a 2B - Thursday, February 12, 2009 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com CALENDAR The Daly Arts guide to upcoming events in Ann Arbor and the surrounding area. Today 2.12.09 Arts & the Environment Exhi- bition: Earth 12 p.m. At the Duderstadt Center (Media Union), Free Penny W. Stamps Lecture: Anne Pasternack, "Public Art Then & Now" 5 p.m. At the Michigan Theater Free The Show-Off 7:30 p.m. At the Mendelssohn Theater $9 to $24 for students Tomorrow 2.13.09 The Concert Series: Jeff Parker and Sam Barsh at Canterbury House 9 pm. At Canterbury House, 721 E. Huron Street $10 Concert and Symphony Band Chamber Winds 8 p.m. At Waigreen Drama Center Free Saturday 2.14.09 Valentine's Day Star Party at Matthaei Botanical Gardens 7 p.m. At Matthaei Botanical Gardens Free for students Lecture: Inna Naroditskaya 2 p.m. At Burton Memorial Tower, Room 506 Free Sunday 2..09 Batsheva Dance Company 8 p.m. At Hill Auditorium $18-42, rush tickets available for students Please send all press releases and event information to arts@michigandaily.com. After the disbanding of Michigan Action Party, MSA remains irrelevant. 1:1 For Valentine's Day, Michelle Obama gives Barack the stimulus he really wanted. 3:1 T.I. attempts to escape from prison by disguising himself as a calculator. 10,000:1 A notable Ann Arbo rite gives five answers to a curious question. u Macklin Smith Professor, English Department What are your five favorite works of poetry, in five different forms? Shakespearean Sonnet: "Sonnet 73" ("That time of year thou mayst in me behold") is an astonishing, perfect poem: everything works together - the words, the syntax, the figures, the rhythms, the sounds - so that we imagine a new way of seeing time. Time isn'tchronological or cyclical in 73; it's the subjec- tive appreciation of the fragile season, day, moment. This is one of my favorite poems, and I quote or allude to it several times in mybook, "Transplant." 4-beat poem: A tie: "Beowulf" and "Piers Plowman." Both the Old English and Middle English masterpieces are enduringly entertaining even as they ask us to consider the vanity of our fondest wishes and bravest actions. These poems are easy to listen to, and would have been delivered orally, but they are difficult to study, and were quite obviously studied works. Long rhyming poem: Another tie: Dante's "Divine Comedy" and Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." Despite its title (which refers to thingsworking out rightly, not to laughs), the former is far more serious, the latter is far funnier. But both explore the essential issues. These are poems that take a long time to read and reward every minute. They never get old either. Amazing. Free verse poet: Several of the anonymous composers (and translators) of the Psalms from the King James Bible qualify, but perhaps the prize should go to Walt Whitman. Some of Whitman's poems are horrible, but when he's on, he's perfect. Among the more recent poets I love are John Ashbery (when he's on, which is only sometimes) for the way he captures how the mind can get lost in its own ruminations, and Elizabeth Bishop (who is always on) for the way she meticulously details the incidence of beauty and mystery in a context of loss. Hip-hop song: For sheer entertainment, Busta Rhymes, "Woo Hah! Got Yc u All in Check," but for thematic coherence, prosodic versatility, and "message," Outkast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, "Reset." ONLINE GAMES OF THE WEEK RAPID WARS In this cool remake of "Asteroids," you fly a constantly shooting ship around the screen blasting strange light forma- tions before they catch you and sap your health. Time the collection of power-ups to maximize their efficacy, and dodge those damn orange squares. Find it at: http://tinyurl.com/be7qqg SUPER IACKER 2 This game is "Jenga" meets "Snood." Stack some smiling polygons on top of each other without letting any them fall off the screen. It's a challenging exercise in balance, patience and problem solving. A single level could take an entire class to figure out. Happy stacking. Find it at: http://tinyurl.com/9fdpr7 I SINGLE REVIEWS CRACK A BOTTLE EMINEM (FEAT. DR. DRE AND 50 CENT) Yeah, Shady's back. Back again. You'd think this charade of disappear- ing for awhile onlyto reassert his relevance by infecting the airwaves with an offensive single would prove to be a bit trite by now. But to the delight of millions of his fans, it hasn't. After a witty boxing-style introduction, a piano-backed loop creates a nice flow that displays Mathers's knack for crafting vulgar yet intelligent verses and an amusing chorus. Enjoy it now, before the radio, clubs and frat houses start playing it on repeat. DAVID RIVA FORK IN THE ROAD NEIL YOUNG Neil Young his always been something of a political loose'cannon, using his music to spew impassioned rants about issues he cares about one minute and forgets