The Carrier

Rome has an impressive array of unique restaurants. Newly added to the list is the Santa Fe restaurant on Turner McCall between 5th Avenue and Riverside Parkway.

This restaurant has a little bit for everyone from the steak lover to the vegetarian. I love this restaurant so much, I have already been twice. 

Santa Fe has just about everything, including steaks, ribs, burgers, pasta and sandwiches, all with a southwestern flair. 

A unique dish is the death burger, which is smothered in queso and jalepenos—perfect for those who love spicy food. A more common option is the Santa Fe chicken. It is a large chicken breast topped with barbecue sauce and cheese. It comes with two sides. Whatever you choose, make sure you choose the fries; they are the best in town. Another great choice is the Cajun chicken. Penne pasta in alfredo sauce is topped with slices of chicken and a piece of Texas toast. 

The food is not the only thing with flair. The décor inside Santa Fe will leave you in awe. The centerpiece is a huge fan that could fill up four dorm rooms. The floor is covered in peanut shells, and there is not a bare space on the walls. You will undoubtedly see something new on each visit. 

The service is also great. On my first visit, the waitress gave a run through of the menu; she knew it like the back of her hand. She was extremely helpful and knowledgeable. If there is a wait, a large barrel of peanuts at the entrance will keep you entertained.

If you leave any room for desert, try the mud pie. A flowerpot is filled with chocolate pudding, peanut butter pie and Oreo crumbs topped with a silk flower. 

Don’t expect to get all this great food for free. Santa Fe is moderately priced. A dinner will cost about $10-$15. However, it is also open for lunch.

Every year, to celebrate women’s rights or V-Day, Violence Against Women Day, many colleges perform “The Vagina Monologues,” a play written by Eve Ensler, who used to perform all the separate monologues alone. The Berry event was held on campus Friday and Saturday, in the Krannert Underground and helped benefit the Sexual Assault Center. The play consists of women delivering empowering monologues about, well, their vaginas.
But these are not just any stories. They range from bold and visually cringing topics, sex and all the different names of a vagina, stories of a woman’s first menstruation to a woman’s first orgasm (or multiple orgasms), rape and mutilation.        “My Angry Vagina”  was a humorous monologue performed by senior Charlotte Hager. Her character expressed how she felt about using tampons and douches and the way women are treated by those cold instruments at the gynocologist.
Another laugh-out-loud monologue, “The Women Who Love to Make Vaginas Happy,” was performed by sophomore Erin Dubyak. Dubyak’s character discussed her previous sexual experiences with men, and all the different types of “moans” women love to make. Her role was a dominatrix for women, not for men. Dubyak imitaded the moans of all types of women from a quiet southern girl, a “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant,” an uninhibited militant bi-sexual, a general college student (“Uh, I should be studying”) and the Berry moan (“Oh, dear not fear baby lord Jesus”).
Being a female, not a feminist, I liked seeing the importance of women conveyed through stories, some funny and others sadly depressing. The message of the monologues is uplifting: all women should respect themselves, and men should respect women because we are beautiful creatures.         If you missed the show, you will have to wait until next year to catch it. A show as empowering as “The Vagina Monologues” recognizes the diversity of women, every sexual preference, every experience we may have encountered, and shows we all have one thing in common: our vagina. This show is great for the ladies and is informative for the fellas, so mark it on your calendars for next year.

As I walked into the Mount Berry Square Movie Theater on a Saturday night, the anticipation had been itching at me for several hours. The time had finally come to see “Jumper,” a new sci-fi thriller about an individual, David Rice played by Hayden Christensen, who can “jump,” or teleport, to certain points in the world that he concentrates on.
Rice is living the dream until he realizes that there is a force trying to rid his rare kind, and a war has been raging for ages between the jumpers and the Paladins. The Paladins, led by Roland, who is played by Samuel Jackson, have developed technology to stop the jumpers and have been doing so for years.
Although the special effects in this new thriller are outstanding, the plot and characters seem to be lacking a certain sense of self within the film. This most likely has something to do with the short 88 minutes that the film was squeezed into. Even though the film was lacking a sense of character and dialogue, the fight scenes between the jumpers and the Paladins are outstanding; the special effects used during these scenes and during jumping scenes are some of the best I’ve seen recently.
One major disappointing aspect of the film was how short it was. The concept of the film was so thick that it probably needed 88 minutes to explain what was going on with the characters and what a jumper actually was.  Adding an hour to the film would have been wonderful.
In the end, if I had to give “Jumper” a score out of 10, it would probably get a 6.5. How entertaining and fast the film was somewhat overcame the lack of character and plot development in the film.
I do not think it lived up to all the hype portrayed in the advertisement.  Spending the money to see this film might not be worth viewing in the theaters but renting it when it comes out on DVD would be better because the special effects are worth it. Hey, if you watch it with a friend, it’s only $2 a piece.

