While Titus Andronicus have been music-blog darlings ever since their raucous debut in 2008, their last release—a sprawling civil-war themed concept album called The Monitor—was one of the most unlikely success stories of 2010. Now, Titus fans have another great reason to be excited. No, it’s not another album; it’s a mixtape. Yeah, not what I was expecting either. But Titus Andronicus is anything but predictable, and their latest foray into the world of alternative distribution is no exception. Brimming with live covers of everything from the Velvet Underground to Weezer, there’s enough rock in this record to blow out your car speakers three times over. All the hits from Titus’ first two albums are here as well, making this an excellent starter-album for new fans. And that’s just the first volume! I don’t know when the band plans to release the second, but it better be soon.
The centerpiece of LLC is a new single from their upcoming album—which, if “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus” is anything to go by, is going to be awesome. Their covers of “I Fought the Law” and “The Boys Are Back in Town” are also pretty good, although they (like many of Titus’ live recordings) suffer from feedback and low fidelity. If this were any other band, I would be disappointed by the audio quality, but what else can you expect from a punk group named after Shakespeare’s bloodiest, most unpolished play? Titus is all about being rough and rowdy. This Jersey Band famously couch-surfed their “Monitour” (hehe), slept in a storm drain, and is currently signed by the horribly-named label “Diarrhea Planet.” Still, these guys are no dummies; Patrick Stickles’ writing is unusually strong for a self-professed punk, and puts him appropriately in the running for the Shakespeare of shoegaze. And what exactly does that entail? Well, I really recommend you go ahead and find out. This labor of love is well-worth your time, and is the most faithful tribute to the band’s incredible live show since the fan-released compilation, “Feats of Strength.” Plus, the whole thing is available for free at the band’s website!

The Highlights:
-Live hits, covers and unreleased material make it very accessible to both new and old fans
-The new single, “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus”
-Great covers of The Replacements, The Velvet Underground, Thin Lizzy, and other punk greats

Organizers Toby Cain ’12 and Jennifer Brown ’12 said they enjoy putting on the Arts and Crafts Fair because it allows students a glimpse at the hidden talents of their peers.

“I like seeing what people create… Arts and crafts are not usually something people go around and wave in front of people’s faces, but it’s nice to see the really cool things people do in their spare time,” Brown said.

Vendor Allison Brinkhorst ’11 is one such crafty Grinnellian. Her greeting cards and candles are made exclusively of recycled materials, adding an environmentally friendly flair to her work. She has also been experimenting with modge-podge, the art of decorating ordinary used items with colorful magazine clippings to make them new again.

Brinkhorst, an Arts and Craft Fair veteran, almost missed selling at this year’s fair due to a conflicting event.

“They said they would sell the things for me, but just getting the money for my crafts was not exciting…Being there, having people appreciate what you’re doing is actually why I do it,” she said.

Brown and Cain invite any students interested in selling to contact them at [craft], or even just to show up before 2 p.m. on Wednesday with any craft items they’re willing to part with.
“We’ll find space for them. Everyone should be able to sell,” said Brown.

In case of rain the event will be moved inside the Bookstore, which will be holding a 20% off sale on the 9th to further entice students to check out the Fair.

Contributed

“We have cheerleaders, ballerinas, hip hop dancers, etc., so everyone kind of brings new and different perspectives to the plate, and then we can all come together and get inspired by each other and create very detailed, complex pieces,” said Erin Whalen ’12. Though this would pose a challenge in some groups, IndepenDANCE is full of dedicated individuals.

“There’s a lot of choreography that some people aren’t accustomed to,” said Gabby Mitchell, ’13, “but everyone comes in with an attitude that they’re gonna try and put in their 100%. And if it’s not their style, they do their own version of it.” The dancers’ diversity of backgrounds shapes and strengthens the group.

“You meet a lot of people in IndepenDANCE that you wouldn’t ordinarily hang out with. I think a big part of IndepenDANCE is learning how to interact with everybody and accept them for their differences,” said Natalie Richardson Gentil ’14.

The group certainly seems to have achieved this. They call themselves a “family unit,” and upon entering the end of their rehearsal, I could see this clearly. Dressed in a range of workout gear from sweat pants to sports bras to dance shoes, they were all huddled together, laughing and having a good time.

IndepenDANCE was founded by Christain Snow ’13 and Seantasia Lee ’13 last semester and is the only hip hop group on campus.

“One major goal of the group has been to create a place to facilitate hip hop dancing and hip hop culture in a school where it’s pretty rare,” Whalen said. “We want to have everyone who loves to dance come together in a communal effort that can show a positive representation of hip hop culture.”

IndepenDANCE will be having a showcase this Friday night in Harris at 8:30 p.m. In addition to many entertaining dance numbers, this showcase will also feature R&B singers, a spoken word poet, and a rapper. IndepenDANCE members are looking forward to the performance.

“The audience gives so much energy in these situations, because when you see them sitting there and you know they want to get up and dance with you, that’s the best feeling in the world,” said Briel Waxman ’12. “When there’s an audience, the energy sky-rockets.” With their swag, cleanliness, energy, and personality, IndepenDANCE is sure to get a good turnout.

In addition to their Friday night performance, IndepenDANCE will be hosting a dance workshop this Saturday at 1:00 p.m. in the Multipurpose Dance Studio in the Bear.

The roots of the event began in another Midwest liberal arts college.

“Earlier this semester, AAA, which is Asian American Association, went to a conference at Oberlin and John Vietnam performed there for them and they really liked it and got in contact with him,” SGA Concerts Chair Pooj Padmaraj ’13 said.

