Lifestyle

Ever wish somebody would have slipped Mozart some acid? With their fourth official project, French duo Air attempt to reconcile modern electronica with symphony-hall sheet music, achieving a delicately novel antiquity by looping their already sparse, arpeggioed beats into an acoustic guitar-and-piano orchestra. Pocket Symphony is a departure from 2004’s acclaimed Talkie Walkie, spotlighting nude instrumentals over poppy synthesizer and sound-board pump. The album’s milder aesthetics are still classic Air – a melodic dream-trip with a computer-generated soundtrack – but at a slower, more methodical pace. The pair further simplify their lives by skimping on the vocals (a third of the songs are purely instrumental), a haunting godsend to tracks like “”Mayfair Song”” but an elevator-music ultimatum for others – “”Space Maker”” requires an attentively active listen to avoid completely fading into the background. The most engaging moments occur during the voice-sprinkled “”Mur du Japon”” and “”Napalm Love,”” jolting the listener awake after the meandering tinker of the majority of the album. But the overall sleep-inducing ambience is not necessarily a drawback – because sometimes a pleasant musical haze is the only answer to a rainy day. ...

The No. 16 UCSD women’s tennis team earned a huge win against Villanova University, a nonconference Division I school, by a score of 5-4, improving its overall season record to 5-3. Will Parson/Guardian Sophomore Ina Dan won her doubles match alongside senior captain Marsha Malinow, and in the No. 2 singles spot, Dan picked up an easy 6-1, 6-3 victory to lead UCSD to their 5-4 win over Villanova. The team managed to take a 2-1 lead after some determined play in the doubles matches. No. 3 doubles senior Allison Legakis and sophomore Yekaterina Milvidskaia managed to win their match with a close score of 9-7. However, No. 2 doubles junior Justine Ang Fonte and senior Christy Knudsen fell 4-8. With the match tied at one-all, No. 1 doubles seniors Marsha Malinow, the senior captain, and Ina Dan were able to put the Tritons on top as they eked out a 9-8 victory following a tiebreaker. The singles matches were equally tough and exciting. No. 2 Dan and No. 3 Fonte both had very easy matches, with Dan winning 6-1, 6-3, and Fonte completely dominating her opponent, 6-0, 6-0. Fonte was thrilled with her individual victory, as well as the team’s performance. “”I had a cream cheese,”” she said, referring to the win she had without giving up a set. “”We expected them to not be very strong and sort of paid for it in doubles. But the girls stepped it up a lot and pulled through and Tessa [Tran] closed it out for us.”” No. 5 singles sophomore Tran clinched the victory for the team, winning 6-4, 6-3. While the team did win, there were still disappointments, as the other singles players fell in straight sets. On the opposite side of the spectrum from Fonte was Malinow, who has been plagued by an abdominal strain and lost in the No. 1 spot, 3-6, 1-6. Malinow’s match disappointed her, but she was still excited about the team’s victory. “”My performance was less than what I expected, just because I could not serve at all,”” Malinow said. “”I was serving underhanded and the girl was ripping them. I was really impressed by everyone’s performance and I thought Ina and Justine were working their matches very well.”” The remaining singles losses were from No. 6 singles Legakis, who fell 5-7, 0-6, and No. 4 singles freshman Pooja Desai lost 1-6, 6-7. Head coach Liz LaPlante was very satisfied with the result. “”We had some tough doubles matches,”” she said. “”We played them two years ago, but they were much weaker. The girls they had this time were deep. It was a good match to get ready for the Sonoma State-UC Davis trip.”” The Tritons will be going up north to face conference foe Sonoma State, an opponent they already defeated 7-2 previously this season and a strong Division I team in UC Davis. For Fonte, the match against UC Davis is personal. “”I was actually offered a full ride by the coach at UC Davis but I decided to come to SD,”” she said. “”For me, it’s a test to prove that I am as good as the girls they have up there.”” Malinow seemed both anxious and excited for the trip. “”We have a deep team so there isn’t too much pressure on me,”” she said. “”It mostly comes from my mental weakness and I know that if it wasn’t for [the injury], I would be a lot more consistent right now. I’ve never played against UC Davis’ No. 1 so I really don’t know what to expect.”” ...

