The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 3B

Cougars, couples
and concubines

or those of you in search
of a high-quality blow job,
I have good news: Charles
Barkley is out of jail after a three-
day sentence
for his Decem-
ber DUI. So
just follow.
Barkley, who
will likely be
wearing the
blue-and-red
jumpsuit he MARK
served his sen- SCHULTZ
tence in, to his
fellatio-apt concubine and you'll
be set. He'll surely be visiting her
for at least six to eight minutes for
the next couple days.
Sadly, Barkley's love life is rela-
tively normal compared to Chris
Brown and Rihanna's. Though my
tolerance for volatile celebrity rela-
tionships is very high - hence my
writing this column - even I'm sick
of hearing about the romantic woes
of these two. But writing about
gossip without mentioningthem
would be like talking about "Twin
Peaks" without discussing cherry-
pie-loving Special Agent Cooper.
So here it goes: First, the two get
back together. Then, to the chagrin
of Daddy Brown and already-over-
worked members of Social Services,
the two get married and begin
recording a duet. Outspoken celeb-
rities - not sure why I even both-
ered adding "outspoken" - across
the country are weighing in on the
couple. Oprah recently said - from
her structurally fortified soapbox -
"Getyourself some counseling, take
care of yourself."
Jesse McCartney, apparently
ina hallucinatory state where he
thinks it's 2004 and people still
care about him, had this to say:
"From what I've seen and from
what I know of (Brown), he's
always been a gentleman." Yes, and
I've heard that Mussolini charac-
ter wasn't such a bad guy either.
I'm not sure how long the two will
stay together anyway once Ri-Ri
learns the woman who sent Brown
those lascivious text messages was
none other than Brown's manager
Tina Davis. Which means there's
a solid chance Davis will be filing
Brown's W-4 while wearing a body
cast and one of those metal halos. I
mean, one of those two is going to
beat her up eventually; it's a matter
of simple mathematics.
All this talk about guys beating
up their girlfriends is a little sicken-
ing. So let me switch records and
talk about girls abusing their boy-
friends. Kelly Bensimon, cougarish
"star" of "The Real Housewives
of New York City" (a show I can
only assume actually exists), was
arrested last week for beatingup
her younger boyfriend. Yikes. Kelly,
if you want to avoid being labeled
a "cougar," maybe you should stop
actually mauling people.
Moving from the realm of
aggressive to passive-aggressive,
"Heroes" star Hayden Panettiere
is apparently flummoxed she
still has to work with co-star and
ex-boyfriend Milo "How do you
pronounce that?" Ventimiglia.
So she's quietly trying to get him

bred, complaining to producers
and refusing to be on the set when
Milo's around. Until that happens,
the dwarfish actor, who plays a
confident, invincible cheerleader,
is demonstrating how very dissim-
ilar she is to her character. "Don't
you ever touch me!" and "You all
make my life miserable!" were
just two of the exclamations she
howled at paparazzi during, nicely
enough, a hospital fundraiser.
On the subject of more, you
know, "seasoned" women, I'd like
to discuss a couple improper ways
to look younger, featuring Madon-
na. The first way: Just in time for
the Vanity Fair Oscars party, firm
up your skin with a temporary
facelift involving hooks and tubes
in your epidermis. Though it
seemed to have worked for her, I
can't get used to the fact that the
Material Girl is now filled with
actual material.
The second way: When the hooks
start to slowly peel your skin off
like flesh-eating bacteria, take them
out and feminize the old saying
"Clothes make the man." Dress like
a little schoolgirl, and everyone will
assume you're young, right? Well,
no, and honestly, Madonna's new
look reminded me of when I put the
neighbor girl's Schoolgirl Barbie in
the microwave. To be fair, Madon-
Charles Barkley:
a man of taste.
na was on her way to a Kabbalah
Purim party. Purim, a wonderful
Jewish holiday whose existence is
known to about 2 percent of non-
Jews, was celebrated this Tuesday
and Wednesday. I thought I'd cel-
ebrate a little myself by listing my
favorite celebrity costumes from
this week. As a sort of nod to the
fashion times, these costumes were
not worn to actual costume parties.
Britney Spears and Jessica
Simpson: both in Daisy Duke
cutoffs, both in that awkward
area between their best and worst
physiques where you don't leer
but you don't turn away. I'll give
the pity prize to Jessica Simpson,
because her insistence on wearing
cutoffs to almost all her sparsely-
attended concerts means she
considers starring in "Dukes of
Hazard" a career zenith she'd like
to relive. Which is just sad.
The Pussycat Dolls: Capitalizing
on the success of "Slumdog Million-
aire," the "singing" group appeared
on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon"
in traditional Indian dress, includ-
ingscarves and bindis. Fortunately,
they did not break into a rendition
of that "Jai Ho" song.
These are all great, but I'd -
have to give the grand prize to
the Ryan Adams impersonator
who recently married Mandy
Moore. Oh wait - that's actually
Adams? Awkward ...
Schultz is looking for Barkely's
phone number. If you have it, e-mail
it to him at markthosOumich edu.

