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Opinions

In Defense of Metz

By Hannah Smith

“Metz is terrible.”

We have all heard that one before. Metz has no options. Metz is nothing compared to home cooking. Metz is simply inedible.This comes up in conversations early in the morning, sometimes at lunch, and definitely at the dinner table. But I argue that there are more people in favor for Metz than we know. It’s too easy to get caught up in the rut of complaining and shortchange a good thing rather than appreciate what is there. 

According to a comment from senior Abigail Young, “It’s not a restaurant, but it’s not bad food.” If we really look at Metz with open eyes, we can see that the options are much more varied than the typical college fare. Bethany Smith from Eastern Nazarene has said that almost every night they have a fried food option: chicken tenders or pizza. There are no self-cook stations or fruit stations. The best that can be done is to go to the store yourself to get some strawberries.

Houghton has cooking stations, a sandwich bar, a fruit bar, a salad bar with dependable vegetables, and a pizza station. Pretty much any option for what you’re feeling or can make yourself. True, there’s not always a hit at the Main Plate section, and it may not be home cooking, but as Abigail previously said, it’s not bad.

Junior Brynn Dixon says part of her own attitude towards Metz is because “I think I get disappointed sometimes because I’m tired. We live in the middle of nowhere and I can’t just run out to Wendy’s and get my four piece chicken nugget meal.” It’s hard! Living in a space where the closest restaurant is the local Chinese restaurant and Dunkin Donuts is twenty minutes out is difficult! Especially when most of us come from areas much more urban than Houghton is.

I think wishful feelings about missing home cooking are felt by a large portion of Houghton students. Home is far away, along with the comfort of a homemade meal, and college food can feel subpar compared to it. But we don’t hate Metz. They do a fantastic job and we appreciate the effort they put into changing and addressing our needs. But there isn’t much they can really do to subdue this feeling of wishing from Houghton students. It is simply the way it is when living in such a rural space. And Three Bums Pizza is not exactly a great option to get away from dining hall food. 

Metz has done a lot to accommodate students in terms of changes to meals and food options. In past years we had limited access to fruit, but they heard our desire for fruit, and this year we have a fruit bar. There were a lot of complaints about Poblanos being all day-every day, and this year we have a weekly rotation on that station. They hired a professional dessert chef. There’s even an ‘Ask Us’ board up next to the coffee station. They make sure to respond promptly to comments students post and do the best they can to make the changes asked for. That’s a 10/10 in my book.

Metz will never be home cooking. It will never cater to our taste buds specifically. But they do their best with cooking for the university body. I think it’s important to remember to be grateful for the blessing of the people who work to make our lives easier. Metz is fun to complain about, but we should be careful not to convince ourselves that it really is terrible, because convincing ourselves that something is terrible is surprisingly easy. ★

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Campus News

SPOT Returns!

By Joey Schunemann ('23)

In the Fall of 2021, SPOT was teetering on the edge. On a post-COVID campus that had grown weary of the campus wide spectacle even before the bi-annual variety show went remote, the chance of SPOT’s permanent cancellation was high. During the host auditions, AC Taylor told stories of previous acts gone awry and hosts who butted heads with the Campus Activities Board (CAB) at every turn. The list of auditionees to host a significant opportunity was low; one duo and one individual. The duo came in with a constrictive theme and a loose set of goals. The individual was Steve Harper. 

Harper, recent graduate with the Class of ‘22 had a vision of a renewed SPOT where the host was not awkward glue between the main event, but an act in and of itself with monologues, songs and games all driven by the charisma of a natural performer. In retrospect, Harper said that when he is an audience member, he wants to laugh more than once, like the host and feel that “when the show is over… to be surprised that two hours just passed.” Harper also said that hosting was not without its challenges, and that if he could have found a partner that would have fit his high expectations he would have rather not work alone. 

Harper said that he “had big plans that didn’t happen and [he] had to be OK with that because [he] was a solo host.” 

