Search Results

Jeoffrey Pucci November 2, 2013 | 6:17pm EDT With the opening scene of La Notte (“The Night”) (1961), Michelangelo Antonioni (director) challenges how the modern subject is seen. Beginning within an empty reflection of an elevator, gliding down the side of a Modern skyscraper without emitting sound of its own, one must become aware to the metaphor of modernity: Alienated romance. Following the dark and restless L’Avvenutra (1960), La Notte is a troubled, sterile, and suffocating experience of an emotionally deadened marriage and its agonizing exploits throughout the intellectual circles of Milan. At the center of the film is the story of Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and his wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau), an intellectually affluent couple, whose marriage appears predicated upon the empty promise of romantic love. Whereas the rural countryside of L’Avventura openly admits to its isolationism and restlessness, the urban landscape of La Notte assures the modern subject that there are abundant friendships and commonalities to be found within the Modern City. As the rural countryside of L’Avventura fades into the repetitive and gray cityscape of Milan, the immensity of Modernity’s industrialization returns as the central theme of Antonioni’s en-framing of Modernity. Unlike the docile and describable characters of L’Avventura, never giving birth to any sense of self-awareness or self-worth, the characters of La Notte bear the distinct marks of human beings. The film’s two main characters, Lidia and Giovanni, reluctantly attend a book signing for Giovanni’s latest book, when he and Lidia have the opportunity to involve and experience themselves with other affluent members of the intelligentsia, they are forced to confront their utter lack of interest in each other. However, as members of the educated elite, are they not bound to each-other by personal choice? How could there be a desire not to want to spend time together if they chose to be together? La Notte remains distinctly Marxist, the centrality of alienation within freely chosen arrangements remains a site of profound contradiction in Modernity. The modern subject, in experiencing herself through the abundantly empty and emotionless spaces arising between individuals within the modern city, echoes Marx’s sentiments on estrangement; “the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another […] it belongs to another; it is the loss of his self” (Marx,1844). One must reflect on how Modernity experiences itself. As the question of meaning and purpose evacuates itself from one’s career, relationships with loved ones, and most agonizingly, relation to the self through, where is one to locate the production of meaning within one’s life? This is the question that drives Antonioni’s story of Lidia and Giovanni as they struggle to find connections between themselves and others — and most importantly, to find a solution to the suffocating and crippling sense of despair and emptiness that accompanies so many daily experiences. The search for meaning locates itself uniquely in the problematic of the most affluent and intelligent actors of in Modernity. After all, it seems that the educated are motivated into commitments by their own choosing. However, the nature of these commitments is primarily sexual in nature. The sexually frustrated and experienced woman is the focus of this film as she navigate her social landscapes primarily dominated by sexual contrasts, tensions, and commitments. Unlike the failures of the rich woman in La Adventura, to derive any kind of emotional value from a paradigm of materialism, the intellectual woman in La Notte finds herself unable to grasp a sense of commonality, excitement, or general interest from her peers without the intervention of sexual seduction, possibility, and domination. La Notte is a radical exposé on the centrality of sexuality within the intellectual world, as it rejects the emptiness of materialism by sentiments of erotic pleasure and romantic love. These societal acts come to see money as false, fake, and ultimately unrewarding, whereas the possibility of love, sexual lust, and erotic pleasure drives actors into the most unexpected social arrangements, which initially promise a chance of emotional connection. As Giovanni chases Valentina Gherardini (Monica Vitti) through a party, ultimately seducing her and promising himself to her in front of Lidia, the centrality of sexuality within the intellectual world cannot be understated. But as these societal actors violate and break their promises to each other, in the end, they remain only with their abstracted promises of eternal love through marriage. This subtle, and depressing paradox within Modernity concentrates us into a landscape of utter loneliness and self-absorption. However, by no means does this film lack in emotional quality. In many scenes, Lidia follows the haunting memories of her and Giovanni’s past; locating herself near their first home, watching young lads shooting rockets into the sky, having coffee at old and familiar cafes. Lidia, emblematic of the modern subject, is haunted by the specter of her idealized past. When struck by a romantic moment with Giovanni, both quickly flee, avoiding any chance of experiencing an emotional cathexis. Through Lidia, La Notte demonstrates itself as a chilling and sublime study of the urban identity, an identity that revolves around numerous sexual friendships predicated on shaky commonalities and commitments. Most of the film is spent in the quiet moments of Lidia and Giovanni, each desperately clinging to erotic possibilities and disappointments. By the conclusion of film, one is forced upon the question: Can love exist even for those who reject the materialist world? More than that, can one even reject a romantic love that has turned sour and hope to be happy? As Andrei Tarkovsky, director of the infamous Stalker (1979) and Solaris (1972), commented on the film: The final sequence of Antonioni’s La Notte is perhaps the only episode in the whole history of cinema in which a love scene became a necessity and took on the semblance of a spiritual act. It’s a unique sequence in which physical closeness has great significance. The characters have exhausted their feelings for each other but are still very close to each other. As a friend of mine said once, more than five years with my husband is like incest. These characters have no exit from their closeness. We see them desperately trying to save each other, as if they were dying.

