textfiles/magazines/TELETIMES/teletimes-94-09.txt

International Teletimes Vol. 3 No. 5
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* September 1994                            ISSN 1198-3604 *                                  
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CONTENTS
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Features
--------

THE TAO OF HIKING
  "Starting about mid-morning, I began the hike as if I were 
  running a race-pacing and pushing myself over hills, up 
  switch-backs, past ridge tops that baked in the sun and 
  slopes that languished in shady canopy. I had been working 
  out consistently before the trip, so I viewed the hike as 
  a sort of test."
  - Jay Hipps, Petaluma, California, USA

CUSTOM AND EXERCISE
  "I remember being dragged off on cross country runs in 
  freezing (literally) weather wearing only shorts and a 
  T-shirt (with the games master dressed in a track suit, 
  gloves, woolly hat, pullover, etc.). In fact when I think 
  about it, most of my childhood experiences with Physical 
  Education were overwhelmingly negative."
  - Dr. Euan Taylor, Vancouver, Canada

THE RUNNER NEXT DOOR
  "However, contrary to popular belief, most runners are, by 
  nature, unhealthy. They shun doctors, run themselves into 
  the ground and wonder why they are not setting pr's. And 
  because obsessiveness is also a characteristic of the 
  runner (almost a given in marathon and in ultra-distance 
  runners), they may shun food altogether as well, not 
  wishing to carry anything extra around those 25 laps on 
  the track."
  - Sheila Eldred, Oxford, UK

AN INVITATION TO FENCING
  "Fencing is about an interchange of ideas - ideas intended 
  to deceive or surprise. Fencing is about thinking and 
  transferring thoughts into action at the maximum rate and 
  with the maximum precision."
  - Theo Norvell, Toronto, Canada


Departments
-----------

DEBATE ROOM
  "Although TV shows are starting to sport gay characters in 
  their regular line-ups, these characters rarely lead 
  realistic lives on screen. Of all the flirting, touching, 
  kissing and steamy love scenes we are constantly bombarded 
  with, how many occur between gay characters?"
  - Euan Taylor, Paul Gribble and Jon Gould

MUSIC NOTES: FEATURE
  "Even a quick glance at this year's selections reveals a 
  very real difference from previous Lollapaloozii. This 
  cast is closer to the original intent of the all-day 
  mega-concert."
  - Russell Weinberger, Davis, California, USA

MUSIC NOTES: REVIEWS
  This month, Ken reviews Van Morrison, Boz Scaggs, Alison 
  Moyet, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Sir Douglas Quintet, 
  Stanley Jordan, McCoy Tyner Big Band, and Cyrus Chestnut.
  - Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada

DEJA VU
  "50 years later some of us seem to be pro-longing that 
  day, not wanting it to end. How else to explain my arrival 
  from the States to accompany one of the many 'D-Day 
  Remembered' tours with about 20 of my alma mater's alumni?"
  - Andrew B. Shaindlin, Providence, Rhode Island , USA


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EDITOR'S NOTE
=============

Hello all! As you may have noticed, Teletimes has not been 
published for several months. We were planning to release a 
new edition in a format called "Replica" but have had to 
postpone it indefinately because of technical problems. This 
caused a huge slow-down in production, but you'll be happy 
to know that we're getting back on track and have some great 
things planned for the next few months.

Staff Positions Available
-------------------------

Teletimes has gone through incredible growth since it began 
in October 1992. Since Teletimes won the Best of the Net 
award in June, interest in the magazine has never been 
higher. Along with this new popularity and growth has come a 
lot of extra work. Unfortunately we do not have enough 
people to handle the extra workload, so I'd like to announce 
the following list of available positions. Please note that 
people will be hired on a volunteer basis initially.

Section Editors
---------------

People who are quite comfortable with the Internet and 
possibly have publishing experience and/or interest are 
needed as section editors. Section editors will be in charge
of a defined section of Teletimes. Their tasks will involve
finding and corresponding with potential writers, making 
sure that there is sufficient material in each section, 
rejecting articles which do not meet standards, and 
generally working directly with writers and correspondents 
for their area of the magazine. Sections which need editors 
are the Features section (monthly theme) and one or two 
editors to help out with running certain columns in the 
Departments section.

Illustrators
------------

We need a couple of creative people to help out with 
illustrating articles and helping out with cover design. To 
get more information about what is involved, please e-mail
our Art Director, Anand Mani (me@armani.com).

Internet Guru
-------------

We need a person who is extremely knowledgeably about the 
Internet to help with technical questions/problems related 
to the magazine. This person might also help out with online 
marketing and distribution.

Writers
-------

We need lots of writers, especially from outside of North
America, to write for us. Monthly topics are provided as
guidelines, but there are also some specialty columns which 
people may enjoy writing for. Female writers are extremely 
welcome as we'd like to try and even out the male-female 
ratio on our staff.

If you are interested in any of these positions, or think 
there is some other way you could help out with Teletimes,
please e-mail us your resume.

- Ian Wojtowicz, Vancouver, Canada
  editor@teletimes.com


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MAILBOX
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Reactions to our Award
----------------------

Congratulations!!!! You're doing a damn fine job!!
  Greg Vogel
  San Diego, USA

Congratulations! I've always appreciated your work, and am
looking forward to lots of interesting articles to come.
  Awaji Yoshimasa
  Kisarazu, Japan

Great magazine. I like the pictures, and I look forward to
your Photon issue!
  Jeffrey E. Richardson
  Silver Spring, Maryland, USA


Response to "Academic Freedom"
------------------------------

After reading the Debate Room column on "Academic Freedom" 
in the April issue, I have to make a few comments.

While I mostly agree with Paul Gribble, my opinion comes 
with a few caveats related to Dr. Taylor's comments.

While I do feel that a University must support freedom of 
speech, especially freedom to espouse unpopular positions, 
this does not mean to me that they have the right to say 
just anything in the classrooms and lecture halls. As an 
undergraduate, the most painful classroom moments came when 
the instructor was nattering on about some topic with little 
relevance to the course description in the catalog. As a 
student I was paying my own good money for that class time, 
and I didn't want it wasted.

My personal favorite example was in an introductory course 
in Artificial Intelligence. I took this course during the 
period when the Strategic Defence Initiative was a hot 
issue. Our instructor thought that SDI was a horrible/evil 
idea and took up many a classroom hour explaining why in
horrendous detail. Now, while it can be argued that there is 
some relation as computers would have to be used in any 
system such as SDI, this is more an issue for a Computers 
and Social Responsibility class (which did exist at that 
University). Very little AI was learned that semester. A 
year or so later I ran into an ex student of the same 
instructor from the early 70's who told me that back then 
this instructor was doing the same thing with the Vietnam 
War, including trying to organize the students in a sit-in. 
I partially agree with his opinions, but I wasn't paying for 
them. I was paying for an introductory survey of AI, 
hopefully relatively balanced. I wouldn't even have minded 
so much if his presentation of the issues of SDI had been 
more balanced. Checking the journals at the time, the 
software engineering community was close to evenly divided 
as to the practicality of the SDI system.

In short, the academic community has another responsibility, 
to their students, to teach the subject matter that the 
students are paying for. Too many students I have met have 
had similar complaints and the situation is getting worse as 
tuitions increase.