As “”dead”” as the Wu-Tang legacy is declared to be, the hip-hop collective’s growing swarms of underground worker-bee offspring don’t seem to be getting the message. Latest case in point: RZA’s prodigious new “”Wu-Element”” (producer) Bronze Nazareth, who – as if the family tree hasn’t sprouted enough branches – has picked up three hitchhiking twigs off the streets of Detroit to form a fresh-faced mini-clan of his own, self-assuredly titled the Wisemen. Their mission is an admirable one, if overambitious: revive the raw, beats-rhymes-life purity of hip-hop’s golden era at the dawn of the ’90s. Yeah, right. But Nazareth is one of the most promising hands behind the new age of always-stellar Wu beats, and his most recent – in a royal march of sawing strings, chirp-cut soul samples and jumping heartbeats – are no exception. However, if these wide-eyed hopefuls want to come anywhere near the minimalist genius of the golden-age greats they so admire, they’re going to need a far better tutor – Nazareth, for all his musical prowess, goes bland and sloppy behind the mic, clumsily recycling the spiritual/militant flow and lyrical fodder of his forefathers. A student can’t surpass his master; likewise, Nazareth – whose 2006 solo debut The Great Migration showed some promise – is dragged down by amateurs, a second-grader in a first-grade classroom. Even top-notch guest listers Killah Priest, Vast Aire and GZA (crammed into the beginning of “”Associated,”” tripping over a messenger-trumpeting sonic gallop) offer no more than sloppy seconds. In this noble fight, the Wisemen may actually be digging the Wu grave that much deeper. 2 1/2 Stars ...

With many events on their schedule that include only Division I opponents, the UCSD track and field teams are often underrated and taken lightly. This past weekend, however, the Tritons enhanced UCSD’s reputation and quieted their D-I critics with a very impressive performance at the All-Cal Championships. Hosted by UC Irvine, the competition also included UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside and UC Davis. Courtesy of Tony Solerno Junior Whitney Johnson earned two first-place finishes at the All-Cal Championships, hosted by UC Irvine on March 3, in the long jump and triple jump events with impressive distances of 19 feet, 1.5 inches and 40 feet, 4.75 inches, respectively to help her team earn second place overall. The Tritons proved their worth, with the women’s team placing second overall and the men’s finishing in third. Senior hurdler Dan Noel was extremely pleased with how his team fared against the top-division schools. “”As a team, we deserve the same level of respect, regardless of division,”” Noel said. “”Sometimes people get lost in the fallacy of Division I domination and forget that what matters is who is better prepared to compete on any given day.”” The women not only showed that they could compete with the D-I schools, but that they have the potential to beat them. All day long the women vied for the meet championship, but unfortunately came up just four points short, losing to UC Santa Barbara. Courtesy of Tony Solerno Sophomore sprinter Connor McCabe had a third-place finish with his time of 11.45 seconds in the 100-meter dash at the All-Cal Championships. The runner-up finish was no reflection on just how well the team did. The Triton women earned six first-place finishes at the meet, highlighted by two each from junior hurdler Laiah Blue and junior jumper Whitney Johnson. Blue dominated the 100- and 400-meter hurdles with times of 14.05 and 61.47 seconds, respectively. Johnson set the all-time UCSD record with her distances in both the long jump, 19 feet, 1.5 inches, and the triple jump, 40 feet, 4.75 inches. Becoming the school record holder was a thrill for Johnson, but it also came with its fair share of anxiety. “”It felt great to set those [distances],”” Johnson said. “”But it also makes me a little nervous for the rest of the season. I really want to be able to continue hitting those marks later in the season and be able to have even better marks at conference championships and nationals.”” Also receiving first-place finishes were freshman sprinter Christine Merrill in the 200 dash and senior thrower Samantha Belvini in the javelin throw. Even though all these victories were not enough to grab the meet championship, the team’s efforts will carry into the rest of its season, where more first-place finishes are expected. “”Once our team, which is a really young team, starts getting into [its] zone, we’ll start to win championships,”” Johnson said. Even though the men didn’t place as high as the women, they were able to leave the All-Cal meet with some serious hardware of their own. Junior hurdler Khalil Hooper got himself a top finish in the 110 hurdles by posting a time of 15.25 seconds. Similarly, freshman jumper Chris Yu’s distance of 21 feet, 11.75 inches in the long jump was more than enough for him to grab first place. Sophomore sprinter Connor McCabe rounded out the Tritons’ top finishes by breaking the tape in the 100 dash in 11.45 seconds, a time good enough to earn him third place. After playing in front of away crowds for the first two meets of the year, the Tritons finally get to race at home this weekend when they play host to the San Diego City Championships on March 10. At the meet, UCSD will square off against San Diego State, Point Loma Nazarene University and Cal State San Marcos. No matter how the Tritons fare at the meet, they will be guaranteed to improve their standing from last year’s city championships. The 2006 championship was held on an incredibly rainy day, which greatly affected the times of all players involved. The coaches decided not to cancel the meet, but did not announce the winner due to the altered times. With nothing but beautiful San Diego sun forecasted for March 10, the Tritons are in a great position to capture their first team championship, and will pride themselves with parading that championship in front of their home fans for the first time all season. Noel is eager for the first home meet of the season and has high expectations for his team. “”I am excited to have our first home competition,”” Noel said. “”Hopefully, the comfort of our home track will bring some big performances by both the men’s and women’s side.”” ...