After seeing the trailers time and time again, either in the previews of another movie or on TV, I was worried that “Vantage Point” was just going to be another “I Am Legend:” a film that didn’t quite live up to the hype.
Now don’t get me wrong, this didn’t eclipse “The Italian Job,” and certainly didn’t rise up to the level of the action in any of the Bourne movies, but this movie was put together well, and could even puzzle the viewers.
“Vantage Point” starts out at a global war on terror rally in Spain. When the U.S. National Security Agency intercepts a message from a terrorist group threatening to assassinate the President of the United States, they decide to send a body double as the president to prevent any assassination attempts. The NSA was right, and the body double is shot within moments after of stepping onto the podium.
Sounds like your typical thriller, right?  Well, “Vantage Point” places an interesting twist on the stereotypical action film by showing the point-of-view of eight different strangers, and their individual attempts to piece together the truth behind the assassination attempt. Each vantage point shows about 25 to 30 minutes of action involving each character, and then rewinds, back to twenty minutes before the assassination. The eight different views come from a TV news producer, two secret service agents protecting the president, the president himself, a secret service agent for the mayor of Spain, a civilian who happened to record the entire assassination attempt, and finally two members of the terrorist group.
Once all of the vantage points are shown, they are all tied together, and then the movie is concluded in a very unpredictable fashion.
Let’s just say, do not get too confident with your thoughts while in the theater.  Double- crossers cross double-crossers who are at the same time double-crossing other double- crossers. If you got that, then you won’t have any problem finding out the real killer.
Overall, I give “Vantage Point” eight stars out of 10. There were some areas in the movie where you might become a little confused, but overall, the time you spend on the edge of your seat trying to piece together the puzzle makes the film worthwhile.

Rome has an impressive array of unique restaurants. Newly added to the list is the Santa Fe restaurant on Turner McCall between 5th Avenue and Riverside Parkway.
This restaurant has a little bit for everyone from the steak lover to the vegetarian. I love this restaurant so much, I have already been twice.
Santa Fe has just about everything, including steaks, ribs, burgers, pasta and sandwiches, all with a southwestern flair.
A unique dish is the death burger, which is smothered in queso and jalepenos—perfect for those who love spicy food. A more common option is the Santa Fe chicken. It is a large chicken breast topped with barbecue sauce and cheese. It comes with two sides. Whatever you choose, make sure you choose the fries; they are the best in town. Another great choice is the Cajun chicken. Penne pasta in alfredo sauce is topped with slices of chicken and a piece of Texas toast.
The food is not the only thing with flair. The décor inside Santa Fe will leave you in awe. The centerpiece is a huge fan that could fill up four dorm rooms. The floor is covered in peanut shells, and there is not a bare space on the walls. You will undoubtedly see something new on each visit.
The service is also great. On my first visit, the waitress gave a run through of the menu; she knew it like the back of her hand. She was extremely helpful and knowledgeable. If there is a wait, a large barrel of peanuts at the entrance will keep you entertained.
If you leave any room for desert, try the mud pie. A flowerpot is filled with chocolate pudding, peanut butter pie and Oreo crumbs topped with a silk flower.
Don’t expect to get all this great food for free. Santa Fe is moderately priced. A dinner will cost about $10-$15. However, it is also open for lunch.

