The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 21, 2003, Page 7, Image 7
THE GAMECOCK ♦ Friday, March 21, 2003 7
CONTACT US THEY SAIDIT
GEORGE ELIOT: “Blessed is the man
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E-mail us at gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com from giving wordy evidence of the fact.”
World Night to integrate different cultures
BY CAITLIN COKER
THE GAMECOCK
The International Student
Association has joined forces with nu
merous groups — among them the
Hindu Student Council, Filipino
American Student Association and the
Muslim Student Association — to bring
USC a night of diverse celebration.
For the fourth consecutive year, the
ISA will present World Night tonight at
7 p.m. The International Student
Association is an on-campus group com
posed of international and American stu
dents. ISA functions as a social group
for the international community.
The ISA “tries to make the interna
tional students who come here more
comfortable in America, and allow
Americans to integrate with different
cultures,” said Kiti Kajana, ISA presi
dent.
World Night will feature a whirlwind
of cultural dances, fashions and food.
The show will be opened by Borenya, a
West-African drumming and dance en
semble from Columbia. If you have nev
er seen one of its performances, World
Night provides an excellent opportuni
ty to catch the group in action. The high
energy company, which features many
students from USC, occupies the stage
with both drummers and dancers. While
the drummers beat, the dancers will per
form authentic West African dances.
The World Night show will, in fact, fo
cus on ethnic dance. A professional com
pany will perform Mediterranean belly
dancing — an act that includes a dance
with swords.
The show will go on to display tradi
tional Indian, Pakistani and Filipino
dances, along with a salsa and merengue
routine courtesy of Salsa Cabana.
As icing on the cake, a group of
African-Americans and Filipinos will
break-dance to international hip-hop.
Students will also strut their tradi
tional styles on the runway in an inter
national fashion show.
Pekky Marquez, a fifth-year Spanish
student and member of ISA, has crafted a
modern version of the typical
Venezuelan costume to wear in the show.
The Hindu Students Council will even
demonstrate Henna tattooing.
World Council also includes some
American acts.
“We don’t discriminate,” Marquez
said. “ ‘International’ does not mean
only foreign students. It means
Americans, too — everyone.”
Representing the United States will
be Higher Harmony, USC’s men’s a
capella troupe.
“In at least the American culture,
there’s a broad cross-section of diverse
musical genres,” said Chris Young, a
third-year economics student and bass
singer for Higher Harmony. “We at
tempt to explore as many of these as pos
sible: barbershop, spirituals, pop, do-wop
and more.”
The cost to attend will be more than
compensated by the cornucopia of avail
able food. ISA will fix up flavors from all
over the globe, serving such dishes as
Spanakopita, curry chicken bites and
Chinese pot-stickers.
World Night will also offer attendees
the chance to find out how to get in
volved with ISA and the international
community.
“It’s the culmination of efforts to unite
the community over the year,” Kajana
said.
Last year, World Night attracted an
audience of 400 people. This year, ISA
expects attendance to exceed 500.
“Last year was an unexpected suc
cess, and this year we expect even
more,” Marquez said.
The unofficial after-show party will
be held at Senate Park, and will feature
rhythms from all around the world. The
DJs — DJ Mafoza from Zambia, DJ
Gradiska from Italy and DJ Cabreez
from Venezuela, all ISA members —
will spin international music and tech
no.
Students inspired by the exotic danc
ing of World Night can attempt the in
ternational dances for themselves start
ing at 11p.m.
You can wear raver gear, but don’t
wear sneakers; Senate Park is strict
about athletics wear.
— Kiti Kijana. president (^International Student Association
' PHOTOS BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
Top and above: Participants rehearse at the Blatt P.E. Center for tonight’s World
Night dance performances sponsored by the International Student Association.
The fiesta costs $5 until midnight.
The festivities all begin tonight at 7 p.m.
in the Russell House Ballroom, and the
World Night show is expected to last until
10 p.m.
The cost for the performance is $3 for stu
dents with a USC ID and $5 for others.
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com
MOVIE REVIEW
Film justifies Wilco’s awards
“I AM TRYING TO BREAK YOUR
HEART”
A film about Wilco by Sam
Jones
out of ☆☆☆☆☆
BY COREY GARRIOTT AND
MEG MOORE
THE GAMECOCK
Director Sam Jones wants to
explain how small, alt-country
,act Wilco conjured up
Amazon.corn’s album of the
year, the album Rolling Stone
magazine called the first great
album of 2002. In the movie “I
Am Trying To Break Your
Heart,” Wilco front man Jeff
Tweedy tries to explain.
“There are a lot of holes,”
Tweedy said. “There are bigger
spaces Detween wnat s supposed
to be... the music part.” He drift
ed off, mentioning that new al
bum “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”
would not, definitely not, be trip
hop. “I don’t know.”
