RECESS—July 2, 2012 issue

Recess

volume 14 issue 1 july 2, 2012

(RE)CESS

summer mixtape a little culture to assuage the haze

CHRONICLE GRAPHIC BY SOPHIA DURAND

alex junho kim

recent graduate discusses filmmaking at Duke

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japandroids

second album impresses with poetic depth

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brave

first Pixar princess film plays it safe

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July 2, 2012

theSANDBOX.

M

aybe I find the Scripps National Spelling Bee so entertaining because of the cultural connection.

It is the Desi Hunger Games, after all, a streak that began when Nupur Lala won in 1999; an Indian-American has won the Bee 10 times in the last 14 years. This year, the career tributes didn’t disappoint—after two days of fighting to the [orthographical] death, Snigdha Nandipati, another Indian, won, and the top three contestants were all Indian. Take that, District 12!

Spelling resonates with me, even though I’m not particularly good at it myself. My excited “Spelling bee, ya’ll!”

Facebook status was a testament to that. It turns out that “ya’ll” is actually spelled “y’all”; who would’ve thunk?

Sometimes, though, my fallacies are committed on purpose, because “hai gaise!” is so much more effervescent and exciting than “hi, guys.” Still, I’d venture to say that this wouldn’t be a very good strategy for the National Spelling Bee, and thankfully the career tribute Indians understand the importance and beauty of putting each letter in the right place. And they’ve done me proud; every time I watch the Bee, I glow with pride at what my genetic heritage has produced.

It’s not like there isn’t anything else to watch. In fact, the Spelling Bee generally airs around the same time as the NBA playoffs. Last year, the final round took place at the same time as game two of the NBA finals—you know, that game where Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry made a

breathtaking comeback, leading the Mavericks to victory over the Heat. That comeback was right after Sukanya Roy correctly spelled “cymotrichous” to win the competition, despite not having wavy hair herself. It was a pretty magical night. This year, the Bee aired at the same time that the Spurs lost to the Thunder in Game Three of their Western Conference Finals, ruining a 20-game winning streak.

That was less magical, mostly because I was rooting for the Spurs. There was no Dirk Nowitzki, and the Spurs probably could have benefited from him.

The Bee could have benefited from Dirk as well— there are always some gnarly words of German origin that trip up some of the best contestants. “Schwannoma” and “schwarmerei” were some notables this year, eliminating third- place finisher Arvind Mahankali and second-place Stuti Mishra, respectively. They were off, of course, by only one letter. Dirk probably would have been pretty good at those German words. Maybe, in addition to a championship, the NBA should have a spelling contest. Dirk would definitely make it to the final round, but I can’t imagine Lebron correctly spelling “schwannoma,” can you? Or Dwyane Wade—whose parents, apparently, did not know how to spell “Dwayne.” Anyway, all this German hullabaloo gave 14-year-old Snigdha Nandipati the chance to correctly spell “guetapens” (French origin, thankfully), winning prizes valued at $40,000—twice the amount Mark Cuban tipped the bar after the Mavs won the NBA finals.

Part of why the National Spelling Bee is so darn compelling is that these kids are basically Olympians in their summer vices Michaela Dwyer.........................................................................all Berlin everything own right. They’ve been actively spelling things—from Holly Hilliard.................................................................................The Bachelorette road signs to ingredients of Dan Fishman.......................................................................breakfast for every meal cosmetic products—since Ted Phillips..................................................................................high school friends they were toddlers. Some have been to the Bee multiple Katie Zaborsky...........................................................jumping the subway turnstiles times (you qualify until you’re Andrew Karim..................................................................................................chacos in eighth grade); some have Sophia Durand................................................................................................Greece even made it to the finals. To prepare, kids like six-year-old

[recesseditors]

got jazz?

Lori Madison, the youngest ever to compete, had her mother shout words at her while she jumped on the trampoline (she was eliminated in the third round, on “ingluvies.” She said she got too excited. She’s also six.). Before ninth grade, these kids have already achieved that kind of impeccable discipline that will make them incredibly successful later in life.

Most captivating were the varied ways the contestants reacted to the most high-pressure of situations—it is the Desi Hunger games, after all. Some veterans of the Bee, like Nick Rushlow, were relaxed at the microphone, approaching with a nonchalant “sup” and cracking jokes.

Some were sassy, asking pronouncer Jacques Bailly: “Definition, please. Language of origin, please. Spelling, please.” Others, like Jamaica’s Gifton Wright, the only international speller in the semifinals, were impressively classy, giving a polite, “Thank you, sir,” to each of Bailly’s comments. He finished in fourth and received a well-deserved standing ovation.

There was no fainting this year, like Akshay Buddiga in 2004 (he recovered and spelled his word correctly). There was no bursting into adorable giggles after getting a funny word, like Kennyi Aouad did with “sardoodledom” in 2007. But there was Lena Greenberg (who eventually tied for fourth with Gifton). Every time she received a word— “cholecystitis,” for example—she wore an expression that looked as if she were just asked to disarm a nuclear bomb.

She gulped, she gasped for air. Her mother was shown in the audience with her face in her hands. It was more drama than the second season of Downton Abbey. But then, miraculously, she’d spell the word correctly. Lena would shout and yell and jump in sheer joy—and, 257 miles away, so would I. And if all of that is not more exciting than Lebron sailing through the air and landing a high-flying dunk to clinch a victory, I don’t know what is. The Scripps National Spelling Bee rules, even if it doesn’t make you spell better through viewer osmosis. I can only hope it encourages everyone to learn to spell better than Dwyane Wade’s parents did.

—Indu Ramesh

Wanna PLAY jazz?

Wanna LEARN about jazz?

The Duke Jazz Program wants YOU!

Get into the groove with these courses:

Intro to Jazz (MUS/AAAS 140) Jazz Improvisation (MUS 171) Jazz Ensemble (MUS 210-4) Small Jazz Ensemble (MUS 210-5) Private lessons are also available!

For info on courses and auditions check us out at dukejazz.org or contact Professor John V. Brown, Director jbrown@duke.edu 919-660-3385

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July 2, 2012

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

home TONI MORRISON KNOPF

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How to write about Toni Morrison? I’m not sure how much or even what exactly the name conjures for you.

Like most things in my life, it’s referential and, in being so, largely nostalgic: Tacked to the whiteboard of a high-school classroom, a blown-up photo of my Morrison-obsessed Favorite English Teacher Ever huddling next to the authoress herself, so distinctly posed that students asked her if Morrison was a wax figure. Durham’s own N.C. Mutual Life building, referenced in the first line of Song of Solomon. Oprah and Obama’s fangirl/boy status. Morrison’s silvery cornrows and bountiful, conversing hands that could only sit next to “magisterial” in the dictionary. Those names—those wideranging, often biblical, outrageously creative names: Pilate, Pecola Breedlove, Milkman Dead, Soaphead Church, Guitar. The Google doc in which I signed up for this review, where each of the Recess editors inserted some variation on our decidedly “we’re 20-somethings!” title for her: “TONI F*****G MORRISON.” It was with a blush that I read the slightly more mature but still over-adulatory book jacket assessment of Morrison in light of her new novel, Home. “America’s most celebrated novelist.” A 145-page sliver of an offering, Home is easy enough to describe plot-wise. Frank Money, one of many narrators, is a Korean War vet making his way back home to Lotus, Georgia—the most recent of Morrison’s small-Southern-townwhere-nothing’s-really-happening fictional locales. Despite the novel’s relative brevity, it parallels an Odyssean homecoming narrative, replete with central female figures that circulate around Frank, helping him navigate his journey as both incentives and remembrances of things past. His objective to reach his sister Cee is expedited by the foreboding words of a brief letter: “Come fast. She be dead if you tarry.”

Making his post-war pilgrimage through Chicago and

ultimately down South, Frank meets a spread of (mostly helpful) characters plucked from Morrison’s imaginative repertoire, which often straddles the epic and the quirky with choreographic ease. And, more than anything else in this novel—and especially the reductive synopsis description of “an apparently defeated man finding his manhood”—it is these characters, and their experiences as expressed by Frank, Cee, their grandmother and an omniscient narrator, that reaffirm Morrison’s artistic weight.

At one moment there’s Frank, boarding a Greyhound bus bound for somewhere, “dutifully [sitting] in the last seat, trying to shrink his six-foot-three-inch body” while clutching the sandwich bag prepared by the novel’s first Samaritans, Jean and John Locke (those names!). Immediately after, Frank’s hyper-observance (as filtered, notably, through the third-person narrator) picks up on the snowcovered environment whizzing by and visually transforms it according to his own perceptions: “So, as was often the case when he was alone and sober, whatever the surroundings, he saw a boy pushing his entrails back in, holding them in his palms like a fortune-teller’s globe shattering with bad news; or he heard a boy with only the bottom half of his face intact, the lips calling mama.” The war’s effect on Frank is obviously traumatic, but, for most of the novel, only in a vague, nostalgic sense. This unresolved quality pervades Cee’s narrative as well as Frank’s relationship with the enterprising costume designer Lily, one “slid into” and then “stutter[ed]” out of. The novel is more a progression of unfoldings than tightenings and clarifications, and Morrison’s lyricism matches these qualities perfectly.