The new season of Lost is adding to the anticipation of the series with its fourth season in the making. There was a new “interest group” introduced at the end of season three known only at this point as the “people on the boat.” The flashbacks that we were all-too-familiar with are now gone and have been replaced with interesting, albeit at times confusing, “flash forwards.” The “others” have basically been eliminated as a threat, the “monster” has not been mentioned in a while and it seems the survivors’ main concern, at this point, is to escape. Some believe people from the boat will provide assistance,while others believe they are there to kill the survivors.First, the survivors of the plane crash had contact with the people on the boat when Naomi, (Marsha Thomason) parachuted onto the island at the end of season three. She had a satellite phone, and claimed to have been hired to find Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) by his girfriend Penelope (Sonya Walger). The signal from Naomi’s phone was blocked by the repeating transmission that Rousseau (Mira Furlan) had set up years earlier. The survivors set off on a two-prong mission to disable the signal and the jamming that was emanating from the Dharma station known as “The Looking Glass.” Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) and Desmond were able to gain access to The Looking Glass, and after some brief difficulties with the others stationed there, Charlie managed to disable the jamming device. When this happened, Charlie picked up a signal, coming from none other than Penelope, only to discover that she was not on any boat and had no knowledge of the supposed rescue mission. Mikhail (Andrew Divoff), who just won’t die, swam outside the station and blew open a porthole with a fragmentation grenade, causing Charlie to have to seal off the hatch to the communications room. He managed to get a message across to Desmond that it was not Penny’s boat anchored off the island, before he drowned. While the events were happening in The Looking Glass, Jack (Matthew Fox) and the bulk of the survivors had managed to take Rousseau’s message offline, and once the jamming ceased, Jack put out the call with the satellite phone to the boat. At this time, we see a schism in the ranks of the survivors. Two leaders emerge, Jack and John Locke (Terry O’Quinn). The survivors are forced to make a choice: go with Jack and be rescued whatever the risk, or stay on the island with John. Around this time, Desmond makes it back with the news that the “people on the boat“ are not who they say they are,” a captive, Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson) said.I find it interesting, that among the new comers to the island, there is a physicist, an anthropologist and a ghost buster. With the progression of the series, we have been faced with many questions and issues regarding either science or the supernatural. The island has many anomalies: the intense electromagnetic source that the original “hatch” was built to contain, as well as the “smoke monster.”Next, one might speculate the smoke monster is a sentient cloud of nano-machines. Whoever hired these people to come to the island has knowledge of what is on the island. There are extreme physical forces at work, hence the physicist. The island might be a government  experiment and the people on the boat are there to kill the survivors because they have been contaminated. The island is something larger than it appears.  Again, some powerful supernatural forces are behind all the island’s so “miracles.” Several people appear on the island after they died: Boone (Ian Somerhalder) for one, as well as people who were never even on the island, Hugo’s (Jorge Garcia) “friend” Dave, and the recent appearance of  “taller ghost Walt (Malcolm David Kelly)” Sawyer (Josh Holloway) said. Also John Locke,  who was paralyzed, now walks and Rose (L. Scott Caldwell)  was healed of cancer. The inclusion of Miles (Ken Leung), the expert on the supernatural, is no accident. The island has some special force at work, but there are things that need to be finished by whoever designed it. Whoever these new people are, and whoever sent them, it is a safe bet to say, more questions arise. This season has led to more surprises, and they will keep coming in the future episodes. Can all of the audience’s questions be answered by the end of the series?

With the release of a critically acclaimed new record, “The Ringing Bell,” (#27 in Paste Magazine’s Top 100 Albums of 2007), and the birth of his first child, a son, Rhodes, 2007 saw singer/songwriter Derek Webb, in his own words,  “move closer to what he has been truly made to do.”
Webb, a former leading member of Caedmon’s Call, has pursued a solo career since 2003, and “The Ringing Bell,” according to him, “a rock n’ roll record” marks his fifth solo album. Prior to its actual release in May 2007, Webb offered the record for free online.
“When we gave away music, we didn’t ask for money; we asked for information and we asked for help,” Webb said. “We didn’t ask for money, because you know that if you can connect music with people, that’s the hard part nowadays.”
This technique of digital distribution was also employed by Radiohead, a band that Webb said he has much respect for, for revolutionizing and reinventing the industry.
In October 2007, Radiohead released its latest album, “In Rainbows,” through its own Web site and servers. The truly unique decision made by the band was allowing everyone to pay whatever they wanted for the album. Only recently was the album released on CD by the band’s North American label.
“I’ve really loved the new Radiohead record,” Webb said. “I had The Bends years and years ago, then wasn’t into them for a while.  Although my musical taste completely corresponded with the music that they were making, I hadn’t really been listening to any of it.
And then I got really into Thom Yorke’s solo record, ‘The Eraser.’ I really connected with that record, so when I picked up the Radiohead record, it did incorporate a lot of that, and at least I had a context to put on it.”
Faced with the realization that the music industry is rapidly changing and the CD format is dying, artists have been forced to change, and Webb is on the forefront of that change.
“Artists can either go kicking and screaming or go looking like a pioneer, like Radiohead,” he said.
“Use it your advantage, or you’re going to look like a dinosaur. You have to adapt. That is what capitalism is all about. You adapt, or you die. I don’t sell more than 20,000 or 30,000 records ever on an individual record, but we gave away almost 90,000 records, and for every one I got an e-mail address and a ZIP code.”
Webb regularly refers to the concept of The Long Tail, a phenomena described by Chris Anderson in his 2006 book of the same title. Very simply, the idea is based on the fact that technology has enabled everyone to produce and distribute information and art.
Webb sees this as both a challenge to established artists and to listeners who have to filter through so much music that people have produced, but also as a tremendous outlet for artists to distribute music.
It’s hard to find your way through a lot of  the bad music out today, according to Webb, but he is still inspired by artists that he can trust.
He said those that he can and will always trust are Bob Dylan, The Beatles and U2. He has also always been a huge Wilco fan, and their 2007 album, “Sky Blue Sky,” has been getting the majority of his listening attention of late, especially mornings around the house when he and wife, singer/songwriter Sandra McCracken, just want to listen to some pleasant, good music.  He also mentioned Arcade Fire as another active band  writing and producing material he feels like he can trust.
Webb is another artist that is producing quality material that can be trusted. He is not  bound by stereotypes or molds that he feels he must fit. His music is honest and direct, and he is well deserving of the attention he has been given lately.
Webb and McCracken are also releasing, via multiple Web sites, the first studio album that they have recorded together called “The Ampersand EP” on Valentine’s Day. If you missed him here on Friday Feb. 1, make sure to catch him the next time he is around this area.

