In her living room studio, Fang Ling Lee paints a slick black stroke, taking her hand on a curving trail to the top corner of the canvas, where the hair of two beauties flows in the air.

The figures, naked and swaddled together in sweeps of gray paint, stare out of their speckled world back at their creator, working in bum-around clothes, her feet bare but for splotches of paint.

Finishing her ladies, she signs “Ling” in pink oil pastel. A finished piece calls for a celebratory cigarette.

I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!)
Stephen Colbert
Grand Central Publishing 2007

By Shannon McAleenan

Stephen Colbert is America. And so can you, provided you agree with all the opinions he spouts in his book. Don’t worry about having to make up your mind about anything. This is an all-inclusive bound ideology.

Stephen Colbert’s show, “The Colbert Report,” follows Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.” But from the tone of Colbert’s book, he is the American you should be most interested in.

In this satirical tome, “I am America (And So Can You!),” Colbert tries to transmit his cable success to the page. His I’m-more-American-than-you persona works great on television, but his trademark wit doesn’t bite as hard in book form. On his show, Colbert stands his ground on the political right, but the jokes take a hard left turn. The complexities of this relationship don’t translate to book form. This aside, there are still more than enough laughs to make this book worth a read.

By Nathan Spicer (Flagler College English Major)

I viewed the initial announcement for a Transformers movie with extreme skepticism. The television show was a staple of Saturday mornings during my childhood, and the opening theme song still evokes strong nostalgia. So I believed a contemporary film directed by the polarizing Michael Bay could be a blasphemous reimagining of a touchstone of 80s cartoons.

My skepticism was heightened when controversial (to fans, anyway) information was leaked before release. According to various sources, aspects of the show were being transformed to suit current pop culture. One example is the how the character “Soundwave,” who transformed into a tape deck in the cartoon, instead becomes an iPod.

By Emily DeLoach (Flagler College Communication Major)

When I first came upon Feist, her music was playing in the Gap Outlet where I work. I looked her up and realized that I have heard many songs from her new album The Reminder. This past summer, “My Moon My Man” was on a Verizon Wireless Chocolate phone commercial. Soon after that, “1234” was picked up and used for an iPod commercial and remains the most popular song on The Reminder, according to iTunes.

JUNK SCIENCE
Gran’Dad’s Nerve Tonic
Definitive Jux/Embedded Music 2007

While the heated gangsta subgenre has dominated rap music for the last 15 years or so, small pockets of holdouts have managed to keep the fun-loving side of hip-hop alive. One of the younger proponents of late ‘80s-inflected boom is Brooklyn-based Junk Science, a duo whose latest album, Gran’Dad’s Nerve Tonic, combines dusty basement beats and a smooth lyrical flow reminiscent of groups like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest.

TUBERS
Shell Out
Bakery Outlet Records 2007

Local St. Augustine bands typically play easy-going covers to pay the bills, but the trio Tubers concentrates on original guitar rock interspersed with jagged melodies and intelligent vocals, tourists be damned. Their latest release Shell Out, on local label Bakery Outlet, contains enough post-punk riffs to please any fan of thinking man’s hardcore. But unlike bands like Minor Threat or Fugazi, the Tubers boys shy away from blatantly political lyrics in favor of personal and heartfelt odes to complicated relationships, natural surroundings and the intricacies of modern life. A rootsy, home-recorded vibe keeps Rich Diem’s shouting vocals and noisy guitar fragments organic, especially on “Ambulate” and “Dine on the Process.” A little bit of indie rock appears on the instrumental “P52,” while “No Ornament” embodies the angular guitar work and start-stop song structures of popular (and hard-to-classify) bands like Pavement and Built To Spill. “Schooner Than Later” and “Late Bloomer” feature incredible interplays between Diem’s vocals and Jeff McNally’s basslines, proving that Tubers have put in their practice time and know how to create complex yet enjoyable songs.