In Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s new movie “Birdman,” Michael Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, a washed up actor who had played the flying superhero ‘Birdman’ three times and refused another sequel, only to watch his career fade and disintegrate over the years. Although Iñárritu insists that the story is intended as a reflection on his own insecurities, the casting is seems far too referential to be coincidental –  Keaton, of course, played Batman twice and, largely disappeared from movies after turning down a third installment.

We find Thomson backstage, scrambling to prepare for the premiere of his first Broadway play, which he has written (adapted from Raymond Chandler’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,”) and is directing and starring in. For Thompson, this is a last ditch attempt at legitimacy and relevance, an effort to salvage his sadly diminished reputation (“I’m a trivial pursuit card,” he moans) by establishing himself on the stage.

The deep mess of Thompson’s personal life is quickly revealed through interactions with his cast and crew as they clamber to prepare for the three opening previews: his girlfriend Laura (Andrea Riseborough) reveals that she is pregnant, his ex-wife visits and makes tragicomic, regretful allusions to their chaotic shared history, his daughter Sam (Emma Stone) has recently emerged from rehab and works as his sulky assistant, her presence serving as a frustrated living rejoinder to her father’s self-centered career obsession.

Meanwhile, a falling light fixture immediately knocks out Thompson’s bumbling lead actor, and he must replace him with the conceited but talented Broadway star and method actor Mike Shiner (a brilliantly overbearing Edward Norton), whose histrionics threaten to derail both the show and his relationship with the lead actress (Naomi Watts).

While the camera weaves through the labyrinthine backstage (a set artificially crafted on a soundstage to make the halls appear narrower and more claustrophobic), catching glimpses of the increasingly entangled cast arguing, flirting, smoking and rehearsing, the frazzled Thomson retreats to his sparse dressing room, where he monologues to himself in the disembodied voice of Birdman, levitates, and moves objects with his mind (generally to smash them). “Birdman” never decides whether Thompson’s powers are ‘real,’ even as our hero eventually flies through the city streets and conjures up blockbuster style explosions with crazed despair/delight. The surreal conceit works largely because Keaton’s intense, personal performance anchors us to the fantastic: Keaton’s Thompson is by turns brokenly self-reflective and fiercely manic, both burned out and crazily sustained by the mission to perform.

Much like the occasional fantastic departures from reality in Louis C.K.’s Louis, whether or not we think the fantastical moments in Birdman are taking place in Thompson’s psyche or actually happening, we follow because we understand how the preoccupied mind can inadvertently project itself outwards, how weirdly personal the world can get when we accidentally experience it through the lenses of our own consuming inner messes. At one point, as Thompson stumbles drunkenly down the city street, the homeless man who has been ranting about God in the background turns to Thompson as he passes and makes the plea of an auditioning actor – did that sound good? Should I try it differently?

Though “Birdman” explores deeply personal themes (aging, relevance, legitimacy of different art forms, parenthood), it does so with a flashy stylistic melding of the theatrical and cinematic: in constant motion, the camera follows the cast through the theater hallways in a series of lengthy, carefully staged and choreographed takes, which Iñárritu has spliced together through a mix of clever editing and CGI to create the illusion of a single, long take. The style isn’t just an impressive gimmick –  the perpetual motion of camera and actors creates a rattled, exhilarating energy, while quietly evoking the foreboding feeling that Thompson has lost control of his personal life and his art. Antonio Sanchez’s excellent, sharp percussive score keeps the feverish energy up as the show’s previews go comically wrong, conflicts between characters come to a head only to get weirder, and the narrative practically spirals towards opening night.

By the time I exited the theater I was wound up and mildly exhausted, but also soothed by the lingering, poignant catharsis that  comes from watching a truly great comedy. It’s a serious feeling, mostly because it’s one of the basic bummers of being human that we’re going to be periodically, upsettingly disrupted from the necessary assumption that we are Important by the basic suspicion that life might just be completely ridiculous. “Birdman,” centers around this deep, tragic need to be important, acknowledging that we are ridiculous but endearingly so, invoking serious empathy with the flailing ex-superhero, making us laugh.

