8 -The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 23, 2002
ARTS
Baxter says goodbye
to local literary scene
Provocative Indian music comes
to campus with 'Sangam 2002'
01
By Ricky Lax
Daily Arts Writer
University Prof. Charles Baxter bids
Ann Arbor's literary scene goodbye
with a farewell reading of his latest
book, "The Feast Of Love," a National
Book Award finalist, tonight at 7 p.m.
in Borders on South State Street. Baxter
sat down with Daily Arts to talk about
his work, Ann Arbor and love.
The Michigan Daily:
What will you miss most
about Ann Arbor?
Charles Baxter:
Somebody I knew used
to say that the world
comes to Ann Arbor,
which is not exactly
CHAF
BAX'
At Boi
Tonight a
Love," would you insist they film it
in Ann Arbor?
CB: Once you sell your book, you
don't have say over things like that. The
people at Miramax thought that they
were going to make a movie out of it.
The plan was to shoot it in Toronto
because you can make films more
cheaply there. I did want them to shoot
some exteriors here.
TMD: Nothing came of the movie?
CB: The director
couldn't write a screen-
play that she was satis-
RLES fied with. There's a
TER director who made a film
called "Love and Death
rders in Long Island," who
t 7 p.m. seemed to be interested
in it. I'll believe it when it
happens.
TMD: Are the characters in "The
Feast of Love" based on real people?
CB: No, they're all imaginary.
TMD: What makes them so real?
CB: Well, that's the trick of writing a
novel. You take features, one small thing
of a person you know, one other feature
of somebody else, and then you put
these things on one character. You add
one detail after another until the charac-
ter starts to look real.
TMD: There's a lot of sex in "The
Feast of Love," heterosexual on
right, but just about any-
thing you want in music, books, or
movies, that kind of artistic/intellectu-
al life, is here.
TMD: Does that make Ann Arbor a
good place to write?
CB: I've always had good colleagues
and friends here, so I've always had a
community I could show my work to.
TMD: Your book, "The Feast of
Love" is filled with local references;
Stadium Boulevard, Pioneer High
School, Ypsilanti. If someone was to
make a movie of "The Feast of
Courtesy of Random House
Author Charles Baxter.
page 7, and lesbian by page 46, but
it's always fitting and never awk-
ward to read.
CB: It's not particularly explicit and
it's not there in order to get the reader
aroused. It's funny or it's meant to tell
you more about the characters.
TMD: (Defensive) Not that I read a
lot of romance novels or have a lot to
compare it to.
CB: Of course not. I wanted to
write a novel that was about romance,
which somebody could read without
feeling ashamed.
TMD: Do you actually know peo-
ple that have had sex on the Big
House's 50-yard line, as you describe
in your book?
CB: I saw some people having sex in
the Big House when my son was 10. It
was a Sunday afternoon, around one o-
clock, anPmy son and I were biking
around ... we biked into the stadium,
and there was a couple there, doing it
on the 50-yard line. And my son said,
"What are they doing," and I said,
"They're mating."
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
MANIPULATING OPINION
Agents planted in the
U.S. by North Viet-
nam's allies played
on strained race rela-
tions in this country,
saying: "Poor Blacks
are fighting a White
man's war!" Despite
statistics to the con-
trary, the protestors
fell for it.
GARY LILLIE & ASSOC. REALTORS
WWW.GARY LLLE.COM
By Archana Ravi
Daily Arts Writer
"Sangam" in Hindi, means "to come together." It is a
powerful, resonant word that reverberates through
music, peoples and entire cultures. This Friday,
"Sangam 2002: A Confluence of Streams" will bring all
of these elements together in an evening of classical
Indian music.
This particular concert will interweave the talents of
two highly acclaimed musicians, Grammy Award Win-
ner Pt Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Millenni-
um Award Winner Chitraveena N.
