2441 lines
108 KiB
Plaintext
2441 lines
108 KiB
Plaintext
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International Teletimes Vol. 3 No. 5
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====================================
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***** ****** ***** ****** ******* *****
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* * * * * * * * *
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***** ****** * * ****** * *****
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* * * * * * * *
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***** * ***** * * * *****
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& L E I S U R E
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************************************************************
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* September 1994 ISSN 1198-3604 *
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************************************************************
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========
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CONTENTS
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========
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Features
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--------
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THE TAO OF HIKING
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"Starting about mid-morning, I began the hike as if I were
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running a race-pacing and pushing myself over hills, up
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switch-backs, past ridge tops that baked in the sun and
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slopes that languished in shady canopy. I had been working
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out consistently before the trip, so I viewed the hike as
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a sort of test."
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- Jay Hipps, Petaluma, California, USA
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CUSTOM AND EXERCISE
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"I remember being dragged off on cross country runs in
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freezing (literally) weather wearing only shorts and a
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T-shirt (with the games master dressed in a track suit,
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gloves, woolly hat, pullover, etc.). In fact when I think
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about it, most of my childhood experiences with Physical
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Education were overwhelmingly negative."
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- Dr. Euan Taylor, Vancouver, Canada
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THE RUNNER NEXT DOOR
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"However, contrary to popular belief, most runners are, by
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nature, unhealthy. They shun doctors, run themselves into
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the ground and wonder why they are not setting pr's. And
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because obsessiveness is also a characteristic of the
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runner (almost a given in marathon and in ultra-distance
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runners), they may shun food altogether as well, not
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wishing to carry anything extra around those 25 laps on
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the track."
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- Sheila Eldred, Oxford, UK
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AN INVITATION TO FENCING
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"Fencing is about an interchange of ideas - ideas intended
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to deceive or surprise. Fencing is about thinking and
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transferring thoughts into action at the maximum rate and
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with the maximum precision."
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- Theo Norvell, Toronto, Canada
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Departments
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-----------
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DEBATE ROOM
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"Although TV shows are starting to sport gay characters in
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their regular line-ups, these characters rarely lead
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realistic lives on screen. Of all the flirting, touching,
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kissing and steamy love scenes we are constantly bombarded
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with, how many occur between gay characters?"
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- Euan Taylor, Paul Gribble and Jon Gould
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MUSIC NOTES: FEATURE
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"Even a quick glance at this year's selections reveals a
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very real difference from previous Lollapaloozii. This
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cast is closer to the original intent of the all-day
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mega-concert."
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- Russell Weinberger, Davis, California, USA
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MUSIC NOTES: REVIEWS
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This month, Ken reviews Van Morrison, Boz Scaggs, Alison
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Moyet, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Sir Douglas Quintet,
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Stanley Jordan, McCoy Tyner Big Band, and Cyrus Chestnut.
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- Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
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DEJA VU
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"50 years later some of us seem to be pro-longing that
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day, not wanting it to end. How else to explain my arrival
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from the States to accompany one of the many 'D-Day
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Remembered' tours with about 20 of my alma mater's alumni?"
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- Andrew B. Shaindlin, Providence, Rhode Island , USA
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=============
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EDITOR'S NOTE
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=============
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Hello all! As you may have noticed, Teletimes has not been
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published for several months. We were planning to release a
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new edition in a format called "Replica" but have had to
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postpone it indefinately because of technical problems. This
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caused a huge slow-down in production, but you'll be happy
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to know that we're getting back on track and have some great
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things planned for the next few months.
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Staff Positions Available
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-------------------------
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Teletimes has gone through incredible growth since it began
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in October 1992. Since Teletimes won the Best of the Net
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award in June, interest in the magazine has never been
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higher. Along with this new popularity and growth has come a
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lot of extra work. Unfortunately we do not have enough
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people to handle the extra workload, so I'd like to announce
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the following list of available positions. Please note that
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people will be hired on a volunteer basis initially.
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Section Editors
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---------------
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People who are quite comfortable with the Internet and
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possibly have publishing experience and/or interest are
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needed as section editors. Section editors will be in charge
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of a defined section of Teletimes. Their tasks will involve
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finding and corresponding with potential writers, making
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sure that there is sufficient material in each section,
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rejecting articles which do not meet standards, and
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generally working directly with writers and correspondents
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for their area of the magazine. Sections which need editors
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are the Features section (monthly theme) and one or two
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editors to help out with running certain columns in the
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Departments section.
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Illustrators
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------------
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We need a couple of creative people to help out with
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illustrating articles and helping out with cover design. To
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get more information about what is involved, please e-mail
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our Art Director, Anand Mani (me@armani.com).
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Internet Guru
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-------------
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We need a person who is extremely knowledgeably about the
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Internet to help with technical questions/problems related
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to the magazine. This person might also help out with online
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marketing and distribution.
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Writers
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-------
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We need lots of writers, especially from outside of North
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America, to write for us. Monthly topics are provided as
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guidelines, but there are also some specialty columns which
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people may enjoy writing for. Female writers are extremely
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welcome as we'd like to try and even out the male-female
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ratio on our staff.
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If you are interested in any of these positions, or think
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there is some other way you could help out with Teletimes,
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please e-mail us your resume.
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- Ian Wojtowicz, Vancouver, Canada
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editor@teletimes.com
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=======
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MAILBOX
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=======
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Reactions to our Award
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----------------------
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Congratulations!!!! You're doing a damn fine job!!
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Greg Vogel
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San Diego, USA
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Congratulations! I've always appreciated your work, and am
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looking forward to lots of interesting articles to come.
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Awaji Yoshimasa
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Kisarazu, Japan
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Great magazine. I like the pictures, and I look forward to
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your Photon issue!
|
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Jeffrey E. Richardson
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Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
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Response to "Academic Freedom"
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------------------------------
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After reading the Debate Room column on "Academic Freedom"
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in the April issue, I have to make a few comments.
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While I mostly agree with Paul Gribble, my opinion comes
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with a few caveats related to Dr. Taylor's comments.
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While I do feel that a University must support freedom of
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speech, especially freedom to espouse unpopular positions,
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this does not mean to me that they have the right to say
|
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just anything in the classrooms and lecture halls. As an
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undergraduate, the most painful classroom moments came when
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the instructor was nattering on about some topic with little
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relevance to the course description in the catalog. As a
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student I was paying my own good money for that class time,
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and I didn't want it wasted.
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My personal favorite example was in an introductory course
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in Artificial Intelligence. I took this course during the
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period when the Strategic Defence Initiative was a hot
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issue. Our instructor thought that SDI was a horrible/evil
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idea and took up many a classroom hour explaining why in
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horrendous detail. Now, while it can be argued that there is
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some relation as computers would have to be used in any
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system such as SDI, this is more an issue for a Computers
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and Social Responsibility class (which did exist at that
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University). Very little AI was learned that semester. A
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year or so later I ran into an ex student of the same
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instructor from the early 70's who told me that back then
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this instructor was doing the same thing with the Vietnam
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War, including trying to organize the students in a sit-in.
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I partially agree with his opinions, but I wasn't paying for
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them. I was paying for an introductory survey of AI,
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hopefully relatively balanced. I wouldn't even have minded
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so much if his presentation of the issues of SDI had been
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more balanced. Checking the journals at the time, the
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software engineering community was close to evenly divided
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as to the practicality of the SDI system.
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In short, the academic community has another responsibility,
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to their students, to teach the subject matter that the
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students are paying for. Too many students I have met have
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had similar complaints and the situation is getting worse as
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tuitions increase.
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Thanks for the soapbox
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John Dougan
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Vancouver, Canada
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Great Graphics
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--------------
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You have done a lovely job, and I am thoroughly impressed.
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Did you draw your own graphics? How? They are as good as any
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by professionals I know. I am looking to step into
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electronic publishing now, and you are clearly the standard
|
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setter! Good for you! Count me in on your mailing list!!
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Antoinette Burnham
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Washington D.C., USA
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Anand Mani Responds:
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Thank you. I produce all of the icongraphics in Fractal
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Painter using a Wacom tablet. I am an illustrator and
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iconographer by profession; most of my work being produced
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for companies. My work can also be found in Adbusters
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Quarterly. Electronic publishing is an exciting new field
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and I wish you the best of luck.
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E-Zine Recommendations?
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-----------------------
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I've been looking for good e-zines but been disappointed.
|
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I'm not much interested in reading about music -- and the
|
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mid-eighties style 'zines moved over to the Net seem to lean
|
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toward the weakness they had in the original form. The
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formats of low-budget publishing and of e-zine appeal to me
|
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greatly but as with TV the reality is bleak (a real dirth of
|
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quality content)...yet I certainly don't have the talent to
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remedy the situation myself.
|
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I picked up 3 recent issues of your publication while "World
|
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Wide Webbing" around. The quality is superior. I think you
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are doing good work. Are there fellow e-publications of
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similar merit you can recommend?
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Daniel Amin
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St. Louis, MO, USA
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Ian Wojtowicz Responds:
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Well, I probably don't spend enough time reading other
|
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electronic publications, but I can recommend InterText as a
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good fiction magazine. For some better recommendations, try
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e-mailing John Labovitz (johnl@ora.com). He compiles an
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extensive list of e-zines and could probably recommend a few
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for you.
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Response to The Wine Enthusiast
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-------------------------------
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Greetings. I was browsing around the Web and came across
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your zine, and even scanned the article in the April '94
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issue by Tom Davis, on Beers. A nice general introduction to
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the topic, but he incorrectly cited Yuengling Brewery as
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being in Boston. It is in fact in Pottsville, Pennsylvania,
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and lists itself as America's oldest brewery (since 1826).
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It is still run by the same family.
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They make a pretty nice Black & Tan, and their Lord
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Chesterfield Ale isn't bad either. They also do a Porter,
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but I'm not one for that style, so I can't comment on their
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version.
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Rita Melnick
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Baltimore, USA
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========
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FEATURES
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========
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The Tao of Hiking
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-----------------
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"Travelling is a fool's paradise... At home I dream that at
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Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose
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my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on
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the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me
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is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical,
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that I fled from."
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- Ralph Waldo Emerson, from *Self Reliance*
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It's safe to say that Emerson didn't think too much of those
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who undertook recreational travel. His attitude seemed to be,
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"a fool at home is a fool abroad," and so be it. Trying to
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lose oneself in any experience is playing a fool's game --
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when it's over, you'll still have yourself to contend with.
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It reminds me of a quote from the film character Buckaroo
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Banzai: "No matter where you go, there you are."
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Perhaps Emerson would look more kindly on backpacking.
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Backpacking takes us into the wilds not only geographically
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but spiritually as well. The distractions of our everyday
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lives are taken away, the annoyances of school, career, and
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competitive advancement replaced with a simple set of
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activities: cooking, walking, eating, and making camp. In
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such a setting it's nearly impossible to avoid recognizing
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who you are and coming to terms with yourself. Nature
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provides an unusually uncompromising mirror. I suppose this
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could also be experienced in a solitary cell at your local
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state prison, but backpacking is a much more pleasant way of
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accomplishing the same thing.
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Unless you've done it, it's hard to understand the
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experience. To begin with, a backpacking trip is the
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ultimate in self reliance: it's you and nature. Everything
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necessary for your survival you must carry with you. The
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food you eat and the water you drink are up to your devices
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-- either pack it in or purify it. Your shelter and the
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level of comfort it gives you are up to you as well.
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My wife and I recently returned from a three-day trip in Big
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Sur, California, which was also my first backpacking trip.
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My mindset changed dramatically over the course of the days
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we were gone. On the way in -- a relatively strenuous seven-
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mile hike up and into the coastal mountains -- I focused my
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attention completely on reaching camp, our day's ultimate
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goal. Starting about mid-morning, I began the hike as if I
|
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were running a race-pacing and pushing myself over hills, up
|
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|
switchbacks, past ridge tops that baked in the sun and
|
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|
slopes that languished in shady canopy. I had been working
|
|||
|
out consistently before the trip, so I viewed the hike as a
|
|||
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sort of test. I stopped the times my wife needed to rest,
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made insinuations as we waited that she would probably be
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making better time if she had been working out too, and
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trudged on.
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We eventually reached camp only to face a variation on
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Emerson's travel query: once you get away from it all, what
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do you do when you're there? Being away from it all means
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that you can't hide yourself in television or other
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diversions. Having no grand task to set about doing, I was
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left with just myself and the woods. This is where the
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miracle happened -- my senses began to clear from the
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dynamics of life as I usually live it -- filled with
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deadlines, driving, the din of the media, and the hum of my
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hard drive. Instead there was the sound of a river running
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its course, insects serenading the evening breeze, and the
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smell of coastal wildflowers in bloom. All the hard edges to
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life that I had accepted as givens faded away as the natural
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dynamics of life on earth moved to the forefront. The sun
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fell to reveal more stars than can be viewed in a city
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month, and I slept. The following days were a joy. Instead
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of focusing on the destination, I began to enjoy wherever I
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was on the way. Finally reaching the destination was great,
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too, and allowed for selection of a new goal -- but the path
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on the way was more than just an obstacle standing between
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me and where I wished to be.
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|
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Unanticipated problems confronted us and were dealt with in
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the best way possible at the time. My sense of adventure
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returned along with my curiosity. I'm sure that there are
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other recreational activities that give the same results.
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Backpacking isn't the only way toward self-knowledge, but it
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does provide a useful metaphor. How often do we focus on
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achieving a goal, forsaking all enjoyment until we reach it?
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Or refuse to move in a new direction because we can't
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anticipate all the obstacles we might encounter? These are
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all lessons taught by the trail. I wonder what I'll learn on
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|||
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my next trip.
