Indie-rock Band Get Set Go Channels Sesame Street and Depression

by Meredith Ellis
          Get Set Go lives for contradictions. They lace their cartoonish, home-made, indie-rock melodies with Kurt Cobain anxiety and peddle it to the masses. Their golden retriever approachability bears no relation to their Los Angeles origins; nor does the grey minivan outside with taped windows.
         Yet, perhaps the strongest contradiction rests within their audience. In the cluttered café section of an Athens, Ga., Borders, a clear voice sang loudly, "I might set my house on fire/ hang myself from the telephone wire/ bomb the trade center/ and crash all the trains," as children bounced around with crazed excitement. Oh yes, Get Set Go lives for contradictions.
Indie music stands as the red flag of defiance. Therefore Borders and Get Set Go obviously seem like an odd amalgamation of subculture with mainstream. It compares to discovering your friendly neighbor who always lends out an extra bag of Folgers also hands out the neon glow sticks at the club.
         Though, maybe nowadays the pairing isn’t so odd. With popular bands like Fall Out Boy and The All-American Rejects on the scene, obscure indie-rock now translates as mainstream and even sexy. Toss on some skinny jeans, an unpretentious vintage T-shirt and lightly grease the hair of that stick figure kid in your biology class and there’s your personalized Pete Wentz or Tyson Ritter.
         I can’t help but envision the corporate grin of some wrinkled Borders exec at the thought of attracting all those young hipster kids with a little indie music. Since the inception of Borders superstores in the early 1990s, the clash of emo kids and capitalism seemed inevitable.
         Get Set Go welcomes the hybrid with tails wagging. No longer in their idealistic early 20s, each of the members appears to have made their peace with corporate conformity a long while ago. Exposure equals exposure and so here they stand: an arrangement of five indie-rock guys beamed in, via L.A., from the shit-can-fly schemes of aging Borders execs on a mission to bring EmoBack.
         They play like a machine constructed by the fourth and justifiably estranged Animaniac. They run through their bars and quarter notes at breakneck speed. At first, one half expects them to run off a musical cliff into reckless abandon only to float into the air for a few minutes before they realize they’ve missed the mark by a few kilometers. And slowly I realize their immense contentment with floating through the air in complete, self-imposed denial.
         A few stopping points or lyrical edits on their song “Die Motherf***er Die,” for instance, may have been more appropriate. I recommend somewhere before “my day sucks ass” and yet after “I wanna hurt you/ torture than desert you” and excluding the entire chorus, “Die Motherf***er Die.”
         Eric Summer, the viola player, redeems the band’s impetuousness with his layered and soulful sound. The strings calm the audience like sedatives while the rest of the band pushes forward contemplating take off.
         If one leaps into their melodic and upbeat notes, Get Set Go, for the most part, sounds live the very early stages of an acoustic Weezer attempting to channel the Ramones.
         The lead singer, Mike TV, resonates with the appropriate amount of arrogance and overcompensation for his slim 5’4 frame. Mastering the art of over-articulation, his “s” and “t” nearly poke you in the eye and his “o’s” overflow. He’s even got the Oscar “I’ve suffered injustice” pout. His brunette shaggy bangs cover his eyes at all the right moments. He’s got the moody bangs for his song “Suicide,” and moves them over slightly to reveal one sulking brown eye for the acoustic stalker ballad “Won’t Let Her Go.”
         If a bassist falls in the middle of a crowded Borders café does anyone notice? Questions like this tend to arise when observing the statuesque Colin Schlitt, the bassist who never moves; with the slight exception of his wire-thin fingers and strained facial expressions. He stands in odd contrast to the over-animated lead TV.
         At last, Get Set Go finishes their short set to a thunderous applause of children. Their second album “Ordinary World,” enjoyed the most live play while their first LP “So You’ve Ruined Your Life” took a backseat. A 5-year-old tugs his mother’s Prada bag towards the countertop candy while singing loudly “I hate everyone.” They lyrics stemmed from the band’s most successful track “I Hate Everyone,” which also landed a spot on last season’s Grey’s Anatomy.
         Get Set Go exudes an interesting combination of college angst and Sesame Street melodies. It’s easy to envision a big yellow bird, with a college shirt, posted in the corner of on of their club shows with an obscure cloud of smoke around him. The band appeals to our simple happy natures despite their melancholy lyrics. After buying a $10 “Ordinary World” album, I find myself humming upbeat, catchy songs of desperation with utter delight. And I would pay for more. Bottom line, Get Set Go is light, sarcastic and amusing in the right venue, ripe with wonderful contradictions.

