The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 5A A bad call for NBC Poetry crosses space and time on way to 'U' Seinfeld's newest series is 'The Newlywed Game' gone horribly wrong By LINDSAY HURD DailyArts Writer When a show features both Tina * Fey and Jerry Seinfeld as guest judges, one would think it would be a comedic gold mine, right? Wrong. Every- thing about The Marriage "The Marriage Ref Ref" is cringe- worthy at best. Thursdays You watch in at10 p.m. horror as Sein- NBC feld loses much of his comedy- god status. How can a show that both stars and is produced by Sein- feld be such an epic failure? Two words: Tom Papa. Host Tom Papa is like that kid in high school who really tried to be funny but just wasn't, and clearly it's carrying over to his TV career. Every time one of the judges makes a genuinely funny comment, Papa chimes in with nonsense that makes you want to change the channel. When Tina Fey made fun of a wife who would only let her, husband eat at the dining room table on Thanksgiving - "Maybe we should substitute words in her argument to make her realize how crazy she sounds. Like say- ing the bathroom is only for Eas- Because if anyone can save your marrage, its Tom Papa. ter!" - Tom Papa chimed in with a brilliant joke: "Do you know what I would hate? Dust! Dust every- where. Happy Thanksgiving!" How does that even make any sense? Tom Papa is in need of a serious wake-up call.. And the worst part is, Seinfeld doesn't see it. Tom Papa gets in the way, ulti- mately because of the setup of the show. He's the actual marriage ref who uses celebrity panel judges to help him decide if the husband or the wife is right. Different sets of couples come on the show and present their arguments to Papa and the panel, and in the end, Papa tells either the husband or wife who is right. Therefore, in order to have a successful show about a "Marriage Ref," you need someone who can actually succeed at that task without being a tool. The show is so bad that it makes funofitself.Papaevenadmits atone point: "Why do we care? We don't!" Whenever the husband and wife are talkingabouttheirproblem, the panel degrades them and makes them feel like complete nimrods. It's "The Newlywed Game" gone wrong, where the couples look like fools and the problems they're hav- ing aren't actually "real" problems. Instead, the show focuses on issues like a husband grooming himself too much, a wife who won't let her husband eat at the dining room table and a wife who flosses in bed. Not exactly marriage-threatening issues, to say the least. Overall, "The Marriage Ref" needs to get rid of Tom Papa, the cheesy music and the random woman they call the "fact lady" who adds useless tidbits that no one cares about, and should prob- ably let Seinfeld be the actual mar- riage ref. Or just cancel the show altogether. By MOLLY MCGUIRE DailyArts Writer "See how / I have gone from home to mythology / to the Alps & nobody has moved." Darce Darcie Denni- gan's poem "The Dennigan Virgins" from and Tung- her book "Corin- na A-Maying the Apocalypse" Tomorrow at hurtles from New 5:15 p.m. England duplex- HelmutStern es to Greek myths Auditorium to Mont Blanc on the French- Italian border. Her last few lines describe moving "through eons / & hemispheres in a white clap- board house." Leaping through time and space and different allusions, Dennigan's poems still remain grounded. An alumna of the University's MFA program, Dennigan is return- ing to join with Assistant Professor of English Tung-Hui Hu for a poet- ry readingthis Thursday. The MFA Program in Creative Writing is pre- senting the event as part of the Zell Visiting Writers Lecture Series. At the University, Hu teaches courses on time-based poetry and art, which comes into play in film, installation art and performance. Time-based art is a term most often used to describe moving image and sound workby visual artists. "Time-based art is a way of lumping together art that unfolds in time," Hu said. "I use it to refer, generally speaking, to moving image artworks after the 1960s. I've been interested in the way (time-based art) is not a static experience." This Thursday he willbe reading from his new collection of poems, "Greenhouses, Lighthouses." With a Ph.D. in film studies, Hu explores many cinematic themes and images. The winner of the 2007 James D. Phelan Literary Award, "Greenhouses, Lighthouses" was described by the San Francisco Foundation as "a provocative ges- ture toward cinematography." The collection is written as a series of palinodes - odes or songs in which the writer retracts some- thing written in a previous poem. "This is a form that lots of other writers have used," Hu said. Hu cited "Chaucer's Retrac- tion" at the end of "The Canterbury Tales," in which Chaucer asks for forgiveness for his coarse language throughout his works, as one exam- ple. One of Hu's poems in "Green- houses, Lighthouses" is modeled on the Corrections section of a news- paper. Whether he is teaching or writ- ing, Hu said that he stresses "the process of description over analy- sis." It makes sense, then, that the reading on Thursday will likely stand for itself instead of focusing on discussion or analysis. "What does the poem do, how does it try to say what it says, what does it sound like, etc.," Hu said. "My sense is that it's really tough to come up with language to describe something well." In an e-mail interview, Denni- gan reflected on the role that poets like herself play in the world. "No matter how people become poets ... isn't the world better off having all these super awkward, trail-mix consuming pencil chew- Through poetry, we digest life as though it were a cupcake. ers around to try and digest little pockets of life - even if it is their own narrow life - the way that some of us digest Entenmann's cupcakes?" Dennigan said. While there is a small audience for the consumption of serious poetry, poetry readings at book- stores and campuses are becoming increasingly popular. Dennigan and Hu, with their wit and cre- ativity, should present an engaging poetry reading - but bring your own cupcakes. F @ SHESOUTOFMYLEAGUE.COM ^ " misawc IT'LL ALL ADD UP IN THEATRES MARCH 12 - GARDASiL. [Human Papillomavirus Quadrivalent (Types 6,11,16, and 18) Vaccine, Recombinant] Ir EARDASIL IS WIDELY AVAILABLE AND MANY PRIVATE INSURANCE PLANS* COVER IT. TALK TO YOUR CAMPUS HEALTH CENTER OR OTHER HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL. 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