REVIEW: Sugartips Acoustic Duo

There isn’t nearly enough gentleness in the world. Everything is so loud all the time, the noises conflicting with one another and the angry fractures clashing. Background motivations seem to ruin the chance at pure intentions of bringing about joy. No one person or group or ideology is really blamable, though it would be easier if there was. Luckily we all have the opportunity to be soft and kind–we simply have to take it.

Even though Sugartips Acoustic usually does not deal in gentle tunes, the ambiance they create in every establishment they visit is one of fine relaxation. They play the classics, things everybody would know and feel comfortable singing along with a roomful of strangers. The experience is kind of like attending the wedding of a third cousin: maybe you don’t know many people, but you do know you’re somehow related to them all, however superficially. Also a lot of people are tipsy, and singing off-key to “Sweet Caroline.”

The pair performing in 2011.

Sure, Greg (the lead vocalist) could be a little flat, and he sometimes struggled to hit the higher notes, but perfect tone and pitch isn’t really the point. Greg and Ryan play music for the sake of it: to entertain, to enlighten, to fill a room with bubbling melody. Since the beginning of all music, this has been what it’s about. It is gentleness that drives them, and what has made them successful since their beginning way back in 2009.

It would be nice to see them perform a greater range of music, and maybe some more of their own compositions. I was excited to hear that their first ever original EP will be released this month! I’m glad that they are finding their own sound after such a long time experimenting with the music of others. This certainly isn’t easy to do; although I’ve been playing piano for years, the mere thought of composing anything myself is incredibly daunting. In all this time I’ve written almost nothing, even though I’ve played everything from Chopin to Adele and consider myself a creative person. There is something in all music makers that makes us immediately compare ourselves to the greats, even though they started from similar positions. I wish the Sugartips duo the best of luck in the next steps of their careers.

You can check out their music on Soundcloud, Youtube, or Facebook.

PREVIEW: Sugartips Acoustic Duo

Weeks can go by so slowly in the dead of winter (although Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog told us we’ll see an early spring!). Let’s go listen to some music together.

MASH bar (located below the Blue Tractor restaurant, 211 E Washington St) is hosting infinitely cool acoustic duo Sugartips tomorrow night at 8. Order a whisky, rest your arms behind your head, and relax to some smooth acoustic hits. MASH also offers delectable snacks like nachos and sliders.

So come on down, everybody. Life is too short to not enjoy Wednesdays at least a little.

 

 

REVIEW: Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentary

Not the most uplifting selection of shorts, but these five documentaries were certainly thoughtful and artistic.

They combined beauty with a quiet sadness in the background that came forward only in brief moments. We are offered such an intimate look into personal tragedies and journeys in

this group of films, and that doesn’t always feel completely right. In Life Overtakes Me especially, we observe several refugee children caught in the coma-like state of Resignation Syndrome; they are unaware at that moment of our watching them being taken care of like invalids. The cool, pretty sunlight comes through the window to highlight a delicate hand, the rising and falling of the chest filling with unconscious breath. Their parents are filmed almost as a performance of parenthood, having to ignore the cameras’s eye and the incredible pain of not knowing–their family’s refugee status, whether their child will regain consciousness, what would happen if they were deported. It feels like an intrusion, something I don’t deserve to see.

Walk Run Cha-Cha was the most light-hearted of the five, though it was also the only one that made me cry. Ageism, particularly with women, is strong in the film industry, so I was happy to see an older couple featured in a way that connected them to their bodies and to each other. Too often mature subjects are discounted in their sensuality and ability, instead cast aside as static figures who do not (implied: cannot)

offer anything but old-fashioned wisdom, always from a seated position. They have less 
agency than their younger counterparts, often in a position of needing someone to take care of them. In Hollywood’s eyes, life seems to end somewhere around 35, maybe 50 for men.This shows that as we age there is still plenty more room for learning, for joy, for romance.

St. Louis Superman was touching without letting the audience forget its reality of systematic, racially-charged violence. The incorporation of Franks’ young son King was simultaneously beautiful and heartbreaking (he learns so much so young: his father’s bravery, the effect that one’s drivenness can produce, the hypocrisy of institutions meant to protect, how deeply racism permeates those structures). His innocent eyes take in too much, and as we see him cling fiercely to his father, we’re forced to wonder whether his future will be painted more by cynicism or tenacity. 

 

In the Absence seemed the most abstract. We see almost no video of the passengers of the ferry, which makes sense as most of their phone recordings were destroyed as the ship sank. A large portion of the documentary featured the slowly tilting boat, a big beast of a structure, looking like a dying creature, maybe a whale. It brings to the mind a guilty kind of disgust; we’re meant to be second-hand mourners, but instead we see the government’s ineptitude and this huge, ugly thing taking its sweet time drowning hundreds trapped on board.

