12 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, April 18, 2006
ARTS
Author provides
dark, surreal satire
4
By Alexandra Jones
Daily Arts Writer
BOOKS PR VIEW
Performance artist and author Karen
Finley has a knack for provoking contro-
versy, whether she'sc
body in chocolate
or being persecuted
for her art by for-
mer Senator Jesse
Helms (N.C.-R).
Now she's written
covering her naked
Karen Finley
Thursday at 7 p.m.
At the Pendleton Room
in the Michigan Union
"George & Mar-
tha," a sharp political satire depicting
one bawdy night in the fictional affair
between President George W. Bush and
deposed homemaker Martha Stewart.
Finley will perform a dramatized read-
ing of her work in the Michigan Union's
Pendleton Room Thursday night.
"'George and Laura' wouldn't be so
interesting," Finley said with a laugh. "I
was interested that at the same time that
George (Bush) was going to be going
to the White House again and at the
Republican convention, that the female
of the same level of celebrity interest
was Martha Stewart, going to jail." Fin-
ley was also intrigued by the disparity
between Stewart's harsh punishment for
a relatively minor infraction while Bush
was putting the Iraq war in motion with
almost no opposition.
Drawing parallels between her char-
acters, the feuding couple in Edward
Albee's play "Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?" and the United States's found-
ing President and First Lady, Finley cre-
ates a satirical portrait of contemporary
American politics and values. Celebrity
culture, the corrupt political machine
behind the Iraq war and the cheapening
of sexuality all come to a head in the fic-
tional tryst between Bush and an about-
to-be-jailed Stewart. The story is told
from Stewart's prim-yet-foul-mouthed,
bitterly condescending vantage.
"Martha has an arc; she has a real-
ization," Finley said. "We're kind of
becoming Martha and seeing it (from
her point of view)."
"George wouldn't write," she added.
"George wouldn't reflect."
The encounter described in "George
& Martha" didn't really happen, but
the relationship between its two char-
acters illuminates truths about the rela-
tionships between the people and our
president, America and Iraq.
"Whether it's George and his iden-
tification with his mother ... and his
relationship to his father. He's never
really been loved ... I feel his fascina-
tion with Saddam Hussein is Oedipal,"
Finley said. "He's disguising in his
relationship with Saddam Hussein his
own wish for patricide."
"George & Martha" was originally
created as a performance piece star-
ring Finley and Neil Medlyn, but Finley
saw the potential for a literary version as
well. "The concept is naturalistic," Finley
explained. "I've appropriated the (style
of) The New Yorker. The drawings in the
book work as a psychotic break, the way
the cartoons happen when you're reading
The New Yorker"
Finley's ornate doodles sometimes
illustrate ideas or objects mentioned in
the dialogue (such a rear view of George's
diapered backside), but the drawings also
bring to visual life Stewart's merciless,
stream-of-consciousness narration - the
line of scented baby wipes she muses
about creating while using one to wipe
her mouth after fellating the president.
Finley's narrative and its illustrations
are indeed graphic, but the sexual and
emotional frankness of its characters
creates one of the most satisfying aspects
of this multilayered satire. George is an
intentional screw-up who could never
live up to the expectations of anyone.
Martha is a self-proclaimed "ball-
buster" and control freak who wants to
mother the world with her fluffy Kmart
towels and tart recipes; she's drawn to
Bush precisely because of his abysmal
ineptitude. At the end of the first section,
when Martha has shaved and ornament-
ed George's genitalia with glitter, feath-
ers and red, white and blue toothpaste,
and serving him with a baby bottle full
of beer, she proclaims, "I make a god-
damn decent living as the dominating
mother you fear, loathe and despise"
But this grotesquerie serves its pur-
pose. Besides making readers think,"Pol-
iticians and multimillionaires - they're
just like us!" with its mentions of George
and Martha's Oedipally charged sex play,
the book allegorizes the characters's clan-
destine interior relationship: "What those
characters represent are the feminine and
the masculine ... the comfort and the cri-
sis (in America)."Finley said.
