textfiles/magazines/TELETIMES/teletimes-94-05.txt

I N T E R N A T I O N A L                  T E L E T I M E S

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¥ Vol. 3 No. 4                                    May 1994 ¥ 
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CONTENTS                                      ISSN 1198-3604
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-- Features --

SEX, ART, AND AMERICAN CULTURE
  "While some of her messages may infuriate, her ideas 
  cannot be overlooked. She possesses a unique voice that 
  demands the attention of anyone interested in culture and 
  politics in the world today."
  - by Tom Davis

CANADIAN AUTHORS
  "It seems to me that I have learned as much about Canada 
  from fictional and non-academic sources as I have from the 
  statistics and facts I have read." Euan writes about five 
  well known Canadian authors.
  - by Dr. Euan Taylor

BOOK REVIEWS BY ALEXANDER VARTY
  Alexander Varty reviews three books: Incredibly Strange 
  Music, Volume 1; A Whole Brass Band; and A Hard Core Logo.
  - by Alexander Varty


-- Departments --

MUSIC NOTES: FEATURE
  "We talked for two hours, and Mr. Mandela said how 
  wonderful it was when the prisoners heard our [records] 
  from their cells, that it sounded like freedom. Then he 
  said, 'now you must come home!' "
  - by Ken Eisner

MUSIC NOTES: POP/ROCK/R&B
  Ken reviews ten albums by musicians such as Bonnie Raitt, 
  Tori Amos, Sam Phillips, The Golden Palaminos and Vinx.
  - by Ken Eisner

MUSIC NOTES: JAZZ/WORLDBEAT
  Ken reviews ten albums by musicians such as Jan Garbarek, 
  The Shuffle Demons, The Gipsy Kings, Material and BABKAS.
  - by Ken Eisner

MOVIES: WIDE RELEASE
  Ken reviews six wide release film such as Bad Girls, 
  Threesome, The Hudsucker Proxy and Serial Mom.
  - by Ken Eisner

MOVIES: ARTHOUSE/INDEPENDANT
  Ken reviews five arthouse and independant films such as A 
  House of Spirits, Belle Epoque and Sirens.
  - by Ken Eisner

THE LATIN QUARTER
  "Fuente's genius is undeniable. He has brought to us the 
  myths and ideas of Mexico's past and present, with a 
  beauty, passion and brilliance, that can be understood by 
  even those who have not so much as glimpsed at a postcard 
  from Mexico."
  - by Andreas Seppelt

THE WINE ENTHUSIAST
  "Today, B.C. wineries are starting to be known more for 
  their quality table wines rather than the cheap jug wines 
  that were the industry standard."
  - by Tom Davis

CUISINE
  A recipe for Peaches Chambord.
  - by Markus Jakobsson


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EDITOR'S NOTE
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-- Chez Teletimes... --

Hello, and welcome to yet another fine issue of 
International Teletimes. My name is Ian, and I'll be your 
editor this evening. May I recommend something to start you 
off? Why not begin with our special this month, Favourite 
Authors. We have a lengthy review of a new book by Camille 
Paglia, entitled Sex, Art, and American Culture, served with 
a side order of "Canadian Authors" and assorted "Book 
Reviews by Alexander Varty". If you enjoy that, I recommend 
that you then try some of our fine Arts & Entertainment 
writing by Ken Eisner. You may choose between various movie 
and music reviews of all kinds, or try his specialty: "Mama 
Africa Comes Home." If you're feeling particularly hungry 
for knowledge, you may even choose consume it all!

Do we have any good wine you ask? But of course! You can 
sample some of our fine "BC Wines" with the expert guidance 
of Tom Davis, our own wine specialist. Finally, for dessert, 
we have some succulent Peaches Chambord. If you really like 
the dessert, the recipe is available in this month's Cuisine 
column.

Bon appetit.

Ian Wojtowicz
Editor/Publisher

A-hem! Don't forget the tip...


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MAILBOX
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-- News Room Debate Column Response --

With regard to the debate column: The individual supporting 
the idea that all speech must be allowed on campus is 
correct, the other is wrong. There is no debate here. If any 
speech is allowed to be restricted, who is designated as the 
restrictor? One of the debators mentioned that everyone 
knows the Holocaust happened. This is not so. There are 
those people who believe it never occured. What if one of 
them was a restrictor? To safeguard democracy, three 
absolutes are required: freedom of speech, seperation of 
church and state; and the right to keep and bear arms. 
Anything less guarentees the eventual slide down the 
slippery slope to totalitarianism. 
  - Gerry Roston, Pittsburgh, USA


-- Tsukuba: Science City (Apr-94) --

I read [Prasad Akella's] article in the April Teletimes 
issue and I liked it. I knew nothing about Tsukuba but now, 
thanks to you, I do. I'm always interested in learning some 
interesting facts and your article presented a few (I'm 
gonna have to check out the Science article for more). 
  - Otto Grajeda, San Francisco, USA



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FEATURES
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-- Sex, Art, and American Culture --

By Camille Paglia 
(Vintage, 337pp., US$13)

Camille Paglia is a something of a renaissance woman, a 
Professor of Humanities at the University of Arts in 
Philadelphia, a verbose master of criticism, and a truly 
imaginative post-modern intellectual. Her style is witty, 
engaging, full of humour and passion, and cuts to the point 
with awe-inspiring ferocity. At times her prose reads more 
like Ginsberg's poem "Howl" than an academic essay, but this 
is precisely one of her strengths.

Her first book, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from 
Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, was published in 1990, and 
received little notice until after the publication of an 
essay in the journal Arion. The essay was entitled "Junk 
Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the 
Wolf." This brilliant essay is the core of her latest book: 
a compilation of articles, essays, a lecture and an 
interview, entitled Sex, Art, and American Culture.

After the publication of "Junk Bonds" in 1991, and the 
paperback release of Sexual Personae, Paglia became a full-
fledged phenomenon, appearing in various video and print 
media, as a self-styled defender of reason against a tyranny 
of post-structuralist art theorists, feminist zealots, and 
commissars of Political Correctness. 

"Junk Bonds" is itself a book review of two books from the 
field of Gay Studies: One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, by 
David Halperin, and The Constraints of Desire, by John 
Winkler. 

Both books are representative of the views and methods of 
Humanities scholars at leading universities. Both authors 
are post-structuralists, a class of scholars which emerged 
in the seventies and eighties inspired by the writings of 
several French scholars: Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and Louis 
Althusser.

The post-structuralist approach, which like Marxism, claims 
to be "scientific," while displaying nothing but contempt 
for the scientific method, is based upon the interpretation 
of art or culture in terms of textual analysis and the 
process by which the "text" is deciphered. Feminist and 
Marxist scholars often apply the typically dense and 
problematic concepts of these hermeneutists in the fields of 
art criticism.

Paglia is merciless and unrestrained in her attack on 
Halperin and Winkler. Her wrath could even be termed Medea-
like. She speaks with outrage at such academics, who in her 
analysis are self-serving get-rich-quick yuppies, the moral 
equivalent of junk bond dealers: 

  "The French invasion of the seventies had nothing to do 
  with leftism or genuine politics but everything to do with 
  good old- fashioned American capitalism, which liberal 
  academics pretend to scorn. The collapse of the job 
  market, due to recession and university retrenchment after 
  the baby-boom era, caused economic hysteria. As faculties 
  were cut, commercial self-packaging became a priority. 
  Academics, never renowned for courage, fled beneath the 
  safe umbrella of male authority and one-man rule: the 
  French bigwigs offered to their disciples a soothing 
  esoteric code and a sense of belonging to an elite, an 
  intellectually superior unit, at a time when the market 
  told academics they were useless and dispensable. It is 
  comical that these vain, foolish and irrelevant people, so 
  contemptuous of American society, imagine themselves to be 
  leftists."

The academe's addiction to French post-structuralism has 
been at the expense of an entire generation's education in 
humanities, Palgia contends. This is something that I, as an 
art student during the early '80s would testify to as well:

  "Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault are the perfect prophets for 
  the weak, anxious academic personality, trapped in verbal 
  formulas and perennially defeated by circumstance. They 
  offer a self-exculpating cosmic explanation for the normal 
  professorial state of resentment, alienation, dithery 
  passivity, and inaction. Their popularity illustrates the 
  psychological gap between professors and students that has 
  damaged so much undergraduate education."

After a relentless assault upon Halperin and Winkler, 
Foucault and Lacan, academic feminism and Marxism, in an 
attack that roams over a breathtaking battleground of ideas, 
she speaks prescriptively to graduate students about to 
enter the academe: 

  "This is a time of enormous opportunity for you. There is 
  an ossified political establishment of invested self-
  interest. Conformism and empty pieties dominate the 
  academe. Rebel. Do not read Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, and 
  treat as insignificant nothings those that still prate of 
  them. You need no contemporaries to interpret the present 
  for you. Born here, alive now, you are modernity. You are 
  the living link between past and future. Charge yourself 
  with the high ideal of scholarship, connecting you to 
  Alexandria and to the devoted, distinguished scholars who 
  came before you. When you build on learning you build on 
  rock. You become greater by a humility towards great 
  things. Let your work follow its own organic rhythm. Seek 
  no material return from it, and it will reward you with 
  spiritual gold. Hate dogma. Shun careerists...Among the 
  many important messages coming from African-American 
  culture is this, from a hit song by Midnight Star: "No 
  parking, baby, no parking on the dance floor." All of 
  civilized life is a dance, a fiction. You must learn the 
  steps without becoming enslaved by them. Sitting out the 
  dance is not an option."

This quote vividly illustrates Paglia's one-of-a-kind style, 
enthusiasm, and her commitment to truth. She continues in 
this vein in her lecture given at M.I.T., entitled "Crisis 
in the American Universities." This lecture should be 
required reading for any university student. The rest of the 
book is made up of tantalizing and thought provoking essays 
on pop culture and such dangerous (thanks to Political 
Correctness) topics as date rape.

While some of her messages may infuriate, her ideas cannot 
be overlooked. She possesses a unique voice that demands the 
attention of anyone interested in culture and politics in 
the world today.

  - Tom Davis, Vancouver, Canada
    c/o tt-art@teletimes.com


-- Canadian Authors --

I have lived in Canada for over three years now, but I'm 
ashamed to say I still haven't read that much Canadian 
literature. I haven't, for example, read Carol Shields 
despite her recent fame (though I have a copy The Stone 
Diaries sitting on my shelf, waiting to be picked up). 
However, I have read some Canadian writing, and my rather 
limited exposure to it forms the basis for the book reviews 
and the thoughts I am going to set down here. There is no 
particular order or league of merit to the books and authors 
I am going to talk about, but that is how I choose what to 
read, without any particular system. Maybe these names will 
give you some new ideas when you next visit a bookstore. If 
not, they will at least tell you something about my 
prejudices (I could say "my opinions" but that would imply 
rationality, which seems rather inappropriate when I'm 
talking about what I like rather than what I think).

One of the better-known Canadian writers is W. O. Mitchell, 
author of the classic Canadian novel Who Has Seen the Wind. 
The story is set in a small town out on the prairies. I read 
it a couple of years ago and some impressions still remain 
with me. I don't pretend to remember the details of the 
plot, or perhaps even all of the substance. I thought the 
writing was wonderful and the characters deeply and 
sensitively drawn. I could see and sense the affection the 
author conveyed for the prairie landscape of her childhood. 
YetÑstrangelyÑthe feeling I still carry with me is an 
inability to "connect," a lack of empathy for the place and 
its characters. I couldn't relate to the book, couldn't 
submerge myself in it, and even while I admired it I felt no 
nerve touched by the words. I can only attribute my 
sentiments to the distance it lies from own background. I 
never felt comfortable on the prairies. I grew up amongst 
hills, took holidays in the mountains, went to university in 
two very lively and exciting cities, and in my own internal 
world the prairies suck. I can't possibly divorce my 
prejudices about this part of the country from my reactions 
to a book set amidst it. But reading this novel made me 
accept something I think is quite fundamental: the greatest 
writing needs to find a resonant chord in the reader. It 
needs common ground with the audience. People I can usually 
relate to, politics I can usually relate to, but the 
prairies...well, apparently not. I'd love to hear the 
impressions of some other non-prairie natives to this book. 
Is it just my own clouded vision or can only those who have 
grown up on endless flat ground under the vast and ever-
changing subtleties of the open sky really feel this story? 

My second writer is Ruby Slipperjack, and having found her 
work both intriguing and compelling I want to tell you a 
little about it. She has been described as "one of the 
strongest Native voices in Canadian literature." There is a 
large body of heavy and dry academic writing about the 
psychology and lives of Native Canadians as opposed to us 
relative newcomers to North America. A great deal has been 
written about how their attitudes and society may differ 
from what many of us assume about human society and human 
nature. I have read a fair bit of that sort of stuff without 
really understanding what it means. Real appreciation of a 
thing frequently depends more on feelings than on facts. 
Silent Words is a touching vision of what it could be like 
to be a growing aboriginal child within the last thirty 
years. The book relates the story of a growing native boy 
who runs away from his problematic home and finds his own 
way through a variety of communities and experiences. As I 
followed Danny through his journey of discovery, I found 
myself much more deeply appreciative of what it can mean, in 
psychological terms, to be a Native American. I'm not saying 
there are any profound statements or explanations of the 
meaning of lifeÑthere are no sermons. I also haven't joined 
the Wannabe tribe. I just felt a sensitivity and an absence 
of judgment which allows the reader to simply be with the 
boy as he finds his way in the world, a world where the 
expected and the valued take form in ways different from my 
own experience or the experience of anyone I know. It is 
much more personal, more informative, and leaves a far 
deeper impression than several thousand pages of research 
and analysis. 

