For a $10 cover charge, a dozen lucky night-crawlers witnessed a marvelous spectacle on April 27.

My Dear Disco, a “dance-think” group out of Ann Arbor, Mich., took the stage. They drew the crowd in quickly and had most of the patrons moving for a sold 90-minute set. The set was extremely well put together and quite memorable.

With a female lead vocalist, a Daft Punk cover, and the inclusion of traditional Irish bagpipes in a couple songs, My Dear Disco really showed the audience that they’re different from anything else they had ever heard or seen. They started the set with a couple fast-paced songs that drove the audience’s feet mad if they tried to keep them still, and then totally conquered Daft Punk’s “Human After All:” a cover that was both impressive and appropriate.

“For Your Love” is a pop-synth tune that had me moving the whole time. Toward the end of the night they played the original song “Move Your Feet,” which had almost everyone in the bar dancing—consumed by the music and the energy that was spilling off the stage. The last song they played, “Clubbin’,” was a seven-ish minute dance number that had everyone giving up their last bit of energy to the floor. My arms and legs were sore once they cleared the stage a little after midnight.

The group came down and chatted with the people left over in the room. They sold their CD as a “pay what you will” deal and advertised free bumper stickers if you signed up for their mailing list. You can check out My Dear Disco online, but I personally recommend seeing them live if you ever have the opportunity. The Internet just doesn’t do their stage presence and all around energy justice. If you like the kind of music that throws itself off the stage and forces your body to let loose—filling you with electricity and excitement—these guys are going to open a whole new window for you.

Two thirds of the time, meaningful events in your life won’t happen on a single digit date. The next time it’s the first, or second, or third of a month, remember that chances are, nothing exciting is going to happen to you. It will eventually become the tenth, then the eleventh, then the twelfth, and you won’t even remember the first anymore. Six out of seven times, meaningful events in your life won’t happen on a Wednesday. The next Wednesday you experience, remember that the odds of anything significant happening are against you. That Wednesday will eventually fall into the pile of meaningless Wednesdays you’ve got stored in your subconscious. Eleven out of twelve times, meaningful events in your life won’t happen in the month of May. April will come, you’ll be anticipating May, then, before you know it, it’ll be June. May will have been a silent passerby. By the numbers, your life is boring. This hypothetical day, this Wednesday, the first of May, will probably be meaningless. On this hypothetical morning, I want you to think about how many people in this world are exactly like you. Whose Wednesday, May first, is nearly guaranteed to be forgotten by Thursday, May second. Now think of how many people to whom this day will be unforgettable. Think of the number of people getting married, feeling pain, receiving good news, being diagnosed with cancer, crying at a funeral, having a child, being proposed to, getting into a car accident, getting a job, having their home robbed, and meeting someone they love. These people have defied the odds and will forever remember this Wednesday, May first. So the next time you wake up and you find it to be Wednesday, May first, remember that the odds don’t matter; in a moment you could be anyone.

By Colleen Cunha

Of all the people you’re friends with in college, do you know everything they do, or might they have secret night lives?

Some college students are trying to keep their “school lives” and their “party lives” separate by having no common ground between the two. For some, this may work as a way to block out the temptation to party when they should be studying and to keep their personal lives separate from their scholastic peers’ impressions of them.

For others, it may work as a way to hide their insecurities from certain people. If your friends that you study with are strongly against underage drinking but you enjoy going to parties and drinking on the weekends, it’s probably easiest to keep your weekend activities away from your study friends.

One college student, Anne*, says she very much prefers to keep her “going out” friends apart from the students she has classes with. “It’s easier for me in both situations, in class and at parties, if there are different people in each environment,” she says. But doesn’t this make it seem like she’s being two-faced? Anne is changing her personality around each group of people, but in this situation it might not be such a horrible thing.

