4 10 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 2, 2004 ARTS Citizens guided to success by 'Action' Kidman's 'Birth' fails miserably By Phononzell Williams Daily Arts Writer 4 By Sarah Zarowny Daily Arts Writer Trained by Saul Alinsky, whose own book, "Rules for Radicals," is widely con- sidered the citizen's blueprint for grass- roots organizing, Michael Gecan has worked as an organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation for the past 25 years. He has helped citizen groups get off the ground in Chicago, Philadelphia, Bal- timore and, most Going prominently, was a Public: An founding organizer Organizer's of the East Brook- Guide to lyn Congregations Citizen (EBC) in New Action York. His book' By Michael Gecan "Going Public: An Organizer's Guide Anchor Books to Citizen Action," contains anecdotes and advice from his experience as an organizer to those who wish to become leaders in their own com- munities. Speaking from his time with the EBC, Gecan emphasizes that the mostimportant ingredient for a successful citizen group is power. This power is gained from build- ing support for the organization within the community through one-on-one meet- ings with local leaders and citizens. He argues that too often action groups are more interested in catchy slogans, raising money and working on the bureaucracy of the organization before they have any sig- nificant framework of support. Building a firm base takes time, energy and com- mitment, but the power gained by having popular support can be wielded to coerce the government into providing the desired results. Gecan emphasizes that such power is essential because of the divide between the world "as it is" and the world "as it should be." He claims that most citizens who take action believe that if their cause is just, they will find help, but the reality is that "merit means (almost) nothing." He insists that organizations lobbying for improvements in their neighborhoods must force officials to recognize and respect the power of the citizens. The author offers many personal examples of times when the local government was not interested in doing the right thing, but his action groups were able to create media attention and force the right thing to be done, albeit for the wrong reasons. Gecancloses thebook with an explana- tion of what he sees as the three sectors of society: the market, the public and the "relational." He defines the relational sec- tor as the area he works in, consisting of jobs in which people work to help other people. Presenting the strong and weak points of both the market and public sec- tors, he argues that each could gain from becoming a little more like the other. However, the relational sector needs to guard against becoming more like either the public or the market. Too often, Gecan claims, those who need assistance are forced to deal with an unbearable bureau- cracy, or find their needs divided into different categories with a different orga- nization for each need, like an assembly line, where they become unknown to their case workers - a faceless consumer. Depite being an interesting and easy read, as a how-to-guide "Going Public" leaves something to be desired. Gecan offers some general guidelines and funda- mentals to organizing: Build your power base, pick your fights, protest calmly and disband or regroup around another issue once the organization has accomplished its goal. However, the book may be more accurately described as a memoir, with significant portions dedicated to Gecan's own experience organizing EBC. Gecan also seems more interested in suggesting what issues are worthy of organization than in giving readers the tools to form their own action groups for whatever purpose they see fit. Nevertheless, stories of citizens' successes in improving their communities after long neglect from the government are heartening, and leave the reader feeling optimistic about the pos- sibility of change through citizen action. Those who are interested in challenging the status quo and implementing changes in local communities will find the book reassuring and empowering. One person dies; Another is born. Where does the soul go? Does it take form in the new life? "Birth," the new Nicole Kidman film attempts to answer these questions, and while the prem- Birth ise is superfi- At Quality 16 cially intriguing, and Showcase the plot falls flat. New Line Cinema Somewhere along the way the story takes a fatal turn to pedophilia, infi- delity and psychological detachment from reality. In the opening minutes of "Birth", a 10 year-old child, Sean (Cameron Bright), shows up at a birthday party claiming to be Anna's (Kidman) husband who died exactly 10 years ago. day. This immediately compli- cates Anna's plans to wed her fiance Joseph (Danny Hutson) and leads to a great deal of astonishment among Anna's friends and family. The juvenile Sean is creepy, and director Jonathan Glazer does a great job revealing the emotions of the characters in. The constant use of close-ups and scenes void of dia- logue allow the viewer to indulge in the film's images and raises the 4 Ah, poetry. Yes, this is what I