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(05/08/08 8:09pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>From the first notes on Jim’s radiant opener “Another Day,” you’ll wish you were nodding along to it on your cranked-up car speakers on the first hot day in June. Jamie Lidell, everyone’s favorite British white knob-twiddler-turned-soul-singer, absolutely loads on the sunshine in this song, complete with handclaps and ooh-oohs, doing his best Curtis Mayfield impression in his more traditional follow-up to the spastic Multiply. Is it lampoon? Is it reverence? Who cares? Yes, there is an argument to be made that we should just dig up our Stax records and give them a listen, rather than listen to Lidell’s replica. But how could we justify ignoring smooth, pitch-perfect soul like Lidell’s? He can do it all, from bending his voice through acrobatics on a Little Richard rocker (“Where D’You Go?”) to acting as howling bandleader of a straight-up Soul Train homage (“Figured Me Out”).Lidell hangs up the electronica blips and buzzes of Multiply in favor of a cleaner, slicker sound. But just because it recedes behind fuzzy funk bass lines and electric piano doesn’t mean that Lidell’s electronic orchestral mastery is any less. On the frantic “Out of My System,” Lidell fills out the song with a few moments of electronic dissonance and distorted handclaps, which allows the return of his voice on the next track, “All I Wanna Do,” all the smoother. Still, even on the glitchiest track, “Figured Me Out,” Lidell transforms his cacophonous distortion into a late-’70s disco-funk structure, banging beats one and three to get all the leisure suits out on the floor. Lidell, in showcasing his own great voice, has forced his convulsive and compelling electronic skill to take a traditional backseat. When he embraces these older works in glossy, perfect production, I do wonder where the Jamie Lidell in all this is. None of these tracks are “bad,” even with their sub-Hannah Montana lyrical content, but whether you like this record will depend on whether you find Lidell’s brand of reverent reproduction charming or stomach-churning. As for me, I go by Duke Ellington’s old adage: If it sounds good, it is good. And, damn, it sounds good.
(05/02/08 1:15am)
In the infamous Stanford prisoner experiment, psychologist Philip Zimbardo took a group of largely white, educated, well-to-do and politically liberal men and put them into a prison role-playing scenario with half acting as prisoners and the other half acting as guards. \nAt first, they played along with the game, kidding and joking, but the situation soon became nightmarish. A prison break was attempted, followed by a guard crackdown. Punishments grew draconian and humiliating, while prisoners broke down in psychotic fits. The experiment only went five days before Zimbardo pulled the plug once “guards” forced “prisoners” into sexually humiliating positions as part of their punishment. \nWhy am I bringing up an inhuman prison in a graduation column? Within us, we contain the potential to commit great evil, like so many passive participants in past atrocities. I mention these atrocities, however, because in cases of such horrifying inhumanity and criminal violence, there is the occasional whistle-blower. In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse, Zimbardo, who had mostly avoided the experiment since the controversy it caused, returned to his research to discover what makes someone look at a situation like this and say “stop.” \nHis research has thus far uncovered no pre-existing determinant of who stepped up as a hero. No background, belief or personality trait firmly correlated with the heroes who stood up against the authority instead of sitting back and doing nothing. Zimbardo only noted two common traits: deviancy from authority and empathy for one’s fellow human beings.\nAs we move forward through the world, we must note the moral choices placed before us all the time. We believe incorrectly that we are entering “the real world,” when we have been living in the real world since we were born. Every decision we have made and continue to make guides our journey. \nWhen we accept what an authority tells us – that we need not concern ourselves with unjust wars, that we should leave the complicated money stuff up to the experts – we implicitly surrender our ability to make our own judgments. When we see our community of humans as merely more competition to get out of the way, we have given up our ability to perceive our own humanity. The point is not to arrive at a moral choice and always make the right decision, but to recognize that the juncture represents a moral choice at all.\nIf the circumstances were different, would we be abusers or whistle-blowers? Most of us would like to think that we’d blow the whistle, but the prison guards of Zimbardo’s experiment were very much like we are today: bright and likable folks with significant education. What good is “education” if it doesn’t make us better people?\nWe must be ever-vigilant. Upon graduation, we must never stop asking the questions that drive us. As long as a lone voice continues to ask questions, even in the face of extenuating and difficult circumstances, humanity need not descend into inhumanity. May our class and generation be the askers and the seekers we so desperately need.
(04/24/08 1:33am)
The questions we asked were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant and what you would expect to be asked in a presidential debate at this point.” – George Stephanopoulos. \nGeorge Stephanopoulos, respected national political reporter, defended his indefensible April 16 Democratic presidential debate moderating by suggesting that candidates should “expect” almost an hour of trivial and irresponsible hectoring from a political press bent on nabbing “gotcha!” moments.\nIn so doing, Stephanopoulos demonstrates everything wrong with our nation’s journalism and everything we must fix. In the first 45 minutes of the debate, a viewer would have seen nothing about Iraq, health care, the economy, education, infrastructure or international diplomacy – only trite garbage. It is, in fact, the same kind of trite garbage trotted out every election cycle: the Swift Boaters, John Edwards’ haircut, Obama’s bowling, Clinton’s laugh, Bush’s “guy I’d like to have a beer with,” Al Gore’s Internet “invention” and so on.\nI have been writing columns for the IDS since the fall of 2005, and my belief in the importance of my job and that of my colleagues has remained consistently strong. Now at the end of my tenure, however, I have never before been so utterly convinced of the contemporary laziness and irresponsibility of the professional press.\nAfter a week in which it was revealed that a secret meeting of top advisers approved by President Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others detailed exactly which torture techniques the CIA could use on detainees, a LexisNexis search for “Bush AND torture” found 187 results. An otherwise identical search for “Obama AND bitter” revealed 1,000 results. \nLook back at Stephanopoulos’ words. Where are these supposedly “tough,” “fair” and “appropriate” questions for Bush or Rice? Should a candidate answer questions about flag pins, when Bush, Cheney and Rice are still running the White House? Instead of asking difficult questions, ABC News, hardly a lone offender, has shown how easy it is to run election-cycle reporting on the continuous fuel of perceived scandal. The national political press seems to suggest that ABC’s high ratings demonstrate that people actually care about the trivial nonsense rather than real issues. This misses the point entirely. Of course national policy discussions seem boring compared to national blood sport. The debate was even billed as “Obama vs. Clinton,” as if it were a boxing match rather than a political debate. The point of political journalism, however, should be to make important policy discussions accessible and meaningful for the average person.\nIf the “professional” journalists aren’t doing their jobs, it’s time to do ours. The broken press trumpeted the Iraq War and continues to peddle filth, while Americans have lost their trust in the media entirely. While so-called “professionals” may look down on us amateurs, it’s time we took our world into our hands.\nWhat can we do? Learn more, refuse to believe the media swill and build our own opinions. It’s the way to fight back against the condescending, cynical “journalists.” It’s the way we win back our country.
