If Plato was the dreamer with his head above the clouds, Aristotle is the realist with his hands in the soil. He’s the philosopher of practicality; the one who took the abstract musings of his teacher, Plato, and said, “Alright, but how does it really work?”
If you’ve recently heard students humming show tunes, hyping up hockey games, or debating the best rides at Knott’s Berry Farm, you’ve probably stumbled upon the buzz surrounding Caltech’s Off-Campus Programming Series… I recently had the chance to chat with Steven Metzmaker, Assistant Director of Residential & Student Experience, who has been orchestrating these off-campus escapades.
Last month, the Norton Simon Museum in Old Pas received this portrait: Diego Velázquez’s “Queen Mariana of Austria” (1652–53). On special loan from the Museo del Prado, the famed Spanish national art museum in Madrid, this painting is being displayed on the West Coast for the first time.
Cast of Earth Data, from left to right: Kathryn Bikle, Ellis Spickermann, Cai Tong Ng, Jocelyn Argueta, Joony Kim, Anya Janowski, Armin Kleinboehl, the author, Maria Azcona Baez, Eric Smith, Joey Jefferson, Julian Wagner, Solvin Sigurdson, Jessica Kilgore, Josef Svoboda, Leslie Maxfield, Boyuan Chen, Maat Braaten. Just out of frame are Joži McKiernan and Michael Gutierrez.
It was a bit of an enigma as to why he had chosen to speak at Caltech. A world famous luxury shoe designer, Stuart Weitzman, seems an unlikely visitor. After graduating from the Wharton School in 1963 at the University of Pennsylvania, Weitzman pushed his job offer at Goldman Sachs to pursue women’s shoe designing. In 2019, UPenn named its school of design after him, and now seven years after stepping down from creative director, Weitzman travels around the country lecturing at various universities— and Caltech was next on his list.
In “The Ballad of East and West,” Rudyard Kipling states that “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” On the contrary, Raqib Shaw demonstrates how art can unite the two with striking effect.
This past summer I was walking on campus when in a window I saw something I would not expect to see at a technical school – a flyer with the following poem printed on it: I don’t care how God-damn smart / these guys are: I’m bored. / It’s been raining like hell all day long / and there’s nothing to do
Hi! It’s me again, your sleeper buddy who has been hung up on the Getting Better Sleep Workshop by SWS ever since it happened. But it doesn’t stop there – now my YouTube algorithm has been suggesting videos about sleep too. And honestly? I’ll take it. I am now invested in getting better sleep, and hopefully you are along for the ride.
At the beginning of the fall term, the Caltech Pond Bridge was transformed by artist Lita Albuquerque into a gold foil installation — the largest she has made to date — dubbed This Moment in Time. It’s part of a larger art exhibit at Caltech called Crossing Over: Art and Science at Caltech. Apparently, some people couldn’t wait until December 15th to walk over the bridge, which has been gradually sullied with footprints over the course of the term. This came as somewhat of a disappointment to Albuquerque.
Crossing Over: Art and Science at Caltech, 1920–2020 (PST ART), an expansive public exhibition, unfolds across Caltech’s campus, offering visitors a unique exploration of the intersection between art and science.
“e-plegona is designed for both musicians and non-musicians to experience the joy of group play without needing musical skill. It’s about intuitive, collaborative play that even children can enjoy.”
Settebello is decorated in a very hipster-like industrial manner with hints of modernism. Every wall is lined with exposed brick, and ductwork peeks through the open ceiling, which, in the year 2024, are signs that this place is meant for twenty-seven year old software engineers on a date night…
I chose this restaurant because I wanted to see if their food transported me back to some fantastic memories of Naples, as well as to see if this was a restaurant that students could escape to for a quick break from their academic rigors.
Well readers, an entire term has gone by and I did not continue my column on the Apple TV+ series, Lessons In Chemistry, in a timely manner. Apologies. I know you all were dying for more of my ramblings on this very mid show.
Whether you’re having a bonfire at the beach, or camping in the woods, s’mores season is officially here, and with it, a playlist to absolutely scorch your ‘mallows to.
I guess I should start with a formal apology. I tried. I really did! But despite my best efforts to not cave into the demons telling me to go down the EDM/techno/house rabbit hole, here we are.
