While most a capella groups perform and record songs by their favorite artists, very few of these artists recognize the effort. Ben Folds, however, is — as always — a bit different. When he discovered the plethora of tributes to his music by a capella groups on YouTube, he set up a contest through which winners’ songs later were featured on a compilation CD.

Enter the Sil’hooettes, one of the University’s well known a capella groups. The Sil’hooettes entered the contest with “You Don’t Know Me,” a duet that Ben Folds sang with Regina Spektor. While they did not win and will not be featured on the CD, they did receive an impressive consolation prize: The Sil’hooettes opened for Ben Folds Monday at his concert at Mary Washington University, performing their version of “You Don’t Know Me.”

“It’s cooler than being on the CD anyway,” said Courtney Stroud, a third-year Nursing student who is the group’s business manager. “We get to meet him.”

The opportunity came during a busy period for the Sil’hooettes. They will soon host their 20th anniversary concert; about two-thirds of their alumni will return. The concert will feature songs from both alternative and well-known artists including Feist, KT Tunstall, Jewel, Lloyd, Queen and Bob Marley.

“We don’t want to be a typical a capella group,” said Jenna Pastuszek, Sil’hooettes President and a fourth-year College student. “We try to stay away from the Top 40 list and perform songs that sound hard.”

Any member can submit songs to the music director, fourth-year College student Sara Dougadir, who then arranges the songs into an a capella format. Dougadir is one of three members who are music majors. The group, though, welcomes anyone who is interested in joining to try out.

“Anyone can audition,” Pastuszek said. “We even have two girls who can’t read music. They do have very good ears though.”

The Sil’hooettes are also releasing a new CD this semester, titled Take it to the Bridge, a double reference to both the bridge of a song and Beta Bridge. The CD’s cover will feature Beta Bridge painted for the Sil’hooettes.

“I’m in charge of managing and keeping track of all funds,” Stroud said. “And CD production is a big expense.”

In the current economic crunch, the group’s financial hurdles are higher than usual.

“Believe it or not, we’ve been pretty heavily impacted by the economy.” Pastuszek said. “We usually have somewhere between 10 and 12 paying gigs a semester and now we’re down to two.”

Luckily for the Sil’hooettes, their recent marketing push and tendency to take every gig that comes their way means they will not be fading away despite setbacks. The recognition the group has received during the past several years also helps.

The Sil’hooettes will perform their 20th anniversary concert April 4 at McLeod Hall at 8 p.m.

With dreary weather engulfing Charlottesville and end-of-the-year assignments piling up on desks, it was the ideal weekend to escape to Carmike 6 to experience DreamWorks Animation’s new 3-D film, Monsters vs. Aliens.

Monsters vs. Aliens begins where most PG animated films end; the female heroine awakens the morning of her wedding day. Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is set to marry her news anchor beau Derek Dietl (Paul Rudd) when he announces that instead of her dream honeymoon in Paris, the newlyweds will celebrate in Fresno, Calif. because Derek has an audition at a more prestigious news channel. Even more unfortunate for Susan, the move will be permanent.

Susan hides her disappointment, rationalizing that the pair is a team and Derek would do the same for her if the situation was reversed. As Susan comes to grips with the new reality, a meteorite filled with Quantonium — a precious, yet powerful substance — hits Susan and she grows into a powerful giant named Ginormica.

Immediately the U.S. government is summoned and Susan is taken to a secret facility where other monstrous indiscretions are incarcerated. While imprisoned, Susan befriends the brilliant Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. (Hugh Laurie), the macho reptile-like creature that is The Missing Link (Will Arnett) and the brainless blob B.O.B. (Seth Rogen).

When the evil alien Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) discovers that Susan holds the Quantonium, he decides to invade Earth to steal the potent chemical and conquer the universe. Consequently, President Hathaway (Stephen Colbert) grants the monsters freedom on the condition that they defeat Gallaxhar and his army of clones.

In line with the cosmos theme, the cast is filled with comedic stars. Rogen steals the show as he falls in love with a platter of Jell-O and offers hilarious observations. Colbert proves amusing as the president who constantly confuses the buttons for the latte machine and the activation of nuclear missiles. As alien robots invade San Francisco, Colbert declares a terror level of “Code Brown” because he needs to change his pants.

