Giant cigarettes? Giant lipstick tubes? Bigger is better

A while ago I was looking at a pack of Marlboro Reds and a funny idea popped into my head. What if it was ten times bigger? What if I made a gigantic box of Marlboro cigarettes using papier-mâché? It seemed like the perfect medium for supersizing a cigarette box.

My mind raced. It jumped to the doughnut with the oversized cup of coffee seen as you enter Bob’s. Maybe I could add to that … After all, what goes better with coffee and doughnuts than a cigarette?

Fellow High Streeter Asa Wilder ’10 and I began to brainstorm different ways to make it happen. Cardboard. Wheatpaste. Newspaper. Toilet paper rolls for the cigarettes inside of the box. For a few weeks we gathered supplies before finally beginning to put it together, taking care to keep the proportions as accurate as possible.

While we worked, we began talking about the hilarity of enlarging all sorts of different objects. Our imaginations ran wild. We could make a huge tack, a toilet, a port-o-potty or a keyboard. Possibilities abounded. We had stumbled across something new, something simple and exciting.

As it turned out, our idea—like so many ideas these days— had already been dreamt up and executed, specifically by Swedish- American artist Claes Oldenburg. In his early years, Oldenburg was known for his soft (cloth-based), interactive sculptures, including “Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks” at Yale University. The 23-foot statue had to be pumped up by viewers in order to stand up straight until a refurbishing project gave it more stability. Later on in his career, Oldenburg became known for recreating quotidian, mundane objects on a large scale and placing them in various public places. While browsing through images of gigantic clothespins, hammers and upturned ice cream cones online, I was surprised to find a sculpture that looked familiar.

Where had I seen it? I wracked my mind, then finally gave up and looked it up. Turns out that the “Crusoe Umbrella” I saw is right here in Iowa, in front of the Des Moines Civic Center.

Oldenburg’s art hits home in a very unique way for me, in a way that I find kind of difficult to articulate. Why is it that I am so attracted to disproportionately large objects? Is it a humor thing (like it was with the oversized pack of cigarettes)? Does it have political appeal? Surrealist appeal?

It’s a very simple concept, and its value lies in its ambiguity. One can understand it and relate to it on an entirely subjective level. All Oldenburg really does is blow up an object and plop it in an unexpected space. He takes familiar objects and presents them in unfamiliar settings. As he puts it, he strives to make art “that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum” and definitely succeeds.

“We don’t copy the objects we use, we try to transform them and we hope they go on transforming as you look at them. The idea of endless public dialogue … visual dialogue … is very important to us,” Oldenburg said during an interview about a 2002 installation in San Francisco. Oldenburg’s work playfully asks its viewers to think about objects in a new way, devoid of the heavy-handedness that one might associate with contemporary artists.

I guess that silliness is what I like about Oldenburg. To someone else his sculpture might be more poignant, stultifying materialism in our day and age. To others it might be simply inane—not even worth a mention. Oldenburg’s message is basically whatever you want it to be, meaning that the importance of his work lies in the dialogue that it inspires between viewers.

Back in Grinnell we’ll continue to work on the oversized cigarette box … born as a joke, we’ll put it in Bob’s or in some other public space and see whether any conversations get started.

Review: Happy-Go-Lucky

Poppy (Sally Hawkins), the protagonist of Writer/Director Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky”, seems to live in her own kooky world. We first meet her as she rides her bicycle through the streets of London with a warm, bright smile on her face. She sees a friend that she knows and her smile gets larger and she waves. And then she does the same thing to another friend that she happens to see. And then we realize she’s waving to people that she doesn’t know. She pops into a bookstore and chatters to a disgruntled employee working there who seems irritated by her sunny optimism and the way that she laughs at her own jokes (when she takes a book titled “The Road to Reality” from a shelf, she quickly puts it back, commenting, “I don’t want to be headed there, do I?”). It’s hard to know whether to side with Poppy (she seems sweet!) or the employee (she seems annoying!). Exiting the bookstore, she finds her bike has been stolen and quips, “We didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye” before moving on. How is this level of cheery exuberance possible? Mike Leigh’s out to show us exactly how, and Hawkins comes to quickly show us what a wonderfully charming character Poppy is. The film doesn’t have a stereotypical plot, working instead as a character study for Poppy by looking at a few chapters in her life that test her unwavering sense of optimism. We see her care deeply for Zoe, her best friend and flat-mate of ten years (Alexis Zegerman), her youngest sister who is just finishing college, and the kids she teaches in her elementary school class. But maybe Poppy cares too much. She also can’t help but feel for the cranky driving instructor Scott (Eddie Marsan), her more moody sister living in the suburbs, and, in one scene, a homeless man she passes on the street late one night. The scene with the homeless man sounds cliché and really shouldn’t work, but it somehow does. While walking home one night, Poppy hears a mumbled chant coming from an alley. Her face lets us know that she’s a little scared and uncomfortable (and she even murmurs “What am I doing here?”), but she goes to investigate. There she meets and strikes up a “conversation” of sorts with a homeless man who doesn’t really speak in words so much as sounds. They manage to communicate, though—Poppy really listens to the man. It’s at this point in the film that it becomes clear that Poppy is very much living in the real world, she’s just chosen to go through life open, engaged, and happy. Poppy’s flat-mate tries to lecture by saying that she, “can’t make everyone happy.” But Poppy brushes it off and replies, “No harm in trying, is there?” Leigh succeeds in making “Happy-Go-Lucky” both a funny and thought provoking film. Hawkins won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy not only for being sublimely funny (and Poppy is hilarious), but for showing us a woman who, in the sad and mixed up world we’re living in, chooses to enjoy life and leave other people smiling in the process. “Happy-Go- Lucky” is the definition of a feel good movie.

