The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Friday, December 1 2006 - 5

SHEI magazine to
host annual bash

Our fair University flat out
sprawls with opportunity. From
theater to
business to SHEIFEST
art to politi-
cal activism, Saturday at 7p.m.
there's no $7
shortage of At the Great Lakes
it. But where Room at Palmer
it. ut were Commons
these exam-
ples can boast of multiple, con-
sistently productive groups with
longhistories, in the field of litera-
ture publications the waters are
significantly choppier.
Various student groups have
attempted, successfully and
unsuccessfully, to put together
viable outlets for poets, fiction
writers, fashionistas, aspiring
Lester Bangs, photographers and
generally anyone with an opinion
and a computer. But recently there
has yet to be a magazine-style
publication strong enough to hold
it all together.
SHEI Magazine, a student-run
multicultural lifestyle publica-
tion, has the answer.
Founded the winter of 1999,
SHEI Magazine first started as an
Asian American oriented maga-
zine. Since then, though, it has
adopted an all-encompassing aes-
thetic.
"It's really reflective of how
the staff who work on SHEI have
changed with the times," Phyllis
Wong, Art and Design senior and
the magazine's editor in chief,
said.
As with many student groups,
money is an ongoing issue. Print-
ing costs for an approximately 100
page (full color, mind you) issue
can reach as high as $5,000, so
fundraising is crucial.
Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Great
Lakes Room of Palmer Commons
will host the magazine's annual
SHEIFEST, a blitz of all things
swank and chic. Tickets are just $7,
and it's also the most convenient
place to pick up the $5 mag. Dress
code is "dress to impress" and the
first 150 people will receive a com-

plementary gift bag.
Student acts will include Dance
2XS, Encore, Element 1 and NVR
Flow. DJs Tricksta and Blackout
will be spinning, and expect a fab-
ulous fashion show, complete with
VIP seating.
SHEI Magazine makes its mark
as a legitimate distributor of cul-
ture as it relates to the student
body. Its visual and creative ele-
ments are what distinguish it as a
legit publication. Its high-quality,
gloss with layouts that are simply
spectacular. Spreads range from
nanotechnology to fashion trends,
and the fact that it's published just
once or twice a year gives the edi-
tors plenty of time to put out the
best product possible.
"We sort of switched things
around this year by releasing a
web issue for the fall, as opposed
An under-the-
radar mag for
the masses.
to two print issues," Wong said.
"Our focus has always been put-
ting out the best quality magazine
we can."
The web issue will be launched
the day of SHEIFEST.
Because of the magazine's limi-
tations, the editors tend to focus
more on overarching themes and
trends rather than specific events.
Content is decided through "brain-
storming and intermittent revela-
tions," Shiori Ito, LSA junior and
fashion editor, said.
The editors' focus is on a cen-
tral theme capable of tying each
issue together.
The editors hope to maintain its
niche as the one of the only stu-
dent publications addressing cul-
ture, from pop to fashion.
SHEI Magazine needs your
support, and SHEIFEST will
undoubtedly prove to be terrific
entertainment.
Our campus needs publications
like this one. Don't let 'em down.

Memory
redux
A 5,000-YEAR-OLD ICEMAN AND TWO
LOVERS TAKE CENTER STAGE

By WHITNEY DIBO
Daily Arts Writer
What was he doing? Where are
you now? What does nakedness
remind us of?
These ques- Mnemonic
tions repeat Todaat7p
themselves anda11p.m. and
incessant in Saturday at 7p.m.
thisweekend's Free
startlingly At the
BasementArts Walgreen Center
production,
"Mnemonic." A complex study of
memory, our attachment to the
past and our ability to decipher
reality from imagination, "Mne-
monic" succeeds in transporting
the audience into the realm of the
mind.
The show is a careful combina-
tion of precise technology, a com-
plex script and some heavy acting,
allowing Music School senior Ste-
phen Sposito to assert himself as
a promising young director in the
theater department.
The play's centerpiece is the
shriveled body of a 5,000-year-old
iceman, discovered in the Alps by
travelers in 1991. As a dedicated
scientist tries to piece together the
enigmatic past of this Neolithic
John Doe, the show simultane-
ously tracks the sleepless nights of
Virgil, a modern man desperately
searching for his runaway girl-
friend Alice.
Alice has her own demons to
chase. She hasn't been seen since
her mother's funeral nine months
ago.
Just what exactly do these
seemingly unconnected stories
have in common? The answer is
everything - or at least the memo-
ry of everything.

For starters, the iceman and
Virgil are played by the same actor.
The naked body of the iceman is
also the naked body of Virgil, lying
in his bed waiting for the phone to
ring. Of course, Alice is long gone
by this point, traveling through
Europe on a fruitless pilgrimage
to find her father. She travels from
Paris to Warsaw to Riga to Kiev
trying, it seems, to grab hold of
her past and free herself from the
present.
What was he doing?
The question is posed over and
over again by the scientist scruti-
nizing the Iceman's body, spread
out naked (seriously) on the lab
bench. Shielding the body from
a barrage of pesky reporters, the
scientist tries in vain to convey
the profound importance of this
anthropological find. But his
words fall on deaf ears - one of the
reporters even asks how much the
body is worth.
Fade to Virgil's dark apartment.
When the phone finally rings
after nine months, Alice's face is
actually projected onto his white
T-shirt when he picks up the
phone. The perils of a bad phone
connection are gravely illustrated
as Virgil tries to make out Alice's
hysterical voice as her image flick-
ers on his chest. The connection is
lost, and her face disappears. The
scene is a true demonstration of
the theatrical possibilities when
fine acting meets technological
creativity.
Where are you now?
A desperate Virgil asks the ques-
tion repeatedly when Alice calls
back five minutes later. But since
it's only 30 minutes into the play,
Alice has plenty of time to relaythe
details of her nine-month odyssey

In Basement Arts's Mnemonic, be prepared for a surreal journey.

before telling her boyfriend any
concrete information.
Alice's journey began when she
discovered her father, whom she
believed dead since childhood, is
actually alive. Or at least that is
what aguest at her mother's funer-
al told her. Without hesitating, she
took all the couple's money and
hopped a train to Paris. She stag-
gers in and out of European coun-
tries, gathering shreds of evidence
about her father (he was a Jewish
piano player, apparently), only to
land cold and broke in a hotel room
in Northern Italy. Ironically, the
same town in which the iceman is
being studied.
The show continues this way,
switching back and forth between
the iceman and this phone con-
versation, asking if they are really
that different.
One day, these problems
between Alice and Virgil - the
crisis of getting her home, find-
ing out where in she is - will be as
old and lost and the iceman on the

scientist's table.
It is this very notion that drives
Alice to uncover her roots, and
rummage for bits and pieces of
her father's life. The only problem
is that her more recent memories
stand in the way, and ultimately
Virgil is able to coax her back to
the present.
And what does nakedness
remind of us? It reminds us of
our vulnerability, of our universal
sameness - from the Iceman to
Alice.
It also makes for some tricky
staging to ensure that Virgil/Ice-
man is not exposed full-frontal to
the audience.
A careful mediation on memory
and the incomprehensible vast-
ness of the past, "Mnemonic" is
the student-directed production
not to miss this season. It's an
extraordinary feat of theatrical
philosophy, innovative technology
and a culmination of four years'
hard work on the part of student
director Sposito.


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"Building Your Personal Brand:
Do people know what you stand for?"
Susan Brennan
Director, Manufacturing Business Office
Ford Motor Company
Monday, December 4, 2006
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Ross School of Business, Room E0540
www.tmi.umich.edu