Get Set Go on the web:
www.getsetgomusic.com
myspace.com/getsetgo.

The Springer Show In Space? Not Quite, but Getting There

Some Thoughts on Battlestar Galactica
by Matt

          In 2003, Battlestar Galactica emerged from the netherworld of cancelled TV shows with a four-hour Sci-Fi Channel miniseries produced by David Eick and Star Trek alumnus Ron Moore. Gone were the capes, feathered hair and other relics of the tackiest decade of all time. This time around, the robotic Cylons—who have developed models indistinguishable from humans—devastate the twelve human worlds in a surprise--nuclear attack. Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos) rallies the survivors by telling them he can lead them to the “lost colony” of Earth. The post-apocalyptic and “enemy within” aspects resonated with a public shaken by 9/11, and in 2004, Battlestar became a weekly TV series.
         One of the show’s strengths is its emphasis on character development. Rather than cardboard cutouts or flawless superheroes, the denizens of BSG are meant to be real people, complete with problems. Unfortunately, the show’s third season took those flaws too far, threatening to turn Battlestar into “The Jerry Springer Show in Space.”
         One example is what disdainful fans have dubbed “the polygon” and “The Quadrangle of Doom.” Ace pilot Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (Katee Sackhoff), although married to professional athlete Sam Anders (Michael Trucco), has an affair with the Commander’s son Lee (Jamie Bamber) who happens to be married to Anastasia Dualla (Kandyse McClure). In “Rapture,” when Lee dispatches her to rescue Starbuck after a crash, she slaps the errant pilot when she rambles about her dysfunctional love life. In that moment, the series came close to having a Jerry Springer-style catfight (“He’s My Man!”).
         Making this ridiculous situation (that probably violates many military rules) even stranger, Cylon prophet Leoben Conoy (Callum Keith Rennie) has developed an unhealthy affection for Kara. When the Colonials briefly settled an isolated world they called New Caprica (which was quickly occupied by the pursuing Cylons, who imposed an unsubtle Iraq War-allegory occupation regime), he abducted her. He held her captive for months, even going as far as to claim that a stolen refugee child was really their daughter (the result of experiments on her eggs, stolen by Cylon doctors in “The Farm”). Even after the escape from New Caprica, Leoben still would not leave her alone. In “Maelstrom,” visions of him goad Kara into recklessly pursuing a Cylon ship and apparently dying. “My Cylon Stalker Drove Me to Suicide,” anyone? Starbuck mysteriously turns up alive in the season finale, so it’s doable.
         Col. Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan), Admiral Adama’s oldest friend and right-hand man, is another Springer episode in the making. The Colonel is an alcoholic, the result of his attempts to bury his memories of the First Cylon War and ignore the unfaithfulness of his wife Ellen (Kate Vernon). When Ellen turns up alive, she drags him off the wagon and when the Admiral lies near death, spurs him into declaring martial law and nearly causing a civil war. Perhaps this one can be called “My Husband, the Drunken Dictator.”
         When the Cylons occupy New Caprica, they imprison and torture Tigh. Only Ellen’s dalliance with Cylon enforcer Brother Cavil (Dean Stockwell) saves him from worse. Cavil later bullies Ellen into betraying a resistance operation, and at the insistence of Anders, the colonel poisons her. Afterwards, he sinks back into the bottle, his ravings undermining morale until Adama relieves him of duty. It takes the appearance of a pilot Adama abandoned during a secret mission before the war who the Cylons allowed to escape in hopes he would seek revenge, to bring him (temporarily) out of his self-destructive spiral.
         The only remotely functional marriage is between Captain Karl Agathon and Sharon “Athena” Valerii (Grace Park), who happens to be a Cylon. Even this began with a potentially Springer-worthy incident—she became pregnant with Agathon’s child as a result of an elaborate experiment on one of the occupied Colonial worlds (“My Baby Momma is a Cylon!”). It got even stranger when President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) faked their child’s death and kept her hidden in her New Caprica schoolhouse, only to lose her to the Cylons during the evacuation of the planet (“The President Stole Our Baby AND LOST HER!”).
         Although still “the best show on television” (as described by Rolling Stone), the first half of Season Three brought “Battlestar” perilously close to becoming a trash talk show with science fiction trappings.