The venue, though not typical for a Friday night concert, holds a certain advantage.

“It is a conscious decision to have it in Bob’s because he does a question and answer session after his set and that doesn’t really work in Gardner,” Padmaraj said.

Vietnam defines his art as “expression, therapy, and resistance rooted in hip-hop culture.” Often, this manifests itself in socially conscious lyrics akin to Blue Scholars and Immortal Technique intertwined with comments on self, self-worth and rapping about being good at rapping.

“Remember: four bags of chips were a dollar?/Now we conscious of the monsters that put colors on our collars/Separating classes on economic status and later we can wonder whose salary the fattest/What’s it matter, man?/That’s ain’t how it’s supposed to be/And I don’t want live for the dream they sold to me,” Vietnam raps on “Can’t Be Friends.”

Vietnam’s beat selection and cadence varies more than his subject matter as he opts to rap over boom-bap heavy original productions and the staggering, sample heavy instrumental for Rich Boy’s “Drop.” His blunt voice fits nicely inside whatever pace he uses and Vietnam often demonstrates an impressive ability for multisyllabic and internal rhymes:

“Prospectors of the prosperous/ profit from our common sense/ we’re consequently products of who proctor us this doctrine/ hope is resurrected when this microphone revitalized/ the 99 will occupy despite the guy they idolize,” he raps on “Who the Bullet Hit.”

In addition to rapping, Vietnam also performs slam poetry and breaks. His show will likely showcase at least two of these three talents. Concerts is bringing in roughly half the speakers they would for a Gardner show as not to overwhelm attendees but still give his instrumentals plenty of presence.

You can download Vietnam’s mixtape and check out some of his videos, including his “Day in the Life,” which features his rapping, poetry and dancing in various Chicago locations, on his youtube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/johnvietnam13

“We’re going to have Harris set up like an alley and have four different student graffiti artists doing 15 minutes of live presentation,” said Ki Harris ’14, President of the Pioneer Diversity Council.

The Showcase is the Diversity Council’s year-end capstone event. Nick Hinojosa ’14 wanted to make the show themed around graffiti to dispel some of the negative connotations that the art form carries.

“[We wanted] graffiti [to be a part of the show] because it’s a big part of the culture back home (Corpus Christi, Texas) and it’s something that Grinnell lacks,” Hinojosa said in an email.

“Also, there are a lot of negative connotations about graffiti, it is often affiliated with gangs and tagging and it’s not appreciated as an art.”

Various performance artists will accompany the artists as they paint.

“We asked each artist to find a performance artist,” Hinojosa said. “There will be a guitarist, ballet dancer, spoken word [artist] and a DJ mix prepared by Will Jackson.”

The theme of the event is GC Pride, but “it’s a surprise about how it’s going to turn out exactly,” Harris said. The showcase starts at 2pm this Saturday.

“Everyone we’ve mentioned [the show to] is planning on going,” Harris said. “It’s going to be big.”

The idea for this historical publication to be turned into a gallery exhibit came from Kay Wilson, curator of the gallery, and Milton Severe, Director of Exhibition Design. In 2009, Henry Wilhelm, one of the photographers and compilers of the yearbook, received an email and immediately thought it was a great idea. The yearbook itself held so much history about how the college became the social justice oriented place that it is today.

“The first was that we changed the name from Cyclone, because cyclone meant nothing to the outside world. So we established the name “Grinnell College 1966,” which were the two key things: where and when,” Wilhelm said. “We approached it as a documentary on college life and got rid of all the usual conventions. No posed senior pictures, no posed team or club pictures, and the whole subject of sports in this yearbook was a radical departure from what was usual at the time. Students really supported the idea and we sold more presubscribed copies than ever before in history.”

Photos in the yearbook ranged from a meet and greet for first years before school started to men on north campus destroying pianos in a competition. The photos are beautiful, but equally, they contain a great deal of commentary on how the college functioned at the time. One aspect of focus was the way women were treated unequally by the college. There are images of people having to leave after being suspended or expelled for being suspected of spending the night with a person of the opposite sex. Students became angry and started fighting back against the sexist regulations, expressed in a photo of women at a meeting holding signs.

“We thought of it as a historical book in a time of rapid change,” Wilhelm said.

When it came to the actual publishing of the yearbook, Wilhelm and his fellow compilers encountered difficulty. The college was given the original compiling of the yearbook to review before printing and decided that there were multiple liabilities.

“In reality, the college just didn’t want the yearbook to be published and it was, in a sense, banned. That was extremely upsetting to a lot of people on campus,” Wilhelm said. “It became very clear that the college wanted to do, but failed to do due to the copyright, was seize the book, probably bring in another editor to ‘sanitize’ it, to remove everything they didn’t like: drug pictures, students being suspended, comments about women, the whole thing.”

Wilhelm and his fellow editors had help from an attorney alum and notified the college that they were in possession of stolen property by holding onto the yearbook. Although, even after getting the yearbook back, it was almost impossible to find somewhere willing to publish the book. All of the publishing companies were afraid of being sued by the college, due to the publicity of the conflict between college and yearbook editors.

Twenty years later, Wilhelm was reminded of the yearbook and decided that it was time to have it published.

“I thought, ‘Well, we should at least tell the college what we’re planning to do.’ If not any other reason, we need the names and addresses of all four classes from the alumni office. Then President George Drake heard through the grapevine that the class of ’66 was planning on publishing the yearbook, so he invited me over to the college to tell him what I’m doing,” Wilhelm said. “In less than five minutes George said, ‘Well this is a history book, we [Grinnell College] should publish it.’ I was astonished.”