(04/10/08 12:04am)
Everything hinges on up-to-the-minute excitement these days. The Internet has made the new-and-improved product the forefront of what’s important in our consumer lives. Similarly, the 24-hour news cycle has become even further compressed with breathless coverage of the next new thing. We ride Google Trends and watch fads rise and fall in a week (see: Stuff White People Like blog).\nThis fast-moving culture has led us to roll our eyes at the boring but important forces that govern our world. Tax policy, infrastructure construction, financial regulations: all colossally boring, all colossally important. We ignore such boredom for the sake of shiny excitement at our own peril. Just look at the hiccupping economy and see why the dismal can affect us all.\nTake infrastructure, for instance. The last thing most people want to think about is their sewer system or the integrity of their highway bridges. Then, when everything goes wrong, the finger-pointing begins in earnest, only to vanish once the excitement has moved on. \nRemember when the I-35W highway bridge collapsed in Minnesota? For a week, the media couldn’t stop talking about how the nation’s infrastructure was collapsing. Then, silence. Now, a new bridge is being hastily constructed, while our nation’s bridges continue to squeak by inspections.\nIt’s not just falling bridges. Infrastructure is just one of America’s many structural problems. Our never-ending gridlock grows out of our continued treatment of cars as more important than people. Our urban sprawl grows out of our continued subsidies to aid the construction of ever-growing subdivisions, while ignoring our downtowns. Ignore the glittering construction projects and grand plans of urban renewal; the real image of our civilization is painted in the dull tones of concrete, asphalt and steel by dreary pencil-pushers who decide our futures.\nWho decides the bus routes? Or how many buses there should be? These questions aren’t exactly exciting, but they can mean the difference between a 10-minute trip to school or a 40-minute one. The changes that we notice the least can influence us the most.\nOur world is full of examples of the hip, exciting thing overshadowing the boring but important one. We watch endless clips of Sen. Barack Obama bowling and Sen. Hillary Clinton crying, but a dense, legalese memo from the Justice Department which made all of us torturers has flown under the radar because no one will sit through the 81 pages to read it. All the fist-pumping and flag-waving hubbub in the run-up to the Iraq War prevented members of Congress from even reading the intelligence report that detailed Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons. Our addiction to the Next Big Thing has blinded us to the small, tedious mechanisms that actually govern the lives we lead.\nI know Little 500 week is hardly the best time to bring up the importance of boredom, and I’m hardly innocent of this addiction, being an information junkie and adventure-seeker myself. Still, we can’t let our need for the new and exciting get in the way of the important. So, put down the beer bong, stop watching TMZ and think for a moment about something dull and uninteresting for once. You never know; you just might save the world.
(04/03/08 4:18am)
Remember that whole Iraq War? Yeah, it’s still going on.\nEven if you follow the news closely, you might find it hard to believe that we are still in the grips of a never-ending war. A Pew Research Center study found that Americans are no longer aware of the number of Americans dead in Iraq, a trend matched by a steep decline in media coverage. \nThe most common explanation for this lack of awareness is a change of focus to the presidential campaign: The campaign has taken attention away from the story of the Iraq War. Yet shouldn’t the Iraq War be part of the campaign? As the defining foreign policy action by the previous administration, why is a reflection on the war in Iraq all but unmentionable during the campaign?\nJust take a look at the most recent spike in coverage: the five-year anniversary. All the “experts” were trotted out again to talk about the ways in which they were wrong, as if they still had any credibility left. All the “nutjobs” who were right about the injustice and stupidity of the Iraq War are relegated to marginal status. The war in Iraq exists only in a “Colbertian” conception: great idea or greatest idea? \nDespite the fact that foreign policy constitutes the largest portion of the president’s job description, the campaign has focused on process stories and petty trifles, like Sen. Barack Obama’s race, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s gender or Sen. John McCain’s age. The closest the campaign coverage ever gets to actually covering foreign policy involves finger-pointing over “experience,” and who has more.\nMeanwhile, the Iraq War continues unabated, while the situation deteriorates further. In the recent Basra offensive, populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has won major concessions without giving up anything, while we continue to back the crumbling and feckless al-Maliki government. Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s ultimatum quickly turned into a suggestion and eventually into a straight-up bribe, followed by capitulation. That guy is supposed to be our replacement Iraqi leader, but he appears no more legitimate than the militias he fights. The only thing that keeps him in place is the force of our own military, which he uses to achieve his own agendas.\nThe ongoing bleeding hasn’t stopped our presidential candidates from being ignorant about the subject. John “Foreign Policy Expert” McCain was wrong on al-Sadr being a marginal figure and doesn’t even know that it was Maliki who cried “uncle” in the most recent skirmish. Obama and Clinton profess a desire to end the war, but neither knows how to do it.\nOur eyes now glaze over when people talk about the Iraq War; it’s been five years after all. “Can’t we talk about something else?” the media seem to ask.\nNo. No. No. No. No.\nOur nation marched gleefully into a war cheered on by the media and foreign policy establishment, and now we have become bored with the monster we created. This is our war: Our taxes pay for it, and our silence perpetuates it.\nOne hundred thousand Iraqis are dead. So are more than 4,000 American troops. And for what? This is our legacy. We can’t afford to forget it.
