Even with singer Kris Roe being the only founding member remaining, it’s been over ten years and alternative rock’s The Ataris are still alive and kicking. Recently they began on their Summer Tour across the U.S., with one of their first stops being the Boobie Trap Bar at 1417 SW 6th Ave.
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As far as summer action movies go, “The A-Team” is one of the most entertaining since “The Dark Knight” hit the big screen in 2008. It combines the basic plot of the beloved 1980s TV series, which popularized Mr. T’s “I pity the fool” catchphrase, as well as well-known actors such as Liam Neeson (“Taken” and “Clash of the Titans”), Bradley Cooper (“The Hangover” and “Wedding Crashers”) and Jessica Biel (“Seventh Heaven” and “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry”) and the comedic talents of relative-unknown Sharlto Copley as Murdock and MMA fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson as B.
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Disney/Pixar movie well-liked despite less than stellar 3D effects, emotional plot
Browsing through the summer’s list of movies, “Toy Story 3” seemed like the perfect choice to see with my 3-year-old nephew¾ especially since half of his comprehensible vocabulary is made of movie quotes from “Star Wars,” “Aladdin,” “Cars” and “Toy Story.” Disney/Pixar movies are almost always successful, and although nothing can replace Disney’s “Robin Hood” with fuzzy forest creatures in my heart, even a die-hard hand-drawn animation fan can admit that movies such as “Toy Story,” “Cars” and “Finding Nemo” are quickly becoming modern classics.
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Robert Lawson discusses "The Bridge of Dreams" with Washburn Book Club
Robert Lawson returned to Washburn’s campus this Thursday, but it wasn’t to grade papers or pass out exams. The retired professor of English came to promote a publication of his own, “The Bridge of Dreams,” which was being discussed by the Washburn Book Club.
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LARP (Live Action Role Playing), in this video is called Live Avatar Role Playing, and yes, James Cameron is crying right now. In this video a group of people have made their own Pandora it being located in Wisconsin. These people get together on the weekends or who knows if they have jobs so they just might do it all the time. They create their own little world of Avatar.
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The Washburn Memorial Union took Scorch on the Porch to a whole new level last Wednesday, June 9, with its first ever summer Scorch. The Union normally hosts three Scorches per semester, and has for the past nine years. “We’ve done it ever since they finished the food court,” said Kathy Reiser, the event planner.
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Registrations are still being accepted for the sixth annual Northeast Kansas Total Percussion Camp scheduled July 20-24 at Washburn University. Open to youth from 7th to 12th grades, the camp provides participants the opportunity to refine their abilities in marching percussion and drumset, with additional clinics presented on tympani, accessories and keyboard percussion.
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Washburn University will be welcoming a new piece of art to its campus on Tuesday. The “Lantern Light” sculpture, created by Chinese artist Ye Yushan, will be dedicated June 15 at 11 a.m. in a tented area between Henderson and Benton. The sculpture, which is a gift from Yushan to the city of Topeka, will reside on Washburn’s campus for two years before being moved to its permanent location in downtown Topeka. It commemorates 30 years of diplomatic relations between the United States and China.
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A slideshow of photos taken during the 2010 Mulvane Mountain/Plains Art Fair on the Washburn University campus. The two-day fair featured work from 90 artists, as well as food, drinks, musical entertainment and children's activities. The event raised approximately $35,000 for Friends of Mulvane.
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Fused glass artist Cassandra Cohen, of Topeka, was selected to receive the People’s Choice Award by visitors at the 18th annual Mulvane Mountain/Plains Art Fair at Washburn University June 5 and 6. Art fair jurors Jane Booth and Ben Ahlvers named Eric Abraham, a porcelain artist from Lucas, Kan., the recipient of the Best of Show Award.
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Friends of Mulvane raises approximately $35,000
Despite the sweltering heat Saturday, Topekans flocked to Washburn University to see all that a local annual cultural event had to offer. The Mulvane Art Museum's Mountain/Plains Art Fair took place June 5-6 on the lawn outside the Memorial Union at Washburn drawing 90 artists from around the midwest.
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The Mulvane Art Museum will be hosting the 18th annual Mountain/Plains Art Fair June 5-6, 2010 on the Washburn University campus. The Art Fair begins at 10 a.m. both days, running until 5 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday. The Art Fair is a fundraising event organized by Friends of the Mulvane Art Museum, with proceeds going to Mulvane’s educational programs for children. The event will display work from 90 artists, as well as music, food and drinks and art activities for children.
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Festival to span nine days at WU's White Concert Hall
The lineup for the Sunflower Music Festival, June 11-19 at White Concert Hall, has been announced.The nine day concert series, consisting of performances by nationally recognized chamber musicians and students, is open to the public free of cost. All events begin at 7:30 p.m., excluding June 13, when high school students from the Blanche Bryden Institute will be performing at 3 p.m. Early arrival is recommended and doors open an hour prior to the start of the events.
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The first trailers I saw for “Kick-Ass” left me a little confused, I mean, if you heard there was a movie about ordinary people trying to be superheroes, and that one of them was under twelve years old, you would assume that it was a poorly-conceived kids movie. But they named it “Kick-Ass” and gave it an R-rating. Why? Because it turns out that “Kick-Ass” is less of a kids movie and more of a brutal imagining of some of the more plausible scenarios involving people dressing up and trying to fight crime.
