These nuts ain’t the only ones that need crackin’ ;)

New York City is packed with amazing culture and inspiring art, but sometimes it’s difficult to break the Morningside-bubble and experience it all first-hand. “Where Art Thou” is a weekly guide to interesting and notable lectures, events, and performances for the literary/musically/theatrically-inclined on campus.

On campus:

• You’ve heard of Orchesis, now get ready for Love Is An Open DoOrchesis! On Friday night, Orchesis (Columbia’s largest performing arts group) is hosting their semesterly showcase in Roone. This year, there are two times: 8:30 pm and 10:30 pm. Tickets are $6 with your ID ($10 for non-Barnumbians), which you can buy at the TIC or online (there’s a link on their Facebook page).
• Still hungry for more dance? On Thursday night at 10pm and Saturday afternoon at 1:30pm (both in Roone), check out Columbia University Ballet Ensemble’s production of the Nutcracker. Tickets are $7 at the TIC or online.
• Looking for something a little more lowkey? Head on over to the Furnald lounge on Saturday afternoon at 2pm for Kingsmen’s annual acapella winter concert. The show is free, but if you choose to make a donation, all the proceeds go to UNICEF (so be a good person and give them a few bucks!). Note: if you don’t have swipe access to Furnald, just message Kingsmen via the Facebook event and they’ll put you on the sign in list.

Off campus:

• David Hockney is at the MET! Well, not him, but his art. Hockney, born in England in 1937, is famous for his delightful paintings and vivid colors. The new exhibit just opened on November 27, so be one of the first ones to go check it out!

Image via PDP (?)

About any Columbia student who was ever a freshman with that 989-meals-a-week dining plan has probably frequented the Columbia Dining menus before. As such, I’ve recently realized that the dining hall menus use some pretty quality, and some not-so-quality, stock photos to represent their dishes.  After doing some research for this article, I’ve formed a definitive ranking of the dining menu stock photos.

1. Chicken Noodle Soup, John Jay

There is no question that chicken noodle soup is the put-together royalty of menu stock photos. Its matching cloth napkin complements the color of the vegetables in the soup; the saltines placed strategically on the side scream “effortlessly classy.” Even the goddamn spoon looks beautiful. Not only that, but chicken noodle soup is actually good. Chicken noodle soup goes to East Asian and actually gets work done, has a spacious, well-decorated single with a pristine private bathroom in Watt, and probably has flawless (but never trashy) style. Well done, chicken noodle soup.

See the worst contenders after the jump!

Forgive the clickbait, nowhere in MoHi has hot chocolate that looks this good.

According to our calendars, winter is supposedly right around the corner and with it, the excuse to buy copious amounts of your favorite warm drink. For Bwoggers Abby Rubel and Isabel Sepúlveda, that’s hot chocolate. Yesterday, they did the legwork for you and found the best hot chocolate in MoHi. (Because it has to snow eventually, right?)

Joe’s Coffee ($3.80 with tax):
The hot chocolate at our first stop, Joe’s, was noteworthy only for how average it was. It was a decent size (a small will definitely be enough) and hot, but not so hot that we couldn’t comfortably sip it shortly after purchase. Though it didn’t come with whipped cream, there was a nice layer of foam at the top. The hot chocolate itself, however, was kind of bland. There was a bit of sweetness but no complexity of flavor, leaving us with a cup of what amounted to hot milk and the feeling that it could be something better, if only it tried a little harder. There’s honestly not much to say; it was just…okay. If you’re around Noco, it’s certainly good enough, but don’t go out of your way for it.

Rating: 3/5

More reviews after the jump!

People are allow to LIVE in here

It’s 2 am on Monday morning, and you’re working on a particularly hopeless 10-page paper. You’ve staked out the perfect seat in Butler Library – optimal lighting, plenty of table space, and far enough away from the bathroom that leaving your seat to pee feels like a break. The room’s silence keeps you in the zone, and you think you’re about to make a breakthrough until something terrible breaks your train of thought. Listen closely – you can hear it too, can’t you? In the distance, a student breathes. Sighing, you tab to your email, to ask your professor for an extension.

If this sounds like you, you might need to calm down and let people live.

Some Columbians hold their fellow library guests to more than a simple Butler code of etiquette. The slightest motion becomes a distraction, and any noise sets them off. Columbia should have good study spaces, but recognize that everyone uses and is allowed to use our libraries, and that the buildings might not be as silent as catacombs.

Let this be a reminder: when people are studying in Butler, they are also living in Butler. They breathe, they sneeze, they occasionally spill their water bottles. Extend the benefit of the doubt to your fellow students. Maybe the person with a runny nose can’t study in their room because of a nearby party. Maybe the one whispering to their friend is trying to figure out how to finish a problem set. We all make noise sometimes. Columbia already does enough kicking people out of Butler – you shouldn’t also make the space any less welcoming.

The library is quiet enough. Any attempts to make a more enforced “quiet zone” would require a secret police force to drag away students if they accidentally dropped a pencil on the floor. Let people live, and let people breathe.

*Squeak!* The tax bill will make it much less affordable to attend grad school, a huge blow in the Republican war against intellectualism. *Squeak!*

Happening in the World: Protests in Honduras over what many citizens see as a fraudulent vote count in their presidential election have escalated into violence, prompting the sitting President to impose a curfew. Anyone found outside between 6 am and 6 pm could be arrested. (NYT)

Happening in the US: Senate Republicans have passed a 479-page tax bill with illegible handwritten notes that was finalized just hours before the final vote. The bill adds nearly a trillion and a half dollars to the deficit by 2018 and includes many provisions that disproportionately affect the rich, like a tax break for private jet ownership. (NYT)

Happening in NYC: A Fordham graduate student sequenced the genomes of rats from uptown and downtown and discovered significant genetic differences between them. He still has 200 frozen rat tails in a freezer somewhere, yet to be sequenced. (The Atlantic)

Happening on Campus: Today is your last chance to see Cold Whole Milk, NOMADS’s Fall 2017 Main Stage production, written and directed by Sarah Billings (BC ’18). Check it out!

Bop of the Day: