MARCH 16, 2012

NOVEL READS
A Book Column

The Pioneer Log ARTS

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

BY ROO FEENEY
Photographer

TOP 5 NEW ALBUMS

11

Austin, TXs SXSW Festival edition BY HAYLEY TRIVETT

Arts Editor

BY MARLY WILLIAMS
Staff Writer

Sarah Vowell writes about things like listening to the radio, the assassination of President Glover Cleveland and Puritan New England. While none of those topics necessarily scream best-seller, Vowell manages to turn the most seemingly random and dry information into a relevant and fascinating story. Her latest book, Unfamiliar Fishes, was released in paperback on March 6. It focuses on the year 1898, when, in what Vowell describes as a fourth-month orgy of imperialism, the United States declared war on Spain, invaded Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam, and annexed Hawaii. Unfamiliar Fishes recounts the latters path towards becoming an American territory. She starts with the British Captain James Cooks discovery of Kauai in 1778, where he came across the sandwich islands while exploring the Polynesian Triangle. American missionaries showed up in the 1820s, attempting to convert and save the heathen natives from an eternity spent in hell. Of course, Hawaii wasnt just a place to fulfill religious duty and eradicate sin. Vowell points out that American presence in Hawaii came at a time when manifest destiny was at its peak. American imperialistic exploits in Hawaii seemed like the next logical step after massive projects of expansion and even bigger hopes for power in the future. Sugar cane became a vital crop for the American economy and was necessary in feeding the droves of newcomers to Oregon and California. These agriculture transformations altered the landscape of Hawaii ethnically and physically, bringing workers from China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Portugal, while also calling for massive irrigation systems that turned the islands from desert-like to lush and green. Vowell fills her book with countless interesting facts while also connecting the story to a much larger picture about the history and national identity of the United States. You will not only learn that native Hawaiian women were once banned from eating bananas and other phallic shaped foods, but also gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which America came to influence, control and effectively transform outside groups for better or worse.

Photography is really the only activity that I have ever stuck with. I must really love it. When I was little I would spend hours going through my family photo albums. Then, I distinctly remember getting greedy. I started asking my friends parents if I could see their family albums whenever I was supposed to be playing with my friends. I photograph to remember things, otherwise I wouldnt remember anything. I photograph people that are close to me because I love them and who they are. I also I find myself taking pictures of music, festivals and parties but an overarching theme is always this nowhere-special, lonely, nihilistic, doomsday, slightly abandoned, lost feel. This house beckoned me from across a street in North Portland, so I crossed the street and snap, theres your photo.

THROUGH DONKEY JAW

by AMEN DUNES
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

Sounds Like: Balmy reverberation BETTER LUCK NEXT LIFE

by ROYAL BATHS
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

Sounds Like: Sinister, sludgy, psych rock

Watzek Screens: Red Desert

tion, but ultimately fails. Red Desert is Antonionis first film shot in color. In order to portray a true sense of the world that Giuliana experiences, he contorts the color pallete to reflect a more desolate landscape. Using colors that seem unnatural to the scene simultaneously exaggerates and confuses the differences between nature and city. Trees are painted grey or white, receding, while factory pipes are brightly tinted red, pushing forward forcefully. Antonioni saw his opportunity to shoot in color as a chance to use color psychologically and alter his viewers emotional response. He said, I want to paint the film as one paints the canvas; I want to invent the color relationships, and not limit myself to photographing only natural colors. This isnt to say that Antonionis intentions are to glorify nature and condemn human advancements in technology and modernization. Instead, his unexpected and perhaps unsettling color scheme is meant to show the beauty in this commercial world that weve created. The message to be taken from Giulianas isolation does not preach about the dangers of industry and harken back to simpler times; rather, its a message of the dangers of the inability to adapt. Antonioni explains, The neurosis I sought to describe in Red Desert is, above all, a matter of adjusting. There are people who do adapt, and others who cant manage, perhaps because they are too tied to ways of life that are by now out-of-date. Thursday, March 22, Miller 105, 7 p.m., free

by THE SHIVAS
PORTLAND, OREGON

WHITEOUT

Sounds Like: Vintage, surfy, garage rock

REMEMBER WHEN by THE ORWELLS

ELMHURST, IL

Sounds Like: Smoky, jangly punk SOMEWHERES SUNSHINE

PORTLAND, OREGON

PHOTO FROM LCLARK.EDU

by AAN

BY HILARY DEVANEY
Staff Writer

Watzek Screens presents its 5th screening of the semester, Red Desert, as a part of the librarys Italian Cinema film series. Italian Modernist filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni confronts the struggle between old and new in his 1964 film. Red Desert (Deserto Rosso) is a film about a woman who finds herself unable to interact with the rapidly changing industrial envi-

ronment that surrounds her. The woman, Giuliana (played by Monica Vitti), supposedly develops a mental illness after experiencing a car accident. She becomes distant from her world; the bleak industrial landscape frames her depression. Her isolation is made worse by her attempts at hiding her depression from her husband and his inability to understand her seemingly inexplicable loneliness. Throughout the film, Giuliana reaches out to others, trying to establish a connec-

Sounds Like: Acerbic, drony pop