Emma Bartley October 31, 2013 | 5:59pm EDT Amid the sea of SIS and Public Affairs majors at AU, relatively small pockets of literature-loving students can be found floating around campus. We aren’t too hard to find (just look in the Dav on any given day or, better yet, come by an AmLit meeting). I decided to sit down with AU junior Mattea Falk last week in the Mudbox for a morning chat about her passion for both reading and writing poetry. She has been writing poems since sophomore year of high school and recalled her first poem with embarrassed laughter: “I specifically remember that it was about driving somewhere, and I was listening to Konstantine by Something Corporate.” Now Mattea is majoring in Literature and is one of the two Poetry Editors for AmLit. She has had several of her poems published in AmLit, the Harrisonburg-based MING!magazine and the online publication The Paper Knife. Despite being super modest about the depth of her, it is no exaggeration to say that Mattea absolutely geeks out over poetry, and I have a feeling that she should could talk about it for a way longer time than my impromptu interview allowed. Below are some of the more coherent snippets from our frequently rambling and all around sporadic conversation. What are some poetry-related activities that you do outside of your regular Lit classes? AmLit is the big one, I don’t know what I’d do without it. But I’ve also been doing poetry workshops… like right now I’m in a workshop with Kyle Dargan [a poetry professor at AU], and that’s been really cool – we’re bringing in a lot of extra readings, like Patrick Phillip’s collection, Chattahoochee. Definitely the best thing I’ve done was the workshop I took last spring with David Keplinger. I‘d never heard of anyone speak about poetry so beautifully. That sounds pretty corny, but it’s true! For Keplinger’s we did rounds of workshops – so, one group would bring in a poem a week, we’d take it home, and next week we would all critique that piece, focusing on elements like image, line, language, form, etc. Keplinger’s class was cool because everyone was kind and helpful and it had this interesting format where the author couldn’t respond, because Keplinger was of the mind that if an author is allowed to respond (or, in a sense, “defend” what was critiqued in a piece) that person would miss the point i.e. that there was a weakness in the piece. When coming up with subjects or ideas for your poetry, do you often draw from material from other classes? Yeah, I think so. A lot of times I go back to concepts from lit theory. I’ve been really obsessed with identity formation lately (like, Lacanian mostly) and just generally have issues of semiotics in the back of my mind, though I don’t know if any of that really comes across in my poetry. Maybe? Recently I wrote something that kind of revisited Saussure/some post-structuralism stuff that’s all about resisting fixed meaning and binaries. Is there a certain element of your poetry, like rhyme scheme or line breaks, that you actively enjoy manipulating and playing with? I don’t like rhyme that much unless it’s, like, internal, soft rhyme. But line breaks I can definitely tinker with forever. I like lines that can stand alone – meaning they have significance on their own. I also like lines that alter the meaning of the previous line, or that have different significance depending on how you read the surrounding breaks. I think every line should have impact (though, obviously, I don’t think I really achieve this. It’s kind of the ideal, you know? But shoot for the moon and all that, I guess.) There was a discussion in my workshop the other day about how writing on the computer is different from writing on paper because it’s easier to manipulate line breaks on a computer and kind of rearrange really quickly and see all the options. But some people are really into the slow, lengthy process of rewriting on paper. But with that I think there’s also an element of like “art needs to be hard” snobbery and quasi-Luddite-like resistance to technology, which I don’t find very appealing or productive. I’m mostly about images though. I think, for me, despite my fascination with line and all the minutiae of poetic mechanics, it always comes back to startling language. What’s that formalist idea? Like, the point of art is to “make the stone stony”? I feel something along those lines: That all the other tricks are kind of accessories to the main point of reviving language to express an image (or sensation) as something fresh or startling or worthwhile or … I guess there’s about a thousand things I could say here. It would be kind of dumb to try to enumerate all the potential ends of art. But anyway, you get the idea: images. Who are some poets that you draw inspiration from? Last semester David Keplinger showed me this poem, “To Go To Lvov” by Andrew Zagajewski and it’s awesome. It’s super long and there’s no stanza breaks and it just goes – like, it has this velocity to it. So sometimes I find myself trying to write that poem a thousand times over in my own context. It’s just, like, I love poems that just go and go and go and go and lead to this weird other place. Okay… so then I’m also pretty into Alt Lit (Alternative Literature) people like Crispin Best and Mira Gonzalez, even though I don’t think I really write like them. Other than that, I’m just forever in love with Carolyn Forche, Li-Young Lee, and Richard Seeken. What is your editing process like for poems that you plan on submitting? Do you ask other people outside of your workshops for suggestions? How do you know when you’re finally finished? I’ll definitely show other people when I just want their opinion on something. When I want, like, specific things I’ll go to people and ask, “Does this work? Does this communicate this idea?” And for AmLit, for example, the night before I submit stuff I stay up all night and spend a good couple of hours going over poems on my own. But I don’t know, sometimes I just keep going… and I don’t know that any of my poems are ever finished. I always kind of go back and look at a poem and think about how I could change something. Okay, so this might be an awkward question that’s going to force you to boost your own ego but here it goes: What do you think is one of the most interesting things you’ve done in your poetry? Ah no that’s so gross! Okay…well last semester I wrote a series of prose poems about dreams. Even though I think it’s kind of cheating when you write about dreams, because dreams are awesome all the time, some of the images in those are really cool. I don’t even know that they are from actual dreams, I might have just made them up. But yeah, I liked writing prose poems. I think prose poems are really interesting mainly just because there’s a really distinct difference between a prose piece and a prose poem. I don’t know if I can articulate it well, but it has to move like a poem and think like a poem, instead of thinking like prose. So I think that was a really cool thing to try and get in to. What is one thing that’s happening in contemporary poetry that you find particularly interesting? Like I said earlier, I think Alt Lit is really fascinating. I like Crispin Best and Mira Gonzalez because they’re honest and also just generally very bizarre and there is absolutely no sense of shame or trepidation in their work. Like, they’re all about bucking conventions of what poetry “should” be or do, and they don’t even apologize for it, they don’t even give a moment of consideration to the conventions they’re messing with. I think I find that really appealing because (for whatever reason, maybe patriarchal socialization, maybe just me bein’ me, who cares?) I am really apologetic about everything. Like, I’m that girl who says sorry when she accidentally breathes too close to you in the coffee line. SO, yeah. They just don’t care, or rather, they don’t let anybody else tell them what to care about, and I love it. Do you have any final thoughts that you want to throw out to the world? If you write secret poetry, you should show people. Because it’s more fun when it’s not secret.

