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Recess | Culture

A Devil's Bookshelf Logo.jpg
RECESS  |  CULTURE

"The Best Short Stories 2021" collection allows readers to explore 20 beautifully-imagined worlds

All of these stories are fantastic, and it’s clear why Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the very first guest editor for the collection, selected them. Some entertain questions of love and loss, others grapple with public scandals and shame. A few even recognize the temporary bleakness of ordinary circumstances, and how that can be reshaped by the kindness of strangers. What all of these authors do, though, is distill a human experience to its bare bones.


World Pastry Cup
RECESS  |  CULTURE

Why don't we care more about the Pastry World Cup?

Perhaps the deeper cause for our shared neglect of the Cup is a lack of appreciation for food as a demonstration of craftsmanship and creativity, of which the increasingly fast-paced industrial lifestyle is a major culprit. Too often we value food for its ability to enhance our productivity rather than for its own virtue. Thus, the advertising slogan for Saladelia outside Perkins Library: “Yum on the run.” You can often see students skipping multiple meals but never their coffee.


Rolling Stone Ranking
CULTURE  |  MUSIC

Lessons about art from Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

Perhaps the only list where Robyn’s “Dancing on my Own” and John Lennon’s “Imagine” will ever be ranked side by side, specifically at number 20 and number 19, it includes a variety of genres and representation from every decade since the 1930s. While many of the songs are instantly recognizable, whether they be pop favorites or timeless ballads, it wouldn’t be the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” without controversy and the plague of rockism.