Thanks for the soapbox
  John Dougan
  Vancouver, Canada


Great Graphics
--------------

You have done a lovely job, and I am thoroughly impressed. 
Did you draw your own graphics? How? They are as good as any 
by professionals I know. I am looking to step into 
electronic publishing now, and you are clearly the standard 
setter! Good for you! Count me in on your mailing list!!
  Antoinette Burnham
  Washington D.C., USA

Anand Mani Responds:
Thank you. I produce all of the icongraphics in Fractal 
Painter using a Wacom tablet. I am an illustrator and 
iconographer by profession; most of my work being produced 
for companies. My work can also be found in Adbusters 
Quarterly. Electronic publishing is an exciting new field 
and I wish you the best of luck.


E-Zine Recommendations?
-----------------------

I've been looking for good e-zines but been disappointed. 
I'm not much interested in reading about music -- and the 
mid-eighties style 'zines moved over to the Net seem to lean 
toward the weakness they had in the original form. The 
formats of low-budget publishing and of e-zine appeal to me 
greatly but as with TV the reality is bleak (a real dirth of 
quality content)...yet I certainly don't have the talent to 
remedy the situation myself.

I picked up 3 recent issues of your publication while "World 
Wide Webbing" around. The quality is superior. I think you 
are doing good work. Are there fellow e-publications of 
similar merit you can recommend?
  Daniel Amin
  St. Louis, MO, USA

Ian Wojtowicz Responds:
Well, I probably don't spend enough time reading other 
electronic publications, but I can recommend InterText as a
good fiction magazine. For some better recommendations, try 
e-mailing John Labovitz (johnl@ora.com). He compiles an 
extensive list of e-zines and could probably recommend a few 
for you.


Response to The Wine Enthusiast
-------------------------------

Greetings. I was browsing around the Web and came across 
your zine, and even scanned the article in the April '94 
issue by Tom Davis, on Beers. A nice general introduction to 
the topic, but he incorrectly cited Yuengling Brewery as 
being in Boston. It is in fact in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, 
and lists itself as America's oldest brewery (since 1826). 
It is still run by the same family.

They make a pretty nice Black & Tan, and their Lord 
Chesterfield Ale isn't bad either. They also do a Porter, 
but I'm not one for that style, so I can't comment on their 
version.
  Rita Melnick
  Baltimore, USA


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FEATURES
========

The Tao of Hiking
-----------------

"Travelling is a fool's paradise... At home I dream that at 
Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose 
my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on 
the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me 
is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, 
that I fled from."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, from *Self Reliance*

It's safe to say that Emerson didn't think too much of those 
who undertook recreational travel. His attitude seemed to be, 
"a fool at home is a fool abroad," and so be it. Trying to 
lose oneself in any experience is playing a fool's game -- 
when it's over, you'll still have yourself to contend with. 
It reminds me of a quote from the film character Buckaroo 
Banzai: "No matter where you go, there you are."

Perhaps Emerson would look more kindly on backpacking. 
Backpacking takes us into the wilds not only geographically 
but spiritually as well. The distractions of our everyday 
lives are taken away, the annoyances of school, career, and
competitive advancement replaced with a simple set of 
activities: cooking, walking, eating, and making camp. In 
such a setting it's nearly impossible to avoid recognizing 
who you are and coming to terms with yourself. Nature 
provides an unusually uncompromising mirror. I suppose this 
could also be experienced in a solitary cell at your local 
state prison, but backpacking is a much more pleasant way of 
accomplishing the same thing.

Unless you've done it, it's hard to understand the 
experience. To begin with, a backpacking trip is the 
ultimate in self reliance: it's you and nature. Everything 
necessary for your survival you must carry with you. The 
food you eat and the water you drink are up to your devices 
-- either pack it in or purify it. Your shelter and the 
level of comfort it gives you are up to you as well.

My wife and I recently returned from a three-day trip in Big 
Sur, California, which was also my first backpacking trip. 
My mindset changed dramatically over the course of the days 
we were gone. On the way in -- a relatively strenuous seven-
mile hike up and into the coastal mountains -- I focused my 
attention completely on reaching camp, our day's ultimate 
goal. Starting about mid-morning, I began the hike as if I 
were running a race-pacing and pushing myself over hills, up 
switchbacks, past ridge tops that baked in the sun and 
slopes that languished in shady canopy. I had been working 
out consistently before the trip, so I viewed the hike as a 
sort of test. I stopped the times my wife needed to rest, 
made insinuations as we waited that she would probably be 
making better time if she had been working out too, and 
trudged on.

We eventually reached camp only to face a variation on 
Emerson's travel query: once you get away from it all, what 
do you do when you're there? Being away from it all means 
that you can't hide yourself in television or other 
diversions. Having no grand task to set about doing, I was 
left with just myself and the woods. This is where the 
miracle happened -- my senses began to clear from the 
dynamics of life as I usually live it -- filled with 
deadlines, driving, the din of the media, and the hum of my 
hard drive. Instead there was the sound of a river running 
its course, insects serenading the evening breeze, and the 
smell of coastal wildflowers in bloom. All the hard edges to 
life that I had accepted as givens faded away as the natural 
dynamics of life on earth moved to the forefront. The sun 
fell to reveal more stars than can be viewed in a city 
month, and I slept. The following days were a joy. Instead 
of focusing on the destination, I began to enjoy wherever I 
was on the way. Finally reaching the destination was great, 
too, and allowed for selection of a new goal -- but the path 
on the way was more than just an obstacle standing between 
me and where I wished to be.

Unanticipated problems confronted us and were dealt with in 
the best way possible at the time. My sense of adventure 
returned along with my curiosity. I'm sure that there are 
other recreational activities that give the same results. 
Backpacking isn't the only way toward self-knowledge, but it 
does provide a useful metaphor. How often do we focus on 
achieving a goal, forsaking all enjoyment until we reach it? 
Or refuse to move in a new direction because we can't 
anticipate all the obstacles we might encounter? These are 
all lessons taught by the trail. I wonder what I'll learn on 
my next trip.

- Jay Hipps, Petaluma, CA, USA
  jhipps@crl.com


Custom and Exercise
-------------------

I was thinking about the theme for this month's issue while 
I was jogging the other day. My mind conjured up images of 
my schooldays. I remember being dragged off on cross country 
runs in freezing (literally) weather wearing only shorts and
a T-shirt (with the games master dressed in a track suit, 
gloves, woolly hat, pullover, etc. I'm sure plenty of you 
know the scene). In fact when I think about it, most of my 
childhood experiences with Physical Education were 
overwhelmingly negative. Whenever I could avoid Phys. Ed. 
(or P.E. as we called it in England), I did.

Once I finished school, I (eventually) took to fairly 
regularly running and swimming, the former at University 
where about 7 years after my last compulsory cross country, 
I went jogging down the river at the end of a long evening 
studying. The latter took place rather later (slightly more 
than fifteen years after my last school swimming lesson). In 
fact when I think about Phys. Ed. I am uncomfortably aware 
of some very negative stereotypes. So I before I launched 
into a wildly prejudiced opinion column on the subject I 
decided to find out something more about it.