the next. The rush-released "Fork in the Road," in which Neil satirizes America's current economic woes, falls squarely into this classic tradition. It's amateurish, regressive and embarrassingly topical. And it rocks. Built on a crack garage riff, it's a tragic comedy of lines like "There's a bailout coming / but it's not for you" and "We salute the troops / They're all still there / in a fucking war." When Neil says "Download this / Sounds like shit," it's difficult to argue with him. DAVID WATNICK by eorge Kely S ardvddo dbounds in this 1920s (omedy where a little bit of bluff qoes dlong wdy Directed by Philip Kerr Department of Theatre & Drama February 12 at 7:30 PM February 13 & 14 at 8 PM February 15 at 2 PM Mendelssohn Theatre Tickets $24 & $18 Students $9 w/lD League Ticket Office 154-l764-255S8 MusicTheatre & Dance ' www.music.umich.edu 0 'BROKEN SWORD: SHADOW OF THE TEMPLARS' (1995), PLAYSTATION A puzzle game with a sense of humor By ANDREW LAPIN Daily Film Editor Sevenyears before Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" made the Knights Templar popular, little- known British software company Revolution Studios released a top-tier mystery adventure game called "Broken Sword: The Shad- ow of the Templars." The two works are so eerily similar that, were the game to be released right now for the first time, it would be run out of town for piggybacking on a stale formula. Like "Code," "Broken Sword" also stars an American in Paris who finds himself knee-deep in an international conspiracy to locate a historic treasure. Like Robert Langdon, the protagonist in "Sword," George Stobbart, is assisted on his journey by a lovely French woman as he fights to uncover a secret that's ferocious- ly guarded by the Knights Tem- plar. Come to think of it, these similarities are pretty striking - maybe Revolution Studios should join the ever-expanding rank of authors and theologians who've filed plagiarism charges against Mr. Brown. Despite its disappointing lack of crazy professors claiming that Jesus fathered a child, "Broken Sword" is still worth trying post- "Code." Like all graphic adven- ture games, it's heavy on text and problem-solving logic. The player takes control of Stobbart right after he witnesses a bomb blast at a Parisian cafe in the opening cut scene.. Stobbart then wanders through luxury hotels, breaks into muse- ums ' and meanders through exotic environments - like an Irish pub and a street market in Cairo - in his quest to unravel the meaning of a mysterious ancient scroll. Along the way, he picks up a hand buzzer, a matchbook and many other similarly random items which he will later use in an unconventional fashion to uncov- er clues. Players who are familiar with the point-and-clickgenre through "Myst" and "Escape from Mon- key Island" know that the thrill of such games comes from their many "a-ha!" moments - those instances when, after travers- ing the same area for minutes on end with no clue what to do, the player gets an out-of-nowhere breakthrough and suddenly knows exactly how to progress. Most of the puzzles in "Broken "She's like a part of the furni- Sword" are frustrating to the ture," says the receptionist. "You point of insanity, but with tough- mean she's been here for a long er conundrums come more sat- time?" Stobbart asks. isfying "a-ha!" moments. Still, if "No," comes the reply. "I mean anyone ever claims to have beaten there isn't a man in this hospital who hasn't lain down on top of her." Long before The American masses may g r have never heard of the "Broken 'Da Vinci Code,' Sword" franchise, but it's a huge hit in Europe. The game was a top there was seller across the pond, and it has spawned three sequels to date, 'Broken Sword.' the most recent of which was "The Angel of Death" in 2006. Its successors have only received minimal exposure in America, this game in its entirety without and some versions of the games even glancing at a walkthrough, were released under different that's a lie. titles or haven't made it over here Stobbart encounters several at all. Perhaps it's just as well. colorful characters during his Judging by the progression of the traipses through Paris, and they box art, the games have grown all come equipped with droll, increasingly more morbid and characteristically un-PC wit: less whimsical. The game's sharp dialogue is its Still, the original game has main attraction, so it's a good enjoyed lasting popularity. It was thing many of the puzzles revolve ported to the Game Boy Advance around striking up the right con- in 2002, and next month a "Direr- versations with the right people. tor's Cut" version is coming to Take a level set in a hospital, Nintendo's Wii and DS systems, where Stobbart grills a reception- with new puzzles and fleshed-out ist about the identity of one of the plot details. It should be one of nurses. the year's essential releases. 0 0 0 6 40