The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 3B

Giving by the Fundred
How drawing your own money can help fix the
lead poisioning problem in New Orleans
By Emma Jeszke I Daily Arts Writer

The commoners'
red carpet

So lastSunday's was probably
the worst Oscar telecast I
have ever seen. And yes,

The inside of
Abercrombie & Fitch:

Right now in Ann Arbor, there's
a one-of-a-kind philanthropic
opportunity that requires par-
ticipants to open up their creative
minds instead of their wallets.
The event, entitled the Fundred
Dollar Bill Project, is a nation-
al fundraiser looking to collect
three million "fundreds," which
are "individual, unique artworks
(called fundreds) that look like
hundred dollar bills with all the
symbology removed and left to the
individual to create," according to
Mary Rubin, the project's director
of national affairs.
Fundreds drawn by students,
faculty and community members
in Ann Arbor are being gathered by
School of Art & Design Academic
Programs Assistant Brian Banks
until March 31, when an armored
truck will come to campus to col-
lect the illustrated donations.
This truck, which runs com-
pletely on vegetable oil, has been
traveling around the country, stop-
ping at collection centers and pick-
ing up the fake hundred dollar bills
designed by students and commu-
nity members. The truck will even-
tually make its way to Washington,
D.C., where the Fundred Dollar

Bill Project will ask Congress for
an even exchange - 3 million fun-
dred dollars for $300 million in
U.S. currency, all to be put toward
remediating lead levels in New
Orleans soil.
The Fundred Dollar Bill project
was started about two and a half
years ago by an artist named Mel
Chin, who was emotionally drained
after visiting post-Katrina New
Orleans.
"(The damage) was so much
that I felt inadequate to respond
as a creative individual," Chin
explained. "But because of that I
was compelled to return again and
again to do research, to find out
what we could do - what was pos-
sible and what was not possible."
During his time in New Orleans,
Chin and his team of researchers
were led to discover the issue of
lead contamination, how bad it was
in the city and the immense impact
it was having on the population -
especially children.
"I found out that it was not only
bad, but the second worst in the
entire country," Chin said. "Also, it
was a situation that had left 30 to 50
percent of the inner city childhood
population lead-poisoned. And this

k.
t

I know this is su
fashion col-
umn - but I
really need to
get this off my
chest; t was
so frustrated
Sunday night.
I knew
trouble was
a-brewing
when I saw
the nominees

pposed to be at isn't this store supposed to rep-
licate a Californiabeach house?
Are all beach houses overly pun-
gent perfumeries with tweeny
music pounding in the pitch-black
background? I have never bought
a single thing from Abercrombie
& Fitch and the sole reason is
that I'm too afraid to penetrate
JENNIFER its smoky interior to try on any-
xiu thing. I understand the concept
of making your store smell good,
but mixed marketing is just con-

MAX COLLINS
The randreds wil be picked sp by an armored car and presented to Congress.

was before the storm."
"I asked how much it would cost
to at least complete a transforma-
tion of the situation, which was a
big heavy figure - $300 million,"
Chin said. "But when I asked how
much was allocated to solve this
problem, and they said none, that's
where the project began."
The goal of Fundred is to raise
support for Operation Paydirt, the
implementation of the scientific
method developed for stabilizing
lead levels in New Orleans. The
method will neutralize lead levels
in the soil and turn the hazard-
ous material into a bio-unavailable
mineral that, if ingested by a child,

cannot be absorbed into the blood-
stream.
Rubin said there are 86,000
properties in New Orleans with
lead levels in the s il higher than
what the EPA de acceptable for
a child to have bac-hand contact
with. Lead con ination causes
many health iss which often
contribute to a m ber of serious
problems for c ren, including
decreased perf( -,ee in school,
juvenile delin, cy, Attention
Deficit Disorder an d violent crime.
"It stands to reason that if you
can remove one little environmen-
tal factor that coi tes to these
SeeFUN ED, Page 4B