The yearbook was published in 1986 and the gallery now sports prints that have been digitally re-mastered from the original negatives. Students are encouraged to visit the exhibition and get a glimpse of Grinnell’s powerful history through beautiful photography. There is a station in the middle of the gallery that allows for students to print out any photo from the gallery. Donations are appreciated and the proceeds go to support preservation activities in Burling Library’s Special Collections and Archives and the Faulconer Gallery’s Permanent Art Collection.

The Grinnell College Student Salon will open this Friday with 28 works by 18 students. Photograph by Connie Lee

“Traditionally a juror is brought from outside of Grinnell to select from submissions. Last year it was Gilbert Vicario, Curator of the Des Moines Art Center. The year before this was Jefferey Hamada, author of the art blog, http://www.booooooom.com/, ” said Nic Wilson ’12, a member of the Art SEPC. This year, the juror is Kathleen Edwards, Chief Curator of the University of Iowa Art Museum. Edwards will also be holding a Gallery Talk in Faulconer Gallery at 4:15 p.m. this Friday to talk about her strategy and selections for this year’s exhibition.

This year was also the first year in which students submitted works electronically. “We got together with the Art SEPC and the Art faculty. Together they wanted to try [electronic submissions],” said Lesley Wright, Director of Faulconer Gallery. With the addition of electronic submissions, Kathleen Edwards had about 110 works to choose from.

“Every juror usually comes out of it with a particular idea after looking at everything that particularly speaks to her. And good curators also look to put together an exhibition that has some sort of coherence, ” Wright said. In Kathleen Edward’s statement regarding the Student Art Salon, she says, “I see this curated exhibition of student art work coalescing around concepts related to the structures and functions of the human brain.”

Any student is allowed to enter, even if they are not in an art class. It can be any student on campus and any type of artwork is welcome, such as paintings, drawings, sculptures, photography, or video.

There are 28 works by 18 artists this year, so be sure to come support the art community this Friday. The Annual Student Art Salon begins at 5 p.m. Refreshments will be served and the awards will be announced at 5:15 p.m.

“The project as a whole was inspired by industrial and post-industrial forms in the Midwest, mostly sourced from drawings and photographs I’ve done in St. Louis, some drawings from buildings in Grinnell and some imaginary forms,” Radoshevich said.

Radoshevich’s apartment is situated at the end of a long, high ceilinged hallway. Before walking in, I saw that above the door were two windows. They had pictures of factory buildings projected on to them. The projection of photos creates a positive lighting for the factory buildings usually associated with long hours and tedious labor.

“I focused on abandoned or defunct industrial buildings and forms, because something about these kinds of environments is so alien, because in general, factories and warehouses and other similar structures geared towards manufacturing feel so big and precarious,” Radoshevich said. “They’re very obviously not meant for the human form/scale.”

Along the walls, juxtaposed to the projections, are large painted works of buildings and geometric planes.

”I installed it in my apartment because the Spaulding building (where I live) is the old administrative headquarters for the Spaulding automotive manufacturing factory that was active early in the 20th century but was only operational for a few years,” Radoshevich said. The painted works utilize harsh lines and faded colors to express the emotion around the once booming buildings.

Radoshevich began with four huge pieces of birch-ply, the raw support of her paintings.

“I like working on wood because it’s a non-neutral starting place, or some kind of contextualizing ground on which to start. Something about a blank white surface is both intimidating and uninspiring for me. I like to work into something that was already there,” Radoshevich said.

The exhibition, installed against windows which overlook main street, should not be missed. If you’d like to stop by, send an email to [radoshev].

While Titus Andronicus have been music-blog darlings ever since their raucous debut in 2008, their last release—a sprawling civil-war themed concept album called The Monitor—was one of the most unlikely success stories of 2010. Now, Titus fans have another great reason to be excited. No, it’s not another album; it’s a mixtape. Yeah, not what I was expecting either. But Titus Andronicus is anything but predictable, and their latest foray into the world of alternative distribution is no exception. Brimming with live covers of everything from the Velvet Underground to Weezer, there’s enough rock in this record to blow out your car speakers three times over. All the hits from Titus’ first two albums are here as well, making this an excellent starter-album for new fans. And that’s just the first volume! I don’t know when the band plans to release the second, but it better be soon.

The centerpiece of LLC is a new single from their upcoming album—which, if “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus” is anything to go by, is going to be awesome. Their covers of “I Fought the Law” and “The Boys Are Back in Town” are also pretty good, although they (like many of Titus’ live recordings) suffer from feedback and low fidelity. If this were any other band, I would be disappointed by the audio quality, but what else can you expect from a punk group named after Shakespeare’s bloodiest, most unpolished play? Titus is all about being rough and rowdy. This Jersey Band famously couch-surfed their “Monitour” (hehe), slept in a storm drain, and is currently signed by the horribly-named label “Diarrhea Planet.” Still, these guys are no dummies; Patrick Stickles’ writing is unusually strong for a self-professed punk, and puts him appropriately in the running for the Shakespeare of shoegaze. And what exactly does that entail? Well, I really recommend you go ahead and find out. This labor of love is well-worth your time, and is the most faithful tribute to the band’s incredible live show since the fan-released compilation, “Feats of Strength.” Plus, the whole thing is available for free at the band’s website!