“I do act different with different [groups of] friends, but that’s because it’s appropriate. You shouldn’t act the same way at a party as you do in class, so I guess it’s less the people and more about where I am, but the different people make certain parts of my personality come out,” says Anne unapologetically. Being goofy with your goofy friends is fine, and being studious with your study friends seems logical. Really, the whole idea makes sense.

Another student, Molly*, says she’s in a similar situation, but that she has some things she really keeps secret from her scholastic friends. “I smoke, but I have an entire group of friends who have no idea. It’s something I don’t want to be judged for, and they’ve never asked so I just don’t tell them,” she states without hesitance.

Here’s where the problem with secret night lives comes in¾is Molly really being herself, or, like Anne, does this still count as different aspects of one big, adaptable personality? It could very well be an issue of insecurity. She may be ashamed of her habits and not want people to know. Molly is very close to her scholastic friends, but it’s just not the place to bring up something as controversial as smoking. Although it’s her choice to tell them, it’s still a negative aspect of having a secret night life.

Emily*, another student, says, “I don’t keep my class friends separate from my party friends at all. We’re a close-knit group and we do everything together. They know I like to go out and they know that I like to get work done when I need to.” Emily is able to be very close friends with the other students that live in her dorm; so close that they study together, live together and party together. This lifestyle, completely lacking secrecy, seems to work in her situation.

Having different groups of friends is common in high school and, in some cases, carries on to college. It could be a phase where students are still looking to figure out who they really are, but with some people it could be a longer lasting issue involving insecurity and identity crisis.

For students like Emily, it’s easy to assimilate both parts of her life. But for others like Anne and Molly, having more than one front is the way to go. With Anne, it’s as if her personality is really adaptable, and being with different people brings out different sides of her. This isn’t negative at all. Molly’s reasoning for keeping her two lives separate comes from a fear of being looked down upon by some of the people she considers her friends.

In the end, it’s hard to say whether it’s better to keep secrets about aspects of your life from some people, or to open up to your closest friends¾it really depends on the individual.

*Names have been changed.

Tell it to the volcano

By Colleen Cunha

You aren’t going to hear Miniature Tigers on the radio or see them on a new release rack,  and you probably  missed the tiny blurbs about them in Rolling Stone, AP magazine, and Spin. But once you discover Miniature Tigers you’ll never stop listening to them. Their indie music style, which could be called care-free and whimsical, is reminiscent of bands like Portugal, The Man, Steel Train, and Oh No! Oh My!

Tell It To The Volcano was written by front man Charlie Brand, whose lyrics touch on the cliché subjects of girls and relationships, but also talk about having a pet dinosaur and the desire to throw an ex-love into a volcano. The lyrics are so natural that songs like “Cannibal Queen” and “Tell It To The Volcano” (the title track on the album) play through your head for days.

Brand says the album was named after the title track because he felt “the lyrical content of that song kind of tied all the other songs together and represented how the album felt to [him].”

The lyrics (“Tell it to the volcano/ From what I know, you’re goin’ down the hole/ Down you’re goin’, down the hole/ Tell it to the volcano/ Save your “sorrys”) are simple but the image is strong and almost comical to the listener. The chant of “Oom, I’d like to chuck ya” in the middle of the song is very sacrifice-the-virgin-to-the-gods-esque, but relates to the rest of the album in that the listener gets a meaningful image from each song.

One thing that stands out is their songs are very busy. “Cannibal Queen,” involves a tambourine, clapping, and studio banter. Although the song is repetitive, the random feeling of the music and the choice to keep the mysterious studio noises give the album almost a life of its own.

The founders of the band, Brand and Rick Schaier, were pen pals for two years before they began meeting in person to make music. They eventually recruited the rest of the group and released the White Magic & Black Magic EPs in March 2008.

Brand lists The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Kinks as some of the group’s obvious influences, but their tastes in music are always evolving. “I’d say lately, the big influences have been Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, Beach House [and] of Montreal,” Brand told the Daily Nebraskan  in October.