Home is, in this way, supremely associative—much in the same way at least our generation upholds Morrison according to various standards and experiences that can somehow congeal around declarations like “she’s so good” and “a prose goddess.” The whole time I read Home I couldn’t subdue the little voice churning in the back of my head, reminding me of sublime experiences beginning her oeuvre with The Bluest Eye and ending it, until now, with Paradise in 12th grade. Similarly, I discerned echoes of her previous novels throughout Home: Pecola Breedlove’s child-eyed perceptions of sexuality in Cee’s eventually disclosed medical abuse, the self-sustained women of Paradise in Lotus’ female spiritual healers, the racism that subsumes Home, and the rest of Morrison’s novels, much in the same way it refuses to escape our cultural consciousness. Home is a space in which reference and retrospect mix with the present-tense. When we, as readers, reach the end, we— like Morrison’s characters—want some form of finality, but not one that embodies cliché and stability in the sense of a traditional “home.” Morrison, whose oeuvre works to deconstruct that privileged sense of place, seems to know that. Home the novel and ‘home’ the idea aren’t so much physical places as they are signifiers of the drive to move forward without losing your backstory, head strapped on firmly, with those you love at your side.

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the newlyweds NELL FREUDENBERGER KNOPF

BAt one point in Nell Freudenberger’s novel The Newlyweds, Amina, a newly-married Bangladeshi woman living in America with her husband George, explicitly reflects on the unique circumstances of a cross-cultural relationship: “She and George didn’t disagree very often, but when they did it was always because of ‘cultural differences’—a phrase so useful in forestalling arguments that she felt sorry for those couples who couldn’t employ it.” But the cultural differences that Amina faces are only the superficial problems of the complex story that unravels. At the heart of The Newlyweds, there exists the culture-blind problem of the past—are our past selves worth reconciling with the present version for a more complete life? Or are they merely former incarnations forever threatening to sabotage who we want to be?

Freudenberger magnifies the impact of the characters’ pasts by first setting up an uncertain future. By titling the first section of novel “An Arranged Marriage,” she is already addressing the unique circumstances under which Amina and George met and the perceived connotations.

Finding each other through the pointedly-named online dating website AsianEuro.com, Amina and George begin their courtship in a way that, to many, seems insincere or destined for failure. But Amina and George’s relationship is not governed by the typical power dynamics of an arranged marriage, nor does Freudenberger pity Amina or vilify George. Instead, she hones in on Amina’s splintering persona, and it is Amina herself who drives the distinction, categorizing her thoughts and actions into “Desh Amina” and “American Amina.” With the hopes of bringing her parents over to America to live together (a custom that George finds foreign and intrusive) Amina is inevitably SEE NEWLYWEDS ON PAGE13

—Michaela Dwyer

NASHER MUSEUM OF ART AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

TIME CAPSULE AGE 13 TO 21

HELP WANTED

The Contemporary Art Collection of Jason Rubell

Work Study Position Come assist the

Duke Dance Program

August 23 2012 January 6 2013 ABOVE: Keith Haring (Collaboration with LA II), Untitled, 1982. Acrylic and ink on fiberboard, 113 4 x 23 3 8 x 3 4 inches. Rubell Family Collection, Miami. Keith Haring artwork © Keith Haring Foundation.

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with a wide variety of projects, from the mindless to the exciting s A great working environment with fun and supportive colleagues s Computer, writing, and/or graphic skills are a plus s 6-10 hours per week with flexible hours s 8.25 per hour s Work study eligible applicants please call Christina Price 660-3353

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The Program in the Arts of the Moving Image offers an interdisciplinary course of study in the production, history, and critical analysis of all forms of the moving image: film, television, animation, and computer-generated media.

Courses offered Fall 2012 AMI 89S AMI 101 AMI 201 AMI 202 AMI 210 AMI 246S AMI 247S AMI 248 AMI 250 AMI 253 AMI 260 AMI 263 AMI 264 AMI 267 AMI 290S AMI 301S AMI 302S AMI 305S AMI 306S AMI 310S AMI 320S AMI 322 AMI 325 AMI 331S AMI 334S AMI 335S AMI 340S AMI 343S AMI 350S AMI 356S AMI 357S AMI 385S AMI 490S AMI 490S AMI 499S AMI 641 AMI 644S

First Year Seminar: Oppositional Cinemas Intro Arts of the Moving Image History & Concepts Cinema History of Documentary Film Film Genres Social Movements/Social Media Political Economies of Global Image Movie Worlds Modern Chinese Cinema Indian Cinema Anime: Forms and Mutations Screening the Holocaust Russian Revolution Cinema Existentialist Cinema Special Topics: Cinemas Mid East Moving Image Practice Translating Fiction for Stage/Screen Screenwriting Writing the Movie Acting for the Camera Film Animation Production Motion Graphics Film & Video Web-Based Multimedia Documentary Exper: A Video Approach Producing Docu-Fiction Video for Social Change Experimental Film Dance for the Camera Sound for Film and Video 16mm Filmmaking Editing for Film & Video Visiting Filmmaker: Talking Pictures Special Topics: 21st c. Media Special Topics: EuropeanCinema Capstone Documentary/East Asian Culture Third Cinema

Duke in Los Angeles Program

Take up to four Duke course credits toward the Certificate in the Arts of the Moving Image. http://ami.duke.edu/academics/duke-in-la

AMI Certificate

Earn the Certificate by completing six or more AMI courses.

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July 2, 2012

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July 2, 2012

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Hinge Literary Center builds community

by Katie Zaborsky THE CHRONICLE

Outside of playing the fantasy dinner party game, there are few instances in which authors Haruki Marukami, Toni Morrison and Elizabeth Bishop would ever be in same room, but at the Hinge Literary Center’s launch party in June 2011, that’s exactly what happened.

Instead of using their real names, party guests were encouraged to write the names of their favorite authors on their name tags, a creative approach that provoked conversation about literature and writing throughout the night. Of course, that was The Hinge’s goal all along—to unite writers and readers of literature through a locallybased organization that promotes the Triangle’s burgeoning literary community.

Organized in early 2011, The Hinge was the brainchild of a few local writers who hoped to spotlight the literary talent concentrated around the Triangle universities.

Ross White, a Durham poet and publisher of Bull City Press who currently teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was one of the founders of an organization that he felt filled a need in the community.

“Writers work in isolation,” he said. “We wanted more community and thought there was a larger community of writers out there who needed a mobilizing force. We knew there were readers out there who wanted to connect with writers.”

Eric Martin, co-founder and local writer as well as Trinity ’91, echoes the sentiment that a literary community demands more organization and community than the music and dining scenes that flourish in the Triangle.

“Food and music are, by nature, communal acts,” he says. “Writing and reading are such solitary acts. It takes an extra step to make them into something that forms a community.”

Because the Hinge does not currently have a physical location and is run by volunteer participation, the organization is indeed the very product of community.

Regularly-scheduled events are held in members’ homes and local venues, reflecting the Hinge’s desire to be in-

TORI POWERS/THE CHRONICLE

tegrated into the already-existing Triangle culture rather than a separate entity.

In addition to offering poetry and fiction classes taught by published, widely-known writers, the Hinge is building a solid online presence with regular posts inviting readers to discuss the selected works of local authors and poets and participate in a live chat with them. For more intimate conversation, the organization also holds an event called Third Friday, where every month Hinge members invite the public to a casual social hour to talk about literature in a less formal setting. Held in Martin’s writing studio, the meeting space is literally in the center of a cultural hub.

“The building is an artist’s studio, says Martin. “It’s a way to integrate writers into the artistic community. I found it very inspiring to be around people who work in creative disciplines like photographers, painters [and] actors.” Almost as an ode to the fortuitous location, The

Hinge created Open Wall, a crowd-sourced display of short fiction and non-fiction works that stands as an evolving exhibit in the building.

Keeping literature interdisciplinary and exciting is a priority for The Hinge, most evidenced in its popular regularly-scheduled event, Mixtape Readings. Held at the Casbah and open to all ages, the Mixtape Readings features local authors who read selections from their favorite works of literature, usually followed by some type of multimedia presentation like a short film. Martin has found Mixtape Readings to be especially well-received, providing a blend of local and national literature while also showcasing how different artistic disciplines present literature in an interactive setting. It all circles back to one of the Hinge’s key aims: shifting literature from its perceived highbrow pedestal to a vital part of the local color.

