Celebrating Earth Day at Regis!

By: Kamil Wojciak, Staff Reporter

At the beach here at Regis University, people were making tie-dye shirts, taking care of succulents, eating snacks and much more! Specifically, all of these activities took place during the Earth Day event on April 3rd, 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

Earth Day, a day that is celebrated internationally on April 22nd, is meant to give recognition to environmental issues that impact our planet and how to protect our environment. Founded in 1970 to originally teach people about these environmental issues, it has now become a staple holiday around the world.

While our Earth Day event at Regis was not one that helped resolve any environmental issues in our community, it allowed students to enjoy being outside in the sunny environment and to participate in multiple activities of their choice. The two main attractions were the tie-dye shirts and the succulents.

For making their own personal tie-dye shirts, the participants were given a white shirt and many materials to help aid their creative process. Firstly, students clumped up their shirts into a spherical shape, and used rubber bands to keep that shape formed. Then, the students were appropriately able to start tie-dying their shirts with the large variety of colored inks to choose from. When they were satisfied with their tie-dye shirt, they were given a Ziploc bag to safely store and keep their new personalized shirt.

While many participants made tie-dye shirts, the succulents also were high in popularity; as there was a limited amount of succulents, only the earlier guests were able to participate in this activity. With each individual having their own succulent, they had the opportunity to paint their pot for the succulent that they are going to plant in that pot. Like the tie-dye shirts, there was a large variety of paints that the artist could use, but no paint brushes in the vicinity. To solve the lack of paint brushes, finger painting was used and allowed great fun for this activity.

The Earth Day event at Regis was a great way to enjoy the sunny spring weather outside that was somewhat lacking by the recent weather we were having, and was also a fun way to express our artistic sense within us.

Regis Welcomes Poet Andrea Gibson

Photo Source // Amy Reglin

By Emily Lovell, Associate Editor

The Women’s and Gender Studies Department invited Andrea Gibson, a renowned queer poet that calls Boulder, CO home, to perform on campus on April 4, 2019. Their performance started at 8:00 pm in the Calver Recital Hall. Tickets were free for members of the Regis community.

Professor Alyse Knorr and junior Sam Yarnell provided the introduction and opening remarks for the event. They are both excellent poets themselves. Together, they welcomed Andrea Gibson to the stage for a powerful evening of vulnerability and beauty.

Gibson’s poems tackled issues such as the struggles that the LGBTQ community faces in today’s society, misogyny, and gun violence. Their poems especially focused on self-love regardless of who you love or what your identity is. A few of the poems that the audience was privileged to hear were “Your Life,” “First Love,” “Boomerang Valentine,” and “Living Proof.” Many of their poems were performed with musical accompaniment.

In between poems, Gibson revealed that one of their contemporaries once performed only poems focused on social justice issues even though the audience requested love poems. The other poet inspired Gibson, but then Gibson realized that their love poems are making a political statement. They then proceeded to perform a poem about one of their past loves and it was a heartbreakingly powerful moment.

At another point in the evening, Gibson said that they had once been told that “Self-hate is a way of trying to see the world as a safe, beautiful place.” They explained that when we experience awful things that are out of our control, we tend to blame ourselves in order to regain a sense of control. Gibson also told the audience that “the only thing you can control is where you put your attention.” Their overall message seemed to be to put your attention on making the world a safer, more beautiful place and on embracing who you are.   
Gibson’s openness and passionate performance created an atmosphere of acceptance. Regis was lucky to have them come to campus to share their story. If you would like to read some of their poetry, check out their latest book called The Lord of the Butterflies.

Making Mosaics!

Photo Source // Kamil Wojciak

By: Kamil Wojciak, Staff Writer

On March 23rd, students had the chance to craft their own personal mosaics that they were allowed to keep. The students had many options to craft mosaics, with different types of canvases, and a great amount of tiles to choose from.

Now for a small lesson on mosaics, mosaics are art that consist of assembling tiles to create an image; these tiles have limitless options, factoring from material, size, shape, color, and more. Surprisingly enough, the earliest evidence of mosaics can be traced back to the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia.