The sad truth is that people in my generation are growing increasingly apathetic to hard work. Obviously this is no news flash, but sometimes going through a lot of effort for one small thing can seem pointless. This has come through in my experience with cooking. Why would I want to spend an hour or more preparing something I’m just going to devour anyway only to be left with a stack of dishes the size of Mount Everest, a floor covered in crumbs, and ingredients strewn across the kitchen? With all of that to anticipate wouldn’t it just be easier to order a pizza? Well, not too long ago I met someone who made me rethink my apathy toward the cooking process. This friend argued that cooking is an amazing art, that he loves the hands on engagement of crushing garlic and chopping onions, and that nothing beats the feeling of a successful cooking experience. It took me a little while, to say the least, to get on board with this mentality. After burning my jambalaya, setting the stove on fire trying to make bacon, and even regressing in my ability to make pancakes, I was ready to go back to frozen dinners for life. It wasn’t until I really started to acknowledge that all art takes both hard work and a lot of practice that I was able to start enjoying cooking. It’s the same with music, painting, drawing, and even writing. Understanding this has refreshed me in my approach to all of my artistic interests – writing, photography, music, and now cooking. The more I push aside all of the reasons not to do something, the better I get at it. Now I’m making acorn squash and eggplant parm like nobody’s business. Once you can pull down the creative process from this idealized space, you can take the first (and hardest) steps and get practicing. Then, the dishes, the time, and the mess will all be worth it and you can finally throw away the stacks of takeout menus in your drawer.

I was rewatching the classic movie Pocahontas with my cousin this past weekend, and as the song “Colors of the Wind” played, it got me thinking;

The song isn’t really about the colors of the wind so much as it is a commentary on cultural diffusion, the colonist character’s opportunity to learn a deeper natural wisdom from a culture he considers otherwise inferior. But the patterns of imagery in both the lyrics and visual imagery of the song – fruits bright colors, the wolf an azure blue, mountains’ rich oversaturated earthy tones – led me to think about the language of color, so to speak.

I turned to one of my favorite painters, Wassily Kandinsky, as he has written much about color and experimentation. Kandinsky argues colors have two effects: a superficial physical reaction to color, which associates a color with the physical phenomenon of the world. For example, bright red might evoke memories of fire, and the physical sensation of heat. The second level of reaction to color is psychological – beyond the physical sensation a color may induce, we also experience visceral emotional responses to colors. Kandinsky argues as we grow accustomed to the mundanity of our daily surroundings, we filter out both the physical and psychological sensations of our everyday stimuli. As a painter, Kandinsky strove to abstract the shapes and colors of everyday life into a panoply of psychological stimulus, re-introducing the wonder of everyday life. This painting, Kandinsky’s version of a city, demonstrates his mission.

So Pocahontas’s “Colors of the Wind” functions as an allegory, not only for a particular moment of cultural interaction, but also for a more universal observation on the role of culture in the first place. Culture functions as a means of codifying human experience in order to understand and appreciate both the external world and internal psychological states. Perhaps the role of art within culture, then, is to induce a collision of sensibilities and revivify our sense of wonder.

When I told my friends I had bought a 3 day pass to Lollapalooza they were horrified. Not because they objected to the festival or the line up, rather, that my going to the festival violated every expectation which they had of me and what is typical “Alexandria” behaviour. I am the girl that will drive 8 hours to see an opera, dances with her fingers in her ears in the basement of the Blue Lep because the music is too loud, and won’t be in the same room as smoke – cigarette or otherwise. This is not the type of girl who goes to Lollapalooza.

Like many things in my life, purchasing my Lollapalooza ticket happened on a whim. I was going to be living in Chicago for an internship, so when my phone buzzed in Theory class reminding me that tickets went on sale in 5 minutes I slipped to the computer lab and bought a pass. I figured that worse case I could easily sell it.

My experience at Lolla was a mix of amazing highs and mediocre (verging on mildly miserable) moments. Eminem’s performance Friday night was one of the most exhilarating experiences I have ever had. Though he started with new songs that I was not a huge fan of, his concert was pure spectacle and from the moment he revealed that Rihanna would be joining him onstage the concert featured hit after hit culminating in with an encore of Lose Yourself.

On the other end of the spectrum was Sunday evening. After surviving a day of on and off rain it poured continuously for at least an hour. Worn out from the previous days, soaking wet and disappointed by the performance of The Avett Brothers, which barely resembled their recordings vocally, my friends and I left Lollapalooza early to shower and sleep before leaving for work at 5.50 am the following morning.

Would I do it again? The answer is yes and no. I will never do a three day pass again. A total of 30 hours on your feet over 3 days (not including commute to and from the festival) is miserable – I don’t know if I have ever been as tired as I was Sunday night – but I loved the music and the experience of the festival. With ear plugs in hand I was able to survive the blaring bass with limited damage to my ears, though there was a distinct ringing until Monday afternoon, and I look forward to becoming a Lolla one day pass regular.