The term “college kids” takes on a whole new meaning when talking to students who are old enough to have children of their own. Fourth-year College student Lavell Payne and third-year College student Teresa Reynolds are among those earning their degrees at the University after spending years in the work force and raising a family.

The combined challenges of school work and raising a family can make for a difficult life, yet there are reasons why students choose this non-traditional route through college. For Payne and Reynolds, it just made sense economically to come back at this time in their lives.

During spring 2009, Payne decided that the time was right to quit her job in Greensboro and return to the University with her 4-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter in tow. She was concerned about the effects of the economic downturn and felt that completing her degree was necessary to remaining competitive in the workforce.

Reynolds’ story is somewhat different from Payne’s. She is a grandmother and mother of three adult children and found herself in need of a résumé boost when, after 23 years as a master butcher, she severely injured her back and could no longer work at a job where she had to stand for long periods of time.

“In applying for new jobs, I realized I was unqualified to do anything else, because that’s all I had done all my life. So I went back to school,” she said.

To juggle their familial obligations with their academic ones, students like Payne and Reynolds needed outside help.

Assoc. Dean Nicole Eramo suggested Payne and fourth-year college student Kelly Cain refound a group called Students with Families, whose leadership had recently left the group, and tailor it to fit the needs of non-traditional students with families of their own.

Eramo said among the many challenges that go along with raising a family while attending college is the fact that nearly all of these students’ peers are significantly younger and from a different generation.

“We do tend to have a very traditional student body so that does sometimes make it difficult for students with families to find resources,” Eramo said.

Cain and Payne both wanted to create a support system for student-parents, not only to help out with childcare, but also to create a better social network for students with families.

“It’s a different experience in school, and it’s not something that other students can relate to very easily. So, when you find somebody who has children like you do then you have common ground and you can go from there,” said Cain, who raises a 3-year-old daughter with her husband.

Although Payne was able to meet other students like her living in the Copeley Hill family housing complex, she said it is difficult to do so for students who live off Grounds and are not connected by the Family Housing Association, a University-established liaison between students with families living on Grounds and the University.

Reynolds is one such isolated student. She commutes between Charlottesville and Warrenton on weekends, and lives in an off-Grounds apartment during the week.Because her children are older, she does not benefit from the group childcare offered by Students with Families, but she joined the group in order to have greater social interaction with other students.

“I’m a much older person in an environment around a lot of much younger people,” she said. “It’s kind of lonely.”

In addition to allowing parents to meet new faces, Students with Families also gives members the opportunity to swap ways to cope with their many obligations. For Cain, timing is everything.

“If you have a kid, always plan to be places 15 minutes early because then you’ll only be five minutes late,” she said.

Payne and Reynolds also believe in the importance of timing. Payne specifically coordinates her and her children’s bedtimes each night so that she will have at least four hours to do homework, while Reynolds always plans to have two classes worth of homework done before she goes home for the weekend.

For the time being, Payne and Cain are just focusing on expanding and publicizing their group. Currently it consists of five families with a total of nine kids, but as it grows, its members are hopeful that it will be able to take on a more active role in advocating for non-traditional students. Payne would like to see Students with Families work with the University to offer special discounts for the children of students for athletic events. Her children love to go to football games, but it is very expensive on a student budget. To buy them season tickets for this year cost her $240.

Reynolds’ goal for the group is to work with admissions to set a school-wide buddy system that would link older students together.

“It would be helpful to people to have someone close to their own age they can kind of lean on,” she said.

“Girls! You don’t have any ice in these trays!” This is my mother yelling.

Sheepishly, I walk into the kitchen and take a peek in the freezer. Acting surprised at the four empty ice trays growing ice crystals but housing no cubes, I shrug, “Sometimes I forget.” Holding her glass of white wine, my mother sighs and opens a bottle of red. “I can’t drink warm white wine.” She raises her eyebrows to enhance the importance of this wisdom. “You don’t drink white wine warm.”

When my mother visits, everything is better. The food is better because it’s either from a restaurant or leftovers from home. The smell is better because my mother knows how to change my air conditioner’s filter. My bed feels better because my mother brought a comforter that actually has been laundered during the past three months. And I am better because finally I have something to myself. I don’t have to share my mother like I share the library and the classrooms and the sidewalks; she’s all mine — OK, and my sister’s.