Review: Galileo’s exceptional visuals and quality lead performances overshadow otherwise shaky acting

Demonstrating some fundamental physics, Ben Finkelstein ('10) as Galileo shows off his model of the solar system as it is currently known to his pupil Andrea, played by Grinnell Middle Schooler, Jacob Chamberland. - Paul Kramer Coinciding with the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s invention of the telescope, Grinnell College will put on a theatre production this weekend that captures and retells the life of Galileo Galilei in a raw, gloomy and dark staging. The production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Galileo, directed by Ellen Mease, Theatre, is a huge endeavor, with 29 actors playing over 50 parts.

Set in the 1940’s, Brecht’s play takes the audience on a journey from Galileo’s initial invention of his telescope, to his eventual trial by the inquisition and subsequent house arrest. It winds through various locales, from Florence to Rome, and even brings in a carnival complete with singing, dancing, and one character wearing an over-sized mask that resembles a combination of Galileo’s head and a cheeseburger. The production witnessed for the following review was a dress rehearsal two days before opening night.

The visual components of the play, designed by Henry Reich ’09, stand out, adding that little something that makes Galileo leave the realm of the ordinary and reach into the mystical. In Act I, we see Galileo (Ben Finkelstein, ’10) and his friend Sagredo (Eamon Anderson ’09) work out the puzzle of Jupiter’s moons, succeeding in an epic triumph of scientific discovery. It evokes fantasies of sleepless nights discovering the next great breakthroughs in understanding.

The praise for this wonderful scene should be mainly attributed to the lighting, set and sound designers, as well as to Mease. The actors in this scene became props. The stage fills with dramatic lighting, beautiful sound and awesome visual imagery to form the main interest in the scene, all the while Galileo and Sagredo sit in solemn silence, working out the puzzles of the universe.

This scene contrasts other more actor-dominated scenes, where Galileo seems like it could become a great production at any moment, but instead remains just above average. Many actors seemed to approach the daunting task of representing multiple characters by adopting a universally neutral character without any nuanced depth beyond two emotional states: angry and loud, or happy and quiet.

Some actors seemed very excited only to act, say their lines, and feel their emotions. But in this excitement, they lose their characters because they forget that acting is about reacting. Acting is more about the interaction with the other people on stage and with the plot line than it is about the individual actor. When this lesson is forgotten, a two-way monologue between actors takes the place of good dialogue.

Emotions and actions are frequently projected, and lines are often anticipated. At times you could see a character drop his bags before being invited into the house, showing that the actor thought about his next action before the character did.

There are some notable exceptions to this generalization, such as Jaysen Wright ’09 who plays Pope Urban VIII. Wright successfully captures all facets of his character without allowing one to bleed into another, delivering a refreshingly clear and deliberate performance.

Playing the title character, Finkelstein comes through with a solid performance, although one that would come out more in a smaller space than Roberts Theatre. Finkelstein takes the audience on a lengthy and intensive journey from a young and excited Galileo to an old and imprisoned one, upsetting ideal images many may have held onto about Galileo’s personality.

A trying performance for any actor, Finkelstein maintains his character throughout, showing a wide range of emotional depth and understanding. His touching final monologue reveals the true nature of Galileo as a cunning and unforgiving scientist. It falls short of grandeur when the energy at the end sags and words are lost into the cavernous ceiling of Roberts Theatre. Yet, this monologue benefits from quiet tones and internal reflection, so the space here plays the villain in Finkelstein’s performance, not necessarily his vocal qualities.

Still, many other actors have difficulty competing against their environment, be it through sound, the size of Roberts Theatre, or against the background clapping of other actors on stage. At times it is impossible to understand important dialogue between actors because their voices do not project far enough to be carried around the hall.