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Washburn’s Wind Ensemble and Jazz Band left for Washington D.C. April 27 for a special performance at the Kennedy Center on April 28
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As Washburn Jazz prepared to go to Washington, D.C., they also prepared for their last concert of the season, the WU Jazz Concert.
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Andy McKee is no stranger to accolades or recognition. He’s taken third place at Winfield’s Walnut Valley Festival. He’s had three of the most watched videos of all time on YouTube with more than 78 million combined views. He’s performed on the Carson Daly Show and has met, toured with, or recorded with some of his idols. Still, it was unexpected that Lindsay Lohan mentioned him in one of her tweets on Feb. 18 when she shared with all of her followers that she’d just downloaded one of her favorite songs, “Rylynn” by Andy McKee.
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Terrifically thrilling trio tours Topeka together
Self described as “psychedelic, indie grunge,” Model Stranger is working to set the world on fire with its music, a fire that came to the Boobie Trap Bar last Tuesday as Model Stranger shared the stage with The Atlantic and Calamity Cubes.
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Sam Fisher returns with a vengeance in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction. As the typically cool and collected Fisher has been transformed into a revenge driven killing machine, some of the games key mechanics have been transformed accordingly.
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David Bury is a non-traditional student at Washburn who draws much of his writing from growing up in Ireland during the conflict between the Irish Republican Army and the loyalists from Northern Ireland. His play “Secret Policemen” was recently performed at the Andrew J. and Georgia Neese Gray Theatre on campus and may also be entered into a national theater contest. Oddly enough, Bury has not been writing for very long.
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I imagine that the idea of casting Steve Carell and Tina Fey as the leading characters for a comedy was like the creation of Reese’s; something so natural that it makes a lot of people wonder why it took someone this long to put the two together. I also imagine that more people wound up wondering why the first movie where these two comedic powerhouses were put together had to be squandered on something like “Date Night.”
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It’s the infomercial that every woman wishes was real, a video by TotallySketch called, “You Need A ‘Boyfriend.’” This is set up in the basic infomercial, starting off by asking you a couple of “are you tired? or “what if?” questions. Then it presents it’s amazing new product. The product they are selling is a boyfriend.
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Last weekend one group of local performers took their audience into the world of H.G. Wells where, “In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man would be king.”
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With all the special effects of the original 1933 “King Kong” and laughably rigid dialogue, I didn’t think there was any way the 1981 version of “Clash of the Titans” would wind up looking like the more interesting film when compared to the 2010 remake. I was wrong. The recent release of this newer “Clash of the Titans” has me questioning its very creation; it was not as if there was a big demand for an updated version of the movie and, judging from how little of the original plot survived, the filmmakers were not great fans of the storyline.
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ArtLab hires new personnel to supervise activities
The ArtLab was installed in the basement of the Mulvane on Sept. 15, 2006. Since then, several interactive stations have been introduced including a contour wall, an instillation sculpture, a magnet mosaic and a cave wall that can be colored with chalk.
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Kids lined the sidewalks surrounding the grass with baskets in hand and in a ready position. Each of them wanted the best opportunity to get the most eggs and in return, the most candy.
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Jolly Roger put on a jolly good show at the Aftershock Bar, in Merriam, Kan. this past Saturday as spectators gathered to witness the band rock the stage in the midst of fog and primary colored spotlights.
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“Hot Tub Time Machine” is the second movie released this March from screenwriters Sean Anders and John Morris, quite impressive considering that before this month the pair had only three writing credits to their names. Together with the even less experienced Josh Heald, the trio managed to pen the best comedy released this year.
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Wednesday, March 31 the sociology and anthropology clubs will be sponsoring a showing of “A Walk to Beautiful” in Henderson 112. The award-winning documentary focuses on the lives of five Ethiopian women who suffer from traumatic injuries.
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This weekend Washburn will host the Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival, which is geared toward students from area colleges and high schools.
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Since the earthquake that hit Haiti in January, people have been in the giving mood. But a student and a professor at Washburn have been giving their time and talent to underprivileged youth in Topeka.
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Twisted version of Romeo and Juliet
This week’s YouTube pick is a little sassy. The Pick comes from The Second City Network. It is called Sassy Gay Friend: Romeo & Juliet. This video takes the tragic love story Romeo & Juliet and tells how it would end if Juliet had a gay friend. They depict that the gay friend would have talked her out of killing herself. In this video, the gay friend is very honest with Juliet. This made me wonder, are gay men this honest with the girls they are friends with? I asked around and found out that, yes some gay men can be that honest.
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“Repo Men,” whether due to over-informative teasers or the obviousness of the storyline, seemed to have thoroughly explained itself before it was even released. Remy, played by Jude Law, works for The Union, which sells artificial organs, as a repo man, retrieving organs from people who have not been making their scheduled payments. When an accident puts Remy on the other side of the situation, he is forced to rely on the people he used to hunt while he runs from his former coworkers.
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Rehearsing for upcoming shows in a storage unit with hanging lights and posters of their influences on the walls, Sedlec Ossuary is a metal band that screams influences of alternative, classical and even hip hop.
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