Jessica Perry October 30, 2013 | 10:44am EDT Two boxes are now checked off my bucket list: I watched an art house film in an indie theater and took myself on a gratuitous movie date. I’ll admit I only saw “Muscle Shoals” because I scored the ticket for free from the movie’s public relations department. Not to mention I was curious after hearing about the documentary through Spotify advertisements. Why not work on that list? So I headed to West End Cinema. It’s hidden under an office building at 2301 M Street, several blocks from either the Dupont Circle or Foggy Bottom metro stops. Bright signs point to a cramped entrance dotted in indie movie posters and white-board movie timetables. Confession: it is underwhelming at first. But if you go at the right time, you can catch lectures and discussions after showings with directors and notable others. More information is available on their website. I found the box office (see: old school concession stand register) and picked up my ticket. In the process, the staff proudly told me about the theater. For example, I don’t like popcorn, yet the cashier convinced me to try theirs. I may be gullible but it is decidedly perfect. Not to mention they sell beer and baklava. I followed the snack-crunching of fellow moviegoers into Theater 2. It felt like walking into a friend’s living room, if your friends are all above 40 and discuss their favorite Sundance film festival winners over wine. The screens are small and the sound is disproportionate, but it’s a comfortable atmosphere. The seats aren’t staggered so I avoided sitting behind a Marge Simpson double. (Seriously Marge, West End Cinema party foul.) On a positive note, there were no screaming children or glowing cellphones. Finally the film flickered on. Directed by Greg Camalier, its plot traces the “swampy” musical roots of Muscle Shoals from deep Alabama mud. It overemphasizes the small town’s magic – at some points I nearly gagged from melodramatic cheese – but listening to Aretha Franklin, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Gregg Allman, and a dozen others tell their stories, you think Muscle Shoals might be haunted by an unnamed beauty. With all hackneyed repetition aside, this rock-doc does an amazing job of trying to pin down that mystery. It opens with Bono in his trademark Bulgari sunglasses praising the “singing” Tennessee river’s influence. According to the film, the location’s unexplained inspiration exists from pre-Columbian mythology of a river siren. It suddenly cuts to Wilson Pickett performing “Land of 1000 Dances”, and so begins the movement’s lineage. The exploration itself is jarring. Abrupt shifts between dazzling country landscapes, personal tearjerkers, and sassy musical performances keep you awake for the nearly two hour film. Even if you don’t dig the funky Southern soul, you can’t help but bop your head to the iconic songs. Everyone in the theater did. With the exception of seeing clips of music gods at work, what struck me most was how the film framed links between individual history and its influence on music. From stories of poor backwoods FAME studio founder Rick Hall, to a self-proclaimed “house band of funky white guys” called The Swampers in the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement, Muscle Shoals music became a communal outlet to rise above personal tragedy. The documentary is a testament to the music’s power to beget resilience and change, channeling negativity into something uniquely and universally tangible.