want. Naughty words! tension of the plot. But after a bit, overusage of the close-up becomes ineffectual. The film begins to digress to a tale of insane, illogical events that completely destroy any measure of realism and makes the viewer withdraw completely into fantasy. In the film's most contreover- sial scene, Sean gets in the bathtub with Anna. From here on, "Birth" becomes excessively bizarre. This pattern of absurdity continues as Anna kisses the young Sean really believes that he is her husband rein- carnated. The script for "Birth" does a good job emphasizing the symbolic theme of birth, though it often truly seems unrelated to the main drivers of the plot itself. And, while the film has a few high points, the need to suspend reality while watching "Birth" ulti- mately makes the movie a failure. 4 0 Nightwish dons orchestrated metal Swans seek hope in emo-heartbreak By Evan MacKinder For the Daily The Black Swans' debut, Who Will Walk In the Darkness With You?, is an attempt to subtly attain the fluidity of jazz while remaining faithful to the South- ern comfort of country heartbreak. The album uses pianos and guitars to estab- The Black lish a sound that reflects the broadness Swans of heartbreak and refracts it into 12 Who Will Walk emo-country ballads. Unfortunately, In the Darkness the debut is marred by hackneyed lyr- with You? ics and Jerry DeCicca's dreary sound, Delmore which sends sweet, sorrowful harmo- nies into the backdrop of the record. DeCicca's quivering chin even leads the listener to question if his love, his life and his dignity did not all leave him behind in the parking lot of the studio just before the Swans pressed "record." Songs like "Black Swan Blues" and "Blue Skies" offer sounds that carry a softness with haunting guitar notes, subtle, reverberating bass lines or delicate percussion giving way to soulful violin interludes. But, while the sounds of the Swans successfully establish music that is more prone to celebrate the beauty of sadness than exploit it, they spiral into the background with lyrics like, "You say you still love me / But not like before / I'll never see blue skies anymore" Listeners might think that by combining the recent popu- larity of emo with the ubiquitous presence of country music would bring two sets of fans together. But Who Will Walk In The Darkness With You?, while having the potential to be a good album musically, finds itself stifled by trite lyrics that exploit the sadness of heartbreak. And with such a wealth of potential music and inspiration, such exploitation is not only a sin, but an extreme annoyance. By Garrick Kobylarz For the Daily Take the music of John Tesh or Yanni, add some eye makeup, black leather, dis- torted guitars and a female vocalist, and the result is Finnish rockers Nightwish. On their latest release Once, Nightwish attempt Nightwish to combine the Once sweeping orches- Roadrunnert tration of classi- cal music with the crunching, fierce sound of heavy metal. The problem is that Nightwish simply layers these two genres on top of each other, failing to combine them in new and innovative ways that would vault the individual styles to another plateau. Consequentially, the songs grow cheesy and mundane, displaying nothing more than basic musical competence on the part of the band. The songs might be good background music for an animated sci-fi movie, but fail to hold listeners for a 70-minute, standalone album. Predictability should be the enemy of a musical group, not its bedfellow. There's a big difference between being a band that consistently operates within a particular style of music, and being a band that does the same damn thing in every song. Lead singer Tarja Turunen's voice is unquestioningly beautiful and solid, sounding more appropriate for operatic work than this metal-sympho- ny amalgamation, but her inflection is always the same and every song is guar- anteed to be doubled up multiple times. Things only seem to get worse when bassist Marco Hietala provides backup vocals in songs like "Wish I Had an Angel" and "Planet Hell." His voice makes one wonder if former Styx front- man Dennis DeYoung was invited to the studio to drop a few lyrics in homage to "Mr. Roboto." When a band has a keyboardist, a whole new world of sounds that opens up. Unfortunately, pianist Tuomas Holo- painen does not bother to explore this range, settling instead for unaltered, preprogrammed samples or bland piano lines. Much like the keyboards, guitar- ist Emppu Vuorinen strums phrases that are nothing more than overly exploited power chords with the occasional run up the fret board and high-pitched wham- my-bar dive. The guitar solo in "Ghost Love Score" only serves to reinforce the mediocrity of Vuorinen's playing. The more than 50 members of the orchestra neglect to add anything more than rudimentary chords and tawdry accents. The light, delicate timbre of the orchestra takes too much away from the biting crunch of the guitar, water- ing down any potential interest the riffs may have. Potential is the keyword with Nightwish. They have it, but need to expand their chops and abandon the basics-of-metal safety net.