“I think you have to prove that readings can be fun and exciting,” says Martin. “They’re almost not readings,— they’re more than that.”

The Readings, which are scheduled for the 4th Tuesday of every other month, share the Casbah venue with “Professor Diablo’s True Revue,” another collaborative, Hinge-sponsored event that welcomes writers as well as musicians and artists for a night of live performances.

These events, along with Ninth Street bookstore the Regulator’s “Blast from the Past” reading series, demonstrate a surge in the Triangle area’s desire to satisfy the increasing interest in local literature.

For now, the Hinge’s main goal still reflects the need for its creation—connection.

“We’re really focused on continuing to connect writers,” says White. “We were bringing great writers to the Triangle, and only small audiences were hearing about it, and this seemed like a way to connect area writers with different events that were going on.”

In its capacity as umbrella organization for all things local and literary, the Hinge wears many hats: promoter, organizer and patron saint to the Triangle’s devoted writers and readers.

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minutes—the minimum length of a featurelength film. A few weeks later Gatten asked us to translate that piece of writing into images and, finally, to translate those images into a film. To make the film we used paint, paper and water, rubbing off the pulp of the paper to transfer ink onto the 16mm film. I remember spending two days up all night working constantly, and I fell in love with the feeling of making films with my hands.

R: You’ve made many films over the course of your Duke career. Is there one you are most proud of?

AJK: That’s hard to say. I think I’m most proud of my 16mm stuff. The most welldeveloped piece, “Cape Fear,” is the one I made for my capstone. The film is a triptych of films about memory. The first one used a lot of rayograms displaying shattered glass across stone and I created these layers of obstruction as a way of addressing the idea that memories are fallible. You don’t TORI POWERS/ THE CHRONICLE always recall memories in a way that is faithful to the actual event. They are always distorted. “Cape Fear” worked with particular aspects of memory: what it looks like, sounds like. This one incorporates sound, and I hadn’t done that yet. I feel like it is my most mature piece.

R: Do you have a dream film? A film you would make if you had all of Recent graduate Alex Junho Kim is an aspiring filmmaker the money in the world?

AJK: I do, actually. It’s about language. Or rather, it’s who was awarded 2012 Student Filmmaker of the Year by Duke’s Program in Arts of the Moving Image. Kim spoke with Recess’ about communication—the connections between peoDan Fishman to discuss Stan Brakhage, filmmaking opportuni- ple. That might sound cliché or cheesy. But I have sort of a treatment for the film. I want to think about how ties at Duke and Kim’s dream project. language is used in more popular and mainstream cinR: At what point did you know you wanted to make films? ema and distort it in some way. In my dream film, lots of AJK: A little more than a year ago, David Gatten, [Visit- people speak all sorts of languages. Throughout the film ing Professor and Distinguished Filmmaker in Residence you experience the day in the life of one person. There in the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image], gave are no subtitles. Subtitles privilege the viewer. In my film, an assignment to my Intro to AMI class. The assignment there are subtitles when the character speaking is underwas to “get lost” and write about that experience for 72 stood. And only then. The idea came from a few different areas of my life. My own mother lives in America but

Recess Interviews: Alex Junho Kim

July 2, 2012

she doesn’t speak English very well— she speaks somewhere around a kindergarten level. She lives in a Korean community. Her struggle through daily life is that she doesn’t understand what is being said. I don’t think it’s an uncommon experience.

R: What advice would you give to incoming students who want to make films?

AJK: I suppose the biggest thing for me was having an open mind. Duke has done a wonderful job of starting to push experimental filmmaking, and that has been really good. Of course, most of the people in AMI are not necessarily into experimental film. Even outside of experimental film there’s so much to learn. Even for me.

When I say I’m an experimental filmmaker I feel like I’m locking myself into a genre. Film should be wide open.

Everyone should explore different types.

R: Any ideas about how you’re going to continue filmmaking in the future?

AJK: I’m working with a film production group in downtown Durham called Growler Visual Media. It’s very small—three of us basically. It’s the kind of work you would expect. They mostly work on narrative films.

That’s not what I want to do personally, but it’s a good way to get my chops up—to be in the practice of filmmaking. One needs to be constantly in the practice of working with film to be a filmmaker. It must always be in your mind. Filmmaker Stan Brakhage always had a piece of 16mm film in his pocket. Some of us pull out a book during small pieces of free time… Brakhage would pull out the film and start scratching on it. He made film part of his every waking moment. He’s a wonderful example for me.

R: Any lingering thoughts?

AJK: I’m really excited about Duke’s filmmaking program and the new MFA program. [New AMI faculty member] Bill Brown is really exciting. He’s pioneering certain modes of filmmaking—as had Gatten. And [AMI Associate Director] Josh Gibson—that he’s still here and still invested, it’s wonderful. Many professors here put the AMI department ahead of themselves.

They’re masters sacrificing their own time to teach us when they could be making films. It has been a very humbling experience.

—Dan Fishman

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July 2, 2012

garbage NOT YOUR KIND OF PEOPLE STUNVOLUME

B+ In the mid-90s, alternative rock experienced a surge of third-wave feminism with the emergence of some of the most powerful frontwomen in rock: Brody Dalle of The Distillers, Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Shirley Manson of Garbage. Labeled “edgy� and “rebellious,� these women embodied the defiance and individuality that record companies now routinely inject like bad-girl cream filling when they manufacture the newest pop sensation. And that’s exactly why Not Your Kind of People, Garbage’s fifth studio album after a six year hiatus, sounds like a relic of a grittier era. In a music climate where artificiality has become so pervasive that it feels “real,� Garbage’s energy is palpable, their energy organic and their talent wholly authentic.

Singing over a spacey, Galaga-inspired synth in opener “Automatic Systematic Habit�, Manson’s icy charge of “Lies, lies, lies/ You love those lies/ You tell them straight/ Straight to my face,� sounds so personal that it’s unnerving. This kind of intense intimacy abounds. On “Control,�

Manson’s voice shatters into a string of fragmented syl-

sigur rĂłs VALTARI PARLOPHONE

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lables after the structural and thematic breakdown of the song, while “I Hate Love� weaves a recording of a pleading voice message into an otherwise universal sentiment about the pain of love. Throughout the album, Garbage uses straightforward lyrics to express the soul-bearing messages that have become the band’s M.O. Layered over grungy guitars and pop-synths, the songwriting takes individual pain and makes loud anthems, capitalizing on the ubiquity of anger, betrayal and loneliness.

Like previous Garbage albums, Not Your Kind of People explores darker themes like insecurity and desperation, all with Manson’s sultry, distinctive voice as the pathfinder. “Man on A Wire,â€? which opens with a Death From Above 1979-like distorted bass, provides a noisy, percussion-driven backdrop for Manson’s explosive wail of “Like a man on a wire/ I set myself on fire.â€? Most of the tracks on the album are equally foreboding, but the closer, “Beloved Freak,â€? is the white light at the end of a dark, grimy tunnel. Just like the title song off Garbage’s 2005 album Bleed Like Me, “Beloved Freakâ€? delivers a hopeful message to the outcasts of the world, reminding us all that “The world is at your feet/ Here you stand, beloved freak./ This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.â€? Because if Shirley Manson is anySigur RĂłs front man JĂłn “JĂłnsiâ€? Birgisson has altered the group’s sound with each album since 1997’s Von. His solo debut Go featured more upbeat, marketable tracks (some even sung in English). Though Sigur RĂłs is known for their nondirectional song structure, 2008’s Med sud Ă­ eyrum vid spilum endalaust departed stylistically by utilizing the recognizable verse-chorus-bridge song structure. The Icelandic band’s latest album Valtari returns to their nonlinear style with its long, slow-paced verses and gloomy, toned-down choruses.

The album starts with â€œĂ‰g anda,â€? which slowly incorporates echoed choir refrains, pace-quickening electric guitar and JĂłnsi’s well-tuned falsetto. JĂłnsi’s voice makes another appearance on “Vadur,â€? an even quieter ballad that builds up with multi-layered chamber vocals. The track sounds epic enough to be in a war movie trailer, but it’s not overdone or overdramatic. “Rembihnuturâ€? introduces vocals at the very beginning of the cut, which never peaks with a bridge or chorus.

Rather it upholds a subdued mixture of more choir-like vocals and amplified piano from start to finish.

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thing, she is the shepherd to a flock of beloved freaks.

