/male) but it’s a waste of time. Fundamentally, Dylan expanded the scope of what a pop song could be, demolished cutesy lyrical boundaries, pioneered genre bending sounds and changed the way record companies thought about artists to the point where his impact is so ubiquitous it’s hard to separate him from the evolution of music. And he did it all in like three years. Dylan’s catalogue isn’t only winners, in fact lots of it is bad, but his best work is so monumental, and driven by an irrepressible fuck-you-attitude, that it makes most other music feel small by comparison.
PICKAXE DC talks new EP, youth in the scene and plans for the future 
Posted inFeatured Interviews Local

PICKAXE DC talks new EP, youth in the scene and plans for the future 

PICKAXE is a high energy, female-fronted punk rock band from our very own Washington, D.C. Although their published discography consists of only four songs, all wrapped up neatly in their recently released EP, PROVOCATEUR, each track has its own unique sound and message. It’s the kind of music that pumps up your adrenaline to negate those bruises you’ll inevitably get in the mosh pit. I can confidently say that PICKAXE’s music is best experienced up close, personal, and dressed in a hot dog costume. Seeing is believing; on streaming you get a very clean, packaged version of their songs but witnessing a set live brings together the whole experience. PICKAXE is impressive in that, even through the haze of the room and the writhing mess of the pit, their vocals and instrumentals come through just as clear and polished as they do on the EP.