Another modern writer is Armand Wiebe. I bought his book 
Murder in Gutenthal after I heard him do a reading in 
Winnipeg. He comes from a Mennonite community, and the book 
(one of quite a few he has written) is an intriguing mystery 
set in a Mennonite village. Although I got used to the 
tongue-contorting names after a while, I doubt I appreciated 
all of the humour because I just don't have much common 
ground with the place and its people. Yet I found myself 
interested, and soon addicted, wondering what was going on, 
laughing at ordinary human failings and eccentricities. Even 
though it takes place in a totally alien setting, the story 
is "lightweight" and amusing--but still absorbing. Maybe I 
even learned something about the Mennonites (I knew 
virtually nothing about them before). 

Finally, I want to talk about a much older volume whose 
title, The History of the Northern Interior of British 
Columbia, is a little uninspiring, but that is deceptive. It 
was written by the Rev. A. G. Morice who spent time 
travelling and exploring in the west of this country around 
the turn of the century, and who took it upon himself to 
write a comprehensive history of the area spanning the 
period from 1660 to the late 1800's. It describes the 
adventures of the explorer, the intertribal politics of the 
Indian nations, the conflicts and the relationship between 
the Hudson Bay Company and the Indians, and much more. It is 
pervaded by a strong sense of justice, and there are 
occasional digs at earlier, inaccurate travelogues and 
histories. Especially considering when it was written, it 
provides a quite remarkably unprejudiced account of some of 
the problems faced by the Indians as they adjusted to the 
new force in their lives. It is both a fascinating and (to 
me at least) very readable account of real life during a 
complex and traumatic period (for the locals), and an 
entertaining travelogue as well. His account of the 
deliberate and malicious introduction of liquor to Indian 
communities is an interesting reminder of the roots of many 
social problems with which the First Nations are still 
struggling today.

It seems to me that I have learned as much about Canada from 
fictional and non-academic sources as I have from the 
statistics and facts I have read. I hope you will take a 
look at some of the authors I have discussed, and form your 
own opinions and impressions. I had heard next to nothing 
about Canadian writers before I came here, but there are 
some real talents to discover (and I have only mentioned a 
few of them). So, the next time you go to a bookstore 
perhaps you'll consider picking up a Canadian novel. 

  - Dr. Euan Taylor, Vancouver, Canada
    c/o editor@teletimes.com


-- Books Reviewed by Alexander Varty --
All reviews based on a five star rating system

[A picture of the cover of Incredibly Strange Music appears 
here in the Graphical version]
Ê
Incredibly Strange Music, Volume 1                      ****
Edited by V. Vale and Andrea Juno
(RE/Search Publications, 206 pp., CAN$23.50, softcover)

With some collectible records fetching hundreds and even 
thousands of dollars, it's no wonder that there's currently 
a boom in discographies and price guides. With a little 
research, it's possible to tell the difference between  
black- and yellow-label Savoy LPs, find out how many surf 
records were released in Saskatchewan in 1963, and even 
untangle the thorny mess of Elvis Presley's RCA releases. 
But only now is there a book available which attempts to 
plumb the lowest depths of record mania. Incredibly Strange  
Music, Volume 1 examines the world of 50-cent thrift-store 
specials, as seen through interviews with icons of kitsch 
like Martin Denny, Eartha Kitt, and "Popcorn" composer 
Gershon Kingsley, plus collecting tips from such notable 
vinyl hounds as the Cramps' Poison Ivy and Lux Interior.

This book attempts to portray "bad" music as a cultural 
treasureÑand some of its  arguments are convincing. Pop-
culture archivists Mary Ricci and Mickey McGowan, for 
instance, theorize that a society's real story is told in 
its throw-aways; given the attention archaeologists give 
kitchen middens and  Pompeian graffiti, they may well be 
right. What makes Ricci, McGowan, and their peers seem like 
kooks is only that they're stockpiling this junk before it's 
buried. 

Anyone who has ever thrilled to the discovery of a Screamin' 
Jay Hawkins or an Yma Sumac record in a pile of yard-sale 
wax will share their enthusiasm Ñ and this book's.

Ê
A Whole Brass Band                                       ***
By Anne Cameron
(Harbour Publishing, 302 pp.)

B.C. storyteller Anne Cameron has won a measure of fame for 
her reworkings  of aboriginal legends and for her 1979 film 
Dreamspeaker. Despite the integrity of her work, however, 
and despite her life-long advocacy of Native rights, she has 
recently come under attack by cultural appropriation 
activists for writing of others' experiences instead of her 
own realities. Perhaps impelled by this, she has moved 
closer to home with her new novel, A Whole Brass Band, and 
for once we might have reason to cheer the thought police of 
the politically correct Ñ it's her best writing in a long 
time.

A Whole Brass Band is the saga of a typically unconventional 
contemporary family, led by a caustic, funny, foul-mouthed, 
and intuitively anarchistic single mother and supermarket 
cashier-turned-commercial fisherman, Jean Pritchard. The 
Pritchard clan's ups and downs are charted exhaustively, and  
occasionally in ludicrous detail: so many calamities befall 
Jean, Eve, Patsy, Sally, and Mark that towards the end of 
the book one is half expecting a plague of frogs to swamp 
the family fishboat. Instead, a Fisheries vessel rams it, 
and... but we're not in the business of giving away plots.

The pleasures here are in Cameron's enjoyment of her own 
characters Ñ by the end of the book you feel like the 
Pritchards are your neighbours, so real does she make them 
seem Ñ and her way with dialogue. Cameron has a genuine 
flair for capturing colloquial speech: whole sections of 
this book could be lifted  verbatim for use in a film-
script. A Whole Brass Band could make a brilliant made-for-
TV movie, or perhaps even be serialized as a North Coast 
successor to The Beachcombers. 

And that's not in any way intended as a put-down. A Whole 
Brass Band has the pacing and the humour (and, occasionally, 
the sentimental overkill) of film, but it also has some very 
powerful things to say about the difficulties of building 
and maintaining family bonds in a culture dominated by 
selfish individualists.


Hard Core Logo                                           ***
by Michael Turner
(Arsenal Pulp Press, 200 pp., CAN$13.95, paper)

Vancouver's rock 'n' roll underground will be buzzing about 
this volume for some time to come, if only because the 
fictional punk-rock band that gives the book its title seems 
a lot more like DOA than author Michael Turner's own outfit, 
the Hard Rock Miners. Endless break-ups and reunions? 
Acoustic  benefit gigs for hippy Greens? Scuz-bag ex-
managers? A singer named Joe Dick? Seems familiar to me.

But whether Turner's intentions were satirical or simply 
fictional, Hard Core Logo is a great road novel, its 
innovative mix of song lyrics, flashback  sequences, 
straight narrative, interior monologues, diary jottings, and  
grainy black and white photographs an exceptionally apt way 
of capturing touring's series of random incidents Ñ without 
the accompanying stretches of  boredom. 

It's true that Hard Core Logo's four musicians are difficult 
to like, and somewhat unconvincingly fleshed-out. They're 
rock 'n' roll ciphers, each bedeviled with one or more of 
the travelling band's several deadly sins: greed, drugs, 
insecurity, arrogance, ambition, cheap hotels, bad food. But 
this book's not really about its human characters. Its 
central focus is the road itself, and  Turner's clear 
observations and dark wit illuminate real-life rock 'n' roll 
more forcefully than any number of celebrity bios ever 
could.

  - Alexander Varty, Vancouver, Canada
    c/o tt-entertainment@teletimes.com


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DEPARTMENTS
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-- Music Notes: Feature --
-  Mama Africa Goes Home  -

When I last talked to Miriam Makeba, in 1989, she closed our 
conversation wistfully, saying she still dreamed of seeing 
South Africa, the homeland from which she'd been exiled for 
almost 30 years Ñ exactly as long as Nelson Mandela had been 
in prison. A lot has happened since then, including an 
emotionalÊreturn for her, and a new state of emergency for 
her nation, declared only a day before we spoke again, via 
her hotel phone in San Francisco, a few weeks before the 
tumultuous April elections.

[A photo of Miriam Makeba appears here in the Graphical 
version]

Makeba's currently touring with 4 singers and 7 musicians, 
including her longtime musical cohort (and onetime husband) 
Hugh Masekela, who's having his own career resurgence with a 
hot new live album. "I'm okay," says Makeba with a shy laugh 
and a sniffle from a slight cold. "It's difficult with age."  

Much has been difficult in her life, which saw exultant high 
points in the U.S. and Europe Ñ with accolades for her 
soaring music and prizes for her articulate activism Ñ and 
thudding lows when governments turned against her, and 
friends and family-members died in a dizzying variety of 
ways. Now living on two continents, the prodigal Mama Africa 
tends to describe herself with a  protective "we", perhaps 
to compensate for all the years she's been held at  arm's 
length from her own people.

"We finally went back in 1990, when Mr. Mandela came out of 
jail. His wife told me they were going to be in Sweden, in 
Stockholm, to visit Mr. [Oliver] Tambo, who was ill. I was 
in Spain, and I flew just in time to  meet them. We talked 
for two hours, and Mr. Mandela said how wonderful it was 
when the prisoners heard our [records] from their cells, 
that it sounded like freedom. Then he said, 'now you must 
come home!' And I said, 'how can  I go home? I am a banned 
person."

The newly freed leader told Makeba to go to a South African 
embassy and try again, so she ventured to one near her home 
in Brussels, Belgium. "My name was still in the computer," 
she recalls with a sigh, "but the government had said  
everyone could come back. Eventually, I received a temporary 
visa, and went  home for six days. It was just so... I 
didn't know how to feel. I was crying, I  was happy, but 
also very sad. There were hundreds of people to meet me at  
the airport, and my family, or what was left of it."

The singer returned to Johannesburg for two tumultuous 
performances the next April. 

"It was my first time singing for my people in 31 years. I 
didn't have to  explain myself! Everybody understood. It was 
like a beautiful revival, and just  I had to cry all night." 
The response was so effusive, she decided to find a new home 
there, alternating with her Belgian apartment. In fact, she 
rehearsed the  current tour in South Africa, with homegrown 
musicians finally free to travel.

"Many things have changed. Most of our leaders are out of 
jail, and we can  move about, more or less. We're about to 
vote, if they let us. But in all  honesty, for our people, 
nothing much is truly different. Life is still as hard as 
ever, if not more so. People have no housing, there are so 
many squatter camps; our children have no proper schools, no 
books; not enough hospitals Ñ the basic things. So it will 
be an uphill battle, even if we win the  elections: we'll 
have the flag, but not the money."

Most of all, Makeba rankles at any suggestion of further 
trials brought on by  tribal factionalism. Herself the 
offspring of Xhosa and Swazi parents, the singer shuns 
divisive labels. "Me? I'm a South African Ñ don't know what 
else I can be. I must tell you, there are no tribes fighting 
each other," she declares resolutely. "That is what is so 
hurtful: When you read the international papers, they tell 
you this is a tribal fight. The people who live in Natal 
Province are all Zulus, but there's so much greed, so much 
killing. But we always have hope. When you give up hope, you 
may as well lay down and die. I always said, 'maybe one day 
I'll go home', and I did. I never expected anything, but 
still some of my dreams came true. We have to thank the 
people at home who stood up to everything, and also the 
international community for raising  their voices. And now 
we must say: 'don't abandon us. This is only the beginning!' 
" It's also a potential rebirth for Makeba's music, now that 
the 62-year-old musical matriarch is drawing on home turf 
for inspiration. She recently finished recording a new 
album, Sing Me a Song, in South Africa, although  it has yet 
to circulate widely. "We have had very strange careers," she 
says of her fellow performers-in-exile. "When you function 
in other nations, and you don't have the backing of your own 
country, it can get difficult. Now, if things go well, you 
should see  a lot coming out of South Africa, because 
there's a lot of talent: in theatre, in music, in dance, in 
painting and sculpture. These people, who have been so 
suppressed have so much to say."

Meanwhile, Makeba's been travelling and working, as usual. 
Riding in her tour bus across North America, she has plenty 
of time to think about the turbulent past and the still-
cloudy future, especially now that her late daughter's 
children, performers in their mid-twenties, are part of her 
troupe. 

"They are the only close family I've got, and it's wonderful 
to have them with me," she says with evident pride. But the 
decades of putting art and struggle in front of her personal 
life show up in the essential loneliness which hangs around 
the weary edges of her voice, whether talking or singing.

"I'm never in one place for very long," she admits. "It's 
just that I love to sing. I  think one of the very few times 
I'm happy is when I'm singing. When people  say I sang well, 
that's when I'm satisfied. I don't feel good when I have a 
bad night."