Manson has gone on the record to talk about how women are disempowered in music today, urging more female musicians to veer away from mainstream expectations and create their own identity apart from executive or media pressure. But actions speak louder than words, and Not Your Kind of People is deafening. —Katie Zaborsky “Valtari� starts with an eerie ensemble of somber violin and echoed synthesizer. Clocking in at eight and a half minutes, this song is the longest on the album, and its instrumentals steadily thicken. Unidentifiable vocals mix with a gradual xylophone and wind sound effects to add to the cut’s dark feel, but like “Rembihnutur,� it never fully develops a concrete chorus. About halfway into the song, it becomes hard to decipher what exactly you’re listening to, as multiple layers of instruments and vocals bleed into one another. The result may be a little crowded, but it’s never sloppy.

A friend of mine once likened Sigur RĂłs’s music to “the sound an elf makes when you squeeze it.â€? For many, she’s probably right, but many have come to love the band’s grandiose musical style. This album may not appeal to the band’s Takk fan base (Sigur RĂłs’s most familiar, perhaps “mainstreamâ€? release—see “HoppĂ­pollaâ€?), but Valtari’s downcast ballads serve as poignant gestures toward their earlier work that first put them on the post-rock map. —Andrew Karim

Dance Program

pen House

Monday, August 27, 2012 5:30-6:30 p.m.

The Ark Dance Studio Porch, East Campus

AUDITIONS Wednesday, August 29, 2012 4:00 - 6:10: pm - Ballet Repertory with Tyler Walters Hull Dance Studio 7:45 - 9:15 pm - African Dance Repertory with Ava Vinesett Ark Dance Studio, East Campus

Thursday, August 30, 2012 7:30 - 9:30 pm Modern Dance Repertory with Andrea Woods Valdes Ark Dance Studio, East Campus

Optional African Dance session 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Ark Come and meet the dance faculty and other students interested in dance! • Questions Answered • Refreshments Served

• Audition Information • News of this year’s Dance Events

Please join us for this informal get-together!

Serving the community since 1985

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Featuring Vince, Amanda Uprichard, J Brand, Rebecca Minkoff, House of Harlow, Splendid, Joie, Citizens of Humanity, Parker

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Appointments: 919-286-3732 600-A Foster Street, Durham, NC 27701 www.alteredimagedurham.com

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July 2, 2012

Summer Arts in Dur

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Summer music heats up the Trian

by Dan Fishman

NCMA Arts in Museum Park Summer Concert Series

Bynum Front Porch

Raleigh’s North Carolina Museum of Art has offered an eclectic program of music and film for the past fifteen summers. Making the most of the museum’s outdoor amphitheater, the series was designed to bring artists who reflect international cultural traditions as well as musicians who are steeped in the rich musical history of North Carolina.

This summer’s list of performers features a wide array of talent from all over the globe. Acclaimed indie artist Neko Case, best known for her solo career and role as lead singer in the Canadian band The New Pornographers, performs on July 14.

On August 17, Grammy-nominated, New Orleans brassplaying Trombone Shorty returns to play a second NCMA concert after his show last summer was met with fanfare. “[Trombone Shorty’s] concert was one of the best performances in the history of the program” said George Holt, director of performing arts and film at NCMA. “He’s just blowing people away everywhere he goes.”

Though the event that has generated the most excitement is the museum’s celebration of the late North Carolina singer and guitarist Doc Watson. Over the years, the folk legend had played many times at the museum and, months before his unexpected passing, the museum scheduled June 30 as a day to honor Watson. When news of Watson’s recent passing came to the museum, they transformed the concert into a celebration of his life and legacy, inviting many of Doc’s favorite collaborators. The daylong festivities include performances by David Holt, who worked with Watson on the Grammy-winning album Legacy, as well as virtuoso guitarists Brian Sutton and Wayne Henderson and pianist Jeff Little.

“These are some of Doc’s oldest and closest friends and fellow musicians,” Holt said. “They’re poised to share a memorable evening of music and stories about Doc’s life.”

If those events were not enough, the summer series also includes a handful of hybrid music/film showcases including a performance by the French jazz ensemble Les Primitifs du Future directly before a showing of Hugo, a film for which the band helped to make the soundtrack.

Bynum is a small mill to miles south of Chapel Hill. the money in the town beg open store in the whole tow and Post Office, but even t cided to retire. Rather than good night, a group of citiz people back into Bynum.

Porch music series. They co on the general store and b day nights. From those hum Porch grown to have regu music series on Friday even to help raise money for Byn “We’re just a bunch of keep the community conne said Debbie Tunnell of the board.

Bluegrass is at the cen scene. This summer, Bynu many award-winning group Justin Robinson and the Ma Experience. Every other Sa hosts Front Porch Pickin’, a open to all musicians and s “The Front Porch Pickin cians who are beginners as w Collins, who is also on the beginner, help to advance y audience always listens, dan The summer concerts ha ets are not needed, though donations between three a all over the Triangle bring t vendors sometimes sell food vending machines still ope 50 cents for a ‘pack of Nabs aged to become a cultura once-sleepy town without l that has made its music pos

THE CHRONICLE

It’s summer. Many Duke students are half a world away. But the Triangle’s music scene never takes a holiday. If you’re still in the area, if you’re looking for music that can only be found in North Carolina, if you want to be listening to music outside when the weather’s warm, then look no further than these three summer music series. We’ve given them the Recess seal of approval.

Music in the Gardens

During the school year, Duke Performances is busy bringing an impressive array of internationally acclaimed artists. But when summer rolls around, DP turns its focus toward showcasing the musicians who have come to define the blossoming music culture of the Triangle. This summer they’ve amassed an impressive schedule of bands, including many who call Durham home.

“We happen to live in a place where there are many great musicians” said Ken Rumble, marketing director for Duke Performances. “We try to schedule the summer so that all of the artists have strong ties to the Triangle area.”

Most of the bands on the schedule will be familiar to folks who keep tabs on the local music scene. There’s Megafaun, the Durham-based folk-psych trio who used to play with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). Fellow Durhamites Midtown Dickens will perform their brand of acoustic-driven Americana. Dexter Romweber will showcase his famed rockabilly sensibility, playing with the big-band The New Romans. And then there’s the Chapel Hill duo Mandolin Orange, who make music that is equal parts bluegrass and rock-and-roll, and the Durham-based, Duke-alum folk-pop band Bombadil.

Beyond the quality of the performances, the beauty of the Duke Gardens is itself an attraction. The concerts take place at 7 p.m. right behind the Gardens’ visitor center, and many onlookers bring picnic blankets, food and wine to enjoy during the shows.

July 2, 2012

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rham Increased funding fosters independent exploration

by Caitlin Moyles THE CHRONICLE

TORI POWERS/THE CHRONICLE

ngle own on the Haw River just nine . When the mill closed in 1970, gan to dry up. In 2006, the last wn was the Bynum General Store that closed when the owner den let the town go gently into that zens gathered together to bring Their idea: the Bynum Front ollected money, took a lease out began to offer music on Saturmble beginnings, Bynum Front ular concerts, a multiple-genre nings and fundraising programs num’s schools. f normal neighbors, trying to ected and helping each other,” e Bynum Front Porch executive nter of the Front Porch music um Front Porch has scheduled s including Boys from Carolina, ary Annettes and The Bluegrass aturday, the general store porch a series of bluegrass jam sessions ingers. n’ events are inclusive to musiwell as professionals,” said Matha executive board. “If you are a your skill is always available. The ces and has a good time.” ave a familial atmosphere. Tickh Bynum Front Porch requests and seven dollars. People from their own chairs and food. Local d and drinks, and the old Lance erate according to 1970s prices: s.’ Bynum Front Porch has manl hotspot, attracting folks to a osing the neighborly approach ssible.

With each incoming freshman class, Duke students are cultivating and participating in a burgeoning arts community, and Duke is responding in kind, with increased funding for student projects centered on the arts.

Awarded each spring, the Benenson Awards in the Arts, Undergraduate Research Support (URS) Creative Arts Grants, Summer Study in the Arts grants and Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts recognize undergraduate, graduate and recently graduated Duke students’ artistic achievements.

These grants are allocated to fund independent study projects in the arts and enable students to pursue arts-focused projects abroad during the summer.

Funded by donor Edward Benenson, Trinity ’34, 16 Benenson Awards were awarded this year to students based on merit by a faculty selection committee. Averaging $1,800, the awards go toward education expenses for projects in art, music, theater, dance, creative writing, photography, film and other art forms. This year’s projects range from a filmmaking workshop at Prague Film School to a gospel recording project to career exploration at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Although 14 of the 16 Benenson Awards went to seniors who graduated in May, and one to a senior who graduated in December, class year is not taken into account in the decision process, said Lee Baker, dean of academic affairs for Trinity College. Rather, the selection committee considered the impact the award may have on the applicant’s future.

“Sometimes seniors can better articulate how the award will catapult them professionally or have an impact upon their future,” Baker wrote in an email. The projects can include internships, independent studies and summer projects, and may help students develop a network of connections in their field of interest.