From the onset of Neon Bible, with the apocalyptic guitar and stealthy drums of “”Black Mirror,”” the Arcade Fire make their new territory clear – a bleak and dogged universe where the mere act of waking up requires some bravery. The human/machine dynamic of the band’s debut was a headphone junkie’s surround-sound paradise, stacked with catchy hooks aplenty and enough lyrical depth to get at least a few midnight conversations going. In this album, we see a shift: Rather than focusing on the ties that bind, the Arcade Fire branch into a global adventure void of hope. Neon Bible takes the band’s already soaring arrangements, adding everything but bagpipes and kazoos to reach more regal heights, including a full orchestra and even a spontaneous organ solo. But the album’s problem is that it’s too epic. What made Funeral one of the best albums of 2004 was that it balanced sound: There were peaks and troughs and plateaus, all in paced subtlety. Here, nearly every song hits a point where the band feels it must prove its conviction by playing as loud as every other song, making for a worn effort in which the few songs that do tone it down – notably the title track – are all the more relieving. That’s not to say there aren’t some killer, heart-racing tracks: “”(Antichrist Television Blues)”” finds the band channeling the husky Bruce Springsteen machismo of the late 1970s while “”Keep the Car Running”” is an anthem for anyone who’s ever had to skip town. Neon Bible neither takes the Arcade Fire back into familiar doldrums, nor does it propel them into a new level of epiphany – rather, theirs is a flawed search for identity after success. 3 1/2 Stars ...

“Belle De Jour” – March 8, 7 p.m. – MCASD, $5 A few weeks ago, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego offered us Bunuel’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” — and today it big-screens another of his classics: “Belle De Jour.” The film follows Severine (Catherine Deneuve), a bored housewife who indulges in secret desires and becomes a prostitute. Balancing her erotic fantasies with a lack of intimacy at home proves no easy task, especially when different men begin to enter her life. Bunuel balances the true struggles of sexuality with the surreal elements of the mind’s eye, never becoming condescending, but rather stepping back and letting the characters act naturally — a great film on all accounts. (CM) Eileen Myles & Ali Liebegott – March 9, 7 p.m. – D.G.Wills, La Jolla, FREE If you’ve never experienced the exuberance of UCSD’s writing series on campus, then you can get a taste on Friday when two prominent writer/professors, Eileen Myles and Ali Liebegott, will read from their newly-published books. Myles, the patron saint of razor-edge, feminist punk poetry, will be reading from “Sorry, Tree,” her new collection of poems on love and politics. Liebegott, a poet and fiction writer, will read from her critically acclaimed debut novel “The IHOP Papers,” which is filled with her signature philosophical compassion and innocent maturity set amongst all-too-real situations. Each approaches her work with curious honesty and a search for unexplored truth. (CM) ...