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|
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|
- Jay Hipps, Petaluma, CA, USA
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|||
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jhipps@crl.com
|
|||
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|
|||
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|
|||
|
Custom and Exercise
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|||
|
-------------------
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
I was thinking about the theme for this month's issue while
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|||
|
I was jogging the other day. My mind conjured up images of
|
|||
|
my schooldays. I remember being dragged off on cross country
|
|||
|
runs in freezing (literally) weather wearing only shorts and
|
|||
|
a T-shirt (with the games master dressed in a track suit,
|
|||
|
gloves, woolly hat, pullover, etc. I'm sure plenty of you
|
|||
|
know the scene). In fact when I think about it, most of my
|
|||
|
childhood experiences with Physical Education were
|
|||
|
overwhelmingly negative. Whenever I could avoid Phys. Ed.
|
|||
|
(or P.E. as we called it in England), I did.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Once I finished school, I (eventually) took to fairly
|
|||
|
regularly running and swimming, the former at University
|
|||
|
where about 7 years after my last compulsory cross country,
|
|||
|
I went jogging down the river at the end of a long evening
|
|||
|
studying. The latter took place rather later (slightly more
|
|||
|
than fifteen years after my last school swimming lesson). In
|
|||
|
fact when I think about Phys. Ed. I am uncomfortably aware
|
|||
|
of some very negative stereotypes. So I before I launched
|
|||
|
into a wildly prejudiced opinion column on the subject I
|
|||
|
decided to find out something more about it.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
I wondered how a such a department at a university compares
|
|||
|
to my experience of other University Departments. What kind
|
|||
|
of people work there? What sort of training takes you into a
|
|||
|
career in Physical Education, etc. My expectations were very
|
|||
|
uncertain, mostly featuring old men in tracksuits and lots
|
|||
|
of shouting. So I spoke to Professor Robert Schutz of the
|
|||
|
School of Human Kinetics at U.B.C. (University of British
|
|||
|
Columbia) here in Vancouver to get an inside perspective on
|
|||
|
a range of questions. It turns out my own preconceptions are
|
|||
|
not unusual, in fact that type of reaction is one of the
|
|||
|
reasons the name was changed from School of Physical
|
|||
|
Education and Recreation the more appealing "Human Kinetics"
|
|||
|
which lacks some of those negative (or at least
|
|||
|
stereotypical) associations. Mention Phys. Ed. and
|
|||
|
practically everyone thinks of volleyball, rugby or
|
|||
|
whatever, and someone screaming "come on, RUN!" The physical
|
|||
|
rather than the cerebral.<P>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
It is, says Schutz, "a prejudice we fight all the time." The
|
|||
|
School is in fact quite separate from Athletics which is a
|
|||
|
separate entity. The Faculty includes people who have no
|
|||
|
interest at all in sports as such. Its work covers a wide
|
|||
|
range of activities, and he makes a point of correcting me
|
|||
|
when I talk of "training," he prefers to talk of
|
|||
|
"education," and points out that they have faculty members
|
|||
|
funded by the Medical Research Council, The Social Sciences
|
|||
|
and Engineering Research Council, NSERC, and others, just
|
|||
|
like any other faculty. He sums up by recounting a
|
|||
|
conversation with a Wisconsin bus driver towards the end of
|
|||
|
his three year doctoral study in mathematical psychology and
|
|||
|
computer science (he started out as a mathematics and sports
|
|||
|
teacher).
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
"What do you do?" the driver asked.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
"Well, I'm finishing my Ph.D."
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
"What in?"
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
"Physical Education."
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
"Wow, how many push ups can you do?"
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Given my own experiences I wondered how much the quality of
|
|||
|
the Phys. Ed. experience was valued both within and without
|
|||
|
the subject. The "party line" is that positive experiences
|
|||
|
at a younger age encourage participation later and even when
|
|||
|
participation is not voluntary it seems it may have some
|
|||
|
connection with activity at later stages of life. Schutz
|
|||
|
believes that one of the things which contributes to a
|
|||
|
helpful environment is a healthy level of competition, but
|
|||
|
"healthy" is defined rather differently from what my
|
|||
|
preconceptions might have told me. In fact there has been a
|
|||
|
good deal published about the effects of competition, the
|
|||
|
National Coaching Association has even published guidelines
|
|||
|
outlining the desirable levels of competition for different
|
|||
|
age groups. The overall feeling seems to be that at certain
|
|||
|
ages at least, declaring a winner should be avoided, and
|
|||
|
Schutz himself prefers to emphasize the participation in
|
|||
|
competition rather than who wins and who loses. In fact he
|
|||
|
had raised one of the problems I had been loosely thinking
|
|||
|
about myself. The disincentive an unhealthy competitive
|
|||
|
environment can provide when only the winners get any
|
|||
|
positive feedback and everyone else is a loser -- leaving
|
|||
|
the experience with very negative impressions. I vividly
|
|||
|
recall a very strong "winner" ethic -- explicitly stated or
|
|||
|
otherwise. There were empty phrases that went with it "its
|
|||
|
not winning that matters," but school and society around one
|
|||
|
made it quite clear by their behaviour that winning was all
|
|||
|
that really mattered.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
I retain the uneasy feeling that however noble ones
|
|||
|
conscious sentiments about the subject (and by no means
|
|||
|
everyone would agree that obsessive competitiveness is
|
|||
|
altogether a bad thing), changes of policy do not
|
|||
|
necessarily find expression in changed attitudes at a deeper
|
|||
|
level. Attitudes and beliefs are expressed by far more than
|
|||
|
simply what we tell each other verbally or even consciously.
|
|||
|
But then I "did my time" (as I think of it) on the other
|
|||
|
side of the Atlantic and I wondered if there was some
|
|||
|
difference in the Canadian perception of sports as opposed
|
|||
|
to other nations. As it turns out, Schutz himself along with
|
|||
|
a colleague (Frank Small) at the University of Washington
|
|||
|
did research in that area. Generally, he thinks that
|
|||
|
psychologically the values associated with sports remain
|
|||
|
very similar across Canada, the US and Europe. However, he
|
|||
|
noted that whilst many US institutions absolutely require
|
|||
|
their students to take part in one or two semesters of Phys.
|
|||
|
Ed. courses, he is aware of no Canadian Universities that
|
|||
|
have such a requirement, a fact which may reflect some
|
|||
|
underlying differences in the philosophy of the two
|
|||
|
countries. In fact it seems that (in general) parents,
|
|||
|
teachers and students all value Physical Education pretty
|
|||
|
much equally with (if not higher than) other subjects, up
|
|||
|
until having to compete for university places, then it
|
|||
|
drops somewhat in the list of priorities (you don't need
|
|||
|
Phys. Ed. to get into college, but you do need a lot of
|
|||
|
other things).
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Well, if there were no big national differences I wondered
|
|||
|
if there were province to province differences. After all
|
|||
|
the possibilities in British Columbia (with an accessible
|
|||
|
coastline, mountains all over the place, and fairly stable
|
|||
|
weather) are very different from Manitoba (-40C on a bad day
|
|||
|
and chronically cold all winter, no realistically accessible
|
|||
|
coastline, and inescapably flat), you might think that aside
|
|||
|
from the inevitable differences in what sports people do,
|
|||
|
there might also be differences in attitude to it.
|
|||
|
Apparently not however, the only variation that Schutz could
|
|||
|
suggest was that in BC people may tend to be more active
|
|||
|
(because there is more variety of available activities), but
|
|||
|
at the same time that fitness monitoring programmes are less
|
|||
|
active here. I wonder if it is simply that the assessment
|
|||
|
programmes a re most used where people have the least choice
|
|||
|
of what they can do, where people have more choice they are
|
|||
|
out doing something rather than worrying about how much
|
|||
|
exercise they ought to be taking. In any case there is
|
|||
|
little doubt that public exercise is financially significant
|
|||
|
both because of the commerce related to sporting activities
|
|||
|
and because of the probable health costs of unhealthy life
|
|||
|
styles including leading a very inactive life and not
|
|||
|
maintaining a "healthy" level of fitness.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
I was certainly surprised by the reality of a Phys. Ed.
|
|||
|
Faculty compared to my one dimensional preconceptions. Above
|
|||
|
all, I was pleased to find that the things which had left me
|
|||
|
(and I think most of my schoolfriends) with such negative
|
|||
|
impressions have in fact been recognized by professionals in
|
|||
|
the Phys. Ed. area. Whether that has translated or ever will
|
|||
|
translate into a changed mindset in society at large is
|
|||
|
something we shall just have to wait and see.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Dr. Euan Taylor, Vancouver, Canada
|
|||
|
ertaylor@unixg.ubc.ca
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Runner Next Door
|
|||
|
--------------------
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
If the terms "negative splits," "fartleks," "polyurethane
|
|||
|
midsoles," "butt-kicks," and "LSD runs" fail to conjure up
|
|||
|
any corresponding images in your mind, at least you'll admit
|
|||
|
that this jargon sounds rather intriguing. It's runners'
|
|||
|
talk, and they can spew this stuff for hours on end. To
|
|||
|
become proficient yourself, read on and learn all about the
|
|||
|
inner workings of that skinny guy in the purple tights you
|
|||
|
almost ran over with the snow plow the other day.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
6:15 a.m.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Alarm. A dedicated runner's day often starts with an easy
|
|||
|
run in the morning in preparation for a hard workout later
|
|||
|
in the day. Following this typical 5-miler, the healthy
|
|||
|
runner will consume vast quantities of cereal, explaining
|
|||
|
that she is replenishing her glycogen supplies. However,
|
|||
|
contrary to popular belief, most runners are, by nature,
|
|||
|
unhealthy. They shun doctors, run themselves into the ground
|
|||
|
and wonder why they are not setting pr's. And because
|
|||
|
obsessiveness is also a characteristic of the runner (almost
|
|||
|
a given in marathon and in ultra-distance runners), they may
|
|||
|
shun food altogether as well, not wishing to carry anything
|
|||
|
extra around those 25 laps on the track.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
12:00 Noon
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Runners will either use their lunch break to (surprise) go
|
|||
|
for a run, although the netheads -- those of you reading
|
|||
|
this article, for example -- may also use this time to catch
|
|||
|
up with their virtual running partners.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
5:00 p.m.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Off to the track for an interval session. Here the runner
|
|||
|
may come into contact with the jogger. In order not to
|
|||
|
offend runners, it is crucial to understand the difference
|
|||
|
between running and jogging and to use these terms
|
|||
|
appropriately. When in doubt, always use the word "runner;"
|
|||
|
a jogger won't know the difference anyway. Basically, a
|
|||
|
"runner" runs to improve; a "jogger" jogs to lose weight, to
|
|||
|
be healthy, or to cross-train. With some practice, you'll
|
|||
|
immediately be able to tell the difference -- that man
|
|||
|
wearing the headphones, Ked sneakers, and fuchsia sweat
|
|||
|
ensemble is a jogger. But that woman who zoomed by so fast
|
|||
|
you couldn't tell if she was wearing anything, she is a
|
|||
|
runner. Once at the track, the runner will probably think
|
|||
|
about stretching, and may even succumb to bending over a bit
|
|||
|
before going for a warmup "jog." (The term 'jog' can be used
|
|||
|
here as in this case it is preliminary to the "run" -- real
|
|||
|
runners do jog occasionally.) The track session could
|
|||
|
include any number of intervals, ladders, or repeats, but
|
|||
|
most likely it will leave the runner tired and famished,
|
|||
|
ready to finally head home. If he doesn't fall asleep over
|
|||
|
his fifth plate of pasta, the runner may engage in some non-
|
|||
|
running-related activities before bed.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Of course, this is only an ordinary day in an typical
|
|||
|
runner's life. Often, though, races disrupt this normal
|
|||
|
flow, for as much as a week previous to the actual day of
|
|||
|
the race (depending on the race's distance and importance).
|
|||
|
During pre-race periods, it's important to be careful what
|
|||
|
you say to a runner. Don't say the wrong thing (or the right
|
|||
|
thing at the wrong time), anything at all at certain times,
|
|||
|
or nothing at other times. This, too, will take some
|
|||
|
practice. Don't feel insulted if a runner ignores you during
|
|||
|
this period; in fact, you may want to ignore anything she
|
|||
|
says until after the race. But be careful about post-race
|
|||
|
comments as well, and follow the same pre-race guidelines
|
|||
|
about what to say.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
A final comment: despite anything you've just read to the
|
|||
|
contrary, runners are actually some of the most intriguing
|
|||
|
people on this planet. Don't be intimidated by them -- they
|
|||
|
won't bite, and they'll tell you more than you ever wanted
|
|||
|
to know about their current overuse injury if you just ask.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Sheila Eldred, Oxford, UK
|
|||
|
sheila.eldred@keble.oxford.ac.uk
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
An Invitation to Fencing
|
|||
|
------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The image of fencing is sometimes confused with the clashing
|
|||
|
of swords seen in the movies, from the classic exploits of
|
|||
|
Errol Flynn to the latest incarnation of The Three
|
|||
|
Musketeers. When fencers see sword fighting on the silver
|
|||
|
screen they are almost always disappointed by the lack of
|
|||
|
thought that is displayed in the fights. For fencing is
|
|||
|
about an interchange of ideas -- ideas intended to deceive
|
|||
|
or surprise. Fencing is about thinking and transferring
|
|||
|
thoughts into action at the maximum rate and with the
|
|||
|
maximum precision.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Of course movie sword fighting is not intended to be
|
|||
|
fencing, but as many people have seen more sword play on the
|
|||
|
movie screen than in a fencing competition, perhaps a few
|
|||
|
words about how these two activities differ is one way to
|
|||
|
convey some of the spirit of the modern sport. For example
|
|||
|
in the movies the sword-fighters often just launch
|
|||
|
themselves into the action and then start banging away. But
|
|||
|
a big part of fencing is in choosing the best moment for
|
|||
|
attack and this involves a certain amount of legwork in
|
|||
|
order to lure the opponent into a false step or a false
|
|||
|
sense of security. A second example is that when an attack
|
|||
|
is begun to the head--for example--it finishes on the head,
|
|||
|
or more often is blocked by a parry. This may be realistic
|
|||
|
with a period sword, but with the light weapons used in
|
|||
|
modern fencing, an important aspect of the game is to
|
|||
|
conceal the intended target of a thrust by threatening
|
|||
|
another, or to change the intended target on the fly in
|
|||
|
response to the opponents defensive actions. One thing that
|
|||
|
the movies and fencing do share, though, is passion. Whether
|
|||
|
fighting for one's life or for a medal, fencing requires a
|
|||
|
complete focusing of one's mental energy on the task of
|
|||
|
striking the opponent.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Fencing can be done with any one of three different types of
|
|||
|
weapons (fencers do not tend to use the word "sword"), each
|
|||
|
with slightly different rules: Foil, Sabre, and Epee. All
|
|||
|
three share a great deal in terms of technique, but each has
|
|||
|
its own distinctive character and athletes of a high calibre
|
|||
|
generally concentrate their training and competition in one
|
|||
|
of the three weapons.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Foil
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Ironically, the roots of fencing go back to the introduction
|
|||
|
of gunpowder into Europe and the invention of the gun. This
|
|||
|
innovation made armour ineffective and that meant an end to
|
|||
|
the heavy two handed swords that were needed in order to
|
|||
|
make an impression on a man in armour. Swords became lighter
|
|||
|
and were used less for warfare and more for self-defense and
|
|||
|
for duelling. In order to train for duelling in a non lethal
|
|||
|
way, swords were tipped with a dull point and certain
|
|||
|
conventions of scoring were introduced with the intention of
|
|||
|
instilling the habits that would prove most useful in a
|
|||
|
duel. The rules of Foil can be understood in these terms. In
|
|||
|
a duel with weapons such as the shortsword popular with the
|
|||
|
French nobility of the 17th century, it is important to hit
|
|||
|
with a thrust and to hit a vital part of the body. In Foil
|
|||
|
points can only be scored when the tip of the weapon lands
|
|||
|
on the torso of the opponent; the arms and legs are deemed
|
|||
|
not vital enough, and the head was not a suitable target in
|
|||
|
practice, until the development of the fencing mask.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Furthermore, as it is small satisfaction to seriously wound
|
|||
|
ones opponent in a duel only a split second before one is
|
|||
|
seriously wounded oneself, Foil fencing does not award
|
|||
|
points solely based on who hit first. Instead the rules
|
|||
|
encourage defensive play by dictating that an attack must be
|
|||
|
defended against before a valid response--or riposte--can be
|
|||
|
given. Thus the right to attack ("right of way") goes back
|
|||
|
and forth like the ball in tennis. In the case of hits
|
|||
|
arriving at about the same time, the point is scored by the
|
|||
|
fencer who had "right of way."