I wondered how a such a department at a university compares 
to my experience of other University Departments. What kind 
of people work there? What sort of training takes you into a 
career in Physical Education, etc. My expectations were very 
uncertain, mostly featuring old men in tracksuits and lots 
of shouting. So I spoke to Professor Robert Schutz of the 
School of Human Kinetics at U.B.C. (University of British 
Columbia) here in Vancouver to get an inside perspective on 
a range of questions. It turns out my own preconceptions are 
not unusual, in fact that type of reaction is one of the 
reasons the name was changed from School of Physical 
Education and Recreation the more appealing "Human Kinetics" 
which lacks some of those negative (or at least 
stereotypical) associations. Mention Phys. Ed. and 
practically everyone thinks of volleyball, rugby or 
whatever, and someone screaming "come on, RUN!" The physical 
rather than the cerebral.<P>

It is, says Schutz, "a prejudice we fight all the time." The 
School is in fact quite separate from Athletics which is a 
separate entity. The Faculty includes people who have no 
interest at all in sports as such. Its work covers a wide 
range of activities, and he makes a point of correcting me 
when I talk of "training," he prefers to talk of 
"education," and points out that they have faculty members 
funded by the Medical Research Council, The Social Sciences 
and Engineering Research Council, NSERC, and others, just 
like any other faculty. He sums up by recounting a 
conversation with a Wisconsin bus driver towards the end of 
his three year doctoral study in mathematical psychology and 
computer science (he started out as a mathematics and sports 
teacher).

"What do you do?" the driver asked.

"Well, I'm finishing my Ph.D."

"What in?"

"Physical Education."

"Wow, how many push ups can you do?"

Given my own experiences I wondered how much the quality of 
the Phys. Ed. experience was valued both within and without 
the subject. The "party line" is that positive experiences 
at a younger age encourage participation later and even when 
participation is not voluntary it seems it may have some 
connection with activity at later stages of life. Schutz 
believes that one of the things which contributes to a 
helpful environment is a healthy level of competition, but 
"healthy" is defined rather differently from what my 
preconceptions might have told me. In fact there has been a 
good deal published about the effects of competition, the 
National Coaching Association has even published guidelines 
outlining the desirable levels of competition for different 
age groups. The overall feeling seems to be that at certain 
ages at least, declaring a winner should be avoided, and 
Schutz himself prefers to emphasize the participation in
competition rather than who wins and who loses. In fact he 
had raised one of the problems I had been loosely thinking 
about myself. The disincentive an unhealthy competitive 
environment can provide when only the winners get any 
positive feedback and everyone else is a loser -- leaving 
the experience with very negative impressions. I vividly 
recall a very strong "winner" ethic -- explicitly stated or 
otherwise. There were empty phrases that went with it "its 
not winning that matters," but school and society around one 
made it quite clear by their behaviour that winning was all 
that really mattered.

I retain the uneasy feeling that however noble ones 
conscious sentiments about the subject (and by no means 
everyone would agree that obsessive competitiveness is 
altogether a bad thing), changes of policy do not 
necessarily find expression in changed attitudes at a deeper 
level. Attitudes and beliefs are expressed by far more than 
simply what we tell each other verbally or even consciously. 
But then I "did my time" (as I think of it) on the other 
side of the Atlantic and I wondered if there was some 
difference in the Canadian perception of sports as opposed 
to other nations. As it turns out, Schutz himself along with 
a colleague (Frank Small) at the University of Washington 
did research in that area. Generally, he thinks that 
psychologically the values associated with sports remain 
very similar across Canada, the US and Europe. However, he 
noted that whilst many US institutions absolutely require 
their students to take part in one or two semesters of Phys. 
Ed. courses, he is aware of no Canadian Universities that 
have such a requirement, a fact which may reflect some 
underlying differences in the philosophy of the two 
countries. In fact it seems that (in general) parents, 
teachers and students all value Physical Education pretty 
much equally with (if not higher than) other subjects, up 
until having to compete for university places, then it 
drops somewhat in the list of priorities (you don't need 
Phys. Ed. to get into college, but you do need a lot of 
other things).

Well, if there were no big national differences I wondered 
if there were province to province differences. After all 
the possibilities in British Columbia (with an accessible 
coastline, mountains all over the place, and fairly stable 
weather) are very different from Manitoba (-40C on a bad day 
and chronically cold all winter, no realistically accessible 
coastline, and inescapably flat), you might think that aside 
from the inevitable differences in what sports people do, 
there might also be differences in attitude to it. 
Apparently not however, the only variation that Schutz could 
suggest was that in BC people may tend to be more active 
(because there is more variety of available activities), but 
at the same time that fitness monitoring programmes are less 
active here. I wonder if it is simply that the assessment 
programmes a re most used where people have the least choice 
of what they can do, where people have more choice they are 
out doing something rather than worrying about how much 
exercise they ought to be taking. In any case there is 
little doubt that public exercise is financially significant
both because of the commerce related to sporting activities 
and because of the probable health costs of unhealthy life 
styles including leading a very inactive life and not 
maintaining a "healthy" level of fitness.

I was certainly surprised by the reality of a Phys. Ed. 
Faculty compared to my one dimensional preconceptions. Above 
all, I was pleased to find that the things which had left me 
(and I think most of my schoolfriends) with such negative
impressions have in fact been recognized by professionals in 
the Phys. Ed. area. Whether that has translated or ever will 
translate into a changed mindset in society at large is 
something we shall just have to wait and see.

- Dr. Euan Taylor, Vancouver, Canada
  ertaylor@unixg.ubc.ca
  

The Runner Next Door
--------------------

If the terms "negative splits," "fartleks," "polyurethane 
midsoles," "butt-kicks," and "LSD runs" fail to conjure up 
any corresponding images in your mind, at least you'll admit 
that this jargon sounds rather intriguing. It's runners' 
talk, and they can spew this stuff for hours on end. To 
become proficient yourself, read on and learn all about the 
inner workings of that skinny guy in the purple tights you 
almost ran over with the snow plow the other day.

6:15 a.m.

Alarm. A dedicated runner's day often starts with an easy 
run in the morning in preparation for a hard workout later 
in the day. Following this typical 5-miler, the healthy 
runner will consume vast quantities of cereal, explaining 
that she is replenishing her glycogen supplies. However, 
contrary to popular belief, most runners are, by nature, 
unhealthy. They shun doctors, run themselves into the ground 
and wonder why they are not setting pr's. And because 
obsessiveness is also a characteristic of the runner (almost 
a given in marathon and in ultra-distance runners), they may 
shun food altogether as well, not wishing to carry anything 
extra around those 25 laps on the track.

12:00 Noon

Runners will either use their lunch break to (surprise) go 
for a run, although the netheads -- those of you reading 
this article, for example -- may also use this time to catch 
up with their virtual running partners. 

5:00 p.m.

Off to the track for an interval session. Here the runner 
may come into contact with the jogger. In order not to 
offend runners, it is crucial to understand the difference 
between running and jogging and to use these terms 
appropriately. When in doubt, always use the word "runner;" 
a jogger won't know the difference anyway. Basically, a 
"runner" runs to improve; a "jogger" jogs to lose weight, to
be healthy, or to cross-train. With some practice, you'll 
immediately be able to tell the difference -- that man 
wearing the headphones, Ked sneakers, and fuchsia sweat 
ensemble is a jogger. But that woman who zoomed by so fast 
you couldn't tell if she was wearing anything, she is a 
runner. Once at the track, the runner will probably think 
about stretching, and may even succumb to bending over a bit 
before going for a warmup "jog." (The term 'jog' can be used 
here as in this case it is preliminary to the "run" -- real 
runners do jog occasionally.) The track session could 
include any number of intervals, ladders, or repeats, but 
most likely it will leave the runner tired and famished, 
ready to finally head home. If he doesn't fall asleep over 
his fifth plate of pasta, the runner may engage in some non-
running-related activities before bed.