Vera Hanson October 28, 2013 | 4:45pm EDT Aside from the Phillips Collection’s impressive permanent collection, the current Vincent van Gogh exhibition, titled van Gogh Repetitions, made for a lovely afternoon of art. On display through January 26th, the Phillips Collection is lucky enough to currently have some of the artist’s best-known works under their museum’s roof. The exhibition is especially interesting because it’s not simply showcasing van Gogh’s works, but instead diving into his tendency to create multiple versions of the same painting. Inside the exhibition, there is a strong focus on the specific elements within the works of art that give viewers insight into which paintings of van Gogh’s came first and what changes were made for what reason. Interspersed are digital slideshows that allow museum-goers to see the subtle changes in color, pattern, line and perspective that van Gogh paid close attention to while crafting his various versions of, for example, Postman Joseph Roulin. This breakdown of some of the most familiar of van Gogh’s pieces is what sets this exhibition apart. Additionally, quite a bit of the show is dedicated to gaining greater access into the mind of van Gogh. For example, who and what inspired him. Two rooms are dedicated to the works of artists who influenced van Gogh and who even played a crucial role in his personal and artistic life. It is due to these distinct elements that the exhibition does not just seem like an opportunity to admire van Gogh’s unique and innovative style, but also to obtain a better sense of the mind and the man behind the paintings. Highlights, for me, included the study of the repetitions of Road Menders and Madame Augustine Roulin. Finally, the museum has pulled together paintings that showcase van Gogh’s clear change in style and content over the years of his life – again, giving insight into the man’s psyche and the progression of his style. The exhibition is open through the fall and winter and I would highly recommend visiting. Whether or not you have some of the pieces shown on display in your own city’s art museum, the Phillips Collection does an excellent job at shedding light on new ways to appreciate and study van Gogh’s work. The Phillips Collection advises that you purchase your tickets in advance and students can visit for $10. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday and extended hours on Thursday from 5 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. So, I strongly suggest taking the red line to DuPont and making your way over to the Phillips Collection on 21st Street to indulge in some of van Gogh’s most admired and noteworthy works. Website

Mia Saidel October 19, 2013 | 12:57pm EDT photo credit: Filmyr I have learned to believe in magic. Not in the form of frivolous card tricks or Houdini-like hoaxes, but through hand-drawn images coming to life. Many do not understand this magic, this immense joy that is animation. “How can I relate to characters who are two-dimensional in form, how can I grasp any tangible emotion?” With all due respect and the credibility of John Lasseter (chief executive officer of Pixar and Walt Disney) to back me up, I beg to differ. No filmmaker has given human life more consideration and provided more parallels to the 3-D reality of our world, than the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. He has constructed and immortalized his protagonists and antagonists in a way that makes them directly translatable into our lives. Each of his films upon release sparked more curiosity and fascination than the last. It is for all of these reasons the announcement that he will official retire in September shook the foundations of the film and animation world; how could such a giant of a man put down his pencil after channeling the human spirit from paper to screen for more than four decades? Though his retirement raises eyebrows in regards to what direction the animation industry will go in after his departure, it also gives Miyazaki fans a time to reflect on his creations and rightly classify him as an innovator of animation unmatched by any other. Miyazaki achieved mainstream success with Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind in 1984, which led him to create Studio Ghibli (Sutajio Jiburi), the animation studio where he would create all of his films from then on. His 1997 film Princess Mononoke made Miyazaki a household name around the globe, becoming the highest grossing film of that year in Japan. Famed film critic Roger Ebert placed Princess Mononoke at number six on his top ten movies of 1997 list. Miyazaki has since created many award-winning films that have graced international film festivals and the Academy Awards, including Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Porco Rosso. His film Spirited Away became the most successful film in Japanese history, grossing a total of $229,607,878. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards and the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival. His final film that debuted this past summer, The Wind Rises, solidified Miyazaki’s trademark motif of finding peace in seemingly desolate situations and environments. The film depicts the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft that would be used in World War II for kamikaze attacks. Though he surprised audiences by choosing a particularly sensitive Japanese topic, he stated that he was inspired to follow the life of man whose dream was to “to make something beautiful.” Miyazaki’s films have been able to touch international audiences and critics because of the multi-dimensionality of his characters. He approached each of them with an understanding of the intricacies of the human mind, thus rejecting the traditional good-evil dichotomy. In stark contrast with Western filmmakers, he gave many of his most threatening characters redeeming qualities, and the endings of his films were often not a result of relinquished evil, but of compromise and reconciliation. While Woody and Buzz were spending much of their time running away from Sid, their ultimate evil in the toy world, Chihiro in Spirited Away acknowledged that there was in fact some good in the villainous Yubaba and spirits of the bath house, and it was up to her to appeal to those qualities in order to survive. Miyasaki was also the master of portraying children and young adults with great intelligence. He acknowledges that though they have fragile minds, they are capable of understanding broader concepts and emotions and shoulder burdens equivalent to those of adults. Mei and Satsuki from My Neighbor Totoro are young sisters who love exploring their backyard and rural neighborhood, but do so to distract themselves from their sick mother and helping their father maintaining the household. Kiki of Kiki’s Delivery Service exhibits common teenage problems, such as finding nice clothes to buy and trying to fit in with her friends, while also managing the inner psychological dilemma of trying to cross the threshold from childhood to adolescence. Though I laughed at the struggles of Woody and Buzz, I never longed to befriend them. I never wished to be Princess Jasmine, Cinderella, or Ariel because they were so one-dimensional. I wanted sisters like Mei and Satsuki who were playful but understood life’s unpredictability. I found myself looking for an objective and silently understanding guardian like the cat bus from Totoro or Totoro himself in the woods whenever I needed an escape from my home life. I learned to believe in the dual realities of our physical world and the spiritual world through Miyazaki’s films. He took the seemingly ordinary struggles in life and gave them poignancy by connecting them with spiritual voids, giving them validity that transcends the natural world. It pains me to acknowledge that this legend of a man will no longer be an active member of the animation world. His exceptional understanding of the world’s profound, humanistic struggles has given me a sense of what true artistry is. What makes Miyazaki so special is the world he creates in each of his films; through his representation of humans and nature as necessary components to create a visual symbiosis of peace, he allows us to make our own assumptions about how harmony should exist. Through his films, audiences have learned to embrace nature, be cognizant of the complexity of human beings, and love profoundly. As for me, Miyazaki’s spirit will always come alive whenever I choose to pop in another one of the original VCRs, labeled with a white sticker emblazoned with the unique kanji characters in the title. There will always be a built-up anticipation as the Studio Ghibli logo appears on screen and prepare to slip into the spiritual realms opened up for me. I will always believe in his magic.