Finally, it would be nice to see fuller development of characters besides the lead, but they are too often lost in the overwhelming stage presence of Galileo. Nothing develops without him, and the play grinds to a halt when he is not on stage, but that happens rarely. In all, this lengthy production, roughly three hours, is aptly suited for a Grinnell audience that can get excited by dialogue interspersed with Latin and scientific reasoning, and chalk full of thought-provoking and motivating discussions on the truth of religious philosophy and the power of science.

Be prepared to think, feel sad, and possibly become disillusioned with your preexisting image of Galileo. This is not an uplifting, feel good production, but it is an excellent one. So take the time, get away from your midsems, and delight in some realistic scientific discovery.

Picking apart the world of Harry Potter

The Captain (my roommate Anna Werner ’09) and I frequently have arguments about J.K. Rowling’s seven-part Harry Potter opus. Having read more fantasy novels than I knew existed, The Captain has reached a point where she takes their fantastical worlds too seriously, producing some rather amusing critiques. Luckily, her problems with Harry Potter fit nicely into a few main points.

“Hogwarts doesn’t teach any life skills! Where do they all work? They can’t all be small business owners or Ministry workers. What do they do after they graduate?”

The fan-fiction world has tried to tackle this question with a surprising lack of creativity, featuring Harry as an Auror or a playboy living off his inheritance, while Hermione becomes anything from a Healer (many authors invent a Magical Medical School) to an Auror to a Flourish and Blotts register jockey. On the other hand, Ron finds a riveting future as an unemployed bum, an Auror, or a vampire.

The average Hogwarts graduate can be anything they want to be, just like your high school guidance counselor said, provided their O.W.L. scores are high enough. The young wizards who barely scrape Acceptable O.W.L.s lead remarkably parallel lives to those kids in high school with similar grades—having little magic babies and hanging around home working at the magical equivalent of a gas station. Granted, the job market is a little tight with all those small businesses having to employ everyone unqualified for the MoM, but luckily, that giant War Against Evil killed off the less-talented wizards, opening up employment opportunities for at least a couple years.

“When the whole magical world was in trouble, why didn’t they contact their friends in other countries?”

They did! At least, the ones that had been mentioned in other books. Yes, all five of them. Or maybe I’m remembering another fanfic. Even so, England’s position as Voldemort’s home turf definitely made it the front for the War Against Evil. But you still have to think that international wizards fought evildoers within their own borders, leaving Voldemort to Harry and the rest of his British companions. Now, I am not familiar with Muggle politics, let alone Wizard politics, but when was the last time England asked for help with a war on its home front? Maybe they’ve just forgotten how to ask.

“Why don’t they learn Math or Latin? Latina lingua deorum est!”

What self-respecting wizard needs math? Isn’t Arithmancy something about math? Besides, higher-level math is basically magic anyway. They also don’t have credit cards or taxes to grapple with. The most complicated math that appears throughout the series is figuring out exactly how many Knuts are in a Sickle and how many Sickles in a Galleon, which even Rowling can’t do. Wizarding England doesn’t appear to be a democracy of any sort, so no one even needs to know how to count votes. I wish I lived in a world that put magic over math.

Excusing the lack of Latin is trickier. After all, the majority of spells are based in Latin—Crucio, Wingardium Leviosa, etc.—but it seems that the students never learn anything quite as difficult as the linguistic roots of their everyday spells.

“Don’t they need Latin to make up spells?”

They can totally make up spells. Snape did it while he was in school and his little Levicorpus spell caused a good bit of trouble. In the end, I’d rather assume that the Sorting Hat clandestinely implants a magic Latin-to-English-to-Magic-Spell translator into the mind of every incoming student. Harry doesn’t realize that it happens, so neither do we.

“Can you refuse an invitation to Hogwarts? Home school or just ignore magical teaching altogether? Is that legal? It shouldn’t be.”

If in fifth grade I had the chance to leave Quail Run Elementary for a school where I could blow things up, fly on a broomstick, and live away from home, I guarantee that no considerations of my career would have entered my mind. But if my parents disagreed, there’s probably a power-binding spell that has ruined the ambitions of many prepubescent wizards.

Of course, the easiest defense to any Harry Potter fallacy is that because it is outside of Harry’s experience, it is also outside of the reader’s. It’s a fantasy novel; why should J.K. Rowling have to create viable economic and political structures and answer the smartass questions of college students? But accepting that just wouldn’t be any fun.

Debating the merits of Milk

Mark: Straight-up movie reviews get boring after a while. Movie reviews as debates, however, are usually a little more interesting. Since seeing Milk, I have felt like one of the few viewers to leave the theater with mixed feelings. But instead of taking the whiny contrarian route, Jaysen Wright ’09 and I will instead argue why Milk works and why it doesn’t. We will probably leave more sure of our opinions than when we started.

Jaysen: Milk’s Oscar wins last week (Best Actor, Sean Penn; Best Original Screenplay, Dustin Lance Black) were well deserved—it’s a story whose historical relevance is perfectly timed, presenting a phenomenal group of actors with material that pulls us fully and completely into the 1970s world of San Francisco.