Honeymoon Bakery is a much-needed addition to the restaurants of Broad Street, offering homemade sweets and baked goods at very reasonable prices.
The bakery, a division of Harvest Moon Café, opened its doors last year, and is dedicated to serving the citizens of Rome in a market that had not yet been filled by any other bakery or restaurant in town.
Upon entering the bakery, you will immediately appreciate the farmhouse country atmosphere, apparent in the original architectural features of the building and the fixtures.
However, the diverse display of sweets will soon grab your attention and will not allow your eye to stray from them.
Choose from a wide variety of delicious treats, such as chocolate mousse towers, lemon bars, crème brulee or some of the best ginger snap cookies you will taste.
Honeymoon also offers specialty gelato flavors and cakes, available for special occasions or dining in.
The possibilities are endless, but do not be overwhelmed, because there is no such thing as a poor choice here.
One of the best aspects of Honeymoon  is that they cater to the customer’s needs at any time of the day.  Begin your day with a muffin, croissant or specialty bread, baked fresh every morning.
If you need something more substantial, visit the premade deli section where you can choose from a variety of lunch selections to either take along with you or eat in the bakery.
A bakery would not be complete without warm drinks, and Honeymoon is no exception.  Choose from a delicious tea and coffee selection and either enjoy it at the bakery, or buy a bag of their homemade coffee blend and save it for a morning at home.
Many bakeries offer delicious treats, but do not have an inviting area to sit and relax while enjoying these confections. This is where Honeymoon sets itself apart from all the others.
Instead of solely specializing in baked goods or compromising the variety of treats for dining space, Honeymoon has succeeded in finding a way to combine the two.
Grab a seat at one of the country tables and take in the sights of Broad Street or engage in some good conversation within the exposed brick walls of the bakery.
Honeymoon Bakery opens at 7 a.m., closes at 9 p.m. most weekdays and is not open at all on Sundays.
This somewhat limits the times available for college students to visit, but after going once, you will find yourself rearranging your schedule in order to visit more.

To all those couples out there, there is something to enjoy on Valentine’s Day without leaving campus. Singles can enjoy a night to dress-up with friends and see fellow students share their talents. It’s the second year the Berry College Theatre Company is performing “My Funny Valentine Cabaret,” which begins Feb. 14 and runs through Feb. 16.
The show will be filled with a total of eight performers; four girls and four guys, with two new faces this year, seniors Katy Reichert and Manuel Recinos. Six familiar faces who performed last year will be seniors Amber Bryenton and Lyndsey Johnson, juniors Michael Moncrief and Mary Randall and sophomores Drew Highsmith and Stephen Santana.
Many performances will be solos and duets, and each performer will provide an introduction before beginning their piece. Reichert said the songs will be a variety of show tune style songs from Roger and Hammerstein to singer Josh Gorban. Director Christian Boy also said the song types are “Great American Songbook,” meaning they are from Broadway musical theater. The song lyrics are filled with the beauty of love, rejection and all the emotions that come with relationships. Boy said, “A cabaret is an intimate evening event of story telling.”
As for the audience, they will pay to enjoy the show along with the “cocktail bar” which will have a wide selection of beverages from coffee and hot chocolate to non-alcoholic champagne and even quaint desserts. Round tables will be covered with white table cloths, a chandelier will  hang from the ceiling, the floor will be painted white and white, sheer fabric will hang from the ceiling and walls.
“It is an elegant evening and a nice time to take a break. The stage is completely transformed. The audience will not even know they are backstage,” Reichert said.
As for the band, Harry Musselwhite will be on percussion, Bill Locklear on stand-up bass, Kris Carlisle on piano and the audience   will get a chance to hear a saxophone player and some guitar.
Formal dress is advisable, but black tie is optional. Just a hint of advice to the boys out there, it does not mean to wear a black tie with some “pulled out of the closet” khakis. And ladies, of course, wear your cocktail dresses or an evening gown for the occasion.
Boy said, “The cabaret is something you can’t find in Rome or even in Atlanta. The closest cabaret show would be in New York.” And ticket prices in a city would cost $150 or more. There is limited availability for seating, only 70 seats per night, and Saturday’s show is sold out, so get your tickets as soon as possible. This is not a walk-in event, so be sure to make reservations The cost is a mere $20, which you  will not regret. For reservations call (706) 236-2289.