In a theater predominantly packed with elementary school kids and their parents, it seemed like at moments the adults were laughing louder than the children. While the slapstick humor appealed to the kids, the adults enjoyed references poking fun at America. In satiric form, the president’s advisors mused, “What would Oprah do?” Similarly, upon being released from a 50-year stint in prison, The Missing Link quipped, “It feels warmer outside … What a convenient truth.”

Monsters vs. Aliens follows Susan as she finds her inner strength and independence. In a world where females are socialized to stand by their man, it is refreshing to see Susan reject Derek at the film’s end and ironically leave the United States for Paris.

The 3-D graphics seem to be the newest trend in animation technology. Although the realD glasses provided for the audience allow for intensified clips and awesome visual effects, the $9 to $11 ticket price does not suit most people’s wallets, especially considering the current state of the economy.

But with breathtaking animation, witty dialogue and an uplifting message, Monsters vs. Aliens proves to be a worthwhile adventure that is out of this world.

Jealous exes can be such a drag — especially when they are forest queens.

Although The Decemberists are not strangers to weaving an intricate story line into their albums (The Crane Wife had tracks loosely based on Japanese folklore), most fans probably did not brace themselves for this. A “rock opera” by definition, The Hazards of Love is a 17-track minstrel show vocally typecast to perfection.

If you’ve heard only a track or two, don’t dismiss it just yet. As it turns out, judging Hazards by one track is like basing a movie review on one scene. Set aside an hour and decipher Colin Meloy’s inexplicable Portland accent from start to finish.

The narrator is William, the doting gentleman with a dark past, sung by Meloy. His sweet lover Margaret is sung by Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond. Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond takes on the role of the evil forest queen, the dead ex-lover of William with a vengeance.

The overall style of Hazards emphasizes the action instead of the music. Each song bleeds into another; many songs sound similar with folksy guitars, harpsichords and percussion. Climactic moments are marked by the crescendo of power chords and backbeats in the same way they are in most rock operas. There is at least one important riff that is repeated several times and molded instrumentally depending on the context.

We are introduced to our heroine by the narrator in track two, “The Hazards of Love 1,” after a palate-awakening prelude. The language would make most English majors happy: “You’ll learn soon enough / the prettiest whistles won’t wrestle the thistles undone.” The follow-up track borrows instrumentation from its predecessor and introduces Margaret’s joyous pregnancy. This is enough to send the forest queen into a rage. We’ll find out why later.

Margaret begins singing in track four, as she enters the taiga — Colin Meloy is not satisfied with calling it a forest. Her voice is light and Disney-like; she is reveling in her pregnancy and ready to go find her lover to tell him about it. It becomes obvious how removed this story is from the world we live in when “columbine” is sung in reference to a flower.

We meet the bitter forest queen in track six, “The Queen’s Approach,” on which she proclaims, “I’m / made of bones of the branches / the boughs and the brow-beating light / while my feet are the trunks / and my head is the canopy high.” Yes, she’s a tree. As weird as that seems, it’s no stranger to the form of a fairy tale, which this song more or less is — except for that whole happily ever after thing. Her voice is thicker, darker and more soulful in comparison to Margaret’s youthful, innocent singing.

“The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid” starts off with an ominous, minor variation on the main riff, performed by a single harpsichord. As William sings, the music builds up to flow into the queen’s loud, classic-rock sounding solo, when she proclaims in disgust, “This is how I am repaid.”

In “The Rake’s Song,” we find out what set the tree queen off. After we have already formed our opinions, the self-proclaimed “awful narrator” confesses how his unsatisfactory marriage with the queen left him with three little brats. After her death, he finished off the three children, wanting to start a new life. His newfound happiness crushes the queen, who is looking on from the forest.

The “Hazards of Love 3” is a creepy appeal from William’s dead children for revenge. We hear a group of children singing “Papa, turn the water down / The basin’s overflown,” set to haunting noises usually reserved for horror movies. Move over, Bright Eyes. The Decemberists not only put babies in bathtubs, but they make them sing, too.