This distinction, apparently, is far more important than the 
recent discovery that her name was touted as a possible ANC 
candidate for parliament. "When  they asked me, I said 'uh-
uh'. I was very honoured, of course, but I told them that if 
I did anything, it was to be this way, with my music. Mr. 
Mandela told me, 'you have been our ambassador, and you must 
continue to raise our voice in the world.' That means more 
to me than any vote. Politicians come and go, you know, but 
music is forever."

  - Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
    tt-entertainment@teletimes.com


-- Music Notes: Pop/Rock/R&B --
All reviews based on a five star rating system

Terrance Simien - There's Room For Us All                ***
(Black Top/WEA)

The title reflects an admirable attitude, and Simian's 
elclectic taste in Louisiana boogie, reggae, and blues  is 
getting ever more refined. Ranging from a remake of Daniel 
Lanois's "The Maker" and several Zydeco  stompers, to the 
'60s-style soul of "Groove Me", and doo-wop of "Will I Ever 
Learn". The friendly music is  dressed up with guests like 
the Meters, string-man Bill Dillon, and co-producer (and 
Neville Brothers veteran) Daryl Johnson on bass. But Simian 
doesn't have a distinctive voice Ñ literally or 
stylistically Ñ  and the songs are more memorable for their 
eclectic reach than for anything personal or definitive.

Ê
Sam Phillips - Martinis & Bikinis                      *****
(Virgin/EMI)

Wow! She just keeps getting better. On her third outing with 
a man's name (well, I guess the original  Leslie was fairly 
indeterminate), the songs are tighter, brighter, and 
punchier than ever. Not that she and producer/ partner T 
Bone Burnett eschew artsy touches or melancholic interludes. 
In fact, the whole  set recalls Revolver's blend of deadly 
hooks and out-there experimentation. This Beatle-mindedness, 
which  you can gather from titles like "Same Rain" and 
"Strawberry Road", is obviously shared by guests like XTC's 
Colin Moulding, Van Dyke Parks, and ex-Dan Hicks fiddler Sid 
Page, who leads a nifty string section on  the Phillips-
defining "Baby I Can't Please You" ("you say love when you 
mean control," she growls). The  moptop connection is made 
complete by closing the set with John Lennon's howling 
"Gimme Some  Truth." But even then, she's her own womanÑno 
yellow-bellied son of Tricky Dicky's gonna Mother Hubbard 
soft-soap her.


Tori Amos - Under the Pink                               ***
(EastWest/WEA)

[A photo of Tori Amos appears here in the Graphical version]

It's not like ToriÊAmos (at right) really cares what we 
think, or she would not have put her most inaccessible song 
at the start of her new album. Sure, "Pretty Good Year" sums 
up her whispy rhapsodizing and cacophonous rage, but do we 
want that in the same song? The rest of the record also 
follows a slow/fast/slow rhythm that makes for a pretty 
unfocussed hour of listening. Taken individually, though, 
there are rewarding songs here. "God", with its clanking 
percussion and bad attitude ("Do you need a woman to take 
care of you?", she smirks at the Bearded One) is an obvious 
standout, and "Cornflake Girl" is catchy single material. 
She's still under the sway of Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, 
though, and even adds Peter Gabriel to the influence pile on 
the creepy "Past the Mission". I'm putting my money on the 
third album.

Ê
Mint Condition - From the Mint Factory                  ****
(Perspective/PolyGram)

Now that the harmony thing is back, groups of young men (and 
women, a la SWV and En Vogue) are  competing for the Boyz II 
Men sweepstakes. This lively sextet, straight outta St. Paul 
(and  exec-produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis) is one of 
the most creative New Jack outfits yet,  combining 
streetcorner soul, gospel fervour, and fusion jazz (really) 
with contagious ease. The hour-plus  disc never flags, and 
the lads have equally strong voices Ñ although the one-named 
Stokley standing out on  the gently bragging "Nobody Does It 
Betta", the churchy "Harmony", and "U Send Me Swingin'" 
(that's  pronounced swangin', of course).


Bonnie Raitt - Longing in Their Hearts                 *****
(Capitol/EMI)

Bonnie's found her groove now, with her third, and best, 
collection of slinky blues and sultry, Celtic-soul  ballads 
co-produced with Don Was. A  groove ain't the same as a rut: 
she brings back Anglo-Irish pals  Richard Thompson and Paul 
Brady, but has the latter sing backup on a glorious reading 
of the former's  "Dimming of the Day", and turns Brady's 
meditative "Steal Your Heart Away" into an intense mid-tempo  
shuffle. There are harmonies from David Crosby and Band-man 
Levon Helm on "Circle Dance" and the  title tune, and harp-
meister Charlie Musselwhite helps close the set with the 
spare "Shadow of Doubt".  But the guest writers and 
performers never outshine the host Ñ just check out Raitt's 
exuberant singing  and Hammond organ-playing on her sexy 
"Feeling of Falling" to find out who's in charge, and why 
that's such a good idea. 

Ê
Vinx - The Storyteller                                    **
(Pangaea/EMI)

In which the Sting-discovered singer-percussionist expands 
his sound with a variety of instrumentalists,  including 
saxist George Howard, flamenco guitarist Django Porter, and 
a jazzy piano-plunker called Stevie  Wonder. He goes 
slightly grungy on the enraged "Letter to the Killer", about 
his father's violent death, and  streetwise on "Living in 
the Metro". Despite the variety, the whole record is marked 
by his lounge-ish  croon, as typified by a remarkably 
tuneless reading of  "Moondance" (it defeated Bobby 
McFerrin, too). Vinx has some pretty interesting stories to 
tell, but he's still having trouble keeping the listener's 
ear.


Kennedy Rose - Walk the Line                              **
(Pangaea/EMI)

Mary Ann Kennedy and Pamela Rose have found a nice harmonic, 
Indigo Girls blend. Aiming for inventive  country pop, 
they've had help from friends like label head Sting, Emmylou 
Harris, and new-age keyboardist David Lanz. Too bad they 
didn't even try on the lyrics. Even with titles like 
"Without  Your Love", "Real World", and "Love Makes No 
Promises" (haven't those been taken already?), some words  
fall far below cornball level. Check out "White Horse": "The 
freedom that she feels is more than free/There's a young 
girl in her eyes/It's funny how she looks a lot like me". 
This may make  acceptable college-dorm fare (in rooms with 
horse posters, anyway), but other listeners will have to  
wait for Kennedy Rose to graduate to songs where language is 
as crafted as sound.

Ê
Julee Cruise - The Voice of Love                           *
(Warner Bros./WEA)

As befits the David Lynch camp, the music of Julee Cruise is 
long on ironic atmosphere and short on  everything else. 
Posing like a hopelessly jejeune member of the Vienna Boys' 
Choir, the gamine singer never rises above a whisper, and 
she's written neither words nor melody here. The former 
chore fell to Lynch, who seems to think "I fell for you like 
a bomb/Now my love's gone up in flames" is a clever play on  
pop cliches; the music belongs to Twin Peaks veteran Angelo 
Badalamenti, who serves up a diet of  soothing ersatz jazz 
and cool pseudo-doowop. But the songs have no development, 
contrast, or  meaning, and anyway, who needs this bland 
nonsense while Peggy Lee records are still in print.

Ê
The Golden Palominos - This Is How It Feels               **
(Cargo/MCA)

Past GP vocalists have included Michael Stipe, Syd Straw, 
and Richard Thompson in ad-hoc stylistic  free-for-alls. 
This time, band founder/drummer Anton Fier worked up some 
smokin' late-night tracks  with bassist Bill Laswell, 
guitarists Nicky Skopelitis and Bootsy Collins, and 
keyboardist Bernie Worrell  (all connected with New York's 
avant-funk Material). The boys then made a tres big mistake: 
they  handed the tapes over to singer Lori Carson. With her 
breathy, glottal-stopped soprano, Carson makes  Edie 
Brickell sound like Aretha Franklin. And the tunes 
constitute an instantly forgettable mishmash of "ethereal" 
repetition and sophomore philosophy ("If the answers answer 
anything at all/They do by  making the questions small"). If 
you own one of those karaoke machines, however, you could 
probably still have some fun with the backing tracks.

Ê
Freddie Jackson - Here It Is                             ***
(RCA/BMG)

Yes, it's here. A collection of 10 new smooth ones from Mr. 
Candlelight 'n' Wine himself. The songs, of  course, are 
variations on love ("Make Love Easy", love ("Come Home II 
U", and still more love ("My  Family"). Even so, the singing 
is the thing, and Jackson's slick tenor has deepened and 
grown more adventurous Ñ sexy, but still in a mom-approved 
kind of way. He even turns up the tempo on (slightly) 
funkier ditties like "Addictive 2 Touch", whatever that 
means, and the propulsive title cut.  He's never startling 
like Luther Vandross, but Jackson's still nice to have 
around.

  - Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
    tt-entertainment@teletimes.com
Ê

-- Jazz/Worldbeat --
All reviews based on a five star rating system

Ê
Jan Garbarek - Twelve Moons                            *****
(ECM/BMG)

If you haven't heard the Norwegian saxophonist for a few 
lunar orbits, Twelve Moons is  the place to get   back in 
touch. Sure, all of Jan Garbarek's records pit his keening  
soprano or ruminative tenor against icy Nordic backdrops, 
but this one's exciting  because it covers all the territory 
he's staked out in the past two decades. With German pals 
Eberhard Weber and Rainer Bruninghaus on liquid bass and 
piano, and percussion  chores bouncing from Manu Katche to 
Marilyn Mazur, the tunes range from hypnotic  minor-key 
vamps ("Brother Wind March") recalling Garbarek's days with 
Keith Jarrett to  affectionate revivals of old Norse  folk 
tunes, as in Edvard Grieg's "Arietta" and songs  featuring 
traditional vocalists Agnes Buen GarnŒs or Mari Boine. The 
long title  composition suggests the cinematic sweep of his 
work for Greek film composer  Eleni Karaindrou, and the set 
even closes with a reprise of the late Jim Pepper's  
"Witchi-Tai-To", first recorded for one of Garbarek's 
earliest albums. By integrating  these styles into a 
seamless and intoxicating whole, the moody, self-taught 
saxist has  created more than a gorgeously recorded 
retrospective: it's a launch-pad for twenty  more years of 
polar exploration.

Ê
Gipsy Kings - Love & Liberte                              **
(Columbia/Sony)

These savvy French wanderers are down a few members and 
searching for a new sound. That means an unfortunate move 
towards bland posturing a la Ottmar Liebert, but 
instrumentals like "Guitarra Negra" and "Ritmo de la Noche" 
still pack a flamenco kick. Maybe if they make enough money 
from this filler-fest, they'll go back to their pre-"growth" 
best.

Ê
Material - Hallucination Engine                        *****
(Axiom/PolyGram)

You never know who Bill Laswell will round up for his next 
Material excursion; the  oh-so-New York bassist even 
combined out-there sax-man Archie Shepp with Whitney  
Houston for an early-'80s cut! This time he has regulars 
like Zakir Hussein, Aiyb Deing,  Trilok Gurtu, and Sly 
Dunbar in the percussion section, along with Bernie Worrell 
on  keyboards, and Simon Shaheen, Shankar, Bootsy Collins, 
and Nicky Skopelitis on various stringed instruments. It's 
much the same lineup as on the latter guitarist's last Axiom 
album, Ekstasis, and it continues that record's fixation on 
things Egyptian. Sometimes the connection is direct, with 
Fahim Dandan's swirling Arabic vocals, but  even when Wayne 
Shorter swoops in with a sax solo, on the opening "Black 
Light", or William S. Burrughs drops by to give "Words of 
Advice", instruments like oud, ney, and  ganoun keep 
percolating in the background. That may sound pretty dense, 
but the disc is  actually characterized by a spacious, 
Weather Report-like soundÑthis is made explicit on a  re-do 
of Joe Zawinul's "Cucumber Slumber" and an airy update of 
John Coltrane's "Naima".  Reggae, African, and Eno-esque 
electronics also float through the crystalline mix, making  
this both the edgiest and the most accessible Material set 
yet.

Ê
BABKAS - BABKAS                                         ****
(Songlines)

The name's an acronym, based on the first and last initials 
of altoist Briggan Krauss,  drummer Aaron Alexander, and 
guitarist Brad Schoeppach. It also implies something  about 
the controlled babble of sounds welling up from this 
recently formed Seattle  threesome (although the latter two, 
known for their work with singer Jay Clayton, are  New York-
bound). Managing to combine jazz and New Music sensibilities 
with refreshing  vigour and visceral spontanaeity, the 
fifteen cuts (with evocative names like "Clang", "Czugy  
Stodel", and "Big Bird Razor") on their 67-minute debut disc 
run a surprising gamut of  angular improvisations, quirky, 
John Zorn-type formalism, and smooth bebop-fusion  (like the 
long opener, "Your Sign Here"). There's even a stately 
reading of "Hungarian Dance  #20", by that old swinger 
Johannes Brahms. Some of the freer pieces could be pruned of  
group noodling, but Krauss's probing, vibratoless sax is 
engaging throughout, and  Alexander fuels the affair with 
effortless, and restrained, versatility. And  Schoeppach's 
tense, swirling electronics could draw fans of the guitar 
atmospherics of Bill Frisell, David Torn, and Allan 
Holdsworth. Heck, commercial jazz stations might even play 
this.