Associate Dean Ron Grunwald, who administers the program, added that seniors constituted more than half of the applicant pool this year, and juniors only a quarter.

Unlike the Benenson Award, awards for Summer Study in the Arts are designed so that students will enrich Duke with their experiences when they return to campus, said Vice Provost for the Arts Scott Lindroth, whose office sponsors the awards. The money helps defray registration or tuition costs for a summer program to which a student has been admitted. First awarded in May 2011, the $2,500 award is selected by each Duke arts department or program, including Dance, Music, Arts of the Moving Image, the Center for Documentary Studies, Nasher Museum of Art and Theater Studies. It can be given to a single student

Uganda and in Rwanda, and will go on tour in New York and Los Angeles in the 2012-2013 season. During the workshop, Welch and two other students will learn about the play and the history of Uganda, attend rehearsals and work with the cast, crew, and local participants, Welch said.

“It will give me experience in dialogical performance, which is what my career is headed toward,” Welch said.

“Even though I work more with minority education and bridging the achievement gap, my senior distinction project is about dialogical performance [and] educational theater, so this will give me more experience with civic engagement.”

Lisa McCarty, who is in her second year of Duke’s new Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts, is one of 16 photographers from around the world invited to attend Picture Berlin, a five-week artist residency and photography academy in Berlin, Germany.

“It really wouldn’t be possible for me to do this without the Summer Study grant,” McCarty said. “There’s extensive traveling, and there’s some tuition for this program, so the Vice Provost and the Center of Documentary Studies are really making this a reality for me, which I’m extremely grateful for.”

URS Creative Arts Grants, on the other hand, aim to support a particular arts project for students enrolled in faculty-supervised Independent Study courses. The grants help defray project expenses of up to $400 and are used to purchase supplies and equipment for the project. One year, for instance, two students with distinction in music composition used a Creative Arts Grant to make a professional quality recording of their piece, which was going to be presented in a live performance, Lindroth said.

“It’s very flexible in how those grants can be used,” he said. “It helps the student complete the project and bring it to a high-quality realization.”

Natasha Williams, a senior majoring in Environmental Science and Public Policy, used her Creative Arts Grant to buy photo paper, mat board and frames for a photography project that explored organizations working to overcome food insecurity in Durham. Williams took portraits of people who live at Urban Ministries and benefit from the fresh produce brought in through food relief organizations such as SEEDS, Durham Inner-city Gardeners Youth Program, Urban Ministries of Durham, Farmer Foodshare and ampleharvest.org. Her portraits are currently part of an exhibition at Piedmont, a Durham restaurant.

This year, the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts was presented to Monica Hogan, T ’12, for her achievements in dance and choreography during her four years of undergraduate work. Hogan choreographed numerous pieces for November Dances, ChoreoLab and Ark Dances, spent a month in China with Duke Dancers, performed in DefMo and was a choreographer for Ragtime.

Additionally, her senior thesis, Heartwork, was the final piece of a three-year project that combined dance with different artistic mediums.

The Sudler Prize is the university’s highest recognition of artistic achievement and is specifically for a graduating senior, Lindroth said. The award includes a $1,000 cash prize and has an involved application process. “[The prize] is not meant to recognize just one year of activity, but really the student’s entire undergraduate experience at Duke and the contributions that he or she has made to the community. Monica was exemplary in that regard,” Lindroth said.

Even though Duke is rewarding an engagement with the arts through increased opportunities for funding, many students are not aware that grants are available in their field of interest. Brooke Shorett, T ’12 and a recipient of the URS Creative Arts Grant, used the money to document the Duke Campus Farm project and raise awareness about Duke’s sustainable agriculture efforts. She said she wouldn ot have known about the grant if her advisor had not encouraged her to apply.

Even though Duke is rewarding an engagement with the arts through increased opportunities for funding, many students are not aware that grants are available in their field of interest. or divided among several students who are pursuing artistic endeavors outside of the Duke community.

“This is an opportunity for each department to recognize students who have demonstrated not only academic commitment but who have outstanding talent in the arts, and to help them further their abilities,” Lindroth said.

“They will not be graduating, so they will come back to Duke and bring that experience back to campus.”

Senior Kimberley Welch was awarded $2,500 by the Theater Studies department to participate in the threeweek Cooking Oil summer practicum in Kampala, Uganda. Cooking Oil, written by Ugandan playwright Deborah Assimwe, has been performed at the National Theater of

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p! u n Sig ay

Department of Theater Studies

n! Theater Tod heater e p o – /T StillTHEATRST 115 odernism in Film heater

July 2, 2012

Annual Open House

All undergraduates are invited to our open house, Monday, August 27, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm at Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus.

Meet the Theater Studies Faculty and the Duke Players Council and reconnect with friends. Information about courses, auditions, backstage opportunities, and other news will be available.

FREE FOOD, T-SHIRTS AND IMPROV SHOW!

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Duke undergraduates can earn credit for participation in some Theater Studies’ productions and workshops as the lab component of academic coursework!

Duke University Department of Theater Studies On Stage 2012-2013 Season

Duke Players Orientation Show Learn more about Duke Players when we present a rollicking night of theater…

A Dopey Fairy Tale and other Vaudevilles: an evening of Chekholv Parodies One acts by Neil Simon and Michael Weller You’ll meet talking dogs and enchanted frogs in these farcical one acts!

Brody Theater, Branson Building, East Campus August 24 & 25 at 11:30 pm August 31 & September 1 at 8 pm* * free pre-show pizza on the Brody porch at 7 pm!

Visit Duke Players at the Student Activities Fair…Duke Players is the student organization in the Department of Theater Studies. Its members support the Department’s productions by running auditions, working on production crews, promoting participation in theater by all Duke students, and representing the interests of students involved in Theater Studies. All undergraduates are eligible for membership. August 31, 4 - 6pm.

Auditions for Women Beware Women and Lear Course credit for both productions (THEATRST 185) for work onstage or backstage!

All Duke undergrads are invited to audition for the Theater Studies fall and spring mainstage plays, Women Beware Women and Lear on August 28-29 from 5-10 pm with callbacks on August 30 or by appointment. Auditions will be held in the Bryan Center – Sheafer Theater for Women Beware Women and Rehearsal Studio (BC 127) for Lear.

Audition sign-up instructions will be at theaterstudies. duke.edu starting mid-August

Duke Players Orientation Show A Dopey Fairy Tale and other Vaudevilles: an evening of Chekhov Parodies One acts by Neil Simon and Michael Weller Directed by Molly Forlines (T’13) Brody Theater, East Campus August 24 & 25 at 11:30 pm August 31 & September 1 at 8 pm

Anonymous Ensemble’s Liebe Love Amour!

A live film about love on the silver screen Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus September 14 & 15

My Dinner with Artaud

Antic Shakespeare Brody Theater, East Campus November 29 & 30

Between the Lines Written by and featuring Steven Li (T’13) (Sr. Distinction Project) Brody Theater, East Campus February 21 - 23

Waltz, a puppet show Adapted and directed by Don Tucker (T’13) (Sr. Distinction Project) East Duke 209, East Campus March 21 - 23

Duke Players Lab Theater Brody Theater, East Campus

March 28 - 30

A Solo Performance/Reading by Jay O’Berski, Theater Studies faculty Directed by Ellen Hemphill, Theater Studies faculty BrodyTheater, East Campus September 19

Lear

Duke Players Lab Theater Metamorphoses

April 4 - 14

By Mary Zimmerman Directed by Lindsay Samuel Brody Theater, East Campus October 25 - 27

Women Beware Women

By Thomas Middleton Directed by Jay O’Berski, Theater Studies faculty Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus November 8 - 18

By Young Jean Lee Directed by Jody McAuliffe, Theater Studies faculty Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus Check theaterstudies.duke.edu for times and/or changes and for exciting Theater Studies co-productions happening off campus!

Off Stage If you are interested in working backstage on any of our productions, contact Kay Webb, Costume Shop Supervisor at kay.webb@duke. edu, or David Berberian, Scene Shop Supervisor, at david.berberian@duke.edu

Duke University Department of Theater Studies 0AGE s "OX s $URHAM .# )NFO http://theaterstudies.duke.edu

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Magnolia Grill serves final course

by Julian Spector THE CHRONICLE

A staple of the Durham dining scene shut its doors for the last time this summer.

Magnolia Grill closed May 31 after nearly 26 years in operation. The award-winning restaurant’s locally-sourced Southern cuisine led a renaissance in the local dining world, but chef-owners Karen and Ben Barker decided recently that it was time to focus on other things.