Ravikiran. It will also fuse together both
artists' respective regional music of India, SANGAM
namely Hindustani and Carnatic music CONFLU
styles. Bhatt will be playing the Mohan STR
Veena, while Ravikiran will be playing the
Nava-Chitraveena. At The Po
The Ann Arbor community is fortunate Friday
to have the opportunity to hear the work- y
ings of these two internationally renowned AID and S
musical geniuses. Bhatt, most famous for
his successful Indianizing of the Hawaiian
guitar, has traveled the world making appearances in
Madison Square Garden on the 50th anniversary of the
United Nations, Lincoln Center on the 125th anniver-
sary of Mahatma Gandhi and Royal Albert Hall in Lon-
don in the "BBC Proms 100 Years." He has even
0
E
ow
at
$1
'ul
participated in jazz and world music festivals, display-
ing his unbounded love for music. He has received such
prestigious awards as the Padmashree Academy Award,
the Sangeet Natak Award, the Musical Scientist Award
and the Grammy Award for his 1994 album, A Meeting
by the River.
At the age of two, Chitraveena N. Ravikiran was the
world's youngest performing musician. His brilliance
was revealed to the world when he identified, at age 2,
325 ragas (melodic scales) and 175 talas (rhythmic
cycles) to an audience of esteemed and eminent musi-
cians. He even answered technical ques-
tions about Carnatic music from music
maestro Ravi Shankar. When he first start-
2002: A ed his career as an artist, he was a concert
ENCE OF vocalist. However, when he discovered the
21-stringed slide instrument called the
AMS Chitraveena, there was no turning back. He
ver Center became one of the most sought-after Car-
t8 pm. natic concert artists, and still is to this day.
o p. He has been the first or youngest to receive
dehkaxom awards such as the Millennium festival
award, the Star of India, Sangeet Samraat,
among many others.
The event is being sponsored by Sulehka.com, an
online Indian community, as well as the Association for
India's Development (AID), a'non-profit organization
that supports social development projects towards an
improved life for the poor in India.
They Might Be Giants rock the
Mi~chigan with oddball songs
Si
By Thomas Burke
Daily Arts Writer
With a career older than most college
freshmen, They Might Be Giants have
held true to their nerd ethos, even
though horn-rimmed glasses have fallen
in and out and then back into style. The
vocal tandem of the Johns (Linnell and
Flansburgh) along with the catchy pop
confections, quirky melodies and some
deranged, caffeine-powered accordion
have endeared the New York City duo
to crowds throughout the '80s and '90s.
Children were the theme of the night
with The Giants promoting No!, their
first children's album. Their eccentric
melodies have been incorporated with
simple educational rhymes for a CD fit
to entertain the entire family. "That
means no swearing," quipped John Lin-
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nell, co-founder and accordionist Mon-
day night as TMBG took the stage at
the Michigan Theater.
Although most of TMBG's set con-
sisted of idiosyncratic
pop children's songs,
they also trucked out the
classics. A five-minute THEY M
acoustic flamenco guitar GI
solo preceded "Istanbul
(Not Constantinople)," At The
ending with of a poppy Tb
jam session and "Doctor Mon.,
Worm," received as Clear
much applause as laughs.
They Might Be
Giants' set transformed the Michigan
Theater into a comedy club. Linel's
and Flansburgh's wits and abilities to
work the audience kept the crowd roar-
ing. Flansburgh attempted a seance
and spiritual possession on the drum-
mer, conjuring up impressive Stevie
Wonder and Grand Funk Railroad
beats with a grand finale of Animal-
style drumming (The Muppet, not the
Brit-invasion outfit).
The jokes did not stop with the
I
vli
AT
CM
iea
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Ct
music. During the encore, TMBG
turned on a radio and attempted to play
along with a random song. Finding
only commercials and elevator music,
Flansburgh responded
with, "Oh, I get it, radio
here sucks"
.GHT BE They Might Be Giants
NTS ended with the thirty sec-
ond version of "Boss of
Michigan Me," the theme song to
ater FOX's "Malcolm in the
)ct. 21 Middle," concluding an
hannel evening of witty banter
and PBS rock.
Adding to the surreal
fifth birthday atmosphere of the show,
the opening duo's ultra-simplistic jin-
gles and anti-capitalist propaganda eeri-
ly heightened the laugh factor of the
night. Consisting of a nine-year old
female drummer, a synthesizer played
by her father, and second-hand slide
show presented by her mother, The Tra-
chtenburg Family Slideshow added fast-
paced pop tunes, culturally subversive
lyrics and vocals verging on spoken
word and for instant laughs.
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