Of course, this is only an ordinary day in an typical 
runner's life. Often, though, races disrupt this normal 
flow, for as much as a week previous to the actual day of 
the race (depending on the race's distance and importance). 
During pre-race periods, it's important to be careful what 
you say to a runner. Don't say the wrong thing (or the right 
thing at the wrong time), anything at all at certain times, 
or nothing at other times. This, too, will take some 
practice. Don't feel insulted if a runner ignores you during 
this period; in fact, you may want to ignore anything she 
says until after the race. But be careful about post-race 
comments as well, and follow the same pre-race guidelines
about what to say.

A final comment: despite anything you've just read to the 
contrary, runners are actually some of the most intriguing 
people on this planet. Don't be intimidated by them -- they 
won't bite, and they'll tell you more than you ever wanted 
to know about their current overuse injury if you just ask.

- Sheila Eldred, Oxford, UK
  sheila.eldred@keble.oxford.ac.uk


An Invitation to Fencing
------------------------

The image of fencing is sometimes confused with the clashing 
of swords seen in the movies, from the classic exploits of 
Errol Flynn to the latest incarnation of The Three 
Musketeers. When fencers see sword fighting on the silver 
screen they are almost always disappointed by the lack of
thought that is displayed in the fights. For fencing is 
about an interchange of ideas -- ideas intended to deceive 
or surprise. Fencing is about thinking and transferring 
thoughts into action at the maximum rate and with the 
maximum precision.

Of course movie sword fighting is not intended to be 
fencing, but as many people have seen more sword play on the 
movie screen than in a fencing competition, perhaps a few 
words about how these two activities differ is one way to 
convey some of the spirit of the modern sport. For example 
in the movies the sword-fighters often just launch 
themselves into the action and then start banging away. But 
a big part of fencing is in choosing the best moment for 
attack and this involves a certain amount of legwork in 
order to lure the opponent into a false step or a false 
sense of security. A second example is that when an attack 
is begun to the head--for example--it finishes on the head, 
or more often is blocked by a parry. This may be realistic 
with a period sword, but with the light weapons used in 
modern fencing, an important aspect of the game is to 
conceal the intended target of a thrust by threatening 
another, or to change the intended target on the fly in 
response to the opponents defensive actions. One thing that 
the movies and fencing do share, though, is passion. Whether 
fighting for one's life or for a medal, fencing requires a 
complete focusing of one's mental energy on the task of
striking the opponent.

Fencing can be done with any one of three different types of 
weapons (fencers do not tend to use the word "sword"), each 
with slightly different rules: Foil, Sabre, and Epee. All 
three share a great deal in terms of technique, but each has 
its own distinctive character and athletes of a high calibre 
generally concentrate their training and competition in one 
of the three weapons. 

Foil

Ironically, the roots of fencing go back to the introduction 
of gunpowder into Europe and the invention of the gun. This 
innovation made armour ineffective and that meant an end to 
the heavy two handed swords that were needed in order to 
make an impression on a man in armour. Swords became lighter 
and were used less for warfare and more for self-defense and 
for duelling. In order to train for duelling in a non lethal 
way, swords were tipped with a dull point and certain 
conventions of scoring were introduced with the intention of 
instilling the habits that would prove most useful in a 
duel. The rules of Foil can be understood in these terms. In 
a duel with weapons such as the shortsword popular with the 
French nobility of the 17th century, it is important to hit 
with a thrust and to hit a vital part of the body. In Foil 
points can only be scored when the tip of the weapon lands 
on the torso of the opponent; the arms and legs are deemed 
not vital enough, and the head was not a suitable target in 
practice, until the development of the fencing mask.

Furthermore, as it is small satisfaction to seriously wound 
ones opponent in a duel only a split second before one is 
seriously wounded oneself, Foil fencing does not award 
points solely based on who hit first. Instead the rules 
encourage defensive play by dictating that an attack must be 
defended against before a valid response--or riposte--can be 
given. Thus the right to attack ("right of way") goes back 
and forth like the ball in tennis. In the case of hits 
arriving at about the same time, the point is scored by the 
fencer who had "right of way."

Much of the essence of foil comes from the fast exchange of 
the right of way and the consequent alternation of attack 
and defense. The fencers will generally move along the strip 
"pushing" and "pulling" each other with threats and retreats
either looking for the best moment to attack, or attempting 
to fool the opponent into believing the advantage is his 
when it isn't. It usually doesn't take long before one of 
the fencers takes the plunge and attacks -- typically 
pushing off the back foot into a lunge. If the defender 
cannot (or chooses not) to step away, he or she will try to 
"parry" the attack and if successful will "riposte." Now the 
tables are turned and the original attacker must defend and 
may be able to make a riposte back ("counter-riposte").

This is the basic pattern but it comes in a splendid 
variety. The attack may be made directly or might involve 
some preparatory attacking of the defender's blade. The 
defense can be made with a number of different parries. The 
defender may even decide not to parry, but rather attempt to 
force the attacker to miss by either stepping back or even 
stepping forward. The attacker may deceive (avoid contact 
with) the parry and continue the attack either to the same 
area of the torso or another. The method of deceiving the 
parry depends on which type of parry is used and thus 
requires extremely fast reaction or careful reading of what 
the defender is most likely to do. If the first parry is 
deceived, the defender may have time to form a second parry 
-- especially if the first parry was a mere ruse and the 
second was part of the original plan. Once the parry is made 
everything turns a round the defender is now attacking with 
a riposte and the attacker must defend against it. The 
riposter may attempt to hit with simple thrust, or may 
deceive the original attackers parry. You may think this 
could go on for quite a while, but usually either a hit is 
made, or someone defends by re t reating and the game of
looking for just the right moment to attack starts again. 

Sabre

The Sabre is descended from the cavalry sabre. The version 
used in competition though is a far cry from it's heavy 
antecedent. It is light and quick. Points may be scored 
either with a thrust as in Foil or with the side of the 
blade, the latter is called a "cut." The target is the 
entire body above the waist including the head and arms. The 
conventions concerning the right to hit are the same as in
Foil.

Because the parries must defend against cuts from many 
angles, they require fairly large movements, this makes them 
more easily deceived with some fast fingerwork than in Foil 
and shifts the advantage towards the attack. Thus there is 
little waiting a round in sabre, one or the other fencer 
will soon attack -- and often both attack at the same time.
Thus one aspect of its cavalry heritage Sabre has not lost 
is the charge. But that is not to say that Sabre is merely a 
race to see who can attack first. Tricking your opponent 
into attacking at the wrong time can lead to a fairly easy 
parry and riposte. And the fact that the arm is target makes 
the attacker susceptible to being hit on the wrist as he or 
she prepares for the attack. The exchange of attacks parries 
and ripostes seen in Foil is also seen in Sabre, but the 
emphasis is perhaps even more on attacking at the right time 
with the right distance.