This was not the experience of this year’s SPOT 2024 hosts, Levi Webb (‘24) and Sam Carpenter (‘25).

Harper’s extremely high standards of excellence set the standard for spots to come, and the immediately following duo had big shoes to fill and an idea to make it happen. “Blockbuster movies, like the rental store not the concept” was what Luc Pereira (‘23) and Ansley Green (‘22) pitched to the same CAB staff as before, but with a new idea of what to be looking for. 

Pereira and Green brought the chemistry of a pre-existing friendship, not only key for stage dynamics but also the natural expectation for an event where hours of work are needed in preparation. Pereira and Green were on top of logistics and advertising in a way that showed the failings of a single host. While Harper poured all his effort into excellent skits and shaping the evening in a way that ensured highs and lows that would keep people on the edge of their seats, Pereira and Green could split up their manpower enough to start with the goal of getting people in the door. 

“I worked on silly skits and host dialogue while she took on a lot of the overarching logistical issues,” Pereira said. 

Recreations of old movie posters with photoshopped energetic hosts were plastered on walls all across campus. In addition to the advertising, SPOT band candidates were reached out to well in advance, and auditions ran smoothly. When the actual night came, the dual host power showed its merit, and cemented the formula that the last five shows have followed. They did not have to sacrifice quality for logistical mastery, they did not have to sacrifice as many great sketch ideas as Harper did. The night was tight, well planned, and well executed. 

This year so far has largely been a mystery. With a slew of duos auditioning with different plans, Webb and Carpenter had a theme that was creative, interesting and put lots of focus on live entertainment. This felt like an exciting change of pace, but was followed by a bit of radio silence. 

When auditions came, a kindly smiling Carpenter sat casually on the stage and gave encouragement to the groups there that “we believe that if you want to be in [SPOT], you can be in [SPOT], and we will just talk through what that might look like.” 

This was an inclusive change from the careful planning of Harper’s crafted narrative but one that could certainly yield more positive than negative. Without much more from them in terms of follow-up communications to the CAB team, there has been a sense of mysterious anticipation across campus. Will the show follow strongly in Harper’s footsteps of crafted skits with less of an emphasis on Pereira and Green’s advertisement skills? Have other commitments delayed planning for both impacting quality? Or are we on the verge of another revolution in the variety show on the ravines edge? The answer will be on stage Saturday, March 16 at 10 p.m. in the Wesley Chapel. ★

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Stories In Focus

Feature: Jesse Sharpe

By Anna Catherman ('24)

Dr. Jesse Sharpe has had a fruitful year of teaching, researching, and speaking. Over the past few months, he spoke at conferences in Philadelphia, and Baton Rouge, La. 

“It’s been a particularly busy scholarly semester,” Sharpe noted. 

In early February, Sharpe had the opportunity to attend the John Donne Society convention. He spent a weekend with friends from across the world. The agenda includes both lectures and ample time to catch up. 

“Nobody sleeps for three days,” Sharpe claimed. 

This year’s trip was especially eventful as it overlapped with the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. They held an impromptu party for the big game. Then the Louisiana State University campus lost power for five hours on Mardi Gras. While the lights were out, they all gathered in a hotel suite and talked until the issue was resolved.

The society recently finished a variorum of Donne’s work, a collection of every manuscript of every poem. It was a massive undertaking; there are more copies of Donne’s work than any other in the time period. 

Back in January, Sharpe presented on Donne’s Devotions at the Modern Language Association national convention in Philadelphia. And at the end of February, he spent his Spring Break in England conducting research.

In the classroom, Sharpe has been teaching two classes, Critical Evaluations of Literature and Contemporary World Literature, that he hasn’t taught since 2020. He also has two sections of Humanities 201.

In Contemporary World Literature, Sharpe tried something new: exclusively reading authors outside North America and Europe. This class’s conversations have been exceptional, and he really enjoys them. His favorite part of being a professor is “just being in a classroom and having discussions.” 

