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