Epee

The Epee is a direct descendant of the short sword used by 
courtiers for duelling. As honour was generally satisfied by 
drawing first blood, in Epee points are scored by hitting 
first, anywhere on the body. The conventions of right of way 
do not apply. As with the Foil, the Epee is strictly a 
thrusting weapon, hits with the edge are not counted. The 
absence of conventions that put an emphasis on parrying 
means that the best defense in Ep&eacute;e is often a good 
offense. If your opponent attacks the body, it may be 
possible to attack them back on the arm, the difference of 
distance translates to a difference in time and the "counter 
attack" to the arm is likely to get the point. Even an 
attack to the arm can be defended against by a thrust that 
defends with the guard of the weapon and counter attacks 
with the tip. Of course the option to parry is still there. 
It is ironic, but the absence of conventions to promote 
defending makes attacking a risky proposition. Thus Epee, 
more than foil and much more than sabre, can be a waiting 
game. But it is an active waiting. The feet are constantly 
being used to push or pull the opponent. The hand is busy 
making false attacks to test the defenses and to disguise 
the real attack when it comes. The eyes are busy learning 
the reactions of the opponent to each action. And the 
fingers are feeling the reaction of the opponent whenever 
the blades meet.

When the attack does come, if it is not a short attack to an 
ill-defended part of the arm, it is often done in such a way 
as to neutralize any possible defense. For example the 
"envelopment" is a spiralling thrust made with the point 
towards the target so as to pick up the opponents blade on 
the way in. This pushes the opponent's point safely out of 
the way and makes the angle of his or her blade 
unfavourable for a successful parry. 

Doesn't it Hurt?

The typical hit in fencing noticable, but doesn't hurt. The 
occasional hit will sting for a bit and may leave a small 
red mark for a day or two.

Fencing is one of the safest sports there is. An Ontario 
Government study found that of all sports surveyed it was 
second only to lawn bowling in it's safety record. In recent
years the introduction of better equipment has made it even
safer. Most injuries are of the nature of twisted ankles or
pulled ligaments. It is possible for a broken blade to 
penetrate the protective clothing, but this is extremely 
rare.

Learning to Fence

Fencing is an enjoyable sport or pastime for people of all 
ages. It is my observation and that of other fencers and 
coaches that almost anyone can learn to fence well -- that 
is at a level where one begins to touch on the beauty of the 
sport. The only prerequisite is enough dedication to stick 
with it for a while.

The learning curve for fencing is generally quite long. In 
few other sports do you have to learn to walk all over again 
and learn to make finger movements as fine as are used in 
writing while holding a half kilogram mass in your hand. 
When I learned to fence we were taught the basic footwork 
and handwork for three months before being allowed to engage 
in any sort of bouting. Nowadays most teachers will get to 
bouting a lot sooner (perhaps even on the first day), but it 
still takes about three months before ones basic ability is 
at a level where the bouting starts to resemble fencing. Of 
course a good teacher will manage to make that initial 
learning time rewarding and enjoyable.

Although there are three different weapons, there is a core 
of skills and ideas common to all three. Thus it doesn't 
matter which weapon you are taught first. So if you are 
hell-bent to become a sabreur, but the local club teaches 
Epee first, don't worry, almost everything you are taught 
will be useful for all three weapons.

Once the basic technical skills are sufficiently mastered 
comes the most intangible part of learning: learning to 
apply those skills appropriately against an opponent doing 
their utmost to confound you. This is a never-ending process 
of self-improvement. There are always better fencers and a 
reaction can always be made just a millisecond sooner. 
Beyond technique there is tactics: picking the moment, 
picking the attack, combining footwork and handwork 
appropriately, deciding what attacks are likely and what to 
do first in each case; and beyond tactics there is strategy: 
deciding if it is better to attack or defend, deciding if it 
is better to dominate the footwork or respond to the 
opponent's footwork, deciding whether to repeat a previously 
successful tactic (because it was successful), avoid it 
(because it will be expected), or elaborate on it (for 
example begin the same way, but finish differently).

Fencing is usually taught in fencing clubs either private 
or associated with larger bodies such as universities or the 
local Y. Most clubs will have classes for beginners at least 
once a year. To find out about clubs near you the easiest 
thing is either to check local universities or to contact 
the national fencing organization. The addresses of three of 
these are listed at the end of this article and also the 
address of the international governing body.

The highest level of teacher is a "master" or "maitre" who 
will have had extensive experience and passed exams set by 
the national organization.

Competitive & Recreational Fencing

Some fencers are satisfied to fence with the other members 
of their club and engage in friendly competition with their 
comrades. Others seek new challenges and test their progress 
by competing on a local, national, or international level. 
Fencing has been an Olympic sport since the first modern 
games in 1896.

Both men and women complete in all three weapons -- although 
at the international level women's sabre is not yet 
recognized. Competitions are also often broken into age 
groups so that younger fencers do not have to complete 
against much more experienced competitors. There are no
weight divisions as size confers little advantage except in
Epee where long arms can be useful.

Fencing bouts in competitions are observed by referees who 
keep track of the score, start and stop bouts, award 
penalties when rules are broken, and--in Foil and Sabre--
decide which fencer had the right to hit when there are hits
close in time. The referee is assisted by an electrical 
system that senses hits made on target. In Foil and Sabre 
the competitors wear electrically conductive clothing and in 
Foil and Epee each weapon is tipped with a small spring 
loaded button.

Recreational fencers will find fencing an excellent source 
of fitness. Whereas running, swimming, and cycling are 
calmingly repetitive and aerobics has a certain pack appeal, 
fencing allows an infinite variety of creative expression 
while providing a combination of aerobic and anaerobic 
conditioning.

Competitive fencers find that they need to be in top shape
in order to remain in peak form throughout the many bouts it 
takes to get to the pedal podium. They also need to keep 
honing their technical, tactical, and strategic skills 
through regular practice and one-on-one training sessions 
with their coach.

The Spirit of Fencing

For me the beauty of fencing lies in the difficulty of some 
of its concepts and in the interplay of ideas between two 
opponents.

Take for example, distance and timing. Distance does not
mean just the simple distance between the fencers as can
be measured with a metre stick, it includes the way that
each fencer is moving. For an elementary example, one of the 
best ways to obtain a favourable opportunity for attack is 
to reverse direction from going backward to going forward, 
your opponent is still coming forward and the distance 
suddenly closens and now is the moment for attack (timing). 
But this is not so easy as it sounds, for your opponent is 
already coming forward and may be in a better position to 
attack than you who are in the midst of changing direction, 
so any anticipation of your plan by the opponent is likely 
to be disastrous. And timing does not mean just picking the 
moment for an attack. It includes the rhythm that actions 
are performed -- for example, two steps and a lunge might be 
done in the rhythm slow-fast-slow (thus affecting distance) 
-- and it must be tailored to exploit the weaknesses or to 
make weaknesses of the strengths of the opponent.

The interplay of ideas in fencing is very fast. In a few
seconds there can be several parry-riposte sequences. Each
action made is a challenge to the opponent to come up with 
a counter action. An attack is a challenge to find and 
execute an effective parry. A parry is a challenge manage 
its deception or to land the hit before the parry is 
complete. The responses must be made at reflex action speed, 
yet the best response and the best way to execute the best
response vary from opponent to opponent and from situation 
to situation. This makes fencing very challenging, always 
different and hence extremely rewarding.

For More Information

Online - There is an internet newsgroup (rec.sport.fencing)
devoted to fencing discussion. A WWW home page is also 
available at "http://www.ii.uib.no/~arild/fencing.html".