Mark: The movie moves through the ups and downs of Harvey Milk’s political career. It begins with Milk’s local activism within the Castro District and spends time following Milk’s campaigns to serve on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (the city council) and the campaign against Proposition 6, designed to keep gay teachers out of California schools. Woven in throughout the movie is real life footage of statewide and national campaigns designed to depict the gay rights movement as it stood across America in the ’70s.

Jaysen: Sean Penn anchors the film as Harvey Milk. Penn’s a chameleon, adopting the voice, accent, and the physical tics of Harvey Milk, but more importantly, capturing his true essence: a man who came out of the closet late in life, but was ultimately determined to make a difference in his new community.

Mark: Which basically means that Harvey Milk is every screenwriter’s dream for a feel-good plotline. We have our fearless leader fighting against injustice, refusing to let one political defeat after another stop him, confronting misguided politicians, eventually winning his election and finally dying with dramatic music from Tosca. It’s biopic 101.

Jaysen: False! Harvey Milk isn’t glorified in this movie; Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay and Sean Penn’s performance make sure of that. We see Milk as a good and flawed human being, one whose political lust is at times unbecoming and alienating to the people who love him, but whose heart is generally in the right place.

Milk was a politician, not a saint. The scene where Milk’s lover Scott Smith (James Franco) says that he can’t take any more of the political world that they have become a part of rang true—not overdone, but honest and from the heart. The scene in which Milk “coaxes” (read: forces) one of his campaigners out of the closet is uncomfortable because it shows Milk’s crueler and less compassionate side—he’s the boss, the people working for him will follow his rules.

Mark: I can’t deny the power of these scenes, I just have a problem with how they’re set up. The tensions between Milk and Smith often get pushed aside for more detached scenes describing their relationship. The same thing happens with his second partner, Jack Lira (Diego Luna). When the relationships fall apart, we haven’t had the buildup to give it a real dramatic punch or effectively convey the downside of Milk’s political obsession. I feel like it’s a decision from director Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black to keep Milk’s world consistently moving forward instead of stepping back and developing what’s there, making Milk look more like a movie with an agenda than a tale of an iconic politician. Even Milk’s scene forcing a supporter out of the closet seems like a one-off. The film moves quickly into the Prop 6 campaign about gay teachers in California and does not use the scene to discuss the gay rights movement as a whole. Am I expecting too much nuance from a relatively straightforward movie?

Jaysen: In a word: yes. I see your very valid point about the relationship that we see between Milk and Lira, but we have to remember that Van Sant is deliberately focusing on Milk’s public life while letting his private life slip into the background because that’s exactly what Milk was doing. He was a politician who was, at times, so bent on what he could achieve that his personal relationships suffered.

Further, while the movie may be “straightforward,” I think that’s one of the film’s strengths. It allows us to appreciate how strikingly relevant the issues that the film grapples with are to us as a modern audience. A community organizer who uses hope to invigorate his campaign? A proposition that will deny gay people rights? I think the parallels are obvious enough. The film is more than just issues though. It’s an honest look at a good man–a man we can all learn from. In that way the straightforward approach works very well.

Mark: Ok, so maybe I overanalyzed the film. But if I accept the straightforward nature of the film, I’m still feeling underwhelmed when the credits roll. It’s just too simple. Of course I’m going to be on Milk’s side; he’s got the political parallels and evil bigoted right-wingers to fight. Gus Van Sant would drag me out of the theater if I felt any other way.

This isn’t a bad film, but a decent one invigorated with great performances that falls a little short. Most people will undoubtedly come out happy. But with a by-the-numbers plot, it needs and deserves something more to push it into greatness, and it’s just not there.

Malinowski stops home for family and a recital

New York Metro Opera Singer Nicholas Malinowski '04 chats with Carlos Lu '10 at the Spencer Grill on Tuesday night. Malinowski, a former Grinnell Singer and basketball player, will be performing a repertoire of German, French, and Italian music in Sebring- Lewis Hall at 4:30 this Sunday afternoon. - Aaron Barker Nick Malinowski ’04, currently pursuing his master’s degree at the Mannes College of Music in New York, returns to campus this weekend for a 4:30 recital on Sunday. Malinowski will be singing a program of 24 songs featuring mostly French and Italian pieces. The performance marks the first time Nick will sing at Grinnell as a Tenor and not as a bass baritone. For the less artsy, Nick is also known for his prowess on the basketball court, averaging 11 points per game during his final season for the Pioneers in 2004. No word on whether head coach David Arseneault was ever serenaded.

So as a Grinnell alum and as someone who grew up here, how does it feel to come back?

