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arts & culture
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Aries (March 21-April 19) There's more work coming in. Accept an offer of assistance. Work together over the next two days. A shift in philosophy does not require a complete turnaround. Recall a friend's wise advice. Review instructions again.
a mess.
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Take frequent beauty breaks.
A flood of work has your focus.
More assignments like this could follow. In a controversy,
use your best judgment. Don't try to spend your way out of
Gemini (May 21-June 20)
Relax and enjoy yourself. Play with people you love and respect over the next two days. Delegate tricky tasks to specialists. Get involved in your game. Opposites attract. Magnetism pulls you together. Share something delicious.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) Your home and family have your attention over the next few days. Household issues want solutions. Practice your domestic crafts. Get creative with color and form. Play with long-term plans. The decisions
you make now last.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)
Dig deeper into a favorite subject. Your concentration is especially keen today and tomorrow. Study and research your objective. Write your
findings, and share news through your networks. Publish and broadcast. Talk about what you love.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
Today and tomorrow are good for making money. Plan shopping carefully, or it can escalate. Keep your credit cards locked up. Scratch out the things you can't afford.
Practice kindness, especially to those with low
KANSAN.COM | THURSDAY, JAN. 28, 2016
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
You're especially strong and confident, with the Moon in your sign for the next two days. Use your power responsibly. Offer leadership where it's needed. Spend a little, especially on personal matters.
Express your own style.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
Take things slowly today and tomorrow. Consider options and possible directions. Figure out your moves in advance.
Meditate on it. Relax in hot water. Rituals and traditions soothe and guide your spirit.
Pay attention to your dreams.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec.
Get into a party phase over the next two days. Socialize, gab and converse. Share resources and discover that your community has far more than expected. Support each other. Pass along what you're
learning.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan.
Career matters occupy your time over the next two days. Plan your advances, and get into motion. It could be profitable. You can see for miles and miles. Look up. Fulfill a fantasy. Consider all possibilities.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)
Studies and research flourish today and tomorrow. Get out and investigate! Your wanderlust is getting worse.
Apply finishing touches to your creative work. Things fall into place over the next few days.
Take the philosophical high
road.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) The next two days are good for financial planning. Take on new attitudes along with new responsibilities. Advance a level. To avoid a potential problem, play the game exactly by the book. A partner can support progress.
BAXTER SCHANZE/KANSAN
BAXTER SCHANZE/KANSAN
Taryn Miller, a University graduate, works on her album that is set to release Friday.
The Taryn Miller-led band Your Friend will host a release party on Thursday.
BAXTER SCHANZE/KANSAN
KU graduate, founder of local band Your Friend, talks inspiration ahead of debut album release
▶ BRIANNA CHILDERS
@breeanuhh3
Before going to college, Taryn Miller, a 2013 graduate, had always planned on being an athlete. But then things changed.
In high school, Miller had a class near the choir rehearsal room and would often sneak in to watch the singers rehearse. One night during one show's intermission, one of her friends, a performer in the show, came down and told her she should do the last half with them.
Miller, who then joined the choir, said she became totally smitten and started looking at ways to continue singing.
"So I did, and they had filmed it, and the director saw me and knew I wasn't in choir and was like. You know this means you have to try out now, right?" Miller said.
"Irealized it was something I wanted to devote my time to, and it really moved me."
Miller said. "That's when I really understood what a passion was because though it was risky to change my focus, there was no other way I would be happy if I didn't.
Inspired by that interest, Miller began performing as Your Friend. She's having an album release party for her new album, "Gumption," on Thursday at Liberty Hall. The album will be released to the public on Friday.
"My boss jokingly said I have this appreciation for the avant garde so I try to implement that when I can," Miller said. "It's kind of ambient folk but a little experimental, but also kind of lush in that way."
Besides singing, Miller plays guitar, piano and percussion. Nicholas Stahl, drummer for Your Friend, met Miller during her first show and said he was blown
away by how raw and honest the music was.
"She is really protective of her art because it is so personal, and that's what attracted me to it," Stahl said. "It is so honest and personal, and she was still kind of exploring her music and art and to 'bring other people into that before you feel comfortable is often difficult."
Stahl said he has been able to watch Miller grow as an artist over the years and that she has developed a level of confidence that doesn't overshadow the vulnerability of the music.
"She has grown into her own, and she believes in what she is doing but also has this level of honesty," Stahl said.
The album was recorded in March of 2015 and Miller said she started writing the songs for it in September of 2014. The title of the album, "Gumption," is a word that Miller was really drawn to.
"I do think kind of in a conceptual way just for my own direction," Miller said. "Having this inertia, this force behind what you are doing. It's kind of like having the guts to do something."
"I realized [singing] was something I wanted to devote my time to, and it really moved me. That's when I really understood what a passion was..."
TARYN MILLER
Miller said when it comes to writing songs, she pays a lot of attention to scores and cues in films for the sound purpose of the song. For lyrics, she reads a lot of fiction and pulls inspiration from that. She said this record is a lot different from her EP — "Jekyll/Hyde." released April of 2014 — in that the EP was very autobiographical.