Sharpe’s home life has been busy as well. His sons are filling out a flurry of college applications, and he’s planning to spend the summer with them before they leave home. And the family cat, Nougat, has been doing her role in keeping life exciting.

Nougat recently got out of quarantine after eating a bat. The New York Department of Health ordered her isolation since her rabies vaccine had just expired. She ate the bat on a Sunday, and on Wednesday her next shot was scheduled.

She emerged from six months in the basement the same cat she was before. And Sharpe took her to get her rabies shot. 

“It’s nice to know there’s not rabies in the house,” Sharpe laughed, adding “[n]ow she can eat all the bats she wants.” ★

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Columns

When you worry — Look to the Birds

Written by: Karl Schmidt

Luke 12:22-25 says, “Then Jesus said to his disciples; ‘therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the Ravens: they do not sow or reap, they have no storerooms or barns, yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?’” We have many occasions in life to worry. What career path to take, who to be friends with, who to date, who to marry, etc., the list is never ending. Years ago, I had finished my bachelor’s degree and student teaching and was looking for a job. After a whole summer of interviews, I went back home to my parents’ house, with no job and a wife and baby. I had a great opportunity to worry. A month into the school year I was called for an interview, as a long-term sub, and finally got a job teaching history at Rushford Central School (Cuba-Rushford Central School) where I stayed for 30 years. I think all of us can look back at our lives and see how God sustained us and by doing so taught us not to worry.Besides my love for teaching, I’ve always had a love for birdwatching. I’ve been fascinated about the variety of ways birds find things to eat and what they eat: from a Belted Kingfisher or an Osprey diving from a great height into the lake to catch a fish, to Ruby Throated Hummingbirds drinking nectar from my bee balm flowers (they also eat a lot of spiders), or to Vultures that eat dead animals (they have special enzymes in their gut that can break down the most disgusting rotted meat that would probably kill us). Last summer I watched a little American Redstart, a bird in the Warbler family, like a miniature fighter pilot chase a moth, finally grabbing it with its beak and after struggling with it a little bit, swallowing it down. Once while out for a walk, I watched an enterprising Gray Catbird in front of a beehive picking off bees as they flew out. For those of you who visit Florida, you might know of the Anhinga, a bird that chases fish underwater and spears them with its beak; or the various species of herons that wait patiently to grab a fish in the shallows. Closer to home, while canoeing by a rocky island in the Adirondacks (Canada Island, Lake Lila), I watched a baby Spotted Sandpiper struggling with a dragonfly it had caught by the tail — perhaps the first meal of its life. Winter can be a particularly hard time for birds to find food. But again, God cares for His creation. Cedar Waxwings, Robins, Chickadees, and Bluebirds are sustained throughout the cold winter by eating berries left over from the Fall and the tops of Sumacs. We’ve all seen woodpeckers at suet feeders, but many times in the wild I have seen Downy Woodpeckers and Chickadees picking at the fat of a dead deer carcass. For one month in May thousands of songbirds flying north from Central America get to the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio and stop exhausted and hungry. But at that very time in early May, hundreds of thousands of Caddisflies hatch and provide the needed food for the birds to make it across the lake. The same scenario I’ve seen in birds that make it across Lake Erie at Point Pelee, a park in Ontario with a peninsula that stretches out into the lake, one of the first spots birds stop to find more to eat to replenish their supplies.Many of you may have witnessed God supplying birds with food in some way or another. The Creator of the universe has provided for His birds, sometimes specifically by how they were created, and sometimes by the impact of other parts of His creation like the Caddisfly hatch. God loves us so much, how much more will He provide for us.Karl Schmidt, Birdwatcher ☆

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Columns

Sword Art Online

Written by: Julian Veley (’25)

A-1 Pictures’ Sword Art Online is an anime based on a manga series of the same name. Personally, I have not read the manga but instead chose to begin by watching the series. SAO is a story full of emotion; if you are a hopeless romantic, it will hit you deeply.