The volume and tempo picks up as Margaret is abducted by the queen and thrown across the wild river. William is forced to set out and save her. The album ends with the lovely, poignant “The Hazards of Love 4.” The queen’s revenge is achieved: the two lovers wait to die on a sinking ship.

Unlike Coheed and Cambria, no graphic novel is needed to understand this book-on-tape set to music. There are no talking bikes in this one, just evil talking trees. Hazards of Love is certainly strange, but it’s also refreshing and timeless.

It was supposed to turn romantic comedies on their ear — for the first time, the “bromance” took center stage. The standard formula — boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back — is approached from a unique point-of-view in director and writer John Hamburg’s (Zoolander, Meet the Parents) newest comedy. I Love You, Man is a heartfelt stab at the complicated maze of the male best friendship that almost lives up to its hype.

Paul Rudd is Peter Klaven, a guy so far submerged in the boyfriend role that he’s forgotten how to build male friendships. Upon proposing to his girlfriend Zooey — played by Rashida Jones — Peter realizes that he has no close male friends to call, let alone be the best man at his wedding. A series of awkward and misinterpreted man-dates ensues until Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) crashes Peter’s open house and the two hit it off, instantaneously becoming BFFs.

The whole cast is blessed with fairly strong comedic chops, but it’s the up-and-comers that steal the show in I Love You, Man. Jaime Pressley as one of Zooey’s best friends Denise is hilariously foul-mouthed and domineering. Also bringing home the laughs is Andy Samberg as Peter’s brother Robbie, a heterosexual-seducing gay man whose world is more masculine than his straight brother.

When the central theme of a film is the importance male camaraderie, the two male leads are crucial. Rudd and Segel both deliver funny performances, but that star quality that can carry an otherwise mediocre movie to top box office status is under-developed in both their roles. Rudd’s Peter gets the easy laughs — he’s a bumbling, fumbling, usually flustered, somewhat effeminate real estate agent. For the guy that supposedly went from girlfriend to girlfriend his whole life, however, he seems way more likely to have gotten stuck in the “friend zone” again and again. On the other hand, Segel’s off-beat sense of humor is more realized and perfected in Sydney, yet the film seems to shy away from letting him get too much spotlight — an odd choice, considering Segel delivers the most memorable lines in a misguided, double-entendric engagement dinner toast.

The style I Love You, Man is going for is blatant. This generation’s king of comedy Judd Apatow is both responsible for the most unique and pleasing comedies of recent years and all the others that fall hopelessly short of the pack. Ever since that first group of little old ladies angrily marched out of the theatre mid-way during The 40 Year Old Virgin, the R-rated raunchy comedy was back on top. Apatow is a master of it and his carefully selected casts always deliver performances that are poignant, yet remarkably funny. Hamburg’s I Love You, Man earnestly tries for such a result, but doesn’t quite make the grade. The jokes often don’t reach their full potential — we wait for the real kicker, but it never comes. I Love You, Man, however, does hit its mark enough times to be worthwhile.

So, I Love You, Man didn’t fully live up to its sizeable buzz. Nonetheless, the fresh story idea and notable cast members give the film an edge that most hyped comedies never achieve. Even when Rudd and Segel aren’t goofing off on the top of their game, both have more than enough know-how to leave the audience feeling mostly satisfied.

Chloe Aridjis’s impressive debut novel, Book of Clouds centers around a young Mexican Jew named Tatiana living in Berlin. A young woman in her 20s, Tatiana has minimal contact with her family, which runs a Jewish deli in Mexico City, and speaks to almost no one. She prefers to spend her days in thoughtful reminiscences, wandering the marketplaces and streets of Berlin alone. She earns her living by transcribing recorded notes for an old historian. Her closest human contact comes from the recorded voices on the S-Bahn, the Berlin subway system: “I preferred this recorded voice to any other voice I had heard in my life,” she explains.