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Much of the essence of foil comes from the fast exchange of
|
|||
|
the right of way and the consequent alternation of attack
|
|||
|
and defense. The fencers will generally move along the strip
|
|||
|
"pushing" and "pulling" each other with threats and retreats
|
|||
|
either looking for the best moment to attack, or attempting
|
|||
|
to fool the opponent into believing the advantage is his
|
|||
|
when it isn't. It usually doesn't take long before one of
|
|||
|
the fencers takes the plunge and attacks -- typically
|
|||
|
pushing off the back foot into a lunge. If the defender
|
|||
|
cannot (or chooses not) to step away, he or she will try to
|
|||
|
"parry" the attack and if successful will "riposte." Now the
|
|||
|
tables are turned and the original attacker must defend and
|
|||
|
may be able to make a riposte back ("counter-riposte").
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
This is the basic pattern but it comes in a splendid
|
|||
|
variety. The attack may be made directly or might involve
|
|||
|
some preparatory attacking of the defender's blade. The
|
|||
|
defense can be made with a number of different parries. The
|
|||
|
defender may even decide not to parry, but rather attempt to
|
|||
|
force the attacker to miss by either stepping back or even
|
|||
|
stepping forward. The attacker may deceive (avoid contact
|
|||
|
with) the parry and continue the attack either to the same
|
|||
|
area of the torso or another. The method of deceiving the
|
|||
|
parry depends on which type of parry is used and thus
|
|||
|
requires extremely fast reaction or careful reading of what
|
|||
|
the defender is most likely to do. If the first parry is
|
|||
|
deceived, the defender may have time to form a second parry
|
|||
|
-- especially if the first parry was a mere ruse and the
|
|||
|
second was part of the original plan. Once the parry is made
|
|||
|
everything turns a round the defender is now attacking with
|
|||
|
a riposte and the attacker must defend against it. The
|
|||
|
riposter may attempt to hit with simple thrust, or may
|
|||
|
deceive the original attackers parry. You may think this
|
|||
|
could go on for quite a while, but usually either a hit is
|
|||
|
made, or someone defends by re t reating and the game of
|
|||
|
looking for just the right moment to attack starts again.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Sabre
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Sabre is descended from the cavalry sabre. The version
|
|||
|
used in competition though is a far cry from it's heavy
|
|||
|
antecedent. It is light and quick. Points may be scored
|
|||
|
either with a thrust as in Foil or with the side of the
|
|||
|
blade, the latter is called a "cut." The target is the
|
|||
|
entire body above the waist including the head and arms. The
|
|||
|
conventions concerning the right to hit are the same as in
|
|||
|
Foil.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Because the parries must defend against cuts from many
|
|||
|
angles, they require fairly large movements, this makes them
|
|||
|
more easily deceived with some fast fingerwork than in Foil
|
|||
|
and shifts the advantage towards the attack. Thus there is
|
|||
|
little waiting a round in sabre, one or the other fencer
|
|||
|
will soon attack -- and often both attack at the same time.
|
|||
|
Thus one aspect of its cavalry heritage Sabre has not lost
|
|||
|
is the charge. But that is not to say that Sabre is merely a
|
|||
|
race to see who can attack first. Tricking your opponent
|
|||
|
into attacking at the wrong time can lead to a fairly easy
|
|||
|
parry and riposte. And the fact that the arm is target makes
|
|||
|
the attacker susceptible to being hit on the wrist as he or
|
|||
|
she prepares for the attack. The exchange of attacks parries
|
|||
|
and ripostes seen in Foil is also seen in Sabre, but the
|
|||
|
emphasis is perhaps even more on attacking at the right time
|
|||
|
with the right distance.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Epee
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Epee is a direct descendant of the short sword used by
|
|||
|
courtiers for duelling. As honour was generally satisfied by
|
|||
|
drawing first blood, in Epee points are scored by hitting
|
|||
|
first, anywhere on the body. The conventions of right of way
|
|||
|
do not apply. As with the Foil, the Epee is strictly a
|
|||
|
thrusting weapon, hits with the edge are not counted. The
|
|||
|
absence of conventions that put an emphasis on parrying
|
|||
|
means that the best defense in Epée is often a good
|
|||
|
offense. If your opponent attacks the body, it may be
|
|||
|
possible to attack them back on the arm, the difference of
|
|||
|
distance translates to a difference in time and the "counter
|
|||
|
attack" to the arm is likely to get the point. Even an
|
|||
|
attack to the arm can be defended against by a thrust that
|
|||
|
defends with the guard of the weapon and counter attacks
|
|||
|
with the tip. Of course the option to parry is still there.
|
|||
|
It is ironic, but the absence of conventions to promote
|
|||
|
defending makes attacking a risky proposition. Thus Epee,
|
|||
|
more than foil and much more than sabre, can be a waiting
|
|||
|
game. But it is an active waiting. The feet are constantly
|
|||
|
being used to push or pull the opponent. The hand is busy
|
|||
|
making false attacks to test the defenses and to disguise
|
|||
|
the real attack when it comes. The eyes are busy learning
|
|||
|
the reactions of the opponent to each action. And the
|
|||
|
fingers are feeling the reaction of the opponent whenever
|
|||
|
the blades meet.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
When the attack does come, if it is not a short attack to an
|
|||
|
ill-defended part of the arm, it is often done in such a way
|
|||
|
as to neutralize any possible defense. For example the
|
|||
|
"envelopment" is a spiralling thrust made with the point
|
|||
|
towards the target so as to pick up the opponents blade on
|
|||
|
the way in. This pushes the opponent's point safely out of
|
|||
|
the way and makes the angle of his or her blade
|
|||
|
unfavourable for a successful parry.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Doesn't it Hurt?
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The typical hit in fencing noticable, but doesn't hurt. The
|
|||
|
occasional hit will sting for a bit and may leave a small
|
|||
|
red mark for a day or two.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Fencing is one of the safest sports there is. An Ontario
|
|||
|
Government study found that of all sports surveyed it was
|
|||
|
second only to lawn bowling in it's safety record. In recent
|
|||
|
years the introduction of better equipment has made it even
|
|||
|
safer. Most injuries are of the nature of twisted ankles or
|
|||
|
pulled ligaments. It is possible for a broken blade to
|
|||
|
penetrate the protective clothing, but this is extremely
|
|||
|
rare.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Learning to Fence
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Fencing is an enjoyable sport or pastime for people of all
|
|||
|
ages. It is my observation and that of other fencers and
|
|||
|
coaches that almost anyone can learn to fence well -- that
|
|||
|
is at a level where one begins to touch on the beauty of the
|
|||
|
sport. The only prerequisite is enough dedication to stick
|
|||
|
with it for a while.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The learning curve for fencing is generally quite long. In
|
|||
|
few other sports do you have to learn to walk all over again
|
|||
|
and learn to make finger movements as fine as are used in
|
|||
|
writing while holding a half kilogram mass in your hand.
|
|||
|
When I learned to fence we were taught the basic footwork
|
|||
|
and handwork for three months before being allowed to engage
|
|||
|
in any sort of bouting. Nowadays most teachers will get to
|
|||
|
bouting a lot sooner (perhaps even on the first day), but it
|
|||
|
still takes about three months before ones basic ability is
|
|||
|
at a level where the bouting starts to resemble fencing. Of
|
|||
|
course a good teacher will manage to make that initial
|
|||
|
learning time rewarding and enjoyable.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Although there are three different weapons, there is a core
|
|||
|
of skills and ideas common to all three. Thus it doesn't
|
|||
|
matter which weapon you are taught first. So if you are
|
|||
|
hell-bent to become a sabreur, but the local club teaches
|
|||
|
Epee first, don't worry, almost everything you are taught
|
|||
|
will be useful for all three weapons.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Once the basic technical skills are sufficiently mastered
|
|||
|
comes the most intangible part of learning: learning to
|
|||
|
apply those skills appropriately against an opponent doing
|
|||
|
their utmost to confound you. This is a never-ending process
|
|||
|
of self-improvement. There are always better fencers and a
|
|||
|
reaction can always be made just a millisecond sooner.
|
|||
|
Beyond technique there is tactics: picking the moment,
|
|||
|
picking the attack, combining footwork and handwork
|
|||
|
appropriately, deciding what attacks are likely and what to
|
|||
|
do first in each case; and beyond tactics there is strategy:
|
|||
|
deciding if it is better to attack or defend, deciding if it
|
|||
|
is better to dominate the footwork or respond to the
|
|||
|
opponent's footwork, deciding whether to repeat a previously
|
|||
|
successful tactic (because it was successful), avoid it
|
|||
|
(because it will be expected), or elaborate on it (for
|
|||
|
example begin the same way, but finish differently).
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Fencing is usually taught in fencing clubs either private
|
|||
|
or associated with larger bodies such as universities or the
|
|||
|
local Y. Most clubs will have classes for beginners at least
|
|||
|
once a year. To find out about clubs near you the easiest
|
|||
|
thing is either to check local universities or to contact
|
|||
|
the national fencing organization. The addresses of three of
|
|||
|
these are listed at the end of this article and also the
|
|||
|
address of the international governing body.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The highest level of teacher is a "master" or "maitre" who
|
|||
|
will have had extensive experience and passed exams set by
|
|||
|
the national organization.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Competitive & Recreational Fencing
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Some fencers are satisfied to fence with the other members
|
|||
|
of their club and engage in friendly competition with their
|
|||
|
comrades. Others seek new challenges and test their progress
|
|||
|
by competing on a local, national, or international level.
|
|||
|
Fencing has been an Olympic sport since the first modern
|
|||
|
games in 1896.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Both men and women complete in all three weapons -- although
|
|||
|
at the international level women's sabre is not yet
|
|||
|
recognized. Competitions are also often broken into age
|
|||
|
groups so that younger fencers do not have to complete
|
|||
|
against much more experienced competitors. There are no
|
|||
|
weight divisions as size confers little advantage except in
|
|||
|
Epee where long arms can be useful.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Fencing bouts in competitions are observed by referees who
|
|||
|
keep track of the score, start and stop bouts, award
|
|||
|
penalties when rules are broken, and--in Foil and Sabre--
|
|||
|
decide which fencer had the right to hit when there are hits
|
|||
|
close in time. The referee is assisted by an electrical
|
|||
|
system that senses hits made on target. In Foil and Sabre
|
|||
|
the competitors wear electrically conductive clothing and in
|
|||
|
Foil and Epee each weapon is tipped with a small spring
|
|||
|
loaded button.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Recreational fencers will find fencing an excellent source
|
|||
|
of fitness. Whereas running, swimming, and cycling are
|
|||
|
calmingly repetitive and aerobics has a certain pack appeal,
|
|||
|
fencing allows an infinite variety of creative expression
|
|||
|
while providing a combination of aerobic and anaerobic
|
|||
|
conditioning.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Competitive fencers find that they need to be in top shape
|
|||
|
in order to remain in peak form throughout the many bouts it
|
|||
|
takes to get to the pedal podium. They also need to keep
|
|||
|
honing their technical, tactical, and strategic skills
|
|||
|
through regular practice and one-on-one training sessions
|
|||
|
with their coach.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Spirit of Fencing
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
For me the beauty of fencing lies in the difficulty of some
|
|||
|
of its concepts and in the interplay of ideas between two
|
|||
|
opponents.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Take for example, distance and timing. Distance does not
|
|||
|
mean just the simple distance between the fencers as can
|
|||
|
be measured with a metre stick, it includes the way that
|
|||
|
each fencer is moving. For an elementary example, one of the
|
|||
|
best ways to obtain a favourable opportunity for attack is
|
|||
|
to reverse direction from going backward to going forward,
|
|||
|
your opponent is still coming forward and the distance
|
|||
|
suddenly closens and now is the moment for attack (timing).
|
|||
|
But this is not so easy as it sounds, for your opponent is
|
|||
|
already coming forward and may be in a better position to
|
|||
|
attack than you who are in the midst of changing direction,
|
|||
|
so any anticipation of your plan by the opponent is likely
|
|||
|
to be disastrous. And timing does not mean just picking the
|
|||
|
moment for an attack. It includes the rhythm that actions
|
|||
|
are performed -- for example, two steps and a lunge might be
|
|||
|
done in the rhythm slow-fast-slow (thus affecting distance)
|
|||
|
-- and it must be tailored to exploit the weaknesses or to
|
|||
|
make weaknesses of the strengths of the opponent.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The interplay of ideas in fencing is very fast. In a few
|
|||
|
seconds there can be several parry-riposte sequences. Each
|
|||
|
action made is a challenge to the opponent to come up with
|
|||
|
a counter action. An attack is a challenge to find and
|
|||
|
execute an effective parry. A parry is a challenge manage
|
|||
|
its deception or to land the hit before the parry is
|
|||
|
complete. The responses must be made at reflex action speed,
|
|||
|
yet the best response and the best way to execute the best
|
|||
|
response vary from opponent to opponent and from situation
|
|||
|
to situation. This makes fencing very challenging, always
|
|||
|
different and hence extremely rewarding.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
For More Information
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Online - There is an internet newsgroup (rec.sport.fencing)
|
|||
|
devoted to fencing discussion. A WWW home page is also
|
|||
|
available at "http://www.ii.uib.no/~arild/fencing.html".