The story is based in the 2020s with the release of a new Virtual Reality headset titled “Nerve Gear.” This new headset, unlike VR headsets we know, does not require the user to stand and move. Instead, the user lays flat on their back with the headset on. When powered on, it takes control of the five senses, putting the user in a vegetative state to the outside world, but in the headset, their mind is active, controlling their characters and remaining very conscious. Viewers follow the story of Kazuto Kirigaya, “Kirito,” (voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuok) and his experience in the Nerve Gear.

On the release day of the Nerve Gear alongside the VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlay Game) Sword Art Online, 10,000 players logged on for the first time to experience the opening ceremony. When some users are unable to log out of the game, tension rises. They are then informed by Kayaba (the Games’ creator) that in order to leave, they must beat all 100 Levels of Aincrad, the steel castle the world of SAO is set in. He also informs the players that those who suffer in-game deaths or attempt to forcibly remove the Nerve Gear will experience death in the real world. Kirito, being one of one thousand beta testers, has a headstart on the game. In order to protect other players, he sets out on his own. On his journey, he meets another player by the name of Asuna Yuuki (voiced by Haruka Tomatsu), with whom he develops an attachment and soon falls in love with. From that point forward, the story is a battle for their love, showing the extent to which one will go to save another and how willpower is stronger than any physical or mental barrier. The entire first season is powerful – a rollercoaster of emotions, with mystery, sacrifice, death, plot twists, cliffhangers, and more than I can fit into this review.

In comparison to popular anime shows such as Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, etcetera, there are no filler episodes. Every episode moves the story along. Even if it’s a side quest that does not directly follow the main mission, it has a relation. I highly recommend this to anyone who has an appreciation for anime. You don’t need to like romantic stories, and you don’t need to like video games. The action and adventure is incredible, and you’ll find yourself sucked in before you even realize it. ★

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Campus News

Hall Brawl 2024

By Juliana Schmidt ('25)

Another year…another Hall Brawl! The week-long, Olympic-style friendly competition between Gillette, Lambein, Roth and the Townhouses will begin on March 11. There will be daily events for each hall to complete as well as Spirit Days. 

Monday, March 11 is the first day of Spirit Week and the theme is Pajama Day. Come out ready to support your hall in this fun and easy way to show some school spirit. Additionally, prizes will be offered to the first fifty winners of Monday’s first event called the Opening Ceremony Splosion. Look forward to tasting some yummy food on Wednesday for the Bake Off!

The Hunt takes place every day where each team will have to solve a clue, and the team who solves it first will win points for their team. 

“RA and CAB and other student leaders have been working really hard to put this event together. I worked on the Just Dance event happening on Thursday and it will be taking place in the CFA recital hall. It will be super fun!” Jenna Strahan (‘24) an Resident Assistant (RA) of Gillette shared. “Hall Brawl is a time for all of us to come together in the spring semester and compete against each other and have a bunch of fun!”

Alexa Binney (‘24) a member of the Campus Activities Board (CAB) said that although it is her first year involved in the planning process, it has been very cool to get a look at what goes into making the Hall Brawl 2024 happen. 

“All members of CAB and reslife teams get split into randomized teams, each gets assigned to one day of the week, and it’s been a fun experience getting to work with people outside my usual team,” Binney revealed. 

Unfortunately, the Townhouses have been going through a streak of bad luck with previous Hall Brawls and have not won in quite a while. To help prompt their residents into a more competitive spirit, Esther Tse (‘25) an RA of the Townhouses revealed a shocking surprise if they win. 

“I’m excited to see what Hall Brawl will look like,” Tse said, “and if the townhouses win Josh Bailey [Resident Director of the Townhouses] will shave his head.” 

The winner of Hall Brawl 2024 will be announced on Saturday, March 16, during SPOT! 