Though they're uniquely her own,
Finley's theories about the psychoemo-
tional machinations behind our current
administration provide a way to explain
America's disturbing social and politi-
cal state. Despite its bold premise, the
real allure of "George & Martha" isn't
just a polemic, but "radical for the left,
disturbing for the right," Finley said.
"The internal mechanisms that jump-
start public policy - that's what we're
seeing at work here."
Don't be sad, Moz.
THE SURE THING
SUDDENLY SEXUAL MORRISSEY SURPRISINGLY DULL
By Evan McGarvey
Associate Arts Editor
MUSIC REVI EW
The two most overhyped parts of growing up?
Easy: losing your virginity and going to college.
Morrissey, the maudlin, sarcastic and delight-
fully puffed-up bard of Manchester (feeling
slighted by Prince's apparent
lyrical emulation, he once
referred to The Purple One
as "Ponce") and the progeni-
tor of every contemporary
literate, melodic troubled
boy singer, is famously celi-
Morrissey
The Ringleader of
the Tormentors
Attack
untouched.
The Ringleader of Tormentors, the 10th solo
album from Moz, could finally be the exit ticket
from Morrissey's dark little exile. Two songs
into the album, he starts singing about "explo-
sive kegs between my legs." For the early stretch
of the disc he actually sings happily about
thighs, glances and sweet, sweet release.
Wait.
Did he finally give in? Is it over?
It sure sounds like it. The rich, dappled pro-
duction of Tormentors was all made during
Morrissey's extended stay in Rome with help of
famed post-punk producer Tony Visconti and
even legendarily lush Italian producer Ennio
Morricone. The melodies themselves certainly
sound a bit more experienced: guitar solos lash-
ing out, drum fills snapping. Musicially, at least,
the album shows portions of uninhibited punch.
New Morrissey is loose, loose-lipped and already
a little sappy: "I entered nothing / and nothing
entered me / till you came / with the key."
Damn, that's some revelatory love.
But right after the halfway point, right after
Morrissey has torn through surprisingly up-tempo,
sunny licks like the earnest, almost arena-ready
stomp of "In The Future When All's Well," the old
pope of mope comes calling.
Even this beautiful Roman holiday comes
crashing down around Moz's inner demons. The
dependable upbeat backing band on the album
- Jesse Tobias on guitars, Matt Chamberlain
on drums and the pleasingly indispensable
Michael Farrell playing everything from piano
to trombone - only makes the fall from sunny,
sexual, liberate Moz to the old-hat, dry, moody
Manchester boy a little more forced.
We liked Tormentors when Morrissey was
happily playing in the Roman sunshine, we
don't need him to chime in with old hook-y mor-
als like: "Dear God when will I be / Where I
should be?"
No, no, no, no. When you lose your V-card,
you don't get to go acting like a timid young
squire again. You can pout and whine, but act
like you've been there before. And yeah, the
second half of the album is reliable and witty
Morrissey. But after the breezy sojurn in his
newly liberated internal space, pushing us out
so easily makes it look like the whole sex thing
was no big deal. Bummer.
And if anyone thought Morrissey might come
back to the released grin of the album's first half,
along comes the aborted catharthis of "I Just Want
to See the Boy Happy"
You're not the only one, buddy.
t
bate. It's his hook as a songwriter. It was the
main hook of The Smiths.
In interviews he'd say things like "the last per-
son to see me naked was the doctor who brought
me into this cruel world." He'd reference Keats
and Yeats while guitarist Johnny Marr would
stir up digital flakes with delay pedal abuse.
Then The Smiths broke up and he stayed bitter,
churning out dependable albums of ennui and
grief, guilt and literary obsessions.
But all the while, he stayed innocent. Mis-
erable and over the top, but as of yet physically
'U' alum gymnast hits Hollywood
Get ready for life after Michigan with a free year
of membership in the Alumni Association.
By Sarah Schwartz
Daily Arts Writer
And they say the college years are the best of our lives.
Life has only gotten better - and busier - for Uni-
versity alum Calli Ryals. After graduating in 2004 with
several gymnastic records to her name, including a No.