Offline - There are numerous books on fencing although they 
can be hard to find. [A list of good fencing books is 
maintained as part of the Fencing FAQ, by Morgan Burke. 
E-mail him at morgan@sitka.triumf.ca for more information. 
- Ian]

National and International Organizations

Federation Internationale d'Escrime
32, Rue La Boetie
75008 Paris, France

Amateur Fencing Association (Britain)
1 Barons Gate
33-35 Rothschild Road
London W4 5HT
Tel: 081 742-3032

Canadian Fencing Federation
1600 Prom. James Naismith Drive
Gloucester, ON K1B 5N4
TEL: (613) 748-5633
FAX: (613) 748-5742
22

- Theo Norvell, Toronto, Canada


===========
DEPARTMENTS
===========

Debate Room
-----------

* The Portrayal of Gays on TV *

Over the past few years gay and lesbian characters have 
started appearing on popular TV shows and in the movies. For 
example, the highly rated Roseanne show now sports a lesbian 
couple, the Northern Exposure nighttime serial added a gay
male couple to its regular cast of characters, and on the 
popular prime-time generation-X serial Melrose Place, a gay
man has been a regular resident since the show's premiere 
years ago. Although TV shows are starting to sport gay 
characters in their regular lineups, these characters rarely 
lead realistic lives on screen.Of all the flirting, 
touching, kissing and steamy love scenes we are constantly 
bombarded with, how many occur between gay characters? None.
Northern Exposure was even afraid to show two men kissing 
after reciting their wedding vows to each other -- instead 
they were shown giving each other a hug.

In this month's debate column, Teletimes contributors Jon 
Gould and Paul Gribble will address the question, how much 
gay content is enough, and how much is too much? Jon will 
argue that it's acceptable for a TV network to adjust its 
programming for the taste of its viewers. Paul will take an 
opposing view and argue that although the existence of gay 
people in the popular media is an enormously important step
forward, the way in which gay people are portrayed on screen 
reduces them to mere token gay characters, which ultimately 
amounts to two steps backwards.

- Dr. Euan Taylor, Vancouver, Canada
  ertaylor@unixg.ubc.ca


* Two Steps Backwards *

The portrayal of gay people on popular television shows and 
the manner in which these shows address gay themes has 
changed enormously in recent years. Twenty years ago gay 
characters didn't exist on television, and the only "gay 
themes" addressed were when characters like "Archie Bunker" 
made "fairy" and "fag" wisecracks. Today popular prime time 
television shows are beginning to sport regularly appearing, 
"openly" gay characters. However, despite this important 
improvement, an exploitive and insulting double standard 
exists that supports the censorship of realistic depictions 
of the lives of gay characters on television.

In order to fully understand the impact of this kind of 
depiction of gay people, it is necessary to form an 
appropriate context by examining the ways in which gay 
people have been portrayed on television in the past.

The Myth of Non-Existence

Up until the 1970's gay people didn't exist on television at
all. Homosexuality was simply not something to be discussed, 
either in private or in public. Homosexuality was something 
to be hidden, something to deny. This myth of non-existence 
was reflected in television programs; gay characters and
storylines dealing with any sort of gay issues or themes 
simply didn't exist. It is important to consider how deeply 
this kind of denial affects people who consider themselves 
to be gay.

Wherever you fall upon the gay region of the Kinsey 
continuum, from completely gay to slightly gay, living in a 
society that implicitly denies the existence and value or 
your feelings is emotionally devastating. If you're gay, or 
if you ever thought you might be gay, you've more than 
likely experienced the feelings I'm trying to express. If 
you're not gay, indulge me for a moment in a revealing 
thought experiment, and consider living in a world that 
denies the existence of heterosexual people.

Imagine that everyone around you is romantically attracted 
to people of the same sex. Imagine that everyone on 
television, in the movies, in magazine ads, on billboards, 
and in books, have same-sex partners. At the end of the day 
your father comes home to his husband and they smooch while 
you watch TV. Your brother goes out on dates with other 
boys, your sister is married to another woman, and even 
though you're secretly attracted to someone in your class 
who happens to be of the opposite sex, you're expected to 
bring a same-sex partner to your high school prom. The 
predominant message you get from people around you is that 
you don't belong. Nowhere do you see heterosexual people 
portrayed in a positive way -- in fact, you don't see them 
portrayed at all. The only exposure you get to 
heterosexuality is when it's the brunt of someone's joke, 
when it's referred to as a sickness, an aberration, 
something to be hidden from view until people can be cured 
of it. Denying your existence in this way judges you without 
even granting you the consideration of which everyone around 
you is automatically entitled. You feel very alone. You know 
that other heterosexual people do exist in the world, but 
you never see them. They live their lives within an unspoken 
subculture, separated from the rest of society. At an early 
age you accept the uncomfortable fact that you have a choice 
to make as to how to live your life -- to submit to 
society's pressures and participate in the denial of your 
own feelings by living life as a perpetual lie, or to 
separate yourself from "normal" society so that you can live 
a life you can finally call your own.

Exploitive Comedy

If you begin to understand how this perpetual denial eats 
away at one's individuality and self-esteem, then you can 
appreciate how devastating it was when television finally 
started to acknowledge the existence of gay people in the 
form of exploitive comedy. Campy and effeminate characters 
like "Monroe" on Too Close For Comfort perpetuated insulting 
stereotypes about what it means to be gay. On Three's 
Company, main character "Jack Tripper" pretended to be gay 
so that his landlord would let him share an apartment with 
two female roommates. His charade was a reliable source of 
humour, but it reinforced the message that homosexual people 
aren't real, but are caricatures; homosexual feelings aren't 
real or valid but are surreptitiously funny. While there are 
notable exceptions, television programs today still exploit 
gay people for cheap laughs by portraying gay people as 
campy, effeminate caricatures (for example, "Jules" on 
Anything But Love). By depicting gay people in this way, 
homosexuality isn't afforded any dignity or respect but is 
considered a hilarious act to be laughed at and made fun of.

During this time in history it was much more difficult than 
it is now for gay people to "come out" and acknowledge their 
homo-sexuality, so the only gay people most heterosexual 
people were exposed to were those portrayed in the popular 
media.

Let's briefly return to our thought experiment and think 
about what effect this might have on you and your self-
esteem if the tables were turned and heterosexual people 
were regularly represented in the popular media by insulting 
stereotypical caricatures. Being heterosexual in a sea of 
homosexual people, you feel like you don't exist. You search 
your environment for other heterosexual people with whom to 
identify. The message that is conveyed to your friends, to 
your family, to people that haven't ever met you, and 
perhaps most damaging, to you, yourself, is that people who 
are heterosexual are jokes, their heterosexual feelings 
are funny, and their existence in general is a hilarious 
circus act to be mocked and exploited for cheap laughs. 
You've gone from feeling like people won't acknowledge your 
existence to feeling like people are pointing at you and 
your emotions and laughing, at the expense of your dignity 
and self esteem.

AIDS & "Issue" Episodes

In the early 1980's the onset of the AIDS epidemic had a 
profound impact upon the way gay people were portrayed in 
the news and popular media. The unknown disease was first
identified widely in gay men, and was hence called "GRID" 
(Gay Related Immune Deficiency) and sometimes "Gay Cancer." 
The general public was bombarded with news stories about the 
fatal threat; gay people everywhere were in danger of dying 
of this new unknown disease. It took a considerable amount 
of time before the Center for Disease Control in the U.S.A. 
publicly stated that the disease could be transmitted 
sexually -- by homosexual or heterosexual contact, and in 
doing so opened (some) people's eyes to the fact that the 
disease doesn't discriminate based upon sexual orientation.