Battlestar Galactica
Sundays at 10 p.m.
Sci Fi Channel
www.scifi.com/battlestar/

Tapas On The Town

Speakeasy Tosses Its Hat Into The Trendy Restaurant Ring
by Amy Farley

          Maybe it’s the middle-American glutton in me, but I thought a restaurant consisting of all appetizers would be less filling. Less delicious. The idea of grazing aroused skepticism in me—I am not a cow. I want to eat, not graze—eat big heaping portions of entrées with side dishes that are mine, all mine.
          So I’m a late-comer to the tapas revolution. So what?
          Speakeasy appears as if out of nowhere while walking down Broad Street—both times I dined there last week, I almost missed it. The door is set back in an entryway, hidden to those who don’t already know of it. In the door and up the stairwell, decorated with deep red walls and framed art, and you’re in the club.
          Tapas are a Spanish tradition, and in Spain are often given for free or for a pittance with drinks at bars. They’re Spain’s beer nuts. The American tapas movement adapted these little snacks into full meals, meant to be ordered in bulk and passed around among diners. Speakeasy finds itself somewhere in between the Spanish snack and the American entrée, with most tapas nearly big enough to be someone’s whole meal, some even coming with sides (like the juicy tenderloin kebabs served with a small portion of mashed potatoes).
          On a Friday night at around 7 p.m., the restaurant was full but not overcrowded and the service was fast. Our waiter was polite and quick with refills, but left us alone to eat for the majority of the meal. It’s the cordial service offered by an upscale restaurant for mid-range prices (tapas run from about $5 to $12).
          We ordered the spinach dip as an appetizer (still clinging to the concept of American courses) and it appeared quickly in a warm honey-wheat bread bowl with four toasted wedges of bread for dipping. The dip itself—hot, cheesy and smoky—complemented the slightly sweet bread.
          In no time at all our waiter brought out our “main course.” We’d barely made a dent in the spinach dip—I suppose I expect the service to be a tad slower at such a peak dinnertime. Nevertheless, we pushed aside the unfinished bread bowl to tend to the rest of our tapas feast.
          Everything came out arranged on small, white geometrically-shaped plates. My two medium-sized crab cakes (“traditional Southern style with mild wasabi sauce,” quoth the menu) were garnished with diced tomatoes and green and yellow peppers. The outside breading started crispy and stayed crispy (no wilting here), while the crab inside was warm and soft, the drizzle of wasabi sauce atop the cakes a nice, slightly sour contrast to the sweetness of the crab.
          The “sharing sides,” meant to feed four to six people (though for that to happen, everyone’s portion must be tiny), provide a nice companion to the “entrée” tapas. Speakeasy offers mashed potatoes (creamy and buttery), steamed vegetables in a lemon beurre blanc (consisting of asparagus spears, broccoli crowns, roasted potatoes and carrots) and black beans and rice (a bowl of white rice topped with a thick layer of beans). Ordering the sides seems to be a good choice for a more traditional meal. A portion of the mild beans and rice with the slightly spicy empanada (shredded Cuban beef baked into a crispy, but unfortunately bland, pastry) seem like they were meant for one another.
          The lull between dinner and dessert (our choice: the baked-to-order sugar cookies) allowed time to look around. The dim restaurant, flickering from the white tea light candles set on every table, is decorated in French vintage and rich, dark wood. Partitions are set up throughout, separating one seating area from another, lending the place an air of privacy. Three big windows on the far wall overlook Broad Street and North Campus, and the best tables are by the windows, where a long cushioned bench runs the length of the wall. Framed window panes hang from metal rafters of the ceiling as decoration, and a classy-looking bar sits across from the stairway. For Athens, this is all pretty sophisticated.
Speakeasy’s patronage is about what you’d expect from a nicer downtown restaurant. Mostly college students, guys bedecked in Polos, girls in their new flirty spring dresses. Adults who’d left the kids at home, and a few who didn’t, although it’s certainly not a very kid-friendly restaurant, with macaroni and cheese nowhere to be found.
          The highlight of the meal came in the form of sugar cookies. Four were served on a plate, drizzled with cream cheese icing and topped with cherries. An overpowering smell of sweet, sweet goodness wafted up from the dish, and biting into a cookie, the bottom was perfectly crispy, the top soft and warm. The cookie demanded to be savored. Whoever came up with the idea to fresh-bake the desserts to order deserves a gold star, because my cookie and I shared a moment.
          Speakeasy’s tapas formula, adapted to an American audience more familiar with the three-course meal, is stylishly executed. The food stands, for the most part, deliciously alone, and the atmosphere of the place stands out as a classy but mid-priced beacon among the Taco Stands and Taverns of Athens’ downtown. But that’s all trumped by those sugar cookies. Dinner doesn’t end much better than that.