“Operating a restaurant like ours requires an investment of time, energy and commitment that is unfailing, unrelenting and without compromise,” they wrote in a statement on the Magnolia website. “It’s time to invest that capital elsewhere.”

The Barkers met on their first day of sanitation and hygiene class at the Culinary Institute of America. They moved to North Carolina and worked in high-end local restaurants for a few years before opening Magnolia Grill in 1986. Ben managed the savory side and Karen the sweets. Since then they have both won James Beard Awards—Ben for best chef in the southeast, Karen for outstanding pastry chef—and the restaurant has been honored by leading food publications such as Bon Appetit, Gourmet and Wine Spectator.

At the time of writing, the door of Magnolia Grill still advertised dinner Tuesday through Saturday, but the floor was bare, the walls stripped clean and white and the coat rack held no more coats. The next tenant had not yet been determined.

The Barkers had auctioned off the contents of the building Tuesday June 12, and, in between shuttling the remnants to their house, had found the time to forage 10 pounds of chanterelle mushrooms. Rather than manage a bustling kitchen Saturday night, Ben Barker was preparing a meal at home—pizza with leeks and the fresh-picked mushrooms, paired with a kale salad and Caesar dressing.

“We’re moving into another zone of life, dude, after 30 years as culinary professionals,” he said. “We’re gonna do the things people do that don’t have to go to work every day.”

They plan to take this year off, to travel, to get a dog or two. Ben said they will also stay active in the Southern Foodways Alliance, a nonprofit that preserves and celebrates the unique and varied culinary traditions of the South.

The closing, however, has saddened numerous long-time fans, including recent graduate Rachel Sussman, Trinity ’12. Magnolia was too expensive to frequent on her own, Sussman noted, but it became a tradition to go to with her parents. They first dined there when she visited Duke before becoming a student, and the last time was to celebrate her graduation.

“It doesn’t really try too hard, because it lets the food speak for itself,” she said. “It’s creative and delicious and local and true to the heritage of where you are, being in the South.”

The kitchen excelled at putting inventive twists on wellknown foods, Sussman said. She recalled enjoying the sweet and salty flavor of bacon ice cream, and was won over by the texture and detail of the twice-baked grits.

This signature appetizer, which persisted across seasons on an otherwise shifting menu, was the twice-baked grits soufflé with wild mushroom ragout, aged sherry-mushroom emulsion and shaved confit foie gras.

“I was looking for a mechanism to showcase grits in an elegant fashion that was true to the texture and the corniness of them but took them to a more exalted plane,” Barker said. “But not so much that it wasn’t recognizable to the hip people and the little old grandmothers from Wilson, North Carolina.”

All chefs are inspired by other people’s food, Barker said, and he draws inspiration from the Piedmont region of North Carolina, where he grew up. The grain for Magnolia’s grits came from Lindley Mills in Saxapahaw, the same mill where his grandfather used to grind corn to feed his family on the tobacco farm. Ben grew up churning butter and slopping hogs on the family farm.

TORI POWERS/THE CHRONICLE

“My approach was always to make dishes that reflected a contemporary approach to execution, but at the same time would trigger palate memories for people who had never eaten the food prepared that way,” he said. “It is not forced in any way. It’s the food I grew up eating.”

When the Barkers opened Magnolia Grill in 1986, Durham did not have many white tablecloth fine dining restaurants, Barker said, and seasonal locally sourced food would not become the restaurant world mantra for another decade and a half. Since then, they have watched the growth of the dining scene and the city itself.

During this culinary evolution, Barker said they kept the emphasis on the food itself.

“Our restaurant was always comfortable and lively and we sought to present excellence without pretension,” he said. “Our greatest sense of satisfaction is that we always did things the right way, always honest.”

This approach to excellence proved a fertile training ground for rising chefs. Thirty-four people who worked in the kitchen at Magnolia Grill now have their own restaurants or run their own kitchen, Barker said. These include Scott Howell of Nana’s, a former Magnolia Grill sous chef, and Phoebe Lawless at Scratch Bakery, who used to make pastries with Karen. They, like Ben and Karen, found cooking to be satisfying to the soul as well as a viable professional direction, Ben said.

“It was a great run,” he added, as he returned to his home-cooked wild chanterelle pizza.

10-day arts festival celebrating student artists Exhibition of 200+ works of art by students Back-to-back student performances in music, dance, drama, poetry on East and West campus Hands-on happenings where YOU make art

Get all the FAQs @ arts.duke.edu/festival Image credit: Mariam Diskina, untitled, photograph

Call for submissions opens September 10.

We seek work by Duke students to present in exhibition and performance settings.

150+ participant-strong DEMAN* Weekend of panels led by alumni with careers in the arts sponsored by the Duke Alumni Association.

Special guest alumni reception at the Nasher Museum of Art

Image credit: Felix Wibergh, 1st Place Winner 2011 Duke Arts Festival, Triptych 1, photograph.

Sponsored by Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts, Duke Alumni Association, Duke Career Center, Duke University Union Visual Arts Committee. *DEMAN (Duke Entertainment Media and the Arts Network) Weekend is sponsored by Duke Alumni Association.

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SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

japandroids CELEBRATION ROCK POLYVINYL RECORDS

A In Spring 2009, a dumbly named Vancouver band released a track called “Young Hearts Spark Fire.” Duke University and I were not on friendly terms during this particular season and the song was perfectly attuned to my golden youth in Southern California, where everything was bear hugs and wrestling in the sand. Japandroids, with their inarticulate lyrics, double-digit word counts and call-andresponse vocals, hit the nail on the head of something precious and urgent. It was genuine “lust for life” territory.

The next fall, the band came to Local 506, rolled out a frickin’ wind machine and played until their eyes melted and the 40 dudes in attendance were sweaty and high-fiving. The year after, they released “Younger Us” (included on this album) and played Hopscotch to a few hundred people, girls included this time, and challenged Titus Andronicus’ reign as mosh pit kings.

Celebration Rock, LP number two, outdoes its predecessor by a long shot. Japandroids benefit largely from a sharpened perspective and writing chops that break through the hazy evocations. The snippets of punk rock memento, always good for sing along, are now also worth writing on paper: “Remember we had them all on the run/ And the night we saw the midnight sun”, “Remember that night you were already in bed/ said “f**k it” got up and drank with me instead.” A band that once declared “I Quit Girls” has mustered up a more bittersweet, ambivalent encouragement for past lovers: “When they love you, and they will/ Tell them all they love in my shadow/ And when they try to bring you down/ Tell them all to go to hell.” And

July 2, 2012

of course, there are lines plagiarized from my own drunk texts: “If I had all of the answers and you had the body we wanted/ Would we love with a legendary fire?” This is seriously emo stuff, but it’s rock music after all, and you can’t sing along to Jack Kerouac.

This 35-minute album could be exhausting and annoying, a rosy-eyed and reckless slice of preemptive nostalgia.

But these “wines and roses of our souls,” yells to the heavens, “drinking to restless nights and restless fears”– they aren’t naïve anecdotes, but challenges. It’s no accident the final track is named “Continuous Thunder.”

Between Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock, Duke University and I fell in love. Then something traumatic happened: I graduated. I’ll soon wear a suit and close-toed shoes five days a week. I’ll commute and get drug tested. But I won’t forget the way it made me feel.

–Brian Contratto

regina spektor WHAT WE SAW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS SIRE RECORDS

B+

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Regina Spektor’s latest album confirms two things: 1) she is talented and 2) she is weird.

Unlike some female artists who play up their strange side for the cameras (I’m looking at you, Gaga), Spektor is a more subtle oddball whose career relies on actual talent rather than publicity stunts. Her newest album, What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, is intensely melodic and heartbreakingly lyrical, and it keeps Spektor’s characteristic quirk intact. Take, for example, “Oh Marcello,” the second (and probably the most eccentric) track on the CD. Spektor’s penchant for percussive vocals gives the song a playful flair as she imitates first the piano and then the bass with a style akin to beatboxing. The piece, which Spektor sings using a purposefully bad Italian accent, tells the story of a woman whose baby is going to grow up to become a killer.

It is ridiculous and absurd. And it is fantastic.

Many of the songs on What We Saw from the Cheap Seats adopt the happy pop vibe of “Oh Marcello.” “Don’t Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas),” the third track on the CD, is a bubbly head-bopper that repeats the line “I love Paris in the rain!” while trumpets blast a joyful fanfare in the background. While the song verges on sickeningly sweet, Spektor sings it beautifully. One of the later tracks on the album, “The Party,” is a similarly cheery love ditty that provides a nice balance to the overly cutesy lyrics of “Don’t Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas).”

None of the songs are overly similar, though; each one tells a different story. “Firewood” and “How” are fraught with emotion, accompanied almost solely by piano, while “All the Rowboats” and “Ballad of a Politician” are dark and bitingly critical. “Open,” a romantic-style ballad that constantly toes the line between major and minor, features an unsettling gasping noise between each line of the last verse; the result is both haunting and powerful.

