Life & Art Editor

THE FOLLOW-UP

So, yeah, the last newspaper of the semester hits newsstands and the Web on December 5. Look for t-h-e follow-up then, when “solid” answers will have developed. As readers of this publication, it is my belief (and perhaps L&A’s only) that you deserve to know what is going on. Thank you for the support (even if you disagree – all that is needed here is more communication). It all goes onto an equal and open field for the better.

AWAITING THE FOLLOW-UP

So, yeah, umm…now what? Do I diss the ever-caught-in-a-trap-of-odd-smugness Mike Myers for making The Cat in the Hat?

HEAVENQUEST DSV

So, yeah…word, Jonathan Brandis is dead-at-27. During times like this I wonder why in the hell I wasted a handful of hours watching “SeaQuest DSV” instead of learning a second language. And, The Neverending Story 2 – well, remember when hearing the title did a number on you? Try being in that thing. RIP dude.

RICH GIRL

So, yeah, g-r-e-a-t, Ally Hilfiger was at Revolver recently. So, yeah, like, yeah, like, yeah, like…

EAVESDROPPING & “GIRLS ON FILM”

So, yeah, this is when you eavesdrop on the young girls and boys at UM saying stuff like, “I can’t believe Christmas is so close because it is so warm.” (Douse in enthusiasm, a little laughter, and follow with sips from Cokes at the food court.)

But, really, it can be quite strange, like driving past trick-or-treaters in 80* weather. Ben Minkus’ opinion column (and coinciding photo) better explained this realization in the last issue – a well-written dose of optimism within a documentation of badness and frustration – thanks for the sanity man.

If you need a little rehab during finals, when those up-stairs-down-stairs dorm flings get snuffed out, when the ‘rents’ aren’t sending pre-flight cash (bastards): Duran Duran (seriously) is the answer. Download “To the Shore” or go cop their first album, it looks like (see image) and will put snowflakes on your palm trees and then melt them away in sunny South Beach full-on glee.

ANTE-ING UP

Ante-ing up.

Hunter Stephenson can be reached at Huntlaed@hotmail.com.

and the Life & Art clan

RZA
The Birth of a Prince
****

Okay. Time to disappear from hot stuffiness into the frosty charge of dark streets and warm jackets, eggnog and long-time friends and family. Come this time each year, rappers compete in the Winter Warz, who has the beats and sharpest rhymes for car rides at night, street light swerves and nostalgic raise-a-glass laughter? Why, RZA and Jigga – did you think not?

While Hova is dipping into the 401K Black that is Beyonce’s milkshake, Prince Rakeem has sweated out that B-O-B-B-Y nonsensical stress in a four-star hotel sauna, and returned rejuvenated on the NY scene, like, “Damn, it is time to have some fun, get crunk and let my thoughts unravel as they may for I am the Prince.” No, I do not know what the hell is up with Wu-Tang, but this is where heads need to head: stop comparing empires (Wu isn’t Murder Inc., oh, so now it’s The Inc. – how lame), stop worrying about total mainstream crossover (Method Man, reign it in) as the ol’ stuff is just hitting its eighth-wind, and keep the beats dark – re: but not pitch-black militant hallway shiv redundant.

From the get-go, Nancy Sinatra croons about flying high on “Bob N’ I” – born again, carefree, different – crisp bass echoes into the background, chills, “sha na na!” Next, a piercing siren isn’t too piercing, all the rewind-flip-it madness of Supreme Clientele’s “Stroke of Death” on “The Grudge,” but RZA is slipping and sliding with the tongue like windshield wipers over sleet – look both ways and you still won’t see the hit.

So much has been heard about comebacks and this is the first Wu CD in sometime where that point is not forced home – over it. “We Pop”: party anthem where the beat (courtesy of Megahertz) is almost sarcastic – it is not, however, whatev, and flows into a “Domestic Violence”-type back-forth hilarity.

And then there was…”Grits”: vibe with it, ’cause it’s tracks like this where the Wu stay young and kind – just big kids at heart battle-axing complex ideas and American struggle. Masta Killa – where is your solo album, dude? He’s honed the better Method for quite the minute – time to ship gold. Eating grits for dinner to survive another day – a less profane image than Ghost’s “roaches in the fridge,” or whatever, but it works.

Back to the paper chase, “wipe the smirk off your fucking face,” “searchin’ for that Bill like Lewinsky,” where there is a girl in the bed in need of the d and a world outside demanding substantial coin-op play. The answer: “Bobby Digital, Zodiac sign: Cancer.” Hah.