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Offline - There are numerous books on fencing although they
|
|||
|
can be hard to find. [A list of good fencing books is
|
|||
|
maintained as part of the Fencing FAQ, by Morgan Burke.
|
|||
|
E-mail him at morgan@sitka.triumf.ca for more information.
|
|||
|
- Ian]
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
National and International Organizations
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Federation Internationale d'Escrime
|
|||
|
32, Rue La Boetie
|
|||
|
75008 Paris, France
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Amateur Fencing Association (Britain)
|
|||
|
1 Barons Gate
|
|||
|
33-35 Rothschild Road
|
|||
|
London W4 5HT
|
|||
|
Tel: 081 742-3032
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Canadian Fencing Federation
|
|||
|
1600 Prom. James Naismith Drive
|
|||
|
Gloucester, ON K1B 5N4
|
|||
|
TEL: (613) 748-5633
|
|||
|
FAX: (613) 748-5742
|
|||
|
22
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Theo Norvell, Toronto, Canada
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
===========
|
|||
|
DEPARTMENTS
|
|||
|
===========
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Debate Room
|
|||
|
-----------
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
* The Portrayal of Gays on TV *
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Over the past few years gay and lesbian characters have
|
|||
|
started appearing on popular TV shows and in the movies. For
|
|||
|
example, the highly rated Roseanne show now sports a lesbian
|
|||
|
couple, the Northern Exposure nighttime serial added a gay
|
|||
|
male couple to its regular cast of characters, and on the
|
|||
|
popular prime-time generation-X serial Melrose Place, a gay
|
|||
|
man has been a regular resident since the show's premiere
|
|||
|
years ago. Although TV shows are starting to sport gay
|
|||
|
characters in their regular lineups, these characters rarely
|
|||
|
lead realistic lives on screen.Of all the flirting,
|
|||
|
touching, kissing and steamy love scenes we are constantly
|
|||
|
bombarded with, how many occur between gay characters? None.
|
|||
|
Northern Exposure was even afraid to show two men kissing
|
|||
|
after reciting their wedding vows to each other -- instead
|
|||
|
they were shown giving each other a hug.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
In this month's debate column, Teletimes contributors Jon
|
|||
|
Gould and Paul Gribble will address the question, how much
|
|||
|
gay content is enough, and how much is too much? Jon will
|
|||
|
argue that it's acceptable for a TV network to adjust its
|
|||
|
programming for the taste of its viewers. Paul will take an
|
|||
|
opposing view and argue that although the existence of gay
|
|||
|
people in the popular media is an enormously important step
|
|||
|
forward, the way in which gay people are portrayed on screen
|
|||
|
reduces them to mere token gay characters, which ultimately
|
|||
|
amounts to two steps backwards.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Dr. Euan Taylor, Vancouver, Canada
|
|||
|
ertaylor@unixg.ubc.ca
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
* Two Steps Backwards *
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The portrayal of gay people on popular television shows and
|
|||
|
the manner in which these shows address gay themes has
|
|||
|
changed enormously in recent years. Twenty years ago gay
|
|||
|
characters didn't exist on television, and the only "gay
|
|||
|
themes" addressed were when characters like "Archie Bunker"
|
|||
|
made "fairy" and "fag" wisecracks. Today popular prime time
|
|||
|
television shows are beginning to sport regularly appearing,
|
|||
|
"openly" gay characters. However, despite this important
|
|||
|
improvement, an exploitive and insulting double standard
|
|||
|
exists that supports the censorship of realistic depictions
|
|||
|
of the lives of gay characters on television.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
In order to fully understand the impact of this kind of
|
|||
|
depiction of gay people, it is necessary to form an
|
|||
|
appropriate context by examining the ways in which gay
|
|||
|
people have been portrayed on television in the past.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Myth of Non-Existence
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Up until the 1970's gay people didn't exist on television at
|
|||
|
all. Homosexuality was simply not something to be discussed,
|
|||
|
either in private or in public. Homosexuality was something
|
|||
|
to be hidden, something to deny. This myth of non-existence
|
|||
|
was reflected in television programs; gay characters and
|
|||
|
storylines dealing with any sort of gay issues or themes
|
|||
|
simply didn't exist. It is important to consider how deeply
|
|||
|
this kind of denial affects people who consider themselves
|
|||
|
to be gay.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Wherever you fall upon the gay region of the Kinsey
|
|||
|
continuum, from completely gay to slightly gay, living in a
|
|||
|
society that implicitly denies the existence and value or
|
|||
|
your feelings is emotionally devastating. If you're gay, or
|
|||
|
if you ever thought you might be gay, you've more than
|
|||
|
likely experienced the feelings I'm trying to express. If
|
|||
|
you're not gay, indulge me for a moment in a revealing
|
|||
|
thought experiment, and consider living in a world that
|
|||
|
denies the existence of heterosexual people.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Imagine that everyone around you is romantically attracted
|
|||
|
to people of the same sex. Imagine that everyone on
|
|||
|
television, in the movies, in magazine ads, on billboards,
|
|||
|
and in books, have same-sex partners. At the end of the day
|
|||
|
your father comes home to his husband and they smooch while
|
|||
|
you watch TV. Your brother goes out on dates with other
|
|||
|
boys, your sister is married to another woman, and even
|
|||
|
though you're secretly attracted to someone in your class
|
|||
|
who happens to be of the opposite sex, you're expected to
|
|||
|
bring a same-sex partner to your high school prom. The
|
|||
|
predominant message you get from people around you is that
|
|||
|
you don't belong. Nowhere do you see heterosexual people
|
|||
|
portrayed in a positive way -- in fact, you don't see them
|
|||
|
portrayed at all. The only exposure you get to
|
|||
|
heterosexuality is when it's the brunt of someone's joke,
|
|||
|
when it's referred to as a sickness, an aberration,
|
|||
|
something to be hidden from view until people can be cured
|
|||
|
of it. Denying your existence in this way judges you without
|
|||
|
even granting you the consideration of which everyone around
|
|||
|
you is automatically entitled. You feel very alone. You know
|
|||
|
that other heterosexual people do exist in the world, but
|
|||
|
you never see them. They live their lives within an unspoken
|
|||
|
subculture, separated from the rest of society. At an early
|
|||
|
age you accept the uncomfortable fact that you have a choice
|
|||
|
to make as to how to live your life -- to submit to
|
|||
|
society's pressures and participate in the denial of your
|
|||
|
own feelings by living life as a perpetual lie, or to
|
|||
|
separate yourself from "normal" society so that you can live
|
|||
|
a life you can finally call your own.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Exploitive Comedy
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
If you begin to understand how this perpetual denial eats
|
|||
|
away at one's individuality and self-esteem, then you can
|
|||
|
appreciate how devastating it was when television finally
|
|||
|
started to acknowledge the existence of gay people in the
|
|||
|
form of exploitive comedy. Campy and effeminate characters
|
|||
|
like "Monroe" on Too Close For Comfort perpetuated insulting
|
|||
|
stereotypes about what it means to be gay. On Three's
|
|||
|
Company, main character "Jack Tripper" pretended to be gay
|
|||
|
so that his landlord would let him share an apartment with
|
|||
|
two female roommates. His charade was a reliable source of
|
|||
|
humour, but it reinforced the message that homosexual people
|
|||
|
aren't real, but are caricatures; homosexual feelings aren't
|
|||
|
real or valid but are surreptitiously funny. While there are
|
|||
|
notable exceptions, television programs today still exploit
|
|||
|
gay people for cheap laughs by portraying gay people as
|
|||
|
campy, effeminate caricatures (for example, "Jules" on
|
|||
|
Anything But Love). By depicting gay people in this way,
|
|||
|
homosexuality isn't afforded any dignity or respect but is
|
|||
|
considered a hilarious act to be laughed at and made fun of.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
During this time in history it was much more difficult than
|
|||
|
it is now for gay people to "come out" and acknowledge their
|
|||
|
homo-sexuality, so the only gay people most heterosexual
|
|||
|
people were exposed to were those portrayed in the popular
|
|||
|
media.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Let's briefly return to our thought experiment and think
|
|||
|
about what effect this might have on you and your self-
|
|||
|
esteem if the tables were turned and heterosexual people
|
|||
|
were regularly represented in the popular media by insulting
|
|||
|
stereotypical caricatures. Being heterosexual in a sea of
|
|||
|
homosexual people, you feel like you don't exist. You search
|
|||
|
your environment for other heterosexual people with whom to
|
|||
|
identify. The message that is conveyed to your friends, to
|
|||
|
your family, to people that haven't ever met you, and
|
|||
|
perhaps most damaging, to you, yourself, is that people who
|
|||
|
are heterosexual are jokes, their heterosexual feelings
|
|||
|
are funny, and their existence in general is a hilarious
|
|||
|
circus act to be mocked and exploited for cheap laughs.
|
|||
|
You've gone from feeling like people won't acknowledge your
|
|||
|
existence to feeling like people are pointing at you and
|
|||
|
your emotions and laughing, at the expense of your dignity
|
|||
|
and self esteem.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
AIDS & "Issue" Episodes
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
In the early 1980's the onset of the AIDS epidemic had a
|
|||
|
profound impact upon the way gay people were portrayed in
|
|||
|
the news and popular media. The unknown disease was first
|
|||
|
identified widely in gay men, and was hence called "GRID"
|
|||
|
(Gay Related Immune Deficiency) and sometimes "Gay Cancer."
|
|||
|
The general public was bombarded with news stories about the
|
|||
|
fatal threat; gay people everywhere were in danger of dying
|
|||
|
of this new unknown disease. It took a considerable amount
|
|||
|
of time before the Center for Disease Control in the U.S.A.
|
|||
|
publicly stated that the disease could be transmitted
|
|||
|
sexually -- by homosexual or heterosexual contact, and in
|
|||
|
doing so opened (some) people's eyes to the fact that the
|
|||
|
disease doesn't discriminate based upon sexual orientation.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
By the time the disease was renamed "AIDS" (Acquired Immune
|
|||
|
Deficiency Syndrome), gay people, gay organizations, and
|
|||
|
homosexual issues in general had experienced a sudden
|
|||
|
profound increase in widespread media exposure, thanks
|
|||
|
mostly to unjustified paranoia and general misinformation.
|
|||
|
Suddenly the words "gay" and "homosexual," and indeed gay
|
|||
|
people themselves, were appearing where they had never
|
|||
|
before seen the light of day -- on the front pages of
|
|||
|
newspapers, on national news programs, and of course on
|
|||
|
popular televisions shows.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Weekly series shows like St. Elsewhere and Hill Street
|
|||
|
Blues, as well as daytime soap operas began to address the
|
|||
|
"AIDS issue" by centering one and sometimes two episodes
|
|||
|
around a character dying of AIDS -- usually a gay man. The
|
|||
|
horrible predicament these characters and their friends and
|
|||
|
families found themselves in was consistently milked for all
|
|||
|
the melodrama the screenwriters could squeeze out of the
|
|||
|
situation. The controversy surrounding the disease coupled
|
|||
|
with the boldness of including a gay character on screen
|
|||
|
made airing an "AIDS episode" good sense in terms of
|
|||
|
ratings.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
While these kinds of shows usually accurately depict the
|
|||
|
hateful intolerances that these people experience daily
|
|||
|
because of the fear and prejudice surrounding AIDS, they
|
|||
|
consistently miss the otherwise rare opportunity to explore
|
|||
|
the many personal and social issues surrounding
|
|||
|
homosexuality. The implicit message is that homosexuality,
|
|||
|
and all that it means to live as a gay person in a
|
|||
|
heterosexual society, is not worthy of our consideration.
|
|||
|
The gay characters are only revealed as being gay because
|
|||
|
they have AIDS. Their homosexuality is not aff o rded any
|
|||
|
validity or dignity on its own. All of the emotions and
|
|||
|
experiences involved in growing up and living as a gay
|
|||
|
person -- homosexual life -- are ignored and instead our
|
|||
|
attention is focused time after time on homosexual death.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Returning to our thought experiment, you find yourself
|
|||
|
bombarded by the message that "heterosexual = AIDS = death."
|
|||
|
Craving any form of exposure of heterosexual people and
|
|||
|
their lives in the mass media, you're suddenly bombarded
|
|||
|
with melodramatic accounts of the slow and painful deaths of
|
|||
|
heterosexual people everywhere. Fundamentalist preachers
|
|||
|
sermonize to you and millions of others that AIDS is God's
|
|||
|
wrath for the evils of heterosexuality. You witness
|
|||
|
heterosexual people (irregardless of their "HIV status"),
|
|||
|
and people with AIDS (irregardless of their sexual
|
|||
|
orientation) being treated with hateful indignity.
|
|||
|
Heterosexual people are suspected as contagious harbingers
|
|||
|
of evil disease, and people with AIDS are suspected as
|
|||
|
sexually irresponsible queers. Whatever remnants of self-
|
|||
|
esteem you may have held on to up until now are undoubtedly
|
|||
|
seriously threatened.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Today's Double-Standard
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The past five years or so have witnessed a lot of
|
|||
|
improvements in the way gay people are portrayed on
|
|||
|
television. A few popular prime time shows now include gay
|
|||
|
characters in their regular ongoing storylines. A lesbian
|
|||
|
couple is regularly featured on the Roseanne show; a recent
|
|||
|
episode of Northern Exposure featured the wedding of two
|
|||
|
regularly appearing gay men; a young gay man has been on the
|
|||
|
regular cast of Melrose Place from the very beginning.
|
|||
|
However, although it appears that a real effort is being
|
|||
|
made to portray gay characters on television in a more
|
|||
|
positive and realistic light, a ridiculous double standard
|
|||
|
exists that robs these characters of the same dignity and
|
|||
|
respect automatically afforded to heterosexual characters.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
On the season finale of <I>Melrose Place</I>, for example, a
|
|||
|
scene in which "Matt," the young gay character, kisses
|
|||
|
another man was shamefully censored -- the scene was edited
|
|||
|
so badly, the video and sound slowing down, speeding up, and
|
|||
|
jumping around, that the sacrifice in image quality probably
|
|||
|
didn't justify the exclusion of the kiss -- or did it? The
|
|||
|
embarrassing fact is that it probably did. The new police
|
|||
|
drama N.Y.P.D. Blue has recently broken new ground in prime
|
|||
|
time television by including heterosexual love scenes
|
|||
|
depicting partial nudity. While it is considered acceptable
|
|||
|
to show half-naked heterosexual characters kissing, fondling,
|
|||
|
and making love to each other, a simple kiss between two
|
|||
|
fully clothed consenting adult gay men is out of the
|
|||
|
question.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
This show in addition to many others over the past decade
|
|||
|
has also broken new ground in terms of depicting violence on
|
|||
|
prime time television. What kind of message is sent to
|
|||
|
people -- especially to children -- when murder, rape,
|
|||
|
assault, and other gory violence is regularly depicted on
|
|||
|
television, yet beautiful, romantic love between two adults
|
|||
|
(who happen to be of the same sex) is considered wrong?