“Small Town Moon,” the first track on the album, summarizes the underlying theme of What We Saw from the Cheap Seats with this line: “Today we’re younger than we’re ever gonna be.” Every track speaks to universal feelings of love or loss, hope or fear, nostalgia or optimism. These sentiments permeate the album, shaping a collection of musical vignettes that are refreshingly true-to-life without being cliché. Spektor does not need to travel in Lady Gaga’s giant egg to prove that she is unique; her music does that on its own.

—Holly Hilliard

Spring Semester: Language and Culture in Kunming Fall Semester: Business and Economics in Beijing Summer Session: Intensive Language and Culture in Beijing

Global Education for Undergraduates

global.duke.edu/geo

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moonrise kingdom

DIR. WES ANDERSON FOCUS FEATURES

B+

SIMPLY THE BEST!

Wes Anderson has achieved demigod status in the hearts of film fans and hipsters alike in the 14 years since Rushmore. I must admit I am as swept away by his quirkiness and unsmiling comedy as anyone, and a few of his movies I consider favorites. So to say I had high hopes for Moonrise Kingdom would be accurate.

Disappointingly, I wasn’t wowed. It wasn’t everything I wanted it to be. I expected a solid A from Anderson, another Darjeeling Limited or Royal Tenenbaums, but Moonrise Kingdom wasn’t quite there.

That’s not to say it wasn’t a quality film; some of you clever readers may have noticed I gave it a B+. It made brilliant use of some of Anderson’s favorite devices— the costumes, sets, acting, and one-liners were all satisfyingly Andersonian—filtered through the lens of a preppy New England vacation island. This former Boy Scout also appreciated the hilarious Khaki Scout chapters. Much of the casting was also quite good: Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman represented the director’s stable of favorites well and Bruce Willis and Edward Norton shined as the police officer and the scoutmaster, respectively.

Unfortunately, I felt the two protagonist roles (Sam and Suzy) were acted rather poorly. In a way I feel bad saying so because Jared Gilman (Sam) and Kara Hayward (Suzy) are children acting in their first movie, but the fact remains that most of their scenes failed to compel me. Too often they seemed to be forcing themselves into Wes Anderson’s standard of emotionless, unshakable stoniness. That approach works great if you are Owen Wilson or Bill Murray, but not if you are twelve years old and without the chops to handle it. The bottom line is that neither Gilman nor Hayward could handle as much screen time as they were given. And I feel the need to add that there was way too much child French kissing going on. Just sayin’, shit was weird.

But oddly, the weak acting on the part of the protagonists was not as detrimental to the film as one might expect. The scenery, cinematography, set design and stellar secondary characters made the movie fun to watch and

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downright hilarious. The slew of minor child characters was also wonderful; my favorites were Lazy Eye the eyepatched bugler (Charlie Kilgore) and Lionel, Suzy’s victimized younger brother (Jake Ryan). Without the responsibility of carrying entire scenes and plotlines, these characters were able to remain fun asides rather than disappointing centerpieces.

Like Anderson’s other films, Moonrise Kingdom made great use of the director’s detail-oriented aesthetic that is at once subtle and vibrantly kitschy. You get the sense that every book on the shelf and picture on the wall was painstakingly selected and placed with precision. This won’t be any surprise to those familiar with Anderson’s curriculum vitae; this film’s uniform-focused costumes are especially reminiscent of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

So, if you like Wes Anderson’s brand of film, Moonrise Kingdom will be an enjoyable afternoon at the movies.

While it doesn’t live up to some of Anderson’s greatest hits, it might be worth seeing in theaters and is definitely worth renting (do people still do that?). —Ted Phillips

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

NEWLYWEDS from page 3 stretched across the Pacific Ocean, with one half trying to adjust to her new (better?) life in America and the other grasping for her family and the familiar.

As the plot develops, the conflict shifts from that of the bickering newlyweds to Amina’s strained loyalties to her family and George. Admittedly, this is where Freudenberger begins to falter. After she leaves the first section of the book—a territory where she skillfully avoids banality when describing Amina’s job at a media conglomerate, her confusion about “Plan Bâ€?, and her newfound love of the snooze button—she begins a to weave a more complicated family melodrama alongside the main plot. Freudenberger’s detailed description of Amina’s family history, which unravels after Amina travels to Bangladesh in an attempt to bring her parents to the US, slips into a clunky, confusing tale that weighs down the domestic center of the novel. While some authors, like Gabriel Garcia MĂĄrquez, shine in their ability to effortlessly present a tale of vast scope, Freudenberger seems more suited exploring the intricacies of a microcosm. Throughout the second half of the novel, I kept waiting for the plot to unite George and Amina so I could read more about Amina’s two-fold transformation from single woman to newlywed as well as Bangladeshi daughter to American housewife. So it was only fitting then, that when Freudenberger was featured in The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 Fiction Issue, it was alongside an excerpt from “An Arranged Marriage,â€? the first section of the novel.

The noticeable falloff in inspiration all makes sense with a little bit of backstory. In the “Acknowledgements� section at the end of the novel, Freudenberger thanks Farah Deeba Munni, a woman whom she met on an airplane six years ago who inspired the book’s premise with her double life and memories. With an incredible story waiting to be fictionalized, Freudenberger wrote The Newlyweds, a novel whose composition mirrors its title—an initial honeymoon period that drifts into something a little less sweet by the end. —Katie Zaborsky

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snow white and the huntsman

DIR. RUPERT SANDERS UNIVERSAL PICTURES

A-

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

recess If you like the Twilight movies because you enjoy watching Kristen Stewart crash and burn, Snow White and the Huntsman will only disappoint.

Who knew that Stewart, who plays the frustratingly gorgeous and somewhat grungy princess-turned-fugitive, could actually act? Snow White does not speak in a monotone or blink twenty times per sentence, nor does she find herself paired with the painfully awkward Robert Pattinson or incredibly dull Taylor Lautner. Rather, she is a strong yet innocent woman who, by the movie’s end, is anything but a helpless victim. Perhaps Stewart is more successful as Snow White because she barely has any speaking lines in the first third of the movie. Still, when Snow White escapes from the Queen’s castle and fights her way through the dark forest to escape Thor—I mean, the Huntsman, played

by Chris Hemsworth—Stewart proves herself as an actress who just might win the audience’s respect. She even holds her own next to Charlize Theron—an impressive feat.

Theron does not seem like the villainess type, but Snow White and the Huntsman demonstrates just how well the dark side suits her. As the Evil Queen, a mere glance from Theron is enough to make you squirm, her ice-blue gaze command-

July 2, 2012

ing the screen. The Queen’s sexualized, dementor-like ability to suck the youth out of her subjects is haunting, and her thirst for blood is deliciously nightmarish. She’s manipulative, obsessive, abusive and completely terrifying. While the “scary” aspects of the film could have been cheesy, the special effects make them stunning; from a magic mirror that melts and reforms as a living, liquid figure to bellow, “You are the fairest of them all” to an army of invincible men created from shards of black glass, each fantasy element is an amalgamation of both beauty and darkness.

The cinematography is quite stunning, in fact, throughout the film. Whether the camera is focused on the evil or the good, it always captures a touch of magic, bringing the fairytale to life. Many of the old Disney elements are present (yes, even the dwarves) but with a more modern, dark edge. You won’t find any singing forest creatures here, but you will find plenty of nail-biting action and even a few unpredictable twists. The film (and Kristen Stewart) far exceeded my expectations, and it is the best fairytale adaptation I’ve seen. And never fear, Twilight fans, Snow White and the Huntsman still features a love triangle, although Hemsworth only takes his shirt off once.

—Holly Hilliard

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prometheus DIR. RIDLEY SCOTT 20TH CENTURY FOX

CRidley Scott’s oeuvre, while far from perfect, contains flashes of brilliance. I don’t mean the brilliance of an auteur — his personal style is too varied and often too commercial to merit that title. I mean brilliance in the sense of delivering Hollywood genre films that transcend the limitations of their forms. Alien at its core is a run-of-the-mill sci-fi horror flick, but its ferociously original delivery made it a classic; similarly, Gladiator relies on many of the tropes of the standard historical epic but the package itself is ingenious and unforgettable.

The artistry here is in masterful entertainment.

That said, I’m disappointed to report that Prometheus fails to deliver on Scott’s demonstrated potential. But first with the story: in the year 2093, a team of scientists led

by Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) set out aboard the titular ship to pursue a race of beings they believe established human life on Earth. The intentions of their financial backers, though, represented on board by a sinister Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender as the android David, are less clear.