(03/27/08 12:19am)
Many people tend to think of Sen. John McCain as a maverick. Many people think of him as a foreign policy expert. Many people think he sticks to his guns and his principles.\nThey are all wrong.\nIf you remember McCain from the 2000 campaign, you probably remember him as a gutsy centrist who challenged party orthodoxy. But over the last eight years, he has drifted continuously towards the right, selling out any principles he may have had for success in the Republican Party. Let’s see just how far John McCain has fallen on a few issues.\nTAX CUTS: In 2000, McCain stood against Bush’s disastrous tax cuts, which he called too beneficial to the rich without helping the poor. He voted against them twice, believing them an affront to his “conscience.” Too bad McCain 2008 actually wants to extend and expand the Bush tax cuts, which have ballooned our debt and screwed our social services. So much for his conscience. \nIMMIGRATION: In 2007, McCain spoke firmly for the need to combat illegal immigration with a Bush-backed comprehensive plan to reform both border security and a path to citizenship. By early 2008, he had already decided we needed a better border fence first, in order to appease the far-right base.\nTORTURE: McCain has often scored political points for his opposition to torture. After all, he was actually tortured in Vietnam. Yet, he voted against banning waterboarding despite having spoken against it. McCain thinks torture is bad, but he caved in letting the Bush administration decide what “torture” is. Because trusting the Bush administration with human rights always works out.\nIRAQ: Here, perhaps, McCain’s position mostly disagrees with his reputation as a fighter against the Beltway Establishment. Unlike most of this nation, McCain believes the best way forward in Iraq is an indefinite timetable, an endless war budget and a perpetual commitment to an ever-increasing body count. McCain has said publicly he’s OK with staying in Iraq for 100 years. Are you? Yet, for inexplicable reasons, the press still regards McCain as a foreign policy expert, with tons of “experience.” \nBottom line — as we’ve learned over the last eight years, experience does not equal expertise. McCain’s stubborn attachment of his political career to the disgusting, illegal and immoral war in Iraq is a sign of how far he has fallen since the heady days of 2000. Make no mistake: McCain dogmatically believes in this unjust, mutually destructive war and will continue to fight for it if elected president.\nHe has emptied out every moral high ground he may have had over ordinary Republicans. He kissed and made up with radical right-wing cleric Jerry “Agent of Intolerance” Falwell to suck up to the right wing of his party. McCain, the “foreign policy expert,” thought that the war in Iraq would be “easy.” Now, he acknowledges that he knew it would be “long and hard.” \nMcCain’s tragic fall from honorable to deceitful has been sad to see. But his free ride needs to end right now, before this country gets a third Bush administration under the name McCain.
(03/06/08 1:52am)
Sen. Barack Obama smoked pot. President George W. Bush has essentially admitted to it. So have Sen. John Kerry and former President Bill Clinton. Political leanings don’t make any difference: arch-conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards both tried pot. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg tried it and “enjoyed it.”\nFor none of these men did cannabis use become an obstacle on their paths to success. Yet for hundreds of thousands of Americans arrested for marijuana possession every year, a puff has become a path to handcuffs. What separates them from the approximately 97 million Americans, probably including plenty of prominent politicians, scientists, artists and businessmen, who have tried marijuana in their lifetimes? The mere act of getting caught.\nCan we please end this charade? Marijuana is certainly the drug we treat most casually, yet it has become the biggest front of America’s War on Drugs. Despite the fact that we now shrug off its use among our leaders, we continue to condemn those unfortunate and unlucky enough to get caught.\nAnd that’s just how we treat the incarcerated pothead in America – “unfortunate” – as if the circumstances dictated the treatment of cannabis users and not our own hypocritical policies. We gleefully consume news about the latest big pot bust and celebrate smokers like Willie Nelson at the same time, indulging in both sides of the story without thinking about the human consequences. We must realize that the victims of the drug war have filled our prisons because of our “tough on drugs” laws, not because of “unfortunate” circumstances.\nWhen our politicians admit their own marijuana use so readily, they often back off, saying that they don’t want to be a bad influence. President Bush went so far as to refuse to answer questions on the subject because “I don’t want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago.” That’s honorable, but perhaps the litany of admissions from politicians of pot use should serve as a guide instead of as a policy that more accurately reflects reality. If any of these politicians had a conviction for felony pot possession that they would receive in the state of Indiana, they could find themselves having trouble voting in some states, let alone running for office. \nAlmost every single one of the pot-smoking politicians I cited has said that they don’t support decriminalization of marijuana. Even Obama, who once told a crowd that he believed pot should be legal, has since changed his mind. As I stated earlier, the only thing separating these role models of American leadership from ex-felons is a roll of the dice. \nI don’t care if these politicians don’t support marijuana decriminalization. That’s fine. They can hold whatever positions they want. But when they stand on the bully pulpit and exploit drug users by promising to be tough on drugs with further crackdowns, they should ask themselves whether the world would be a better place if they had been busted. My guess is that their answers would be “No.”
