Seeing my father as a wallet was a bit strange. Even now, decades after first glimpsing his altered state, I find the matter almost unbelievable. It should be a fantasy. A curious dream that I occasionally relay to friends and laugh about. But the reality is far more bizarre. My father, once tall and athletically built, a person who would fashion rue flowers into elaborate wreaths as gifts for my mother, had transformed into a brown, bi-fold wallet. As a child, when I looked at my father, there was a sense of comfort knowing that he could protect me. Now all I feel is regret that his days are spent at the bottom of a drawer.

It was a hot summer afternoon. The birds were silent, except for a skylark whose chirping rose into the clear sky. The reapers had already returned from the fields. I was standing next to my flock, in the shadow of a wild apple tree. The sheep were huddled together in a heap with their heads down, the lambs cuddled up close to them. Periodically, they would all stir at once as if frightened by each other’s dreams, and their thick locks would tremble. The air was shimmering and growing hotter. At the edge of the property many footprints had formed a trodden path.

Lithuanian composer Justė Janulytė watches and listens intently to the mysterious wonders of our reality. Born in Vilnius in 1982, Janulytė’s pieces explore time and space through the large-scale texturing of sound, moving between minimalism, spectralism, and electroacoustic music. Because of this, listeners have often compared listening to her music to being bathed in an overflow of sumptuous harmonies. Janulytė has also taken inspiration from the visual elements of the natural world, such as shifting clouds and the way blood circulates through the body.

Joseph Stalin famously said, "Music's a good thing. It calms the beast in the man." For Stalin though, not all music produced peace and serenity. In his eyes, certain types of music could just as easily act as the beast itself; ready to attack and tear apart the society around it. Perhaps the form of music that generated the most concern during the Stalinist era was jazz. According to historian Martin Lüke, jazz in the USSR between 1920 and 1953 was in constant flux; shifting between sponsorship, censorship, and prohibition.

When asked what interested her about the jazz art form, Nina Simone responded, "I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about. But jazz is dedicated to freedom, and that is far more important."Typically, what drives an artist's ambition, is the desire to hold mastery over their medium. Whether for their own gratification, or to attract the attention of others, the artist wants to bend the established rules of their chosen discipline to their will. This is also present in jazz. Jazz embraces the moment-to-moment uncertainty of improvisation.

In honor of the Juneteenth holiday, Keck Medicine organized a number of events to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved Black people in the United States. Juneteenth is considered the longest-running African American holiday and has also been referred to as America’s second Independence Day. “Juneteenth is a day of reflection, a day of renewal and a day filled with pride,” said Dustin Baker, co-chair of Black Leaders and Colleagues at Keck Medicine.

Earl Hines once said, "I always thought jazz was like the trunk of a tree. After the tree has grown, many branches have spread out. They're all with different leaves and they all look beautiful. But at the end of the season, they fold back up and it's still the tree trunk."For the citizens of Lithuania, the relationship between trees and music has been an integral part of the culture. Throughout its pagan years, ancient Lithuania's polytheistic beliefs utilized music not so much for entertainment, but for ritual purposes.

Of the many hardships indigenous women around the world face, violence, especially sexual violence, remains a primary concern. According to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, indigenous women face disproportional levels of violence and sexual harassment. This systemic discrimination is often rooted in persistent racism towards indigenous communities, as well as the past and present effects of colonialism. Here, discrimination takes the form of indigenous communities being forcefully relocated.

From the time I was ten, I knew I might have to incinerate my father. His brown hair fell below his ears, and his mustache often seemed green to me, blades of grass turning his flesh into soft soil. He came from the old country, one of those jagged, sparse masses now erased from most maps. According to him it smelled of tulips, and the night sky would reach down and touch every rooftop, straw evaporating into clouds of glistening dust. When he was twelve he fell in love with a girl named Audra. She was a child of sand, he would say, glowing amber grains molding to the seasons and emotions around her. They loved the touch of glass, and would often steal window panes, bringing them out to the fields of wild strawberries.

According to a 2009 survey, victims of violence reported that memorialization was ranked the second most valuable form of state reparation following monetary compensation. In recent times, the world has seen an upsurge in the production of memory through the construction of memorial sites commemorating mass violence and atrocity. From genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia; to wars of liberation in Bangladesh and Palestine; to nuclear disaster in Chernobyl; and terrorism in New York. These memorials often elicit complicated emotions.

On March 8, as the sun set over Keck Medicine of USC’s Health Sciences Campus, employees from across the enterprise gathered at Health Care Center 4 for the organization’s first annual International Women’s Day Symposium. The event hosted a panel on the current state of women’s health with prominent leaders from both the health care and fitness industries.

The goal of proving one’s value to both others and themselves within a conservative society, is at the heart of Romas Zabarauskas’ new film Advokatas (The Lawyer). Advokatas is the first Lithuanian feature film to focus on a male same-sex romantic relationship and one of the very few fiction films about the LGBTQ+ refugee experience in Europe. In recent times, concerns about equity and inclusion within Lithuanian society when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights has been growing. Despite these struggles, the LGBTQ+ community has remained hopeful.

If you were to ask anyone from our village, they would tell you my grandfather invented red. My family came from Vilkaviškis, a community in Southwest Lithuania that rests along the banks of the Šeimena River. There, we were a lot of things. We were church-going Catholics, sugar beet farmers and prominent nudists. No one remembers exactly how this attraction to nudity developed. But by shedding our clothes a great deal of freedom and entrepreneurship emerged. Soon, according to either my Aunt Gamata or Uncle Herkus, the family began pursuing a number of labor-intensive jobs, including carpentry. Yes, I seem to recall being nine or ten, standing barefoot on the moist grass of a meadow.

The argument of whether vengeance is beneficial to societies is about as old as societies themselves. Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind,” whereas Alfred Hitchcock took more pleasure in saying, “Revenge is sweet and not fattening.” In recent decades, scientists have even pointed to the dorsal striatum area of the brain, suggesting we derive emotional satisfaction from punishing others, and that the frequent cooperation required for revenge is the component that strengthens and maintains societies.

Andrew Cha, RN, was tending to a patient in the 6 North unit at Keck Hospital of USC when his stroke occurred. “Although I had felt some stiffness the night before, I didn’t know that I would become aphasic by the morning,” Cha said. “As I was assisting my patient, they noticed my gait was off and asked if I was alright. Soon, I found I was unable to speak and with the help of my coworkers was admitted into the hospital’s treatment center.

The 1936 graduating class of The School of Medicine in Paris contained 24 men and one woman. In a photograph commemorating the ceremony, the woman sits calmly at the center of the group, her white dress and hat standing out amongst the black and gray suits surrounding her. The student is Tewhida Ben Sheikh, and she would become not only Tunisia's first female doctor, but also in North Africa. Throughout her long career, Ben Sheikh was a pioneer of women’s medicine and had a tremendous impact.

Keck Medical Center of USC, which includes Keck Hospital of USC and USC Norris Cancer Hospital, has signed the White House Health Care Sector Climate Pledge. The pledge — developed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in partnership with the White House — invites organizations to commit to lowering their greenhouse emissions.

To storyboard is not a mandatory practice, but it is beneficial. Storyboarding allows a filmmaker to visualize scenes more effectively. It also enables them to understand how moments connect to the greater whole of the project. In horror movies,  developing an appropriate shot list compliments one of the genre’s key elements, pacing. Knowing how and when to reveal information not only builds suspense, it also provides viewers the opportunity to focus on important narrative details.