V o l u m e I V, N u m b e r X
Celebrating The Precious Human Tapestry
Obbini Tumbao
shakes up Brandeis
with Latin grooves
BY MAX PRICE
Staff
As I walked out of Slosberg last Saturday night, one distinct impression surfaced my mind: “Damn, Brandeis can dance.”
For those of you who weren’t showing off your
salsa skills that evening, you missed out on Obbini Tumbao, a wildly envigorating Afro-Cuban jazz ensemble. This concert was part of the
World Music Series in conjunction with the
Music Unites Us program, one of the crowning jewels of the Brandeis Music department.
The program includes an Intercultural Residency series, which brings musicians to campus for several days of engaging academic and
cross-cultural interaction. Students and professors from across disciplines are invited to experience the music and spark dialogue about the
role of music in our artistically globalized world.
Music Unites Us also includes a Public School
Education Program that brings over 1,000 Waltham
public school students to Brandeis. One faculty
member confided that she loves to stick her head
into Slosberg when the undeniably cute kids are
there, reacting to the power of music. After watching dozens of these students dash across the lawn
in front of the music building, I can see why.
But audience members on Saturday weren’t
pondering the anthropological or historical questions of hybrid musical culture. They weren’t
even thinking about the importance of transmitting artistic appreciation to the next generation.
In fact, if they were thinking at all, it was either about the infections rhythms that were
pulsing through their veins or the delicious
smell of Cuban food wafting in from the lobby.
Obbini Tumbao is a nonet established by pianist
Rebecca Cline and percussionist Anita Quinto.
It shouldn’t be surprising that a band led by two
percussion-based instrumentalists would explode
with such rhythmic intensity, but for people like
me who had never heard the band before, it was
exhilarating. To say that Cline and Quinto were
the band leaders obscures the cooperative ensemble dynamic of the group. These were worldclass musicians, and they possessed intuitive
powers of musical communication such that the
whole band coalesced as one living organism.
My personal favorite number was “Que Cosa Tan
Linda,” by Venezuela salsa maestro Oscar de León.
OT’s interpretation featured a rousing conga beat and
a repeated vocal hook from Quinto and Cline that
had me whistling for days. Upbeat and life-affirming, this showed the band at the height of its powers.
On the other side of the spectrum was the slow,
heart-wrenching ballad, “Dos Gardenias,” by bolero Isolina Carillo and recently popularized
by the Buena Vista Social Club. It begins with a
haunting, legato trumpet solo followed by a flowing vocal interpretation amidst tumultuous piano
chords. It was a testament to the band’s dexterity that it can go from one style to another in the
blink of an eye while infusing each with soul.
An orignal Anita Quinto composition, Parece
Pero No Lo Es” also integrated nicely into the set.
Borrowing from mainstream Latin pop conventions
and their characteristic rhythmic interplay, the song
incorporated some of the band’s disparate influences.
About half way through the set, Quinto acknowledged, “The applause is nice, but we’re a
dance band!” A few dozen brave souls took the
hint and jumped into aisles, shaking their hips ecstatically. Let me just say that any band capable of
bringing out the inner salsa-dancing party animal
from the average Brandeisian is worth my money.
October 30, 2009
Romeo
&Juliet
2.0
VERSION
O HAPPY DAGGER: Top: Jonathan Plesser ‘12 sits on stage during a monologue in Act III of the play.
Above: Jordie Goodman ‘12 engages in an on-stage battle during Act III.
PHOTOS BY Max Shay/The Hoot
A modern variation of
a classic love story
BY SAMANTHA SHOKIN
Editor
Some stories are good, and some
good stories are classics. But only a
handful of classics are truly timeless.
Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is
the ‘classic’ example. Despite having
over-analyzed it to exhaustion in our
English Lit courses and having seen
numerous modern-day conversions
of it for television, stage, and film, this
tragic tale of two young lovers held
together by passion and torn apart
by a clash between families is universally beautiful in any medium. It has
stood the test of time. It is a juicy love
story, ridden with (emo)tional young
romance, fist fights, and suicide,
and has all the elements of a blockbuster teen movie with a bit of retro
jargon thrown in. It is sheer proof
that along with classic literature, teen
angst is relevant to any day and age.
Elana Friedland, director of Hold
Thy Peace (HTP)’s production of “Romeo and Juliet,” seems to agree. That’s
why her take on 16th century Europe
is one giant anachronism, incorporating everything from cell phones
to police sirens to sneakers on an unconventionally modern Shakespearean stage. After looking over the play
this past summer, Friedland felt that
the plotline was all-too-familiar, even
by 21st century standards. Familiar
for a teen drama, that is—like something out of a “Gossip Girl” novel. To
quote the Director’s Note: “I was able
to find a lot of similarities between
this play and current popular media
in which the lives of the powerful
and wealthy are put on display for
the consumption of ordinary folk.”
The opening scene of Friedland’s
version of the play had me taken
aback by the choice of wardrobe. I
was expecting medieval robes and
flowy gowns; instead I was met by
tee shirts and sneakers. Yet the dialogue was in the same Old English
I was expecting, and the script had
been, to my knowledge, virtually untouched. The disjunction here was
obviously intended, and only after a
few scenes of being genuinely perplexed did I get the chance to speak
with Friedland and understand why.
The costume design wasn’t the only
unorthodox element of this rendition. Friedland made use of genderneutral casting, which was a bit of a
surprise, but only added to the effect
she was trying to create: that regardless of whatever variant factors are
involved, love is always unconditionally defiant. (And for the record,
Frances Kimpel and Liza Baessler
made a very convincing Tybalt and
Mercutio, gender notwithstanding).
See SHAKESPEARE p. 12
Diverse City 11
October 30, 2009
VISIONS
A Halloween
Tradition
Photos and Carvings
by Ariel Wittenberg
12 Diverse City
October 30, 2009
CHORUS
Boring ‘White Collar’ stigma broken with USA’s sexy new show
BY SRI KUEHNLENZ
Editor
The term “white collar” gets
a whole new meaning with the
help of the newest show from the
USA network of the same name.
No longer just a description for
mundane paper-pushing office
jobs, “White Collar,” which made
its debut last Friday, now stands
for one of the sexiest and wittiest
hours on TV this fall.
The show begins with Neal
Caffrey, a white collar criminal
convicted on bond forgery (but
suspected of art theft, counterfeiting, racketeering and securities
fraud, nonetheless), busting out
of prison with only three months
left to serve.
However, it turns out that the
con man has a soft side, making
a run for it in hopes of catching
up with his ex-girlfriend before
she disappears from his radar forever. However, his efforts come
to nothing in the first episode.
Peter Burke, the FBI agent who
had originally arrested Neal, finds
him, melancholy and alone in an
abandoned apartment sentimentally contemplating a wine bottle.
To avoid landing in prison for
another four years, Neal strikes a
deal with Peter to help him solve
the crimes he used to commit—
think “Ocean’s Eleven” if George
Clooney’s character started working for the Feds.
Newcomer Matt Bomer leads
the show as Neal and is every
bit as suave and dashing as an
actual conman should be. Despite
his boyish good looks, Bomer is
still able to play Neal with an air
of cunning that makes an audience believe that even without his
smoldering eyes, he would be able
to talk a widow into allowing him
to live in her mansion in upper
Manhattan.
Balancing out Bomer is Tim
DeKay as Peter Burke, who has
a hint of a father-son relationship with Caffrey. DeKay plays
Burke in such a way that the
audience empathizes with him
without pitying him and portrays
his character in such a way that he
is worth noting even next to the
magnetic Bomer. DeKay has a bit
more television drama experience
behind him than his younger costar, but it is nice to see a show
headed by relative unknowns off
to such a smooth start.
However, the most enjoyable thing about the interaction
between these two characters is
that it does not utilize the old
dynamic of a super genius and
a bumbling idiot. Burke and
Caffrey appear to find their
PHOTO from Internet Source
PERSONALITY AND PLOT TWISTS: The cast of USA’s newest show give white collar crime a sexy new face on Friday nights.
match in each other. Sure, Caffrey
gives the insight of a criminal, but
Burke more than proves that he
can beat Caffrey at his own game.
Following the two male leads,
there are some slightly familiar
faces among the female characters. Burke’s sassy underling,
Diana, is played by Marsha
Thomason, last seen in an 11-epi-
sode stint of “Lost” and on “Las
Vegas.” A later blast from the past
is Tiffani Thiessen, best known
for her roles on “Saved by the
Bell” and “Beverly Hills, 90210.”
Rather than being the attractive
co-ed, she is Burke’s supportive
wife, who in the first episode, at
least blends into the background.
However, hopefully the writers
‘Wild Things’ makes my heart sing
BY DANIELLE GEWURZ
Editor
The thing about having a happy
childhood is that no matter how
well-adjusted, privileged, and
otherwise positively-thinking I
was as a child, I can still recall
the most minor of slights from
parents, siblings, and friends. It
seems that Spike Jonze and Dave
Eggers had the same recollections in creating “Where the Wild
Things Are.” The movie isn’t so
much a children’s movie as it is
a movie about childhood, but its
examination of childhood comes
from a very adult perspective.
Centering around a little boy
Max (Max Records) who flees
home after a confrontation with
his mother and finds himself in
the land of the wild things, the
movie rockets between sheer joy
and bombastic visuals and a core
of loneliness and anxiety that
appears to underlie Max’s wordless distress.