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The message that this double standard sends to people is
|
|||
|
that although it is acceptable to acknowledge the existence
|
|||
|
of gay people, their lives should be hidden away. This
|
|||
|
reduces these characters to token gay characters whose
|
|||
|
existence, while intended to reveal the "progressive"
|
|||
|
sensibilities of the TV networks that produce the programs,
|
|||
|
ultimately send an implicit message to television viewers,
|
|||
|
both gay and straight, that although gay people exist, their
|
|||
|
interests, their loves, their fears and joys, indeed their
|
|||
|
entire lives should be hidden from view.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Let's delve into our thought experiment one more time, (and
|
|||
|
if you're getting tired of it, just imagine living it every
|
|||
|
day of your life!). After many years of disappointment in
|
|||
|
watching heterosexual people depicted as jokes and "issues,"
|
|||
|
you finally observe heterosexual characters being depicted
|
|||
|
simply as everyday people who happen to be heterosexual. You
|
|||
|
eagerly tune in every week expecting to finally watch the
|
|||
|
comedy and drama of these characters' lives explored with
|
|||
|
the same frankness and openness afforded to the lives of
|
|||
|
homosexual characters.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Before you know it, however, it's the end of the season, and
|
|||
|
although the other (homosexual) characters have each
|
|||
|
experienced crises, loves, injustices, and soul-searching
|
|||
|
angst in all its melodramatic glory, the only thing you know
|
|||
|
about the heterosexual characters is that they are
|
|||
|
heterosexual. Although the homosexuality of the gay
|
|||
|
characters constantly played an integral role in the
|
|||
|
storylines surrounding them, (who they fell in love with,
|
|||
|
who fell in love with them, who dumped them, who they
|
|||
|
surreptitiously slept with, what jealous lover threatened to
|
|||
|
kill them, their changing relationship with their parents
|
|||
|
and friends), the heterosexuality of the heterosexual
|
|||
|
characters did not play any part whatsoever in their on
|
|||
|
screen lives.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
You wonder what people are afraid of. You wonder what it is
|
|||
|
about your heterosexual feelings and experiences that makes
|
|||
|
people so vehemently opposed to acknowledging them in the
|
|||
|
same open, honest environment in which gay issues are so
|
|||
|
regularly explored. You reflect on the unfortunate fact that
|
|||
|
the answer is wrapped up in the complex social history of
|
|||
|
public attitudes toward heterosexuality over the past few
|
|||
|
hundred years. Then you realize that the answer is not so
|
|||
|
complex after all. The answer is simple. The reason behind
|
|||
|
the history of the portrayal of heterosexual people on
|
|||
|
television is identical to the reason behind today's
|
|||
|
outrageous double standard: simple, unacceptable prejudice
|
|||
|
-- narrow<6F>minded discrimination because of the gender of the
|
|||
|
person you love. You wonder what possesses people to embrace
|
|||
|
this unjustifiable bigotry and reject so much sincere,
|
|||
|
honest, romantic (heterosexual) love in a world that seems
|
|||
|
to be so devoid of harmony.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
It has been said that television is a reflection of our
|
|||
|
society. It is clear then from both the (often recurring)
|
|||
|
history of the treatment of gay people on television and the
|
|||
|
present insulting double standard that until gay characters
|
|||
|
are depicted with the same levels of candor and honesty
|
|||
|
automatically granted to heterosexual characters, gay,
|
|||
|
lesbian and bisexual people in the real world will have to
|
|||
|
continue the painful daily struggle, both privately and
|
|||
|
publicly, for equal dignity, equal respect, and most
|
|||
|
importantly, equal treatment.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada
|
|||
|
gribble@motion.psych.mcgill.ca
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Sources
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
"Queer Resources Directory" (QRD) - accessible by electronic
|
|||
|
mail, BBS, FTP, WAIS, gopher, and WWW (lynx and Mosaic). For
|
|||
|
details e-mail qrdstaff@vector.casti.com or ftp/gopher to
|
|||
|
vector.casti.com (149.52.1.130) and look in "/pub/QRD."
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
* You Get What You Pay For *
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Is homophobia wrong? Yes. Do I think network censors should
|
|||
|
be less conservative in depicting gay life on television?
|
|||
|
Perhaps. But should they be expected to? No.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Paul and I don't agree with the result desired -- we both
|
|||
|
seek a society in which heterosexuals and homosexuals alike
|
|||
|
are accepted and tolerated. The difference is how we get
|
|||
|
there Paul believes that the media has an affirmative
|
|||
|
obligation to expose more viewers to gay lifestyle. I don't.
|
|||
|
Television is a mirror of life; it depicts the values and
|
|||
|
appeals to the tastes of its viewers. If we want to see more
|
|||
|
gay characters on television, we shouldn't expect the
|
|||
|
television producers to take the initiative. We need to
|
|||
|
change social attitudes, from which television will follow.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
To be sure, there is a bit of a chicken and egg question
|
|||
|
here. Television can play a part in changing social
|
|||
|
attitudes, but its responsibility should be limited to news
|
|||
|
coverage. If gay and lesbian issues are newsworthy, they
|
|||
|
should be covered. But there is a big difference between the
|
|||
|
media's reacting to news-worthy events and its affirmative
|
|||
|
decision to depict gay lifestyle in entertainment
|
|||
|
programming. The difference is viewers. Television survives
|
|||
|
only to the extent that it attracts viewers. If viewers want
|
|||
|
to see gay characters, television should have more of them.
|
|||
|
Conversely, if viewers want Christian broadcasting, a
|
|||
|
television executive would be foolish to ignore their
|
|||
|
wishes. This is exactly why we see organised protests over
|
|||
|
television programming. Parent groups who want to reduce sex
|
|||
|
and violence, educators who argue against sophomoric
|
|||
|
programming, housewives who petition for a soap opera -- all
|
|||
|
are trying to tell television executives what they want, and
|
|||
|
the producers ought to pay attention. Run croquet three
|
|||
|
times a day and you are likely to lose your station.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
In the end, the question is whether viewers want, or are
|
|||
|
willing to tolerate, gay lifestyles on television. My sense
|
|||
|
is that we're beginning to see inroads, but viewers aren't
|
|||
|
ready for the kiss that Northern Exposure avoided.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe CBS was off. But you have to convince
|
|||
|
them that their read of society was wrong. Write letters.
|
|||
|
Protest their sponsors. Start a cable station dedicated to
|
|||
|
gay and lesbian programming. But don't expect them to buck
|
|||
|
general sentiment. Changing viewers' preferences is not the
|
|||
|
responsibility of the broadcasters.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Jon Gould, Chicago, USA
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Music Notes: Feature
|
|||
|
--------------------
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
* A Whole Lollapalooza Goin' On! *
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
[The rock ' n ' roll bandwagon is on its way, and Russell
|
|||
|
Weinberger, our man in Davis, California, takes a look at
|
|||
|
this year's line-up. - Ken]
|
|||
|
************************************************************
|
|||
|
The fullblaze of summer now hints at its imminent arrival.
|
|||
|
And with the heat and dust of yet another dry California
|
|||
|
season comes the long-awaited arrival of Lollapalooza 1994.
|
|||
|
The new line-up may disappoint alternative-junkies looking
|
|||
|
for another fix of Pearl Jam before the world realizes they
|
|||
|
are, in fact, a pop band. Even a quick glance at this year's
|
|||
|
selections reveals a very real difference from previous
|
|||
|
Lollapaloozii. This cast is closer to the original intent of
|
|||
|
the all-day mega-concert. In its first conception, Jane's
|
|||
|
Addiction frontman Perry Farrell wanted to offer a real
|
|||
|
barrage of new and different types of music. The first three
|
|||
|
concerts, though a true change of stadium pace, were really
|
|||
|
festivals of college rockers, with a dash of rap and R&B for
|
|||
|
flavor. This year, the organizers have something different
|
|||
|
planned:
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
MAINSTAGE
|
|||
|
Smashing Pumpkins
|
|||
|
Beastie Boys
|
|||
|
George Clinton & P-Funk Allstars
|
|||
|
The Breeders
|
|||
|
A Tribe Called Quest
|
|||
|
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
|
|||
|
L7
|
|||
|
Green Day
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
SECOND STAGE
|
|||
|
(Check dates to find out who's taking the second stage in
|
|||
|
your town)
|
|||
|
Jul 1 - Aug 3 The Flaming Lips
|
|||
|
Jul 1 - Aug 3 Verve
|
|||
|
Ju 1 - July 8 The Souls of Mischief
|
|||
|
Jul 1 - July 15 Rollerskate Skinny
|
|||
|
Jul 1 - July 15 The Frogs
|
|||
|
Jul 9 - Aug 3 Luscious Jackson
|
|||
|
Jul 16 - Aug 3 Palace Songs
|
|||
|
Jul 16 - July 24 Guided by Voices
|
|||
|
Jul 25 - Aug 3 Girls Against Boys
|
|||
|
Aug 4 - Sept 4 Stereolab
|
|||
|
Aug 4 - Aug 11 Blast Off Country-Style
|
|||
|
Aug 4 - Aug 18 Charlie Hunter Trio
|
|||
|
Aug 4 - Aug 11 Fu-Schnickens
|
|||
|
Aug 4 - Aug 11 Lambchop
|
|||
|
Aug 12 - Sept 4 Shudder to Think
|
|||
|
Aug 12 - Sept 4 The Boo Radleys
|
|||
|
Aug 12 - Aug 18 King Kong
|
|||
|
Aug 19 - Sept 4 The Pharcyde
|
|||
|
Aug 19 - Sept 4 Shonen Knife
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
For everyone wondering what to expect for their 30+ dollars,
|
|||
|
here's a brief overview:
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
First, there's Green Day. This Berkeley, California-based
|
|||
|
band recently made it big with the release of Dookie, moving
|
|||
|
to the top of alternative and college charts all over the
|
|||
|
U.S. The band, however, is far from new. I remember seeing
|
|||
|
them for five bucks at the Gillman St Project in Berkeley
|
|||
|
when they had a hard edge and an attitude that wouldn't
|
|||
|
quit. Even then, when they were still figuring out how to
|
|||
|
play their instruments, they were a band with unmatched
|
|||
|
energy and a stage presence that brought crowds back week
|
|||
|
after week. Their new album, quite a bit tamer than their
|
|||
|
former works, is reminiscent of classic English power pop
|
|||
|
the likes of which hasn't been seen since the Buzzcocks. (It
|
|||
|
would probably be quite a bit more fun to see them in the
|
|||
|
closed, sweaty confines of a smokey club.)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Next comes L7, the all female hardcore band which has
|
|||
|
recently appeared in John Waters' latest movie, Serial Mom
|
|||
|
(under the nom du flique, Camel Lips) Definitely not for the
|
|||
|
timid, L7 takes up the slack where 45 Grave and The Slits
|
|||
|
left off. Their music is some of the strongest stuff around,
|
|||
|
complete with big nasty guitars, heavy bass lines, and
|
|||
|
spitfire drumbeats sure to send any general-admission crowd
|
|||
|
into a frenzy. Add to this the emergence of the Riot Grrrl
|
|||
|
movement, and it's easy to understand why L7 was chosen to
|
|||
|
fill the slot Babes In Toyland left behind last year.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Then, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will take fill main stage
|
|||
|
with the sounds of doom and gloom that has made them
|
|||
|
legendary in underground circles. Cave, backed by Blixa
|
|||
|
Bargeld on guitar (of Einsturzende Neubauten fame) and the
|
|||
|
rest of the Bad Seeds combines gothic mystique with the
|
|||
|
lyrical story-telling styles of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits
|
|||
|
to produce a sound that is nonetheless unique. Featured in
|
|||
|
several Wim Wenders movies, including Wings of Desire,
|
|||
|
Cave's resonant baritone voice is both chilling and
|
|||
|
enthralling. This combined with a variety of instruments
|
|||
|
from violin to piano make his music some of the most diverse
|
|||
|
and varied around. More impressive is his range of subject
|
|||
|
matter which spans from tales of bar brawls to lost loves to
|
|||
|
diatribes on the sad state of the modern world. The Seeds'
|
|||
|
latest release, Let Love In, is a definitive "theme album"
|
|||
|
replete with a cynical sense of humor.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The tone changes yet again with A Tribe Called Quest, a
|
|||
|
smart act which combines intricate rap with jazzy rhythms
|
|||
|
and melodious harmonies. With the overwhelming success of
|
|||
|
their first album and their recently released second already
|
|||
|
on its way up the charts, the Tribe is proving itself a band
|
|||
|
whose unstoppable innovation has changed and influenced hip-
|
|||
|
hop as well.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Following them is The Breeders. Fronted by ex-Pixi Kim Deal,
|
|||
|
the Breeders' blend of psychedelia and punk have made them
|
|||
|
an MTV smash as well as a college radio favorite. The power
|
|||
|
and strength of this band make it difficult to accurately
|
|||
|
describe. However, if all you have heard is their hit
|
|||
|
single, "Cannonball," get ready for quite a bit more. Their
|
|||
|
repertoire includes several more traditional punk songs
|
|||
|
along with a cover of The Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun"
|
|||
|
which is innovative enough to add another dimension to John
|
|||
|
Lennon's classic anthem to heroin.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
There really isn't enough to be said for the next act. The
|
|||
|
founder of Parliament, Funkadelic and their various off
|
|||
|
shoots, George Clinton is the godfather of post- James Brown
|
|||
|
funk and, without a doubt, one of the most influential
|
|||
|
musicians of our time. Let's just say this: without this
|
|||
|
Clinton, there would be no Red Hot Chili Peppers, no Faith
|
|||
|
No More, and even Prince would be struggling for a musical
|
|||
|
identity.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Beastie Boys started as a NYC hardcore act with little
|
|||
|
or no talent which tried rap out as a joke and has since
|
|||
|
become one of the biggest and most important hip-hop acts
|
|||
|
around. From their first album, the humorous Licensed to
|
|||
|
Ill, the Boys have come a long way in helping to redefine
|
|||
|
and reshape hip-hop. They are unique in that they have been
|
|||
|
able to continue to produce music that is wholly their own
|
|||
|
and still draw fans of every discriminating taste. They
|
|||
|
were, most importantly, one of the first hip-hop bands to
|
|||
|
actually play their instruments both on their album and on
|
|||
|
stage, replacing a drum machine with a live drummer, and
|
|||
|
using guitars instead of samples. Their next release, due
|
|||
|
May 31, promises to deliver more of the same with further
|
|||
|
innovations.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Headlining Lollapalooza is The Smashing Pumpkins, a Chicago-
|
|||
|
based psychedelic band whose haunting melodies and harmonies
|
|||
|
make them one of the most successful bands of their sort.
