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Phillips Collection revels in Surrealism

For many, modern art conjures up images of a blank canvas dotted with a single red mark representing the inner turmoil of the artist or even the feeling of love. Similarly, Surrealism can manage to confuse the viewer to the point that she doesn’t even want to understand the artist’s work.

By the Voice Staff October 23, 2003

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Critical Voices

Yo La Tengo’s Today Is The Day EP The Weakerthans’ Reconstruction Site

By the Voice Staff October 23, 2003

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Our Rock

Are you too lamenting the death of great musicians like Johnny Cash and, all too recently, Elliot Smith? Well, fiend, you are clearly on track to be smited by the Almighty. At least, that is what www.av1611.org/rockdead.html will tell you.

We discovered this amazing web-site while searching the unfathomable depths of Google for “rock star suicide.

By the Voice Staff October 23, 2003

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Peter please

Peter Jennings is captivating. If his dashing exterior isn’t enough to convince you, how about his 10 years in Beirut as a foreign correspondent?

I was ecstatic last fall when I found out he would be appearing at the Barnes & Noble on M St. in support of his new book.

By the Voice Staff October 23, 2003

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A gala affair, indeed

Standing in front of Gaston Hall on Saturday, it seemed that Georgetown students were taking advantage of Georgetown’s Arts Gala in order to punish their parents for all of those days of humiliating comments shouted from the carpool line. Now they were the ones heading out into the dark and interesting night, giving their parents hugs and directions before encouraging them to file inside.

By the Voice Staff October 23, 2003

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’21 Grams’ of moving grief

LEISURE BY LUIZ DE OLIVEIRA When the Polish director Milos Forman was filming One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the ‘70s, he made a wildly controversial casting decision Since the film took place in a mental institution, he decided to cast the hospital’s real inhabitants as extras—all of the patients, nurses, and doctors in the background of Cuckoo’s scenes are real people.

By the Voice Staff October 16, 2003

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Picasso wows at National Gallery

Is it a nude woman? Or is it a bowl of fruit? Perhaps a chair, or even a mountain? To the untrained eye a work of art by Pablo Picasso can seem to be any of these things, and more. To the informed viewer, however, the dull colors and geometric patterns can take shape into a whole new world of artistic expression.

By the Voice Staff October 16, 2003

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‘The Illusion’ captivates

We live in an age of skyscrapers, towers of glass that together form gleaming cities, proud monuments of our technical feats. But as explored in Tony Kushner’s The Illusion, when it comes to accepting each other and even understanding the range of our own emotions, we as a society have made little progress.

By the Voice Staff October 16, 2003

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Talented people

In my wildest fantasies, I’m a rock star, a poet, or a folk singer. Each time I step into the spotlight and begin to share my artistic “gift,” I inevitably inspire awe, respect, reflection, and, of course, jealousy.

In my waking hours, I’m always “about to” make this dream come true.

By the Voice Staff October 16, 2003

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Uma really likes them swords

In Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino proves that he’s the ultimate film consumer. This, his fourth film, borrows from Akira Kurosawa, Sergio Leone, and a handful of other directors. Tarantino takes their blend of cowboy and samurai and adds an ass-kicking feminine twist.

By the Voice Staff October 16, 2003

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More ballyhoo

I’ll just come right out and say it; I am deeply ignorant of football. Hailing from football-maddened Texas, it seems impossible that the nuances of the game remain so utterly lost on me. But then again, I don’t even remember the Alamo. I’m using this chance to let everyone know I will not be in attendance at this weekend’s game, so I won’t spoil anyone’s spectator experience with my irritatingly basic questions about tackling or “downs.

By the Voice Staff October 9, 2003

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Transatlanticism – Death Cab for Cutie

Ben Gibbard has returned from his electronic pop side project, the Postal Service, with a vengeance as pleasant as vengeance can sound. Washington state’s most beloved indie pop group (at least here at the Voice) has dropped an album that quietly surpasses their previous work with the same subdued, beautifully melodic songwriting that has won them a devoted fan base over their six years of existence.

By the Voice Staff October 9, 2003

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The Decline of British Sea Power – British Sea Power

British Sea Power revels in eccentricity. Everything about them is quirky, from their name, an odd reference to their country’s maritime history, to their peculiar penchant for writing musical tributes to obscure Russian and Czechoslovakian historical figures.

By the Voice Staff October 9, 2003

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‘Lies’ illuminate, inspire

This much is clear: Al Franken is an asshole. He has an undying passion for confronting people whose political views he disagrees with and publicly humiliating them by calling them out on their deception. For example, reflecting on his discovery that current National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had made contradictory statements regarding the terrorism briefings she had been given by the outgoing Clinton Administration, Franken beams: “My instinct was to shout for joy and dance around the room, naked, celebrating the finding of a lie .

By the Voice Staff October 9, 2003

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Pretty girls exposed

To the uninitiated, the phrase “pretty girls make graves” used as a band name may evoke images of vicious, Courtney Love-esque harpies screaming over poorly orchestrated death metal. The name is borrowed from a song by ‘80s guitar pop geniuses The Smiths, but this band’s sound is somewhat closer to the maniacally aggressive punk and post-hardcore of At the Drive-In.

By the Voice Staff October 9, 2003

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Crossdressing Culkin

LEISURE BY ABBY LAVIN With murder by Drano injection, a gaggle of drag queens in booty shorts, and drugs aplenty, Party Monster seems to contain all the ingredients of a future cult classic. Combined with an all-star cast including a cross-dressing Marilyn Manson, Chloe Sevigny and the party monster himself, Macaulay Culkin, this movie seems to possess the formula for success.

By the Voice Staff October 9, 2003

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OutKast’s Big Boi on the ‘Speakerboxxx’

LEISURE BY KEVIN O’DONNELL These days rappers have traded in their 40s for Cristal, and their fixed-up Impalas for Escalades with spinning rims. Shallow materialism has compromised the integrity of a genre that remade the music industry in the ‘90s. OutKast’s last was one of the most relevant albums the hip-hop genre: the content of their songs eschewed the high-life consumption of their rapper compatriots.

By the Voice Staff October 2, 2003

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OutKast’s ‘The Love Below’ is candyland

Buttery, lacquered-piano plays over top of a strings section. As the sound rolls out with timpani drums, we’re left with Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic wet dream on a very electrified guitar, before a brass flourish somehow transforms it all into a smooth jazz-inflected number.

By the Voice Staff October 2, 2003

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Looking for a futbol fix?

Soccer is immaculate. It’s a sport that combines strategy and physical prowess to such an extent that it becomes an art form-the only art form capable of igniting drunken pub fights and reviving latent country rivalries. But aside from all the international hype, there exists a small cult of jersey-clad Americans religiously waking up to watch their teams play live.

By the Voice Staff October 2, 2003