This past Saturday night, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, with opener Sol, played the Spring Concert here at Amherst College. To say that this was a step up from last year’s Ludacris (“What up, Connecticut?!”) Spring Concert would be an understatement. Macklemore rocked this campus. In the midst of pre-finals tension and hysteria, he got Amherst College students to throw shit to the wind for one night and actually enjoy themselves. If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.
This Saturday, May 4 at 8:00 p.m., the Amherst College Symphony Orchestra will debut its most difficult performance to date: Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. The 70-member ensemble, under the direction of conductor Mark Swanson and concertmaster Ben Boatwright ’14, is prepared to deliver a thrilling 70-minutes’ worth of virtuosity. According to Swanson, Mahler’s Fifth is a symphony celebrated for its “great dramatic impact, emotion, and beauty.” Concertmaster Ben Boatwright offered his own take on the ambitious piece:
At some fundamental level, all games are built from the same basic concept. From Skyrim to football to Monopoly to poker, a player has both a goal and a set of rules that frame exactly how he or she achieves that goal. Some rules say what you can do, some say what you cannot. All the same, something about our brains craves rules. In a very innately human way, they create challenges for us to exercise our minds and bodies. At the same time, it’s very arbitrary.
I am a senior. I have completed the senior thesis process. I have nearly completed my final undergraduate classes. In a mere thousand words, I will have completed my tenure as a columnist for The Amherst Student. Although Amherst College frequently reminds me (now and forever) that my financial responsibility to Amherst is unending, Amherst has (nearly) fulfilled its educational responsibility to me.
“Biddy Martin lied to me.” If I wanted to be inflammatory, that’s how I’d characterize queer life at this college, but the truth is, Amherst these days is actually a pretty good place to be gay.
Imagine the following scenario: your country has endured a dictator’s rule for 15 years. The economy has grown, but so has the number of casualties of its political unrest and the government’s stranglehold on freedom. Now your people have the chance to vote him out, but they are too afraid to become the new victims. What do you do?
According to “No,” the answer is: you give them happiness.
My name is Lock Whitney, and I’m an aspiring entrepreneur. My project represents a combination of my two main interests: small business and food! I have some background in both fields, namely as the owner of Amherst College’s student-owned used textbook store, The Option, and I have worked and volunteered on four organic farms in America and in France.