Things quickly go south once they land on the mysterious planet and soon the crew is dispatched by sabotage and some pretty nasty aliens.

The movie might have worked if that’s all there was to it.

But there’s more. Scott litters the story with oblique references to Christianity and plenty of armchair philosophizing on the nature of humanity, distracting from the slaughter rather than elevating it to any kind of profundity. It’s as though the film couldn’t decide what it wanted to be — a fast-paced alien horror movie or a meditation on Life’s Big Questions. Its attempts to be both render it awkward and cumbersome.

Alien succeeded because it was content to do one thing really, really well: kill off its characters at the hands of that iconic Xenomorph. Prometheus does some of that, and then some other stuff with religion and immortality, and none of it particularly well. Add to these flaws the facts that the characters are forgettable and the plot formulaic and at times utterly bewildering, and all you’ve got is a long, violent, half-realized summer blockbuster.

If you want a genuinely scary sci-fi horror movie, save your time and re-watch Alien (Prometheus is ostensibly an ambiguous, indirect prequel to that film, another mystifying decision by the creative team); if you want science fiction with an authentic philosophical exploration of human nature, watch Blade Runner, another Scott classic. When Scott himself has already covered this ground with such success, you have to wonder why Prometheus was made in the first place.

—Josh Stillman

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rock of ages

DIR. ADAM SHANKMAN WARNER BROS./NEW LINE CINEMA

D

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

brave

DIRS. MARK ANDREWS, BRENDA CHAPMAN, STEVE PURCELL DISNEY/PIXAR

B Disney acquired Pixar studios six years ago, and with Brave, the Disney roots are finally showing.

That’s not to say Brave isn’t a pleasant cinematic experience. We get a heroine, Princess Merida, who—per the influence of old Walty-D—is spunky and can handle weapons. She’s like Katniss Everdeen with better hair: she prefers archery to boys, can shoot a mean bulls-eye and could probably win the Hunger Games. As for her mane, a fiery cascade of curls with indelible creativity of texture, it’ s a stand-alone character.

When Merida approaches a dodgy old witch for help regarding her imminent betrothal, we get a metamorphosis not quite along the lines of Kafka—there’s no magical realism about it, it’s just pure magic. Merida’s mother, Queen Elinor, is transformed into a bear. This is problematic because Merida’s father, a hilariously gargantuan blowhard, happens to have a bear complex after one bit off his leg.

Don’t worry; despite the peg leg, he still engages in drunken brawls with exceptional vigor.

To break the witch’s spell, Merida and Elinor embark on a long, occasionally scary journey; fights and heartfelt mother-daughter bonding ensue. Although the lack of boy-girl romance is atypical for a princess movie, the journey-to-learn-heartfelt-lessons construction feels disappointingly conventional, especially when weighed against the risk-taking creativity of Finding Nemo, Wall-E or Up. While sentiment is plentiful and sincere, you get the feeling that with Brave, Pixar played it safe. Perhaps this is a consequence of production issues, evidenced by the three different directors: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and Steve Purcell.

Nevertheless, Brave is a well-done, stellar-looking film.

Bear-Elinor is lovingly animated, utterly recognizable as a royal mother with fierce love for her child. Moments shared between the two are genuinely tender, some of the most compelling parts of the movie. The Scottish scenery—in all its majestic climbs and plunges, ancient stone edifices, meadows and rivers—is breathtaking, rendered with a pure, painterly aesthetic. The transient, beckoning will-o’-the-wisps, enchanted forest guides recall the spirits of Miyazaki films. The score, flecked with Scottish folk influence, is brilliant.

Brave is not memorably funny (despite some amusing slapstick), and there are no truly standout characters. And yet I watched the film with alternating chuckles and wet eyes, and afterward, I walked out of the theater with a large smile on my face.

—Indu Ramesh

Tom Cruise as an Axl Rose-esque hair metal singer?

Yes. I need to see this movie. Unfortunately, Rock of Ages, a Broadway rock opera turned Hollywood film, was a little too much Warrant and not quite enough Mötley Crüe for my liking.

Rock of Ages is a corny love story set on Hollywood’s infamous Sunset Strip in 1987. Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) and his band Arsenal are on top of the world, epitomizing the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll lifestyle. They are about to play their farewell show at The Bourbon (might as well be the Whisky A Go Go) before Stacee embarks on a solo career. Meanwhile, small town rocker chick Sherrie (Julianne Hough) moves to Los Angeles with stars in her eyes and finds herself waitressing at The Bourbon. There she meets budding rock star Drew (Diego Boneta), and they instantly fall in love (ever listened to “Don’t Stop Believin’”?). The musical chronicles their relationship as Drew rises to fame and the two of them get a chance to see the man behind their idol: Stacee Jaxx.

Despite an all-star cast boasting Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin, Mary J. Blige and Catherine Zeta-Jones (among others), the movie is a flop in the truest sense. The acting is mediocre, the plot is trite and even the singing is just okay. Tom Cruise did a terrible job portraying Stacee, a strange character to begin with. Every scene featuring Stacee was uncomfortably bizarre.

Writers Justin Theroux, Chris D’Arienzo and Allan Loeb scripted him as an incoherent womanizing alcoholic with a pet baboon named Hey Man, and his love interest with a Rolling Stone reporter is equally forced and pointless. His character shows absolutely no development throughout the film.

Furthermore, the singing in the musical is not nearly at the level I’d hoped for. A high budget Hollywood film ought to cast vocalists with the chops to at least match such cigaretteand booze-burdened voices as Dee Snider, Axl Rose or David Coverdale. But aside from Mary J. Blige’s phenomenal performance, the movie was reminiscent of a bad episode of Glee.

That said, I do credit the film for being pretty funny.

It’s not exactly a knee-slapper, but Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin’s banter as Lonny and Dennis, the proprietors of The Bourbon, is enjoyable. There are also enough bathroom jokes to keep a smile on the audience’s face throughout the two-hour long movie.

As a fan of ‘80s arena metal, I was expecting much more out of the musical. The soundtrack leans too heavily on power ballads to propel the love stories, and the depiction of rock ‘n’ roll excess is simply off the mark. Gearing the movie towards a PG-13 audience limited the freedom to really dig deep into life on Sunset Strip in the late ’80s, leading to a shallow, contrived and cliché result.

—Ben Meiseles

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

that’s my boy

DIR. SEAN ANDERS COLUMBIA PICTURES

B There’s only one reason to go see this movie: Adam Sandler is hysterical.

Make no mistake, this is ninety minutes of Adam Sandler making audiences laugh, and he is fantastic doing it. Director Sean Anders frames the movie well, but in the end, his job can be summarized as doing enough to let Sandler carry the rest of the team. Writer David Caspe turns in a script that would fall flat on its face without Sandler at the center, and co-star Andy Samberg has the comedic chops of a mannequin. Ultimately, the film truly finds itself in the secondary characters—and, of course, Sandler’s performance.

While the story focuses on wild-child-turned-father Donny Berger (Adam Sandler) reconnecting with his son Todd (Andy Samberg) in order to avoid going to jail for tax evasion, the film really finds rhythm and comedic value in its platoon of minor characters. Vanilla Ice embodies a reimagined version of himself, James Caan plays a boxer turned priest and Milo Ventimiglia is a scene-stealer as a one-fry-short-of-aHappy-Meal Marine Corps officer. And this only scratches the surface of ancillary characters; they prove invaluable throughout the movie to shift the focus away from Sandler and keep his not-quite-right Boston accent from making the jump from mildly annoying to completely obnoxious.

As much as the rest of the cast steps up to the plate, Andy Samberg shows us with painstaking clarity that among true architects of humor, he struggles to find the funny. Using gimmickry to tickle audiences—a warped tattoo of the New Kids or carrying an extra pair of underwear because of a fourth- grade mishap—Samberg makes us realize that unless he’s putting his d**k in a box, he has some trouble making people laugh. His wooden delivery and overemphasized character faults make him more caricature than character, which only seems worse as those around him deliver gold.

Since The Hangover changed the comedy scene in 2009 with its very R-rated approach, the film’s more humorous side has pushed the envelope with audiences. While That’s My Boy may have one too many jokes concerning bodily fluids, the R-rated material is where Sandler flourishes. The no-holds-barred plot line allows Sandler to sink his teeth into the role, embrace the ridiculous and give his own unique flair to the project. In the end, his acting ability keeps his character distinctly human despite the madness that is Donny Berger. No matter how far outside our own lives his character may be, Sandler is able to be someone you can simultaneously laugh at but also care for; it’s this careful balance that allows people to connect with his character. Sure, there are times when jokes become more gross than funny and Sandler’s character becomes more obnoxious than obtuse, but That’s My Boy remains a funny movie with moments of sentiment and relatability.

—Aymeric Vincenti

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