for Best Actor and Actress lined
up on the stage like a collection
of venerated baseball cards. And
everything slid downhill from
there. The usually hilarious
Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin
fumbled through joke after joke
about Meryl Streep and "Avatar."
And at the end, Tom Hanks just
ripped into the envelope without
warning and was like, yeah, "The
Hurt Locker," taking all the sus-
pense out of the big reveal.
Anyway, what's actually per-
tinent to this column: the red
carpet. Cameron Diaz looked
shiny and delightful. Sandra
Bullock looked disgusting. (Actu-
ally, she looked fine but I can't
extricate myself from the horror
of her win.) Mo'Nique sported
a bizarre flower that chewed
up half her head. The theme of
the night seemed to be fantasy
prom dress, with stars like Miley
Cyrus, Amanda Seyfried and J.
Lo sporting floofy pastel-colored
gowns that poofed out when-
ever they walked. Zoe Saldana
was probably my favorite of the
bunch, donning a spectacular
Givenchy number with a glittery
silver bodice and a purple ombre
train that resembled a tree of

fusing. Are you pretending to be
a beach, a brothel or a nightclub?
It's a wonder to me how this store
ever did so well financially.
Why vintage clothes are
10 times more expensive
than secondhand:
First of all I'd like to preface
this thought with a confession
that I rarely do any secondhand
shopping. And I don't really
understand the concept of "vin-
tage." Walking into The Getup or
Star Vintage feels about the same
to me as a trip to the Salvation
Army, save the awesome Marilyn
Monroe posters and retro lights
looped around the walls. I know
that so-called specialists hunt
through mounds of garbage to
come out with this really neat
stuff, but seriously, you're going to
charge me more for this 20-year-
old sweater than a new one? I
like a unique find as much as the
next girl does, but I'm not will-
ing to shell out double the cash
for something I could find in my
mom's closet.
Artfully ripped jeans:

'Troy Duffy's journey from
the streets to the Saints'

By TIMOTHY RABB
Daily Arts Writer
Following a series of unfortunate delays due
to legal issues and other extenuating factors,
the long-anticipated film
"The Boondock Saints II: "The Boondock
All Saints Day" was final-
ly released last October. Saints" 10th
In spite of the 10-year An Sary
gap between the first
and second "Boondock" Event
movies, the cult follow- Today at 7:30 p.m.
ing remained steadfast Qality 1f
in devotion to vigilante
crime-fighters Connor
and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery
and Norman Reedus, respectively). But far
more captivating than even the iconic pair of
civilian law-givers is their creator Troy Duffy.
The magnitude of the controversy surround-
ing him is matched only by his fervor for a sub-
ject that has frustrated him since the onset of
his career.
"I recently talked to a bunch of fans in Dal-
las, and I said, 'Raise your hands if you've had
a crime committed against you,' and nearly
everyone raised their hands. Then I said, 'Put
your hands down if your crime was solved,'
and not one hand went down," Duffy said in an
interview with the Daily. "I think there's a cer-
tain element of injustice in America these days,
and I feel as if we don't know what to do, like
we're left without any recourse."
In the mid-1990s, it was this sense of hope-
lessness that prompted Duffy - then a bar-
tender and bouncer in Los Angeles - to put his
feelings to paper.
"I sat down and wrote 'Boondock Saints'
to give a bit of fantasy, a little release to those
people, to represent what they might like to do
if the world were a more just place."
The story follows the McManus brothers,
Irish fraternal twins inspired by a divine goal:
brutally kill all of the wicked men in Boston,
one thug at a time. Along with their semi-psy-
chotic companion Rocco (David Della Rocco,
"Jake's Corner"), they embark on a spree of vio-
lent bloodletting to rid the streets of criminal-
ity, all while being pursued tirelessly by an FBI
agent (Willem Dafoe, "Antichrist") and a hired
hitman (Billy Connolly, "The Debt Collector").
Since Duffy had absolutely no experience in
developing fictional characters or writing for
DAILY ARTS.
CAN YOU
DIG IT?
gra
EVEN IF For
NOT, WRITE
FOR US!

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I actually don't mind the way
they look, but the longevity of
Abercromnbie this look is, like, two days. I know
b r m e from personal experience that
sucks. if I have a tiny hole in my jeans,
the next week I have completely
decimated them. So you plunk
down $50 for a pair of designer
, in a high-fashion kind ripped jeans, parade them around
campus for a few nights and then
ny rate, what occurred to boom: you go from boho to hobo
ing the telecast is how in a matter of days. And now I see
it is that stars have the Lindsay Lohan running around
unity to get all gussied clubs sporting ripped leggings.
daily basis, while we This is just too much.
ns have to make do in our So with the conventions of fash-
and jeans as we exhaus-. ionbeing as weird as they are, you
clod across the Diag. I have should instead be askingthis ques-
prom dress hanging in tion: Why don't we run around in
set back home and there is prom dresses on a dailybasis? I say
y no occasion for me to wear we spearhead a campaign for this:
. I know what you're going it should be Oscar Day everyday.
"It's weird to wear a fancy Imagine strutting down the Diag
'hen it's 40 degrees out and in a long, foxy red number with a
g," but OK, fashion in itself slit running down the side. "Who
weird. We wear pieces of are you wearing?" the bucketers
:w skin draped across our call out to you. You look over your
ers. Come on now. shoulder with a distant smile and
w lies a list of idiosyncra- a cool wave of your hand, beautiful
en it comes to wearing and and untouchable.
clothes. Or rather, things Sounds magnificent, doesn't it?
ther me about fashion And yet, vaguely doable.
Note, also, that this campaign
will involve retracting Sandra
Playsuits: Bullock's Best Actress Oscar. I
am literally counting down the
'suits are a mixture of one- seconds until a representative
eralls, saggy diapers and from the Academy goes on the
hing else wrong with the air and is like, guys, we made a
nce "Gossip Girl" took the mistake, turns out the Academy
by storm, street fashion has was blindsided (pun) and thought
1-out Serena van der Wood- they were voting for the Razzies
is concept benefits no one. (which she in fact did win). Let's
you're a wispy model with give the Oscar to Carey Mulligan
tick-thin legs, anything instead. Orbetter yet, Kathryn
k good on you, but the rest Bigelow. She obviously needs
en't so lucky. The reason another one, right?

The 'Boondock Saints' cult folowing remained devoted in the 10-year gap between the original and seque

the screen, the origins of his success were all
the more impressive. t
"That was the first script I ever wrote, but I
never had to pitch 'Boondock Saints' to a studio
exec. A buddy of mine that worked at one of the
production houses actually gave me a script
"It's like, 'How did
winning the lottery
change your life?' It's
fuckin' awesome."
that had been made into a movie and I copied
the format, but I still had no idea what the fuck
I was doing," Duffy said. "My producer was
an assistant at New Line Cinema, and he kept
feeding the script to his network of relation-
ships. Pretty soon, this little fire started, and
it became so wide in scope that at one point I
was in Starbucks and I saw two guys reading

my script. Weird, weird stuff."
Though the transition from bouncer to
Hollywood hustler may seem overswhelming,
Duffy took it in stride.
"You know, it's like, 'How did winning the
lottery change your life?' It's fuckin' awesome,
you know? I just embraced the shit out of it and
put forth a considerable effort to make the best
movie possible."
In spite of his humble beginnings and
lack of industry experience, Duffy has been
known to espouse the attitude and prowess
of a seasoned director with an extensive rep-
ertoire. As a result of this entitled demeanor,
his methods have been the subject of heated
debate among critics and industry magnates
alike. After the unexpected success of Duffy's
first screenplay, he was the target of a docu-
mentary that lampooned his antisocial behav-
ior: "Overnight" - a film that was originally
intended by personal friends Tony Montana
and Mark Brian Smith as a dedicatory chron-
icle of his rise to fame - eventually morphed
into a tragic portrayal of an alcoholic egoma-
niac whose ceaseless racial slurs and abusive
See DUFFY, Page 4B

toddlers wear playsuits is so that
they have easier access to thebath-
room. Somehow, I don't think we
need that expediency.

Xu wants a prom date for her
walk through the Diag. To volunteer,
e-mail her at jennifxu@umich.edu.

s U D K U


The Michigan College Advising Corps seeks new
aduates to serve as college advisers in underserved
high schools across Michigan
Application deadline: March 25, 2010
r more information and an application packet visit
www.ceo.umich.edu/mcac

E-mail join.arts@umich.edu
for information on applying.