The Highlights:
-Live hits, covers and unreleased material make it very accessible to both new and old fans
-The new single, “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus”
-Great covers of The Replacements, The Velvet Underground, Thin Lizzy, and other punk greats

“The music, generally speaking, its exoticness and strangeness can be bridged fairly easily. It’s not harsh sounding,” said Roger Vetter, Music.

The performance will also be packaged much like a western musical performance. Nineteen musicians will perform in a concert hall, on a stage, and without the ceremonial significance of the original art form. Nonetheless, the experience promises to immerse listeners in a different culture.

“There are so many aspects of Java’s history…all those layers are reflected in different ways through the performing arts,” said Valerie Vetter, Javanese dance instructor.

Part of the cultural experience will be the intermixing of two art forms, dance and music. Javenese music is typically designed to accompany dance, theatre, or a puppet show. Two students, Emily Ullberg ’12 and Chooi Yen Lim ’12, will perform a slightly modified traditional dance that involves a lot of fine details and flashy scarf moves.

“It’s a wonderful dance that is very dynamic, I think,” Val Vetter said. “It’s very closely related to the drumming, so the drum kind of speaks the movements.”

Elaborate costumes and makeup will also add to the visual impact of the performance.

The dance, like many Javanese dances, tells a story. This piece depicts a young prince who is thinking of his love and preparing to meet her.

“It’s a character from some story,” Val Vetter said, “and it’s usually reflecting that character’s inner character.”

Gamelan music plays a similar role in performance, creating a mood or a tone that can be adapted to new lyrics or performances. This is partially because the music is never written down, so there is a limit to the number of variations that performers can be expected to know for any given occasion. In its typical ceremonial function, the music projects the mood of the moment.

“Most often you would hear it in accompaniment of some kind of theatrical presentation,” Professor Vetter said, “which again is taking place to serve some ceremonial function, say a new business is opening shop.”

In this case, the Javanese Gamelan Music and Dance performance will usher in the final days of the semester, introducing students to an exciting cultural tradition that celebrates the ceremony of performative art.

“The concert went really well,” Grinnell Concerts Chair Pooj Padmaraj ’13 said. “The songs they played were really long—more so than on their record. … You really got into a kind of trance-like state.”

A sense of dark urgency, provided by snappy drummer Rex McMurry and dynamic keyboardist Rotten Milk, pervaded the 90 minute set, and many of the spelunkers dug such cavernous sounds. Indeed, the band’s aptitude would probably have induced visceral emotions regardless of the help that the cultural holiday they performed on gave them.
“I’ve been pretty disappointed with the psych-prog-rock scene in Iowa City,” Graham Klemme, a 2nd year at the University of Iowa said after the show. “After seeing Cave, I’m definitely going to try to transfer to Grinnell.”

Cave was the penultimate performance of the year hosted by Concerts (the last show was Woods on Tuesday), but Padmaraj says that Concerts is collaborating with the AAA [Asian American Association] to bring hip-hop/spoken word artist John Vietnam to Bob’s in early May. Padmaraj, who was just approved to return to his position as Concerts Chair for another year, is also currently working on booking bands for the ’12-’13 school year.

“Agents are now sending in their bands that are going to be routed across the nation,” Padmaraj said. “Concerts is going through them and looking for what we want.” As always, music-minded individuals are encouraged to attend concerts meetings and help select bands for the upcoming year.

Having only listened to Woods long enough to vaguely classify them as a lo-fi Fleet Foxes, I was eager to see how their studio recordings translated into a live show. Lo-fi acts can often sound much warmer and fuller in concert due to the additional amplification, as Best Coast demonstrated during their Fall 2010 Gardner set.

Though certainly amplified, Woods largely ditched their glowing harmonies for mid-song jam breakdowns exploring their psychedelic realm. In addition to dilutions of the songs from their studio, they also brought incense, which sat smoking on the table of “tape effects technician” G. Lucas Crane. He sat in the middle of the stage, bouncing over lights and knobs, with a pair of overhead headphones sideways on his head, one cup on the back of his head and the other over his mouth, evoking Batman’s villain Bane.

Woods displayed plenty of musicianship; members switched instruments several times, playing each with skill and crisply harmonized. Unfortunately, numerous songs, ranging from blues to folk, began promisingly, eventually devolved into Crane spinning dials of psychedelic sonar in Morse code out to a largely motionless crowd of about 30. This was followed by a gently strummed riff that slowly built to a much needed break.

I hold nothing against jam bands. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest meant attending plenty of jam and ska shows, which I enjoyed. However, a breakdown should be a unique experience. Merely repeating the same process becomes mechanical and trying for the listener. The apparent grand finale bout of psychedelia, which came during their last song, finally broke my patience after 10 minutes, and I tiredly left before the inevitable resurgence of sonic order.

And so goes this dark character study, a patient examination of the life of Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender), a highly successful businessman secretly battling a consuming sex-addiction. The first portion of the film establishes the empty monotony of Brandon’s existence, as he navigates a never-ending cycle of work, masturbation, and the comparative thrill of the upscale Manhattan singles bars frequented by his high-power corporate associates.

Then Brandon’s grim, but ordered existence is thrown into disarray with the unexpected arrival of his sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), a singer with an equally troubled past. Sissy brings her own set of problems, but—more than anything—disturbs Brandon through her continuous attempts to foster some kind of sibling intimacy. “We’re family, we’re meant to look after each other,” Sissy said. But that kind of connection is simply beyond Brandon’s emotional reach.