Through the eyes of this strange narrator, we see Berlin, a city unable to separate itself from its past. The bowling alley is marked by Gestapo signs. The marketplace contains remnants of a grim history. Dirt rises from Tatiana’s floorboards, like secrets that can’t be repressed.

Like the title suggests, the novel has an ethereal, lyrical quality, and Tatiana’s observations and descriptions are enthralling, reflective and disturbing. Aridjis weaves together references to meteorology, ancient Mexican culture and World War II history to create an interesting narrative even though not much happens. There are a few episodes that punctuate her reflections, and when Tatiana actually does wake up from her dreamy, inattentive state, it is usually to note something equally distracting: the presence of a black, hairless dog called Xoloitzcuintle, “member of the ancient canine breed from Mexico that in Aztec myth would guide human souls through Mictlan, the ninth and lowest circle of the labyrinthine underworld”; the appearance of Adolf Hitler disguised as a woman on the subway; or a mysterious figure dressed in a black skirt and red cape on a tram from Alexanderplatz.

Tatiana begins to date a meteorologist named Jonas Krantz despite the fact that he isn’t someone she would normally date. They rub along comfortably enough, although Tatiana’s social awkwardness seeps through even her dreamy, ethereal narration. In fact, her inability to interact with anyone, whether it be a friendly next-door neighbor or her boyfriend is one of her more irritating characteristics. Tatiana explains that she never quite got along with her family — which is not surprising — and describes attempts at friendship like trying on a new pair of shoes.

The climax of the story comes when neo-Nazi punks attack Tatiana and her employer, Doktor Weiss in anti-Semitic rage. For Tatiana, her near-death experience is just as remarkable as the appearance of the Aztec dog or an intense summer storm. After Doktor Weiss is seriously injured in the attack, she spends paragraphs wondering about her lost watch and calmly consuming two cups of coffee. After this event, Tatiana decides to return to Mexico City, although that decision isn’t based on the attack: “It’s never about just one event, but rather a whole sequence of smaller events, all those loaded seconds and minutes and hours that lead toward a decisive moment.”

In the same way, Book of Clouds is not about one event, and one doesn’t get the feeling that Tatiana’s adventures in Berlin made a huge, lasting impact on her. Book of Clouds is not a life-changing story but rather a dream, in which one puzzles over meaning even though none of it was real.

I’m not quite sure what to expect from the upcoming comedy Parks and Recreation, which debuts April 9 on NBC. The show’s concept is so-so — it follows the head of an Indiana P&R department, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), and her attempts to transform a barren construction pit into a park. Although I haven’t exactly been impressed by the show’s previews, I am a fan of its headlining star, Poehler. I’m also a huge Office addict, and the two programs share the same producers. But will Parks and Recreation end up being an Office rip-off?

Turns out the show is already off to a bad start. A recently-leaked focus group report about the pilot was highly negative — and complaints about resembling its hit predecessor topped the list. It’s no surprise that there are complaints, as Parks and Recreation features the The Office’s mockumentary style in addition to Poehler as a bumbling boss and an eclectic cast of characters (The Office’s Rashida Jones as a nurse, comic Aziz Ansari as a government official and newcomer Aubrey Plaza as a college intern). According to Nikki Finke’s entertainment blog, Deadline Hollywood Daily, which uncovered the outcome of the focus group, viewers saw the show as a “carbon copy” of The Office, one that risked coming off as “derivative” and “forced.”

More bad feedback was registered about Parks and Recreation’s sleazy male leads, Ansari and Chris Pratt — of Everwood fame — as well as the show’s slow pace. Viewers also were puzzled about the goals and motivations behind the documentary; some weren’t even sure what it was about.

Despite this initial criticism, there is still a lot of hope for success once Parks and Recreation debuts. First of all, why mess with a working formula? The Office has been one of the most successful comedies on television during the past few years, and it’s safe to say that many devotees like myself will stick around Thursday nights to watch this new enterprise. Plus, the American version of The Office took a while to distinguish itself from its British original; now it sports a loyal following. There’s a good chance Parks and Recreation could do the same.