May the best hall win…and the odds be ever in your favor. ★

Categories
Stories In Focus

Feature: Carolyn Miller

By Anna Catherman ('24)

When Carolyn Paine left the Houghton to go to Vietnam in 1961, she “didn’t cry until she was on the plane.”

“I’m not a person who made unusual, brave, or wild decisions,” Carolyn claims. But when John Miller telephoned her to propose, she agreed.

John had stayed in her family’s home during his years at Houghton College, which she also attended. Wycliffe Bible Translators had assigned him to Vietnam. 

A month after Carolyn’s arrival, they were married. They lived in a thatched house among the Bru people, and started translating the Bible. John and Carolyn began raising a family together; all four of their children were born in Vietnam. 

In 1975, their work came to an abrupt stop. Just as the Millers were finishing typesetting and proofreading, they were captured and held as prisoners of war for eight months. Their youngest daughter, LuAnne (five years old at the time), was with them. Their older children, Gordie, Nate and Margie, had been evacuated. They were sent back to Houghton to live with their grandparents.

John, Carolyn and LuAnne were shuffled from one camp to another before ultimately being released – without their manuscripts.

“When we had to leave without the translation, that seemed like the end,” Carolyn said. 

But she and John were able to continue their work long-distance. In 2014, their team finished translating the entire Bible into Bru. 

Today, retired, Miller continues to translate. She works on one chapter of the Tang Old Testament each day. Currently, she’s back-translating the book of Esther to ensure accuracy. She sits at her desktop computer with a four-language translation screen open, fingers trembling slightly. Surrounding her are framed Bible verses and shelves of other translations she has worked on. 

Four times a week, she shares meals with her daughters, LuAnne Brubaker and Marge Doty, and their families. Miller sits on two church committees. Paul Shea, a retired pastor at the Houghton Wesleyan Church, serves aside Miller on the church’s mission committee. He called her service on the missions committee “invaluable.” Despite the difficulties on the war-torn mission field, “[s]he doesn’t ask for sympathy, she asks for service,” he added.

She hosts Bible studies and organizes potlucks when missionaries come to visit. And Miller keeps up with her friends across the world. Using the convenience of Facebook messenger, they communicate from time zones twelve hours apart.

“I’m at the hospital with a little girl who’s sick. Pray for her,” one friend asks, a picture attached of a tiny child curled up on a cot. 

Another asks for prayers for his son, who has eye problems.

She is grateful for the technology that has allowed her to keep translating while living close to family, and to remain connected with the people she and her late husband ministered to.

She’s also glad that her friends have “learned to call not in the middle of the night, I think.” ★

Categories
Opinions

Raising Up Christian Fathers

By President Wayne D. Lewis, Jr.

On my birthday, my father often reminds me that I was born the same night as Lionel, the fictional son of George and Louise Jefferson on the hit 1970s and 1980s sitcom, The Jefferson’s. I always thought that coincidence was amusing, particularly since I was such a fan of the show as a child. George Jefferson’s antics as a father, husband, neighbor, and businessman were comedic gold to me. In hindsight, George Jefferson was likely one of the first tv dads to in some way shape the way I saw fatherhood. He would not be the last.

The fictional Heathcliff Huxtable was the loving and affable father of the well-to-do Huxtable family in the 1980s and 1990s hit, The Cosby Show1. More than just Thursday night laughs, each episode provided sketches of loving and responsible fatherhood in an upper middle class African American family. I wanted to be a Cliff Huxtable kind of dad—a responsible provider and protector who loved and adored his family, and whose family loved and adored him back.

While these tv vignettes of fatherhood were without a doubt impactful on my evolving conceptualization of manhood and fatherhood, thankfully, I had much more to go on. My father was the most significant model of fatherhood in my formative years. Much more than what I could see in a tv episode, I was blessed to see and experience fatherhood daily. I had the added blessing of having grandfathers and uncles who also played prominent roles in modeling manhood and fatherhood for me.