By the time the disease was renamed "AIDS" (Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome), gay people, gay organizations, and 
homosexual issues in general had experienced a sudden 
profound increase in widespread media exposure, thanks 
mostly to unjustified paranoia and general misinformation. 
Suddenly the words "gay" and "homosexual," and indeed gay 
people themselves, were appearing where they had never 
before seen the light of day -- on the front pages of 
newspapers, on national news programs, and of course on 
popular televisions shows.

Weekly series shows like St. Elsewhere and Hill Street 
Blues,  as well as daytime soap operas began to address the 
"AIDS issue" by centering one and sometimes two episodes 
around a character dying of AIDS -- usually a gay man. The 
horrible predicament these characters and their friends and 
families found themselves in was consistently milked for all 
the melodrama the screenwriters could squeeze out of the 
situation. The controversy surrounding the disease coupled 
with the boldness of including a gay character on screen 
made airing an "AIDS episode" good sense in terms of 
ratings.

While these kinds of shows usually accurately depict the 
hateful intolerances that these people experience daily 
because of the fear and prejudice surrounding AIDS, they 
consistently miss the otherwise rare opportunity to explore 
the many personal and social issues surrounding 
homosexuality. The implicit message is that homosexuality, 
and all that it means to live as a gay person in a 
heterosexual society, is not worthy of our consideration. 
The gay characters are only revealed as being gay because 
they have AIDS. Their homosexuality is not aff o rded any 
validity or dignity on its own. All of the emotions and 
experiences involved in growing up and living as a gay 
person -- homosexual life -- are ignored and instead our 
attention is focused time after time on homosexual death.

Returning to our thought experiment, you find yourself 
bombarded by the message that "heterosexual = AIDS = death." 
Craving any form of exposure of heterosexual people and 
their lives in the mass media, you're suddenly bombarded 
with melodramatic accounts of the slow and painful deaths of 
heterosexual people everywhere. Fundamentalist preachers 
sermonize to you and millions of others that AIDS is God's 
wrath for the evils of heterosexuality. You witness 
heterosexual people (irregardless of their "HIV status"), 
and people with AIDS (irregardless of their sexual 
orientation) being treated with hateful indignity. 
Heterosexual people are suspected as contagious harbingers 
of evil disease, and people with AIDS are suspected as 
sexually irresponsible queers. Whatever remnants of self-
esteem you may have held on to up until now are undoubtedly 
seriously threatened.

Today's Double-Standard

The past five years or so have witnessed a lot of 
improvements in the way gay people are portrayed on 
television. A few popular prime time shows now include gay 
characters in their regular ongoing storylines. A lesbian 
couple is regularly featured on the Roseanne show; a recent 
episode of Northern Exposure featured the wedding of two 
regularly appearing gay men; a young gay man has been on the 
regular cast of Melrose Place from the very beginning. 
However, although it appears that a real effort is being 
made to portray gay characters on television in a more 
positive and realistic light, a ridiculous double standard 
exists that robs these characters of the same dignity and 
respect automatically afforded to heterosexual characters.

On the season finale of <I>Melrose Place</I>, for example, a 
scene in which "Matt," the young gay character, kisses 
another man was shamefully censored -- the scene was edited 
so badly, the video and sound slowing down, speeding up, and 
jumping around, that the sacrifice in image quality probably 
didn't justify the exclusion of the kiss -- or did it? The 
embarrassing fact is that it probably did. The new police 
drama N.Y.P.D. Blue has recently broken new ground in prime 
time television by including heterosexual love scenes 
depicting partial nudity. While it is considered acceptable 
to show half-naked heterosexual characters kissing, fondling, 
and making love to each other, a simple kiss between two 
fully clothed consenting adult gay men is out of the 
question.

This show in addition to many others over the past decade 
has also broken new ground in terms of depicting violence on 
prime time television. What kind of message is sent to 
people -- especially to children -- when murder, rape, 
assault, and other gory violence is regularly depicted on 
television, yet beautiful, romantic love between two adults 
(who happen to be of the same sex) is considered wrong?

The message that this double standard sends to people is 
that although it is acceptable to acknowledge the existence 
of gay people, their lives should be hidden away. This 
reduces these characters to token gay characters whose 
existence, while intended to reveal the "progressive" 
sensibilities of the TV networks that produce the programs, 
ultimately send an implicit message to television viewers, 
both gay and straight, that although gay people exist, their 
interests, their loves, their fears and joys, indeed their
entire lives should be hidden from view.

Let's delve into our thought experiment one more time, (and 
if you're getting tired of it, just imagine living it every 
day of your life!). After many years of disappointment in 
watching heterosexual people depicted as jokes and "issues," 
you finally observe heterosexual characters being depicted 
simply as everyday people who happen to be heterosexual. You 
eagerly tune in every week expecting to finally watch the 
comedy and drama of these characters' lives explored with 
the same frankness and openness afforded to the lives of 
homosexual characters.

Before you know it, however, it's the end of the season, and
although the other (homosexual) characters have each 
experienced crises, loves, injustices, and soul-searching 
angst in all its melodramatic glory, the only thing you know 
about the heterosexual characters is that they are 
heterosexual. Although the homosexuality of the gay 
characters constantly played an integral role in the 
storylines surrounding them, (who they fell in love with, 
who fell in love with them, who dumped them, who they 
surreptitiously slept with, what jealous lover threatened to 
kill them, their changing relationship with their parents 
and friends), the heterosexuality of the heterosexual 
characters did not play any part whatsoever in their on 
screen lives.

You wonder what people are afraid of. You wonder what it is
about your heterosexual feelings and experiences that makes 
people so vehemently opposed to acknowledging them in the 
same open, honest environment in which gay issues are so 
regularly explored. You reflect on the unfortunate fact that 
the answer is wrapped up in the complex social history of 
public attitudes toward heterosexuality over the past few 
hundred years. Then you realize that the answer is not so 
complex after all. The answer is simple. The reason behind 
the history of the portrayal of heterosexual people on 
television is identical to the reason behind today's 
outrageous double standard: simple, unacceptable prejudice 
-- narrow<6F>minded discrimination because of the gender of the 
person you love. You wonder what possesses people to embrace 
this unjustifiable bigotry and reject so much sincere, 
honest, romantic (heterosexual) love in a world that seems 
to be so devoid of harmony.

It has been said that television is a reflection of our 
society. It is clear then from both the (often recurring) 
history of the treatment of gay people on television and the 
present insulting double standard that until gay characters 
are depicted with the same levels of candor and honesty 
automatically granted to heterosexual characters, gay, 
lesbian and bisexual people in the real world will have to
continue the painful daily struggle, both privately and 
publicly, for equal dignity, equal respect, and most 
importantly, equal treatment.

- Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada
  gribble@motion.psych.mcgill.ca

Sources

"Queer Resources Directory" (QRD) - accessible by electronic 
mail, BBS, FTP, WAIS, gopher, and WWW (lynx and Mosaic). For 
details e-mail qrdstaff@vector.casti.com or ftp/gopher to 
vector.casti.com (149.52.1.130) and look in "/pub/QRD."


* You Get What You Pay For *

Is homophobia wrong? Yes. Do I think network censors should 
be less conservative in depicting gay life on television? 
Perhaps. But should they be expected to? No.