I ranking in America in 2002, Ryals landed her first
feature film role in "Stick It."
She plays Gloria Javier, a rival gymnast to the film's
protagonist. Ryals jumped at the chance to challenge
herself in a new activity.
"Gymnastics had been my thing at Michigan, and I
had been really committed to that all throughout high
school and all throughout college," she said. "It really
didn't leave time for exploring other things, so I still had
a lot of things I wanted to try after college."
After moving to California, Ryals became a per-
former at SeaWorld. She then found work on the cult TV
series "Veronica Mars."
According to Ryals, the casting directors were Look-
ing for extras when, following the lead of some of her
performer friends at SeaWorld, she showed up for an
audition. Remarking on her physical resemblance to
the show's star Kristin Bell, the directors hired her as a
stunt double.
The experience piqued her interested in the enter-
tainment industry, and she eventually read about a new
gymnastics movie in the California papers.
"I called Disney and found out (who was) casting it
and I told them I had done gymnastics in college and
had been taking acting classes, and I came in to read."
Despite her impressive gymnastics background, Ryals
still had to learn one unfamiliar move for the movie.
"I had to learn how to fall on the beam, which I'm not
used to ... I had to fall like I was getting injured. So I
worked with the stunt coordinator to teach me how to
make it look real without hurting myself," she said.
The beam was not the only event Ryals got to per-
form. "I did a little bit of everything," she said. "But
unfortunately, not as much as I wanted to."
But she did, however, get a say in the moves for her
onscreen events.
"The director (Jessica Bendinger, a writer for 'Sex
and the City') did a lot of research on the sport ... she
really wanted to get it accurately depicted," Ryals said.
"But she wasn't picky on what I had to do, so I kind of
had some creative leeway on what I got to do, and that
made it fun."
Fun is a great word to describe Ryals's new life. She's
now taking acting classes and auditioning for a few pilot
series.
She's also involved with the University of Michi-
gan Entertainment Coalition, a group of alumni in the
entertainment industry who act as a resource for people
interested in the field.
Between acting work, though, she's keeping busy.
"I have a job using, ironically, my economics degree.
So instead of doing the cliched waiting-tables thing, I
am learning some new stuff in that direction too."
With "Stick It" under her belt, Ryals has a hopeful
outlook for her future in California and all that the
entertainment industry has to offer.
"I'm definitely going to keep going with it," she said.
"This is a really great opportunity that came along at a
really great time and opened a lot of doors for me - just
meeting the directors and the writers. And I loved it; it
was so much fun."
Free for all Class of 2006 graduates.
40
'Brokeback'
stays vital
By Imran Syed
Daily Arts Writer
What more can be said about "Broke-
back Mountain?"
Does there remain a single person who
has not debated, questioned, pondered, vili-
fied, applauded or at
least heard about Ang Brokeback
Lee's widely lauded Mountain
drama concerning
two gay cowboys? Focus
The film has been dis-
cussed to death, not least because it came
. « - -V1--~ft,
psyche?
In case you haven't heard, the film cen-
ters around two cowboys - Ennis (Heath
Ledger, "The Patriot") and Jack (Jake
Gyllenhaal, "The Day After Tomorrow")
- who fall in love while working together
in the summer of '63 in a rural outpost that
lends the film its name. Ennis and Jack
struggle with their feelings, each knowing
all too well the repercussions if their secret
relationship was made public.
In a time when homosexuality was
more than just frowned upon (the '60s),
and in a place where it's still frowned upon
(rural America), the young men must pre-
tend the other doesn't exist and somehow
move on with their lives. Each gets mar-
ried, has kids and settles down hundreds
of miles away from the other. Yet even
against their own wishes, they continue
to meet at Brokeback several times a year,
aggravating the frustration of their inabil-
ity to leave behind a life they clearly can-
Members get career services, relocation assistance,
alumni connections, networlking and more.
Sign up at commencement ticket piClkup,
trailblazing and controversial, "Broke-
back" at its heart is still a love story.
While for the time being it may be
important to emphasize that this is a gay
- I