It feels great because my parents live here and I only see them about once or twice a year. [And] even though I graduated five years ago, there are still people I know through basketball or music or people that I just happened to have met, so it still kind of feels like home.

Sebring-Lewis is [also] a fantastic place to sing, it has great acoustics and sound. It’s also a really warm crowd. You know they’ll appreciate your singing even if you aren’t singing well.

You were involved in Con Brio while you were here … What was your favorite song?

I loved singing “Africa” by Toto, it’s the perfect a cappella song. I also enjoyed “Gangsta’s Paradise” [by Coolio].

What do you miss more, performing at Grinnell or playing Grinnell Basketball?

(Laughs) I didn’t get to come home for the Midwest Conference Tournament, so I watched it online and talked with my old friends about it, and that made me miss it a lot. I am still performing, so I still get that, and I play basketball every once in a while, but it’s nothing like playing here. I’m five years out, but give me a month or two and I think I can keep up. I miss [Grinnell basketball] a lot, especially since my dad [Emil Malinowski] was the assistant coach. But instead of music after graduation, you opted for Teach for America.

I thought that I might want to teach for a career, but since I only took one education class, I thought Teach for America would be a good way to circumnavigate the whole teacher- training process.

Also, my senior year, I had a lot of throat trouble. I actually had my tonsils removed and sang my senior recital on steroids, which was really nice. It was like performance enhancing drugs for musicians. But it meant I couldn’t go directly into graduate school for voice because I would not have been ready for the auditions.

So [Teach for America] let me teach and do something of service, which I thought was important. And it also gave me time to let my throat heal before I eventually knew that I wanted to go back to school for singing.

So you’re currently back at school and pursuing a master’s degree at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. What’s it like living in New York and what’s your favorite part about it?

My favorite part about New York City is the opera. The opera scene there is probably the best in the world. I can get orchestra tickets, same-day, for a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House for $20. You just have to stand in line for an hour or two. I see the best singers, and it’s an irreplaceable part of my education as a singer because I get to see so much from learning from people’s mistakes.

Political jousting, Watergate guilt, and cheeseburgers (L to R) Disgraced former president Richard Nixon (FRANK LANGELLA) faces off against jet-setting TV personality David Frost (MICHAEL SHEEN) in a new drama from Oscar®-winning director Ron Howard: Frost/Nixon. Frost/Nixon doesn’t seem on paper like it would have big screen potential; it’s adapted from a Broadway play which chronicles the 1977 interviews between British journalist David Frost (Michael Sheen) and the disgraced former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) that included Nixon’s first tacit admission of guilt for the Watergate scandal.

This isn’t exactly the most enthralling premise for anyone besides political nerds, but director Ron Howard (Apollo 13, The Andy Griffith Show) does a fine job bringing out the most dramatic and interesting aspects of the talks. Nixon’s Chief of Staff Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon) compares the tension in the series of interviews to that of a boxing match. Frost is the up-and-comer, famous in Britain and finally getting his shot at American fame by scoring a primetime bout with the Champ.

Thankfully, though, Howard doesn’t actually set up the movie in this manner. Boxing matches generally involve tedious amounts of boredom mixed with quick flurries of entertaining action. The Frost/Nixon interviews get portrayed in a way that better resembles the documentary of a boxing match. With this format, the audience gets to see all the haymakers and combinations that actually land, interspersed with the ongoing struggles and anxieties of both the Frost and Nixon sides had throughout.

But the movie couldn’t survive without solid characters. Mostly, the movie couldn’t survive without a drop-dead awesome Richard Nixon. Even if the actor playing him does a good job, you go into the movie expecting a mix of historic images of Nixon with those of Langella, and you expect it to be at least slightly off-putting. However, once Langella’s Nixon first appears on screen, you instantly see how he embodies the president. In fact, Langella quickly makes you forget that he’s impersonating Tricky Dick.

But amidst all the political jousting, the best part of the movie has nothing to do with politics. We’ve all been there. It’s late at night, all of your friends are out or gone, and all you really want is a cheeseburger. Suddenly, the phone rings. It’s one of your drunk friends. They kind of ramble on for awhile and maybe let a thing or two slip that they shouldn’t have, but it’s just a standard drunk dial, a common occurrence.

Now imagine that the “friend” that called you up was Richard Nixon. David Frost gets that phone call, where Nixon confesses many of his Watergate sins and commiserates with Frost for being “outsiders.” Although the plot point is a fabrication by screenwriter/playwright Peter Morgan, the scene and its aftermath are absolutely riveting, humanizing Nixon, briefly forgetting the tension that has built up, and showing us something a little more real than political theater. Brolin excels as Dubya, but film lacks focus

Josh Brolin (right) gives a wonderful performance of our most widely hated recent president. - www.AllMoviePhotos.com Most of us already made up our minds about George W. Bush (played here by Josh Brolin) long before the release of director Oliver Stone’s W. Over the past few years, we have been bombarded by news reports, serious historical portraits and character sketches, all of which have combined to make Dubya a rather ignominious political figure in the eyes of most Americans.

