The book:

“The Wild Things” by Dave Eggers

Suggested for:

Anyone who loves the children’s book and wishes to add depth to the beloved story.

Clog rating:

“The Wild Things” by Dave Eggers came to be through one of the most confusing lines of conception: This full-length novel is based on the screenplay of “Where the Wild Things Are” by Eggers and Spike Jonze. The screenplay is, of course, based on the children’s book of the same name by Maurice Sendak. Basically, this book is the adult version of one of our favorite books from childhood.

And this novel does not disappoint. Just like the film adaptation, this story gives so much more depth and intricacy to Max and his fantastical experiences with the beasts on their faraway island. While the premise and simplicity of the children’s picture book remains throughout, this adventure explores Max’s troubled home life and illustrates just why it becomes the reason for his initial departure. His snarky sister and her douchebag friends would be enough to convince us that we should sail away too. By delving into Max’s familial relations, both in the real world and with the family of monsters he meets, his character becomes instantly relatable for any person struggling to negotiate their place in the world.

From the moment that Max arrives on the island after an impossibly long journey across the open ocean, the reader is inclined to assume that this is all a figment of Max’s imagination and a temporary reprieve from his reality. However, this assumption gradually changes as you, along with Max, get to know the creatures that inhabit this place. The beasts are given realistic and unique personalities that come to define not only themselves but also how they interact with everyone else. They are so wonderfully conceived and articulated by Eggers that their place in reality becomes hard to question. The relationships that Max forms with these monsters seem just as meaningful and important, if not more so, as those that Max forms with his actual family.

While this book is a very quick read, you still left the book feeling like you have completed an adventure with Max and are sad to see him return to reality without you there beside him. The novel serves to return us to that coveted feeling of childhood innocence and exhilaration with the unexpected encounters of life. Isn’t that what everyone wants out of an excellent book? Just to escape the stresses of college life and sail away on a quest for excitement? This book delivers that in spades.

Image Source: Crossett Library under Creative Commons

Contact Mackenzie Bedford at mbedford@dailycal.org.

The post The Book Nook: explore where “The Wild Things” roam appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The book:

“Paper Towns” by John Green

Suggested for:

Anyone who enjoys excellent reading and a moving story about discovering yourself and how to understand those around you.

Clog rating:

Regardless of how many years you are now removed from it, there are very few of us who don’t remember the giddy and surreal feelings that accompanied the ending of our high school years. There were so many unknowns and so much to look forward to while still wanting to enjoy every last cliched moment before graduation. Once everyone had left for college, it soon became apparent that most of us didn’t really know the others we went to school with for four years and that we honestly hadn’t even known ourselves. In “Paper Towns,” John Green explores the last-ditch effort of Quentin Jacobsen to understand what exactly makes up the girl he’s loved from afar since his childhood: Margo Roth Spiegelman. As he nears the end of his senior year, Quentin realizes that Margo is such an enigma that no actually knows who she is, and he makes it his mission to find out.

Quentin’s quest takes shape following one unexplainable night of unexpected adventures with Margo. While they’ve lived next door to each other throughout their childhoods and used to spend hours playing, Margo and Quentin haven’t been close in years — not since she became the queen of the monarchy that is the teenage social stratum. But one night she knocks on Quentin’s window and whisks him away for a night that challenges his personal boundaries and makes him realize that everything may just be a little too straight-forward inside their town — like it’s constructed of perfectly cut out paper.

When Margo disappears the day after their escapade, Quentin worries that the seemingly random night may have been her last hurrah before deciding that she couldn’t stand living the cookie-cutter lifestyle anymore. His concern leads him to obscure clues that Margo has left, seemingly hoping that Quentin will be the one to find her — although which state she’s in is unknown. As he races to find her before time runs out on graduation, Quentin not only learns that there is a lot more to the beautiful and elusive girl from next door but that there is a lot more to himself than just being an exceptionally well-adjusted teenager.

Aside from the relatable story of self-discovery, Green makes the book beautiful through his writing. There are countless quotable moments (as proved by their frequency on sites such as Tumblr and Pinterest) that stick with you and bring a sort of profound quality to the story and its characters. Green illustrates insights into the teenage mind and manages to put into perfectly fitting words what most of us felt when we were faced with the end of high school and all the multitudes of unknowns. While not as popular as Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Paper Towns” is a worthwhile read that is just as moving and heartfelt.

Image Source: Alexandra Marie under Creative Commons

Contact Mackenzie Bedford at mbedford@dailycal.org.

The post The Book Nook: Discover yourself in ‘Paper Towns’ appeared first on The Daily Californian.

It’s summertime, and that means more time to get those tennis shoes on, that butt twerkin’, those arms … flailing? I mean, we don’t know what you like to do, but we do know that summer is the time to exercise. Whether you’re at Cal or elsewhere, getting yourself pumped up to exercise can be a difficult process. So what’s more helpful for said activities than a couple of awesome pump-up songs? Well we can’t think of anything else, so here are a couple of tunes to help get you in the zone.

1) Fountains of Wayne, “Stacy’s Mom (Singularity x Robotic Pirate Monkey Remix)”

2) Riton feat. Sage the Gemini, “Gas Pedal”

3) James Young, “Dark Star (Kiely Rich Remix)”

4) Jeff Zheng, “Dimensions”

5) Hardwell, “Spaceman (Carnage Festival Trap Remix)”

6) Kanye West, “New Slaves (DJ Snake Remix)”

7) Smallpools, “Dreaming (The Chainsmokers Remix)”

8) Karmin, “Acapella”

Have any music suggestions that help you get PUMPED? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: will ockenden under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post Playlist of the week: time to SWEAT appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The book:

“Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” by Patrick Suskind

Suggested for:

Anyone who is looking for a psychologically enveloping novel that makes you sympathize with the murderer (for once).

Clog rating:

Upon viewing the title of this week’s novel, “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer,” some assumptions can be made as to the nature of the story. However, most — if not all — of them are wrong. The main character’s name is not Perfume (it’s actually Jean-Baptiste Grenouille) nor is that the name of any other character in the book. And he doesn’t murder people with some sort of aerosolized poison in perfume form (which is where our minds first went). The story that author Patrick Suskind weaves is much more complicated and intriguing than that.

Grenouille is a man who is born without his own scent. He gives off no odor of any kind, which is made even more impressive by the fact that the novel is set in France right around the time of its first revolution. As the town in Europe with the largest population and subpar bathing habits, everything and everyone of the time stank — but not Grenouille. This anomaly is made up by his inhuman sense of smell. He can not only take in the everyday scents that the rest of the populace can, but he can pick apart what his nose takes in, decomposing it into the smallest units of odor and the most basic elements of smell.

From his childhood onward, Grenouille becomes enraptured by the countless smells that he can discern and sets out to build an encyclopedic knowledge of all of these pieces. His turning point occurs when he encounters a smell that makes him feel emotion for the first time. While before this instance he had never experienced any sort of real feeling for anything other than revulsion at some of the stinks surrounding Paris, the girl that he comes across slicing plums brings him to his knees and makes him desperate for more. He realizes that true happiness lies within the perfect scent given off by this girl.

The rest of the novel unfolds the tumultuous journey of Grenouille. It follows him through his initial training in perfumes with the bumbling master Baldini — training that only serves to heighten Grenouille’s desire to acquire more knowledge. As he departs, he manages to take a seven-year rest in a cave on a mountainside to escape the persistent odor of other humans. The realization that he possesses no scent of his own drives him onward to the town of Grasse, where master perfumers are made. Here he begins his process to elicit the perfect odor from the most beautiful girl in town.

The constant juxtaposition of the innocence of Grenouille’s intentions and his resulting murderous actions make for very interesting and quick reading. The narrator lends himself to Grenouille’s perspective, which allows the reader to actually believe that he or she understands why Grenouille does the terrible things that he does. We should also mention that the ending of this book is quite unlike anything we’ve ever read (or probably will ever read again) and definitely induces the shock factor.

Image Source: Danica Steinhauser under Creative Commons.

Contact Mackenzie Bedford at mbedford@dailycal.org.

The post The Book Nook: Inhale ‘Perfume: The Story of a Murderer’ appeared first on The Daily Californian.

To Mr. James Franco,

We always knew that you would do it. You always knew that you would do it. Really, it was only a matter of time before you set your sights on Faulkner, and to be quite honest, we’re glad that you did. It’s high time another piece of classic American literature hit the silver screen. But oh, can’t you just feel all those literati eyebrows furrow with pretentious cynicism? Not to worry — it only makes your well-set brow look the finer.

Mind you, you haven’t made any of this easy on yourself — you could’ve gone for the straightforward “Light in August” Faulkner. But no, that just doesn’t say “James Franco” enough, does it? Instead, you went for the granddaddy of them all (debatably, but with good reason), the “What am I reading? This makes other works in stream-of-consciousness look basic” type Faulkner. But listen: You can do it. Considering your filmography’s recent upward trajectory, starting with the cerebral “Pineapple Express” to the solidly intellectual “Spring Breakers,” it’s only natural that you should directorially manhandle “The Sound and the Fury,” Nobel Prize be damned.

So, James, don’t listen to the haters. Maybe Benjy’s section is irreplaceable, unable to be either filmed or captured. Who cares? Its not as if Faulkner was revealing anything about the power relationships within the Compson family or the arbitrariness of human activity in a medium more nuanced than the rapid succession of still frames, right? And so what, Quentin’s neurosis is better kept on the page than roughly translated onto the screen. It’s fine. You’re the face of Gucci. You got this.

Okay, but in absolute seriousness, we really do hope that your film does justice to “The Sound and the Fury.” It is high time that an American literary classic be a classic in film as well (America was so close with “Heart of Darkness” and “Apocalypse Now” — damn it, Conrad). It would be a huge accomplishment — not just for film but for you as well. It would make Faulkner, and hopefully other great works of literature, more accessible to the public. Which is how it should be.

Truly, we wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely yours,

The Daily Clog

Image Source: Talis Melillo under Creative Commons

Contact Griffin Mori-Tornheim at gmoritornheim@dailycal.org

The post An open letter to James Franco regarding ‘The Sound and the Fury’ appeared first on The Daily Californian.

“Instead of letting live sharks rain down on people, we’re going to get in that chopper and throw bombs into the tornadoes.”

Nope. Not an Onion- or Cracked-style parody. This is the real deal. Just one of many memorable scenes that make “Sharknado” one of the most laughable, entertaining train wrecks we’ve seen in a while. For those of you who are still anxious to know what we’re referring to, “Sharknado” is Syfy’s newest television movie starring, Chippendale dancer Ian Ziering and “American Pie” star Tara Reid. It’s about, yup, you guessed it, a shark tornado. We know what you’re thinking. Total Oscar bait. If you’re part of the rare breed that watches the Syfy channel to enjoy a program that is reminiscent of actual science, we advise you to turn back now. If you are, however, someone who can appreciate 80 minutes of pure, unadulterated cinematic junk food that defies the laws of biology, meteorology, physics and filmmaking in one fell swoop, you’re in good company.

On its July 11 air date, “Sharknado” immediately swept the Twittersphere, quickly climbing up to trending status as the topic of more than 5,000 tweets per minute. The buzz, you ask? The film’s low-budget production value made it the punch line of thousands of Twitter jokes, even among prominent celebrities. The CGI looks like it was created by a 12-year-old computer nerd messing around with a laptop. The movie is riddled with blatant inconsistencies. For many of the shots, there isn’t even so much as a drop of water on the ground, even though a full-scale hurricane is supposedly consuming all of Los Angeles. With lighting changes in practically every scene, it’s not unreasonable to guess that the artistic philosophy behind the entire thing was “Ooooops. Oh well, we’ll edit this out later.” Yet, perhaps the worst (best) part about “Sharknado” is the innumerable atrocious one-liners and ridiculously implausible plot line. When a pool of blood collects in the water beneath the fearful Southern Californians, for example, one character randomly chimes in, “Looks like it’s that time of the month.” When the tornado is headed inland for Los Angeles, the protagonist’s son decides to be a hero and fly a helicopter into the tornado to break it up with bombs (as if explosives and weather totally work like that). But are we really surprised about the mediocre production of a television movie airing on a Thursday night on the Syfy channel? Not really. It’s been done before. So what makes “Sharknado” so special to us?

The man behind the magic, writer and director Anthony C. Ferrante, explained in an interview that his plan for its success was to follow a simple but failproof recipe combining one part shark and one part natural disaster. It’s brilliant, really, when you think about it. America has spoken: We are inexplicably obsessed with sharks. We at the Clog will be the first to admit that we take part in this madness. And we doubt that we were the only ones who hoped to break hearts in middle school with these shark-themed backpacks or planned a “Shark Week” party with a pretty respectable turnout. In fact, every August, more than 30 million viewers eagerly tune into Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” for an excuse to celebrate these seriously misunderstood, cartilaginous sea dwellers. People also love watching movies about natural disasters. Even when you factor out Jake Gyllenhaal’s piercing blue eyes and boyish charm from the equation, we found it hella entertaining to watch New York City turn into a post-apocalyptic glacier in “The Day After Tomorrow.”

So when you’re feeling like not taking anything very seriously, need a laugh and want to watch an objectively awful movie, “Sharknado” has the official Clog seal (or perhaps shark) of approval. And if you’re up late at night agonizing over HOW IN THE WORLD this piece of cinematic genius will quite possibly be more famous that anything you will ever write or produce, the answer is in! Sharks. Natural disasters. America.

If you missed “Sharknado” the first time around, you’re in luck! The Syfy network has confirmed that it will be giving a special encore presentation of the movie tonight at 7 p.m. EST.

Image Source: Rene Walter under Creative Commons

Contact Liz Zarka at lzarka@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @Zarkotics.

The post ‘Sharknado’: train wreck, cinematic genius or both? appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The book:

“The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood

Suggested for:

Anyone who enjoys both pre- and post-apocalyptic stories in the same novel.

Clog rating:

Everyone knows that there are countless stories about the end of human society and what would happen in its aftermath. To find one that rises above the rest and forges its own place among the many is unique and quite satisfying. In her MaddAddam trilogy, Margaret Atwood attempts to do just that and, in our opinion, has succeeded with flying colors in her first two installments. The second, “The Year of the Flood,” gives the backstory of how the different strata within society found themselves just before it all was devastated by a catastrophic plague that left the world in ruin (as is explored in the first novel, “Oryx and Crake”). In this novel, Atwood manages to tell a whole new story that ensnares the reader while bringing to light and explaining some of the questions raised in the previous book.

The story mainly follows two women, Toby and Ren, who have managed to survive the “flood” of plague that seems to have decimated the rest of the visible world. Their dual narrations alternate between updates of the present and explanations of their pasts and how they came to arrive at their current state. Both stories revolve around the fanatical religious sect that calls itself The Gardeners. Each of the girls’ stories has been radically altered by their interaction and reliance on the religious community and its leader, Adam One, at different times in their lives.

The Gardeners stand for an extreme return to the basics. They adamantly reject all of the technological advances that have become so commonplace for the time and strive for self-sustainability, regardless of how that makes the public view them. The novel is broken up by the occasional motivational speech from Adam One in celebration of some sort of sacred holiday of their creation, always accompanied by a long and unsatisfying hymn. Although they are seen as outsiders and regarded as weirdos by the whole of common society, they are also quite accepting and wish to extend their aid to all who require it, as long as they can at least feign some faith in the cause.

The story takes the reader through the tragedy and the aftermath. It also manages to pull in pieces from the previous installation (also highly recommended reading) and have them make sense in the scheme of what has previously taken place. Toward the end of the novel, the story meets up with the end of the last book and provides just enough new information to pull in the reader and make him or her desperate for the final book — set to be released later this summer.

Image Source: Friends Shop of the Greenville County Library under Creative Commons.

Contact Mackenzie Bedford at mbedford@dailycal.org.

The post The Book Nook: Experience ‘The Year of the Flood’ with Atwood appeared first on The Daily Californian.

If you do not already know, “So You Think You Can Dance” is a summer program on Fox in which contestants from all around the United States — and, in some cases, from all around the world — audition and compete for the title of “America’s favorite dancer.” Once the auditions are over, about 160 contestants are sent to Las Vegas for the “callback” round, and after those eliminations are processed, the top 20 are sent to Los Angeles to perform on the main “So You Think You Can Dance” stage. We know for sure that many of you Cal students are avid TV watchers, especially during the summer, and for you dance fans and aficionados, SYTYCD has been your go-to summer show since the first season! If you haven’t caught on to some of the very valuable lessons you can learn from the show, we’ve got a couple of things we learned to help you out like:

When in doubt, be Cat Deeley. Cat Deeley is the host of “So You Think You Can Dance.” You could say she is the Beyonce of all television hosts. She’s pleasant, charming and always “dressed to impress.” She’s always the happiest person on the show (probably because she’s not in fear of having her dreams crushed during an elimination round and because she gets paid $60,000 per episode), but her confidence and seemingly eternal perkiness are admirable. So if you’re ever down in the dumps, remember — be Cat Deeley.

Actively avoid being “that dude.” In the most recent “Vegas Callbacks” episode of SYTYCD, in which approximately 160 dancers compete to be in the top 20 dancers, drama ensued when a female contestant called out her assigned dance partner, Jade Zuberi (who is now part of the top 20) for “holding her back a bit” and requested another partner, whom she tried working with instead of with Jade. After doing this, jazz and contemporary choreographer Sonya Tayeh proceeded to scold the young dancer for not listening to the choreographer’s initial instructions to “fall in love with your partner” and for essentially being “that guy” in front of the judges, the crew and all of the dancer’s fellow contestants. And if we’re being honest, after that little incident, it looked like the show was actively trying to portray the dancer as “that dude” who calls out her partner. Lesson learned? Don’t be THAT DUDE!

Good music makes everything seem cooler. If you’re ever looking for some good music and don’t know where to go besides the “Playlist of the Week” section of the Daily Clog or the “Tunesday” articles from the arts and entertainment section of the Daily Cal, SYTYCD is always a good place to go. A variety of music genres are included in the show’s dance playlist considering all the different types of dances performed. Songs range from artsy sounds like Bjork’s “Enjoy” all the way to dance remixes like “Let’s Have a Kiki (Guwremix)” by Fanny Pak & District 78. Various choreographers on the show, including Christopher Scott and Sonya Tayeh, like to use interesting music to their advantage by including certain songs from genres that usually would not go with their music styles — Christopher Scott is a hip-hop choreographer, and Tayeh is a jazz and contemporary choreographer — to give their performances a little twist. And it usually works. What have we learned from this? Anytime you’re bored or need to add a little twist to your life, put on some good music. We can guarantee you’ll feel at least 10 times cooler than you did before.

Image source:  Vivanista1 under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post 3 things to learn from ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The book:

“Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline

Suggested for:

Anyone who loves video games and would love to know what it’s like to basically live within one. Or anyone who appreciates 1980s pop culture references.

Clog rating:

While books are our virtual reality of choice, video games provide a welcome escape for multitudes of people from the monotony of everyday life. To outsiders of the gaming world, the endless amount of technical jargon and infinite virtual adventures can seem daunting (some might even say boring). But in “Ready Player One,” Ernest Cline manages to write a story that takes place almost exclusively within a virtual game and is still incredibly enticing and continually enthralling.

Set about three decades in the future, the novel finds itself in the aftermath of the basic collapse of society due to the energy crisis and resulting crash of the economy. While this story is set in the future, it is by no means difficult to imagine what that world must be like and how it came to be that way. The protagonist is 17-year-old Wade Watts — his name being a shout-out to the similarly named superheroes of comic books. Wade’s reality is harsh, and it doesn’t seem like he’s got many opportunities for improvement. However, his savior takes the form of the largest online reality ever created, the OASIS. Once he puts on his visor and hepatic gloves, he can be someone else — someone who might have a chance of improving his circumstances.

The story revolves around the hunt for a legendary Easter egg hidden inside the game by its creator. This egg gives the finder the entirety of creator James Halliday’s multibillion dollar fortune and the controlling share of the company that runs the OASIS. To a guy like Wade, who barely scrapes together enough to eat, this is quite the opportunity. But the task is daunting — there are thousands of worlds that exist in the OASIS and just a brief limerick to start you on your quest.

To be able to find the keys that unlock the three gates guarding the egg, the players have to intensely study and research Halliday’s life and interests. Most of these revolve around Halliday’s obsession with the 1980s. Tasks include beating multiple rudimentary video games from the decade and being able to personally act out entire movies — like “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The hardest part of the search is dealing with the millions of people who act as competition — one of which is an incredibly powerful corporation that clearly has no qualms with going as far as murder to ensure it wins.

Cline creates an incredibly complex virtual world that can be appreciated by the biggest of gaming nerds and an endearing character whose personal growth and struggle bring a sense of pride to the reader. He navigates the complexities of our changing society and how our online lives are slowly replacing human contact but also illustrates that the most important relationships and the greatest changes can only be enacted in real life. This book is definitely a must-read, especially if you’re up on your ’80s culture and can appreciate the multitude of references sprinkled throughout the novel.

Image Source: Belio MGZ under Creative Commons

Contact Mackenzie Bedford at mbedford@dailycal.org.

The post The Book Nook: Join the OASIS in ‘Ready Player One’ appeared first on The Daily Californian.

This season is the season of music festivals. And for all you music festival junkies at Cal – we know you’re out there — this music festival season is your GO time. Whether you danced your a** off at EDC over the weekend or you’re headed to Outside Lands in August, there were/are several things you need to remember:

1. Dehydration is REAL. Whether you’re in the middle of the desert, enjoying SoCal sun or bathing in mild Bay Area air, there’s one you need to keep in mind. You guessed it: WATER. Dehydration is one of the most common reasons that people don’t get to enjoy the festivals they planned on enjoying, so remember to grab your CamelBaks and Klean Kanteens before heading out. (Fortunately, most big music festivals have water-refilling stations!)

2. Comfort, comfort, comfort. First off, comfortable shoes are a MUST. Close-toed shoes are highly suggested — preferably ones that can be tied up and will stay on. We recommend Converse, Toms, Vans and especially combat boots — you want to enjoy some dope-a** music, not worry about being stepped on for hours at a time. Also, remember to wear non-constrictive clothing like flowy tops and vintage t-shirts that’ll ensure you can dance your booty off without wanting to strip naked in the middle of an Empire of the Sun set. (Unless that’s your cup of tea. Wink, wink.)

3. Bands might make her dance but they don’t have to make you dance. Remember that you don’t have to spend tons of money in order to look awesome at a music festival. Thrift shops around the Bay Area and in Berkeley like Buffalo Exchange and all the shops along Haight Street in San Francisco can provide you with inexpensive but great clothing options for those festival days. If you want to go a little wilder and find some crazy pieces you’d probably never wear on a normal basis, head out to those thrift shops we mentioned or check out Forever 21, the sale section at Asos, Boohoo or search in the $50 and under section at Polyvore.

4. Remember to pace yourself. This applies to various music-festival activities from dancing to inhaling herbs to getting inebriated. Going too hard at the beginning can wear you out and ruin the next several hours or even the next few days of your music festival. We know you want to have a kick-a** time, but try not to experience that kick-a** time in a too concentrated period. If you play at a level you know you can control, we can guarantee that you’ll have a great time.

5. Happy mindset = happy time. The most important thing to remember as you prepare for your music festival is to enjoy yourself. As corny as it sounds, going into a festival, or any event really, with the mindset that you will have fun no matter what and that you won’t let anything bother you is a promise to yourself that you’ll have a wonderful experience that you will never forget. So just remember what we’ve mentioned and relax and enjoy to your heart’s desire.

Do you have any reminders for preparing for music festivals? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: Caesar Sebastian under Creative Commons

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

The post 5 things to remember as you’re preparing for a music festival appeared first on The Daily Californian.