As fluid as my mother’s re-entrance into my life may seem, there are definitely holes that cannot be filled during the span of a two-day visit. My mother questions my empty freezer. She also questions my empty fridge. Apparently rationing food for a period of time is more economical than a late night happy-go-lucky binge.
These bumps, though, are ones I can handle. I know I should save my money more and stop sending my parents the bill for candy I buy at the bookstore. I know I should sweep every once in a while and that cleaning the dishes before the bugs come makes the kitchen a more welcoming environment. If the only bumps my mother’s re-entrance introduced were words of caution and advice with a little scolding on the side, I’d be fine.

But I have this problem where I like to talk. In high school, talking to my mom led to discussions about my grade point average. In college, talking to my mom generally addresses more personal, life-changing issues. I like to tell her everything that goes on in my life because without all that background information, how could she understand why and when and how I make certain decisions? My friends have been warning me against this kind of talking for years. They tell me over and over to keep some things to myself. “Why would you tell your mom that?” I hear the refrain again and again, but I can’t help it. If my mother doesn’t know the truth, then certainly she can’t know me, and then we wouldn’t have a meaningful relationship.

So my mother unloads the car and hands me a green bean casserole and a pasta dish, and I start talking. I tell her about a guy I’ve met. She asks how we met. I bite my lip and consider. What my friends don’t know is that I pause before I talk. I think before I speak. I hesitate before I go all out. But I still tell her. Sometimes I just have to tone it down. It’s in this intermingling of telling my stories and toning my stories down that I hit way too many bumps for comfort.

The questions look like this: But what exactly did you do? When did you go home? How could you have done that? Don’t you have class then? Why did your sister tell me something different? Well, what I did was fun and I went home eventually and actually that class isn’t that important and she must have been confused. In trying to tell my mother the truth, I end up digging myself a hole of white lies. I go in too deep before I realize that maybe I don’t want my mother to know where I spend every minute of every day, especially if that day is Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Or sometimes Wednesday.

The worst part of this digging deep is what I see at the bottom of my hole: my mother’s face. Her confused and concerned face. I can handle the concern but I do not like the confused. What could she possibly be confused about? The regret I feel from telling the story immediately turns into anger. I don’t like that my mother’s confused face comes as a response to me saying how much fun I had, how great my new friend is, how worthwhile it is to sleep in until noon.

If my mother is concerned, she wants me to reconsider my actions. If she’s confused, she doesn’t know why I’m acting that way in the first place. And the reason for all the talking surfaces. I need my mother to approve. I need to push the limits of her acceptance and see how far she’ll follow me until all my truths become too much for her. I see her confused face and I feel insecure. The stories I have and the things I’m not confident about lay at her feet, and I don’t know if I should take them back or force them on her.

Always, though, the stories stay on the ground, in between us. We are not fighting and we may not even be disagreeing, but we can’t jump into that in-between space together. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe she simply cannot understand how a 19-year-old in 2010 acts. Maybe she can’t accept that I’m 19 years old.

During dinner tonight, I started a story in my head and almost let it fall out. But then I stopped, hesitating longer than usual. During that in-between time, my mother, holding a glass of chilled white wine, fluidly filled in our table and our plates with stories from college: “We all just kind of hung out,” she said. And I’ll take even more advice from my mother and her storytelling tactics: Less is more.

Connelly’s column runs weekly Thursdays. She can be reached at c.hardaway@cavalierdaily.com.

Every girl at some point in her life has experienced that horrific moment where upon walking into a school dance, she spots another girl wearing the exact same dress that she is. After a spat of consternation, she decides that, of course, the dress looks way better on her anyway. With this quick confidence boost, she approaches that other girl, and together they graciously laugh about this “humorous coincidence” in an effort to mask their shared annoyance.

Why is it that this “horrific moment” is considered one of the most dreadful atrocities in every girl’s life, when every day we find ourselves trying to keep up with the latest trends? When walking across Grounds, you will never spot any girl gabbing, open-mouthed at the sight of another girl carrying the same Longchamp bag that she is. What makes this situation so different from the two girls wearing the same dress? Perhaps it is the fact that when a girl is attending a dance, she has the grand hope of standing out and having attention drawn to her, which can only be achieved by wearing a distinctive dress. But shouldn’t this desire to be “distinctive” and “special” be embodied in all of our fashion choices and not just on those special occasions? Shouldn’t we want our daily fashion choices to be reflective of our own personality?