Speakeasy
269 E. Broad Street
Athens, GA 30601
(706) 546-5556

Sun Dial Restaurant Bar & View Review

It’s the stuff romantics live for as sight and ambiance trump whatever’s left of taste at the Sun Dial’s Bar.
by Meredith Ellis

          At 723 feet, I experienced the best kiss of my life with a block of white cheese. And similar to most spectacular kisses it’s not really about the taste. It involves a combination of things.
          And seduction came first.
          This isn’t my first date with the Sun Dial Restaurant Bar &View on top of the Westin Peachtree Plaza. So I’ll forgo the formalities and go straight to the bar, which is entirely separate from the restaurant. Roughly 35 feet above the main restaurant, the bar feels like another world.
          The appetizer arrived at the low wooden table, neatly circled with fresh grapes and strawberries. An assortment of cheese rested dominantly in the center with toasted crackers sprinkled with light garlic. The large plate carried a variety of visual delights with oranges, reds, greens and yellows jumping out of the chocolate-colored lacquer dinnerware. The smooth textures of the various cheeses clung delightfully to my mouth as they left a subtle taste behind.
          By the time I finished my appetizer, the floor I dined on rotated one full circle and Atlanta’s beautiful array of glass and lights seemed to reach the edges of our table through the restaurant’s large windows. So what makes the Sun Dial so seductive?
          Maybe it’s the Mose Davis Trio lacing our souls with smooth jazz. Their classical sound smothers the air like the restaurant’s sweet Soy sauce over their peppery chicken. Perhaps it’s the metro-Atlanta and surrounding areas sparkling with lights like fireflies trapped in interweaving black webs. The lights delight your eyes even more than the seasoning on the five spice chicken wings. But whatever it is, the ambiance and view contributes immensely.
          To be honest, without it the restaurant would be only average. Most of the dishes at the bar are middling at best. The food is mildly satisfying but the martinis are richly blended to perfection. The Georgia Peach is a divine concoction of peach schnapps with orange juice and Absolut Mandarin while the French Cosmopolitan boasts a smooth Grey Goose Vodka with Cointreau and cranberry juice. The Peach costs a decent $9.50 while the cosmo reaches $10.25.The bar has an $8 minimum.