Wilco is a band with artistic
ambitions — or so says its docu
mentary, which was shown at
the Nickelodeon Theatre this
week. The members are not VH1
pop-star pretties or parts of a
drug and sex story. They’re
acoustic veterans who have
come together, finally, for a mas
terwork.
ana is a mastertui artistic
statement,” said Tony
Margherita, band manager. “It
could bomb.”
And Wilco is also, apparently,
yet another band that struggles
with the tension between art and
business; commercial success is
a mysterious subject to the
group. This predicament could
characterize any group — but
there’s something special about
Wilco.
Earlier, Tweedy, looking like
a homeless person, had a funny
face drawn on his belly and at
tached a cigarette to it with gum.
“You’re going to see a documen
tary about Wilco,” it blubbered.
“They are funny guys!”
Tweedy’s jokes are telling —
things would only get funnier
when Wilco’s label Reprise
dropped the band.
Before the mess, musical wiz
ard Jay Bennett claimed, “It’s
cool to bitch about your record
label," but Wilco was actually
having a good experience, he
said. It had received $85,000 to
record its own album without a
producer — or any supervision,
really. Things seemed to be go
ing great with Reprise, a Warner
Bros, subsidiary.
But once the company listened
to the album, a pop experiment,
it dropped Wilco from its line;
Reprise lost $200,000 total, in
cluding other costs.
Essentially, the band had
been given a couple hundred
thousand dollars to make an al
bum it then had the freedom to
sell.
Wilco toured to make money
and let record companies bid up
the price for “Yankee Hotel
Foxtrot.” Rumors floated that
the album was amazing; Reprise
dropped it only because it
wasn’t mainstream alternative
rock.
«
m tne end, the band sold it to
Nonesuch Records, another
Warner Bros, subsidiary, for
around three times what Reprise
paid for it in the first place.
Warner Bros, paid for an album,
gave it up for free and then
bought it back.
“Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” con
♦ WILCO, SEE PAGE 8
. L
BOOK REVIEW
Flaws make characters likable
|bookends |
“BOOKENDS"
By Jane Green
out of ☆☆☆☆☆
BY CHRISTY INFINGER
THE GAMECOCK
Jane Green’s newest release,
“Bookends,” takes a group of
friends living in England and puts
their closest-held secrets on dis
play, exhibiting their weakness
es and testing the strength of their
strings of friendship.
The main character,
Catherine Warner, is a professed
lifelong single not looking for
anything out of life besides a
good snack and pals to eat it
with. Her best friend, Simon
Nelson, pleads with her con
stantly to update her look, find a
sexy man and settle down. Si fol
lows his own advice to the letter,
but finds only heartache in a se
ries of losing relationships.
Catherine and Si’s couple
friends, Josh and Lucy, along with
their devil-child, Max, prove to
have their own problems as time
constraints limit their sex life, and
their Swedish nanny suddenly
finds a secret mate.
As they cope with their every
day lives, a little surprise arrives
on their doorsteps. Portia, Josh’s
good friend from college, shows .
up after years of estrangement
from the group. The friends can
not help but wonder what Portia’s
hidden agenda holds, but are too
caught up in their own problems
to investigate.
Catherine and Lucy make a
quick decision to live out their
dreams and open a bookstore/cafe
together. Lucy adds the style and
gourmet taste, Catherine the book
sense.
As their business begins to
grow, the real-estate agent who
helped them find their business
building starts hanging around.
The agent turns out to be not just
any other money-hungry busi
nessman, but an aspiring artist
trying to make ends meet and who
has an eye for the fashion-forlorn
Catherine.
Catherine begins to become in
terested, but is distracted by Si’s
sudden love interest, the always
rude ' and insulting Will.
Although Will is constantly mean
and vindictive to all Si’s friends,
Si can’t see Will’s true nature and
falls in love with him, not find
ing out until much later that Will
has some secrets of his own.
Once Catherine and the hand
some agent start dating, each
date becomes interrupted by
some sort of friendship predica
ment with Catherine. On their of
ficial date, Catherine sees Josh
with the illusive Portia at a se
cluded restaurant, instead of
with his loving wife. The second
date is ruined before it even
starts when Simon shows up at
Catherine’s apartment with some
news that neither one of them
can ignore.
Jane Green tops her other
books with her newest release,
creating a group of friends that
are impossible to forget and who
have friendships that others only
envy.
i iitur quincy cnaracter naws
only make them more irresistible
and take Green’s skills at charac
ter development to a new level.
“Bookends” is a good read that
is hard to put down.
As soon as you finish, you just
want to read it again.
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