If you have a stomach for brazen sex and violence – and this movie will put many to the test – then “”300″” is a visual feast more satisfying to the warmonger inside of you than anything before or after it for many years. Never has a movie utilized so much of the screen. Every inch of every frame is such a stunning masterpiece that we can safely give cinematographer Larry Fong next year’s Oscar right now, without question. It’s that impressive. The Spartans are huge – absurdly huge. These burly goliaths, clad in Speedos and red capes, put Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, even in his prime, to miserable shame. Each of the 300 men have a six pack that could grind a tank to dust – that’s 1,800 packs of skull-crushing abs. The Persians just don’t stand a chance. Hundreds of thousands are slaughtered on the tips of Spartan spears before a single Greco he-man dies. Half a dozen slow-motion rampages of blood-spraying carnage help the movie play out like a graceful ballet of gruesome maiming and horrible death. After the first few waves of Persian soldiers, the Spartans busy themselves by making a wall of corpses 20 feet tall, and the unlucky enemies keep on coming. But there’s no reason to pity these lemming hordes: As in all good action flicks where untold scores of baddies must give up the Persians’ ghosts to progress the plot, their faces are covered with long scarves, scary masks or full helmets. The story is as simple as it gets: the bad guys are coming, and we’re going to stop them, no matter the odds. There is a historical basis for the story: the Persian king Xerxes’ failed campaign to conquer Greece, and the Greek play “”The Persians,”” by Aeschylus, about the cause of that defeat. But Frank Miller’s “”300″” stands alone. Many characters are entirely fictional, and even the real ones take on comic-book proportions, from a Spartan traitor who looks like Quasimodo on steroids to a godlike Xerxes, who towers several feet over the tallest Spartan. The Greek template for the story was political for its time, exemplifying a pivotal Greek victory as a showpiece for the consequences of hubris. “”300″” is no different, lacing every line of the movie’s dialogue with political bias a la the current Iraq war. When not extolling the supreme value of freedom every chance they get, Director Zack Snyder’s characters like reminding themselves of the cost of freedom with the repeated line “”freedom isn’t free,”” and parallels with the Marine invasion of Iraq are palpable when the Persian campaign of terror arrives at the Spartan doorsteps and the Spartan king Leonidas (Gerard Butler) decides to lead an elite troop of hoplites to defend their country’s freedom. But his fellow leaders disapprove of his brash actions. Sound familiar? There is even a climactic plea by the Spartan queen before an assembly of senators, begging them to send more troops. Despite the unnecessary politics, the movie doesn’t suffer because it remains true to its ultimate goal of providing its audience with an endless stream of kick-ass fight scenes and compulsory nudity. Unlike “”Gladiator,”” in which the plot drives the violence, the violence in “”300″” clearly drives the plot, and audiences seeking a serious look at war, or Greek history for that matter, should simply look elsewhere. “”300″” is really just about violence for the sake of violence, and nudity for the sake of nudity. If that’s what you’re after, then you can sit back and gorge on this visceral masterpiece. No one involved in the movie has a very exciting resume. Snyder’s only significant claim to fame was the absurd romp in zombie land that was 2004’s “”Dawn of the Dead,”” and his co-writer Kurt Johnstad has nothing but forgotten independent films under his belt. Fong’s only experience has been in television shows. But they came together to breathe amazing life into Miller’s comic. The “”300″” comic book upon which this movie-theater powerhouse is based never received much acclaim, but it’s going to leave a dent in box-office sales like few before it, and movie stills are going to litter laptop wallpapers across chemistry classes for years to come. ...