(03/05/08 8:19pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Everyone knows Dolly Parton – for her hair, her fashion, her rags-to-riches story and, of course, her breasts. With a character like Dolly, all the outsized personality, from Dollywood to her outrageous outfits, it’s easy to forget that she’s more than sequins and rhinestones. Now that she has a new album out in stores, it’s worth taking a look back at some Dolly classics to put her career in context.Back in the ’60s and ’70s, country music was still the territory of singles, and although Dolly’s albums were filled with Nashville fluff, her individual songs shimmered with the vitality of her knockout voice. Listening to her 1975 Best of compilation, the emotional honesty of her songs stands out as an unsentimental look at life, contrasting her dripping sentimental voice. Before she was the Dolly brand, Dolly Parton truly embraced both contradictory parts of the country ethos: the hard-luck descriptions of country life and the polished sheen of a crafted voice. Take “Jolene,” for instance. Here you have a song about a red-haired, green-eyed monster coming to steal Dolly’s man, but instead of taking it down the usual path of retribution or simple pleading, Dolly plumbs the psychological depths by turning the song into a celebration of her rival. Does she really want her man, if she seems so resigned to give him to Jolene (“whatever you decide to do, Jolene”)? Additionally, what is the listener to make of the ghostly thin double-tracked Dolly in the background? The twin Dolly singing backup makes for an eerie split in her character’s mind – between wanting to keep her man and wanting to see Jolene take him away, between the rustic traditional country and the new, independent city. Her nickname, “The Iron Butterfly,” makes this self-contradiction clear and shows how her words of steel manage to float as gracefully as a country breeze.Simple metaphors such as “The Bargain Store” woman and the patchwork “Coat of Many Colors” never pretend to some higher concept, but Dolly manages to fill out their frames with remarkable elegance. Her tiny, almost imperceptible warbles ply the ear of any listener, no matter how cold the heart, each unsure touch of vibrato turning quickly to determination and earnestness. Even with lyrics such as “Your laughter brings me sunshine / Every day is springtime,” Dolly’s delivery is enough to convince a listener that those words don’t feel trite at all to her. Of course it’s cheesy, but no one can sell cheese quite like Dolly Parton. For instance, contrast Dolly’s original stripped-down tear-jerker “I Will Always Love You” with Whitney Houston’s overworked wail-fest. Houston’s string-drenched ’90s monument is all about Whitney’s own voice, but in the wake of it all, we lose the sense of personal pain of the song’s story. But where Whitney oversells her strength, Dolly keeps the song in her heart, exuding the kind of quiet inner will that keeps her hard-luck characters from caving. Instead of muscling through the high notes, Dolly lets them sob and sigh so we can feel a deeper pain than losing Kevin Costner. Exploitative? Sure. Effective? You bet.That effectiveness extends to the other potential pitfalls of country music. While much of country’s addiction to nostalgia narrows its artistic vision, Dolly dives into her memories to investigate her nostalgic past rather than simply replicate it. For example, on a seemingly transparent sing-along like “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” Dolly can’t avoid foreshadowing the future right around the corner. The idyll of the perfect mountain hideaway of birds and daffodils is broken by the two sweethearts “makin’ future plans,” and just as those plans come along, the final chorus turns more wistful than the first two. We know that life here may be as peaceful as a baby’s sigh, but that baby has to grow up sometime, fading away with the eerie whistle at the end of the song.Even on rollicking numbers like the upbeat “Travelin’ Man,” Dolly can’t quite contain the ghosts of the South. When Dolly’s mother runs off with Dolly’s own travelin’ suitor, it may all seem a little Jerry Springer, but a song like this also points to the abandonment so common in Dolly’s work. Rejection and abandonment become spaces of miraculous regeneration within a stomping beat and a voice that seems perpetually in crescendo.Although Dolly, Inc. may seem artificial and mawkish today to a casual observer, her early work proves that her sentimentality is far from unnatural. If anything, her overflow of emotion helps to bridge together past and present in a way that few other country artists have, and by hanging onto her emotional core, Dolly has endured. Times may change, careers come and go, but Dolly is still here to stay.
(03/05/08 3:40pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Surrounded by mounds of backpacks and gear in a bus lounge, John Linnell’s middle-aged hipster style doesn’t quite make him look like a rock star. “If you’d said to me in 1983 that I’d be here now,” Linnell said, “I probably wouldn’t have believed you.” But after blowing the doors off the Bluebird on Feb. 28 with its patented brand of offbeat pop, Linnell’s band They Might Be Giants proved that it’s still rocking out after more than 25 years. Over the years, Linnell and fellow multi-instrumentalist/songwriter John Flansburgh’s group has risen from two guys writing goofy songs to a touring band with a fervent following, with theme songs for shows as wide-ranging as “The Daily Show” to “Malcolm in the Middle.” Although They Might Be Giants’ appeal to the college crowd has continued to grow, Linnell can’t explain its success. “We’d never heard of college rock, until we were at the top of the CMJ (College Music Journal) charts,” Linnell said. “We just write what we would like to hear.”One reason might be Linnell and Flansburgh’s adaptation to the times. They Might Be Giants embraced the Internet early, and the band has always given away free music to its fans. Despite starting without considering the band “a career,” Linnell acknowledges the need to change. From computer sequencing in the ’80s to their creation of idiosyncratic live shows in the ’90s to free Internet promotion in the ’00s, Linnell and Flansburgh have remained cutting-edge without “hanging around in the studio with lab coats.” This ongoing change is reflected in the group’s music as well as its evolving live show. After covering a wide variety of styles and themes, Linnell and Flansburgh have moved into a new area: children’s music. Three of their last five original albums – No!, Here Come the ABCs and this year’s follow-up Here Come the 123s – have focused on bringing the same sensibility of their adult-minded music to kids. It may have started like a side project, but the band’s success with kids’ music has turned into a serious career move. Songwriting, though, has remained much the same for Linnell and Flansburgh. While the duo has grown into a full live touring band, most of its writing takes place individually with collaboration occurring only after the songs are nearly written. Linnell and Flansburgh’s process allows for their wide range of themes from 19th century presidents to the science of the sun. “There’s no checklist of topics,” said Linnell, “but the less self-conscious we are about it, the better.”This doesn’t mean that others aren’t let into the creative process. On its last non-children’s album, 2007's The Else, They Might Be Giants worked with legendary producers the Dust Brothers, with commercial and critical success. Always on the lookout for new ideas but wary of others “messing around” with their sound, Linnell and Flansburgh received an album that Linnell says “still sounds like us, but with something we never would’ve done on our own.” As a band with additional work and collaborations with indie-culture icons such as the magazine McSweeney’s and cult-favorite cartoon “Home Movies,” They Might Be Giants has always kept its independent streak. But with its latest albums being released by Disney and alongside the aforementioned TV theme songs, Linnell thinks he and Flansburgh have loosened up a bit when it comes to deciding what collaborations to do. “If our dignity is on the line, we don’t want to do it,” said Linnell, “but we’re pretty good judges of the material now.”Despite the changes to the band, its music and its market, They Might Be Giants continues to grab new fans. Linnell seems a little perplexed by all the fame, crediting word of mouth and an active live show, but the fame is still surprising, considering the group’s eclectic and ever-youthful following. Regarding its quirky pop lyrics amid a genre of dour indie rock, Linnell asserted that the band “never felt like part of any scene.”Why do they still appeal to young people? “That’s the big mystery,” said Linnell. “I mean, I don’t go out to see bands any more, but people keep coming to see us.” Even without a specific genre, They Might Be Giants’ unique geek-pop has longevity in an industry where bands rise and fall overnight.The band has been successful beyond its wildest dreams, but Linnell and Flansburgh now have families for whom touring is difficult. For now, though, Linnell’s commitment to the band continues, asserting, “We still feel the same way about it.” If the screaming crowds at the Bluebird are any indication, so do its fans.