Fatherhood certainly includes the moments sitcom episodes are built around, but truth be told, the questions and challenges that made for good Cosby Show episodes tend to be the easier part of fatherhood.  Much more than the advice I give when my daughter is working through a difficult situation or how I respond when she has broken something she shouldn’t have been touching, fatherhood is about the daily, really important but not exciting enough for tv things. Fatherhood is day-after-day, your kid knowing he can count on you to be there. Fatherhood is your kid knowing that even when she has made a big mistake and might have consequences to face, your love and affection is unfailing, and you will walk through it with her every step of the way.

Kids certainly want to travel to exciting places and be treated with surprises like toys and ice cream. But what ends up being much more important is being a consistent protector and provider, wiping tears, giving hugs, providing encouragement in the face of a disappointment or setback, and for Christian men, modeling Christian fatherhood. Whether a girl or a boy, children need to see Christian manhood modeled up close and personal. I understand that as my daughter watches me, she is getting a behind the scenes look at Christian manhood, and collecting data on marriage, fatherhood, friendships, and Christian living when no one else is watching. I know the way I live, the way I care for her and her mother, and the way I pray with and for them will be much more impactful on her life and her understanding of and relationship with men than any message I ever preach.

As Houghton’s president, I carry my passion for Christian manhood and fatherhood into my work. Personally, I strive to be one of the Christian men in our university community who models Christian fatherhood; not just the tv vignettes or fatherhood, but the behind the scenes, day-to-day, not-very-exciting stuff. At Houghton, we are blessed to have many men in our Houghton community who do just that, and who continually make themselves accessible to students to be dad-like figures while students are away from home.

I want Houghton to be known as a place that celebrates and takes the formation of Christian young men seriously. God formed us in His image, men and women, with purpose and intentionality. God’s purpose is for men and women, fathers and mothers, to complement each other, playing crucial and complementary roles in families and communities My prayer and intent is that Houghton will continue to play an important role in the spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional formation of young men who will boldly model Christian manhood and fearlessly love, provide, and protect as fathers and father figures in their homes and communities. ★

  1. Please note that I am referring to the fictional character, not the actor/comedian himself. ↩︎
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Campus News

The 35th Annual Juried Student Show

By Rebecca Dailey ('25)

The 35th Annual Juried Student Show Exhibition will open on March 8, 2024 in the Ortlip Gallery, housed in the Center for the Arts. The gallery reception opens at 6:30 p.m. and continues until 8:30 p.m.. Students of both art and non-art majors may participate in the exhibition, and have leeway in both the subject and art form of their works. However, they are limited to the number of works they can enter. The art featured in the exhibition will be a range of ceramics, sculptures, photos, drawings, and oil and watercolor paintings, among others. The exhibition judges will be accompanied by a guest juror, who decides the pieces that will appear in the show, as well as the pieces that will receive awards.

“The Student Juried Show provides a really neat opportunity for students to demonstrate their artistic abilities to their friends, family, and all of us in the Houghton Community,” Professor Linda Knapp, the Ortlip Gallery Director & University Art Collection Manager, stated. “My role as gallery director falls under the leadership of the Art Department. I work alongside our art faculty and help them to make the gallery function smoothly. It’s so much fun to see the different works that get submitted and then solve the puzzle of figuring out how to display them in a way that’s aesthetically and visually pleasing.” 

The Ortlip Gallery has previously featured works from professors of Houghton University and outside artists. 

“The Ortlip Gallery serves to further educate our art major students by exposing them to outside artists, as well allowing our students to have the hands-on experience of displaying their own work in a professional gallery,” Professor Knapp added.

Some of the students entered in the Juried Student Show are Savannah Stitt (‘24), Hannah Smith (‘24), Aubree Niles (‘24) and Aubrey Armes (‘25). 

This is the third year Stitt has displayed her work in the Gallery. She predominantly works with photography, but has submitted oil paintings in the past. 

