2B — Thursday, March 14, 2019
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Society
has
had
many
cultural rebirths, and I have
always wanted the same for
myself. But not just a new
chapter of my life. I waste
too many hours pondering a
literal rebirth — if I could be
born again in another time
and experience my personal
renaissance
in
a
different
way. It’s a shame that the only
renaissance I’ve been (un)
lucky enough to be present
for is the rise of social media.
Of course I got to be there for
the phenomenon that would
enable
my
mental
health
hitting the gutter in high
school. It feels like I missed
out on all too much.
What if I’d been born in
1973, and got to grow up with
the birth and golden age of
hip hop? I’d be six years old
when the Sugar Hill Gang
dropped “Rapper’s Delight,”
surely dancing to it with all
my friends in front of the
boom box at the playground.
I imagine being fourteen when
Paid in Full came out. I would
close my locker and look to
my friend beside me, wearing
overalls with one strap off, and
say, “Yo, you hear the new Eric
B. and Rakim?” (According
to my dad, who was indeed
fourteen the year Paid in
Full came out, this highly-

important question was on the
mouth of every kid in school
when he came back in the
fall). Instead of crying over
Mac Miller, I would have been
there shedding tears when
I first heard about Tupac’s
untimely death.
I imagine if I’d been 16 at
the height of drive-in movie
theatres.
It’s
the
summer
of 1956, and I’m behind the
wheel of my dad’s Buick only
days after getting my license.
Beside me is the most beautiful
girl in the school, Tina Jane
with the blond curls, and we’re
watching “Rebel Without a
Cause.” Inches separate our
shoulders. Nothing is on my
mind other than her, and I can
hardly focus on the movie —
I’m trying my hardest to keep
it cool, making a silent prayer
for my first kiss.
Maybe if I got to experience
my 20s in the ’20s, I would be
living in New York, freshly
graduated and dancing for the
first time at a lavish party on
Long Island’s North Shore. I’d
rock the brown wool, peak-
lapel, four-button jacket and
a light pink cotton dress shirt
with french cuffs. I’d match
it with sleek brown cap toes
and a diagonal striped tie —
deep burgundy, forest green
and golden brown. Relaxing
on the balcony after hours
of dancing, I’d look up to the
stars, sipping champagne as
the live music beat on, boats

against the current, borne
back ceaselessly into the past
(“The Great Gatsby”).
Is there a place for me, even
further back and farther away?
At my heart, I am a born-
and-raised product of the 21st
century. At fourteen, I got to
be there when Drake’s Nothing
Was the Same came out —
which is cool, but substantially
less cool than experiencing the
new Eric B. and Rakim. There
was no glamorous first kiss in
Dad’s Buick with a curly-blond
bombshell — I took my first date
to the regular movie theater,
awkwardly held hands during
“The Fault in Our Stars,” and
only had a nervous “i had
fun :)” text to show for it. My
first party was not in a fancy
oceanside mansion but in a
cramped basement. There was
no champagne, just Costco-
brand vodka and Mike’s Hard
Lemonade. Admittedly, I don’t
see any Gatsby-style roaring
’20s parties in my future.
Maybe
it’s
not
so
bad.
Maybe there’s no time better
than now to grow into myself.
After all, most of my closest
friends are of racial and sexual
identities that didn’t have a
space in society until now, and
I wouldn’t have become who
I am without them in my life.
I still do yearn for a rebirth,
to get a taste of a pastime I
never had. But my golden age
is today, and I think that’s
perfectly okay.

WARNER BROS. ENTERNTAINMENT
Ceaselessly into the past:
Renaissance daydreams

DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer

Binz

Solange

Columbia Records

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: ‘BINZ’

The best part about a new
Solange album is that we’re
always spoiled with movie-
quality music videos to go
with it. And with her latest
release, When I Get Home, we
practically got a full movie,
a precisely choreographed
half-hour long companion
piece and surreal love
letter to the artist’s origins
in Houston’s Third Ward.
Solange
dropped
five
minutes of it on YouTube as
a music video for “Almeda,”
stitching
together
the
“Nothing
Without
Intention” interlude with
the standout song of the
album, a Playboi Carti-
featuring, jazzy flip on
the chopped and screwed
genre. The “Almeda” video
is a well-oiled machine, with
legions of dancers orbiting
perfectly
around
Solange,
Houston locales and even a
fleet of DeLoreans.
While Solange deserves an
immense level of respect for
her dedication to precisely

curating
this
mechanical
aesthetic in her music videos
and promotional material, an
unedited and unrehearsed
slice into the artist’s life can
be a breath of fresh air. This is