Max is alienated by his older
sister’s refusal to engage with
him and upset by his mother’s
unwillingness to focus solely
on him instead of her new boyfriend. Complete with all the
selfishness of a nine-year-old,
Records’ expressive face captures
the nuance of a lonely boy who
lives out his desires in his imagination. When Max leaves home,
he winds up on a boat, crosses a
body of water, and arrives at the
land where the wild things live.
Jonze was clearly having fun
with this segment of the film;
watching the monsters run, play,
PHOTO from Internet Source
and topple trees and roughhouse
with each other recalls his work
as a skateboard video director
early in his career. In addition, the
choice to film the wild things as
live action characters, played by
actors in suits, rather than create
them wholesale out of CGI, gives
the characters a certain sense of
solidity that adds to the realism of
Max’s fanciful world.
Nonetheless, the visual joy of
the wild rumpus quickly gives
way to a plodding melancholy
that isn’t unexpected from Eggers.
The wild things aren’t just wild;
they’re projections of Max’s insecurities and fears about his home
life. There’s quite a few glancing allusions to the arguments of
divorce, and lead wild thing Carol
(voiced by James Gandolfini) is
Max’s wildness writ large (and
hairy).
There’s a set of interactions and
relationships between the wild
things that might rival the complexity of a nine-year-old’s social
world, but are certainly not easily
comprehended by one. There’s a
niggling sense that you want to
find out more of their relationships, but the movie, in perhaps
its most daring choice, chooses
not to satisfy that desire. Instead
we see them reenacting the movie’s opening snowball fight with
dirt clods, and the wild things
are even more sulky and resentful
than Max, their ersatz king who
has promised to keep the sadness
out.
In the end, Max realizes that
just like all the adults he knows,
he is just as powerless as all the
grown-up figures in his life to
prevent hurt feelings, melancholy, and exclusion. The adorable Records captures that sense
of disappointment and disillusionment that comes with the
realization that parents aren’t allpowerful or perfect. And when
Max returns home, still in those
wolf pajamas, the almost worldless scene between him and his
mother (Catherine Keener) is a
testament to the tolerance and
love of family.
The meandering of the meat of
the movie’s plot does drag a bit,
but for the most part it’s delightfully resonant, and deeply emotional, though it’s most certainly
not cheerful. In spite of that,
“Where the Wild Things Are” is
a delight worth seeing.
will make more use of her in the
future and add some spice to her
role.
“White Collar” is definitely a
show to follow, in spite of its
unfortunate scheduling on Friday
nights. It provides the perfect
blend of wit, personality, and
plot twists to keep viewers on
Caffrey’s trail.
Shakespeare
with cell phones
SHAKESPEARE (from p. 10)
The play as a whole was wellstaged and acted, but I am not sure
the stage and costume design necessarily added much to it. The message rang through loud and clear,
but the stark contrast between setting and dialogue seemed to me as
a bit of a distraction. Unlike other
modern adaptations of “Romeo
and Juliet” that revamp the script
into some contemporary counterparts, this seemed like a slightly
awkward juxtaposition. Granted,
Friedland was not aiming for “West
Side Story” in her depiction and
she had every right not to do so—I
just find any notion of high-fiving
and/or converse sneakers in the
Middle Ages to be slightly unsettling. But the fact that this rendition was just as powerful and heartwrenching as the original goes to
show that a true classic is not only
timeless, but boundless as well.
October 30, 2009
Diverse City 13
END-NOTE
Beer Pong table
Schoolgirl
1. Find knee-length white
socks and heels to wear.
2. Pu ton a tight white
shirt, button down if possible.
3. Find a plaid skirt or any
solid colored skirt.
4. Tie a tie and wear it
around your neck, underneath your shirt.
5. Make your hair obnoxiously styled, and wear a
headband.
1. Disassemble a box
(find one in the mailroom).
2. Buy a 24pack of
Solo cups at the CStore
3. Glue The cups to the
cardboard
4. Attach a string or rope
and fashion a necklace to
hold up the “table”.
5. Carry around a ping
pong ball and challenge
people to a game of Beirut.
Greek toga
1. Find a sheet, preferably white if you can
borrow one.
2. Try different ways
of wrapping it around
your body.
3. Steal some shrubbery
from lower Usdan to
wrap around your head.
4. For girls-- putting a
belt around your waist
will make costume more
form-fitting.
5. If you have gladiator
shoes or sandals, wear
them, and you’re done!
Bunch of
Grapes
1. Get a black garbage bag and cut a
hole on the bottom
to stuff your head
through.
2. Buy purple or
green balloons
and tape them all
around the bag.
3. If you have a
green hat or can borrow
one, wear it as the stem.
4. Try to wear as much black
as possible so that the only
colors most visible are the
balloons and stem.
5.Voila, you’re done.
Tennis player
1. If you have a baseball
cap, put it on. If not, borrow one.
2. Find a solid colored
polo to wear.
3. Find some short
shorts to wear, preferably white if available.
4. Borrow a tennis
racket and carry it
around.
5. Easy as that.