The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, September 20, 2012 - 3B The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, September 20, 2012 - 3B At Weber's, decor surpasses the dishes EUREKA. Understanding creativity Honors 252 links uring the school year - as I indefatigably tread water, trying to stay afloat in a sea of papers, proj- ects, exams - I must admit that my desire to stray far from campus is minimal. I mean, why drive to Pita Pita in Ypsi when I can gorge myself NATHAN on toum WOOD and pita at La Marsa on State Street? Sushi at Saica? Meh, Sadako's closer. But during the summer, my motivation to explore beyond the little area my laziness usu- ally confines me to increases, opening up cool things to do in the wonderful city of Ann Arbor. Note: When I say, "cool things," I'm really saying, "a slew of new, awesome restaurants to try out." And outside of summer, could there be a better time to seek out those new, awesome restaurants than during Ann Arbor Restau- rant Week? I think not. At the top of my list this time around is Weber's Restaurant. First piquing my interest in the place was my naive presumption that it was associated with the elite brand of grills bearing the same name. I've repeatedly seen bright, shiny billboards adver- tising its outwardly modern architecture (think Ross minus the overbearing glitz), and I've driven past it many a time on the way to the movie theater. On this one fateful night, I also happened to be in the mood for a nice prime rib. So as our reservation time comes and goes, my friends and I entertain ourselves at the piano bar - an elegant touch appropri- ate for an elegant restaurant. Our names are called after a moder- ate wait, and soon we are pull- ing up to a solid, cocoa brown walnut table and similarly con- structed, rugged - yet comfort- able - chairs. As I look around, I'm immediately surprised by the unusual fusion of modern and Bavarian architecture, the latter of which the building's exterior is now, after a recent renovation, completely devoid. Thin, pasty birch twigs decoratively skirt the median of one wall, contrasting nicely with the restrained colors staining choice panes of glass opposite them. On the remaining wall space hangs what I will only generically describe as a big vari- ety of good artwork. The place is classy, sophisticated, warm. Our waiter first delivers a basket of bread, for which I'm never able to contain my excite- ment. The carbs of the evening include good quality, soft white rolls (that truthfully could be warmer), crusty homemade gar- lic bread and tasteless, clearly mass-produced matzah. An ivory slab of cold, salty butter and a stingy scoop of disappointingly fishy salmon pte are served alongside. I'm not outrageously impressed, nor totally under- whelmed. Our appetizers range from delectable to embarrassingly not. Leading in taste is the escar- got, whose texture is rendered perfectly resilientcyet creamy through precise preparation. Simply flavored with butter, lemon, parsley and a splash of cognac, this dish is a real pleaser. Unlike the snails, however, I find the liberal helping of mussels I'm served to be merely mediocre. Though the shellfish are smooth on the tongue, their lack of gar- lic and salt is blaringly evident. And even worse, on the "embar- rassing" end of the spectrum, is the restaurant's spinach bread. Everything about this dish tastes cheap: the Parmesan (grocery shelf-standard), the mozzarella (ordered pre-shredded in a bag, I'm sure), the spinach (as freshly wilted as a defrosted block from the freezer) and the bread (where's the nearest day-old dis- count bakery?). I'm pretty sure my six-year-old cousin made this same dish for me last summer, only better. Seriously? This is your spinach bread? The only other comment I have regardingthe establish- ment's pre-entre offerings is that chopped romaine and bottled dressing does not a salad make. But I'm still hopeful for my prime rib. Since this has been Weber's House Specialty since 1950, I expect the beef to melt in my mouth. I'm served twelve ounces (a hefty portion) in a pool of salty au jus. And while I can't say it's the most tender prime rib I've ever cut into, it does exhibit good marbling, deep flavor and is cooked rarely, as I asked for - which is some- times hard to come by late in the evening. The last note of our dinner is a sweet one, a cannoli with fruit sauce. Unfortunately, this note falls flat, as the shell has long lost its satisfying crunch and, with it, any sliver of an exceptional qual- ity: bland, boring, common. Overall, the quality of the food here is brilliantly outshined by the intriguing decor, a common casualty of poor restaurant man- agement: It's clearly more about the experience than the food. So, while filling and - during restaurant week - a good value, Weber's may be somethingto try out, but definitely not something to brag about. Wood is still searching for that prime rib. To help, e-mail nissacw@umich.edu. the arts and sciences By ADITI MISHRA Daily Arts Writer There's little to be seen or heard in the Undergraduate Sci- ence Building after 7 p.m. on a Wednesday. Vacuums are the most prominent obstruction in the otherwise empty, serene cor- ridors of the building, closely followed by the heaving steps of tired students heading out for dinner or another round of cof- fee at Starbucks. But if you stood on the top floor of the USB last Wednesday, you would have heard something almost profound amid the vacu- ums and footsteps. You would have caught snippets of a discus- sion about meditation, creativ- ity, consciousness and the nature of knowledge, briefly interceded by the sound of a flugelhorn (a trumpet-like instrument from Germany). You would have been intrigued, then perplexed, then amazed. You would have stood in front of the classroom emit- ting these noises, not under- standing why a philosophical discussion so acutely relevant to the students of the University was taking place in this hidden corner of campus in late hours of the evening. The discussion in question was one of many that will take place every other Wednesday this semester as part of an Hon- ors 252 class, "Honors Natural Sciences Seminar - Creativity in the Sciences and the Arts." Its title only skims the surface of what this class is truly about, at least for the casual observer. But creativity in the sciences and arts is a big component of what drives most of the class discus- sions and projects. As part of the class, one pro- fessor from the sciences and one professor from the arts or