|
|||
|
Like Jane's Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins attract fans from
|
|||
|
heavy metal, alternative rock, and just about every other
|
|||
|
circle of music listeners. Their second, critically
|
|||
|
acclaimed release topped college charts and made them one of
|
|||
|
the premier bands of the '90s. Unfortunately, judging from
|
|||
|
interviews on MTV and in Rolling Stone, it looks as though
|
|||
|
this may be one of the last times they play live. At least
|
|||
|
they're likely to go out with a bang.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
There you have it. Lollapalooza 1994 looks as if it may be
|
|||
|
the best yet, topping even the tremendous lineup of the
|
|||
|
first Lollapalooza in 1990. Definitely worth the money and
|
|||
|
who knows, they might even have the body-piercing booth
|
|||
|
again, and you can go home with a little permanent memento.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Russell Weinberger, Davis, California, USA
|
|||
|
c/o tt-entertainment@teletimes.com
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Music Notes: Reviews
|
|||
|
--------------------
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
All reviews based on a five star rating system
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Van Morrison - A Night in San Francisco ****
|
|||
|
(Polydor/Polygram)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
With his last few releases approaching snooze-control, it's
|
|||
|
only natural to see a Van Morrison live record as a plain
|
|||
|
holding-pattern move. In fact, one glance at the song-list
|
|||
|
sets off alarm bells: isn't this the third time around for
|
|||
|
"Vanlose Stairway"? But the proof is in the listening, and
|
|||
|
it turns out this two-disc, 22-cut album--recorded on two
|
|||
|
Bay Area nights last year--is for people who miss the old
|
|||
|
rambunctious, eclectic Van-the-Man. There's little
|
|||
|
meditative about his rowdy, Celtic-flavoured reworkings of
|
|||
|
early fare like "Moondance" or "Tupelo Honey", and even his
|
|||
|
mellower recent stuff, like "In the Garden" and "So Quiet in
|
|||
|
Here" is interrupted by surprising snippets of tunes from
|
|||
|
James Brown, Sly Stone, and Rogers and Hart (as in "My Funny
|
|||
|
Valentine"). Expected guests like Georgie Fame, John Lee
|
|||
|
Hooker, saxist Candy Dulfer, and guitarist Ronnie Johnson
|
|||
|
(Morrison's current musical director) turn up the fun
|
|||
|
quotient, and he has bluesers Junior Wells and Jimmy
|
|||
|
Witherspoon shouting some of the songs which first inspired
|
|||
|
the Belfast Cowboy in his pre-Them days. He also shows the
|
|||
|
sense to have other singers tackle some of his over-exposed
|
|||
|
ditties, like Hooker's growling "Gloria" or Brian Kennedy's
|
|||
|
subtle take on the sentimental "Have I Told You Lately That
|
|||
|
I Love You?". But even without the cameos, the record
|
|||
|
offers something Morrison hasn't delivered in years: real
|
|||
|
excitement.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Boz Scaggs - Some Change ***1/2
|
|||
|
(Virgin/EMI)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
In the 1970s, Boz Scaggs was an Al Green for people scared
|
|||
|
of black music, and little happened in his sporadic
|
|||
|
subsequent output to dispel that notion. The thing is, you
|
|||
|
imitate something long enough, sometimes you turn into the
|
|||
|
real thing. Actually, Boz was always a guitarist and singer
|
|||
|
of excellent taste, going back to his Texas days with the
|
|||
|
Steve Miller Blues Band. Surprisingly, some of that early
|
|||
|
enthusiasm infuses Some Change, a record more engaging than
|
|||
|
it has any right to be. His ersatz soul-man vocals are still
|
|||
|
up front, but the Jim Nabors goofiness--which always
|
|||
|
threatened to put another "O" in his first name--has fallen
|
|||
|
away in favour of a more genuinely ruminative style. Scaggs
|
|||
|
played most of the instruments, along with co-producer and
|
|||
|
drummer Ricky Fataar (although guest key-boardists like
|
|||
|
Booker T. Jones and Smitty Smith pop up), giving the album
|
|||
|
an intimate, late-night feel. After a clumsy, pop-eager
|
|||
|
opening tune, it settles down to older-but-wiser
|
|||
|
observations of wayward love. And even if there's little
|
|||
|
revelatory in the lyrics, tunes like "Time", "Illusion" and
|
|||
|
the gently propulsive title cut have a seductive sweep that
|
|||
|
makes everything feel as profound as a second scotch with a
|
|||
|
long-lost friend.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Alison Moyet - Essex *
|
|||
|
(Columbia/Sony)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
It's hard to believe that the big-voiced Moyet, as part of
|
|||
|
the pre-Eurythmics Yaz (or Yazoo, in some places), was once
|
|||
|
a tower of soul in the vanilla-synth world of "New Wave"
|
|||
|
music. Now that everybody's rediscovered dance music, not to
|
|||
|
mention Aretha Franklin (the original edition, anyway), this
|
|||
|
once-innovative diva is just another singer, churning out
|
|||
|
would-be hits in the faceless English pop machine. Sure, she
|
|||
|
wrote most of these forgettable numbers, but she sounds numb
|
|||
|
and detached in the Pet Shop Boys-like production provided
|
|||
|
by Ian Broudie and Pete Glenister. The only time she wakes
|
|||
|
up, ironically, is for one acoustic-guitar-based cut written
|
|||
|
by Jules Shear. But even "Whispering Your Name" is shot in
|
|||
|
the house remix ending the disc. What's next, hitting the
|
|||
|
disco-revival circuit with Gloria Gaynor?
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Brian Setzer Orchestra **
|
|||
|
(Hollywood/WEA)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
It's funny what happens to some rockers as they get older:
|
|||
|
as the edge goes, they slowly become whatever they were
|
|||
|
rebelling against. Of course, Setzer's retro-billy Stray
|
|||
|
Cats were always in pose mode, and his guitar often betrayed
|
|||
|
more intelligence than the song selection let on. Now he's
|
|||
|
gone the Colin James route and embraced music made before he
|
|||
|
was born. Although many of the tunes were written by Setzer,
|
|||
|
they're intended to recall the late-'40s milieu in which
|
|||
|
big-band, blues, and hillbilly sounds collided for the first
|
|||
|
time. But primordial chemistry like that can't be recreated,
|
|||
|
and anyway, his voice isn't up to the task. His off-key
|
|||
|
Holiday Inn croon sounds silly on pseudo-raunchy items like
|
|||
|
"Ball and Chain" and "Sittin' on It All the Time", and the
|
|||
|
sub-Jack Jones impression is driven home by ill-advised
|
|||
|
covers of "Route 66" and (I kid you not) "A Nightingale Sang
|
|||
|
in Barkley Square". His guitar-playing, though used sparely,
|
|||
|
is always tops, and you have to wonder when Setzer'll stop
|
|||
|
kidding around and put out a smart instrumental record.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Sir Douglas Quintet - Day Dreaming at Midnight ****
|
|||
|
(Elektra/WEA)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Sir Doug is back, and it's a testament to changing tastes
|
|||
|
that his retooled '60s sound fits in perfectly with today's
|
|||
|
jangly alternative music. What's startling is how little
|
|||
|
it's retooled. The Beatle hair may be gone, but the Austin,
|
|||
|
Texas-via-Sooke, B.C. songwriter is still purveying his
|
|||
|
infectious blend of Tex-Mex rhythms, bluesy singing, cheesy
|
|||
|
garage-band effects, and wall-o'-guitar twang (maybe too
|
|||
|
much guitar on some tracks). It helps that veteran
|
|||
|
Quinteters, like Farfisa-man Augie Meyers and guitarist
|
|||
|
Louie Ortega, are back, and they're joined by Creedence
|
|||
|
Clearwater rhythm-men Doug Clifford and Stu Cook. Son Shawn
|
|||
|
Sahm is also in the fold, on guitars and vocals, and he co-
|
|||
|
wrote the set's catchiest tune, "Too Little Too Late", with
|
|||
|
his gruff-voiced dad. "Intoxication" and "Dylan Come Lately"
|
|||
|
are other standouts, with lyrics about the music Sahm still
|
|||
|
loves to death.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Stanley Jordan - Bolero **
|
|||
|
(Arista/BMG)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Like the world really needs a 23-minute fusion version of
|
|||
|
Ravel's sensual masterpiece. It is worth hearing once for
|
|||
|
the African rhythms and odd instruments (shakuhachi flute
|
|||
|
and jazzy flugelhorn) wafting through the mix. But the whole
|
|||
|
thing is anchored--as in sunk--by one of those maddening
|
|||
|
click tracks which made the "Hooked On..." records so
|
|||
|
annoying in the early '80s. An antique air hangs over the
|
|||
|
rest, as well, with '70s tunes like "Betcha By Golly Now"
|
|||
|
and Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" showing up. The effect is
|
|||
|
intentional, but Jordan doesn't really add anything new to
|
|||
|
the oldies, except that which any modern studio can
|
|||
|
provide. Mainly, it's painful to see how the young
|
|||
|
guitarist, with that unique, fingerboard-tapping style, has
|
|||
|
failed to live up to his early promise. What good does it do
|
|||
|
to swamp a revolutionary technique in a sea of dated
|
|||
|
synthesizers? This mindless crossover approach even makes
|
|||
|
the 4-minute solo closer sound more like an apologetic
|
|||
|
afterthought than a hint of sweet things to come.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
McCoy Tyner Big Band - Journey ***1/2
|
|||
|
(Verve/Polygram)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
In which John Coltrane's favourite pianist and enduring jazz
|
|||
|
warrior gets back to his compositional roots in a well-
|
|||
|
recorded set of tunes in the vein of his classic turn-of-
|
|||
|
the-'70s output for Blue Note and Milestone. With pals Billy
|
|||
|
Harper, Joe Ford, and Steve Turr in the horn section, and
|
|||
|
with Avery Sharpe and Aaron Scott on bass and drums, the
|
|||
|
large group delivers punchy new versions of Tyner's
|
|||
|
"Peresina" and "Blues on the Corner" and lively Latin
|
|||
|
grooves on three cuts written by bandmembers (Turr's
|
|||
|
romantic "Juanita" is the stand-out). Still, the most
|
|||
|
effective piece mutes the ensemble for a lovely Dianne
|
|||
|
Reeves reading of Sammy Cahn's "You Taught My Heart to
|
|||
|
Sing", with lyrics by Tyner and a fine trumpet McCoy Tyner
|
|||
|
solo from Jerry Gonzales. This is the blend he tried years
|
|||
|
ago with Phyllis Hyman, and its success points to putting
|
|||
|
away the orchestra in favour of a quiet duo record of
|
|||
|
standards and more rediscovered originals.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Cyrus Chestnut - Revelation ****
|
|||
|
(Atlantic/WEA)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
This young New Orleans pianist, known for supporting
|
|||
|
trumpeter Donald Harrison and singer Betty Carter, is more
|
|||
|
playful than Marcus Roberts, but he shares the latter's
|
|||
|
encyclopedic grasp of jazz piano idioms--albeit towards the
|
|||
|
modern end. With subtle help from bassist Christopher Thomas
|
|||
|
and drummer Clarence Penn (although a few cuts are solo),
|
|||
|
Chestnut recalls Thelonious Monk on the title cut, Herbie
|
|||
|
Nichols on the sprightly "Blues for Nita", and Horace Silver
|
|||
|
on the groovin' "Cornbread Puddin'". He also assays
|
|||
|
Massenet's brief "Elegie" and approaches the traditional
|
|||
|
gospel of "Sweet Hour of Prayer. If the record has a flaw,
|
|||
|
it's that Chestnut favours the same few keys, and sometimes
|
|||
|
drives his homage-laden pieces a few minutes longer than
|
|||
|
necessary. Maybe after backing others for so long, he can
|
|||
|
barely contain himself; still, I'd rather see his prodigious
|
|||
|
talent meted out in tastier bites.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
|
|||
|
tt-entertainment@teletimes.com
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Quill
|
|||
|
---------
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
..
|
|||
|
!le!surE
|
|||
|
:.
|
|||
|
4 H.H.C. (18**) & T.L. & S.R. (19**)
|
|||
|
?do u>m!chael.schre!ber@wu-w!en.ac.at<uncode !T :rfc-fr2e-s2one2t!na
|
|||
|
.apokrypy!x-conden-sensat!on-asc2!-chaR
|
|||
|
::
|
|||
|
?do u want 2 re-member a fax-s!m!l!x of t!mE .there was a 1854 le2terbound
|
|||
|
th!nker of joy ends ?do u scan your box da!ly & = !t st!2l h2th!P ::.
|
|||
|
,a set = a s!m!lar once only sp2edy w!2l! maC .never ever the same fun aga!n even
|
|||
|
!n a new paC ?th!s joy-decay dr!ves par!ah & pr!esT 2 !ts scorE .test go''en4s
|
|||
|
pest - !t = a d2or 2 far out morE :::
|
|||
|
?hel! saud! cal.-w!ne derushd!-squads R x-ray-!mploy-inC .sm2!le sa!d 3x - tr!ce
|
|||
|
blank ste2l sm!le forever rhyme ,tri2ger ha2py tr!2ger guard!an w!thout @@@@ &
|
|||
|
reason ?v!rtue sh!n!ing du2l parade - al419## !ce = w!nkinC :::.
|
|||
|
,ski2ming the health-cream, dump!ng the flesh & b1 .holy s!x !n the brown,
|
|||
|
speakers on 500+ bandS ?= !t that u R 2 g2od 2 b true w!th suprema-C .:::.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
- Dr. Michael F. Schreiber, Vienna, Austria
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Deja Vu
|
|||
|
-------
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
* The Longest Day - Part 1 *
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
[In this month's Deja Vu column, we bring you Andrew
|
|||
|
Shaindlin's journal of his recent trip to Europe on the
|
|||
|
occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. More articles
|
|||
|
following the theme of "History" can be found in the January
|
|||
|
1994 issue.- Ian]
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Cornelius Ryan called June 6, 1944 "the longest day." In
|
|||
|
1994 the same phrase is used by an overtired passenger on my
|
|||
|
transatlantic flight. Complaining of his fatigue after a
|
|||
|
sleepless six hours in economy class, he turns to his
|
|||
|
companion and says "I've had the longest day...." Upon
|
|||
|
arrival, we shuffle through the cattle pens toward
|
|||
|
immigration. Ryan used the phrase in literal and in
|
|||
|
figurative ways. British glider pilots approached the Orne
|
|||
|
River and its strategically important bridges just after
|
|||
|
midnight on the 6th of June. 24 hours later the flow of
|
|||
|
Allied men and materiel into Normandy was just gearing up,
|
|||
|
and for everyone involved it had been a long day indeed.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Fifty years later some of us seem to be prolonging that day,
|
|||
|
not wanting it to end. How else to explain my arrival from
|
|||
|
the States to accompany one of the many "D-Day Remembered"
|
|||
|
tours with about 20 of my alma mater's alumni? Many,
|
|||
|
especially those who were there, will say that the 50th
|
|||
|
anniversary celebrations are a solemn occasion, more
|
|||
|
properly considered a commemoration. Maybe our trip should
|
|||
|
be called "D-Day Remembered." But what are we remembering?
|
|||
|
Not only the sacrifice of young Allied lives, striking "the
|
|||
|
ultimate blow for freedom," but also the hopeless self-
|
|||
|
sacrifice, in the worst sense of those words, of young
|
|||
|
German lives, for no reason at all. Which is more stirring?
|
|||
|
Which more tragic?