As far as the dodgy status of the leading men, Entertainment Weekly PopWatch blogger Margaret Lyons put it perfectly when she wrote March 24: “Sleaze has a way of growing on you: Barney on How I Met Your Mother, Jack on 30 Rock, Chuck on Gossip Girl, Sawyer on the early seasons of Lost, and House on House could all be considered sleazy in some contexts, but that’s hardly limited their appeal.” Lyons also points out that quandaries about pacing and plot points are common when dealing with pilots.

Regardless of the poor responses for his network’s new series, NBC Entertainment co-chair Ben Silverman remains optimistic. Following the leak, he claimed that numerous other NBC pilots have received the same treatment from past focus groups. Seinfeld, for instance, almost didn’t get put on the air in the early 1990s because of negative focus group ratings — and ended up becoming a pop culture phenomenon. I’m interested to see how Parks and Recreation will hold in the face of early setbacks and how it performs when placed in prime television territory with the likes of The Office and 30 Rock. I want it to be good. The question is, has the show dug itself a pit too deep to get out of — or can it transform the crater into a thriving, verdant park?

So, when I sat down to write last week’s article about five albums I never get tired of, I realized I was having lots of trouble narrowing down the list to just five. So now, like any good album, here’s some bonus content — five more albums I never get tired of.

A Perfect Circle: Thirteenth Step (2003)

This album holds the distinction of being the only one on either list about which I have ever written a paper. It is a concept album that explores many types and points of view of addiction. While most of its songs fit into popular rock forms, it mixes in some weird meters, like on “Weak and Powerless,” and stretches the capacity of the band’s instruments. Listen to “Blue,” when the bass is played in the upper register to produce a sound similar to a guitar.

BEST TRACKS: “Weak and Powerless,” “Blue,” “Gravity”

Maroon 5: Songs About Jane (2002)

Maroon 5 is often touted as the successor to boy band sensations like ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. There’s just one key difference: The boys of Maroon 5 actually are good musicians. They manage to infuse rock and pop sensibilities with a hint of soul, which puts a twist on traditional lyrics. They are also interesting because their live shows are a completely different experience from their studio albums, especially their live DVD, Friday the 13th.

BEST TRACKS: “She Will Be Loved,” “Shiver,” “Not Coming Home”

Bond: Classified (2004)

Classical-music purists will probably hate me for including this band, but I can’t help it. Rather than fusing classical and rock like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Bond brings classical into the world of pop hooks. “Classified” includes reinterpretations of classics like Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” on “Dream Star”. The band gained notoriety when its song “Explosive” was chosen as Australia’s theme song for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

BEST TRACKS: “Explosive,” “Lullaby,” “Dream Star”

Imogen Heap: Speak For Yourself (2005)

Imogen Heap is another innovative artist, injecting pop songs with a little electronica. Her voice is also versatile — haunting in “Hide and Seek” and passionate in “Goodnight and Go.” Another interesting element of “Hide and Seek” is her use of a vocoder along with an a cappella voice, perfecting a technique that Laurie Anderson pioneered. She often acts as a “one-woman band” during her live shows, operating all her electronic instruments herself.

BEST TRACKS: “Hide and Seek,” “Daylight Robbery,” “Just for Now”

Audioslave: Revelations (2006)

Tom Morello, guitarist of the now-defunct Audioslave, described this record as “Led Zeppelin meets Earth, Wind, and Fire.” This description is apt, as this album contains a lot of funky wah-pedal effects to go with the band’s rock roots. The strong backbeats on the drums also almost give the album a danceable sound. Audioslave was a collaboration between three former members of Rage Against The Machine and singer Chris Cornell, and the band initially struggled with chemistry on its first two albums. But on Revelations, the band gels well for the first time ever. Alas, the group broke up just after the release of this record, proving that chemistry isn’t everything.

BEST TRACKS: “Revelations,” “One and the Same,” “Wide Awake”

A couple of weeks ago, I said Lamb of God had the best metal release of the year. Forget that. Mastodon’s Crack the Skye has set a new bar for the renowned metal band.