“That is the key of this collection, being yourself,” Gianni Versace once said. “Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way to live.”

Versace passes on his wisdom to us that we should just be ourselves when it comes to fashion, or in our case, when we think about the clothes we will put on our body each day. Although his words ring true, embracing this age-old piece of advice in our lives is easier said than done. So often I find myself wanting to follow trends and buy what everyone else has rather than evaluating whether a particular piece of clothing is something I want to wear because I genuinely like it. Although this piece of advice is no doubt challenging, should we not rise to this challenge? Some people may try to wave off the careful thought others put into deciding their outfits as ridiculous, but they overlook the fact that putting consideration into what one wears is actually a mode of and an opportunity for self-expression. Everyday, when we put on that pair of jeans or that favorite shirt, we are exposing a little piece of ourselves to the world — what we like and what matters to us — being comfy or looking nice. We should embrace this opportunity wholeheartedly and not shy away.

This is the ideal — that fashion should be a means to express our individuality. But I know what happens every morning when I get dressed — when I pull on that pair of Nike shorts, a greater desire to belong seizes me. Whether the decision is subconscious or conscious, it happens to me everyday. We all want to assert that we belong to certain group, or perhaps it is just a hopeful longing.

Nevertheless, we are left with a tension between group and individual identity, otherwise known as the conundrum currently plaguing me. As inspiring as I find Versace’s advice, at times I can’t resist this undeniable pull toward social acceptance. Although this pull at times may seem overwhelming, I just think back to the girl attending the school dance — how awful it feels to be wearing the same dress as another girl and how refreshing it feels to be wearing one that no other girl has. That incredible high you get from wearing something different is completely worth it. In the end, I embrace that I most likely will never break free of my proclivity toward group acceptance. At the same time, though, Versace has a point, and I shouldn’t forget the beauty of individuality. So when I’m getting dressed tomorrow, I hope I that I take more time to consider if what I’m wearing is what I genuinely love to wear and an expression of who I am and my personality, before I mindlessly pull on that pair of Nike shorts.

Kristin’s column runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at k.ulmer@cavalierdaily.com.

It’s difficult to stay grounded in Hollywood. There is never a shortage of film crews hanging out on The Grove, shooting the latest blockbuster action scene, paparazzi following the town’s new “It Girl,” or a new club opening hoping to attract high-profile clientele. The life can be even more difficult when you come from a Hollywood family, but it is possible, as I learned when I talked to Jason Ritter, the star of NBC’s new hit show, The Event. Taking a break from filming the heavily serialized new show, Ritter talked extensively about growing up in an entertainment family, why he decided to commit to television, dealing with NBC executives and what we can expect for the future. Ritter struck me as down-to-earth, a far-cry from the pretentiousness that sometimes comes with playing the part of Hollywood superstar.

Growing up, Ritter embraced the acting legacies of his father John Ritter and mother Nancy Morgan. “I think it seemed [like] a good way to learn about people,” Ritter said when asked why he wanted to start acting. “We’re such a confusing species; it was a way to understand other people and [myself].” Although Ritter had the advantage of being born with a famous Hollywood name, he decided to do things his own way, starting with a move across the country. After growing up in California, Ritter remembered, “I wanted to be out of Los Angeles — I wanted to figure out how New York works as well — and I really loved it.”

With the move to New York came a world of new opportunities, and Ritter enrolled at New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. Through Tisch, he was able to work with the Atlantic Theater Company, an off-Broadway theater. “It was scary at first,” Ritter said. “If you weren’t there the second class started, you were shut out.” Ritter spoke fondly of his time at Atlantic, and said the company helped him mature. “They’re embarrassed by the reputation that actors get for being babies,” he said.

Nevertheless, Ritter still lived within the shadow of his parents and sought to earn parts on his own merit. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of Ritter’s strongest words came regarding this topic. “The idea of someone getting a part because someone else made a call really bugs me. I wanted to succeed on my own. If I had ever asked my dad for a part, I would have felt cheated,” he remarked. Although he conceded that he understands outsiders may look at his success and question whether it’s truly deserved, Ritter noted, “Regardless of what people might say or think, I know what I’ve done.”