Ê
Kat Hendrix - Before the Rain                              *
(Lion's Gate)

For about a decade, Kat Hendrix has provided the spacious-
sounding drums for Vancouver's Skywalk. His first solo 
venture finds him still thumping artfully in the fusion 
field, with able accompaniment from hornmen Tom Colclough 
and Vince Mai, as  well as Skywalk synth-man Miles Black. 
All the players contribute tunes to the  clear-sounding, 
self-produced disc, but there isn't one you're likely to 
remember. Mainly, it comes across as a pleasant soundtrack 
in search of a TV series that's already  been cancelled.

Ê
Eastern Rebellion - Simple Pleasure                      ***
(MusicMasters/BMG)

Pianist Cedar Walton and drummer Billy Higgins are the 
constants in this irregular neo-bop  group, which now boasts 
bassist David Williams and English reed-player Ralph Moore. 
They play extra-pretty on ballads on "My Ideal" and "Theme 
for Ernie", and step up the  tempo on some bluesy-funky 
originals. The pacing, however, is a bit on the slack side, 
and the record is ennervated by a staid polish that invites 
admiration, not replays.

Ê
Bill Frisell - This Land                                ****
(Elektra/WEA)

[A photo of Bill Frisell's guitarist appears here in the 
Graphical version.]

In which the Seattle guitar auteur (guiteur?) continues his 
musical cruise across America, with much the same 
passengers. But where the previous Have a Little Faith in Me 
was all spacious sunsets and midnight prairie howls, this 
one is about changing tires and grabbing afternoon beers. 
Titles like "Amarillo Barbados", "Unscientific Americans" 
and "Jimmy Carter (Parts 1 and 2)" tell you that the ride 
will be a bumpy, noisy, jocular one. Reed-men Don Byron and 
Billy Drewes and trombonist Curtis Fowlkes have no trouble 
shifting gears from the polka frenzy of "Rag" to the David 
Lynch mysterioso of "Strange Meeting" or the angular, 
buzzing modernism jazzers would expect from a cut called 
"Julius Hemphill". The guitarist has plenty of gas and maps 
be damned. Just one more question, Bill: Are we there yet?

Ê
Stanley Turrentine - If I Could Tell You                 ***
(MusicMaster Jazz/BMG)

One of the most overlooked tenormen of the fertile '60s and 
crossover '70s, Stanley  Turrentine has lately roared back 
to form, if not innovation. In fact, his spate of  releases 
for the MusicMasters Jazz label, complete with old pals like 
flutist Hubert  Laws, bassist Ron Carter, and pianist Roland 
Hanna, intentionally recalls Creed Taylor's CTI label, 
albeit with exceedingly ugly covers. The funky "June Bug", 
Evans-dedicated "I Remember Bill", and 15-minute, Latinate 
"Caravan" are ensemble standouts. Still, there's little 
satisfaction here you couldn't get from a reissue of Sugar 
or any other, earlier Turrentine opus.

Ê
Peter Delano - Peter Delano                              ***
(Verve/PolyGram)

This absurdly young New York pianistÑhe'll be 18 this yearÑ
is bristling with enough talent to attract major sax-men 
like Michael Brecker and Gary Bartz to his big-label debut. 
He's equally at home in an ensemble romp like "Miles' Mode" 
or lush solo rhapsodies like the  closing "Reminiscence". In 
between, though, some of his slower melodies are muddy, and  
Delano can get pretty vague in the rhythmic department. That 
chestnut- of-chestnuts,  "Autumn Leaves", usually lopes at a 
nostalgic gait, but the young pianist fumbles it 
distractedly; perhaps a lack of accumulated memories is the 
problem.

Ê
Shuffle Demons - Extra Crispy                              *
(Stubby)

The Shuffle Demons's latest offering is strictly for people 
who think jazz is some kind of  goofy novelty act, and that 
titles like "Deli Tray", "The Funkin' Pumpkin" and "Reggae 
Man" (featuring a vaguely Polish-Rasta accent from drummer 
Stich Wynston) are inherently funny. Maybe if the band, 
currently a quintet, would just shut up and play music, they 
might be be okay, but by the time the thinly recorded, over-
70-minute disc gets to its long closing intrumentals, the 
welcome mat is worn through by inane, baggy-pants posturing 
and tiresome (as in just-plain-bad) vocalising. And what 
does it say about these alleged composers that their best 
new songs were written by Gordon Lightfoot ("The Wreck of 
the Edmund Fitzgerald", done Celtic-style) and a TV-show 
hack ("Hawaii 5-0")? Extra Crispy? I think they're done.

  - Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
    tt-entertainment@teletimes.com
Ê

-- Movies: Wide Release --
All reviews based on a five star rating system

[A photo of Andie MacDowell and Drew Barrymore appears hee 
in the Graphical version.]
Ê
Bad Girls                                                  *

Like everything else about Bad Girls, the title is so 
crushingly obvious, it's hard to see it  as even a single 
entendre. Perhaps the Michael Jackson meaning was intended 
in this tale of four tough hookers hee-hawing their way 
through the Old West That Never Was, but it's safe to assume 
that Strong Women never even hit the conference table.

Something else hit the fan, however, when director Tamra 
Davis was fired and replaced  by "feminist" Jonathan Kaplan 
(The Accused). The real controversy comes from contemplating 
what Davis could possibly have done to make her Girls 
badder. Chances are, it would have been lame, loose, and 
anachronistic in its own special way, but we could forget 
about that if this version didn't give us so much time to 
think about more interesting things.

The film has the kind of awesome absurdity you'd expect from 
a high school play that  suddenly landed $20 million to beef 
up its production. Above all, the feel of egregious 
amateurism is driven home by Madeleine Stowe, whose 
performance here as  snake-skinning Cody Zamora throws any 
previously perceived talent into gloomy  doubt. With her 
sway-backed swagger and frozen mouth, Stowe is so somberly  
self-important, she comes across like a robotic Clint 
Eastwood without wrinkles,  humour, or vulnerability. 

Is that a feminist prototype? It may seem contentious when 
Mary Stuart Masterson's forgettable character discovers her 
land deed is worthless without her dead husband to  claim 
it, but that impression is wiped away by the very next 
scene, in which another  woman is rescued, John Wayne-style, 
by a stern-jawed cowboy (soulful Dermot  Mulroney) backed by 
full Marlboro-music strings. Andie MacDowell's southern  
belle is similarly nondescript, ending up in a bland 
marriage to a decent, stoical rancher (James LeGros). 
Neither embarrass themselves by approaching Stowe's deep 
commitment to the wafer-thin script. Interestingly, the only 
woman to emerge from  this mess with a shred of dignity is 
Drew Barrymore, who shrewdly plays her ornery, blond-vixen 
part as if it were the lead in a multimedia Guess? jeans ad 
campaign (you know, when Vanity Fair comes out on CD-ROM). 
When she's captured by villains, led by nasty Kid Jarrett 
(spectacularly awful James Russo), she blithely calls them 
"pigs", rolling her eyes more in disdain than apprehension.

Barrymore's sense of trashy fun only serves to point up how 
deadly dull everybody else is  feeling. Well, at least 
veteran character-man Robert Loggia, as Jarrett's even 
meaner  father, wallows loudly in some kind of Oedipus-Tex 
perversity that isn't even on the page. Kaplan, however, 
thinks it's all as pretty as an apricot sunset; his 
widescreen,  hoof-pounding vision empowers everyone in 
sight... to behave like grade-A, no-logic  morons. And of 
course, he never threatens what we already know: misterhood 
is powerful.

Ê
The Hudsucker Proxy                                     ****

It's obvious to both fans and detractors of Ethan and Joel 
Coen that those  not-quite-lovable Minnesota brothers 
(responsible for Blood Simple, Raising  Arizona, Millers 
Crossing and Barton Fink) are creatures of utter artifice. 
But what art! 

Each film has been more stylized than the last, and their 
marvelous new one, The  Hudsucker Proxy is more homage than 
creation, owing its life to the depression-era  populism of 
Frank Capra and Preston Sturges, and the screwball comedy of 
Howard  Hawks. With its ornate, bulbous art direction, the 
$40-million Hudsucker, there are also  modern nods to the 
self-enclosed fantasy world of Tim Burton, the 
anthropological  detachment of Robert Altman, and the what-
the-hell surrealism of David Lynch, with hints of Brazil and 
Bladerunner.

Some movie nuts will be tickled ecstatic by direct lifts 
from Meet John Doe and His Girl  Friday, and others will say 
the originals can't be improved on, so why try? Both have a  
point, but that will be lost on mainstream crowds just 
looking for a quick, easy fix. Not  that there isn't plenty 
of story here, as young Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) 
arrives in New York City, fresh from the Muncie College of 
Business Administration. He's a cornfed  optimist, with no 
experience but one odd ace up his sleeve... or shoe, 
actually: it's a  rumpled piece of paper with a plain circle 
drawn on it. "You know," he explains, "for kids." 

This cryptic "invention" comes in handy when he shows up at 
Hudsucker Industries just as  its founder (Charles Durning) 
plunges 45 stories (with mezzanine) to his death. Swallowed 
by the company's voluminous mailroom, Norville emerges just 
as a venal  vice-president with the (Groucho) Marxist name 
of Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman)  schemes to acquire 
power by driving the company's stock down. He needs a proxy, 
a  patsy, a chump, a fall-guy... You get the idea.

So does Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Amy Archer (Jennifer 
Jason Leigh, doing a vastly  irritating riff on Katherine 
Hepburn), who cozies up to Norville long enough to figure 
out  how lost he is. "Only a numbskull," she barks at him, 
"thinks he knows thing about things he  knows nothing 
about." So there. 

But he does know one thing, and his "extruded plastic 
dingus" turns into a runaway sensation when rechristened the 
Hula Hoop. Hudsucker shares fly through the ceiling, but 
Norville's knowledge of geometry ends there, and he's soon 
pulling a Gary Cooper on the office ledge.

Too bad the audience doesn't care. As hilarious as Robbins 
is, especially when klutzing his  way through the early 
scenes, there's nothing really endearing about Barnes, or 
anyone  else in this spectacular undertaking. The characters 
are mere stand-ins for charismatic  leads and indelible 
second bananas from bygone, and implicitly better, years.
Oh well. The film is so beautifully crafted, from the 
burnished shadows cast by the huge  gears, clocks, and 
circles which dominate the design (which picks up colour as 
it goes  along), to the sound of a pencil rolling in an 
otherwise empty desk drawer, there's more than enough to lap 
up with pleasure. Sure, emotion is scarce, and Newman and 
Leigh are  problematic casting choices. But there's a 
surplus of sight gags, breathtaking edits, brilliant 
digressions, brassy music and riveting cameos (Jim True 
stands out as the  fast-talking elevator boy, and Peter 
Gallagher has a coolly bizarre walk-on as a jaded '50s  
crooner).

And by setting their retro-epic in the Eisenhower-addled 
1950s, the Coens have also  created the ghostly gasp of a 
departed breed; you won't see another movie this decade  (or 
ever) where business boardmembers are all pig-pink males, 
and the only non-white  face belongs to a Nurturing Negro 
named Moses, who keeps the clock going and tells  the tale 
in soothing voice-over. It ain't progress, but it's swell.

Ê
Serial Mom                                               ***

What does the failure to floss, recycle, or rewind your 
tapes have in common with  impolite parking or wearing white 
after Labor Day? Well, any one of these social  infractions 
(or less) can get you killed if Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen 
Turner) is around. 

On the surface, she's every inch "Beaver Cleaver's mother", 
as one policeman initially jokes,  but there's nothing funny 
about her private fixation on Charles Manson, Richard Speck,  
and other American anti-heroes. By the time her mild-
mannered dentist-husband Eugene  (Sam Waterston), boy-
troubled daughter Misty (Ricki Lake), and horror-flick- 
addicted  son Chip (Matthew Lillard) start to cotton on, 
Serial Mom has already begun to terrorize  the suburbs. She 
quickly escalates from makes filthy calls to a nervous widow 
(Mink  Stole) to planning the murder of a nosy neighbour 
(Mary Jo Catlett) with bad trash  habits, and soon, the PTA 
is sorry she's such an active member.

This might be a good time to remind everyone that Serial Mom 
is a film from John Waters, the Baltimore cult figure 
responsible for such non-PBS fare as Lust in the Dust and 
Multiple Maniacs, as well as such semi-mainstream fare as 
Hairspray and Cry-Baby. He's certainly never had a budget 
this big before, and it's a good thing he spent the best 
part of it (in both senses) on the star, who tackles her 
two-faced role with relishÑand scissors, and knives, and 
fire-pokers, and an unforgettable leg of lamb.

Without Turner's Breck-Girl-on-acid performance, the movie's 
combination of low humour, bad writing, tepid set design, 
and realistic gore would be unpalatable indeed. As it is, 
Waterston has little to do but his best Dagwood imitation, 
and no-one else is particularly riveting, either. 

