A select group of Samo students supercharge their schedules and join the elite group of scholars who study calculus.

As if creating and editing their own individual projects weren’t time consuming enough, the members of the program must also organize and shape the festival; this includes publicizing the event, communicating with local businesses, working non-stop on the day of the festival and producing an introduction video that corresponds with this year’s theme, German Expressionism. Prominent in the early 20th century, German expressionism is over-the-top and unnatural, utilizing bizarre angles and techniques.

As the 2010-2011 school year comes to a close, and Samo seniors say their goodbyes, a wave of fresh new faces takes on leadership roles at 601 Pico Blvd. The newly elected ASB cabinet of 2011-2012 has many ideas to improve Samo and make next year the most spirited year in the school’s history.

Despite or perhaps because of the minimal preparation involved, the video has been viewed over 250,000 times on YouTube since it was posted on March 27. Cohen, Pitts and his four backup singers were featured on “Good Morning America” and “Inside Edition,” and appeared on the front page of such websites as CNN, AOL and Yahoo. The video has also been tweeted by several celebrities, including one “tweet” that Pitts believes to be the catalyst to the success of the video by long-standing American Idol host Ryan Seacrest.

The early riser awakes to get ready for his morning. He packs his backpack with his nikon camera, spf 40, and farmer's market fruit ready for the mountains. The hiker’s view is spectacular, offering a sense of perspective and the chance to breathe in the fresh air and experience nature first hand. Hiking is an activity that used to be about as popular among teenagers as early morning knee bends. Now it's a weekend must-do, especially in Santa Monica. Senior Aaron Pomerantz took note of the new trend at the beginning of this year.

“Its funny when I tell people that I work as a visual effects designer because I can’t see that well. I feel that I kind of have an eye for things that are beautiful. I appreciate beauty a lot because of my condition,” Lofaro said. “Other people just view beautiful things everyday and take them for granted.”

Eli Brown is a budding conductor; Cyrus Allyar is a polyglot already dreaming of conservatory life. But they have one very important thing in common: their love of trumpet. "The Samohi" sat down for a conversation with these two very different music men.

You can see them perched on a cliff in the Hollywood Hills, eyes wide and breasts bared to the city of Los Angeles down below. They lay sprawled seductively on your coffee table or patio furniture, or swing bare-bottomed from low-hanging tree branches. They beckon to you from billboards and magazines, peddling clothes largely absent from the images in which they appear.

At Samo, Drumline plays the tricky role of being a group within a larger group. As a smaller section of marching band, they also perform as a smaller ensemble at games and have extra practices.

Tucked away in a corner of the 1916 Landmark Carousel building, a vintage soda fountain harkens from the past like the carousel itself.  “Soda Jerks” is a new concession that opened on the Santa Monica Pier in July.  For the record, a soda jerk isn’t an obnoxious person who spits up Coke. The soda fountain gets its name from the 1930s slang used to describe the youths who worked behind the counter jerking silver levers to hand-pump syrup and soda water.

“In recent months, I’ve really started diving into writing my own music. Over the summer I worked on the music for a short film, and since then I’ve been writing music focused around a story or a character,” Gordon said.

“What I really wanted to do was to make art out of something that wouldn’t usually be considered art.”– Amy Clark