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A theater critic is not supposed to choose a title for a review based
upon a Google search which was executed while researching the review. 
(Hint:  do the search!)  A theater critic also does not typically begin
a review with lines of poetry.  The only thing worse than these two
offenses would be to start off with a ridiculously cliché statement,
such as, “If you’re going to see any show this decade, make sure it’s
‘Elephant’s Graveyard’ at Trustus Theatre.”

Google searches and lines of poetry and cliché mandates aside:  Get off
your keister and go see “Elephant’s Graveyard” at Trustus Theatre.  NOW!

Imagine you had been in Los Angeles in 1990 and had passed on a chance
to see a workshop production of a new play, “Millennium Approaches,” by
a relatively unknown playwright named Tony Kushner.  Hmm.  Ever heard
of “Angels in America”?

This is that kind of show.  “Elephant’s Graveyard,” the latest play by
up-and-coming, Rhode Island-based drama bard George Brant, is an
anti-“Our Town” theatrical masterpiece that will doubtless become a
staple of American theater.  And the professional debut of this show is
right here in River City—I mean, Columbia.

How often are we the first to do anything around here other than start
civil wars and refuse federal stimulus funding?  Go see this show!

A masterpiece throws your bearings off.  So pardon me these previous
paragraphs.  I’m going to take a shot of bourbon, smoke a few
cigarettes, then return to my desk and settle down for some serious
criticism.

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I suppose I should take a bow.
For eight long years (years that passed like centuries for the
misérables rotting in cages at Guantánamo and Bagram and Abu Ghraib and
Diego Garcia and Bulgaria and the U.S. Navy’s fleet of prison ships) no
one cared about torture. Law professors, politicians, and journalists
justified it. Even liberals didn’t care: there wasn’t one major protest
march against beating or raping or drowning people to death. Strange
but true: the only forces raging against the collective madness that
warped the American psyche after 9/11 were human rights organizations
and a couple of cartoonists.
The syndicated political cartoonist Matt Bors and I took point,
repeatedly ridiculing and ranting about the Bush Administration’s
torture policies and Americans’ tacit tolerance of it in cartoons we
knew would be reprinted in only a handful of publications. Editors and
readers advised us to “stop obsessing” and “move on.” Award committees
passed us over in favor of cartoonists who bought Bush’s tall tales
about WMDs in Iraq. We were blackballed.
At least they didn’t shove a flashlight up my ass. That is a
favorite interrogation tactic at Gitmo (and Bagram, where Obama plans
to send the Gitmo victims next).

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Dear Columbia City Paper,

I guess you simply can’t understand that A + B = C. Governor Sanford
was elected by a majority of South Carolinians to protect their
interests and make state government work. Unfortunately, South Carolina
is not a rich state. We don’t have the money to provide everything to
everyone’s little heart desires. We need to recognize this fact and
focus on basic services and deficit reduction. Accepting the $700-odd
million in “bailout” money without using it to pay down debt is
criminally stupid.
First, let’s look at the governor’s proposal to pay down debt.

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YOUR WAR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

On April 6, the Obama Administration unveiled its proposed 2010 military budget. 
Republican condemnation of Obama’s Pentagon spending plan was swift and severe.
“It seems the only place the President is willing to cut spending is on the armed forces,” said Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia.).
“President Obama is disarming America,” said Sen. James Inhofe
(R-Oklahoma!).

“Our sons and daughters are risking their lives fighting
an enemy whose sole purpose is the destruction of our country and our
way of life, while their president disarms America. And all this to
support his welfare state.”

“And while the nation’s eyes have turned to a struggling economy, this
administration is taking steps to cut defense spending,” said talk
radio and FOXNews host Sean Hannity (R-Douchebagistan). “And that noise
you hear off in the distance, those are the mullahs — well, they’re
cheering.”
Disarming America? Welfare state? Mullahs ululating with glee?
Did Obama just propose disbanding the United States Marine Corps and
using the leftover money to fund mandatory K-Y Jelly, wine coolers, and
Mecca-facing abortion clinics for every public elementary school in
America?
Not exactly.

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Bar none, the best place to watch a show in this town is at the
University of South Carolina Lab Theatre.  Think theater Fight Club, a
concrete space so pounding and intimate you can practically smell an
actor’s breath. And if you’re in the front row during an intense scene,
you’re likely to get sprayed with thespian spit or sweat.
The first show I saw in Columbia was “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” in
the USC black box.  It was electrifying—and this was before efforts to
make the space look less like a slaughterhouse rinsing station and more
like a playhouse.  (Although, the bathrooms still resemble something
out of one of the “Saw” movies.)  It’s always peeved me that every
theater-reviewing rag in town ignores this space.  Not only do you get
to see the grittiest plays produced anywhere in Columbia for less than
the price of a Whopper and fries, but you support student actors and
directors by doing so.
The final show of the 2009 USC Lab season is “Iphigenia and Other
Daughters,” written by Ellen McLaughlin, better known for her portrayal
as the angel is Tony Kushner’s millennial epic “Angels in America” than
for any of her classical-themed plays.  “Iphigenia,” in McLaughlin’s
own words, “adapts Euripides’ ‘Iphigenia in Aulis,’ Sophocles’
‘Electra,’ and Euripides’ ‘Iphigenia in Tauris’ in succession to create
what [I call] in the program notes ‘a meditation on feminism.’”  But
that quote is likely to send most theatergoers running for the nearest
mindless Andrew Lloyd Webber production, so ignore it.  Instead, spend
five minutes surfing Wikipedia to catch up on the Classical literature
you missed while getting your MBA.  Or, if you prefer, read this
six-sentence summary of the 13th century BCE:

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Greenville native, Carl Blair, presents abstract paintings and wooden sculptures in his brand new “Flora & Fauna” exhibition at if ART Gallery. Imagination mixes with wild color to produce this extraordinary collection by an artist who only discovered his color-blindness in college. After he began to study art he started wearing a red contact lens in his left eye to help to distinguish colors. While colors are obviously integral to painting, so, too, are dynamism and passion. Blair has both.  The colorful waves and thick lines blend effortlessly to create landscapes that are not detail-focused, but centered around color and shape.
Blair refers to his style as neither realistic nor abstract. “I refer to my work as visual poetry,” he says.

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UPDATE: What is the U.S. mission in Afghanistan?

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