Rushed into cinematic release in time for the end of the Bush presidency, Stone’s film adds to the interpretation of our now former president by focusing on his dramatic character. Stone thinks of himself as a dramatist, and though we might prefer the omniscient perspective of an objective documentary, his film is more interested in perpetuating familiar storylines and anecdotes than providing any kind of full-sweeping analysis.

Many of these anecdotes occur outside of the White House, resorting to the Bush biography stereotypes that we know so well. This means we get a whole lot of Bush the drunk, Bush the hapless politician, and Bush the lucky son of a former president who rode coattails to the top. This is all before he becomes president, where the real problems (Iraq) finally happen.

The problem with Stone’s version of a Bush film is he never chooses an overarching angle or aspect of Bush to focus on. The lack of transparency in the Administration causes a certain amount of uncertainty, so we end up getting dialogue that uses anecdotes and one-liners that are already quite familiar to the public (think “misunderestimate”). Seeing this kind of writing on “Saturday Night Live” usually brings laughs. Here, it feels out of context, and in a film where Stone does not want to exaggerate any aspect of Bush, context should matter.

Perhaps this occurs because the film divides itself rather arbitrarily between three different stages of Bush’s life. There is the frat-boy, beer-guzzling Yale undergrad; the married Bush still in the shadow of his family’s politics; and the unprepared commander-in-chief heading into Iraq. Stone presents Bush as a simple-minded guy over the span of three very different periods, which just isn’t very interesting. Its subject matter is controversial, but the execution is not.

Individual performances improve the film, but they only go so far. Brolin is so convincing that it is hard to not feel bad for Bush’s character at times, and it also remarkable how he manages to pull off Bush in three different parts of his life. The scenes with George Bush Sr. (James Cromwell) and Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) have some good dramatic presence, but they remain exceptions to the rule.

W. is an interesting film simply because of its scope. Unfortunately, it ignores key storylines and passes up plenty of other opportunities to pursue more interesting angles. (This is why movies are based on a true story instead of being “the true story.”)

In terms of its legacy, W. will likely be seen as one more sign of the absurdity of the Bush Era than it will be as a serious, revealing character portrait.

Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis to perform

One of the nation’s most acclaimed jazz musicians will come to town on Wednesday, when Herrick Chapel hosts trumpeter Wynton Marsalis for an 8 p.m. performance.

Marsalis’ staggering list of accomplishments shows why he commands so much respect. The nine-time Grammy winner has also won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his musical depiction of slavery titled Black Codes from Underground and helped direct and produce Jazz, a documentary by noted director Ken Burns. Marsalis currently directs the Jazz at Lincoln Center ensemble, a prestigious group with whom he will play at Wednesday’s concert.

According to Professor of Jazz Studies Damani Phillips, Music, Marsalis’s notoriety derives from his wide-ranging repertoire and his promotion of the neo-classical style, which fuses rock with principles of previous periods of jazz. Marsalis and his orchestra comprise the premier ensemble in the country and play music from all periods of jazz.

“They are very studied and accurate in recreating the old style of music from the 1920s and 30s,” Phillips said. “It’s something you won’t hear anywhere else.” The group is also known for explaining the history along the way to help the audience understand what is being played.

That Marsalis and the ensemble are coming is itself a lucky and unexpected opportunity. The concert arose outside of the Committee for Public Events’ planned and paid for fine arts performance season. While attending the Arts Midwest Booking Conference, CPE Chair Shawn Womack, Dance, and Director of Conference Operations Rachel Bly ’93 stumbled upon a chance for Marsalis to make a stop on campus as part of a previously scheduled Midwest tour.

Bly’s good rapport with Marsalis’ agent brought the initial agreement. Bly then made a proposal for extra funding for this one-time opportunity to President Russell K. Osgood, who officially approved the performance. “Grinnell has good connections and history of concerts being brought to campus, and we are able to get some really exciting people through these relationships. Artists comment on how they like to play in such an intimate and great venue,” said Bly. “It’s really serendipitous the way it occurred.”

Students and community members can look forward to a gem of a concert, and as both Phillips and Bly emphasized, a chance to hear one of the best jazz bands in the world live. Tommy Johnson ’09, a member of Grinnell’s Jazz Ensemble, echoed these feelings of anticipation.

“In small town Iowa it’s amazing that we can get someone like Mr. Marsalis to come play,” Johnson said. “The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra is one of the best bands around today, and there aren’t many left because the economy is down and the jazz economy is down, so [performers] can make more money in smaller trios or quartets.”