RZA brings chimes higher than smoke signals on “You’ll Never Know,” gives “servus” to ancient hood libation on “Drink, Smoke + Fcuk,” Kill Bill hype is fired up via “Koto Chotan” – filled with kung-fu blocks and chop-socky soundtrack – then the disc ends with mountainside meditation. Inverting back to a mother’s womb on “See the Joy” where Robert Diggs is “just a sperm…cell” racing against tadpoles, he is born into another turbulent rat race alongside us listeners. Will it ever end? I hope not.

– Hunter Stephenson

“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

Dwayne Sodahberk
Unfortunately
***1/2

Dwayne Sodahberk is a talented musician and programmer whose main fault registers in is his inconsistency. Unfortunately comes across as two different EPs with the tracks shuffled together like a deck of cards. Oh yeah, his other main fault is that all influences are worn on sleeve. Right out of the gates, he brings the electronics/guitar/female vocals assault that sounds as if he snuck into the City Slang locker room and stole The Notwist’s playbook.

The second track is filled with IDM spasms that are only tied to the first track by his eerie vocals. All of a sudden, Sodahberk really throws a monkey wrench into the whole business by placing the first of his very much shoegaze-influenced-tracks into third position. An average listener is going to look at the CD player to make sure nothing is shuffling and grab a bottle of aspirin, since the bi-polar mood just lags. And that’s a real shame – as most tracks are of a superior quality.

Released on TigerBeat6, this is mostly electronic music that is easy on the ears, and any insrumentation is most likely Sodahberk. Nevertheless, standard fare for the IDM world, and so, he is left trudging down paths already blazed by artists like Inkblot and Casino Vs. Japan.

“Bird” is the standout track – check it out – a cut that starts off with a jangly ’60s-ish guitar hook, and slowly accumulates a spastic breakcore beat ala One Speed Bike or Criterion. The two divergent styles erupt in a swirling drum solo drowning out the over-saturated guitar space. From here, the disc settles back into the par-for-the-course vacillation between better-than-average IDM and laptop folk music.

Sodahberk shot his foot on this album by combining what would have been two terrific EPs into one disc that ends up more perplexing than exciting. It is an artistic decision that splits the audience: the IDM faithful will be left underwhelmed, and the unfamiliar seekers of new sounds will be left entertained by eccentric vision but alienated by confused composition.

– James Hush

“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

Jaylib
Champion Sound
****, ***1/2 (compared to my hotttass bootleg)

There is no doubt that Jay Dee and Madlib have been responsible for some of the hottest beats/albums of the past decade or so. Decade?

Un huh: Dilla used to be a part of the Tribe production team known as the Ummah, for which he laced classics: “Find a Way,” “DaBooty,” “Keep it Moving” and on and on…oh yeah, the Pharcyde’s “Runnin,” Common’s entire Like Water For Chocolate album; ‘get about it, it don’t stop.

Madlib’s smoking enough greens to keep him as antisocial and subsequently productive as can be; here is something that may flip your toupees though: remember that monumental and whoever-you-are-you-gotta-respect-the-fact-that-you-own-it-or-know-the-lyrics-to-every-song-on-it album, Paul’s Boutique? Wells, Madlib mastered all of the production, so again, Champion Sound should be the shit, right?

I was hopping back and forth holding my ween with both hands waiting for the release of this shit since they announced it, then much like Wu-Tang did Wu-Tang Forever, it took forever to come out. I’d heard the single, “The Red” sometime around March or April and every weekend since, so regardless of [hotness] it suffers. They should push “Starz” though, that shit’s guaranteed to take off like a $20 tip at a strip club.

The only reason why I am hesistant about giving this album the hand job it deserves is due to the earlier bootleg version I’d heard and received and, which Life & Art subsequently got a stern talking-to by Peanut Butter Wolf for reviewing. (again: sorry).

Said ghetto CD-R contained, though clearly not as polished, hitters like the Marlins, rollers like a pastry shop, and bangers like a girl who points out to you that her Fruit of the Looms have a banana in the bunch.

It sounded more like Madlib and Jay Dee’s attitude toward music, that being: just do what sounds right. God that sounds shallow, but for real, their lyrics will never be amazing, just on point with the beat; and it’s the beats on this album that will really stick with you, even though “Survival Test,” “React” and to a lesser extent “Strip Club,” all sound the same.

But, with all the crap floating about in the port-a-potty that rap has become, Champion Sound is three handfuls of Charmin, so pick it up, wipe the rest away; plus “No Games” is so full of fire my piss burns.

– Sven Barth

The Life & Art staff ’03 can be reached at Huntlaed@hotmail.com.

“What you see is what you don’t get” is what American Pop artist James Rosenquist once said about his work, and this statement exemplifies well a cornerstone facet of his ingenuity. Truly, what he purposely leaves out gets you wondering, burrowing helplessly for answers, yet what you do get is a lesson in popular culture iconography.