The members of Mastodon met in 1999 at a concert in Atlanta, Ga. for the band, High on Fire. They discovered their love for similar music and soon came together to create Mastodon. Its sludge metal coupled with progressive instrumentals proved to be a winning combination for the Atlanta quartet. Its first full-length album, Remission, came out in 2002. The band then released Leviathan in 2004, which was a concept album based on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The album received rave reviews from the heavy metal community. Mastodon’s 2006 follow-up, Blood Mountain, garnered even more critical and commercial success.

The band is anything but mainstream. Although much of its sound involves low-end, mud-like growls, there are plenty of beautiful, flowing passages that are reminiscent of King Crimson and Thin Lizzy. If none of these ring a bell for you, Mastodon, in a sense, sounds like a tuned-down, more concentrated, heavy-as-lead version of The Mars Volta.

With Crack the Skye, Mastodon just keeps getting better. Like previous efforts, Crack the Skye is not just a collection of songs. The album acts as a tribute to drummer Brann Dailor’s sister, Skye, who committed suicide at age 14. Crack the Skye is a journey, specifically the journey of a paraplegic whose only mode of transportation is astral travels. Not trippy enough for you? Rasputin gets involved somehow.

The opening track, “Oblivion,” gazes into the heavens as drummer Brann Dailor sings, “I flew beyond the sun before it was time / burning all the gold that held me inside my shell.” The protagonist opens the album by telling his story. His encounter with Rasputin and Czarist Russia is then described on a nearly 11-minute epic called “The Czar.”

Crack the Skye shows a side of Mastodon that the world has never seen before. The songs on Crack the Skye are more focused than previous works. Mastodon may drift into uncharted territory, but it tells a consistently interesting story.

If the members of Mastodon are nothing else, they are road warriors. The band is continuously on tour, and it delivers live. For Crack the Skye, Mastodon’s tour schedule includes stops at Coachella, the 9:30 Club, and Knebworth House in the United Kingdom. For many of these shows, Mastodon will open for the reigning gods of thunder, Metallica. No word yet about whether Mastodon will open for Metallica’s stop in Charlottesville Oct. 17, though.

With Crack the Skye, Mastodon has created a symphony of sludge that will continue to impress throughout the year and years to come.

EOTO is the ultimate live music experience. Together, Michael Travis and Jason Hann (the percussionist and drummer from The String Cheese Incident) create, record, mix and remix live music on stage, producing a unique musical experience every time they play. Although the duo comes from the bluegrass-based jam band, The String Cheese Incident (SCI), the two do not attempt to imitate the same sound. Hann plays the drum kit, percussion and sampler while Travis is in charge of the tonal elements playing bass, guitar, keyboards, hand percussion and live mixing. Travis and Hann’s improvisation and cutting edge technology allows the pair to create an electric/house/breakbeat vibe that undoubtedly leads to an awesome dance party every time.

After checking the band out on YouTube, I anticipated a ridiculous dance party and lights show that I would get to be a part of Tuesday night at the Gravity Lounge. There was, however, no lights show, and the fairly small, mellow crowd definitely did not evoke the dance party I was looking for. While there were a number of fans happily grooving to the beat in their own little musical worlds, there seemed to be a greater majority of people who were not dancing, or at least not wholly immersed in the musical experience that EOTO asks for. And, although most everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, the lack of high energy from the crowd similarly seemed to affect Travis and Hann, who produced a continuous stream of mellowness with the occasional climactic boom of intense, fast-paced beats that the crowd would respond to with cheers and fist pumps. In this way, EOTO and the crowd completely worked off of each other. While I was in the mood for a more energetic show, the majority of the crowd seemed to be satisfied with the subdued atmosphere, so that’s what EOTO gave them. Because the music is 100 percent improvised, EOTO is not one of those bands you go hear live to enjoy your favorite songs and see the artists whom you have idolized for so long. Rather than being about the band, EOTO is about the experience. After speaking with Hann after the show, he reconfirmed my thoughts about how important the crowd’s role is in enjoying the music and influencing the band’s performance.  

“It’s all improv, so it gives it a different kind of life … the band is the crowd,” he said.

The impact of the crowd on the band’s music is so strong that it is visually noticeable and amazing to watch and feel, as it gives the music a much more personal feel.