denis sgouros October 18, 2013 | 1:53pm EDT My last weekend had only one saving grace. On a rainy Friday night I took the X3 bus in Tenley to Adams Morgan and got off on 18th St to visit the free District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC). All I expected from my visit was a little bit of art. I got magic. Thanks, in no small part to certain Extremities. The DCAC, located just above the hookah shop on 2438 18th St, is the hidden gem of Admo. Open from 2pm-7pm Weds-Sundays House Manager, Jay Bowman, can tell you the DCAC has housed wild works of art from webbed contraptions that visitors could skateboard beneath to a gala that transformed the entire edifice into a pseudo-functioning spaceship. Galas change monthly with the express intent of “showcasing the typically unshowcased emerging artists [and grass root theatre companies].” The next gallery, “Hubs Feeders,” opens Monday 10/14 presenting works of digital and charcoal photographs. Attached are photos of DCAC’s previous gallery “Non Serviam.” The gallery was well-crafted and thought-provoking but what kept me in the DCAC’s keen embrace for an additional three hours was their housed theatre company and their chilling one-act play. Before I type on any further, indulge my brief lack of subterfuge. GO SEEEXTREMITIES by the Molotov Theatre Group! SEE IT RIGHTTHISINSTANT. From 2pm-7pm the DCAC is a single room expanse of an art gallery. At 7:30pm it’s reincarnated. You walk up the flight of stairs to the main body of the art gallery. You are couriered past the ticket desk and you walk through the midroom, down the wooden steps –nevermind the inexplicable park bench- and enter the theatre. I was not unfamiliar with the Molotov Theatre Group. In 2012, I saw their adaptation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Their spin on the work had the eponymous title-character transform into a vampire and smite his backstabbers. For Extremities, I was bracing myself for almost anything. The gentleman sitting next to me chided: “it’s a Molotov play, it’s sure to get you in the jugular.” Extremities is a chest-clutching, jaw-gaping play of terror that details the crisis that follows in the immediate wake of a foiled rape. You will stare boggle eyed as you watch the vicious would-be victim exchange roles with her attacker. Perhaps a testament to a controversial truth: we’re all screwed up. It just takes someone especially so to show us just how so. See this play. It will disturb you in its wicked brilliancy. Be warned though, this play is a psychological thriller and certainly not for the dull of thought. DCAC is open to the public, Extremities runs from Oct.10- Nov. 3. Tickets $25 from Molotovtheatre.org. http://www.dcartscenter.org/ http://www.molotovtheatre.org/

casey simmons October 17, 2013 | 4:56pm EDT For their first show of the season, the AU Players, a student-run theatre group, staged Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of An Author, directed by sophomore Claire Tietze. The play, known for it’s metatheatrical and absurdist nature, tells a story that can be messy and hard to follow for those unfamiliar with the plot. Pirandello’s play is about a cast rehearsing for a show called The Rules of the Game when a new cast, who are “characters” themselves enter and begin performing a show that is not just a show, but also their “real” lives. Confused yet? A Director, played by freshman Sydney Oullette, and various actors are rehearsing when six masked figures dressed in all black enter their auditorium, which is set up not onstage, but rather within the Kreeger auditorium itself, with the Director and the Stage Manager, played by Egbert Ospina, sitting in the first few rows. Tietze’s staging decision brings the audience closer to the play, as if the audience really is sitting in on a rehearsal gone wrong. The six characters enter, led by the father of this family. He pleads for a writer to construct their story. Although not a writer herself, the Director is intrigued and eventually agrees to hear their story with the idea of possibly staging it with her actors later. What unfolds is a complex retelling of family drama between a mother, father, son, step-daughter, and two young children that involves plenty of dense monologues, shouting, removing and replacing of masks, and storming on and off stage, utilizing the entire auditorium as a stage. What makes this show intriguing is the uncertainty of what the characters are merely recreating about their lives, and what they are newly experiencing in their “real lives”. This blurring of lines between reality and re-creation is complemented as the play progresses by the nagging reminder that the family story being recreated is not the real show. Whenever the tension rises and the action begins getting heated or emotional as the characters explain their family drama the director will interject with comments on how she plans to stage her version, which interrupts any catharsis that the audience may have been anticipating. Although the dialogue is heavy, making the plot difficult to follow for those unfamiliar with the story, the unique metatheatrical nature along with the strategic utilization of the Kreeger auditorium, interesting lighting, eerie masks, and excellent acting combine for a unique and exciting presentation. Below are some thoughts about the performance from Sydney Oullette, who played the Director. C (Casey): How was the experience of your first college show and how did you prepare for it? S (Sydney): Well it was certainly different than the typical high school level. It was literally every single day we had to rehearse and we had to research and just talk about it. It was a different level of dedication. The play was written in 1921 by an Italian playwright so