what we get with the “Binz”
music video: 86 seconds of
Solange spinning, popping,
twisting and twerking in
front of a webcam.
“Binz”
is
low
quality,
but it’s not low effort. To
a particular eye, Solange’s
movements
could
seem

incredibly
precise
and
purposeful, as she dances
around in a variety of outfits
that probably cost more than
University tuition, but it still
maintains a carefree vibe.
There’s no better fit for the
song — “Binz” breezes. It’s a
lazy sprint, reveling in taking
it slow. Solange doesn’t even
bother to start her verse until
halfway through: “I just
wanna wake up to the suns
and Saint Laurent / Hundred
thousand
dollars
on
the
fronts and the blunts.” “Binz”
is the sun breaking through
the grey sky on a muzzy
March day, warming us up to
90 degree afternoons but not
giving them to us quite yet.
Solange is aware the summer
heat will soon creep through
the clouds, and dances with
an incessant smile on her face
for what’s to come.

— Cassandra Mansuetti,
Senior Arts Editor

COLUMBIA RECORDS

B-SIDE: MUSIC

For much longer than I can
remember,
my
grandma
has
owned a little blue cabin on the
shores
of
Intermediate
Lake,
Michigan. And when I say cabin,
I don’t mean one of those quaint-
yet-simultaneously-the-cost-of-
my-tuition cottages. I mean leaky
roof, one bathroom, zebra mussel
cabin. I mean memory filled,
unconventionally beautiful, blue
heaven cabin. This is the cabin
where I grew up for one week
every summer. I traveled up with
my family, bunked with my sister
(literally — we had bunk beds) and
delighted in a whole week void of
responsibilities and reality.
Every time I returned to my
blue heaven, it embraced me with
consistency. The rickety dock from
little feet running to see crayfish,
the crumbling fire pit from nights
of s’more contests and campfire
discussions, the sandy carpet
from days spent making teetering
towers and temporary tapestries,
all reminded me of summer spent
in sameness. Each year we spent
in a similar simplicity: We would
lounge on the beach, go into town
for penny candy, visit Pirates Cove

for mini golf, lounge on the beach
some more.
But the most relaxing part of
the vacation was not our little
excursions, or lack thereof, but
that it acted as an excursion from
everyday life. That little cabin is
where, for one week every summer,
I escaped to a place untouched by
time. No outside world existed; my
worries of the approaching school
year, friendship drama clouding
my thoughts and fears of what the
coming year would bring all faded
away. Instead, my anxieties went
out with the lazy tide, my worries
melted under the summer sun. As
I laid in the hammock with my
book and ukulele, my little blue
cabin harbored me from the only
constant in my life: change.
We are always changing and
growing, undergoing our own little
renaissances. And that is a beautiful
thing. The fact that we are always a
work in progress means we always
have the capacity to improve,
learn and flourish. What typically
prompts us to change are our
experiences, whether we have a
hand in bringing them about or not.
Events that change our lives force
us to adapt and evolve, leading to a
change within ourselves.
But while this constant growth
does benefit us, it can sometimes

be exhausting. Living in such a fast
paced world forces us to change
due to outside forces, not because
we have any desire or reason
to change. Rarely do we get the
chance to stand back and think
about who we have become and
who we want to be. Rarely do we
control our own renaissance.
But away from the real world, in
the timeless blue cabin, I do control
my renaissance. I can grow on my
own terms. I can read books, play
instruments, explore nature. I can
stop and think and just be, which
sometimes is the most important
form of growth. While life comes to
a standstill on the edge of the lake, I
can decide where to go from there.
Of course, not everything can
truly stay the same. The zebra
mussels are still as annoying as
ever, but the leaky roof has long
since been fixed and the bathroom
has expanded. And I never truly
escape reality. But for one week
every summer, I find shelter. My
blue heaven has watched me grow
up and move through my own
renaissance, but it has always
stayed the same, granting me the
space to evolve in the ways I need
the most, comforting me with
safety and simplicity. My blue safe
haven is where my renaissance is in
my control.