Sun Dial Restaurant Bar & View

210 Peachtree St.

Atlanta, GA 30303

(404) 589-7506

www.sundialrestaurant.com

Concept Art, Well-Conceived

The Works of Tyler Windham

by Amy Farley

          Monet painted pretty flowers, Picasso painted geometric shapes and Tyler Windham paints zombies.
          That may be a bit of an oversimplification. University of Georgia senior Tyler Windham draws and paints zombies, sea monsters, Vikings, aliens, futuristic cityscapes, you name it. If it’s inspired by science fiction or fantasy, it’s well within the limits of Windham’s work.
          These are not the frenetic doodlings of a 16-year-old Spiderman fanboy (though Windham emphatically claims Spidey as his favorite superhero). No, these are works of detail and precision. Windham starts out by sketching figures in his Moleskine notebook, and when he sees potential in one of them, he draws it onto the tablet he has plugged into his Dell (he does much of his work in Photoshop). Once he’s done digitizing, he prints the image on archival paper and mounts it on wood, touching it up with a bit of oil or acrylic paint to add texture.
          Take “Sea Fight #1,” an illustration of (get this) a sea fight Windham recently completed. It features a pirate, identifiable by his tri-cornered hat, defending his ship against a raging sea and, even more threatening, a giant blob of a sea creature with tentacle-like fangs, rising up out of the water as if about to come crashing down on the ship. There’s a whimsical intensity to the image. The wood on the side of the doomed ship looks rough to the touch. The frothing foam of the ocean spits salt spray, and you know what will happen next—either the ship will capsize, or the monster will come crashing down, effectively capsizing it himself. There’s a careful balance struck between cause and effect, creating an image full of motion and suspense. This is no still life.
          Not every one of Windham’s works is so action-packed. He also likes to create environments, like “Waterfall 1,” a lush forest setting. Rich green trees grow thick together, their blurred leaves obscuring any patch of sky. Their trunks fade into roots which fade into brown ground, flecked with calm blues and almost glowing reds—flowers, perhaps. In between all this is a waterfall, cascading down into a misty pond. The overall hues of the scene are dark, but the rich greens, blues and reds make the picture less foreboding and more welcoming. It is at once tranquil and exhilarating, like a hidden waterfall that is a secret between you and the forest. All these things are imbued in Windham’s image without any need for action or suspense, proving that as an artist he can tackle both mythical beasts and Mother Nature and come out on top.
          Windham, who is influenced by fellow concept artists and traditional artists alike, draws thumbnail sketches of figures, monsters, creatures, before committing to bigger pieces. Sometimes eight or nine to a page, they are little black and white ink-blot-like drawings, full of detail. A page full of mermaids and mermen yields a few with intricate, feathery tail fins and others with stiff-looking dorsal fins, some with seaweed laced around their arms and others with ink-black hair floating loose in the water. Windham creates these reductive style drawings in reverse, by taking a blotch of blackness and coaxing an image out of it by erasing like a sculptor carefully chipping marble off a half-formed bust. They are unique figure drawings, but are still based in that style. A concept artist Windham may be, but he does not lack knowledge of the fundamentals.
          “Waterlilies” Windham’s work is not. “Guernica” might be closer, but last I checked Picasso rarely painted warrior Vikings or the undead. Tyler Windham’s concept art is more comic books than cubism, more superhero than still life. But as far as comics and superheroes go, it’s beautiful.

See more of Windham's art at www.tylerwindham.com.

Downtown Athens Eating

The Tavern at the Arch
by Matt

I entered the Tavern at the Arch wondering what I would find. Upon returning from Christmas break, I discovered that the Mellow Mushrooms on Broad Street and at Five Points had been transformed. The holiday had buried the familiar visage of the two mushroom-men and replaced them with the heraldic logo of “The Tavern.”
          Mark Bushey, owner of the Broad Street Mellow Mushroom franchise for the past fifteen years, explained the situation. He broke with the national chain over the issue of the dough. Mellow Mushroom demanded its franchisees use frozen dough and he wasn’t going to tolerate this decline in quality.
          “I make my dough fresh—on-site fresh,” he said. He also wanted create a “more balanced menu” with “fried food, burgers and hot dogs.” A quick perusal of the new offerings revealed four types of burgers and two kinds of all-beef hot dogs, the conventional “Big Dawg” ($4.95) and the “Journey Dawg” ($4.95), made “any way you want it, that’s the way you need it.” Also new to the menu were chicken tenders ($5.95), antipasto ($9.95) and wings ($5.95 for ten). Chili dogs made with homemade chili, Reuben sandwiches and French Dips are all “coming soon.” Bushey also explained that he planned on brewing his own beer, with the restaurant’s mascot, a black Labrador retriever named Dave, adorning the label.
          I began my culinary exploration fairly cautiously, ordering my staple of the earlier dispensation, the steak-and-cheese calzone ($8.95). Not only did the calzone survive the transition intact, it was better than before. When I visited the Five Points Mellow Mushroom late last semester, they burned the underside of my calzone and the charcoal taste contaminated everything. Cooked to the right consistency and dashed with a little parmesan, the steak, cheese and crust blended together in a large hunk of Italian heaven.
          Next came the somewhat more adventurous choice of the new bacon cheddar burger ($6.95). The curly fries, spiced with seasoning salt, were quite good but the big bland burger with an even bigger bun did not exactly enchant. It’s better than what one can get at Clocked, but does not compare to Outback Steakhouse. There the king of all bacon cheeseburgers reigns, made out of sirloin that the Outbackers grind themselves. The upside of the Tavern buying its ground beef from the market is that it’s a fair bit cheaper than Outback.
          I moved on to the Big Dawg, which came served on a sesame-seed baguette with sauerkraut and spicy mustard on the side. The bread-to-meat ratio was a little high, but the meat quality was good. I also ordered a slice of cheese pizza ($1.50). The pizza tasted different from Mellow Mushroom pizza in a way that I could not quite place, probably the result of Bushey’s spirited defense of made-fresh dough. It’s about as good as the pizza from Little Italy, and if one orders it plain, a little cheaper too. That’s something the college student in us all can appreciate.
          Finally came the chicken fingers. The meat was tender and juicy and the honey mustard dipping sauce was great, but the individual tenders were too small and crunchy. The Tavern would benefit by including more tenders in the basket and using somewhat less batter when frying them.
          The area where the Tavern really shines is its service. All these meals were served by an attentive, solicitous staff. Rarely does one have to wait long to be seated or to be served. The restaurant’s classic-rock ambience also helps make dining there enjoyable—thanks to XM Satellite Radio Channel 46, the diner has all the Bob Dylan, Jethro Tull or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young one can munch along to.
          The Tavern combines excellent service and the best of Mellow Mushroom. Add the innovations of Mr. Bushey and give it time to work the bugs out and it will join The Grill and the Porterhouse Grille in the pantheon of good downtown Athens eating.