The name EOTO illustrates another way in which the band is all about the experience. Pronounced e-oh-toe, Travis and Hann provide no explanation for the meaning of this strange name. Just as the music changes from show to show, so does the meaning. In this way, fans can choose what they want EOTO to stand for depending on how the music affects them. Such names include End of Time Observatory and Each One Teach One. While I don’t exactly know what I would call EOTO, it definitely is an experience I would recommend checking out. EOTO’s performance Tuesday may not have been exactly what I was hoping for, but it was by no means an indicator of future shows to come. EOTO is an ever-changing musical project relying on the crowd as much as the crowd relies on the band.

“The financial system as a whole is still working against recovery.”

In an op-ed article for The Wall Street Journal March 23, Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner announced that the government was prepared to increase the bailout budget to $1 trillion from $700 billion in an effort to combat the current economic crisis. He laid out a nebulous three-layered plan called the Public-Private Investment Program. The plan may sound like yet another complex solution not guaranteed to work, but the layers are far simpler than one may realize: buying, investing and loaning.

The first part of the plan involves buying “toxic assets.” Many Americans purchased houses using controversial sub-prime mortgages. Essentially, these mortgages allowed average income families to purchase homes normally thought to be beyond the average income price range. Someone with an income of $50,000 could get a loan for more than $500,000 and an initially low interest rate without any trouble.

After the housing market crashed and house values plummeted, however, people found themselves paying more on their mortgage than their houses were worth. This prompted massive defaults on mortgages, which banks then reassumed. Now, many banks are stuck with mortgage notes that are worth more than the houses they finance and therefore cannot be sold.

“Nobody wants to pay more for something than it is worth in the market,” second-year College student Robbie Pradhan said.

According to The New York Times, Geithner’s PPIP will encourage private investors to purchase toxic assets by allowing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to loan up to 85 percent of the price. This means that the initial cost of a bundle of toxic assets will be greatly reduced by the government.

“It’s an example of spreading the risk,” fourth-year Commerce student Hannah McBride said. “Both the government and the private investors share the risk and possibility of reward.” The lower initial cost most likely will encourage investment firms who have little capital to invest.

The next layer of the plan is investment. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury Web site, the Treasury will invest half of the cost of private equity. Thus, if a private investor buys a pool of bad residential mortgage loans, the Treasury would invest in half of what was left of the purchase price after the FDIC loans.

The purpose of this is to spread the risk further by involving the taxpayer. Again, the private investor is encouraged to purchase the toxic assets because of less risk. “Politically, [the government] is really trying hard to have a private sector solution,” Assoc. Commerce Professor Patrik Sandås said.

The last part of the plan involves making loans to private investors interested in buying other types of toxic assets. Specifically, the government is expanding the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. This facility, with support from the Federal Reserve Bank, will provide a special type of loan called a “nonrecourse loan.” This type of loan is tied to a piece of collateral rather than a monetary contract. By making a nonrecourse loan, the government is telling private investors that if they default on the loan, they only have to surrender the collateral specified in the loan contract and the difference to cover the loan balance.

Again, the government is taking away most of the risk of buying toxic assets. For an investment firm, this means that in the event that they default on a nonrecourse loan, the government seizes the toxic asset property instead of the full value of the loan contract.

The government is making a substantial attempt to encourage private investment. The $1 trillion could begin to repair the damage done by the sub-prime mortgage crisis and put America on the right track to financial normalcy.

“There is the sense that if the banks don’t get the bad assets off their balance sheets one way or another,” Sandås said, “you will not be able to get back to normal.”

Critics of the plan, however, are concerned about the amount of government involvement in buying the toxic assets.

“The amount of government involvement in trying to fix the crisis borders on socialism,” Attorney Lisa Blumenthal said. “By accepting the government’s bailout plan, we sacrifice the basic idea of the casino that we live in.”

Whether Americans are supportive of the plan or not, it certainly represents new territory for government involvement in response to the economic crisis.

“The process of repair will take time, and progress will be uneven, with periods of stress and fragility,” Geither wrote.