the language was very different. The first time we did a read-through, we had no idea what it was about, so going through, we’d look at SparkNotes, we’d think ‘Oh, I think the step-daughter is pointing to this person and not this person because…’ so and so. I actually went to Professor Gail [Humpries-Mardirosian, AU theatre professor] and actually asked her opinion on it because she’s seen the play so many times. I asked her what she thought it was about or what the playwright was trying to prove. It’s such a different from of meta-physical theatre, so it was harder to easily grasp in comparison to the typical show. C: How did you approach your character, the Director, from a creative point of view? S: At first when I was going through the script I had to establish my character as the comparing point to the fictional characters onstage. It’s funny actually, after seeing Pippin, I connected it so well with Pirandello’s play, not just acting-wise, but theme-wise. The controlling and trying to figure out ‘Is this real? Is this not real?’ which leaves the director questioning at the end. But the director at the same time has that influence over the characters and the family, trying to just push for more information, and push the play, which is what the Leading Player does very well in Pippin as well. So I did draw influence from Pippin to try and put in the persuasion aspect of my character. C: How does your portrayal of the Director compare to the Director of Pirandello’s original text? S: I personally had a more modern view of the director, because we performed the show more modernly. Originally the text has a much older feel, like the step-daughter talks about wearing corsets and such, so it has an older feel to it, but we tried making in modern in a sense so as not to confuse the audience even more. Also, the Director is originally played by a male, so there’s a different attitude in the role from the elderly perspective of a male viewpoint, in comparison to the way I viewed it, as a respectable woman director, who was not only feared, but whose opinion on theatre itself mattered immensely to the actors and audience. C: What are your thoughts about metaphysical theatre and the confusing elements and questions that result from it? S: What Pippin does is it asks the same questions that older playwrights were asking in the beginning of the 20th century. Pirandello pushes us and asks, “What’s real and what’s not?” while looking at it from a different perspective, which is what Pippin does very well. I think it shows nowadays just looking at situations in a more creative and different perspective than what a typical audience would see. Like the show within a show in Pippin, Six Characters was also a show within a show in a sense, because you literally see the rehearsal process, but then you also see the struggle of determining what’s real and what’s not, as these characters start to perform their lives for you. It’s an illusion but it’s not an illusion. The father actually goes into a whole rant where he’s saying “Don’t use that word, this is our reality!” So it’s just different form of putting the question of what someone else’s illusion is, could be someone else’s reality. We could even apply this to real life when we see something on the news of war or genocide, and you think, ‘Is this real?’ because we’re not living it but we’re seeing it. Is seeing it an illusion or connecting to something that’s real?

Tiffany Wong October 15, 2013 | 11:44am EDT With the rise of interest magazines, such as the community table-driven Kinfolk and the interior design savvy Apartamento, it’s hard to find a publication that doesn’t seem like it was put under the Valencia filter or shot exclusively with a disposable camera. And that’s where Lucky Peach comes in. A magazine that seamlessly weaves food and writing together, this quarterly adopts a theme for each issue, such as the Apocalypse, American food, and Chinatown. Talented photographers and artists are showcased, including Christopher Boffoli, a photographer/artist who’s famous for his “Big Appetites” collection, a series of photographs featuring miniature figures set in a food-filled scene. Photographer Sara Cwynar also shot the cover of the Apocalypse issue with her signature monochromatic background and her “gathered materials” packaging. Celebrities sometimes make guest appearances in the magazine, like Aziz Ansari and Mario Batali, who offer advice on food at airports and in airplanes in Issue 7. Anthony Bourdain is also another recurring writer for Lucky Peach, but that may be a bad thing depending on how you feel about him. And although it may seem like Lucky Peach is filled with food fluff and intriguing design (which it partly is), the publication delves into more serious topics that force readers to reflect on what we view as sustenance. In the current Gender issue, which is split in two sections, the magazine explores the women who run butcher shops in their town markets in Vietnam, pulling hearts out and slicing fat off of livers, in Calvin Godfrey and Nhan Van’s article “Meat Maids.” Mimi Lok also profiles three struggling immigrants in San Francisco in “Deliverance: Interviews with Chinese Food Delivery Guys,” a piece that makes you want to double your delivery tip the next time you order in. Like any food magazine, recipes also play a key role in Lucky Peach, but you won’t find your grandmother’s chicken noodle soup in there. Weird recipes are typically found in its page, like Stag Pizzle Soup (the private part of Harry Potter’s patronus blanched in ginger and wine, swimming with goji berries), appropriately placed in the current issue’s Female section. —- Lucky Peach is sold at Kramerbooks & Afterwords and can also be bought online at the McSweeney’s store.