It’s one of those albums that’ll make you sway and smile and feel good all around while you listen to it, guaranteed. Overall the album is diverse, with quick paced, quirky songs balanced out with slower songs about girls and magic. It’s completely addicting, but it’s a healthy addiction. You can get your fix on their Myspace or on iTunes.

Tonight, when you lie in bed and reflect on your day, try and figure out how many times you lied. You told your friend you ate dinner already, told your professor that you did the reading assignment, and you told your mother that you stayed in on Friday night. Now imagine a world where no one lies, ever.

This is the basis of the new film The Invention of Lying starring, co-written, co-directed, and co-produced by Ricky Gervais. Gervais’ character, Mark Bellison, is from a world like this and is a victim of brutal honesty everywhere he goes until one day, in order to keep himself from being evicted, he tells the world’s first lie. He uses this newfound skill to turn his life around in a comical manner, resurrecting his career and getting closer and closer to the woman of his dreams, Anna McDoogles, played by Jennifer Garner.

Gervais and Garner are great in the film, along with the rest of the cast, which includes plenty of subtle cameos by actors like Jason Bateman and Edward Norton. And although characters played by big names Tina Fey and Jonah Hill aren’t huge parts of the film, they make the story complete and keep the movie rounded. The Invention of Lying manages to include numerous comical scenes with smaller characters that keep the laughs coming while still focusing on the difficulties in Bellison’s life and his new ability to con others through lying.

The story is well put together and engaging. It manages to touch on the little things that people might lie about in everyday life, like a homeless man’s plea for money. They also going as far to flirt with the idea of religion. The writers did a remarkable job at creating a friendly parody of God; their references are funny without being offensive. The story gives an explanation of “the big man in the sky” and simplifies the idea of religion but doesn’t discount God. The little lies throughout the film help the viewer remember that this isn’t our world, and they make the bigger lies more believable by keeping the audience in this fantasy mindset. The writers, through these inventive lies, keep the whole idea of the story afloat and the entire movie comical without losing the viewer in any specific, drawn out side story.

The plot was very clever without becoming pointless. Even small, quick jokes tended to relate themselves to the narrative. The ending (without giving anything away) works well with the rest of the movie; it’s not too over-the-top but still gives the viewer a sense of closure.

Colleen Cunha is a freshman cinema and photography major. E-mail her at ccunha1@ithaca.edu

By Colleen Cunha

This past Tuesday, a freshman here at Ithaca College, who prefers to remain anonymous, uncovered an alarming website while browsing the Internet. The student was searching for instructions on how to send a letter in the mail, but came upon a page that seemed to have instructions on how to send an email, intended for parents who are technologically incompetent. On this page, the student found a link to a website that translates emails from college students to their parents. This well-hidden translator is simple, easy to use, and disturbingly accurate. Although its origins are unclear and the way it works perplexing, we are attempting to get to the bottom of this and plan to somehow shut down the abominable site. Here is an example email, sent by another anonymous student to his mother just last week. The translation is shockingly precise.

Original email-

“My schedule is great! My Thursday classes are my favorite. I’m struggling a bit with architecture, chemical reactions, and geography, but my advisor told me it’ll start to come more naturally once I get used to the classes. I’m probably going to talk to my French teacher, I feel like I should be at a higher language level. I can’t wait to come home and see you and dad for the first time since I left, I’ve been a bit homesick. Well I have to go help my roommate with his homework, love you mom!”

Translation-

“My schedule is great! The best parties are on Thursdays. It’s really hard to walk home at night after a party at the Circles. The upper class men told me I’ll begin to build up tolerance, and the hazing shouldn’t last much longer. The girl I hooked up with at the party was a good kisser, but my roommate says I could have done better. Please don’t come down for parents weekend, I’ll probably be hung over. Well my roommate just broke out a collection of Playboy mags, stop emailing mom!”