Overall, Phillips stressed the high caliber of the Orchestra. “There is such a concentration of stellar musicians in that band,” he said. “They can literally hand pick who they want, and that is exactly what they’ve done. It’s an unusual but pleasant surprise that way out here, we have the rare opportunity to experience this kind of stuff.”

Language as art: one vowel at a time

“Awkward grammar appalls a craftsman. A Dada bard as daft as Tzara damns stagnant art and scrawls an alpha (a slapdash arc and a backward zag) that mars all stanzas and jams all ballads (what a scandal). A madcap vandal crafts a small black ankh—a hand-stamp that can stamp a wax pad and at last plant a ark that sparks an ars magna…”

Notice anything odd about the first paragraph? Try reading it aloud. Hear anything strange about it? Does it seem ‘A’ little lacking?

Because it is. Lacking every vowel except A, that is. There are no E’s, I’s, O’s or U’s in it, just as there are no E’s, I’s, O’s or U’s in the chapter that it’s excerpted from: Chapter A from Eunoia, a book written by Canadian poet Christian Bök. This week’s column is devoted to a different kind of art than columns past—the manipulation of language.

Eunoia is a five-chapter series of univocalic lipograms. A lipogram is a form of constrained writing or a word game which excludes certain letters or a group of letters from a piece. A univocalic lipogram is a lipogram that excludes all but one selected vowel.

Each of Eunoia’s chapters uses just one vowel: A in the first, E in the second, and so on. The name of the book comes from the Greek word which can mean “well mind,” “beautiful thinking,” “to carry favor,” or “ingratiate oneself with.”

I probably don’t need to stress how difficult omitting vowels from sentences can be… After reading the first chapter of Eunoia, a friend and I tried to hold conversations without using E, I, O or U this summer. Needless to say, it was pretty much impossible. I mean, how do you let someone know that you need to go to the bathroom using only A’s?

Omitting vowels in writing might be slightly easier. But it’s certainly no walk in the park. As Bök rather aptly puts it in the opening lines of his “I” Chapter: “[w]riting is inhibiting. Sighing, I sit, scriblling in ink this pidgin script. I sing with nihilistic witticism disciplining signs with trifling gimmicks…”

I was drawn to Bök’s Eunoia because of the way it made me so aware of the letters that I use. It’s one thing to be conscious of word choice, but keeping track of letters is a completely different thing, totally changing how you think about language.

In terms of content, Eunoia reads like a long, bizarresounding prose-poem. Each chapter makes sense … They tell coherent stories from different perspectives in different settings.

But there is something distinctly “different” about its rhythm. Listening to passages read aloud, you can intuit this without being able to pinpoint exactly what the difference might be. To quote the French reviewer Michel Basilieres, “Bök’s constant repetition of a single vowel, while at the same time employing the widest possible vocabulary, results in a kind of aural echoing that sets rhythms and patterns moving of their own momentum.”

After reading a few pages of Eunoia, the smallest part of a book, a column, or even The First College Newspaper West of the Mississippi takes on new significance.

It’s completely overwhelming and, at least for me, renews my respect for the way we communicate with one another in writing. The rhythm of writing comes alive using lipograms and other kinds of word games. Using them and testing the limits of your vocabulary really does make you more sensitive to the words you write and the way you speak.

Recognizing written language and looking at it in a different way can elevate it in your mind. Writing is also an art form, from crafting plotlines down to the placement of each individual letter. Christian Bök’s Eunoia does an excellent job of reminding us of this fact.

In conclusion (sorry guys, this was the best I could do): Go forth, opt for words from crosswords, ports, cooks or books. Play as fawns at Accra, aptly, ably and smartly. I think frigid midnight smiling. U sculpt fun 4 urself w/ “wurds”.

Hamlet 2: A parody that fails to be funny

What a draining chore it was to suffer through the unfunny, clichéd and annoying Hamlet 2. The title’s funny enough, as is the premise of the story, but that’s hardly enough to save this train wreck. Steve Coogan stars as high school theatre teacher Dana Marschz (his last name is “funny” and hard to pronounce, accounting for what felt like ten minutes of screen time). Dana couldn’t make it as a professional actor, so instead he has turned to teaching. The problem is—Dana has no talent! And he’s kind of clumsy! And he roller skates everywhere—and falls down a lot!!! Hahahahaha!! Hilarious!

When budget cuts threaten the school’s drama department, it will take all of Dana’s cunning and perseverance to pull off a fantastic musical spectacle: “Hamlet 2!” But can Dana break through to the influx of Latino transfer students (who Dana initially calls hardened “gangbangers”), bring them together with his old white students, and produce something wonderful? Don’t hold your breath.

Needless to say, the play that Dana and his students are working on doesn’t really make sense. It involves Jesus, a time machine, the characters of Hamlet, and an awesome (translation: sleep-inducing) musical number called “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” which includes frequent references to Jesus’ “swimmer bod.” It sounds much funnier than it actually is. In another attempt to add laughs, they have gay guys singing in the background of the musical. Gay guys in musicals are always good for a laugh, right?