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
London's air in April has that same grimy, coarse, polluted
|
|||
|
quality that I remember from some time I once spent here
|
|||
|
during November. The best way to summarize it is to say that
|
|||
|
should one stop to blow his nose, the handkerchief comes up
|
|||
|
black. It's the accumulated airborne soot of a thousand
|
|||
|
diesel lorries careening in endless circles around a
|
|||
|
thousand cobbled sidestreet roundabouts. The green spaces in
|
|||
|
this city provide a kind of respite from the urban oxygen of
|
|||
|
Westminster.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Sitting in Regent's Park, watching the inhabitants of the
|
|||
|
city, I'm suddenly aware of a subrace of British men, a race
|
|||
|
of mutant giants striding on their way to meetings at the
|
|||
|
Home Office, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, the Old
|
|||
|
Admiralty, the Reform Club. They are a type of extreme
|
|||
|
vertical ectomorph best characterized in popular culture by
|
|||
|
the comedian John Cleese. You know them. They're too damn
|
|||
|
big. Their feet are huge, awkward barges, impelled by the
|
|||
|
conserved momentum of legs five feet long. Pell mell down
|
|||
|
Pall Mall, they wear striped bespoke Bond Street suits and
|
|||
|
their heads, invariably topped with uncombed thinning hair,
|
|||
|
bob and teeter chaotically above crane-like necks. And no
|
|||
|
matter what amount they seem to have spent on the tailoring
|
|||
|
of their suits, their shirt collars are always uneven and
|
|||
|
their ties knotted too loosely. Their average height is six-
|
|||
|
foot six. They're harmless, yet vaguely unnerving. They're
|
|||
|
English, they're too big, and they're coming from all
|
|||
|
directions.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Then there are the French women. If you look carefully you
|
|||
|
can spot them. They aren't obvious in their appearance the
|
|||
|
way we Americans are. Americans look...well, they look
|
|||
|
American. The French women have what the French call "un
|
|||
|
look." Their three primary characteristics are the mystery
|
|||
|
of their age (is she 25, or 40?), the shortness of their
|
|||
|
skirts, and the fact that they wear hats and manage not to
|
|||
|
look silly. Rather, they look...well, they look French.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The tour group is three hours late arriving from the US.
|
|||
|
I've come over independently a couple of days in advance.
|
|||
|
Good god! What if our troops had been delayed three hours
|
|||
|
back in '44? We'd all be wearing lederhosen and swilling
|
|||
|
Bavarian lager....
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The group in question consists of alumni from two Ivy League
|
|||
|
schools, accompanied by a professor from each school. Each
|
|||
|
faculty member will lecture to the entire group four times.
|
|||
|
The itinerary calls for a couple of days in London, then by
|
|||
|
motorcoach to Bath, Devon, Dorset, and then a Channel-
|
|||
|
crossing by ferry. Finally, in a kind of Overlord for
|
|||
|
weaklings, we'll re-enact the breakout for ourselves on into
|
|||
|
Paris, fifty-overladen American tourists, trying to get a
|
|||
|
feeling for that longest day. I'm not one of 'them.' I'm a
|
|||
|
staff member at one of the two schools, along for the ride
|
|||
|
to act as "host" for my school's alumni. In the end, the
|
|||
|
group arrives, listens (fighting back jet-lagged sleepiness)
|
|||
|
to an introductory lecture on the "Difficulties of the
|
|||
|
Second Front" then has a welcoming cocktail party before
|
|||
|
turning in for a 16-hour sleep.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
It is seventy degrees, dry, and quintessentially English on
|
|||
|
the grounds of Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, a few miles
|
|||
|
from Oxford. Today's highlight is a kind of private
|
|||
|
"audience" with Charles George William Colin Spencer-
|
|||
|
Churchill, brother of the 11th Duke of Marlborough and
|
|||
|
cousin of Sir Winston Churchill. Lord Charles, as he is
|
|||
|
known, is personable enough. After we've seen both the
|
|||
|
public and private apartments, Lord Charles regales us with
|
|||
|
suitably witty and essentially sincere recollections of his
|
|||
|
cousin Winston.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
We make our way to Bladon nearby, to look at Churchill's
|
|||
|
grave. I'm more interested in seeing the resting place of
|
|||
|
Consuelo Vanderbilt, first wife of the 9th Duke of
|
|||
|
Marlborough, and Lord Charles' grandmother. The private and
|
|||
|
public spaces of the Palace have on display at least four
|
|||
|
portraits of this striking beauty. Three of the four are
|
|||
|
likenesses by John Singer Sargent, each notable for a
|
|||
|
different reason and Sargent's authorship means that
|
|||
|
Consuelo's beauty may well have been idealized and
|
|||
|
exaggerated by the artist.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The first instance is a charcoal sketch about 9 x 14 inches.
|
|||
|
Dated 1907, the sketch plainly shows Sargent's excitement at
|
|||
|
the exploration and discovery of a new, beautiful subject.
|
|||
|
The second is a formal commission, an enormous stereotypical
|
|||
|
Sargent family portrait in oil. Clearly, again the painter
|
|||
|
has lovingly rendered what was for him the true subject of
|
|||
|
the work. The background is all but non-existent, a murky
|
|||
|
slathering of brownish black, seemingly applied with a six-
|
|||
|
inch house-painting brush. And in an attempt to cover up for
|
|||
|
the obvious lack of attention to detail in the subject of
|
|||
|
the Duke, Sargent has compensated by casting the Duke's head
|
|||
|
in a luminist glow as if his head had been targeted by a
|
|||
|
single shaft of sunlight. The ruse very nearly works. But
|
|||
|
not quite.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The final and most evocative treatment of the transplanted
|
|||
|
American socialite is dated 1914, and is another simple 9x14
|
|||
|
inch sketch. Done in soft charcoal, there is no intermediate
|
|||
|
shading. The only smudging is to grind the powder into the
|
|||
|
blackest black, for Consuelo's penetrating eyes, latin brow,
|
|||
|
and stylish hairdo. The portrait is casual, consistent with
|
|||
|
the others, but above all it is intimate. Whether Sargent
|
|||
|
really connected so strongly with his female subjects, I do
|
|||
|
not know. He was in such control of the medium that I wonder
|
|||
|
whether he just made the connection seem that real and that
|
|||
|
strong.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
As we cluster about Churchill's simple tomb, Lord Charles
|
|||
|
appears again, in the corner of the churchyard. It's as if
|
|||
|
he had wheeled about upon leaving us at Blenheim, taken a
|
|||
|
single giant step, and reappeared in front of us here in
|
|||
|
Bladon, two towns away. He reads affectionately a poem
|
|||
|
written about Churchill after his death, and we're quiet for
|
|||
|
a short spell. Then he thanks us and disappears again.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Lord Charles Spencer-Churchill gives the impression of a
|
|||
|
straight-arrow English aristocrat--not quite an upper-class
|
|||
|
twit who potentially harbors some harmless eccentricity,
|
|||
|
like believing that any illness can be cured, if only the
|
|||
|
sufferer would drink enough water.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Churchill, of course, is genuinely upper-crusty. On the
|
|||
|
other hand, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein is not, despite
|
|||
|
his title, which sounds impossibly lofty to the American
|
|||
|
ear. Montgomery is the only child of that larger-than-life
|
|||
|
British military hero, General Bernard Montgomery, known
|
|||
|
universally as Monty. Monty gained well-deserved fame for
|
|||
|
outfoxing the desert fox himself, Field Marshall Erwin
|
|||
|
Rommel in the North African campaign. Monty's son, who
|
|||
|
inherited the honorary title which commemorates the
|
|||
|
destruction of Rommel's Afrika Korps at El Alamein, readily
|
|||
|
admits to his very middle class background. But what Lord
|
|||
|
Charles lacks in the way of stereotypical twittish
|
|||
|
mannerisms, the current Viscount Montgomery actually affects
|
|||
|
and compensates for.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Over an elegant private luncheon at the vaunted Cafe Royal
|
|||
|
in London, Montgomery addresses our group. He's actually
|
|||
|
pushing for us to buy "his" upcoming biography of his
|
|||
|
father. It is not really his book, any more than it is a
|
|||
|
biography. The cover announces that it was written by
|
|||
|
Alistair So-and-So "with" Viscount Montgomery, and it covers
|
|||
|
just the years 1944-1945.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Montgomery is, in any case, a definite Type A personality,
|
|||
|
and as he relates anecdotes about his father his lower jaw
|
|||
|
recedes, and his upper lip recoils to reveal a large front
|
|||
|
teeth. And instead of laughing, he snorts and hiccoughs his
|
|||
|
way through his talk. Nonetheless he is mostly genuine,
|
|||
|
quite entertaining, and not overly-long with his remarks.
|
|||
|
Maybe I'll buy the book...no, probably not.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
A word on quipping and punditry. Shaw and Wilde are well-
|
|||
|
known as having set the standard against which all witty
|
|||
|
ripostes must be judged. But let me put in a good word for
|
|||
|
Sir Winston Churchill. It seems everyone in London has a
|
|||
|
"favourite" Churchillism. Some representative samples:
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, you're drunk!
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Churchill: Madam, I may be drunk, but you are ugly, and
|
|||
|
tomorrow, I shall be sober.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
or...
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Lady Astor again: Winston, if you were my husband I would
|
|||
|
put arsenic in your coffee!
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Churchill: Madam, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
or...
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Noted playwright: I enclose with this letter two tickets to
|
|||
|
the opening of my new play. You are invited to attend with
|
|||
|
a friend (if you can find one).
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Churchill: I regret I cannot attend the first night of your
|
|||
|
play, but will come on the second night (if it's still
|
|||
|
running.)
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Not deep; but one can't help feeling that Sir Winston's
|
|||
|
sense of timing, delivery, and facial expression were finely
|
|||
|
honed.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
6:30 pm
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
We enter the Houses of Parliament. We are the guests of Sir
|
|||
|
Fergus Montgomery, Member of of Parliament from the Labour
|
|||
|
Party. Sir Fergus regales us with bawdy puns, fond
|
|||
|
recollections of his first visit to the states in 1959, and
|
|||
|
his general unhappiness with the personal and ad hominem
|
|||
|
nature of the bitter exchanges so common in the modern
|
|||
|
Parliament. Of course, he may just be bitter from 15 years
|
|||
|
in the Opposition....
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Stonehenge looms over a gentle rise by the side of a
|
|||
|
highway, like a Stone Age rest stop. Much to my dismay I
|
|||
|
have the same feeling here today that I had during my first
|
|||
|
visit, six years ago. I can't clear from my mind the ending
|
|||
|
from Hollywood's version of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. But I
|
|||
|
resolve to put Hardy and Nastassia Kinski from my mind, at
|
|||
|
least until Dorchester when I can contemplate the Mayor of
|
|||
|
Casterbridge. I do take solace in the complete lack of
|
|||
|
development in this area. If Stonehenge was in the US, I'm
|
|||
|
quite sure that visitors would be able to take advantage of
|
|||
|
a meal at the nearby BurgerHenge.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Bath in the Valley provides an opportunity for lunch with
|
|||
|
our local guide, Esther. She and I sit in Demuth's, an
|
|||
|
excellent vegetarian restaurant behind Bath Abbey. For two
|
|||
|
hours we exchange personal theories, covering everything
|
|||
|
from the neolithic roots of anti-feminism to the merits of
|
|||
|
graduate level education in various countries. I thoroughly
|
|||
|
enjoy our conversation, but it leaves me with only an hour
|
|||
|
or so to poke around the side streets of old Bath.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Napoleon is reputed to have said: "A reasoning army would
|
|||
|
run away." The same could be said of tour groups. The sunny
|
|||
|
weather and irrepressibly optimistic atmosphere of Bath on a
|
|||
|
weekend make one think about not climbing back aboard the
|
|||
|
motor coach. I proposed to my wife here in Bath six years
|
|||
|
ago, so my reminiscences of that first visit here are even
|
|||
|
more pleasant (and distorted, probably) than they might be
|
|||
|
otherwise. But like obedient soldiers, we do climb back on
|
|||
|
board the bus, an air-conditioned behemoth rumbling
|
|||
|
impatiently in front of the Abbey. And continuing on, we
|
|||
|
arrive at length in the coastal resort town of Torquay.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Life at the Imperial Hotel in Torquay is eminently bearable.
|
|||
|
The clannish omnipresence of rich people lends the necessary
|
|||
|
blaseness, while the Edwardian decoration and gilded resort
|
|||
|
surroundings give one something tangible to enjoy.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
For reasons that are to remain unclear, we drive today to
|
|||
|
the village of Dartmouth and then to Slapton Beach. Besides
|
|||
|
the remnants of Operation Tiger, an ill-fated Allied
|
|||
|
training operation of early 1944, there is not much here of
|
|||
|
special interest. In Dartmouth, home of the Royal Naval
|
|||
|
Academy, I discover a wooded footpath which leads, after a
|
|||
|
precipitous, switching-back climb, to some farmer's hilltop
|
|||
|
pasture. Half a dozen cows eye me warily then return to
|
|||
|
their stoic munching.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
As I survey the little village, nestled in a crook of the
|
|||
|
river Dart below me, I imagine that it looks today much as
|
|||
|
it did fifty years ago when over a hundred thousand
|
|||
|
American servicemen invaded Dorset and Devon, in preface to
|
|||
|
their subsequent invasion of Normandy. The entire region
|
|||
|
was evacuated of its residents and made into a military
|
|||
|
staging ground. The means by which the Allies confused and
|
|||
|
misled the Germans about the time and place of the D-Day
|
|||
|
landings are well-documented. But even taking into
|
|||
|
consideration the elaborate precautions the Allies took to
|
|||
|
that end, it seems absurd that the build-up to the Channel
|
|||
|
crossing went essentially without response from the Germans,
|
|||
|
billeted comfortably about fifty miles away.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
As I stand on the hilltop watching the Dartmouth ferry
|
|||
|
trolling patiently across the river, I realize that
|
|||
|
Operation Overlord was not only historically unprecedented,
|
|||
|
it can never be repeated. Marvin Minsky said that we are in
|
|||
|
"the thousand years between no technology and all
|
|||
|
technology." As we approach the age of almost total
|
|||
|
information (albeit only partial knowledge) technology
|
|||
|
provides even the most ignorant commander with clear
|
|||
|
physical evidence of his enemy's presence and inclination.
|
|||
|
No future Hitler (or Eisenhower) will rely successfully on
|
|||
|
the fog of war to cloak his intentions.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
I'm a week into my European trip. The top headlines of the
|
|||
|
week roll across my hotel television screen. Some are
|
|||
|
memorable, some not. Decide for yourself: Mandela is
|
|||
|
President elect of South Africa; Brazil plans a State
|
|||
|
funeral and declares three days of national mourning for
|
|||
|
race car driver Ayrton Senna; President Clinton is sued for
|
|||
|
sexual harrassment; Prince Charles' Jack Russell terrier,
|
|||
|
Pooh, has gone missing; and His ex, the Princess of Wales,
|
|||
|
has been photographed topless and the pictures can be yours
|
|||
|
for a half-million dollars.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
A day's drive includes a brief stop in Dorchester--I do
|
|||
|
indeed find the house of Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge--and
|
|||
|
culminates in Portsmouth. This is the embarkation point for
|
|||
|
our re-enactment of the famous event, which one of our
|
|||
|
professors reminds us is "1066 in reverse."
