ARTS The Michigan Daily Monday, November 2, 1992 Page 5 Sex, lies and Basement Arts by Lia Kushnir "Lips Together, Teeth Apart," a Basement Arts production, played to a full house this past Halloween night. It wasn't like all the other shows; this was smaller, intense, free, and that wasn't even the best thing about it. The Terrence Mc- Nally ("Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune") play was performed Lips Together, Teeth Apart Arena Theatre October 31, 1992 with refreshing sensitivity and sim- plicity. Clinton Bond directed, bring- ing new depth to the arts of spouse- switching and campus theater. The audience sat facing an island beach house porch, complete with simulated wave sounds and sand at our feet. We met two couples, and everybody on stage was hiding something. If clothes had the power to build character, the cast would Whave been all set. Chloe Haddock (Tammy Jacobs), the housewife-ac- tress in trendy, 10-changes-per-hour outfits, dominated the porch. She was catering, loud, and imposing, in contrast to her deeply agitated and sarcastic brother Sam (Danny Gurwin). This Funny Girl meets Woody Allen scenario dissipates once the plot unveils the "secret" Chloe and Sam share, along with their respective spouses. Sam's wife, Sally (Christy Wright), wrapped in her free-flowing artsy skirt and watery-eyed stares, tried to hold a See LIPS, Page 8 Moore wisdom with a laugh and a simile by Will Matthews Loeric Moo simply put, a talented author. She writes with a smooth fluidity and a wry, often subtle, sense of humor. In her short story "Two Boys," she writes, "This was why she liked Boy Number Two: He was kind and quiet, like someone she'd known for a long time, like someone she'd sat next to at school. He looked down and told her he loved her, sweated all over her, and left his smell lingering around her room." Most of us have known a drippy guy like this, and Moore helps us to remember him. The author of two books of short stories ("Like Life" and "Self-Help") and one novel ("Anagrams"), Moore took literature courses and creative writing courses as an undergraduate in college. Though she won a national creative writing contest, she didn't believe that creative writing could ever be a career. "I imagined ... that it was just something I did while I was in college," she explained in a recent in- terview, "but once I got out ... I really began to miss it. So I applied to graduate school and went to Cornell and kept trying there. The thing that I always did was that I just worked very hard - I didn't have a lot of faith, but I had a lot of energy, so you can always compensate for the absence of one thing with the presence of something else." The images and diction in her writing are often startling in their conception and effect. "Her gaze dropped to her hands, which had started to move around nervously, independently, like small rodents kept as pets," she writes in her short story "The Jew- ish Hunter." Her similes and metaphors, like the ro- dents, jump off the printed page with the vividness and agility of a frightened antelope. Many of Moore's stories deal with women searching for an identity or a sense of self in a world that doesn't want them to find one. In "Two Boys," a young woman who is having an affair with two men feels confused and lost, unable to see clearly her own self amidst their strong, well-defined characters and personalities. By the end of the story, however, her character emerges stoic, solid, witty, observant, and wiser for her experiences. Like a pianist faced with a page of empty mea- sures or a second-grader faced with a frosty window and a warm thumb, a writer is a craftsman who pla- cates and fulfills an urge to create. "It feels like play- time that you get paid for. I think it's a craft's im- pulse. It's like I have an impulse to make things, and I'm not that good of a cook. If I were a good cook I probably wouldn't write. But I have this impulse to make things from various ingredients lying about in my imagination and in the world, and that for me has taken the form of writing." Fortunately, Lorrie Moore stays away from spatu- las and skillets, and instead writes stories that articu- late universal emotions, images, and ideas that come as a result of being human. LORRIE MOORE will read from her work today at 4 p.m. in the Rackham Amphitheater. Admission is free. Under Lorrie Moore's calm surface is a wry, often subtle, sense of humor. An e'en of hallow skits and symphony Limey heaven Do you want to see a free movie Thursday night? Just stop by the Daily Arts office between now and this Thursday and we'll give you a pass (if there are any left) to see "Waterland," the new Jeremy Irons movie which we heard sucks, but hell, it's free. It's based on a book by some brilliant limey (Graham Swift). Mitchell at Museum Joan Mitchell, one of the most important modern artists, died Friday. Mitchell, who was known for her energetic renditions of sunflowers, combined the seem- ingly disparate influences of Impressionism and Abstract Expressionism to create her spellbinding visions. You can see one of Mitchell's paintings in the RJMMA. It's with the Picassos, and the juxtaposition is well- deserved. Rainer on me Have you seen any of those cool movies by that canny Kraut, Rainer Werner Fassbinder? The Michigan Theater is showing his "The Stationmaster's Wife" (1978) tonight at 7 p.m. Call 668-8397. by Michael John Wilson and Alan J. Hogg, Jr. The famous, sold-out-long-be- fore-you-heard-of-it Halloween Con- cert was not the place for purists last Friday. Fans tiled in, both with and without costumes, and the arrival of a costumed, waving "Queen," com- plete with princely consort and dumpy dress, stirred things up - but not nearly as much as the balloons- as-grapes folk whose costumes, sadly, popped when they sat down. (They were, if you're wondering, seedless.) The concert (which, after all, was why we were there) finally began with a huge, anatomically correct COCR REIE Halloween Concert Hill Aiuditoriutn October 30, 1992 spider descending from the ceiling of Hill Auditorium. Then the weird stuff started to happen. The orchestra filed onstage through a series of skits, most of which were lame take-offs of "Saturday Night Live." (Is our cul- ture so comedically impoverished that we have to rehash "Wayne's World" and "Sprockets," over and over? We have to admit, however, that the possibility that "gender-neu- tral" Pat is related to Barbara Bush was, to say the least, mildly in- spired.) Standouts were the Ameri- can Gladiators-clad double basses and the Angel of Death on the harp. But there was music, too. When See HALLOWEEN, Page 8 " . .I j-!! iam ""1 ,-I l 1 7W ' t" " w % 4 _ Judge for Yourself When armed robbers, rapists and murderers are on trial, will you trust an inexperienced judge to rule on their cases? During every trial, a judge must rule on dozens of legal issues, objections, and tactics used by lawyers to promote their clients' cases. It requires a great deal of trial experience if justice is going to be served. One candidate for Circuit Court Judge, Jerry Farmer, has more than two decades of experience in every court- room in the county. As Chief Assistant Prosecutor, he's been safe- guarding the rights of Washtenaw County citizens for 19 years. His opponent, Kurtis Wilder, has seen few trials and no criminal trials in his seven years as corporate lawyer, before he was appointed judge six months ago by his friend, Governor John Engler. Since 75% of trials in the circuit court are criminal cases, are you willing to let Kurtis Wilder "learn the ropes" while armed robbers, rapists and murderers appear before him? Vote for Jerone Farmer on November 3rd.