And what he’s done is build up quite an impressive résumé for an actor who is only 30 years old. Having worked long hours in both film and television, Ritter spent part of this past year working on the NBC television show, Parenthood. When asked if Parenthood led to his current gig as one of the stars of The Event, Ritter responded, “It might have helped… Some of the executives at NBC may have liked [my] work, but you really never know.” So why the full-time commitment to The Event? “It’s an interesting thing … I was really happy doing a lot of independent movies, but then I got the script of The Event, and I really liked it. The character was interesting to me; it wasn’t [something] straight out of the book of TV characters,” Ritter told me. He continued, “There are some scripts that you read that you just have to do, [and] the thing about independent film is that you can [only] pay the rent for the month that you’re working.”

The Event delivered exactly what he was looking for, Ritter said. As one of NBC’s new flagship dramas, a lot of flash accompanies the story, but “I just wanted to know how things would happen” when it came to his character and the show’s future. Ritter admits that The Event is a huge risk but he was careful to point out, “NBC has been so supportive of the show… Sometimes I feel pressure, but any time I meet with executives, they’ve been so supportive.”

In between his hectic schedule of filming and press, Ritter said during his free time he likes to get together with a few buddies and create short films to post on YouTube. It was just another example of how down-to-earth Ritter is; instead of spending his free time hanging out at The Ivy where his picture would end up on TMZ, he would rather spend the afternoon hanging out with old friends. It is remarkable that grounded people such as Ritter still exist in an industry too often dominated by the jet-setting crowd.

And with a show like The Event as a vehicle for Ritter’s considerable talent, we might be seeing a lot more of him. How fun it is to see someone with a famous name make a real name for himself.

Last Saturday, flocks of readers congregated in Washington D.C. for the 10th annual National Book Festival, which gathered dozens of renowned writers under white tents on the National Mall. The writers ranged from Suzanne Collins, author of the young adult phenomenon The Hunger Games, to Chilean writer Isabel Allende, from former First Lady Laura Bush to Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. Unsurprisingly, the festival’s headlining name was Jonathan Franzen, whom Time has called the “Great American Novelist.”

Franzen was promoting his latest novel Freedom, which has earned rave reviews across the board and was recently chosen by Oprah as the first selection of 2010 for her book club — a bit ironic considering his past run-in with Oprah. Back in 2001, his novel The Corrections was similarly picked by Oprah. After the selection was revealed, Franzen remarked, “I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience and I’ve heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say, ‘If I hadn’t heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it.’”

To no one’s surprise, Oprah rescinded the choice. The incident, however, was representative of the kind of media attention that Franzen tends to bask in — another instance of irony, especially because his novels criticize our media-centered culture and the consumer-driven world that we live in. It’s difficult not to blame him — I’m recalling, for instance, Kanye West’s famous quote that he is a “proud non-reader of books” and “would never want a book’s autograph.” (The rapper later — again, ironically — released a book of advice entitled Thank You and You’re Welcome.)

The National Book Festival, then, was a welcome affirmation that reading is indeed not dead: More than 150,000 bibliophiles were in attendance. Thus, the event was probably right up Franzen’s alley, and his talk drew huge crowds that raptly listened to him bemoan the state of literature, discuss his writing process and, of course, try to convince us to buy his latest book.

The University of Virginia Art Museum hosts an array of exhibits each year, highlighting classic works of art from American artists, as well as those from much further away.

The exhibit “Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens,” showing until Oct. 10, highlights part of the museum’s growing collection of art from Africa. Man Ray was an influential artist during the Surrealist and Dada movements best known for his avant-garde photography featuring unusual perspectives and eye-catching subjects. His series of photographs portraying tribal African art helped create the “African chic” movement that emerged during the late 1920s in conjunction with the Harlem Renaissance.

Upon entrance to the exhibit, I was instantly struck by the wide array of photographs and art on display. Though overwhelming at first, the exhibit is structured in a way that is informative and inviting even to those who know little or nothing about Man Ray.

