Ideas | The Smart Set https://www.thesmartset.com A magazine of arts & culture from Drexel University Thu, 18 Jul 2024 20:15:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 Finding Inspiration in Chaos https://www.thesmartset.com/finding-inspiration-in-chaos/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=finding-inspiration-in-chaos https://www.thesmartset.com/finding-inspiration-in-chaos/#respond Thu, 18 Jul 2024 20:15:32 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=64811 In Zürich, I saw no drunken Bolsheviks at the Cafe Odeon. Down the block at the Terrasse Restaurant, there were no anarchists partying with war deserters. This wasn’t 1916.  Yet in the river, the swans were a feature still left over from more than a century earlier. They lilted on the surface of the water, […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/finding-inspiration-in-chaos/feed/ 0 15 in ’59 https://www.thesmartset.com/15-in-59/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=15-in-59 https://www.thesmartset.com/15-in-59/#respond Thu, 06 Jun 2024 11:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=64654 “I still love Tom Petty songs/and driving old men crazy” “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”  Nostalgia, as many of us undoubtedly learned from this classic Mad Men scene, literally means, “pain from an old wound,” which raises the question of why we seek to relive and revive that pain. For about as long as people […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/15-in-59/feed/ 0 Loneliness, Love, Hope and the DeBarges  https://www.thesmartset.com/loneliness-love-hope-and-the-debarges/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=loneliness-love-hope-and-the-debarges https://www.thesmartset.com/loneliness-love-hope-and-the-debarges/#respond Mon, 03 Jun 2024 11:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=64629 I peeled a tangerine, left it on the side till its wrinkled orange skin, grew crisp and when  it touched my lips it stuck there, like an  envelope waiting to be sealed sending  a message home, I bit down and the  tracing paper crispness retreated to a wonderful onslaught of sweetness.  I hope you will […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/loneliness-love-hope-and-the-debarges/feed/ 0 The Un-Making of Made in America https://www.thesmartset.com/the-un-making-of-made-in-america/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-un-making-of-made-in-america https://www.thesmartset.com/the-un-making-of-made-in-america/#respond Thu, 16 May 2024 11:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=64585 As far as popular music goes, 2024 will be remembered for Beyoncé’s reach into her Houston country roots for Cowboy Carter, the return of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band to stadium rocking, the continuing bad beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, and the multi-billion-dollar streaming sales of Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets. For better […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/the-un-making-of-made-in-america/feed/ 0 The Hard Sell https://www.thesmartset.com/the-hard-sell/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-hard-sell https://www.thesmartset.com/the-hard-sell/#respond Mon, 29 Apr 2024 11:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=64477 The season has passed when the girls (and their guardians) are loading up the wagons, setting up tables, and selling the beloved, but seasonal Girl Scout Cookies. Whether you go for the low-key shortbread cookie (Trefoils) or the high-powered Caramel deLites (formerly Samoas), most of us are delighted to see the girls in brown and […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/the-hard-sell/feed/ 0 Freedom or Texas https://www.thesmartset.com/freedom-or-texas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=freedom-or-texas https://www.thesmartset.com/freedom-or-texas/#respond Thu, 25 Apr 2024 22:10:44 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=64454 Part One: The Dominican  I suppose you could say I was hungry, but I’m not sure it was food I was looking for. After coffee and bagels slathered with jalapeño cream cheese, Nikhil and I meandered back toward the apartment, passing a dicey New York boulevard that, to me, felt as potentiating as it did […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/freedom-or-texas/feed/ 0 Don’t Sing, Scarf, or Spit https://www.thesmartset.com/dont-sing-scarf-or-spit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dont-sing-scarf-or-spit https://www.thesmartset.com/dont-sing-scarf-or-spit/#respond Thu, 18 Apr 2024 14:28:17 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=64367 Culture, if we can still call it that, has taken a definite downward turn in the last couple of decades. Tee shirts with I HATE YOUR F—ING MASK (the F word spelled out) printed in large letters on the front. Texting at the dinner table. Parents using profanity to children. Being honked and tailgated while […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/dont-sing-scarf-or-spit/feed/ 0 Cutting Up https://www.thesmartset.com/cutting-up/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cutting-up https://www.thesmartset.com/cutting-up/#respond Mon, 08 Apr 2024 11:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=64328 “A friend, Brion Gysin, an American poet and painter, who has lived in Europe for thirty years, was, as far as I know, the first to create cut-ups. His cut-up poem, Minutes to Go, was broadcast by the BBC and later published in a pamphlet. I was in Paris in the summer of 1960; this […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/cutting-up/feed/ 0 Our Oscars, Ourselves https://www.thesmartset.com/our-oscars-ourselves/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=our-oscars-ourselves https://www.thesmartset.com/our-oscars-ourselves/#respond Mon, 04 Mar 2024 12:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=9175 In our second Oscars story republished from 2016, writer Alex Dabertin examines the red-carpet race for Best Actress. The cultural landscape was marked by a significant emphasis on issues of gender equality, diversity, and representation in Hollywood. 2015 brought the #MeToo movement and infused discussions surrounding the Oscars with a heightened sensitivity to issues of […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/our-oscars-ourselves/feed/ 0 To Binge or Not to Binge: That Is the Question  https://www.thesmartset.com/to-binge-or-not-to-binge-that-is-the-question/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=to-binge-or-not-to-binge-that-is-the-question https://www.thesmartset.com/to-binge-or-not-to-binge-that-is-the-question/#respond Mon, 26 Feb 2024 12:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=63897 I specifically hoped not to be an old person that longed for the good old days, but, well, here’s the deal: I remember when binge was considered a bad word. Now, it is a weekend plan. And I’m not talking about those darn kids today; I’m talking about my weekend plan.  Decades ago, the only […]

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