(02/21/08 2:48am)
When a school massacre takes place like the one at Northern Illinois University, it’s easy to jump to conclusions. The 24-hour media machine groans into action with endless hypotheses, fake sincerity and poorly-masked glee over a “big story.” Then, after the fact, the event slides into the backs of our minds, and we invent whatever explanations we can for something we view as “unexplainable.” \nAs a result, our views of school shootings are constantly skewed by misconceptions. Deeper introspection rarely occurs when it comes to school violence, so that when these events occur, we throw up our hands in shock and accept the wild accusations of television talking heads. “How could this have happened?” we wonder. The whole frenzy of sensationalism and emotional outpouring surrounding school shootings seems totally disproportionate to their rate of occurrence. Is our repeated shock at such events just an outgrowth of other traumas?\nAs a result of the media marketing of these homicides, a meme is inevitably built, and spontaneous theories are hung on it like a Christmas tree. It happened because we don’t have enough guns. No, it happened because we have too many guns! Video games! Anti-depressants! Living in the Midwest made Stephen Kazmierczak do it!\nPundits who provide “analysis” seem to throw all caution (and data) to the wind, crusading instead for an agenda that bears only tangential significance. Can we build a rational public policy if our only context is shock and disbelief?\nSchool shootings and violence are a historical presence in America; the only thing that has changed is the coverage. The hysteria surrounding school homicides such as those at NIU is not proportional to the amount of societal violence. In 2005, 4,329 18- to 24-year-olds died in homicides, and those violent crime deaths peaked in the early-mid ‘90s, yet not all of them received massive media attention. Furthermore, the number of school assaults and other violence has dropped by nearly one-half in the past decade. When using only media-marketed murders to build our perceptions, we’ll always find our responses lacking.\nThis isn’t to say that we don’t need more thought on youth violence in American culture. Compared to other developed nations, we have outrageous under-25 homicide rates. But the bulk of these shootings are not the kinds of killings we see at NIU, and any attempt to use the loose data points of “mass school shootings” will give us a terrible picture of why young people commit and are victims of violence in this country.\nThese skewed perceptions lead to all sorts of failed policies, from hysteria over students’ violent drawings to metal detectors that fail to deter killers. \nJust as we cannot simply write off these massacres as “unexplainable,” we also cannot accept blind, irresponsible schemes as acceptable explanations. Unless we look at the whole of youth violence and its origins, we will find ourselves perpetually in a state of shock, unwilling and unable to affect any change in youth homicide rates.
(02/14/08 5:00am)
Minutes before show time this Saturday, Feb. 16, at the IU Auditorium, Tim Russell and Sue Scott might not know their lines, awaiting last-minute changes from the baritone-voiced mastermind Garrison Keillor, but that won't stop them from pulling it off. \nTheir long-lived radio variety show "A Prairie Home Companion" retains its off-the-cuff style after more than 30 years on the air. Keillor rewrites the script until the last minute, despite the high expectations of the show's four million listeners and national following. \nVeteran voice actors Russell and Scott, who play many of the characters on "Prairie Home," see no reason to hurry. \n"It's still the best gig in show business," Scott said. \nFor those unfamiliar with the show, "A Prairie Home Companion" is a weekly live-radio variety show with a grab bag of serials, comedy, skits and musical acts ranging from Bonnie Raitt to Wilco. Although the appeal of a radio variety show seems limited, the audience of "Prairie Home" has continued to grow. Russell credits the success to the show's commitment to wide-ranging humor, which tackles everything from cutting-edge political satire to cell-phone etiquette. \n"Humor knows no generational bounds," Russell said. \nThe unfailing family-style politeness of "Prairie Home" doesn't keep it from mouthing off, however. The show's humor, no matter how clean, retains a hint of sass and irreverence. \nIn many ways, the show concerns characters out of place in the modern era: cowboys dealing with citrus aftershaves and private eyes finding missing poodles. The holdover of a radio variety show in the modern world doesn't bother the two vets, though. If anything, modern technology invigorates their craft and encourages a new audience. \n"The iPod is reminiscent of the old radio, with sound and music at all times," Scott said. "It encourages the radio listener's imagination." \nHow does an aspiring talent get into radio? Neither Russell nor Scott found their jobs through conventional means. Russell, though he took a detour to law school, settled on a career in show business doing celebrity impressions, while Scott, coming up in stage acting, put in her time at improv acts such as Second City in Chicago. \nStill, these experiences served them well on the show, as on-air performances often are cold reads and ad libs, with a fair number of lines cut on the fly. Drawing on a vast number of cultural touchstones, they never fail to put on a show. \nThe two cover a variety of characters, from Al Gore to the tongue-in-cheek superhero "Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian." It gets to the point that they have a hard time finding their original voices, with Russell describing himself as "a chameleon." Considering the number of skits in the two-hour-long program, Russell and Scott must play dozens of roles, all while simply standing in front of a microphone and a live audience.\nReading a script doesn't make the job any easier, though. For the "Prairie Home" trademark deadpan humor to work, Russell and Scott must work with Keillor to create realistic reactions to silly situations. The challenge for voice actors, Scott said, is "to sound like we're not reading." \nDespite Russell's insistence that the show is "a little hipper than it was 20 years ago," both actors seem to recognize the roots "Prairie Home" has in Midwestern stoicism. Scott, a Midwest transplant from Tucson, Arizona, sees the appeal of the show's Midwestern simplicity nationwide, as audiences from coast to coast appreciate the show's ethic that no one is that wonderful or horrible.