Even though the movie “Across the Universe,” directed by Julie Taymor, opened a couple months ago, the theme is everlasting: “All you need is love.” In this fictional love story told through music, there are more than 30 Beatles songs presented to entrance  the audience. For those who have not had the pleasure, the movie is a must see.
As I  started watching, not really sure what to expect and rather skeptical, I found it  to be an indescribable piece of work. It is a very artsy and visually packed film, to say the least, but only in selective scenes, which is better because the movie would lose its audience if it was too eccentric throughout the whole film.
The characters are well developed, the graphics and design are actually up to my standards and, even though I might not agree with some of the political views the movie ties in, the way Taymor illustrates the scenes are worthwhile.
The film is set in the late ‘60s. One of the main characters, Jude, played by Jim Sturgess, decides to find his father in America.
While searching, he meets Max (Joe Anderson), a college kid in Princeton. They soon head to New York because Max is a rebellious kid in search of himself. We briefly meet Max’s sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), who has a boyfriend that joins the war early in the movie and is killed. She also becomes the love of Jude’s life while she is visiting them in the city.
Max and Jude begin their lives in New York City; Jude is a freelance artist and Max a taxi cab driver. They end up living in a house with other guests, Jojo (Martin Luther McCoy) and his girfriend Sadie (Dana Fuchs) and Prudence (T.V. Carpio), and eventually Lucy because she comes to spend the summer with her brother before attending college in the fall.
She and Jude begin their journey of love, seeing that they fall in the midist hard times. When her brother Max is drafted for the Vietnam War, Lucy joins a radical antiwar movement with the leader Paco (Logan Marshall), whom Jude is not fond of because of his seductive persona. Jude gets upset about how much time Lucy is spending with
the antiwar group and  becomes him depressed and frustrated with his work.
Sadie and Jojo’s relationship starts to falter as well because Sadie’s new manager wants her to
“lose the band,” but her boyfriend says she is nothing without them. Their first performance on stage is a shamble because of the argument behind the scenes. She walks off and leaves him to finish the show.
The relationship between Jude and Lucy begins to take a turn for the worse, and Jude gets angry because they made plans one night but Lucy was still working.
He walks into the so-called “office” where she is working and starts fighting with Paco and is eventually kicked out. The argument makes Lucy upset and she eventually leaves Jude.
Throughout the movie, there are songs to represent what is happening in their lives. In one scene where Jude and Lucy finish an argument, he sings “Strawberry Fields Forever” and starts painting.
The scene shows how frustrated he is with how things are working out for him and then leads to how the world is changing.
The song choices are rather bizarre because they tend to be misleading. Did Taymor wonder if the songs would have been better if they were original pieces?
One other scene represents the psychedelic ‘70s, when Jude, Max, Lucy, Jojo, Sadie and other people had been partying the night before, take a bus and start driving away into the country.
They all sing “I Am the Walrus,” just having a splendid time, but then the bus leaves the five of them in the middle of nowhere where they see a circus performance.
The scene is a way to convey  the time period and good time while using drugs, which is symbolic of how they are living without fear.
No matter the beauty and uniqueness of the film itself, the basic plot is rather stereotypical.
A boy and a girl meet, fall in love, hardships come and go, and   the relationship may last or it may not. But since it’s a musical love story,  you might guess they will find each other in the end (maybe).I will not give the story away, but let’s just say the last scene is every girl’s dream.
All in all, the film was one of a kind minus all the Beatles songs.
Taymor, next time you may want to use originally written songs for your movies or musical.