Ultimately, I have no idea what Waters is trying to say 
about present-day America and its  fixation on violent crime 
(That our subjugated rage needs some gladiatorial outlet? 
That  we shouldn't separate our garbage?). But it's 
definitely funny. Especially when the film  switches to 
Court-TV mode, and Beverly happily defends herself against  
multiple-murder charges. When Suzanne Somers shows up, as 
herself, ready to star in a Serial Mom movie package, or 
Patricia Hearst, as a sympathetic juror, argues 
(unsuccessfully) for fashion tolerance, the story seems to 
float on a sea of junky pop flotsam. And that's just where 
Captain WatersÑbig budget or noÑfeels most at home. 


[A photo of Josh Charles, Lara Flyn Boyle and Stephen 
Baldwin appears here in the Graphical version.]

Ê
Threesome                                                 **

Part cheeseball exploitation and part coming-of-age 
confessional, only the sincerity of Threesome offendsÑit's 
Spring Break, dressed up as Dostoyevsky.

Set in an unspecified California college, the tale concerns 
a mixed-sex troika accidentally  dorming together when 
stuffy paper-shufflers think curvy Alex (Twin Peaks' Lara 
Flynn  Boyle) is suitable roomate-material for bookish Eddy 
(Josh Charles) and obnoxious Stuart  (Stephen Baldwin). 
Quick as you can say insufficient character development, 
Alex whips  up a major pash for the "sexually ambivalent" 
Eddy, who's slightly more responsive to  Stuart's 
relentlessly lewd antics.

They do discuss J.D. Salinger, and drama-major Alex acts in 
"a lesbian version of Oedipus Rex," but the pleasantly 
tormented trio never seem to go to class. Well, Eddy does 
have  that French Cinema course, but's that's just to let 
shlock-monger Andrew Fleming (Bad  Dreams) refer 
blasphemously to Truffaut's triangular classic, Jules and 
Jim. Anyway, that  leaves them plenty of time for softcore 
hanky-panky, in various subsets, although they  save the big 
three-way until almost the end, like some kind of salacious 
reward for  sitting through long stretches of rudderless 
storytelling.

Jacked up with artsy camera angles and de rigeur jangly 
guitars, the film tries hard to be taken seriously, or at 
least to be thought of as daring. Despite some frank talk, 
though, Eddy's homo-erotic odyssey is handled like a tepid 
sequel to The Wonder Years (Kevin's  Little Secret?). 

What energy there is is provided by Baldwin. His campus-
clinging character is unshakably  idea-free, an ever-ready 
party animal who brings new meaning to term panty raid. More  
importantly, he states blunt thoughts with such brutal joyÑ
"ever taken it up the ass?" is a  passing conversational 
gambit for himÑeven the most reactionary audience recoils 
towards  the sensitive Eddy (in the confrontational scheme 
of things, Stuart'll do until an  Australian comes along).

Boyle's no Jeanne Moreau, but she's not bad either, at least 
when she gets to drop the  model 'tude and show some comic 
flair. Charles is okay in a somewhat monotonous role. An 
Indecent Proposal for the Cliff's Notes set, Threesome may 
be sleazy and slow-witted,  but it won't do any harm. As 
sexual preferences go, being turned into amiable trash is 
always a sure sign of mainstream acceptance.

Ê
The Paper                                                 **

As we've come to expect from director Ron Howard (Far and 
Away, Backdraft), The  Paper offers a lot of giddy 
enthusiasm for the mechanics of filmmaking and very little  
interest in the niceties of form, nuance, or depth of 
character. 

Michael Keaton stars as Henry Hackett, the Michael Keaton-
ish editor of a semi-sleazy  tabloid called The New York 
Sun. Everything about this rag is implausible, from its 
name, to its extra-flexible deadlines, to the unaccountably 
posh street entrance which doesn't quite jibe with the 
offices inside. 

That's also the architecture of the movie. It hinges on a 
supposed dilemma when Henry  runs into a big story on the 
same day he's set to interview for a cushy job at a New York  
Times-like "rival" (with an officious editor played 
wonderfully by Spaulding Gray). His  massively pregnant wife 
(a one-note Marisa Tomei) is pushing hard for the security 
of the higher-paying gig. But as a reporter on leave, she 
also has ink in her veins, and can't  resist helping him 
find the scoop which sends him off and running in the 
opposite  direction.

Get the picture? Almost everyone here is a bi-polar cartoon, 
set up with some nervous tic  or rigid attitude, and then 
"humanized" by nice-guy Howard (and co-writing brothers  
Stephen and David Koepp Ñ the latter was at least partially 
responsible for the flat language of Jurassic Park, 
Carlito's Way, and Death Becomes Her). In what I pray is a  
parody of the basic corporate bitch, Glenn Close plays a 
tough-nosed, beige-suited  managing editor (Fatal 
Redaction?) who warms up obligingly when good ol' Henry 
finally tells her off. Then there's Robert Duvall, puffing 
out his gut as the crusty, penny-pinching boss who's really 
pining for the love of his daughter (awww).

At least slimmed-down Randy Quaid is allowed to get along 
with only one trait: he's a hard-drinking reporter given to 
sleeping in the office and firing sidearms to calm down 
editorial meetings (in the U.S.A., that's considered funny). 
Of the dramaturgical crop offered, only the bearded guy who 
complains about backpains  and second-hand smoke is more 
believable.

Oh yeah, there's some strained social relevance, since the 
drama involves a couple of  black kids falsely charged for a 
racially motivated murder. But from the rote way it's  
handled, this hot potato has even less steam than a subplot 
about a short-fused parking  commissioner (Seinfeld's Jason 
Alexander). The result is a storyline virtually without  
tension or momentum. Consequently, the director compensates 
by keeping the camera  in constant, frequently pointless, 
motion; he has everyone scream their overlapping  dialogue 
competitively, and pounds Randy Newman's surprisingly inane 
score into  already overloaded eardrums. The best 8-dollar 
headache around, The Paper is more evidence that Splash will 
likely stand as Ron Howard's career pinnacle.

Ê
Major League II                                           **

It took five big years for director David S. Ward to rally 
the troops for this dutiful rehash  of Major League. Well, 
most of the troops anyway. Wesley Snipes is now in the  $5-
million bullpen, and can't be bothered with Roman numerals. 
In his place, as the showboating Willy Mays Hayes, is Omar 
Epps, last seen in Ward's football opus, The Program.

[A photo of David Keith appears here in the Graphical 
version.]

Cleveland Indians in a deeper rut are: Rick "Wild Thing" 
Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), with banker's pinstripes and a bland 
haircut; Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), who owns  the club but 
can't get up to bat; the absurdly accented Pedro Cerrano 
(Dennis Haysbert,  unrecognizable from his tete-a-tete with 
Michelle Pfeiffer in Love Field), who has traded  his voodoo 
for Buddhism; paunchy manager Lou Brown (James Gammon), 
sagging in the  saddle; and catcher Jake Taylor (always-
watchable Tom Berenger), with bad knees and soulful mien. 
Newcomers include a hayseed called Rube (Eric Bruskotter), 
an unpredictable outfielder (Takaaki Ishibashi, a sort of 
Japanese Gilbert Gottfried), and a badass powerhitter (David 
Keith) who plays Bluto to everyone else's Popeye. That's it 
for dynamics. Since  Cleveland (played by Baltimore, 
actually) came out on top last time, there's nowhere to go  
but down; Ward sends them into a psychological tailspin that 
they, and the movie, can't  really recover from. Soon, Wild 
Thing's throw is so mild, even his therapist is ragging on 
him.

The team's torpour is contagious, and MJII leans heavily on 
Bob Uecker, as an irascible announcer, to paper over the 
many dull spots with cynical chatter. Befitting a tale of 
the team with baseball's most odious logo, the film is 
filled with phobias Ñ racial and otherwise Ñ and its humour 
is mostly of the lowest-common-denominator variety, 
exemplified by Randy Quaid's uncredited, and increasingly 
tedious, cameo as a traitorous fan. 

Let's not forget the "ladies": Renee Russo, as Jake's boring 
love interest, is only around for one scene, so Vaughn has a 
middling fling with a nicey-nice schoolteacher (Coneheads'  
Michelle Burke) who seemingly lives at the stadium with cute 
inner-city kids. But Ward's more interested in powerful 
women we can hate, so he brings back bitch-goddess Rachel 
Phelps (Margaret Whitton) and adds a blond PR huckster 
(Alison Doody) to double male fears. It's simply amazing how 
much bad feeling some people can pack into an empty  
formula. There is some nice ball in the last ten minutes.

  - Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
    tt-entertainment@teletimes.com


-- Movies: Arthouse/Independent --
All reviews based on a five star rating system

Ê
The House of Spirits                                       *
(US/Denmark/Germany/Portugal)

Maybe there could be a worse adaptation of Isabel Allende's 
bestselling saga of a  strife-torn Latin American family, 
but it's gruesome to contemplate how it would differ from 
this spectacularly wrong-headed movie. If it didn't have 
such big names attached, the epic wannabe could have been 
comfortably shelved, or more likely cut into miniseries-
sized chunks and spread over several nights of so-so TV.

The project was sunk from the start with the selection of 
Bille August, the Danish director who did beautifully 
understated work on the period pieces The Best Intentions, 
Pelle the Conqueror, and Twist and Shout. One glance at his 
austere, Bergman-inflected style should have sent warning 
signals to anyone fond of the magic realism underpinning 
much Spanish-language literature (picture Pedro Almodovar 
directing Wild Strawberries to get the effect in reverse).

Then there's that all-star cast. For a tale intended to 
convey the trials of four generations of women in a South 
American country quite like Chile (the film was mostly shot 
in Portugal), it spends an awful Ñ and I do mean awful Ñ lot 
of time with Jeremy Irons as  Esteban Trueba, a reactionary 
landowner who does his very best to ruin the lives of  
everyone around him. With "swarthy" makeup and a prosthetic 
device to enhance his  public-school mumble, Irons effects 
an unplaceable accent, but can't handle even the most 
familiar Spanish words Ñ he comes across like an Iowa 
Republican on his first trip to Mexico.

Meryl Streep fares better as his bride, Clara. She's a 
gentle clairvoyant who can always  see who's going to die 
next, but can't quite predict the misery of life with bully-
boy Esteban, even after he bans his spinsterly sister from 
their sprawling hacienda. When the gates close on black-clad 
Ferula (a terrific Glenn Close, stepping out of a gloomy 
Dutch painting), the movie loses the fraction of a heart it 
started with, and lurches from  one tacky tragedy to the 
next.

One of the saddest things about the generally dispiriting 
Spirits is the way it reduces  profound political events 
(meant to parallel, but not duplicate Allende's own 
experience) to a "sweeping" technicolor backdrop for sudsy 
soap opera love. With Winona Ryder as the Truebas's well-
named daughter, Blanca, opposite Philadelphia's Antonio 
Banderas, as a dashing peasant revolutionary, the story 
plays like a wealthy Valley Girl dallying with the hunky 
pool boy. (It says something odd that Banderas and  Maria 
Conchita Alonzo, two of the few actors with genuine Hispanic 
accents, seem ludicrously out-of-place here.)

But most depressing is the way the disjointed movie, edited 
even more brutally than the  longer European version, robs 
The House of what made it so popular in the first place. 
Readers everywhere Ñ especially female ones Ñ were immensely 
taken by the book's evocation of a private women's culture, 
rich with non-linear storytelling, otherworldy omens, and 
bursts of unexpected violence and feeling. Despite a few  
luminous moments with Streep and Close, this version should 
be called Sidney Sheldon's  House of Spirits... 
if that's not being too unkind to Sidney.


[A photo of Diaz-Aroca, Verdu, Ramirez, Cruz, and Gil from 
Belle Epoque appears here in the Graphical version.]

Belle Epoque                                           *****
(Spain)

If anyone remakes The House of the Spirits, they should hire 
Fernando Trueba (dig the  last name), the director of Belle 
Epoque, the lovely Spanish sex farce which won a slew  of 
Spanish academy awards, and an American one, for best 
foreign film. 

The setting is rural Spain, circa 1931, during the tentative 
tug-of-war between  monarchists, fascists, and socialistas. 
A confused young army recruit and former seminary student, 
Fernando (handsome Jorge Sanz, who looks like a befuddled 
Robert Downey Jr.) has deserted his post, and is wandering 
towards Madrid when he stumbles  onto the smalltown villa of 
the friendly Manolo (Fernando Fernan Gomez), a self-
satisfied painter and padron. Impotent with anyone but his 
opera-singing wife, and secretly religious, Don Manolo's 
only real problem is that he's a would-be "infidel, rebel 
and  libertine, living like an old bourgeois."

The era's chaotic politics suits his well-developed sense of 
cynical humour, and he  likewise enjoys Fernando's 
passionate innocence and exceptional kitchen skills. Still,  
Manolo turns chilly the day his four grown daughters are due 
for a visit; he abruptly  hustles the young man to the train 
station, bag in hand. One glance at these ninas,  however, 
and Fernando makes tracks back to the villa. Soon, his life 
is reduced to   cooking gourmet meals and deciding which 
sister is prettiest and most desirable Ñ a task  which isn't 
as easy as it sounds.