(02/14/08 5:00am)
Take one maverick country singer-songwriter. Add Rod Stewart-inspired vanity "covers" project. Fold in the arrogance of covering an all-time-great album. Then, slow everything down. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?\nTell that to Shelby Lynne.\nIn five days, Lynne recorded a grab bag of songs from Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis era, an unusual blue-eyed soul choice for the rebellious Lynne. Then again, maybe it's the perfect fit. Lynne doesn't try to replicate the Springfield voice. Instead, she changes the arrangement to fit her own emotive voice. Like one actor taking the same role as a classical great, Lynne absorbs the past performance to make it her own. Low-key drums and guitar keep it reserved, with the occasional electric piano flourish to keep us from falling asleep.\nNot that anyone would while listening to Lynne's hypnotizing voice. Without that, the album might be little more than Starbucks soul-lite. Instead, Lynne adds her smoky twirl to a classic such as "The Look of Love" or glides over her accompaniment on "Anyone Who Had a Heart." Taking on these songs seems like a fool's errand, but Lynne attacks them with the same urgency that she does her own material.\nThe one Lynne original, "Pretend," has all the pain and vulnerability of Springfield ("Abuse me one more night /And pretend you love me") without giving up the iron will inside. Lynne has managed to cover covers, yet still imbue them with her personal style. You wouldn't mistake this for anyone else.\nThe arrangement actually reveals something about Springfield's original work, as well. Although Springfield was often categorized as "white soul," Lynne shows that without the soul backing brass and strings, these songs fit into a greater pop tradition -- one that the volatile Lynne slides into with surprising ease. When Lynne coos, "I only want to be with you," I want to sing along to match her yearning warmth. \nOne disappointment is that Lynne only gets to show off half her talents here, with her incisive songwriting left by the wayside. Nevertheless, the singing half of her artistry can still blow, smolder and belt the competition away.
(02/07/08 5:00am)
The oft-overlooked morbid and intensely beautiful angst-rock weirdos Xiu Xiu (pronounced shoo shoo) have created yet another album worth adding to your record collection. "Women as Lovers" offers up a piping-hot plate of tunes sure to take you on a taboo roller-coaster ride of utter despair and empowerment.\nFirst off, you need to know that this album includes a fairly reverent cover of the David Bowie/Queen collaboration "Under pressure," which definitely pays homage to the Starman and Mr. Mercury.\nWomen as Lovers could have been cut in half, though; only about half the songs on it are really worth listening to. "Child at arms" sounds like it took about 10 minutes to write. "The leash" just feels rhythmically awkward because the vocals are not quite aligned with the music. \nOn the positive end of the spectrum, Xiu Xiu has created some solid songs.\nThe opening track "I do what I want, when I want" sounds a lot like what Tortoise might sound like if the addition of vocals were ever made. The marimba in this song along with the strange synth lines and freak-out sax solos take Xiu Xiu into new territory.\nThe dynamics of "In lust you can hear the axe fall" are great. The band added a string section to this song that helps propel it to epic levels. Lyrics with overtones of angst and sexual taboos -- the standard Xiu Xiu fare -- are still to be found here.\n"You are pregnant you, you are dead" is filled with the overdriven drums and guitar, with surprisingly mild lyrics for this band. It might be going too far to say this, but the lyrics sound almost like something on a folk-rock album -- not that folk-rock suits Xiu Xiu poorly.\nThis album would serve well as a good introduction to Xiu Xiu's music or as just another addition to a Xiu Xiu collection. The band has touched on some new territory but hasn't strayed too far from what we expect.
(02/07/08 3:24am)
Instead of the usual warnings about the end of American democracy and what not, I thought I’d turn my eye this week to a concern of equal importance — the use of “heart” as a verb. \nIt all started with “I [heart symbol] NY,” an innocuous-enough phrase plastered on posters and T-shirts from coast to coast. The rebus was a winking gag bound solely for the bumper sticker and its ilk. Then, of course, the Internet had to get involved. Suddenly the emoticon
(01/24/08 1:46pm)
Though Martin Luther King Jr. entered our mythology with his “I Have A Dream” speech during the March on Washington, few remember that his greatest feats were organizing and activism, not oratory. Today, King’s legacy is torn at by political tribes as everyone attempts to appropriate him into their fold. Yet, his wide-reaching and radical message contained little accepted by the ruling class today: disobedience, anti-militarism, brotherhood and radical equality. \nWould the crowd holding up King as a hero be supporting him if he were around today? Each of the Republican candidates for president mentioned King in passing before getting to more important things, like bashing Washington. President Bush, who spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day praising the courageous man, has also essentially said that dissent is dangerous and threatens to undermine our “war on terror.” The elites who are lauding King have a vision of him as a quiet citizen who lived an obedient life, not as a rabble-rouser who questioned the authority of the powers-that-be.\nConsider this myth of compliance in the context of King’s statement from his 1967 speech at Riverside Church, “Beyond Vietnam.” He states, ‘A time comes when silence is betrayal.’ That time has come for us in Vietnam.” At a time when public opinion still supported the war, such a statement was made in the face of a hostile public. As a result, the insults hurled at him for such a speech were horrific. The venerable magazine Life called his speech “ demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.”\nSuch language from Americans during the run-up to war is still considered equally appalling today. One need look only at the fate of anti-war protestors, regarded by the mainstream press as rabble-rousers and dirty hippies, to see that the spirit of King is alive, as is the spirit of his most virulent detractors.\nHow sad it is, then, that King has been canonized into the pantheon of the establishment, and his dream something that most people believe has been totally realized. What we must appreciate is that King’s dream of a fundamentally equal society was not something to be achieved and forgotten, but rather something to be carried out each day. \nThe moral charge with which King acted demanded urgency in the present moment. When we see an absolute wrong, prudence and deference should take a backseat to the action we wish to take. What we hear from our King-praising politicians is to wait; wait for help after Hurricane Katrina; wait for the surge to “work” in Iraq; wait for the promise of King’s radical equality to happen. What does King say? \n“For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every African-American with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”\nKing’s urgency has been lost in the rush to shove him into sainthood. We have remembered King as a dreamer when we should remember him as a doer.