Finally is the documentary shorts winner: Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl). The movie was a well-thought-out mix of history, interview, and politics, while getting closer to the heart through a close connection to a group of talented, spunky young girls. In a land that does not allow for any of the activities depicted in the film, it would have been more accurate to incorporate a touch more seriousness here, rather than depicting Skateistan as a magical safe haven. The point was empowerment and fighting for human rights, but these things can so easily be rosily shown, without the terror and violence involved in their capture.

If you haven’t seen these shorts, I’d recommend taking a pal down to your local theater, as it’s still playing for a few more days most places. This website will find a location near you that is showing them.

PREVIEW: Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentary

Billy Porter wearing Christian Siriano at the Academy Awards, 2019.

The Oscars are an event in many realms: fashion, celebrity gossip, film. Here is decided the best in that dress, the least-promising Hollywood marriages, and the most powerful audiovisual works of the year. While I love all sorts of movies, I have always been partial to short films. They have so much to accomplish in a fraction of the time feature-length films have; it’s thus a unique medium that results in stories with an odd edge to them. Often you’re left with surreal feelings after being thrown into and out of another world. I’m much more poignantly affected in this way.

For the 15th year, Oscar-nominated shorts are being shown in theaters all over. Determine your favorites and see if the Academy agrees on February 9th.

The documentary category will surely be a treat this year, with five selections from around the world featuring the heavy-hitting work of journalistic artists. Choose from a variety of showtimes through February 13th!

Tickets: https://www.michtheater.org/show/2020-oscar-shorts-documentary/

REVIEW: Is This A Room: Reality Winner Verbatim Transcription

Five years, three months: the longest sentence ever given for leaking classified information to media sources. This is Reality Winner’s punishment for her confessed involvement in the spread of private documents regarding Russian meddling in the 2016 United States presidential election. Given this record, are we not obligated to ask questions? Does this historical event not deserve to be emphasized, elevated to a position of art?

This play is thoughtful, unassuming in its simplicity. Art written in the moment of speaking, the best kind. The liberty they took with the background score was a little heavy for me sometimes, especially when it went on for prolonged periods below speech. We are already invested in the story, so the added dramatic tones were only distracting, kind of like a soap opera.

Still I was struck by how baldly pained actress Emily Davis’ expression was throughout the play, perfecting the panicked mix of emotions Reality Winner must have been feeling at the time. The FBI agents were not heavily dichotomized in tone, which was a relief, but instead reflected flawed humanity rather than stereotype.

But is the act of turning Reality into a play just, or some kind of spectacle-making that preys on her turmoil while wearing the disguise of the artist? Is there enough of an argument against ordinary journalism’s story-driven (and thus not always compassionate) tendencies for the theatre medium to survive? Provocative titles to articles like “Does Reality Winner ‘Hate America?'” seem to provide evidence for one. Other

In making the script a verbatim transcription of the interrogation, do we lose valuable insight into the case? There is zero analysis of the events here, nor is there any real background information beyond online and program literature. The point was, I guess, for the audience to draw their own thoughts together about the case, with only the absolute barest bones with which to work.

The trouble I have with this strategy is that no one in the audience is truly coming in with no background knowledge and/or opinions related to the case. Even those not exposed to media stories about Winner have no doubt heard the countless reports on collusion in the election, forming and borrowing speculations on the truth. Even the baseline action of creating this play is a statement that this story is hers, and deserves telling; that the outcome may not have been a rational one.

I suppose still that in our information age there is no real neutral ground. We are exposed to so much media, tinted with biases coming from every direction, mixing with our own, and coming out the other side a completely unique concoction. It’s easy to become confused with what our beliefs are based on. So a verbatim transcription of an interrogation, regardless of its background tunes, is probably as close to perfect as we’re going to get. Thankfully we see enough value in the honest truth to produce this kind of play, and for it to be so well-received. What a curious thing.

 

PREVIEW: Is This A Room: Reality Winner Verbatim Transcription

Art often has some connection to politics, but often it’ll be diluted, stylized past the point of meaning as much. It’s rare to see this kind of drama in an untouched form. The audience and actors here are forced to work with nothing but reality to create artistic drama, and that is a unique challenge.

The play follows the 2017 interrogation of Reality Winner, ex-Air Force linguist who was accused of leaking information on Russian meddling with the 2016 presidential election. In this current political landscape, this story is fully relevant to our wondering minds, many of which have been thus far unsatisfied with other media coverage.

Show times:

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2020 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2020 8:00 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2020 8:00 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2020 2:00 PM // ARTHUR MILLER THEATRE

Tickets are $35 for general admission, and $12-20 for high school and college students. Find them here: https://ums.org/performance/is-this-a-room-reality-winner-verbatim-transcript/