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
We take in Southwick House, with its map room. It was here
|
|||
|
that fetching WRENs (Women's Royal Naval Reservists) stood
|
|||
|
confidently on step ladders, posting the various military
|
|||
|
units' positions on the map as the invasion and breakout
|
|||
|
progressed. A suitably British anecdote relates that a
|
|||
|
female Member of Parliament, stereotypically naive or
|
|||
|
innocent, was alarmed by the shortness of the WRENs' skirts.
|
|||
|
The Minister for Defence explained how the serge material
|
|||
|
was in minimum supply and that large quantities were needed
|
|||
|
for the Royal Navy's uniforms.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
"Am I to understand," she is reputed to have replied, "that
|
|||
|
the WRENs' skirts are to be held up until the entire Royal
|
|||
|
Navy has been serviced?" It makes for a good English chortle
|
|||
|
and a wink over a pint of bitter....
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
After a visit to the unremarkable D-Day museum we hear
|
|||
|
another lecture, this one on William the Conqueror and the
|
|||
|
Battle of Hastings, in anticipation of our visit to the
|
|||
|
Bayeux tapestry in two days. I can't help thinking of the
|
|||
|
humorous book 1066, And All That. The summation of the book
|
|||
|
is the ultimate spoof of the Anglo-Saxon version of history,
|
|||
|
along the lines of "So William won the battle and history
|
|||
|
came to an end."
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
5:15 am
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Wake-up call. The hotel operator is smug. "Your early
|
|||
|
morning wake-up call..." Our crossing to Cherbourg is
|
|||
|
bearable. Club class seating resembles business class
|
|||
|
airline service, but with three times the leg room. Some
|
|||
|
fresh air and a pair of "sea bands" preserve my breakfast in
|
|||
|
its rightful resting place. The crossing takes five-and-a-
|
|||
|
half hours and is not uncomfortable, despite a minor run-in
|
|||
|
with a French TV crew who are lighting up their Gitanes in
|
|||
|
the "No Smoking" section.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The English learn how to smoke discreetly. Holding the
|
|||
|
cigarette down as if trying to deny the fact that they are,
|
|||
|
indeed, puffing away, they avoid looking at the cigarette
|
|||
|
and affect an air of denial about the whole dirty business.
|
|||
|
The French, on the other hand, smoke at you. They brandish
|
|||
|
the cigarette in a defiant challenge and occasionally watch
|
|||
|
the cigarette while it smolders. They have the look of a
|
|||
|
soldier who examines his rifle after cleaning it, convinced
|
|||
|
of (and satisfied by) its potential to harm someone someone
|
|||
|
else.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Hobbes might have been describing the prospects for a
|
|||
|
soldier in the D-Day invasion force when he wrote that life
|
|||
|
is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Well, maybe
|
|||
|
not solitary, but for a G.I. born in, say, 1922, the war
|
|||
|
followed all too quickly on the heels of a decade of false
|
|||
|
hopes (the '20s) and a decade of extreme economic hardship
|
|||
|
(the '30s). And to be in the first wave at Omaha Beach on
|
|||
|
June 6, 1944 was to learn a first-person lesson in nastiness
|
|||
|
and brutishness.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Carrying fully-loaded packs which often weighed more than 70
|
|||
|
pounds, these soldiers were shooed from the landing craft
|
|||
|
too far from shore--the crews of the craft feared getting
|
|||
|
any closer to the German gunfire. Most of them sank to the
|
|||
|
bottom and drowned; the ones who didn't were either run over
|
|||
|
by the craft or were sitting ducks for the Nazi gunners on
|
|||
|
shore.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
As we disembark in Cherbourg we anticipate seeing the site
|
|||
|
of this carnage, but first we visit St. Mere Eglise where
|
|||
|
John Steele of the 101st Airborne spent four hours dangling
|
|||
|
by his parachute above the town square (which is now a
|
|||
|
parking lot). With no sense of the obvious, from April to
|
|||
|
November every year, the town puts a parachute on a cruddy
|
|||
|
mannequin which hangs, cartoon-like and unconvincing, from
|
|||
|
the church spire.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The fiftieth anniversary is now four weeks away. All over
|
|||
|
Normandy workmen are preparing. There is a feeling of
|
|||
|
resigned yet intensive desperation about their work. At
|
|||
|
first we see them polishing plaques and markers. In St.
|
|||
|
Mere Eglise some masons are replacing the cement and brick
|
|||
|
pavement at the entrance to John Steele's church. Later we
|
|||
|
see a memorial which is to be dedicated to General
|
|||
|
Eisenhower; it looks like the work is less than half-
|
|||
|
finished.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
We finally realize how hopelessly the French are working to
|
|||
|
complete their monuments and preparations when we see the
|
|||
|
central island of an enormous traffic circle at the juncture
|
|||
|
of two highways, where there will be yet another elaborate
|
|||
|
memorial. Just thirty days before the arrival of the Prime
|
|||
|
Ministers, the Presidents, the Kings and Queens, this
|
|||
|
particular site is nothing but an enormous mudheap. It looks
|
|||
|
as if it were dug up and turned over for the first time
|
|||
|
yesterday. Normandy will once again be unprepared for the
|
|||
|
coming invasion.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Our French guide, Liliane, speaks English fairly well.
|
|||
|
However, there occur small crises in her conjugation which
|
|||
|
cause her to utter vaguely alarming phrases, like "So, after
|
|||
|
the Germans arrive, there will be an invasion of France.
|
|||
|
Many thousands will die." She sounds like a less-cryptic
|
|||
|
Nostradamus.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Chateau d'Audrieu is a very expensive, impossibly
|
|||
|
luxurious hotel located in an impressively authentic 18th
|
|||
|
century chateau. Part of the association of fancy inns and
|
|||
|
restaurants known as Relais & Chateaux, Audrieu has been in
|
|||
|
the same family since the 11th century. It's the kind of
|
|||
|
accomodation which makes one comfortable, relaxed, and
|
|||
|
pleased with oneself for being there. My room has two sets
|
|||
|
of french doors (literally, I realize) which open onto views
|
|||
|
over the 50-plus acres of private land on the estate.
|
|||
|
Gardens, wooded trails, contented cows grazing, the village
|
|||
|
steeple which chimes every fifteen minutes....This is the
|
|||
|
world right outside. It's a pleasantly bygone world for me,
|
|||
|
and as I look around the room at the lovely antique
|
|||
|
furniture and sheer gauze curtains rippling from the Norman
|
|||
|
spring breeze, I lie down, thinking about the taste of
|
|||
|
calvados and realizing that here, at last, is a hotel where
|
|||
|
a person traveling alone can sleep in the middle of a king-
|
|||
|
size bed.
|
|||
|
|
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[Next issue, the second half of the D-Day Journal - Ian]
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- Andrew B. Shaindlin, Providence, Rhode Island
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abs@brown.edu
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STAFF & INFO
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Editor/Publisher:
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Ian Wojtowicz, Vancouver, Canada
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editor@teletimes.com
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Art Director:
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Anand Mani, Vancouver, Canada
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tt-art@teletimes.com
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Arts & Entertainment Editor:
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Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
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tt-entertainment@teletimes.com
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Contributing Editor:
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Daniel Sosnoski, Tokyo, Japan
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joseki@tanuki.twics.com
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Cover Artist:
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Anand Mani, Vancouver, Canada
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tt-art@teletimes.com
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Past contributors:
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Biko Agozino, Edinburgh, Scotland
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Prasad & Surekha Akella, Japan
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Ryan Crocker, Vancouver, Canada
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Prasad Dharmasena, Silver Spring, USA
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Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
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Ken Ewing, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
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Jon Gould, Chicago, USA
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Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada
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Jay Hipps, Petaluma, California, USA
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Mike Matsunaga, Skokie, USA
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Satya Prabhakar, Minneapolis, USA
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Brian Quinby, Aurora, USA
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Motamarri Saradhi, Singapore
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Dr. Michael Schreiber, Vienna, Austria
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Johnn Tann, Ogden, USA
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Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada
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Seth Theriault, Lexington, USA
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Alexander Varty, Vancouver, Canada
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Marc A. Volovic, Jerusalem, Israel
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Columnists:
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Kent Barrett, The Keepers of Light
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Tom Davis, The Wine Enthusiast
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Ken Eisner, Music Notes & Movies
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Andreas Seppelt, The Latin Quarter
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Funding policy:
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If you enjoy reading Teletimes on a constant basis and
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would like us to continue bringing you good quality
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articles, we ask that you send us a donation in the $10 to
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$20 range. Checks should be made out to "International
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Teletimes". Donations will be used to pay contributors and
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to further improve International Teletimes. If you are
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interested in placing an ad in Teletimes, please contact
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the editor for details.
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Submission policy:
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Teletimes examines broad topics of interest and concern on
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a global scale. The magazine strives to showcase the
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unique differences and similarities in opinions and ideas
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which are apparent in separate regions of the world.
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Readers are encouraged to submit informative and
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interesting articles, using the monthly topic as a
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guideline if they wish. All articles should be submitted
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along with a 50 word biography. Everyone submitting must
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include their real name and the city and country where you
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live. A Teletimes Writer's Guide and a Teletimes
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Photographer's & Illustrator's Guide are available upon
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request.
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Upcoming themes:
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January - Photon '94
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March - Education
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May - Religion
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Deadline for articles:
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March issue - February 10th, 1995
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May issue - March 30th, 1995
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E-mail:
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editor@teletimes.com
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Snail mail:
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International Teletimes
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3938 West 30th Ave.
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Vancouver, B.C.
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V6S 1X3
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CANADA
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Software and hardware credits:
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Section headers and other internal graphics were done in
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Fractal Painter 1.2 and Photoshop 3.0 on a Macintosh
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Quadra 950. The layout and editing was done on a Power
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Macintosh 6100/60 using MS Word 5.0 and BBEdit Lite 3.0.
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Copyright notice:
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International Teletimes is copyrighted (c)1995. All
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articles are copyrighted by their respective authors
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however International Teletimes retains the right to
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reprint all material unless otherwise expressed by the
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author. This magazine is free to be copied and distributed
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UNCHANGED so long as it is not sold for profit. Editors
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reserve the right to alter the content of submitted
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articles. Submitting material is a sign that the submitter
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agrees to all the above terms.
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-----------
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BIOGRAPHIES
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-----------
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Kent Barrett
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Kent Barrett is a Vancouver artist with over twenty years
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experience in photography. His work has been exhibited in
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galleries across Canada from Vancouver, B.C. to St. John's,
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Newfoundland. He is currently working on his first
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nonfiction book and interactive CD-ROM, "Bitumen to Bitmap:
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a history of photographic processes."
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Ken Eisner
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Originally from the San Francisco area, Ken Eisner is a
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Contributing Editor to Vancouver's entertainment weekly, the
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Georgia Straight, and Canadian correspondent/film critic for
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Variety, in Los Angeles. He has also been a frequent arts
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commentator on CBC TV and radio, and currently reviews new
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movies for CKNW, throughout Western Canada.
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Sheila Eldred
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Currently studying English at Oxford University, Sheila will
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return to the U.S. in July to continue her undergraduate
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education at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, MN.
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She has been a runner for six years, and runs both cross-
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country and track for her college teams. At Oxford she has
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also been rowing with a novice team, but she is still a
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runner at heart.
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Anand Mani
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Anand is a Vancouver, Canada-based corporate communications
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consultant serving an international clientele. Originally an
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airbrush artist, his painting equipment has been languishing
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in a closet, replaced by the Mac. It waits for the day when
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"that idea" grips him by the throat, breathily says, "Paint
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Me" and drags him into the studio<69> not to be seen for
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months.
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Andrew Shaindlin
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Andrew is Senior Assistant Director of Alumni Relations at
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Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. His
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travels have taken him to many of the commonly-visited
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places in Europe, as well as some of the less commonly-
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visited ones. Among his favorites are Iceland, the Channel
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Islands, Malta, and Tunisia.
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Daniel Sosnoski
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Tokyo resident since 1985. Didn't plan on being a permanent
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expat but these things happen. Editor and freelance writer
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for several magazines and business-oriented publications, he
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can be found playing Go online and offline (IGS: Golgo13). A
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Macintosh and internet addict, his life currently revolves
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around a modem.
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Dr. Euan R. Taylor
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Euan grew up in England where he did a degree in
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Biochemistry and a Ph.D. Before moving to Canada, Euan spent
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6 months traveling in Asia. Now living in Winnipeg, he is
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doing research in plant molecular biology, and waiting to
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start Law School. Interests include writing, travel,
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studying Spanish and Chinese, career changing and good
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coffee. Pet peeves: weak coffee, wet socks and ironing.
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Russell Weinberger
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Russell is a senior double majoring in Creative Writing and
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Sociology at the University of California in Davis. He grew
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up in the middle of wine country where he spent his weekdays
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in Catholic school and his weekends making sorties into the
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depths of the San Fransisco night life.
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Ian Wojtowicz
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|||
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Ian is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaurate
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program at a Vancouver high school. He is an avid fencer
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(no, he doesn't sell stolen VCRs) and makes a habit of
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sleeping in on the weekends. Born in Halifax, Canada in
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1977, Ian has since lived in Nigeria, Hong Kong and Ottawa.
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He now resides in Vancouver, the city known to millions as
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"The Home of Teletimes".
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