Now, back to the event that took place, students had a great range of options on crafting their mosaics. For the tiles, some tiles they had were shaped as squares and triangles, with different sizes. The remaining tiles were actually all asymmetrical, as they were all personally cracked at the event. Even with the great options for the tiles, the event also had different canvases that were available. Two types of the canvases available were standard, white, flat canvases that just deviated in dimensions and size. However, greatly stemming from the linear canvases available, students were able to use jars as their personal canvas.

The mosaic event was a great way to spend the weekend and stimulate our artistic sense within us. Hopefully, there will be more events like this in the near future giving students opportunities to be satisfied, creating and building their own personal art.

And The Devil Writes His Requiem

By: AC Covarrubias

 The devil is one of the most if not the most infamous figure in religious culture. His effect seems to be ever present in all forms of media. This reigns in art, film, drama, and literature. However it is in music where his presence reigns supreme.

         The prince of darkness presence in music can be dated back in the Middle Ages. One of the most superstitious times in European history. During the 5th century the musical interval called the tritone, which was also known as "the devil in Music" or the “Devil’s Interval”, was banned by the Catholic Church due to the belief that playing the interval could summon the Devil himself. Later on the devil would strike again in 1773 in the mind of Giuseppe Tartini. One night Tartini had a dream where he sold his soul to the devil to make satan his servant and teacher. During this dream the devil would then play a song which is what he consider the most beautiful melody he has ever heard of. When he woke up he attempted to recreate that same melody he has heard in his dream. However in Lalande's Voyage d'un François en Italie, where he tells his story he states “The music which I at this time composed is indeed the best that I ever wrote, and I still call it the "Devil's Trill", but the difference between it and that which so moved me is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument and have said farewell to music forever if it had been possible for me to live without the enjoyment it affords me.”

         But Tartini was not the only violinist to have some relations with the infernal and unholy. Niccolò Paganini was a famous Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. During his career there have been rumors that his skill was given to him by the devil. The evidence to support this was claims that when he played the violin his hand would contort and move in an inhuman way. One person claimed to leave after witnessing the devil helping Paganini play. To rop it all of it was said that when the priest came to perform last rites it was said that he refused this sacrament. Whether this was real of not is up for debate.

         In the later years new genres of music emerged called Jazz and the blues. This genre of music is not directly linked to the devil but rather it was made linked to the devil. Because most of the jazz musicians are mainly African American in a still racist America people have been linking jazz with satan just to make the blacks look bad. During the time jazz was considered “Devil Music”. However, just because people linked jazz to the devil did not mean he did not have his hands on helping musicians master the blues. Some musicians such as Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson (the two are not related) where said to sell their souls to satan. Tommy was said to be a terrible guitar player until he sold his soul and just like that he became a master in an instant.

         The devil would leave the would and jazz and the blues into something more fitting for a violent entity such as him: Rock. Like jazz and the blues, rock was viewed negatively as satanist, but there main target was not on the minorities, but on children. During this time Rock was the cool thing to listen to as a kid, so parents use this as a way to scare their children. Saying that rock will lead you to a life of sin. This, like jazz, is not true, but instead of ignoring these claims rock embraced those claims and became what those things parents back then where afraid off. Black Sabbath, the founding fathers of metal, have a lot of references to the occult and the demonic. One of the band members Geezer Butler was fascinated with the occult, which lead Ozzy Osbourne to give him a black book written in Latin with pictures of the devil. He put the book in his shelf and went to bed. He would wake up to see a black figure at the front of the bed, staring at him. Some say it was the devil, others claim it was the grim reaper, however one thing is certain, when the figure vanished Butler searched for the book only to find that it was vanished. This would lead to Black Sabbath’s song Black Sabbath which is about the experience Geezer when through with the first line being “What is this, That stands before me? Figure in black, which points at me”. With metal coming to exist the link to music and satan have been exclusively linked to metal rock exclusively.

         Modern music seem to not discuss about the devil, with rock as the exception. The link between the devil and music is bizarre. With tales general consisting of encounters with the prince of darkness where it is meeting him face to face or committing to Faustian bargains. Whatever it is there is something fascinating about discovering the relations between music and the infernal.