The Silk Road Ensemble features over 60m usicians hailing from countries across the globe.
On the Road of gold

Ma's ensemble brings its
unique cultural insight to
Hill this weekend
By BEN VANWAGONER
and ABIGAIL COLODNER
Daily Arts Writers
The name of The Silk Road Ensemble comes
from the collection of trade

routes that, for 2,000 years,
branched across Europe, Asia
and Africa. This physical
connection had implications
far beyond the exchange of
desired goods - it sparked
ideas. Goods were the
exchange, but culture was the
contact high. Both deliber-
ately and inadvertently, new
ideas lead to innovation and
acculturation. The Silk Road
Project is Yo-Yo Ma's effort to
recreate those trends of cul-

The Silk
Road
Ensemble
with Yo-Yo
Ma
8pm.
tomorrow and
Saturday
At Hll
From $10

tural collaboration at relative warp-speed.
These days, actual travel or trade seem
almost unnecessary for gathering culture. The
privileged, successful people who can sell out
a concert hall hardly need to go anywhere to
juice up their craft when endless information is
available in books or from the Internet. Or so
it would seem. The Silk Road Project's artistic
director, the unstoppably buoyant cellist and
educator Yo-Yo Ma, thinks differently.
The cultural exchanges that historically
took weeks - if not years - to occur are made,
familiarized and expanded vigorously by Ma
and his collaborators. The Silk Road Ensem-
ble creates new music in real time and space,
gathering far-flung artists together on one
stage. The collaborative power of this diverse,
mobile and committed group seems exponen-
tial, and the face-to-face live performance
focus of Ma's Ensemble gives that power room
to grow.
The Ensemble - the musical center of the
Project - is comprised of almost 60 members
who originate from countries like Azerbaijan,
Korea and Argentina. It was founded by Ma
in 1998 as a philanthropic effort and began
as a musical body in 2000 at Tanglewood,

an ambitious outdoor music festival held in
Lenox, Mass. The Ensemble will perform this
weekend with around 15 members in two sep-
arate programs at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
at Hill Auditorium.
Focused originally on music from central
and east Asia - along the original Silk Road -
the group's work has since expanded to include
music from nearly every part of the world,
propelled in part by its diverse membership.
Although commissioning pieces is still a cen-
tral part of the project's outreach, much of their
music is now composed by the Ensemble's own
musicians, with their enormous different world
of sound in mind.
University alum Mark Suter, who compos-
es for the Ensemble, described the process:
"Sometimes someone will bring in something
and we all add what we think will be pertinent
and interesting."
Sometimes, he added, "it's based purely on
improvisation. Other times, they have an idea
that's more fleshed out, and we work from that.
It really varies based on who brings the idea."
Suter spoke warmly of composing with the
group and its potential for encouraging even
more exchange.
"You have to trust each other," Suter said.
"The real beauty of this group is that we're
always curious and trying to learn from work-
ing from within."
Suter, who plays percussion In the group,
spoke of the Ensemble as a metaphor, draw-
ing out a historical phenomenon's implica-
tions. The collaboration ends up "connecting
neighborhoods," he said, echoing the statement
on The Silk Road Project website's main page:
"Our vision is to connect the world's neighbor-
hoods by bringing together artists and audi-
ences around the globe."
"Neighborhoods" may seem like merely a
cute word choice, but its overtones are on point;
in Ma's setup, the boundaries between distinct
ways of being can be crossed as easily as a single
street or a theater stage.
Much of the project's success hinges on its
ability to make small adjustments to age-old
traditions, enabling them to share common
ground. If there is one consistent cultural note
in the ensemble, it's the Western tradition of
staged concert hall performance. The stan-
dard provides structure: a unifying, equalizing
premise for the open-ended musical experi-

mentation. In it, Ma continuously brings the
performers back to a central hub of their col-
laboration.
Ma is a hub himself - a grounding presence.
Joseph Lam, a University professor of Musicol-
ogy who is familiar with the ensemble's work
and Ma's influence, says that Ma asks the art-
ists "to learn from each other, with (Ma) as a
guiding principle."
Ma's appeal to the public is evidently no
simple matter of force of personality - com-
bined, of course, with his remarkable skill as a
musician. He's not just a spectacle or a star. His
name instead has a near panacea effect. As a
benefactor and innovator of the arts (and their
creation, mobility and education), Ma is an icon
of well-executed ideas. He puts forth the vision
of arts as wholism into action.
"He creates a platform so everyone can com-
municate," Lam said.
This may sounda little too easy. Does getting
together enough people from enough corners of
the globe and crowding together enough dispa-
rate instruments result in something "innova-
tive" by nature of smorgasbord alone? Lam says
no.
"If you look deeper, it's not totally rosy," said
Lam.
Certain musical traditions lose too much of
themselves in combination, he said. Lam uses
Kunqu, the Chinese opera, as an example:
"Some ritual music would not work well with
Yo-Yo Ma's. Nothing can be everything to
everyone."
This isn't a failure on Ma's part, Lam sug-
gested, but an asset of the Project.
"It behooves a more critical audience," said
Lam. "If they are fascinated about (the breadth
of tradition) they'll ask, 'What do you gain,
what do you lose?' " It's exactly this sense of
awareness that the Silk Road Project hopes to
engender through performance, and it is their
greatest accomplishment as a musical force.
Lam spoke of Ma's Project endeavor as
"humanitarian." On his website, Ma is quoted
as saying, "There is no tradition that exists that
was not the result of successful and sustained
innovation."
In gathering disparate artists already expert
in established traditions, and encouraging
recombination, Ma pursues a humanitarian
effort: making room for creative seedlings in
the crowded status quo.