"This record came from the
opposite way of looking in," Miller said. "I was projecting what I was feeling or thinking on the first, but this was one about the bigger picture. I think that happens when you start growing up and your life starts changing."
Miller said she hopes the audience listening to her music gains whatever they need from it.
"It's very cathartic for me, but there is no higher honor than when it helps, moves or does something for someone else and they tell you that," she said. "Or if they don't like it, that's okay because there is so much music out there."
Tickets for Your Friend's album release party can be found at libertyhall.net, and the doors open at 7 p.m. with the show starting at 8 p.m. You can pre-order Your Friend's album on iTunes, though the album can be streamed on Soundcloud.
Edited by G.J. Melia
▶ SAMANTHA SEXTON
@Sambiscuit
Spencer Museum of Art to receive $487,000 grant for fellowships
The Spencer Museum of Art has had a goal of supporting interdisciplinary research among faculty and students on campus, and it just received a grant that will make this possible. On Monday, the art museum announced that it has won a $487,000 four-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
"Our goal is to make the museum central to research and learning," said Cellka Straughn, the Andrews W. Mellon director of academic programs at the art museum. "From biology to law, we want to work with faculty and students to engage in research and bringing the arts and creative processes into collaborative, interdisciplinary research."
The grant will allow the art museum to open up fellowships for faculty, graduates and undergraduates to work with the museum's staff. These fellowships may result in anything from publications to wholly new works of art. One project which may be considered is an exhibition entitled "Big Botany," which looks at the relationship between humans and the plant world as understood through art. The project has already proven to be highly collaborative,
which is exactly what the museum is looking for with this grant, said Straughn.
"We want ideas generated from a variety of perspectives," Straughn said. "You never know what ideas will come up so we left opportunities open to see what is brought to our attention or what we may find. We do want there to be a connection with the arts in the research, but not necessarily a connection with our own
collection."
The museum will start the first of the fellowships this summer, because it is currently still closed for renovations. It will also welcome a new assistant curator this summer for the next four years, who will help oversee projects created due to the grant.
- Edited by Samantha Harms
Rogers: YouTube and the experience of human interaction
▶ JARRET ROGERS
@JarretRogers
During my senior year of high school, I hit a little bit of a mental rough patch. I didn't have a desire to attend school because I didn't really have any friends or desire to reach out to people because they seemed inaccessible.
In times like these, it's common to find a sort of album, movie or show that was their sort of lifeline, their escape from reality. It's a way to forget what was happening in the real world and a means of hope, no matter how small it might be.
What I found, though, was hard to find in music. There's plenty of honest music in the world. In fact I'd argue almost all of it is honest in some way or another, but listening to music can be in-
ing, I needed to unplug from my headphone jack and turn to YouTube.
deeply about what they do.
becomes the listeners seamlessly. You don't have to fight through lyrics to find yourself in the middle of them; the music does that for you.
YouTube, as a medium, is the most honest, real place that I visit daily. Casey Neistat, for example, is a daily vlogger living in New York City where he works as the co-founder of a new social media app, Beme. Everyday around 8 a.m. Eastern Stan-
The common theme in all of these channels is the difference between being spoken to and spoken with. All of the best people on YouTube make it a place where the goal is to converse not to lecture. They might be talking into a camera to thousands upon thousands of viewers but when watching, it feels
I had those things in my life at the time. Bleachers' "Strange Desire" will ever be a record that coexists since I listened to at my lowest points in life. I also listened to the album as soon as I caught on to some hope that those low points were slowly evaporating.
The reason "Strange Desire" was able to have that sort of effect and universal emotion is because it comes from a deeply honest, human point of view. The band's songwriter Jack Antonoff writes in a way that the song
credibly isolating and lonely. The ability to have a voice in what is going on when you put your headphones in feels nonexistent.
For some, this is probably the therapy they seek. It's probably nice to just listen, tired of having to work so hard to be heard. But, when I was desperate for human interaction where I could feel more a part of a conversation and find a sense of belong-
The less personal but equally refreshing crew at Kinda Funny covers everything from video games to movies to stories about their favorite memories of childhood. The Vlogbrothers John and Hank Green seek to educate and generally uplift their community of viewers in a way that shows they clearly care
dard Time, his video goes live and you always get an unfiltered version of his life.
like the video was made solely for the individual viewer. It's like they emailed a file only one person received.
But, the great thing is outside of the video that feels intimate and personal there are great communities that support creators. There are always going to be awful people who do and say horrible things anywhere, but comment sections and message boards that surround
honest, kind creators tend to follow suit. There is value to perspectives people have and these communities don't take that lightly.
All of these attributes can be found in other places, in some sort of capacity, but there's just something to the experience on YouTube and the growing closer to creators that works. The honesty and transparency people are willing to speak with cannot be overstated or overdone. In times when I feel lonely or sad or anything, I find myself craving vlogs and Internet video more than anything else.
Honest, well-made videos that are made with a purpose of being good, not only in quality, but also in the humane sense of the word, provide an escape into places that can take you away from whatever bad place you find yourself. These videos also welcome you with open arms into a world that wants you and all of the baggage you bring.
Edited by Michael Portman
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