Ben Philz October 10, 2013 | 12:43pm EDT Each month will feature upcoming EDM shows in the DC area at an affordable price. So if you love EDM and can spare less than $20 then check out these acts. September was a great month for even the mild-EDM fan. AlunaGeorge and Lapalux performed at U Street Music Hall to promote their latest works, and October has a wide variety of EDM and related artists at the DC venue. For fans of House music check out Nina Kraviz with Lomez and Marko Peli (10/26). Nina’s minimalist house beats and focus on feminism and sexuality has led to a lot of attention on her work as an artist. Her debut features sparse beats, but her Boiler Room set shows how much control she has in action. Fans of Nina Kraviz will love Tourist (10/24) who creates layers of atmosphere with his sparse, yet eventful beats that will keep the crowd wanting more. Of course if you want something more out of a House DJ then definitely check out Burns vs. Burns (10/11). Featuring DC House legend Sam Burns and Disco House master Chris Burns, the combination of two House legends who know how to control a dance floor on their own will surely be a night to not miss. Want more of a weird hybrid of EDM that combines elements of Hip Hop, Jazz, and/or Funk? Then check out Ryan Hemsworth with Cyril Hahn (10/23). Hemsworth’s hip hop influence can be heard in his DJ sets which take influences from Frank Ocean, Danny Brown and Grimes. If you’re looking for more funky grooves then check out Gigamesh (10/12). A well known DJ and producer, he has become recognized due to his remix of various songs and memorable beats. Check it out for those of you who want Funky Dance Music with no holding back. Finally, I highly recommend checking out Mixtape at Black Cat (10/19). Despite the different atmosphere from U Street, the so-called “DC’s Best Gay Dance Party” will combine electro, alt-pop, disco, new wave and more with DJs Matt Bailer and Shea Van Horn. Oct. 11 Burns vs. Burns /// $10 Oct. 12 Gigamesh /// $10 Oct. 19 Mixtape /// $10 (Black Cat)* Oct. 23 Ryan Hemsworth and Cyril Hahn /// $10 Oct. 24 Tourist /// $10 Oct. 26 Nina Kraviz /// $10 * Mixtape is the only Black Cat show. All other listed shows are at U Street Music Hall.

Jessica Perry October 8, 2013 | 10:40am EDT Problem: You’re burnt out from your D.C. lifestyle. It’s too structured, too fast-paced, too impersonal. You need a wake-up call. Solution: Take the Metrobus toward Georgetown. Get off between 30th and 31st streets. Walk to 1052 Thomas Jefferson Street NW past the C&O Canal. Where are you? The place looks like a hole in the wall at its back alley location. Step inside, though, and you’ve found an indie Mecca. Welcome to Baked & Wired. This popular coffee shop and bakery is as youthfully electric as its name implies. Artsy, quirky, even borderline offensive at times: this place is fun. You’ll probably find yourself clicking your heels three times and repeating, “I’m not a hipster. I’m not a hipster. I’m not a hipster.” But don’t worry, they won’t kick you out if you’re not donning a patterned sweater and Ray Bans. This place is frequented by characters who break the mold in the best way. There’s a metaphorical place for everyone here. Literal space is lacking, however, in the morning and on weekends. It also helps to know your way around. After you enter, on the right side there is a doorway to the magical caffeination station. The left side houses the baked treats. Farther back, past the store part is the very limited seating area. There are a few prime people watching seats outside as well. The shop is overrun by tourists, college students, and office workers. You won’t see anyone on the Internet, though. There’s no wi-fi. So bring your friends, written homework, and a big appetite. Speaking of, there are two well-known reasons to visit B&W: artisan coffee and “cakecups”. The joy dealers of caffeine and sugar are more than qualified to keep you awake. Not to mention the sure laughs you’ll get from the baked good names: “Elvis Impersonator”, “chocolate cupcake of doom”, and “unicorns and rainbows” to name a few. Just wait until you see the ridiculous marker drawings that decorate the labels. The experience makes the slightly above-average prices worth it. High vibes amp up the little shop. It has none of the stifling D.C. seriousness. It’s unpredictable. Hand-drawn art covers the walls, the food labels, their famous napkin wall, the windows— everywhere. Miscellany from song lyrics, to philosophical quotes, to storybook pages, to silly questions with sillier answers are lovingly drawn all over. The B&W staff is constantly changing the drawings as well so you never know what you’re going to get. It’s a great place to inspire your creative side. They often host events to keep with the modern mood as well. AmLit recently held a hugely successful Open Mic Night there, and invited a local band to rock the casbah. You never know what fun shenanigans this place will be up for. It’s worth a trip to find out.