His black-and-white pictures featuring African masks or statues are expertly photographed; the shadow and attention to detail render these portrayals as not simply photos but as pieces of art. At times seemingly grotesque and disturbing, the contorted, almost pained expressions of the masks and the dramatic shadowing in the pictures create a sense of eeriness. Man Ray attempted to evoke such emotions to convey the disillusionment and loss of hope experienced by the ex-patriots after World War I, of which Man Ray considered himself a member once he moved to Paris during the 1920s.

In his piece, “Noire et blanche”, Man Ray creates a statement by having his muse and lover, Kiki, pose with a tribal mask. Her pale skin juxtaposes with the dark ebony of the mask, a contrast composed by Man Ray to shed light on the issue of race and segregation. The soft sensuality of the piece also hints at the sexual revolution that was simultaneously taking place.
A more playful air is apparent in “Mode au Congo,” in which the dancer Adrienne Fidelin wears a whimsical African headdress and jewelry, her body facing the camera head-on. Such accessories were inspiration for the “African chic” fashion movement post-WWI, and these accessories were worn by ladies of high society and magazines such as “Harper’s Bazaar.”

In addition to housing Man Ray’s photographs, the exhibit contains many of the statues used within his pieces as well. The figure, “Bangwa Queen,” which appeared in many of Man Ray’s works, isalso on display. Animated and expressive, the statue appears anguished, its stylized tribal form appearing next to the body of a nude model in many of Man Ray’s photographs, emphasizing the distinction between the two and calling the issue of race into question once more.

The exhibit also displays works by artist Lois Mailou Jones and photographers Walker Evans and Carl Van Vechten, whose portraits of icons such as Billie Holiday holding African masks are capricious and eye-catching.

“Man Ray: African Art & the Modernist Lens” is a wonderful exhibit that presents Man Ray’s work as a distinctive combination of both historical and modernist, The surrealist nature of his pieces renders a dreamlike state to the viewer, questioning not only the boundaries of art but also society. As Man Ray once said, “I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions,” a statement that rings true in this collection.

You may want to heed my advice before you decide to get Maroon 5’s new album, Hands All Over. On a scale from “Please, change it!” to “Play it again!”, there is no doubt that this album spans the whole spectrum. And after waiting more than three years for this release, I feel as though I can speak for most Maroon 5 fans in saying this: I am underwhelmed.

In its entirety, the album is definitely respectable, but I don’t know how far I would go to give it much more than that. The album unquestionably screams “Maroon 5” from its funk/pop/rock arrangements of toe-tapping drumbeats to the heart-melting voice of frontman, Adam Levine. But on this album, it is safe to say that the band might have needed to, well, “give a little more,” per one of the album’s 12 songs.

Maroon 5 is renowned for its catchy, funky love songs, and if that’s what you love about the group, then go buy this album. For the rest of us, however, we tend to assume and expect bands to broaden their horizons and try new things as they gain success, tenure and more fans. This simply isn’t the case with the band’s third released album.

On its 2002 debut, Songs About Jane, girls — and the occasional boy — went crazy for Maroon 5’s unique pop-rock sound. A whopping five years later, the group did it again and released It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, a second mega-hit album that sounds extremely similar like the first. So, after eight years on the music scene, Maroon 5 has simply served out some more of the same. Does this band know how to not write a love song?

Nevertheless, there actually are quite a few catchy, soon-to-be-popular songs on this album. From the early released single, “Misery,” to the spunky and rhythmic “Stutter,” the album offers a wide selection of those cliché Maroon 5 upbeat songs we all know and love.

But for as much as I have been ragging on the boys, you may actually be as surprised as I was to hear certain intros to songs such as the album’s namesake, “Hands All Over,” which literally sounds like a video game in the starting beats. Another out-of-the-ordinary tune is “I Can’t Lie,” a personal favorite thus far. My first thought on this one was Billy Joel. Strange, right?

As I mentioned earlier, there is no doubt that some of the album hits the lower end of the quality spectrum. For example, give “Just A Feeling” a listen, and I guarantee you you’ll be on the next track in no time flat.

I must confess, it hurts me inside to say things like this about Maroon 5 because I truly am a huge fan. Levine has a voice like no other, and each band member is equally as skilled.

This band is no doubt one that will remain popular for a while, and it seems as though they will do so playing that same old Maroon 5 sound. Regardless, as an album, Hands All Over is an appealing success, but as a band, Maroon 5 still has yet to venture out into the endless realm of non-love-song possibilities.