This may sound like a male fantasy supreme, but the way it's 
handled by Trueba and  screenwriter Rafael Azcona, young 
Fernando is never in control for a minute. Instead,  he 
flits impulsively Ñ and not usually on his impulses, either 
Ñ between the demure Clara  (Miriam Diaz-Aroca), still 
adapting to recent widowhood; the voluptuous, dark Rocio 
(Maribel Verdu), also involved with a goofy rich kid; the 
mannish Violeta (Ariadna Gil),  who prefers Fernando in a 
dress and make-up (maing him to look like Tony Curtis in 
Some Like It Hot); and feisty Luz (Jamon Jamon's Penelope 
Cruz), the impatient baby  of the family. 

When not being burdened by Fernando's latest confession of 
love, Manolo dreams of a  free Spain, and of his absent 
spouse, who finally shows up with her French agent and  
lover (Michel Galabru, who did his own drag numbers in the 
Cage aux Folles films). Once this extended family is in 
place, the gorgeously shot movie takes on the sun-dappled, 
giddily melancholic tone of rustic period classics like 
Bertrand Tavernier's Sunday in the Country and Jean Renoir's 
A Day in the Country. But Trueba, who admitted his fealty to 
Billy Wilder on Oscar night, also calls on Howard Hawks and 
other screwball directors for his flawless timing and tart, 
female-centred comedy. His sense of eros, which pokes fun at 
gender and tradition, but never at desire, is plenty 
original though. And remarkably hard to shake off, at least 
without a cold shower.

Ê
Sirens                                                    **
(UK/Australia)

Not really bad, Sirens is not really good. Still, it's easy 
to explain why it's getting   attention: there's plenty of 
sex in it. Or at least plenty of nudity, which amounts to  
the same thing for North Americans fed on a steady diet of 
look-don't-touch arousal Ñ a  kind of slavering puritanism, 
if you will (or, more likely, won't).

Whence came this special brand of glazed voyeurism? From the 
Brits, of course, although  they at least have the ability Ñ 
the craving, actually Ñ to make fun of "private functions" 
we don't find all that amusing. Essentially an Australian 
spin on Enchanted April's   liberation-through-nature 
comedy, the early-1930s-set tale follows a young church 
couple's journey from England to the Blue Mountain home of 
Aussie artist Norman Lindsey (Sam Neill), whose subversive 
nude pictures are causing an uproar in Edwardian London.

It's a foregone conclusion that the free-thinking painter 
and his sun-dappled, supermodel-strewn surroundings will, as 
they anachronistically say, "shock the socks" off the young 
marrieds (named Campion, much to the delight of Piano fans). 
The only steady fun in the film is seeing how they get 
undone, or done, in the case of Estella Campion (Tara 
Fitzgerald), who turns out to be considerably more 
adventurous than her husband, the only slightly irreverent 
Reverend Anthony (Hugh Grant). Although both actors come 
across a little wiser than their naive characters are 
written, they're so good at bumbling their way towards 
ecstasy, you have to laugh.

But what's really going on here? Not a lot, unless you still 
happen to find D.H. Lawrence  and Havelock Ellis 
controversial. More exactly, the film is mired in a late-
'60s sensibility  which says: if the establishment doesn't 
like it, it must be good for you. Writer-director  John 
Duigan, so perfectly understated in his autobiographical 
works (Flirting and The  Year My Voice Broke) and perfectly 
ghastly in his potboiling Wide Sargasso Sea, plays it  down 
the middle here. He's too smart to fall into blatant sexism, 
so he dabbles in  ultra-vague feminism and presents a blind, 
Pan-like figure, thoughtfully named  Devlin (Mark Gerber), 
for the gals to ogle.  

The rest of the time, though, the ogling is aimed where 
Sports Illustrated subscribers  would expect, at Lindsey's 
frequently clothes-free model-muses, led by a beefed-up Elle  
Macpherson, who, no matter how many pots of stilton she 
sticks her fingers into, is a  numbingly dull screen 
presence. Duigan directs her as if bedroom eyes and sloppy 
eating  habits constitute a whole personality.

He's right, if you belong to the Hugh Hefner School of 
Pavlovian Responses. In that case,  you'll also accept Sam 
Neill's sketchy performance as the real-life painter and 
children's  book illustrator whose story this isn't; as 
written, Lindsey's simply a wise Rabelaisian  patriarch, and 
that's the end of it. Fortunately, Estella Campion has a bit 
more going for  her, and when the story focuses on her, 
things pick up dramatically. That's mainly   because 
Fitzgerald, with her sculpted flower of a face, is bonafide 
star material. In fact, the somewhat muddled photography and 
editing both become sharper when she's  around (there are 
some arresting images in the final quarter; Rachel Portman's 
score is  tops throughout).

Overall, though, Sirens is markedly missing what its hype 
boasts most: atmosphere.  Worse, its (few) conclusions about 
sexuality, Anglo or otherwise, are conventional to the point 
of boredome. On the other hand, the film's up-the-buggers, 
let's-have-at-it  philosophy may still be revolutionary to 
some. An unshushable woman sitting behind  me on opening 
night provided a running commentary along the useful lines 
of "oh, he's cute", "look at those breasts", "nice dress", 
"Ohh, yuck", and "I would never do that". If that's  
anywhere near the intelligence level of arthouse types 
attracted to this tame sex-o-rama, I can't rightly accuse it 
of talking down to its audience.


[A photo of Hugh Grant appears here in the Graphical 
version.]

Four Weddings and a Funeral                             ****
(UK)

A romantic comedy with an irresistible glow, Four Weddings 
and a Funeral takes place  over a couple of years, but only 
during the events described by the title. These highlights  
are enough to gain intimate knowledge of a small cadre of 
Londoners in their 30sÑthat age  when lust and mortality 
demand just about equal attention.

The main focus is on Charles (hugh-biguitous Hugh Grant), a 
professional bachelor whose  firmament is shaken when he 
meets Carrie (Andie MacDowell) at wedding number one.  After 
a night together, the mysterious woman vanishes back to 
America, but not from  Charles's consciousness. Good thing 
she's a sucker for English parties, giving the  inveterate 
procrastinator ("his lateness has a kind of greatness," 
somebody sighs) several more chances for connubial 
redemption.

Lovable eccentrics all, Charles's crowd includes his deaf, 
yet blunt-spoken brother (hearing-impaired actor David 
Bower), a ditzy flatmate (Charlotte Coleman), a  bumbling 
aristocrat (James Fleet) and his elegant sister (Kirsten 
Scott Thomas,  currently starring opposite Grant in Bitter 
Moon), and a gay couple (John Hannah and  movie-stealing 
Simon Callow) who seem the most normal people in the movie. 

And it's not surprising that weasel-faced Rowan Atkinson 
shows up, as an ineffectual  priest-in-training, since the 
movie was written by Richard Curtis, the author behind The 
Tall Guy, and the Blackadder and Mr. Bean series. But what 
makes this more than a jolly, longform Brit-com is the 
darkly sardonic direction of Mike Newell, who has previously 
ranged from the Merchant-Ivory Lite of Enchanted April to 
the bleak drama of Dance with a Stranger and the mystical 
verve of Into the West. Within the wonderfully fluid crowd 
scenes and deftly timed comic cock-ups, he gives Charles's 
plight a desperately melancholy edge.

Obviously, Grant helps. From the shy Chopin of Impromptu to 
the effete clergyman in Sirens, the ubiquitous actor has 
become a master of anguished embarrassment. Here, though, 
when his character is trapped in a couple's wedding chamber, 
or suddenly  blurts out a David Cassidy-inspired confession 
of love, his chagrin is far more painful  than anything 
you'd associate with that other stammering Grant, Cary.

The choice of MacDowell to play his opposite number isn't 
nearly as felicitous. Her  natural allure, impressive enough 
to justify the leading man's ardour, must have snowed Newell 
into thinking she didn't actually have to do anything. 
Unless she's challenged soon, this latter-day Merle Oberon 
is in danger of being dismissed as a model who milked her 
Sex, Lies and Videotape role through ten more movies before 
the offers dried up. Furthermore, Carrie's behaviour is more 
enigmatic than the story really requires: we have little 
idea who she is when not seducing strangers, reciting past 
conquests ("less than Madonna, and more than Lady Di"), or 
heading off with a wealthy Scotsman, played all the more 
disturbingly by Corin Redgrave, In the Name of the Father's 
evil inspector.

Even so, the film's central conflictÑwhether or not to c-c-
c-ommitÑis the hero's to grapple  with. And as frothy and 
familiar as this setup is, Four Weddings is fresh and full 
of feeling throughout. It manages to make "I do" the 
punchline of the year.

Ê
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould               *****
(Canada)

It's a truism (and therefore open to attack) that the 
musical life is impossible to capture on film. How much 
easier to reduce complex art to peripherals like fame, 
glamour, and early  death, and wrap them around made-to-
order melodrama Ñ whether strained biography (Sweet Dreams) 
or cheapjack "rock'n'roll" thriller (Streets of Fire). 
Hollywood's attempts to tackle the classical world have 
usually been, at best, along the line of Intermezzo, wherein 
the romantic thrust of the 19th-century music was to 
instantly render all those people in tuxedoes and evening 
gowns passionately fascinating (that they could carry on 
conversations while pounding out Chopin always intrigued 
me). But Canada ain't Hollywood, and sometimes that's a real 
blessing.

What biography has taken more liberty with its subject and 
still conveyed something both elusive and concrete about his 
or her spirit? In fact, people who don't give a fugue about 
classical  music will be charmed, dazzled, and provoked by 
this stylistically daring work.

Rather than build a tedious docudrama on the familiar 
chronological skeleton, writer-director Francois Girard and 
co-scripter Don McKellar have taken as their guide Bach's 
famous Goldberg Variations, with its quirkily symmetrical, 
32-part form. There's plenty of contrast in tone and form 
between the "Aria" bookends, during which the pianist Ñ 
actually his stand-in, Colm Feore (the real Gould is seen 
above) Ñ wanders out of, and then back into, the frozen 
North he loved.

Ingeniously, the treatment mixes archival images with staged 
scenes, brief interviews of varying interest and, of course, 
Gould's own audio recordings. Highlights include some Norman 
McLaren animation, a perfectly recreated '60s recording 
session, and a stark ode  to Gould's veritable library of 
colourful pills. Thanks to Feore's uncanny embodiment (not 
that he actually looks like the dissipated muso) some scenes 
manage to fuse the pianist's  poignant and infuriating 
traits, as when he receives his latest album while touring 
Europe,  and forces a German-speaking chambermaid to listen 
to it.

Listening, it seems, was his forte, even away from the 
piano, as evidenced in an Ontario truckstop where Gould 
effortlessly keeps track of a dozen conversations, and  then 
transposes the idea of overlapping monologues to his Idea of 
North radio special Ñ  just one example of his ability to 
play a CBC studio like a Steinway. Of course, the artist's 
well-tempered ears did not extend to those humans we would 
normally call   friends; Gould's inability to maintain even 
the simplest of human contacts is on ample display here. 
His well-cultivated neuroses, however, are sometimes 
clouded, or maybe  just over-celebrated, by the self- 
conscious cleverness of the script Ñ don't forget  
McKellar's association with style-meisters Bruce McDonald 
and Atom Egoyan.

Still, over-reach is the smallest problem in a project as 
daunting as this. Girard has packed  in as much about the 
trials and rewards of creation as he unearths about this 
mysterious Canadian icon. By the time Glenn Gould returns to 
that icy wasteland the 50-year-old pianist entered forever 
in 1982, the film has offered an elegant and  electrifying 
glimpse at one mortal's unorthodox dance to the music of the 
spheres.

Ê
Red Rock West                                             **
(US)

The ghost of Twin Peaks (hit TV series and dud movie) hangs 
heavily over this Film Noir parody/tribute/knock-off, from 
the reverb-heavy guitar score to the casting of Lara Flynn  
Boyle in the Barbara Stanwyck role. As in Lynch's Wild at 
Heart, Nicolas Cage plays the sap, but he's a hell of a lot 
calmer here, as a drifter named Michael. 

This good-natured soul with a bum leg (like Kevin Bacon's 
character in The Air Up There)  has come to MontanaÑplayed 
with impressive versatility by ArizonaÑlooking for roughneck 
work at an oil camp. When that falls through, he limps into 
the dusty town of Red Rock and, in a case of potentially 
lethal mistaken identity, is offered an absurdly lucrative 
job  by the gruff bartender (perennial bad-guy J.T. Walsh), 
who wants his wife (Boyle) bumped off. Michael's an 
improvisor, not a thinker, and he barely knows how to handle  
his good/bad fortune. Then, of course, the real employee 
(Dennis Hopper) shows up, and  things get even more 
complicated.

This unfolding of events provides giddy fun for the film's 
first half-hour, while the audience's bafflement is 
reflected by Cage's constantly shifting eyebrows. Naturally, 
Hopper provides the over-the-top amusement you expect from 
him. But if you expect over-the-top, where is the top, 
exactly? As the pieces fall into place, it becomes  
numbingly obvious that brothers Jon and Rick Dahl, who 
wrote, directed and produced Red Rock West, are satisfied 
with meeting minimum requirements. In some areas, they're 
happy with less.

