EPISODE 15, in which girls just wanna have fuh-un

he thing about Aaron Sorkin is, everything he writes I want to say. I want to be Jeremy Goodwin and Dan Rydell and Josh Lyman, saying profound things and being profound. I want to have all the answers. But the only way to have all the answers, in my experience, is to control the questions. Those guys aren't real, after all, and their approximated realities are careful constructs of Sorkin's mind. They're three guys pretending to be something else and sometimes, that's what I want.

I saw a flier up for student play auditions last weekend. Monday I went in, Tuesday was callbacks and by that night I was cast. I'm playing "Boy 2" in a one-act character study called "Mama Said...." We've got a month of rehearsal time before performances. As a writer I want to rewrite the script so much I could scream, or at least ad lib a lot. It's never strictly bad, it just doesn't quite have a voice of its own. You've already seen it if you've seen five randomly selected Parker Posey movies.

Our first real rehearsal, after a read-through on Thursday, was supposed to be this morning. Unfortunately, the lead didn't show. The director took her place for a more fleshed out walk-through but there wasn't much else we could do. We did scene breakdowns and talked about potential dialogue changes and blocking for a while, then called it quits. Hopefully this isn't an omen.

On the other end of the extracurricular spectrum, the intramural floor hockey season opened on Tuesday. The J-school sports crew tried its hand at basketball last semester and that turned out, well, let's say less than successful. We still lost our opening floor hockey game 4-1 but it was a much improved showing. Our major weakness seemed to be fatigue and if everybody shows up to this week's game, that should be alleviated. Unless you count broomball, I haven't played anything close to competitive hockey in ten years and I think I got back into the swing of things pretty well. I seem to have the best shot on the team, so I took the offensive point most of the time I was out there and got most of the face-offs. I don't know who we're playing next week but I predict a win.

Meanwhile, on Thursday night I finally corrected a problem from early in the school year, seeing both Mates of State and Rainer Maria at Luther's Blues. Opening was Mike Kinsella, who's recording acoustic, solo, Dashboard Confessional-esque material under the moniker Owen. His set was much better than I'd expected, actually, despite him breaking a string several songs in and switching to an electric. His lyrical maturity and understated melodicism make me want to beat Chris Carraba until he can emote no more. I'd previously only given Kinsella credit for clever song titles -- "I Want the Blindingly Cute to Confide in Me" chief among them -- but I'm going to give the Owen records another try.

Between sets I met an environmental toxicologist named Emily who was just mad for Mates of State. She was totally getting her indie on, so much so that she asked if I knew the song that was playing over the PA during Kinsella's tear-down (I did; it was Spoon's completely goddamn genius "Believing Is Art."). We talked about the rock scene for a while, other shows and whatnot, and then, there they were. One woman, one man, one keyboard stack, one drum kit. I couldn't believe what a big sound they put out. They're both accomplished vocalists and their ability to harmonize is where a lot of their power comes from. They played a few new tunes and most of my favorites from their two LP's. I was in no way disappointed.

Rainer Maria finished the show, playing a notable homecoming set. The band formed in Madison in the mid-90's before moving to New York; several times they talked about places they used to go that were changed or gone, like the brat place that's a Verizon storefront now. I've been wanting to see them since hearing their 2001 release, A Better Version of Me. Their new record, Long Knives Drawn, is a significant departure from their previous sound but something else I was excited to see live. What struck me first is that guitarist Kyle Fischer's stage presence is nothing like I expected. He put out a mild solo record last year that cast him in a less rocking light than what reality reveals.

Their set was a manic affair, hitting high notes with older tracks such as "Planetary" and "Artificial Light" and presenting top new material like "The Imperatives." I was unsure going in if I was going to take to the changed, harder sound but it's incredible live. I don't think I'll be seeing any shows for a while and this was a great experience to sit on.

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Aaron Veenstra is the managing editor of Etc. House Productions and a Master's student in Journalism at the University of Wisconsin.
Matriculation Reloaded appears weekly.