Dear Editor, Regarding Jim Shen’s article “”Controversial Origins”” on Feb. 26 and Jeremiah Runyan’s and Eddie Herrera’s subsequent letters to the editor: When Albert Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity in 1915, it was met with enormous resistance and controversy. Yet he did not lobby legislators to enact laws to force its teaching into classrooms or start a public relations campaign to influence the public debate. He presented his ideas in public where their validity could be challenged by experiments. It wasn’t until 1959 that technology improved enough to show that Einstein’s predictions offer our best understanding of the universe. Despite Runyan’s and Herrera’s passionate defense of intelligent design, the theory has not yielded any empirical evidence that supports it or that directly challenges evolution. There is a fundamental distinction between the search for intelligent design in archaeology, which involves the study of physical remains left behind by ancient human cultures (human design), and the search for the supernatural in explaining the origin of man. Runyan and Herrera lack an understanding of the scientific process. ID proposes that there are biological systems in nature that are “”irreducibly complex,”” and therefore the only plausible explanation is the presence of an intelligent agent. Simply saying something appears too complicated to be the product of evolution does not prove the alternative hypothesis of ID. If ID is truly hypothesis-driven and testable, then its supporters must provide evidence for the intelligent agent and its effects on the natural world. Supporters have not even proposed experiments that directly test their hypothesis, let alone provide evidence. ID also proposes that the fossil record does not have enough intermediate species. This claim is continuously being refuted by paleontologists uncovering new species, including the recent and notable discovery of a transitional fish fossil from the late Devonian age (approximately 375 million years ago) which has fins and scales, but also a neck and the precursors to modern shoulders, wrists and elbows (Nature, April 6, 2006). The more we discover about nature, the more evolution fits the data. Herrera’s definition of science is wrong: Science is not a belief system and scientists do not “”believe in evolution.”” We accept or reject theories based on empirical evidence. Theories are constantly revised as new evidence is produced, and often times scratched entirely when they can no longer explain it. ID as an explanation for our origins is a belief system, as Herrera notes, because it requires faith that God shaped the process. These are beliefs that are neither provable nor testable, and therefore not science. Scientists look at a problem and say, “”We don’t know what the answer is yet, but if we ask the right questions and do the right experiments, maybe we will some day.”” ID looks at the same questions and says, “”We don’t have an answer for this yet, so it must be the work of an undetectable intelligent agent.”” I would hate to think we are trading our pioneering spirit of discovery in favor of giving up because things seem too complicated or because we’re too impatient for answers. – Aaron S. Parker Graduate Student Division of Biological Sciences ...

It’s the chief indicator of a clever creative mind – only the best writers can take a story and personalize it, while somehow preserving the work’s core sensibilities. Fanboys will remember Frank Miller for his dark and heavy brutalization of notable characters Daredevil and Batman, but even those revolutionary makeovers were primers for the graphic novelist’s latest comic-turned-film yarn: “”300.”” I consider the blood-drenched opus – following the inevitable death of a Spartan king in the Battle of Thermopylae, where his 300-man phalanx is outmatched by an invading Persian horde – to be Miller’s most underappreciated work. Yes, the author did modernize Batman. And yes, his “”The Dark Knight Returns,”” a dark and tortured take on an aged Bruce Wayne, did become the current normative understanding of the character. But true Miller fans, especially the ones who live to see him operate in a creatively open arena, should sneer a bit at the writer’s translation of the character; Miller left DC Comics after he published the graphic novel, complaining he was being handcuffed by the corporate comic world. For a writer so attuned to the sinister and violent sides of human nature, it was a shame to see a waste of that awareness. However, Miller’s reformation of Greek history (under the flag of indie publisher Dark Horse) has no similar scruples about carnality and violence. Half-naked Spartans patrol the scenic expanse of Greece, and swordplay often means the detachment of limbs, all illustrated by Miller himself in an off-center, edgy style. Though blood and gore are the essence of “”300,”” substance and meaning provide a foundation for the carnage. Miller’s knack for engaging dialogue and narrative asides maintains attention to the story itself. The source material is a perfect fit for Miller, a bluntly crude and character-based writer. The story’s themes of glory, bravery and lost causes combine with a primitive wartime setting to form one of modern-day comics’ best semi-historical pieces. ...