It’s time to meet your devoted Cadenza staff, a clandestine group of nocturnal individuals that rarely emerges from its underground lair. They say that the staff are the keepers of an ancient code, one guarded by fellow geniuses like Benjamin Franklin and Victor Hugo in ages past. But we’ve said too much already. Now Cadenzstars, assemble!
When Matt Simonton isn’t saving the environment as the costumed hero Captain Planet, he finds time to be the co-editor of Cadenza. Matt has experienced the thrill of minimum wage retail work for two summers running now, first as a lowly Blockbuster boy and now as a surly record store clerk. His death metal band with fellow Cadenzstar Travis, Blasphemous Wyrm, is only slightly less successful than his alternative rock outfit with Tyler, the Magenta 2, who’ve got real crossover potential. Matt likes puppies and Japanese hardcore films.
Melissa Langdon‘s introduction to pop culture took place from the womb. Her mother went into labor with the cinephile during a viewing of Tom Cruise’s epochal “Risky Business,” and she finished watching the movie before even thinking of visiting the hospital. Melissa has followed in her mother’s sedentary dedication to the moving image by raising herself on cheesy late night films and anything in Blockbuster with a little wreath on the cover. In addition to being the other co-editor of Cadenza, Melissa currently devotes her time to cleaning friends’ apartments (free of charge) and feeding and housing a number of alley-stricken cats in her neighborhood.
Music Editor Travis Petersen is currently in his eighty-seventh year of college, and will finally be graduating in December to one of the worst job markets of all time. Due to a regimen of avoiding the sunlight and consuming only cigarettes and Pabst Blue Ribbon, he has actually become a member of the walking dead. He only listens to bands you have never heard of, not because they are actually better, but because it makes him feel elite and cool, and can be seen wearing a black hoodie and jeans and exhibiting a negative attitude.
Fine Arts Editor Laura Vilines is currently a junior majoring in [fill in your favorite major here] and minoring in Spanish and Modern Dance. She is currently spending her summer in Kentucky teaching little kids to dance at Arts Camp and helping them perform patriotically-themed musicals every Friday afternoon. So far, she has managed to convince a large group of 5-12 year olds that her red-white-and-blue, stars-and-stripes fishing hat (which has been forced upon her by her employer) is “really cool” and that she is incredibly hip and always at the forefront of emerging fashion trends. In her spare time she enjoys crocheting, tennis, watching spelling bees and of course anything that involves the Fine Arts or editing them.
Tyler Weaver, careening towards his first year as Cadenza’s movie editor, is perhaps best known for his turn as aging prizefighter Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront.” He’s so far spent his summer much in the manner of any typical senior-to-be-namely, bumming friends’ cigarettes and dwelling on social entanglements of entirely minor import. An aspiring filmmaker when he can work up the energy (generally with the assistance of caffeine), Tyler’s also spent a considerable amount of time this season inexplicably revisiting the late-’90s work of both Oasis and Sheryl Crow, while very explicably avoiding Hoobastank’s execrable attempts at meaningful balladry. As any good citizen should, he worships at the altar of the Cincinnati Reds, and can’t even wait to see this summer’s “Garden State.”