humanities talk about their "Eureka moment" - the forces that drove them to pursue their respective careers and why they're passionate about doing what they do. This discussion focuses on how creativity, and the convergence of science and art, plays a part in their careers. In previous semesters, stu- dents themselves have examined unusual and intriguing examples of how science and art converge in everyday life - from creating projects based on the measure- ments and ratios required in the production of a cupcake, to film- ing themselves painting their own walls using time-lapse pho- tography. Biological Chemistry Prof. Stephen Ragsdale has taught this class nearly every semester since Fall 2009. Each week, the class alternates between semi- nar and workshop - where the talks from the previous week are further discussed to familiarize students with their classmates, but mostly, according to Rags- dale, with themselves. "(In the workshops) personal things get revealed and students start to trust each other," Rags- Honors 252 features a bi-weekly guest lecturer to discuss their research. dale said. "Over time, the class becomes a safe zone for people to explore new things and make themselves vulnerable." With 27 students, small class size is perhaps the best way to go for a class that relies primar- ily on roundtable discussions. Ragsdale explained that Honors classes usually hover around 20 people, and despite being asked to expand, he wants to stick to his tried-and-tested class for- mat. But what about creativity calls for a class to be devoted to it? Creativity seems like a strange concept to teach, if it can be taught at all. In the Univer- sity alone, it's not uncommon for many science-minded students to think that what they do either has nothing to do with the arts or requires a far superior intel- lect, an illusion Ragsdale said his class aims to dissolve. "I had an interest in science as well as the arts," he said. "I have a feeling thatthey're actually not that different. They offer differ- ent views of reality, but there are a lot of convergent principles. "Over the time I've been teaching this class, I wanted to bring together scientists and artists to speak together in one classroom so that students could ask: 'Is what (Professor Stephen) Rush doing in his jazz fundamentally different from what (Professor) Henry Pol- lack is doing when he's study- ing climate change? Are they fundamentally different ways of viewing the world? Or do we just have certain preferences?'" A student of the sciences him- self, Ragsdale is no stranger to being bored by traditional sci- ence classes. He says it's one of the reasons he started the course after its successful three-year run at his previous post at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. "I don't consider that science is dry. I think it's a very cre- ative field. We're always trying to build puzzles, and the cool thing is that they're puzzles of our own mental construction," Ragsdale said. But he also believes that before experimenting and get- ting creative with science, you need to understand its basic fun- damentals - a process that may not be easy nor engaging. "I think that's it's a matter of what we think is most important for (a) student to learn ... when you learn piano, they don't just say 'go and create this piece.' It's first learning how to play, put- ting your finger on some keys. It's very didactic," Ragsdale said. Yet regardless of the class type, Ragsdale believes profes- sors should find the right bal- ance of "thinking and doing." He uses various unusual teach- ing methods in his own classes to increase the students' input into their own learning. He allows them to develop rules on the length and grading scales of essays and projects, claim- ing that students usually pick a tougher workload for themselves than he would think to assign. "I think we just spend too much time teaching students facts and giving them tests on factual matters rather than ask- ing the deep question," Ragsdale said. "If all you do in a class is present lectures and give tests, I think that's adverse to develop- ing creative ideas." Science isn't the only sub- ject often considered less than thrilling. Edward Sarath, guest lecturer in Honors 252 and a professor in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, encountered a similar problem when he joined his department in 1987. "The School of Music in Mich- igan was, and still is, largely classical - that means, all the music has been composed by European composers who died two centuries ago. When you go to the Art school, it would be unthinkable to not create your own artwork. But in music, the norm is: 'thou shalt not create,' because we already have all this great music," he said, during the first Honors 252 lecture of the semester. Sarath now teaches jazz and contemporary improvisation at the University. He spoke of many facets of creativity during his guest lecture, specifically that we're at a moment in time when creativity is crucial to solving the problems humanity is facing. He added that students need to condition their consciousness to meet the challenge. "The history of science is a history of deep, deep thinkers. The innovative scientist is going far beyond the notion of conven- tional science and transcending the mainstream," Sarath said. The students enrolled in this class come from backgrounds as diverse as business and math, but almost all of them already share a love for the sciences and the arts. Amanda Harris, a sophomore in the Ross School of Business, said the multi-dimen- sional aspect of Ragsdale's class echoed her own personality. "I'm taking this class because I'm a very multi-dimensional person. I like all the different academic fields so I think it's very interesting how he's blend- ing two that you often think are contradicting, because that's also kind of howI see the world," Harris said. Whether graduates of Honors 252 continue to be creative, have "Eureka moments" or change the world is yet to be deter- mined. But it's clear that the class poses some important and complex questions, which Rags- dale hopes will be enough. "People always write that they want to keep being creative in whatever they do in their lives," he said. "So I hope that happens, I feel like it should hap- pen, but we just get bogged down in things sometimes." WINTER IS COMING! BUT 'GAME OF THRONES' ISN'T ... MOURN WITH US. JOIN DAILY ARTS. YOU'LL GET A DIREWOLF. REQUEST AN APPLICATION BY E-MAILING ARTS@MICHIGANDAILY.COM. THE NIGHT IS DARK AND FULL OF TERRORS.