Specifically, this wayward wife collapses the formula's 
fragile geometry. Boyle brings  nothing but a pouting mouth 
and distracted aloofness to the already undernourished  
part. Michael wants to bed her because it's in the script, 
not for anything we see on screen, and as her character 
"develops", she becomes even less dimensional. 

Such standard femme fatale roles may not have been 
enlightened in the 1940s, but Stanwyck, Crawford et al 
brought a compelling vibrancy to them that made male  fearÑ
the core of film noirÑseem inescapably palpable. 
Furthermore, these  black-and-white B-movies reflected 
America's uneasy postwar (that's WWII, kids)  recognition 
that the world was made of vaguely shifting alliances, and 
the best one could  do was stay alert to them. What do 
today's stylish attempts to recreate that genre say  about 
our (or Hollywood's) perception of the world? That things 
were a lot cooler in the  '40s? Is the Lynchian nudge-nudge, 
wink-wink of ironic recognition enough? Sometimes, there's a 
thin line between paying homage and burying your head in the 
sand.

  - Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
    tt-entertainment@teletimes.com
Ê


-- Keepers of Light --
-  The Anything Goes Art Auction  -

Station Street Arts Centre: Vancouver

Greetings Cyberspacians, and welcome to another Keepers Of 
Light. Have you entered Photon '94 (International Teletimes' 
annual photography contest) yet? Well? Why not? Nifty prizes 
could be yours! Why not fill in your application now? (See 
end of this issue.)

We're in for a treat this month. We lucked out. The Station 
Street Arts Centre is holding their Anything Goes art 
auction this week, and several of Vancouver's best 
photographers have donated work for the show. The fund-
raising event for the Fend Players theatre troupe has drawn 
the support of over fifty local artists who have donated 
works to be auctioned off at a gala party and dance this 
Friday evening (at time of writing).

["Ballerina" by Carmen Schmid appears here in the graphical 
version.]

There are many beautiful works in the collection, and here 
are a few of them: "Ballerina" by Carmen Schmid is a 
delicious print, and the scanned image here can not do it 
justice. The original is a transfer print on rag paper, and 
the surface shimmers with the oily blue-black toner that 
this process provides. It is an excellent choice for this 
image. The image itself, of a dancer's leg, foot, and a wisp 
of costume is shadowy and mysterious. Strange runes criss-
cross the ballerina's leg insinuating rituals ages old. It 
is a bold composition. From the dancer's gnarled toes at the 
bottom left, the leg rises diagonally across the frame 
cutting the inky black background in two. The pale costume 
licks out like a flame from the right. Very tasty.

["Untitled" by Paul Perchal appears here in the Graphical 
version.]

Also fit to eat is an "Untitled" work by Paul Perchal. This 
is an arresting image, and beautifully printed. A man faces 
the camera, his eyes closed, and his hands clasped before 
his face, as if in prayer. This well balanced, symmetrical 
composition is enhanced by the printing process, a blending 
of the image of the man, and one of what appears to be baked 
clay. The overall impression is of statuary, perhaps a stone 
Buddha. The warm-toned print itself is very good overall, 
but a slight lightening of density towards the bottom and 
bottom right mars the composition. This may have been due to 
enlarger falloff. A gentle burn of these areas would improve 
the overall balance.

["Untitled" by Tobi Asmoucha appears here in the Graphical 
version.]

Another "Untitled," this one by Tobi Asmoucha, is another 
fine piece. Here Tobi puts a moderately wide angle lens to 
good use in capturing the strong diagonals of the long, late 
afternoon shadows, the angled banisters, the masonry, and 
the structure of this village alleyway. I have no 
information about this print or it's setting whatsoever. Now 
that I think about it, that low sun could just as easily be 
rising as setting, but for some reason it feels more like 
evening to me. I like this simple scene. We watch a cat who 
watches an old man carefully make his way down the street. 
It's an excellent candid shot of everyday life. 

["Untitled" by Holger Herman appears here in the Graphical 
version.]

And now for something completely lovely. This "Untitled" 
print by Holger Herman is as a fine a classic studio nude as 
you're likely to find. The model reclines, her arms draped 
back as if luxuriously stretching. The whites of her skin 
tones and drapery contrast with the delicate dark patterns 
in the bed clothing and wrinkled folds of the gray backdrop. 
The printing is simply perfect, executed on a fine, high-
silver, double weight fiber stock.

That's it for this month. Hope you enjoyed them. As always, 
the images presented in the Keepers Of Light are protected 
by copyright and are the property of their respective 
creators. The images presented here are provided for your 
personal enjoyment. Please do not alter or re-distribute 
them in any way. If you are interested in collecting 
original photographic prints, many of these (and those in 
the back issues of International Teletimes) are available 
for sale. If you have any comments on any of the work 
presented in Keepers Of Light we'd enjoy hearing from you. 
You may send your observations, advice, or one-time love 
gifts to: tt-photo@teletimes.com 

  - Kent Barrett, Vancouver, Canada
    tt-photo@teletimes.com
Ê

-- The Latin Quarter --
-  "Poor Mexico!"  -

In recent articles, I have frequently quoted or referred to 
opinions of Carlos Fuentes, Mexico's leading novelist, 
author of The Old Gringo, Aura, Christopher Unborn, among 
other novels, and recently the author and narrator of the 
brilliant BBC Television series, "The Buried Mirror". 
Probably Mexico's most vocal critic, with his searing 
political commentaries appearing internationally (monthly 
columns in the New York and Los Angeles Times), and yet 
undeniably an ardent supporter of his own country's culture 
and people.

However, the domestic perception of Carlos Fuentes is as 
enigmatic as the country itself.  Mexicans, often fiercely 
nationalistic, have never really excelled at critical self 
evaluation, and public sentiment towards the writer and his 
works is often mixed. Such remarks as "He's an elitist", "He 
doesn't really understand our problems", "Its easy to 
criticize Mexico when you don't live here", are often voiced 
amongst Mexican academia; and amongst the general public, 
with illiteracy rates among the highest in the world, and a 
good portion of the population reading little more than 
comic books, it's not surprising to draw a blank when asking 
people about their literary star. Fuentes admits that he 
spends little time in Mexico, and in an interview with Bill 
Moyers a few years ago, he joked that his home was the 
Clipper Business Class of the now defunct Pan Am Airlines. 
However, he has pleaded with his detractors, "don't classify 
me, just read me!"

Fuente's genius is undeniable. He has brought to us the 
myths and ideas of Mexico's past and present, with a beauty, 
passion and brilliance, that can be understood by even those 
who have not so much as glimpsed at a postcard from Mexico. 
He has written political satire and historical 
interpretation, created worlds of abstract narrative, and 
discussed present economic and political developments in a 
clear and honest manner.

I was first introduced to Carlos Fuentes' work ten years ago 
by German radio correspondent Joerg Hafkemeyer, who was 
stationed in Mexico City at the time. Over many late nights 
of discussion and tequilas in the tiny fishing/tourist 
community of Puerto Angel, Joerg explained how Fuentes' work 
had given him unique insights into the Mexican mentality, 
and its peculiarities and contradictions. In particular, he 
recommended reading "The Hydra Head", which, on the surface, 
is probably the first Third World spy thriller, an action 
packed, quick-paced novel of intrigue, but with a subtle 
backdrop of current cultural and political reality. Fuentes 
makes his observations subtly, giving us a glimpse into the 
Mexican psyche, while taking us on a dazzling labyrinthine 
ride. In this present Mexican political climate of 
assassination, conspiracy theories, and publicly accepted 
deception, this work is even more electric. In particular, 
its description of an government orchestrated attempt on the 
President's life, rings with an eerie suggestion of reality.

Much of Fuentes' writing discusses the differences in 
philosophy and history between Mexico (and the rest of Latin 
America, for that matter) and its northern neighbours.  
Fuentes has described the border which runs between the U.S. 
and Mexico as a "scar", one which divides two memories: one 
of victory and one of loss, best expressed by Mexican 
dictator Porfirio Diaz's famous remark: "Poor Mexico!  So 
far from God and so near to the United States!" This border 
is not just geographical, but also psychological and 
emotional, and Fuentes has advocated trying to bridge these 
differences without denying them. In his 1984 Massey Hall 
Lecture series, Fuentes poetically described:

  "We [Mexicans] are worried about redeeming the past; they 
  [the United States] are accustomed to acclaiming the 
  future. Their past is assimilated, and, too often, it is 
  simply forgotten; ours is still battling for our souls. We 
  represent the abundance of poverty; they, the poverty of 
  abundance. They want to live better; we want to die 
  better. They are accustomed to success; we, to failure."

Fuentes summarizes these comparisons by stating that every 
Mexican has a personal frontier with the United States, and 
before this century is over, every North American will have 
a personal frontier with Mexico; particularly prophetic 
remarks in light of recent Free Trade Developments and 
immigration/border controversies.

Carlos Fuentes' plea to read his works is well-founded, and 
a wise choice if one's aim is to better understand a rich 
and often perplexing culture.

In another segment of what is soon becoming my "American 
Ambassador - Moron Watch", it was hilarious to listen to 
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, James Jones' succinct analysis of 
Mexico's political and economic climate at his April 16th 
address to the Trilateral Industrial Environmental 
Conference in Mexico City. Ambassador Jones observed that 
the recent rebel uprisings in the state of Chiapas in no way 
reflected political or economic instability nationwide and 
that: "I think that everybody has recognized that Chiapas is 
a social and economic development problem that is unique to 
that region."  Possibly Ambassador Jones has been out of 
town for the almost-daily protests and the daily news 
stories of worker unrest and growing economic dichotomy 
throughout the country!

  - Andreas Seppelt, Mexico City, Mexico
    c/o tt-art@teletimes.com
Ê

-- The Wine Enthusiast --
-  British Columbian Wines  -

British Columbia, for those not familiar with the place, is 
Canada's western most province and home to Canada's second 
winegrowing region. The Niagara peninsula at Niagara Falls, 
Ontario, is the oldest and currently most successful 
winegrowing region in Canada. But the Niagara peninsula is a 
very tiny viticultural area, however, limited geographically 
to a small production, so in the 1950's adventurous grape 
growers in the comparatively large Okanagan Valley in south-
central B.C planted the first large-scale commercial 
vineyards to satisfy the potential Canadian market demand 
for indigenous wine.

At that time a different philosophy about viticulture held 
sway. Experts in the field of viticulture, many trained at 
California's U.C. Davis school, gave recommendations that 
the cold winters and shorter growing seasons of moderate 
climate regions like the Okanagan Valley, or eastern 
Washington, or western Oregon, would not be suitable for 
growing the european species of winegrapes vitis vinifera, 
but only for native North American species vitis labrusca or 
hybrid varieties. This advice turned out to be dead wrong, 
reflecting a hot-climate, big-yield mentality that was 
native to California at the time. So on this bad advice 
growers in the Pacific Northwest, including B.C., planted 
poor-quality grape varieties that would produce wines that 
would have a distinct disadvantage in the marketplace.

The provincial government in B.C. further exacerbated the 
problem by enacting extremely liberal product labelling 
requirements that allowed such things as the inclusion of up 
to 15% water to any wine "product". The table was set for 
B.C. wine producers to produce oceans of poor-quality wines, 
with no emphasis on premium wine. Furthermore, protectionist 
pricing policies at Provincial Government monopoly liquor 
stores kept prices of imported wine unnaturally high, giving 
no incentive to local producers to improve quality.

The wines of B.C. wineries in the late seventies and early 
eighties, despite having over twenty years of experience, 
were still simply horrible, trashy and flavorless 
concoctions barely recognizable as wine. The average B.C. 
wine was a sweet, dull, flavorless chemical soup made from 
overburdened hybrid grapes and water, dressed in cheesy 
packaging that inevitable bore some Gallic or Germanic 
brandname written in garish gothic script. The state of the 
B.C. wine industry was much like the U.S./Canadian auto 
industry of the same time, which enjoyed similar 
protectionist measures against Japanese imported cars. The 
cars made in the North America at the time were simply 
terrible: outdated technologically, poor quality, and not 
what the consumer demanded.

When, under the Reagan administration, the U.S. removed its 
import quotas in Japanese cars, the North American auto 
industry was forced to respond to market demands and produce 
vehicles that are today, right up to world quality 
standards.

Likewise when the 1991 G.A.T.T. agreement was signed by 
Canada and then the subsequent N.A.F.T.A. treaty, things 
began to take a turn for the better. 

To appease growers that felt betrayed by this move toward 
free trade, the B.C. government began a program to pay for 
growers to tear up hybrid grapevines. They also instituted a 
new system called the Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) that 
held member producers accountable to comparatively rigorous 
standards.

Today, B.C. wineries are starting to be known more for their 
quality table wines rather than the cheap jug wines that 
were the industry standard. Even the inexpensive wines have 
improved, as they are made largely from Californian musts or 
blends of imported bulk-wines.