From there, the pair’s stories devolve, each embarking on their own downward spiral. Sissy has an emotional overdependence on Brandon, through his uncontrollable cravings and utter inability to connect. Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, who served as McQueen’s Director of Photography on his debut feature, Hunger, deftly constructs a visual world to complement this bleak story, painting modern Manhattan in the beiges and grays of a boring but elegant upper-class bathroom.

McQueen, in his own right, flexes an expert ability to construct complex scenes and patiently pace a story. Filling the film with single shots that span conversations or several city blocks, McQueen perfectly captures the droll, repetitive hopelessness of a life of addiction. Occasionally, he tries to do too much, overexerting his directorial influence. As a result, the film is at times weighed down by obvious symbolism and ineffective melodrama—the worst example being an ending uncomfortably reminiscent of that of 2010’s vapid brain-teaser “Inception.” For the most part, however, McQueen sticks to his hands-off approach, and allows his actors to do most of his work for him—and it is this instinct that ultimately makes Shame the excellent film that it is.

Mulligan, of course, delivers a tremendous performance (as if we expect anything less from her), tempering her signature innocence with a host of sinister insecurities that occasionally explode onto the screen. It is Fassbender, however (most known for his portrayal of a young Magneto in last year’s X-Men: First Class), who steals the film, delivering an agonizing and nuanced performance that perfectly encapsulates the misery and isolation of chronic sexual dependence. The result: a tragically beautiful film that searches for, and ultimately finds, redemption in the darkest of places.

Shame will be screening this Sunday, April 29, in Harris Cinema at 2:00 p.m. Woody Allen’s classic romance, Annie Hall, will be showing on Friday, April 27, at 6:00 p.m.

Winsome Eustace ’12, reads from her nonfiction essay regarding cheating in card games, computer games and relationships. Photograph by Joey Brown

“The class breaks the idea of creative nonfiction up into a bunch of subgenres,” Savarese said. “So there is the subgenre of memoir, the subgenre of the travel essay (so you heard some travel essays tonight), there’s the subgenre of literary journalism, the subgenre of the lyric essay, the subgenre of the profile. … The idea is that they read models from each of these subgenres by professionals and then they construct assignments derived from those models about their own experience.”

The students wrote about a diverse array of topics. One student wrote about her father and his forays into the career as a health product salesman, while another student wrote about his unintended experience as an American tourist at Machu Picchu.

“I thought the one about video games and cheating and card games really had both an interesting message and an interesting lens on the topic,” Cantwell said of the piece that Winsome Eustace ’12 wrote. “I also thought the woman who told the story about Nanjing was pretty interesting,” Cantwell continued in refrence to the piece presented by Professor Meehan, Philosophy. “It was emotional; it was obviously something that is very close to her life.”

The audience was sizable, with over 40 students and faculty in attendance. The otherwise hushed rooms of Burling echoed frequently with laughter at clever wordplay or the relatable, awkward experiences of pubescence.

“It’s one thing to be funny in the real world,” Savarese said. “It’s much harder to be funny on the page. Writing is an art. Creative writing is supposed to be heard, there’s got to be an audience. But more important is that they try to revise these final pieces for the portfolio. Hearing yourself read a piece aloud gives you access to the piece that just reading it to yourself does not.”

Improv members refuse to surrender to the passage of time. Photograph by Avery Rowlison

Though the event was initially created to raise money for charity, 24-Hour Improv is now primarily a way for troupe members to bond and test their own stamina.

“It’s mostly a traditional thing,” Alex McConnell ’12 said.  “I saw it as a prospie, which would have been Spring 2008, and it had gone at least a couple years before that.”

Despite the physical and mental toll, 24-Hour Improv has become an important troupe experience.

“For some reason it’s kind of a bonding exercise and a rite of passage for the members of the troupe,” Margaret Allen ’12 said. “I mean you really see someone’s true colors at 4 a.m.”

“I think it’s also just one of those fantastical tasks that people make themselves do just to see that they can,” Allen continued. “I mean it is exactly like a marathon, only for acting. There is no better time for us in our entire lives to do something this completely ridiculous, but also fun.”

The novelty of 24-hour improv is in that troupe members are truly invested in improvisational skits for 24 hours. “We don’t stop. We don’t stop,” Allen said. “There was a time period where we were all too tired to even stand up, it was like 4 a.m., so we did a radio improv game sitting on the couches with our eyes closed but not sleeping. There was a time where we played a game that was just like, genital puns, and we did that for about an hour and a half.  That was also really fun.”

RTS members have to be creative in working food, drink, and rotating mini-naps into the show.

“We continue acting during [our] meals,” Allen said. “We do this thing called a ‘business luncheon’ where it’s a business meeting and you’re having lunch. This year our business luncheon was at a local coop.  All of these people were characters that are the biggest hyperbole of someone who’s like vegan, local foods, all of that.”

Not surprisingly, 24 hours of a high-energy task such as improvisational acting can be rather draining on one’s mood. “I think the biggest thing that’s important for the troupe to communicate to other people is that if we treated you like a douche bag, … if we were ‘unkind’ or ‘insensitive’ or ‘rash’ with them, or unappreciative, we were just sooo tired and beyond any point of having manners that, … forgive us for our obscenities,” Allen said. Still, troupe members appreciate participating in the event each year.

“It’s a pretty unique event, honestly,” McConnell said. “There are other schools where troupes do marathons like this but I don’t know of any that do 24 hour marathons. … It’s a cool thing that we’re able to do here because we have the kind of support that we do, and I’m very thankful for that.”

Bassist Christopher Johnson of Ames, Iowa and soprano Grinnellian Graciela Guzman ’11, who majored in anthropology but is pursuing a career in music, will be featured as soloists.  A tap performer from the University of Iowa, John Cumming-Meininger IV, will also be performing.