Jeoffrey Pucci October 4, 2013 | 1:28pm EDT This is the first of four articles that will consider the movements and developments of Michelangelo Antonioni within the paradigm of Postreligion and early Marxism/Feminism within cinema. In this series, I will consider the trilogy of L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L’Eclisse (1962), in addition to the Deserto Rosso (1964). Tracing the developments of Antonioni and his view on modernity, I locate a primary inlet into this viewpoint through his strong female lead Monica Vitti. As Vitti infamously starred in five of Antonioni’s films throughout the 1960s until the 1980s, I regard Vitti’s early roles within a Feminist standpoint as the most complex and powerful component to Antonioni’s radical way of constructing and unfolding a cinematic narrative. Modernity and its discontents: Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960) is a film that assures us that the types of relationships one experiences in our contemporary society can only leave us disillusioned and alienated. The location of value and meaning, and the production therein, throughout the modern period has been the cause of profound melancholy for the self-reflective individual of the 20th century. Beginning a story arch that extends into a trilogy of films, L’Avventura is a bleak, restless and extravagant study of the emotionally alienated aristocracy of Europe in the moments immediately following the Second War. The beginning of the film, which traces a group of aristocrats in their meaningless escapades throughout the Italian countryside, is decidedly Marxist – rejecting religion and material wealth as the basis of social morality. The film’s two main characters Claudia (Monica Vitti) and Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) are locate continually within a paradigm of utter contradiction: to explain the basic features of their lives, beginning with their emotional attachments to their friends and their ambitions, Claudia, Sandro, and Anna (Lea Massari) only seem to exist because of their location within a social structure. As their moral maxims are necessary for them to keep their world organized and accessible, when Claudia and Sandro are faced with the ultimate tragedy of losing their friend Anna they are forced into an adventure where their moral compasses cannot navigate. But are their moral maxims and predications not the highest and most complex existing within society? Claudia and Sandro awkwardly attempt to articulate themselves by virtue of their values, and yet, they find themselves demanding certain types of social commitments without having any type of moral or ethical criterion to make those demands. More than anything else, L’Avventura is an exhaustive exploration of Modernity: the cosmopolitanist and her apathy, her utter lack of emotional connection, and moral justification in yearning for the life that she leads. At the center of the film is Antonioni’s vision of the post-industrial aristocracy living in Italy; enframing the film within a social landscape of utter success and playfulness, the wealthiest are made into beings that only desire carefree lives. But as the film unfolds, the aristocrat’s dated moral and ethical structure – that which presses them into desiring only the most innocent forms of bliss — are continually compromised by the complexities arising within the late modernist period. As the film is dominated by the narratives of Anna (Lea Massari) and her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti), it begins with the presumed engagement of Anna to Sandro. The film opens with an exchange between Anna and her father, wherein her father quickly dispels the faint hope that Sandro will indeed marry her. Exclaiming with surprise “Why would he marry you?” The cultured and elite women are the focus of this film as they lead lives of quite desperation. While L’Avventura is a sublime Marxist study of a woman’s inability to derive any kind of emotional value within a culture and society of materialism, the film is more concerned with creating an overwhelmingly bleak and boring atmosphere than creating a powerful rejection. These societal actors are pressed into conformity within the power structures of modernity, seeking erotic pleasure in the absence of romantic congregation. The theme of modernity is inaugurated by a sense of dishonesty: one is driven to desire things which are inherently unfulfilling; the dishonestly of engaging within superficial values of extravagance – the overly long and utterly pointless boating parties, the vastly overpopulated Saloons, and their promiscuous relationships offer no assurance of commitment nor social stability. L’Avventura offers a haunting and chilling cinematic experience and slowly unwinds the confidence you once felt towards the place, posture and happiness of the ruling and owning class. The film’s exhaustive depiction of the life of a bored aristocrat serves an all to uncomfortable and realized truth: modernity’s progressive nature has undone more social structures than it has created. As Michelangelo Antonioni said in a statement regarding the film: And today a new man is being born, fraught with all the fears, terrors and stammerings that are associated with a period of gestation. And what is even more serious, this new man immediately finds himself burdened with a heavy baggage of emotional traits, which cannot exactly be called old and outmoded, but rather unsuited and inadequate. They condition us without offering us any help; they create problems without suggesting any possible solutions. And yet it seems that man will not rid himself of this baggage. He reacts, he loves, he hates, he suffers under the sway of moral forces and myths which today, when we are at the threshold of reaching the moon, should not be the same as those that prevailed in Homeric times, but nevertheless are. Source

denis sgouros October 2, 2013 | 5:45pm EDT It’s Sunday. I’m up and at work an hour early with bags under my eyes a hazy recollection of last night and the delightful presence of a nasally pressure in my head. Like most college students in the D.C. metro area, I may have made some mistakes last night. Let me tell you about the one thing I did proper yesterday. I went to the free and open-house local art gallery, Blind Whino. If you so choose, you may take the Orange/Blue line to L’Enfant Plaza and embark on an 8-10 minute stroll to “Blind Whino.” Or as it is colloquially known, “Hense Church.” Address 700 Delaware Avenue SW. The Church is some 120 years old, recently given an architectural face-lift, botox and mascara treatment by the artist “Hense,” (hence, “Hense Church”). In the dull and dreary life of the ever-studious College student barraged on all sides with the monotonous black text of our textbooks, Blind Whino hits you fast and vibrantly as though an edifice of unnatural, unearthly or Cuban design you are left awe struck by its vast array of colors. If you will, indulge my shift in narration as I regale you with what I experienced on the inside. The center room of the first floor was a trendy lounge with powerful soul portraits hung along the corridor. To the far left of the room stood several large black canvases for guests to contribute their own works of art. All the other rooms on the first floor, adjacent to the center room, house works of art each room with its own over arching theme. Ie: water, death and Star Wars (I kid you not, I found a portrait of a Storm trooper with a baby lego storm trooper on the others lap). All art showcased is available for purchase. Works with a red sticker denotes that they have already been purchased. To the top floor of the Church I was shocked to find what I can only describe as an alternative-indie punk mariachi band show but what was later described to me as “gypsy rock.” The band killed. If this place sounds like your scene, stop by. The staff is super friendly and eager to “provoke the graffiti art community in DC.” Their events are free and they usually throw open parties on weekends. You can find their hours of operation as well as events on their website but if you want to be kept informed by the minute they recommend signing onto their e-mail list serve. Learn more at www.blindwhino.org or info@blindwhino.org. Now to find an Advil…