How would you feel if you knew what you were doing was futile? Those are the shoes that Halo: Reach, the newest installment of the popular video game franchise, puts you in. Halo: Reach takes place before the events of the first game as the Covenant alien race launches a major attack on the human’s main military center and colony Planet Reach, after having eliminated virtually all of humanity’s other colonies. Fans know that Reach also ultimately falls to the Covenant, and this tragedy is the plotline’s best turn. To be honest, if you asked me to tell you the story of the other Halo games, there’s barely enough substance for a couple sentences. With Reach, however, the story is dark, tragic and emotionally investing. Like the Southern Confederate forces fighting against General Sherman in Georgia and the Germans attempting to stop the Allies during the Battle of the Bulge, your forces in Reach are doomed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put up a fight.

Halo: Reach, from well-known developer Bungie, is said to be the studio’s final installment in the series, as its developers have said they want to move on to other projects. And given the exponentially increasing popularity and quality in the Halo titles, this final chapter certainly must reach a high standard. Does it live up to the hype? Does Bungie end this series on a high note? Yes, and yes. Halo: Reach is the culmination of the best qualities of the series’ games thus far, proving that Bungie has given the series thoughtful consideration during its nine-year history and is willing to go above and beyond during the series’ final hour.

Forget Master Chief. Enter Noble Six, part of the squad of “Spartan” soldiers known as Noble Team, making their last stand on the Earth-like planet Reach. The key word is “team.” The gameplay deviates from previous installments by focusing more on team-based combat. This forces players to make greater use of strategy — rather than hiding and shooting from a limited area, players can move much more and flank the enemy while the rest of the Noble Team distracts them upfront. The gameplay also is a lot more varied in terms of missions, objectives and environments. From finding information to evacuating citizens — and of course the vehicles — there is rarely a feeling of redundancy or tediousness. That being said, this still feels like any other Halo game, with similar mechanics; in the end, you’re just going from place to place killing enemies. But for me, that point is subtle, as Bungie has refined and perfected a system that was already remarkable from day one.

Reality check. Loads of folks will neglect the single-player campaign entirely and head into multiplayer, and with good reason. Halo’s multiplayer has been extremely popular, and Bungie has embraced the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude. All the favorite modes are present: Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Firefight. There are new weapons, some more likeable than others, as well as armor. Present in single and multiplayer, these armor abilities are most useful in the latter, and the best tool is the jetpack. These provide more strategy and variety in an already extensive multiplayer system. Custom game settings, custom weapon sets and the inclusion of Forge, which allows players to tap into their creative side and customize some maps, are all welcomed. A credit system distributes points for winning games and accomplishing various tasks, and players can trade in these points for different armor, for example. My only complaint is that there is a smaller number of maps to choose from, so you might find yourself craving for visual variety sooner than expected.

The music in this game is engrossing, setting the tone and matching the story flawlessly. Bungie also delivers on graphics this time around, with beautiful open areas and engaging firefight visuals.

There is more than enough to experience, as this game is sure to keep you away from work for a long time. Your weekend nights, your reading days are all reserved; Halo: Reach has landed.

When The Killers decided to take a year off, front man Brandon Flowers decided to spend his downtime undertaking a solo project. On Flamingo, his solo debut, Flowers attempts to be the Bruce Springsteen of Las Vegas; the album is a love letter to his hometown, as well as a highly personal commentary on faith and devotion. Although he falls short of making anything “The Boss” would write home to Jersey about, Flamingo is still an enjoyable album that is a must-have for Killers fans.

Musically, Flowers goes “Killers-lite,” toning down the power of the band’s signature 1980s synth-pop riffs and opting for a sound driven more by the keyboard and guitar. This lower-energy approach works to an extent, and Flowers’ distinctive and heartfelt vocals keep most of the tracks from becoming too blasé. Overall, though, the album’s instrumentation lacks the luster of Flowers’ previous albums with The Killers.
=It really is not fair, however, to judge Flamingo based on The Killers’ albums. It is, after all, Flowers’ project, and the personal level it reaches is something that has yet to be reached by the four-man band. Flowers has never made his affinity for Las Vegas a secret, and Sin City is up front and center throughout the album. On the opening track, “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas,” he cries over powerful guitar chords, “Give us your dreamers, your heartaches and your sins / Las Vegas / Didn’t nobody tell you the house would always win?”