B.C. still has a long way to go, as a true identity for the 
Okanagan Valley as a wine producing region has yet to 
emerge. Pressure from two fledgling winegrowing regions in 
B.C., the Fraser Valley near Vancouver, and the Esquimalt 
peninsula near Victoria, may help to further accelerate an 
identity for B.C. wines.

The lesson to be learned from this forty year span that 
produced millions of hectoliters of overpriced swill, and 
rotted the livers and palates of several generations of 
British Columbians, is that the marketplace must be driven 
by the free choice of consumers, rather than consumers being 
at the mercy of an alliance of bureaucrats and cutthroats. 

  - Tom Davis, Vancouver, Canada
Ê   c/o tt-art@teletimes.com


-- Cuisine --
-  Peaches Chambord  -

This is a delightful, very easily and quickly prepared 
dessert that cannot fail.

Count per person:
1 half canned peach
3 tablespoons chocolate chips
1 tablespoon Chambord

Melt the chocolate, pour over the peach, pour over Chambord. 
Served while the chocolate is still warm. 

  - Markus Jakobsson
    markus@cs.ucsd.edu 
Ê

------------------------------------------------------------
NEXT MONTH
------------------------------------------------------------

The June issue of Teletimes will feature articles related to 
Sports & Leisure. Articles could be about anything from Sumo 
Wrestling to Paintball to the therapeutic aspects of 
outdoors hiking. The submissions deadline is the 15th of 
May. Contact editor@teletimes.com for details.

And in July, we will be bringing you an entire issue devoted 
to Photon '94, our first annual photography contest. The 
issue will announce the winners, display their work, the 
work of some runners up, and will hopefully contain some 
interviews with the winning photographers.

One last announcement: Between June 15th and 18th, the 
University of British Columbia will be hosting a large 
conference on writing and publishing in the information age. 
The conference is called WRITE '94 and costs around US$375 
(cheaper if you are a full-time student). Teletimes will be 
appearing at the conference in the CD-ROM showcase. E-mail 
write@cce.ubc.ca for further information.


------------------------------------------------------------
STAFF & INFO
------------------------------------------------------------

Editor/Publisher:
  Ian Wojtowicz, Vancouver, Canada
  editor@teletimes.com

Art Director:
  Anand Mani, Vancouver, Canada
  tt-art@teletimes.com

Arts & Entertainment Editor:
  Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
  tt-entertainment@teletimes.com

Contributing Editor:
  Daniel Sosnoski, Tokyo, Japan
  joseki@tanuki.twics.com

Cover Artist:
  Anand Mani, Vancouver, Canada
  tt-art@teletimes.com

Past contributors:
  Biko Agozino, Edinburgh, Scotland
  Prasad & Surekha Akella, Japan
  Ryan Crocker, Vancouver, Canada
  Prasad Dharmasena, Silver Spring, USA
  Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada
  Ken Ewing, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
  Jon Gould, Chicago, USA
  Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada
  Jay Hipps, Petaluma, California, USA
  Mike Matsunaga, Skokie, USA
  Satya Prabhakar, Minneapolis, USA
  Brian Quinby, Aurora, USA
  Motamarri Saradhi, Singapore
  Dr. Michael Schreiber, Vienna, Austria
  Johnn Tann, Ogden, USA
  Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada
  Seth Theriault, Lexington, USA
  Alexander Varty, Vancouver, Canada
  Marc A. Volovic, Jerusalem, Israel

Columnists:
  Kent Barrett, The Keepers of Light
  Tom Davis, The Wine Enthusiast
  Ken Eisner, Music Notes & Movies
  Andreas Seppelt, The Latin Quarter

Funding policy:
  If you enjoy reading Teletimes on a constant basis and 
  would like us to continue bringing you good quality 
  articles, we ask that you send us a donation in the $10 to 
  $20 range. Checks should be made out to "International 
  Teletimes". Donations will be used to pay contributors and 
  to further improve International Teletimes. If you are 
  interested in placing an ad in Teletimes, please contact 
  the editor for details.

Submission policy:
  Teletimes examines broad topics of interest and concern on 
  a global scale. The magazine strives to showcase the 
  unique differences and similarities in opinions and ideas 
  which are apparent in separate regions of the world. 
  Readers are encouraged to submit informative and 
  interesting articles, using the monthly topic as a 
  guideline if they wish. All articles should be submitted 
  along with a 50 word biography. Everyone submitting must 
  include their real name and the city and country where you 
  live. A Teletimes Writer's Guide and a Teletimes 
  Photographer's & Illustrator's Guide are available upon 
  request.

Upcoming themes: 
  June - Sports & Leisure
  July - Photon '94
  August/September - Education
  October - Religion

Deadline for articles:
  June issue - May 15th, 1994
  July issue - May 31st, 1994
  August/September issue - June 30th, 1994
  October issue - September 10th, 1994

E-mail:
  editor@teletimes.com

Snail mail:
  International Teletimes
  3938 West 30th Ave.
  Vancouver, B.C.
  V6S 1X3
  CANADA

Software and hardware credits:
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  Quadra 950. The layout and editing was done on a Macintosh 
  IIci using MS Word 5.0 and DocMaker 4.02.

Copyright notice:
  International Teletimes is copyrighted (c)1994. All 
  articles are copyrighted by their respective authors 
  however International Teletimes retains the right to 
  reprint all material unless otherwise expressed by the 
  author. This magazine is free to be copied and distributed 
  UNCHANGED so long as it is not sold for profit. Editors 
  reserve the right to alter the content of submitted 
  articles. Submitting material is a sign that the submitter 
  agrees to all the above terms.


------------------------------------------------------------
BIOGRAPHIES
------------------------------------------------------------

Kent Barrett
Kent Barrett is a Vancouver artist with over twenty years 
experience in photography. His work has been exhibited in 
galleries across Canada from Vancouver, B.C. to St. John's, 
Newfoundland. He is currently working on his first 
nonfiction book and interactive CD-ROM, "Bitumen to Bitmap: 
a history of photographic processes."

Tom Davis
Tom is a wine maker who lives and works in Vancouver, 
Canada. A former brewmaster, a painter and amateur (in the 
truest sense) film maker. Currently a Philosophy 
undergraduate at Simon Fraser University, Tom seeks to start 
his own vineyard.

Ken Eisner 
Originally from the San Francisco area, Ken Eisner is a 
Contributing Editor to Vancouver's entertainment weekly, the 
Georgia Straight, and Canadian correspondent/film critic for 
Variety, in Los Angeles. He has also been a frequent arts 
commentator on CBC TV and radio, and currently reviews new 
movies for CKNW, throughout Western Canada.

Anand Mani
Anand is a Vancouver, Canada-based corporate communications 
consultant serving an international clientele. Originally an 
airbrush artist, his painting equipment has been languishing 
in a closet, replaced by the Mac. It waits for the day when 
"that idea" grips him by the throat, breathily says, "Paint 
Me" and drags him into the studioÑ not to be seen for 
months.

Gerry Roston
Gerry is a PhD candidate (scheduled graduation Dec 1994) in 
the field of robotics. He is also a licensed professional 
engineer in the state of Pennsylvania. Although robots are 
his vocation, his avocation is civil liberties. Gerry 
believes very strongly in Benjamin Franklin's words: "They 
that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little 
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Andreas Seppelt
Andreas is a former Economist with Transport Canada, now 
consulting in Business Communications and Marketing.  He has 
spent a number of years undergoing formal graduate study and 
research in Economic Development and International Trade.  
He currently lives and works in Mexico.

Daniel Sosnoski
Tokyo resident since 1985. Didn't plan on being a permanent 
expat but these things happen. Editor and freelance writer 
for several magazines and business-oriented publications, he 
can be found playing Go online and offline (IGS: Golgo13). A 
Macintosh and internet addict, his life currently revolves 
around a modem.

Dr. Euan R. Taylor
Euan grew up in England where he did a degree in 
Biochemistry and a Ph.D. Before moving to Canada, Euan spent 
6 months traveling in Asia. Now living in Winnipeg, he is 
doing research in plant molecular biology, and waiting to 
start Law School. Interests include writing, travel, 
studying Spanish and Chinese, career changing and good 
coffee. Pet peeves: weak coffee, wet socks and ironing. 

Alexander Varty
Originally from New Brunswick, Alexander Varty is the Arts 
Editor for the Georgia Straight, Vancouver's entertainment 
weekly, and he's been known to twang an evil guitar with 
Chris Houston and other po-mo rockers.

Ian Wojtowicz
Ian is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaurate 
program at a Vancouver high school. He is an avid fencer 
(no, he doesn't sell stolen VCRs) and makes a habit of 
sleeping in on the weekends. Born in Halifax, Canada in 
1977, Ian has since lived in Nigeria, Hong Kong and Ottawa. 
He now resides in Vancouver, the city known to millions as 
"The Home of Teletimes".


------------------------------------------------------------
P     H     O     T     O     N          1     9     9     4
THE FIRST ANNUAL                INTERNET PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST
------------------------------------------------------------

Sponsored by Wimsey Information Services


CATEGORIES
People - Send in your best "people" work. Portraits, action 
 shots, kids, whatever. Works will be adjudicated on 
 composition, effective use of lighting, emotional impact 
 and general photographic quality as determined by our 
 judges.
Places - We want to see your grandest mountain vistas, your 
 moodiest urban landscapes. Works will be adjudicated on 
 composition, effective use of lighting, emotional impact 
 and general photographic quality as determined by our 
 judges.
Small Wonders - Flowers, butterflies, thumbtacks or your 
 thumb. Take a little time to send us a little gem. 
 Photomicrographs of vitamin C or pinholes of pebbles. If 
 it's bigger than a breadbox, it's too big for this 
 category. Works will be adjudicated on composition, 
 effective use of lighting, emotional impact and general 
 photographic quality as determined by our judges.
Digitally Altered Photos - Go crazy with this one, or use 
 some subtle pixel filters. Either way, amaze us with your 
 light fantastic. Images will be adjudicated on their "wow" 
 factor by our judges. If appropriate, submit a copy of the 
 image before the digital touch-ups are made.
Humour - Humour says it all. Photos will be judged on their 
 ability to crack up the judges.


DEADLINE
 May 31st, 1994. Winning entries and honourable mentions 
 will be displayed in the July issue of International 
 Teletimes. Teletimes can be read at etext.archive.umich.edu 
 in the /pub/Zines/Intl_Teletimes directory.


PRIZES
 1st place contestants in each catagory are guaranteed a 
 fantastic colour Teletimes tee-shirt with their winning 
 photo printed on the front as well as US$20 cold hard cash! 
 More cash prizes will be awarded pending sufficient 
 entries.


ENTRY FEE
 Please write out a check or money order to "International 
 Teletimes" for $10 in US funds for every 3 photographs 
 entered. There is no limit (except your bank balance) to 
 the number of photos you can enter. Our mail addess
 is given below, in the ENTRY METHODS section.


ENTRY METHODS
FTP - Scanned entries may be submitted to ftp.wimsey.com in 
 the /pub/photon_94 directory. Be sure to e-mail us with the 
 name of the files you have put on the FTP site. Acceptable 
 file formats are TIFF, GIF, PICT and JPEG.
E-mail - If you are concerned about leaving your entry in a 
 public directory, you may e-mail your entries to 
 editor@teletimes.com. Files must be uuencoded. Acceptable
 file formats are TIFF, GIF, PICT and JPEG.
Mail - If you do not have access to a scanner, you may send 
 prints to: Teletimes Photo Contest, 3938 W. 30th Ave., 
 Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6S 1X3. If you enclose a return 
 mailer with appropriate Canadian postage affixed, we will 
 make every effort to get it back to you, but we can make no
 promises. Therefore, DO NOT SEND IN ORIGINALS OR VALUABLE 
 GALLERY QUALITY PRINTS. Send "reproduction" quality RC 
 prints, or any prints that you won't go crazy over if they 
 are lost or destroyed. Hard copy images must measure 
 11"x14" or smaller, and have the entrant's name, address 
 and phone number affixed to the back of the image.


DISCLAIMER
 All works remain the property of the original artist. By 
 submitting work to Photon '94, you are agreeing to have it 
 published in International Teletimes and on the World Wide 
 Web.


ENTRY FORM
 This must be filled out and e-mailed (or mailed) to us in 
 order to participate in the contest.

 Date:______________________________________________________

 Name:______________________________________________________

 Address:___________________________________________________

 Phone number:______________________________________________

 E-mail:____________________________________________________

 Titles and file names (if applicable) of photos entered in 

 the PEOPLE category:_______________________________________

 ___________________________________________________________

 Titles and file names (if applicable) of photos entered in 

 the PLACES category:_______________________________________

 ___________________________________________________________

 Titles and file names (if applicable) of photos entered in 

 the SMALL WONDERS category:________________________________


  Titles and file names (if applicable) of photos entered in 

the HUMOUR category:________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

 Titles and file names (if applicable) of photos entered in 

 the DIGITALLY ALTERED category:____________________________

 ___________________________________________________________

 Method of submission (FTP, e-mail or mail):________________

 Method of payment (check, money order, electronic 

 transfer):_________________________________________________

 Amount due (US$10 per 3 entries):__________________________


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