“It’s a really special and wonderful opportunity for the choirs,” said Professor John Rommereim, who is the director of the Oratorio Society and the Singers. “They don’t often get to collaborate with the jazz band, so it’s a great thing to bring together the band, the choir, the soloist, and in this case also a tap dancer.  In my experience, this is the only time I’ve been able to perform a choral piece with a tap dancer.”

Rommereim will be directing the portions of the show most difficult for singers, while Assistant Professor Damani Phillips will be directing the Jazz Ensemble. Learning and performing Ellington’s pieces together has proven to be a rewarding experience.

“A couple of sections are spoken in rhythm,” Rommereim said.  “The challenge is to get a choral reading kind of effect, when people speak rhythmically but expressively, so it is a convincing effect.  It’s a different mode, but it’s very fun.  The text of the piece is just so clever and refreshing.”

This weekend will not just be difficult musically; it will be organizationally challenging, as well.  On Sunday, the groups will take the show on the road to Des Moines for a performance at St. John’s Lutheran Church at 4:00pm.  Combined, there are over 90 members to move, as well as musical equipment and a tap stage.  The effort has proven to be a logistical challenge, but the choirs and band anticipate a warm reception.

In your performance you talked a lot about wanting to get to know Shakespeare. What would you say your relationship to him and his work is?
I’d never liked Shakespeare, I thought his work was boring and it made me feel stupid because I thought that everybody else understood it and I didn’t. And when you see a play and think ‘Oh Shakespeare is boring, I don’t like him,’ usually it’s not Shakespeare, it’s the actors performing it. And I’ll be the first to say that I’ve been guilty of that, too. Once I realized that I could understand his work, it opened a whole world of language. And his work is almost like learning a different language at times and after a while it’s not as much hard work but it takes active participation—you have to really listen.

You also talked about wanting to be honest with the audience. How do you juxtapose honesty and acting in a performance, it seems almost oxymoronic…
And it is but that chase, the challenge of going after that is what excites me. It’s like trying to marry the best of 20th century contemporary acting with classical texts. There’s a lot of technique—a lot of study and voice work and speech work and poetry that goes into it. Marrying the technique with that level of authenticity is hard. And somewhere in the middle is where the magic happens.

Apart from Shakespeare, what do you work on?
I love contemporary works as well… I just finished a stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. Six months of the year though, I’m working on classical texts and when I work at other theatres I tend to like to do something contemporary so that I’m not just seen as a Shakespearean classical actor. I’d say that I enjoy classical texts the most and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to make a living out of it. I tell young actors that there’s a whole world of regional theatre and a life in the arts is not just in LA or New York.

You seem to just have chanced upon theatre, how did that really happen?
The first thing I ever wanted to be was to be a writer. I wrote journals in 6th grade, before it was cool. That’s the only inkling that I had some desire to express something. I dropped out of college twice and thought I wanted to be a fisherman. But I loved books and I loved movies. And for some reason I found myself in a community college and met a few people and I then I remember seeing a show for the first time and I remember wanting to do that. But I acknowledge chance and good fortune. There was a lot of that.

You seem to have persevered through a lot of rejection letters, what was the process of continuing to follow your passion like?
It wasn’t just perseverance. There was a level of ignorance in there as well. I know I did hard work, but I didn’t know that I couldn’t apply to these [top acting] schools and I didn’t know that I couldn’t write a book. I was silly enough to think I could and I kept trying and I did. I’m kind of an advocate of ‘you don’t always have to know how to do what you want to before you start it.’ Just start it. If you hit a wall, ask for help. I got rejected from a lot of schools and it was devastating—I’d found a passion and all these schools kept on saying ‘no.’ I just kept on trying, I guess. I have some kind of a bug, if somebody tells me that I can’t do something I think ‘alright, I’ll prove to you that I can.’ In some weird way it’s worked.  There’s been a lot of good fortune. I’ve been blessed with great teachers

What advice would you give to aspiring writers/actors?
I think nothing’s for naught. I think you should just keep moving forward. I started writing really bad poetry and I showed it to someone that I trusted and she told me that my poetry was juvenile but that my prose was promising. I like frank teachers. It saves time. It may hurt a little bit at first but it’s great. Also, it sounds trite, but to follow your heart. I have found that the things I have chosen in life which seemed like a better business decision even though I didn’t really want to do them turned out to be bad decisions. Stay with what you’re passionate about, and reach out for help.

Susanna Moller’s works in “Painted Decay” depict almost fantastical wounds in layers of nearly transparent color. Photograph by Connie Lee

“I wanted something literal,” Moller said, “not anything with a word that any opinion in it. Decay is what it is and it is Painted.”

Moller’s prelude is an accurate description of the exhibition. Her show is comprised of a gallery of teeth and other body parts painted with watercolors and several molds of teeth pinned to the wall. I asked Moller if she based the paintings off of the teeth molds. She explained that she doesn’t draw directly from real life; an image forms in her mind of what she wants to paint, and then she paints that.

“A lot of the teeth were made up,” she said. “It wasn’t really supposed to be anyone’s mouth, they were just teeth.”

Each painting includes a body part: the roof of a mouth, two toes of a foot, a hand. The digits float freely, unattached to any bodily companion.

“It was a way to paint a part of our bodies without a personality attached to it,” Moller said.

Other artists draw directly from a picture or live model, but Moller’s exhibit doesn’t focus on concrete images, rather the visceral, even dislocated visual impact of an injury or sore.