The Tavern at the Arch
259 East Broad Street
Athens, GA 30601
(706) 613-0892

Observation of the Ordinary

An intense glimpse into the skeletal figures of Ann Rogers
by Meredith Ellis

          In a studio cubicle, with a dozen paintings occupying white walls and thousands of spotted colors layering the floor, with three sparse white lights hanging from the center, and two brooms intersecting the three crossbeams above, the slight figure of Ann Rogers states reflectively, “Skeletons aren’t defined by age, class…race or scars. They’re the essence.”
          At first her words teeter on the line of artsy indulgence but I soon realize they lack the passionate elitism to push it over. She leans away from the “art is love and saving the world” babble and I’m grateful. Ann Rogers worships simplicity and finds intellectual art theories amusing.
          She merely observes. She paints. And then she stops there. Her words and artwork sit decidedly on opposite sides of a canyon. Rogers hesitates tremendously in defining her work with vague descriptions and underlying motives. And she won’t build the bridge to help them meet. She wants you to. She acknowledges subtleties about her subjects but casts no judgments.
          For her, the coals fueling the train of human behavior pale in comparison to the locomotive itself. The intrigue lies in the shape of the train as it passed or the streak of white steam frozen into her memory. There exists no concept of “why?” Every painting, sketching and photograph seems dedicated to some slight mannerism or moment. Seemingly mundane things, like a girl running a strand of hair behind her ear or a man leaning over in an old chair, seem paramount in her work.
          The lack of psychological motives in her work doesn’t weaken the impact of her paintings. Instead they free all the abstractionist clutter, much like Belgian artist James Ensor’s Man of Sorrow; a single man expressing in surmountable grief through a series of red and black lines.
          Sometimes it seems impossible not to embellish the intentions of the painter. I assumed a painting with a boy gazing despondently into nothing possessed Orwellian leanings. The grey and blue swirled tragically around his subdued figure. The artist shrugs and merely says she painted a portrait of her brother on a nature hike. And the painting that resembles the three expressionless faces of Peter Jackson? She nods at the resemblance but explains, “That’s local Jim…the wine guy.”
          Her work goes down your throat easily like wine and echoes a sort of minimalist German expressionism. It begs the hypothetical question “what if Edvard Munch’s 1893 The Scream painting mated with a square box?”
The answer is Ann Rogers and her unfinished painting of two women. The face of the foremost woman, painted abundantly with yellow and roseate, stares on, deeply judgmental of anyone who passes.
          Though the emotion seems striking, like the harrowing scream of a man on a bridge in Munch’s work, it lends itself to simplicity with loose lines and limited paint.
          Probably the most expressionist influence shows through her painting of two skeletons slouching against one another like exhausted boxers in a ring. Their sparse bodies and yet fluid movements fool your eye into imagining the flesh around their frames. James Ensor’s famous work, depicting two skeletons fighting over a smoked herring, comes to mind. There’s a certain intrepid humanism that shouldn’t be there in these symbols of death.
          For Ann Rogers, a girl who passes the hours stealing model skeletons, her work candidly evaluates human nature in its purest form with keen detail and simple humanity. Her self-effacing nature resonates through the outstanding skeleton-inspired frames of her work and assures us there is nothing skeletal or sparse about captured emotion.