(01/17/08 5:00am)
Sword-bearing vampires are running amuck in the Indiana Memorial Union. For the IU Live Action Club, it's just another Friday night.\nLive Action Role Players, or "LARPers" as they call themselves, take the dice rolls of Dungeons & Dragons to the next level, actually acting out their characters. \nAs Margaret Lion, IU instructor, a.k.a., Ta'aam, asserted, LARP is akin to "Dungeons & Dragons smashed together with improvisational theater." \nThis improvisational quality also stretches into LARPers' custom-made costumes and set pieces: "Blood" is handed out as red carnival tickets, while the Hoosier Room's drab decor must double as the set for a medieval market.\nGames regularly last three to four hours, with everyone remaining more or less in character for the duration. Armed with protein bars and energy drinks for stamina, these costume-clad enthusiasts take over a room in the Union every weekend to act out their imagined worlds. A number of different LARP groups organize a variety of games based on fairies, wizards, vampires and werewolves. The game this past Friday based itself on a system called "Lion, Lilly & Sword," a scenario that describes a clandestine community of vampires in France in 1348. \nThough dressing up in costume to act as vampires seems like child's play, the crowd last Friday looked at its scene as a hobby like any other, undertaken with great earnestness. During the game, you could hear the occasional hiss of "Stay in character!" while the participants argued over historical accuracy. Like any game, LARP has complex rules, both spoken and unspoken, that dictate its unfolding action, such as combat and mind-reading. Keeping everything believable within the game's constraints dictated everyone's actions. \nThe excitement, though, came from bending the story with ad-libs and lateral thinking to create more unpredictable scenarios that drive the action forward. A rather banal scene of a few LARPers standing in a circle talking disguised secret intrigues and plotting against old nemeses and mysterious newcomers. \n"It's all about using your imagination as an adult," said Lion.\nLARP may seem like a fringe activity, but it wouldn't be fair to describe its participants as shut-ins. If anything, this small gathering of 12 people embodied a fair cross-section of the Bloomington community, with IU instructors, IU students, a Taco Bell manager and a few high school students among its participants. The high schoolers in attendance were a bit inexperienced at the game but still extolled its virtues. \nRachel Little, a student at Aurora Alternative High School, a.k.a., Elizabeth Videl, has only participated for three months, less than half the time of a typical player, but she already feels at home.\n"We all respect each other and love each other," she said. "We're like a family."\nCaitlin Holahan, an IU freshman, worried that the games might be childish. Instead, she found a mature and thoughtful community where she can "escape the regular rules of society." Her character, a vampire spy named Victoria, provides an outlet for a life she can't pursue in reality. \n"You can go into danger and save countries like James Bond. We can do what we wish we could," she said. \nThis community, however, doesn't just provide escapism for its members. The real-life interaction is arguably more important than the role-played action. David Michel, a.k.a., Durkopf Stroykovich, has been LARPing for 12 years and has participated in this group for "the last seven or eight months."\nA full-time IU bus driver, Michel confidently strode in character and credited LARP with helping him break out of his shell. He described himself as a "geek" and "nerd" who has played Dungeons & Dragons for 20 years, as well as other role-playing games such as Whitewolf and the various Star Trek and Star Wars variants. \nMichel enjoys the interactive feel of LARP. Formerly shy and depressed, Michel has learned that LARP provides more than just stress relief. \n"LARP is great social interaction for people who are more withdrawn," he said. "It can be easier to interact with a character than with a person."\nWhat does LARPing offer someone who has never so much as glanced at a 12-sided die? It's hard to say. Perhaps your average student doesn't need the escapism LARPing provides. Yet, as Michel noted, video games and comic books, once the domain of nerds, have entered the mainstream. And as one LARPer put it, LARPing involves far more social interaction than an average barely conscious night at Kilroy's. \nUltimately, LARP represents just one more of Bloomington's communities just beneath the surface. \n"Some people cruise the bars. Some people go watch basketball games," Holahan said. "I come here"
(01/17/08 5:00am)
Horror movies, good and bad, can shock and appall, but only rarely do they genuinely open a door to a deeper part of our humanity. Spain's "The Orphanage" does just that, with doors and windows continually appearing to pass the audience from one world to another. \nThese portals transport Laura (Belén Rueda), a mother whose son Simón (Roger Príncep) has gone mysteriously missing, deeper into her house in futile search, with ever-increasing paranormal activity around her. Even as her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) tries to convince her otherwise, Laura believes she is growing closer to putting together the puzzle of her son's disappearance.\nI'll hold off on plot points here because the shocks alone are worth the price of admission. I barely made it through without cowering behind a chair. Suffice it to say, all the typical elements of a horror movie are present: the chanting kids, the haunted ex-orphanage, the bumps in the night, etc. \nThe genius of J.A. Bayona, in his stunning feature film debut, however, lies in his ability to fill in the gaps between the "Boo!" moments, or more accurately, to force the audience to fill in the gaps for him. He pulls the tension as tight as possible right from the start and doesn't let go, leaving no slack moments to relax.\nIn addition to this proper balance of suspense and horror, Bayona avoids the cliches of modern horror. He refuses not only the high-gore teenager body count of American horror, but also the endless "Gotcha!" gimmickry of Japanese imports. \nInstead, much like in his friend (and the producer of the film) Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth," fear takes hold of us in Bayona's film because we believe in his characters. As Laura goes deeper into the alternate world inside her house, we believe in her quest because we can see it: In her sagging eyes and rough voice. Rueda plays Laura with force; she is never a victim. She always chooses her path, and we willingly follow behind. Whether she's really seeing ghosts or simply going insane, the audience has faith in Laura as a mother and human being.\nJudging by the sparse crowd, I imagine this movie doesn't have much of an audience, but it deserves one. "The Orphanage" opens a door that will remain open long after you've left the theater.