With watercolors, Moller layered color to develop almost fantastical sets of teeth. They appear like floating landscapes. Purple, brown, and white blend together in a way that makes the teeth look otherworldly, yet strangely familiar.

“I think a lot of them were fantasy, flying in the middle of the page,” Moller said. “They have texture, like dirt. They didn’t look realistic because it was so much fun to use different colors.”

All of the paintings run within the same vein of discolor and decay. One painting depicts an eyeball with cobalt irises. Normally, an eye like that would be picturesque. But this eye hums with the same colorful injury as the other works. It encompasses the mood of Moller’s exhibit, glowing painfully.

“Nearly every part of the body is used in expression. Teeth can be gross, but I think they’re still really expressive. Flaws are expressive.”

Fittingly released on the Spanish label “Permanent Vacation,” John Talabot’s ƒIN is a sun and ecstasy-drenched masterpiece from the same vein as DeLorean, jj, and other recent champions of “Balearic Beat.” A techno DJ by trade, Talabot excels at crafting elaborate and expansive soundscapes that draw the listener in with slow, building beats. He also makes great use of ambient sampling on tracks like “Depak Ine,” where birds, frogs, and other sounds of the night melt seamlessly into the background. If you’ve never heard of Talabot, you’re not alone. Unknown but well-connected, Talabot has operated under many aliases over the years—a sort of insider-outsider who rubs shoulders with Ekhi Lopetegi  (from Delorean), the xx, and other big-name electronic musicians while keeping one step ahead of the limelight. John Talabot isn’t even his real name—it’s the name of his old primary school. Whether or not this secrecy is intentional, most interviews I’ve read give me the impression that “John Talabot” is really more of an attitude than a name. In one interview with the The Independent this January, Talabot said that his music and image are purely defined by the things he likes at the moment—and are subject to as much change as that suggests.

Talabot’s current incarnation could be easily mistaken for a “Person Pitch” era Noah Lennox (better known as Panda Bear from Animal Collective)—especially on the reverb-heavy “Journeys.” While most of ƒIN could probably pass for B-sides on “Person Pitch”, the acoustic and stylistic similarities between these albums pay more of a debt to the Iberian House-Techno scene than anything else. Recorded in Lisbon and Barcelona respectively, both albums make liberal use of echoing, soft-spoken harmonies that float over you in waves. The perfect soundtrack for sunny days and warm nights, ƒIN could be best described as the happy marriage between a rave and a good night’s sleep.  Whether or not Talabot’s blissed-out honeymoon will survive repeated listening is another story. Either way, ƒIN makes a pleasant first impression for this latest incarnation of a talented, aspiring artist. No longer overshadowed and underappreciated, this time “Talabot” has finally nailed it.

The Highlights:

-Guaranteed to raise and lower your blood pressure at the same time
-Warm, trance-y music with an upbeat attitude
-“Journeys”, “Destiny,” and “Depak Ine”

“Ever since I was a senior in high school, I’ve been really interested in Disney movies and the way they are almost universal,” Berk said. “Everyone remembers watching Disney movies; there are a lot of memories tied to them. My MAP was trying to figure out why Disney movies are so much more successful than the other movies out there, and I found that they are really excellent high quality films that stand the test of time.”

In addition to looking at what makes Disney movies unique, Berk also created two original scenes of her own that reflect the key elements she observed in Disney movies.

“The idea is that you do the research and then you apply the research,” she said.

As part of her creative process, Berk held a storyboarding workshop last Wednesday in which students analyzed and critiqued one of the scenes that she created.

“Storyboarding is a staple in part of the Disney movie making process and I wanted my MAP to reflect that,” Berk said.

The scene centers on the story of Lewis and Clark, in an instance in which their boat tips over in a storm, and all of their journals documenting their trip fall into the water. Sacagawea saves the day by jumping into the water and retrieving their materials.

“I wanted to create a scene that presents the image of a strong woman. The implication of many Disney movies is that once you’ve found your life partner, that’s it, the adventure is over. I really wanted to take it one step further. Sacagawea is a both a mother and a worker.”

After presenting the scene, Berk posed questions such as “Is the plot clear?“ and “Are the characters well-developed?” and then students gave their opinions and brainstormed new ideas for the scene.

“Overall, I think the workshop went really well. I’m pleased with the feedback and I’m excited to incorporate it into my final product.”

Berk’s MAP presentation will be held on Saturday, May 12 at 4:15 in Bucksbaum 152.

fun. played in Iowa City last Monday.

Singer Nate Ruess owned the intimate venue.  The ecstatic tenor bounded and even leapt across the stage with a wild grin, displaying an intense, but charismatic attitude when he demanded the entranced audience “f***ing sing-along.”  His style matched the anthems from fun.’s newest album “Some Nights,” but in performing songs from fun.’s more subdued, older album “Aim and Ignite,” Ruess revealed a quiet, but passionate side.

Ruess is a native of Iowa City, and members of his family were in the back of the crowd for the performance.  Ruess dedicated one of the band’s ballads—“The Gambler”—to his grandmother, whom fans posed for photos with after the song.

This summer, fun. will be performing at Lollapalooza in Chicago’s Grant Park.

As you have traveled and moved around a lot can you talk about how place influences your writing?
I’ve been traveling my whole life. I went to seven or eight schools by the time I finished high school. There are both positives and negatives to that. I feel it really pushed into my inner resources because friendships would often disappear. I needed to find sources of community and some sense of stability and for me those were in books. As a child my best friends were books, or were in books. I found that you could really get closer to another person in a work of literature.