“In my experience as an artist, I have come to realize two things. I am creative in ways I didn’t realize for a long time, and inspiration comes and goes in waves,” Stitt explained. “It’s important to grab hold of those ideas when they come because they’re not guaranteed to stay.”

Niles is also participating for the third year. Her main art form is oils, but she also works in watercolor, ceramics and photography. 

“Art has been a way for me to process difficult emotions and complex life events,” Niles stated. “My current body of work is especially evident of that. I focus the most on my use of color and brushstrokes to convey emotion.”

Professor Knapp would like to express her gratitude towards being able to open the Juried Student Show and playing a role in the Gallery’s exhibitions. “I love how the Gallery brings us all together into these sacred spaces and moments,” Professor Knapp said, “granting us pause to reflect on our lives and to understand each other better. It has been a real honor for me to be a part of such a successful Art Program here at Houghton, and I just want to send out a big thanks to all the students who have submitted their work for this upcoming show!” ★

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Columns

The Beatles: In Review

Written By: Josey Ikker (’24)

I don’t know anyone else who has a good knowledge of the Beatles except for maybe a Houghton professor and a sibling, but I’ve been listening to the Beatles since I was about 7 or 8. The first instance I was introduced to this classic boy band was Yellow Submarine, a jukebox musical adaptation, based on the song of the name, released in 1968. The story focuses on a fantasy world that is taken over by henchmen called the Blue Meanies and numerous other villains who despise music-making. A captain, Fred, then travels to Liverpool, London to seek help from the fab-four to return to Pepperland and bring music back into the paradise. The film uses a lot of unique art styles done by Czech-German Heinz Edelmann; however the voices for the Beatles were done by counterpart actors with a live-action sequence at the end of the film of the original members. Growing up, I often overheard my sibling, who is also a Beatles fan, listening to a handful of albums throughout the day including, Rubber Soul, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts, White Album, Abbey Road and a handful of others. Recently I began collecting vinyls and my first Beatles record, as a birthday present, was Rubber Soul, which has been in my top 3 favorites for some time now. Though Rubber Soul showed a lot of growth in their style, I was a little shocked, but realized that it made sense when I found out that the Beatles were in a rush to complete Rubber Soul. Yet they put most of their time and effort, not even on a Tour or filming session. It took almost 2 weeks to record and another six days to mix everything together. In November 2023, I had discovered news that the Beatles would be releasing their “Last song.” This final song would be called Now and Then. But how was this possible? John Lennon hasn’t been with us since December 1980 and George Harrison since November 2001. Well, back in the ’90s, Paul, Ringo and George had attempted to use demo recordings of John Lennon’s and mix those with their instrumentation. They had completed 2 of 3 songs from John Lennon; those being Free as a Bird and Real Love as part of their Anthology project. However, the one that wasn’t completed at the time was of course Now and Then as the vocals muffled with the piano made it too difficult to interpret and they didn’t have the technology at the time to complete it. Fast forward to 2022, Paul and Ringo, as George had passed away in 2001, came back to tackle Now and Then again. Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings films, had done a lot of work restoring archives of The Beatles, specifically for the Disney+ documentary series: Get Back from 2021. Jackson was able to create a technology to create separate tracks for the vocals, and accompaniment. Jackson shared in the Get Back Short Film, found on YouTube, “That ultimately led us to develop a technology, which allows us to take any soundtrack and split all the different components into separate tracks based on machine learning.” Now and Then represented a legacy the Beatles created and is still recognized to this day, with uses of 1970s vocals and contemporary instrumentation with simple, yet powerful lyrics. A week after Now and Then’s release, The Beatles had also come out with re-releases and expansions of the Red and Blue Albums including the new single. Overall, The Beatles, to me, still hold a place in my heart with the many genres and styles in rock and roll they portrayed, including creating that final song for a whole new generation. I would recommend listening to Now and Then, even if you’re not into the Beatles as much. You might be surprised how deep and meaningful it is. ★