At first glance and from a distance, Rosenquist’s show at the Barbara Gillman Gallery appears like Abstract Expressionism-meets-Pop Art-meets prog rock imagery.

Pop Art emerged in the ’50s and ’60s as an insurgence against what some thought of as the pretension of the Abstract Expressionists, using commercial icons of the times – celebrities, soup cans and other grocery items, advertisements and comic strips. Rosenquist, like other Pop artists including Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, got his start as a commercial artist painting billboards in New York.

The works here aren’t like typical Richard Hamilton-style collages. They hit you, no, shock you with flashy, vivacious colors. You want to look at everything all at once, not knowing where to land your eyes first. Part of the mystique here is that the colors alone are so overwhelming that you don’t know what to focus on first and it’s easier to let it all sink in.

Secondly, you’ll start to see some recognizable features – glimpses of the bluest eyes, the reddest lips and whitest teeth straight out of Maybelline ads, intertwined with flowers and swirling patterns, enough to make the mind’s eye go clinically insane.

“Flowers and Females” sounds soft and pretty, but this piece comes off as rather haunting. Rosenquist’s collage technique superimposes the face of a woman, cut into menacing jagged edges, creating a Venetian-blind effect. The juxtaposition of the sharp lines, the delicacy of the flowers and the overpowering red casts a deranging spell on the viewer.

Similarly, other pieces like “Shriek” and “Crosshatch and Mutations” are as loud and schizophrenic as “Flowers.”

Geishas have an air of mystery about them as they are, with their expressionless white faces, scarlet mouths and black hair. Yet the artist manages to make them even more mysterious by fragmenting the face of an Asian woman in Kabuki theatre makeup, emphasizing the eyes, mouth and, this time, rose-colored cheeks in “The Kabuki Blushes.”

There’s a certain focus here, but also a matter of decomposition. As with many of these pieces, the viewer is left at odds between disorder and beauty.

Other pieces on view include seven lithograph prints from his “High Technology and Mysticism: A Meeting Point” collection – works employing the collage element of the previous pieces, as seen in “Above,” where the face of a woman is suggestively placed over the head of a horse.

“Sky” screams Pop Art loud and clear: you can almost see Warhol and Lichtenstein peeking through. Yes, there are the latter’s famous dotted images and the former’s signature colors – electric blues, hot pinks, shocking yellows – and an overall silkscreen look.

Although the pieces here are almost 20 years old, Rosenquist’s works have preserved their freshness and pop throughout the years. Unlike his earlier works in the ’50s and ’60s, which relied heavily on media and advertising icons, these pieces are comprised mostly of his 1980s work, where collage techniques, mixed media and vibrant colors are wholly emphasized.

All in all, these pieces burst off the canvas with a miscellany of imagery, and, in the end, the feeling of bewilderment is, perhaps, what these works want to incite.

Rosenquist in Florida is on view at the Barbara Gillman Gallery, 3814 NE Miami Court, Miami, through January 12. Call 305-573-1920 for more info.

Ambar Hernandez can be reached at weetchie@hotmail.com.

Aesop Rock, deft MC of the Def Jux family, brought his Bazooka Tooth down to Miami for a performance at downtown’s I/O Lounge. Guests and labelmates Mr. Lif (see photos) and C-Rayz Waltz contributed to Aesop’s characteristically humorous performance and fed off of the energy of the uber-packed crowd. FYI: Watch your back, though, next time you blaze at a hip hop show at I/O. Security’s really not feeling it.

There are more photos in the hard copy edition. Sorry, not sure what happened. – Ed.

Life & Art Associate Editor

In last Friday’s edition of The Miami Hurricane, the words “We Are Not the Enemy” were cut from a sign in the cover photo (shot by Al Crespo) and pasted onto the sign in another photo on page 10. Life & Art would like to apologize for any confusion and misinterpretation this may have caused, as it was done for aesthetic reasons.

The photographs used in the feature, “We Are Not the Enemy,” are part of a book by Al Crespo entitled Protest in the Land of Plenty and are not the personal views and beliefs of Mr. Crespo. Moreover, Life & Art misunderstood the allowance to use certain photos in the feature, and would like to apologize to Mr. Crespo for printing them without permission.

The direct and (any indirect) views reflected in the section last Friday regarding the University of Miami are not those of Mr. Crespo. Lastly, the feature story was not written with any malicious intent to align his work with L&A and its criticism of the Board of Publications.

Omar Sommereyns
Life & Art Associate Editor

Life & Art Intern

Vacillating between personal experience and transcendent imagination, the world of fiction rouses the senses into concocting a visual template of a story. Even more, the minds that put it all on paper, especially the young ones, live in a world that is quite their own.