How an actor as fine as Catherine Keener (40 Year Old Virgin, Capote) got roped into this debacle is beyond me. She follows the rest of the cast by stinking up the screen as Dana’s long suffering wife. David Arquette is also around, playing their roommate who utters only 15 or 16 words throughout the course of the movie (HAHAHA—their roommate doesn’t talk that much—that must be funny!!!). Maybe Keener and Arquette just needed the money.

Thank God (or sexy Jesus) that Amy Poehler shows up later in the film to inject some much needed comedy into the flat proceedings. Poehler plays ACLU lawyer Cricket Feldstein, and after seeing her brief scenes, you wish the movie was all about her. Sadly, she’s only on screen for 10 or 15 minutes, then it’s back to comedy hell.

I only wish I could use Jesus’ time machine and get back the 94 minutes of my life I wasted on this film.

Oscar complaining: an American tradition

Mark: Well, with Jaysen covering pretty much all lingering debate and sapping up all possible endearing enthusiasm in this unfortunately predictable Oscar season, this leaves the two of us with but one option. It’s time to open up the complaint department.

Pat: Yeah, as much as we like it when our favorite movies win, it’s just as fun to complain about the culturally inept Oscar voters when they screw it up. Remember when Crash won? We do, and we’re still bitter.

Mark: Ah, yes, Crash. Racism 101 for white upper middle class suburbanites. Touching stuff.

Pat: Thankfully, the good people of Hollywood have found a bunch of easily stereotyped movies to nominate this year. You’ve got guaranteed winner Slumdog Millionaire (Intro to Global Development Studies), which follows Crash’s lead of exposing moviegoers to previously unknown cultures, but at least does so in a far better and more entertaining way.

Mark: Then you’ve got The Reader (the token Holocaust nominee), which provides further evidence that the Oscars should just make a separate category for these things. Next comes Frost/Nixon (catharsis for old, bitter Democrats), followed by Milk (look everyone, Hollywood’s way more tolerant than those hick Baptists in the South!).

Pat: And of course, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (the prequel to Forrest Gump). While I’m used to the Oscars sticking to their formulas, it’s particularly annoying to see the same approach this year, with some universally loved movies getting the shaft, notably The Dark Knight and Wall-E.

Mark: Right, the best two movies of the year and Oscar voters are convinced they can make us all happy by giving a posthumous Best Supporting Actor to Heath Ledger and giving Wall-E the sloppy seconds that are Best Animated Feature and Best Original Screenplay.

Pat: They aren’t even doing those awards right, either. Instead of an emotional speech from Michelle Williams and token references to their three-year-old daughter, we’ll get Christopher Nolan trying to justify a five-minute standing ovation with the same lame speech he gave at the Globes.

Mark: But wait, what if Dark Knight won? Wouldn’t that bring a Slumdog-like backlash, where we pick apart the movie until it’s impossible to like? We spent a fair amount of that movie laughing at Christian Bale’s absolutely absurd Batman voice. If this movie was actually in contention, it would get way worse.

Pat: But you have to give a superhero movie credit for bringing us both an Oscar-winning performance and a nihilistic plotline. I’ve been waiting my whole life for a movie to win Best Picture that has the balls to kill someone by having a pencil rocketed through their skull.

Mark: But somehow, I can’t deal with the prospects of a Dark Knight best picture win. I’ve spent my entire life thinking that the Oscars are full of out-of-touch voters who only celebrate rampantly popular movies when they have no other choice (see Return of the King).

Pat: Yeah, they couldn’t even give the award to the best movie in the trilogy.

Mark: I just feel uncomfortable thinking that Oscar voters might have the same concept of an awesome movie as I do. If they go and give Best Picture to Dark Knight, I won’t like it as much. Somehow, that feels wrong. The Oscars aren’t an American tradition. Complaining about the Oscars is the real American tradition.

Pat: It’s all about yelling at your television or embarrassing yourself in South Lounge. That’s real passion. If the Oscars aren’t going to provide an open bar like the Globes, or at least figure out a way to make a four-hour ceremony entertaining, then we’re going to have to provide our own fun.

Mark: If only the Sunday night newspaper meeting didn’t prevent us from attending the gala in Forum South Lounge. Luckily, we have an alternative. We’re taping the Oscars. Our bitter, cynical, but still energetic Oscar party will commence around midnight in Haines Lounge. All are invited for a few solid hours of sarcasm.

Pat: Except when we cheer for Mickey Rourke’s hopefully awesome Best Actor acceptance speech.

Mark: As we wait, we will sit back, relax, down some beers, and await the entrance of a singing and dancing Hugh Jackman. In a perfect world, he’d do the whole show as Wolverine.

Pat: And we’d still complain.