The Sin City vibe continues throughout the album, as do gambling metaphors, particularly on “Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts,” when Flowers laments to an ex-lover, “Why did you roll your dice and show your cards?” The potentially heavy-handed lyrical clichés are balanced by co-producer Daniel Lanois’ shimmering guitar, which makes “Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts” one of the best tracks on the album.

The only motif more prominent than Vegas on Flamingo is faith. Flowers, a Mormon, loads Flamingo with images of angels and demons. The first single, “Crossfire,” speaks of the pull between heaven and hell over a building bed of piano and electric guitar. On the bridge, Flowers sings, “Tell the devil that he can go back to where he came / His fire he airs all through their beating vein / and when the hardest part is over we’ll be here / and the dreams will break the boundaries of our fears.” Other notable religious-themed tracks are “On the Floor,” a gospel choir-backed redemption epic, and the Latino-flavored “Magadalena.”

Flowers comes down from the heavens on “Hard Enough,” which is perhaps the album’s most grounded track. Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis joins Flowers for backup vocals on the mid-tempo, piano-driven ode to an ex. Its sweet and simple lyrics are a refreshing switch from Flowers’ usual affinity toward grandeur. During the chorus, he and Lewis sing, “And this has been hard enough on you / I know it’s been hard enough on me,” and the merging of the two great vocalists make this straightforward rocker quite affecting.

Flamingo closes with “Swallow It,” a curious choice to end the album. Flowers channels British rockers Depeche Mode on the vocally driven track during which he is almost talk-singing, warning, “Take your medicine and crawl before you walk / Think it through before you open your mouth to talk.” It’s as if he wants to leave the listener with some final thoughts before he goes back to rocking with The Killers, and it works not only lyrically but by being a final reminder that this is his project, not his band’s. Flowers took a gamble by deciding to go solo, and although Flamingo does not hit the jackpot, it is certainly worth a thorough listen.

June 10, 2007, the last episode of The Sopranos aired on HBO. This left many diehard fans of the series in a misty haze of disbelief. The show is the most financially successful series on cable TV to date, and many critics call it the greatest TV show of all time. What would replace it? After three long years, the core writing staff from The Sopranos has joined up with Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorcese to create Boardwalk Empire.

HBO is reportedly investing a huge chunk of chase into the series, which is evident from how well the set design and style exemplify the series’ setting and time frame. Boardwalk Empire tells the tale of Atlantic City, N.J. during Prohibition, and the production aspects practically place the audience in the 1920s, swimming in sex, booze and jazz.

The viewer sees the story unfold through the eyes of its treasurer Nucky Thompson, played by Steve Buscemi (Fargo, The Big Lebowski). Nucky Thompson is part politician, part gangster and quickly sets himself up as the man to see when it comes to illegal liquor in Atlantic City.

Buscemi is backed up by an ensemble cast, which notably includes Nucky’s crony, Jimmy Darmody. Jimmy has just gotten back from serving his country during World War I and sees himself as ready to take on responsibilities that Nucky is simply not ready to give him. Jimmy pleads with Nucky, saying, “All I want is an opportunity,” to which Nucky replies, “This is America, kid. Who’s stopping you?”

Buscemi does an incredible job of portraying the sleazy corrupt protagonist. A remarkable scene during the first episode is when Nucky delivers a riveting, heartfelt speech to the Temperance League, only to leave the building and whip out a flask before being driven to one of his casinos.

At the same time, he does observe compassion. Margaret Schroeder (Kelly Macdonald), a local member of the Temperance League, falls on difficult times and seeks Nucky for help after being inspired by his rousing fake speech. He then proceeds to help her with her troubles.

Much of the appeal for Boardwalk Empire is similar to that of all gangster movies. Its pilot episode, for example, is equal parts The Sopranos and The Departed. Moreover, everyone loves a villain, especially ones that involve American gangsters. There are quirks that stand out, however. In this version of Atlantic City, they do The Charleston instead of dance on an “exercise” pole.

Either way you feel about it, Boardwalk Empire, at first glance, seems very promising. During its first week, it garnered nearly 5 million viewers. Although it is not proper to judge a book by its cover, Boardwalk Empire has got a hell of a pedigree and has a very promising future.