Just ask Tobias Wolff, a writer who has fluctuated between fiction and memoirs (This Boy’s Life). His new novel, Old School, is largely based on his own experiences growing up in the 1960s at a New England boarding school deeply rooted in literary prestige and the story’s protagonist, who remains nameless, finds himself yearning for acceptance and literary fame, while admiring the visits of several iconic writers of the time (such as Robert Frost and Hemingway).

With a vivid narrative of irony, intense competition, teenage angst, and struggles to be known, Wolff forms a story oozing with imagination and raw emotion. In a recent interview with Life & Art at Books & Books in the Gables, the author talks about his book, the pretense behind his private education, his character’s plagiarizing, and the literary influences that permeate the lives of all writers.

L&A: Are there any parallels to your own life in Old School?
TW: Well, the narrator is in somewhat the same situation I was in: a scholarship student at a private school where there weren’t that many scholarship students. He finds himself feeling somewhat outside of things, though no one tries to make him feel that way. In those days, there was money and then there were sort of patrician and aristocratic pretensions that some people had – a system long in place at this school; people never had to talk about it, it was just understood. And so because it was unspoken, it was hard to understand and oppose. Although I did draw very heavily upon my own sort of moral experiences, the events of the novel were largely invented.

L&A: Your protagonist makes an odd jump from self-acceptance to blatant plagiarism. How do you justify what he did?
TW: Well, I don’t justify it of course; I think what he did is completely wrong. But in terms of the novel, it is how I psychologically see that happening. This is a basically honest guy and, paradoxically, I see this guy in his desperation to be seen as honest and destined to be known, so he wants to tell a story about himself that’s true and brutal. When you read something you really love, you get drawn in and you associate things from the novel to your own life, and you feel like it’s your story, your heart, your soul. When the reader has that kind of intimacy with the writer, there’s a kind of fusion that takes place between the two and it’s an extremely active thing where you’re intimately involved and claiming it as your own, just as the protagonist in the story does. For some readers, they cross the line.

L&A: So where is the line drawn between imitation and plagiarism?
TW: Exactly. He loses that. You know, it’s not dissimilar psychologically to the case of Mark David Chapman, the guy who shot John Lennon. He was so obsessed with Lennon’s music and with Lennon himself that he went by the name John Lennon when he would check into hotels, and he kind of got it into his head that he had written the music too. But then here’s this other guy who is kind of pretending to be John Lennon too and Chapman couldn’t handle it so he had to get rid of the other John Lennon, the original. There’s some kind of relatedness in the story I’m telling and incidents like that. It’s like subsuming another identity. And I think that’s what this narrator is doing too.

L&A: Of the famous literary figures you bring up through the course of the book, Ayn Rand seems to be your most animated one. She’s portrayed as somewhat of an icy bitch in this story. Is that a true portrait of her?
TW: Of the figures I wrote about, I tried to pick up their voices and the cadences of their thought, their diction. I didn’t want to just quote them, I wanted to think like they did, talk like they did. And that was the best thing about Ayn Rand. No matter who wrote her, if there was a serious intellectual question in the letter, she would answer it. Thirteen year olds, eighty year olds, non-entities…she was very democratic in how mean she was to everyone. She was equally mean to everyone, she thought everyone was a fool, but she cared enough about educating people into the “light” of her ideas that she responded personally. And I was very touched by the very democratic spirit I felt there. She was very evangelical and that’s exactly why I think a lot of people get caught up in her books. I was. She’s very clean and logical. If you can leave out the complications of human beings and human nature and social relations, you’re fine. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in.

L&A: Do you think of Ayn Rand’s followers as a cult?
TW: They are and they’re dead serious about it too. The Objectivist movement has continued to have a tremendously devoted core of believers. It offers a very simple vision of the world that’s very seductive to young people. They don’t allow any nuance or complexity in their vision. It’s very cut and dry. She sparked a whole social movement. The Libertarian party comes right out of Ayn Rand and her institute. A lot of the ideas of the Libertarian party leaked over into the Republican Party as well, so there’s a kind of line of decent.

L&A: In the chapter “Master,” you write, “It was the nature of literature to behave like the fallen world it contemplated.” What do you feel the direction of the literary world is taking these days?
TW: I am very sanguine about our literature now. There are so many strong, talented, young writers out right now. My main concern is that the readers aren’t keeping up with the writers. I think we’re losing a lot of readers to the allure of pop culture. Reading is an active thing unlike watching something where you can just let the images wash over you. You have to take control of what you’re reading and make it ring true to yourself.

Chris Howard can be reached at BBHMM3234@aol.com.