(01/08/08 2:11am)
What ever happened to those destroyed CIA interrogation tapes? The CIA taped its interrogations of two al-Qaida operatives, then destroyed the hundreds of hours of footage. The heads of the 9/11 commission say the CIA obstructed their inquiry. President Bush claims to have “no recollection” of the tapes of their destruction. A federal judge who asked for the tapes was told they didn’t exist. Yet someone looking at the news would hardly know anything had happened.\nWhile every political correspondent in America books it from Iowa to New Hampshire to watch the infamous mud match, this story has dangerously slipped through the cracks. Some may think that with a change in the White House on the horizon, we shouldn’t continue to document this administration’s crimes. Yet the destruction of these tapes by the CIA is part of a pattern likely to continue in any incoming administration, unless we address it now. A few questions:\nIs it really possible that Bush didn’t know? Somehow, members of Congress knew about the destruction, as well as Bush confidante Harriet Miers. President Bush and Vice President Cheney seem obsessively occupied with the importance of reviewing intelligence extracted from interrogations. Yet, somehow, neither knew anything about the tapes’ existence or destruction. Either Bush knew about their destruction and is lying to hide something, or he is so ludicrously incompetent that he doesn’t know what his CIA is doing, even when it’s going around town telling everyone else. Neither scenario provides much confidence in our government.\nCould Congress please do its job? Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., was informed that the tapes would be destroyed by the CIA back in 2003, two years before their actual destruction. Incensed, she did what any ranking member of a Congressional oversight committee would do: She wrote a strongly-worded letter. She sits on the committee that controls the CIA’s funding and can ask for an investigation into anything she wants. Instead of actually stopping the destructions, she kindly asked the CIA to cut it out. From our elected officials, that ain’t good enough.\nWhy were the tapes destroyed? This is the $64,000 question, but it’s the toughest to answer, as long as the CIA and the Bush Administration continue to stonewall any efforts to find the truth. The official CIA response that the destruction protected agents’ identities is transparently false. Tons of files have the identities of agents, yet none of them were destroyed. Were the tapes destroyed for the content of the interrogations or the torture techniques used? Or was it all just a bureaucratic mix-up?\nOne of the principal goals in the aftermath of 9/11 was the restructuring of a broken intelligence community which missed all the warning signs and failed to connect the dots. Now, this poor excuse for the Keystone Kops, which stands as America’s first line of defense against foreign terrorism, has destroyed an essential piece of evidence for inexplicable reasons. \nMy list of questions above needs answers before we fully trust the system to protect us, because in this case, every safeguard failed and every oversight was ignored. The road to a safer America begins with untangling a pile of shredded tapes.
(12/06/07 5:00am)
After the delays, the friction between Clan members and the six years since Iron Flag, the Wu-Tang Clan has at last completed its re-emergence.\nPerhaps the most striking aspect of the album is that it's truly a team effort. For all the tensions, you might expect the album to be a disappointment or an incoherent nightmare. But somehow, all the members' professionalism shines through on the album, with even the most vocal complainers such as Raekwon rapping like men possessed, on top of the RZA's woozy, layered beats.\nThose beats make 8 Diagrams sound like a throwback in an age of Soulja Boy and hyphy, with an honest-to-God darkness pervading the album from its kung-fu opening in "Campfire" to the ODB's rhymes from beyond the grave in "16th Chamber." Menace lurks behind the scratchy rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by guest Erykah Badu on the Beatles "interpolation" titled "The Heart Gently Weeps" and the brass samples on "Rushing Elephants." The RZA has outdone himself here, producing every track and cooking up the thick, gothic beats for which he's renowned.\nThis menace echoes in the rhymes, as each member sounds explosive while unwinding these druggy crime-drama yarns. Sure, Ghostface puts in his requisite excellent musings, but the other members more than hold their own. The Inspectah Deck chomps through his verse on "Unpredictable" with ferocity, and Masta Killa, who hasn't sounded this good in years, lends his laid-back threats to the threatening "Get Em Out Ya Way Pa." As Masta Killa states, when in trouble, every member can feel free to simply luxuriate in the beats for a while ("Take cover over RZA instrumental / I'm damn near invincible").\nOne member, however, stands apart on this album, unwilling to simply sleepwalk through his verses: Method Man. When his gravelly voice grabs your ears on "Wolves" or the ODB tribute "Life Changes," it waves a gun in your face, daring you to stop listening, reminding everyone of how he held together the first Wu-Tang album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).\nMaybe the album is refreshing simply because the Wu can do what the rest of hip-hop has long forgotten: tell a story, cut the fat off an album and make original beats. The Wu-Tang Clan has always been an enigma in the world of hip-hop, with its literary aspirations and dorky kung-fu obsessions. This album further sets it apart from the pack by refusing to compromise musical originality for a few extra bucks. \nThese guys may be dinosaurs, but they can still roar.
(12/04/07 1:35am)
President Bush must be kind of lonely these days. His staff and aides are jumping ship like mad, and rather than embrace the incumbent’s legacy, the entire Republican field is invoking Reagan, not Bush. I hardly need to mention the torrents of criticism that Democrats are heaping upon Bush and his historically low approval ratings. \nYet, no one has stepped up to take responsibility for Bush’s legacy, and it will be far-reaching. Despite the boondoggles of Social Security reform and comprehensive immigration reform in his second term, it’s tough to remember that Bush’s first term was a huge success, during which he achieved every legislative goal he wanted. Back then, he was everyone’s favorite, and Democrats as much as Republicans enabled his policies. \nNow, Bush is lonely, even though his ideology is firmly fixed as our nation’s ideology. For these shmoes to now turn around and say “It was all Bush’s fault!” represents the most disingenuous kind of politics. Jokers like Peggy Noonan who now decry Bush as a non-true conservative had no problem celebrating him during his re-election campaign. \nPolitics demands duplicity, but to see Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., spit fire and brimstone at Bush for his supposed incompetence seems particularly lame. If only this kind of critic had some sort of power in American government, maybe some sort of vote or filibuster power in the Senate. Oh, that’s right! They did have that power and still do. I would feel sympathy for their positions if they were just commentators or pundits, but they’re not. They hold positions of power, and failed to use them in any way to impede the Bush administration.\nIt’s both funny and sad to see everyone now stepping away from Bush as if he were political kryptonite, because the legacy of the Bush administration comes from our own actions. The war in Iraq, the failure to address climate change, the destruction of our international goodwill – these are as much Bush’s work as our own. Until our elected leaders truly embrace their complicity in this administration’s crimes, we can’t expect anything to change in a new administration.\nI’m not trying to make this some sort of giant liberal guilt-fest. Guilt is really what we’re best at, but still, I’m not asking for feelings of guilt. I’m asking for feelings of acceptance that we got exactly what we asked for.\nWe wanted the war in Iraq, and now we’re dissatisfied but unwilling to change. Recent polls show that Americans are now split over military action in Iran. Unless we accept responsibility for our actions in the past, we can’t be surprised when we make the same mistakes in the future, nor can we bellyache about the consequences. \nBush is not some specter who got his power through magic. He’s the representative for what Americans wanted, and his legacy will be ours, as well his.