DANA PIERANGELI / DAILY
Intermediate Lake, MI,
or my little blue heaven

B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE

DANA PIERANGELI
Daily Arts Writer

I often find myself longing to
live in another decade. My personal
favorite? The ’70s. The heyday
of rock ‘n’ roll, the golden age of
hippie counterculture and the open
passion for love that comes with it.
My urge for this time travel comes
at trivial moments in a day, such as
when I’m in an elevator surrounded
by five people all staring down at
their phones, faces illuminated by
harsh, unwelcoming blue light.
Or when I’m walking through the
Arb and see students in hammocks
staring into their screens. When
did life become so antisocial,
the need for human contact and
conversation replaced with small
devices that now contain our whole
world?
And that’s just it — I think
my
yearning
to
escape
our
contemporary
world
stems
from technology. It’s a love-hate
relationship,
a
double-edged
sword. Our generation grew up
at a pivotal time. We watched
Saturday morning cartoons on
CRT box televisions and marveled
at flip phones 15 years ago, and
now find ourselves setting screen-
time limits on our own devices,
stored somewhere within reach
at all times. We grew up in the
midst of a massive technological
revolution, and it shows. Turning
to our screens became our study
break, our escape from boredom on
long summer days and our primary
method of communication.
Technology is so ingrained in
our lives that we forget what it was
like to live without it. But there’s a
great remedy.
***
Summer
2014:
My
thighs
graze against each other as I walk
through the cobblestone streets,
the humidity hanging in the air
like a thick, woolen blanket. I’ve
just finished my freshman year of
high school (oh, the innocence!),
a year mostly spent wearing my
thick black curls in two pigtails on

the sides of my head. I know you’re
already thinking it so I’ll confirm it:
They looked atrocious. My hair was
the least of my worries, though,
with the Italian country beckoning
me to explore.
Rambling through those narrow
streets, some so tight that cars can’t
drive through, it’s easy to forget
the world that we live in. When
you’re surrounded by churches,
plazas and statues built during the
Renaissance, you start to believe
that you’re living in it. Tourists
with bulky backpacks leading
their gelato-laden children by the
hand fade into the periphery. Only
the baroque buildings with pure
white trim surrounding their sides
remain. If I’d turned a corner and
seen Raphael painting the “School
of
Athens”
or
Michelangelo
sculpting the “Pietà,” I wouldn’t
have been surprised.
Take,
for
example,
the
Pantheon. The colossal dome, built
during the reign of the Roman
empire in 27 BCE, sits in the center
of the aptly named Piazza della
Rotonda. Easily one of the most
crowded piazzas in Rome, it took
my family ten minutes to walk a
hundred feet to the nearest gelato
shop and stumble back to the
center of the square. Sitting there,
slowly numbing my tongue with
the dark chocolate cream (the only
gelato flavor I truly enjoy), I turned
my eyes to the inscription on the
front facade of the Pantheon: “M.
AGRIPPA L.F. COS TERTIUM
FECIT.”
Translated:
“Marcus
Agrippa, son of Lucius, three-
time counsel, made this.” I looked
back down and imagined this
place as it was all those years ago,
when polytheism still reigned and
Roman citizens used the Pantheon
as a temple. The gelato shop
replaced with tumbledown houses,
shambles compared to modern-day
Rome. Whoever Marcus Agrippa
is, he let me live in the past for
a fleeting second, and for that, I
thank him.
The same feeling overcame me
when I stepped into Santa Maria

Maggiore, a church nestled in
the northern part of Rome, a city
with over 900 churches. Churches
are hands-down the best way to
see Italy; we were told this by our
taxi driver on our first day in the
city in broken English with brief
interludes of rapid Italian. But we
got the jist: Go see the churches.
Touring all of them would take
forever, so our driver narrowed
it down for us, promptly listing
off the four most “important” in
Rome. Santa Maria Maggiore was
one of them.
I almost laughed out loud when
I walked inside. Our taxi driver
should have been named tour
guide of the year. Sweeping marble
columns towered over my five-foot
frame, silently calling me to look
up to the gold-leafed ceiling. The
main passage and pews glowed
with yellow light, but the dark,
silent alcoves branching from the
sides were much more compelling.
Each one contained a statue or a
painting — I found myself face-to-
face with countless Virgin Marys,
baby angels and kings, sculpted to
precision. What was it like to live
here, during a period of such rapid
advances in art? When people
were drawn in three dimensions,
not flat in typical medieval style.
When a block of marble was all that
artists like Gian Lorenzo Bernini,
widely regarded as one of the best
sculptors to ever live, needed to
carve a masterpiece.
Travel is my method of fleeing
from this era for a week or two,
a way of living in another time
while not really being there at all.
It’s fleeting, but it’s eye-opening.
I cherish everything from short
road-trips to national parks to
international
flights
because
there’s nothing better than being
in the thick of things, right where
all the action happened. Gems like
Michelangelo’s “Moses” in Rome
or Bernini’s “Ecstacy of Saint
Teresa” shine light on what the
Italian Renaissance really was: a
different way of living, a different
world.

Finding freedom in Italy

TRINA PAL
Senior Arts Editor

B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE