Now, we’re not saying you should engage in such shenanigans. If eating isn’t allowed in Main Stacks, imagine what the walkie talkie food police would say to … other activities? Would they try to break up the party or run in the other direction? We bet on the latter.

But apparently Jericho! members had ample opportunity and uninterrupted time to show us just how cozy studying can get in the hallowed halls of the Stacks. Think those moving shelves are only being used to hold books? Clearly you aren’t thinking as innovatively as other Berkeley students. And think those copiers only take paper? You might want to get a sanitary wipe before you plan on using ones in this library any time soon.

We figure there are two extreme reactions to the scenes presented: traumatized horror or incredulity at having your methods exposed. In any case, try to take this tidbit of entertainment as inspiration for new activities. Namely … music videos, of course! Try your hand at filmmaking. Or acting. Or singing! After all, that’s the real message of this piece. Thanks for the motivation, Jericho!

Don’t take this as inspiration to ask the circulation desk if they have any boy toys left to check out, though. They may not understand the creative influence behind the question. Or they might be out.

Image source: s. bennet under Creative Commons 

Contact Erum Khan at ekhan@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter @erumjkhan.

The post What Jericho! does in Main Stacks appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The music video is a delicate and intricate art form. Done right, it has the potential to lift a song to new heights, extend its reach, force and meaning. Done wrong, it can leave an unpleasant taste, like an excess of sugar ruining an otherwise palatable dessert. And while a great release is great independently of its motion picture complement, it’s certainly well worth shooting a stellar video. After all, it’s the associations that music invokes in our minds that mark its true power.

Avoiding further abstractions, consider the music video for upcoming Arctic Monkeys single, “Suck It and See” (to be released October 31st, 2011). What goes perfectly with a sweet, melodic tune about a special girl giving romance a chance? Usher in the band’s drummer Matt Helders starring as a bad-boy motorcyclist in the California desert, add a smoking hot model (Breana McDow), and pit the two in a raunchy relationship teeming with sexual aggression.

Every detail from the imagery and the emotion conveyed is given close attention and constructed to perfection. As we watch McDow’s character fighting for her man’s attention as he shoots rifles, lifts weights poolside and rides his motorbike no-handed, we are romantically engaged, though in a manner that is intriguingly strange and unfamiliar. The two are violently shoving one moment, violently embracing the next. The viewer becomes emotionally charged, thinking about the music in a new way, whether associating it merely with sadomasochism or with an overflow of urgency and passion.

The most important element of a music video is contrast; it must be thought of as an extension, rather than a mere representation of the song. Here a tune with very English characteristics is thrown into old car junkyards and dirt roads in the Mojave Desert. A bit of cheek doesn’t do any harm either: the title “Suck It and See” is often mistaken as sexual, so the band goes and shoots an overtly sexual video. Still, the video preserves the song’s identity, maintaining a fierce romantic side, and ending with Helders and McDow waving a British flag as they ride off into the night. The result is that the viewer can grow enamored with the track through its visual content, and what is a music video to accomplish, if not that?

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