I think that all that traveling helped me to become a writer. I think it gave me a sense of self-reliance and a degree of independence. It made me feel comfortable on my feet wherever I am. The downside, of course, is the possibility of isolation and not expecting your connections to last. As a writer this has made me interested in evanescence, the transience of the fleeting so that shows up in my work—in a lot of different contexts. I feel more like a citizen of the nation than a citizen of any particular place.

How long after having your two dogs did you have write “Dog Years”?
I started writing while one of the dogs was still alive. I had a fellowship at the New York Public Library as I wanted to write a book about the human relationship with animals. I thought it would more be about animals and poetry and the way so many poems turn on an encounter with animals.

I started to do that and then it began to shift and morph into my relationship with these two dogs. About four chapters into it, the book just stopped because one of the dogs was still alive and elderly at the time. I set the book aside. He died four years later and after six months I began again with the book.
I would say coming back to the book was a way to mourn those creatures because they had been in my life for sixteen years. It was also a way to stand back from life with an animal and what it meant to me. I wanted to explore our relationship with the non-human.

Where there any other factors during the time of your writing Dog Years that impacted your writing?
Growing up with that immense sense of mobility made the relationship with my dogs even more profound. Dogs bring us so into the present. I’m a dreamer and, as a person who lived by the word, can leave the present moment, maybe too easily. People spend a lot of time thinking about the past and the future and for dogs its all about the present. They tend to be therapeutic.

In your essay “Can Poetry Console a Grieving Public?” you talk about why you feel public grief is so easily manipulated. Can you talk about that?
I was living in New York around 9/11 and for those of us living in the city there was an enormous sense of a rupture or a wound that we just could not articulate. Very quickly, I notice that my friends in some other part of the country were able to put that event in some political context. I think for those of us who were around it, we realized language became an impossibility. People would go to Union Square and sing—because you could tell people were just looking for a space to be together—and people were looking for retribution.

Instead of the kind of soul-searching that was taking place initially, how could our country be so hated? This kind of question went away. One thing I noticed that was amazing, all of the tensions that revolved around difference went away. We were all in the same boat, and it was a very moving thing. It was strange to see that move away and I think part of the reason that fades away is that we revert to a kind of simpler thinking.

As a writer of more than one genre, how does that impact your writing process, your thinking?
It gives me more options. Poetry is so often a distillation of strong feeling and there is a way in which the feeling to write a poem wells up and you figuratively “burst into song.” I think most people, whether or not they are poets, feel the need to make something when they are in love or in grief.

When I write an essay or a memoir I want to stand back and think about my subject; I want to walk around it from many different angles. A poem tends to be a very focused thing. It doesn’t give you, usually, the latitude you have in another form. Prose also gives me something to do when the muse isn’t knocking at my door.
It is very interesting to discover different readerships and that is very thrilling. As a poet, I’m used to small audiences and writing prose lets me access a different audience.

Can you tell me about your poem heaven?
A student whom I was advising told me a story about how every now and then she would step outside of the life that she know, go from Vermont to New York City, or to another urban area and basically become a homeless person for a while. She describes meeting a homeless man and his dog. That just put my imagination right to work because there is something about animal company that’s very stimulating to me as a dreamer and there is something about stepping out of the familiar identity. I loved her story and thought “what do I do?” and I asked her if I could use it and she agreed. She told me that in writing her story, I had revised it quite a bit.

Do have any advice for young writers at Grinnell?
1. Read with passion. You don’t have to read systematically. And make a little space for the rebellious part of you that wants to read for pleasure.
2. Know what advice to reject. You have to strike a balance between listening to criticism and your own stubbornness. No one ever became a great writer by following a lot of advice.

True Grit revolves around Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl played by Hailee Steinfeld. She earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and was only 13 when the film was made. Ross learns that her father has been murdered by Tom Chaney, a hired hand. She sets out for revenge and hires the toughest U.S. Marshall in town, Reuben J. Cogburn, a drunk and a man with “true grit.” Cogburn’s role is beautifully done by Jeff Bridges. The duo is joined by a Texas Ranger played by Matt Damon. Along the journey, each member encounters situations and surprises that test each of them for “true grit.”

With True Grit being the fifteenth full-length feature film written and directed by the Coen brothers, it was no surprise when it received ten Academy Award nominations, including a second Best Actor nomination for Jeff Bridges, who won the previous year. The film will be showing at Harris this Friday at 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Spoken word poet Katie Wirsing emphasizes her verse with ges- tures. Wirsing appeared at Herrick Chapel last Monday. Photograph by Mary Zheng

Wirsing opened the show with a casual rapport with the audience members. She described her voyage to Grinnell from Connecticut and the shenanigans she encountered along the way, like a “no snow globes” sign at airport security and a seatmate who gave her a revealing photo of himself after their flight together. This conversation flowed into one of her poems, a moving tribute to her grandmother’s efforts to become more accepting of her lifestyle.

As she spoke, the words resonated with power in the silent chapel, charging the air with emotion. Wirsing moved her arms as she spoke, bringing importance to every syllable, extra emphasis to every nuance. She commanded the stage and drew the audience into her world of words.

However, not every poem was serious. Wirsing had the audience cracking up as she performed an innuendo-laced poem about bareback horse riding and a series of extremely short poems with hilariously long titles.

The performance was one of the first events of Pride Week. Wirsing, as an often politically queer poet, was an excellent choice to kick off festivities and mentioned throughout the show how impressed she was with Grinnell’s LGBTQ community.