Paul and I don't agree with the result desired -- we both 
seek a society in which heterosexuals and homosexuals alike 
are accepted and tolerated. The difference is how we get 
there Paul believes that the media has an affirmative 
obligation to expose more viewers to gay lifestyle. I don't. 
Television is a mirror of life; it depicts the values and 
appeals to the tastes of its viewers. If we want to see more 
gay characters on television, we shouldn't expect the 
television producers to take the initiative. We need to 
change social attitudes, from which television will follow.

To be sure, there is a bit of a chicken and egg question 
here. Television can play a part in changing social 
attitudes, but its responsibility should be limited to news 
coverage. If gay and lesbian issues are newsworthy, they 
should be covered. But there is a big difference between the 
media's reacting to news-worthy events and its affirmative 
decision to depict gay lifestyle in entertainment 
programming. The difference is viewers. Television survives 
only to the extent that it attracts viewers. If viewers want 
to see gay characters, television should have more of them. 
Conversely, if viewers want Christian broadcasting, a 
television executive would be foolish to ignore their 
wishes. This is exactly why we see organised protests over 
television programming. Parent groups who want to reduce sex 
and violence, educators who argue against sophomoric 
programming, housewives who petition for a soap opera -- all 
are trying to tell television executives what they want, and 
the producers ought to pay attention. Run croquet three 
times a day and you are likely to lose your station.

In the end, the question is whether viewers want, or are 
willing to tolerate, gay lifestyles on television. My sense 
is that we're beginning to see inroads, but viewers aren't 
ready for the kiss that Northern Exposure avoided.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe CBS was off. But you have to convince 
them that their read of society was wrong. Write letters. 
Protest their sponsors. Start a cable station dedicated to 
gay and lesbian programming. But don't expect them to buck 
general sentiment. Changing viewers' preferences is not the
responsibility of the broadcasters.

- Jon Gould, Chicago, USA


Music Notes: Feature
--------------------

* A Whole Lollapalooza Goin' On! *

[The rock ' n ' roll bandwagon is on its way, and Russell 
Weinberger, our man in Davis, California, takes a look at 
this year's line-up. - Ken]
************************************************************
The fullblaze of summer now hints at its imminent arrival. 
And with the heat and dust of yet another dry California 
season comes the long-awaited arrival of Lollapalooza 1994. 
The new line-up may disappoint alternative-junkies looking 
for another fix of Pearl Jam before the world realizes they 
are, in fact, a pop band. Even a quick glance at this year's 
selections reveals a very real difference from previous 
Lollapaloozii. This cast is closer to the original intent of 
the all-day mega-concert. In its first conception, Jane's 
Addiction frontman Perry Farrell wanted to offer a real 
barrage of new and different types of music. The first three 
concerts, though a true change of stadium pace, were really 
festivals of college rockers, with a dash of rap and R&B for 
flavor. This year, the organizers have something different 
planned:

MAINSTAGE
Smashing Pumpkins
Beastie Boys
George Clinton & P-Funk Allstars 
The Breeders
A Tribe Called Quest
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
L7
Green Day

SECOND  STAGE
(Check dates to find out who's taking the second stage in
your town)
Jul  1 - Aug 3      The Flaming Lips
Jul  1 - Aug 3      Verve
Ju   1 - July 8     The Souls of Mischief
Jul  1 - July 15    Rollerskate Skinny  
Jul  1 - July 15    The Frogs 
Jul  9 - Aug 3      Luscious Jackson 
Jul 16 - Aug 3      Palace Songs 
Jul 16 - July 24    Guided by Voices  
Jul 25 - Aug 3      Girls Against Boys  
Aug  4 - Sept 4     Stereolab 
Aug  4 - Aug 11     Blast Off Country-Style  
Aug  4 - Aug 18     Charlie Hunter Trio  
Aug  4 - Aug 11     Fu-Schnickens 
Aug  4 - Aug 11     Lambchop
Aug 12 - Sept 4     Shudder to Think 
Aug 12 - Sept 4     The Boo Radleys 
Aug 12 - Aug 18     King Kong 
Aug 19 - Sept 4     The Pharcyde 
Aug 19 - Sept 4     Shonen Knife


For everyone wondering what to expect for their 30+ dollars, 
here's a brief overview:

First, there's Green Day. This Berkeley, California-based 
band recently made it big with the release of Dookie, moving 
to the top of alternative and college charts all over the 
U.S. The band, however, is far from new. I remember seeing 
them for five bucks at the Gillman St Project in Berkeley 
when they had a hard edge and an attitude that wouldn't 
quit. Even then, when they were still figuring out how to 
play their instruments, they were a band with unmatched
energy and a stage presence that brought crowds back week 
after week. Their new album, quite a bit tamer than their 
former works, is reminiscent of classic English power pop 
the likes of which hasn't been seen since the Buzzcocks. (It
would probably be quite a bit more fun to see them in the 
closed, sweaty confines of a smokey club.)

Next comes L7, the all female hardcore band which has 
recently appeared in John Waters' latest movie, Serial Mom 
(under the nom du flique, Camel Lips) Definitely not for the 
timid, L7 takes up the slack where 45 Grave and The Slits 
left off. Their music is some of the strongest stuff around, 
complete with big nasty guitars, heavy bass lines, and 
spitfire drumbeats  sure to send any general-admission crowd 
into a frenzy. Add to this the emergence of the Riot Grrrl 
movement, and it's easy to understand why L7 was chosen to 
fill the slot Babes In Toyland left behind last year.

Then, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will take fill main stage 
with the sounds of doom and gloom that has made them 
legendary in underground circles. Cave, backed by Blixa 
Bargeld on guitar (of Einsturzende Neubauten fame) and the 
rest of the Bad Seeds combines gothic mystique with the 
lyrical story-telling styles of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits 
to produce a sound that is nonetheless unique. Featured in 
several Wim Wenders movies, including Wings of Desire, 
Cave's resonant baritone voice is both chilling and 
enthralling. This combined with a variety of instruments 
from violin to piano make his music some of the most diverse 
and varied around. More impressive is his range of subject 
matter which spans from tales of bar brawls to lost loves to 
diatribes on the sad state of the modern world. The Seeds' 
latest release, Let Love In, is a definitive "theme album" 
replete with a cynical sense of humor.

The tone changes yet again with A Tribe Called Quest, a 
smart act which combines intricate rap with jazzy rhythms 
and melodious harmonies. With the overwhelming success of 
their first album and their recently released second already 
on its way up the charts, the Tribe is proving itself a band 
whose unstoppable innovation has changed and influenced hip-
hop as well.

Following them is The Breeders. Fronted by ex-Pixi Kim Deal, 
the Breeders' blend of psychedelia and punk have made them 
an MTV smash as well as a college radio favorite. The power 
and strength of this band make it difficult to accurately 
describe. However, if all you have heard is their hit 
single, "Cannonball," get ready for quite a bit more. Their 
repertoire includes several more traditional punk songs 
along with a cover of The Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun" 
which is innovative enough to add another dimension to John 
Lennon's classic anthem to heroin.

There really isn't enough to be said for the next act. The 
founder of Parliament, Funkadelic and their various off 
shoots, George Clinton is the godfather of post- James Brown 
funk and, without a doubt, one of the most influential 
musicians of our time. Let's just say this: without this 
Clinton, there would be no Red Hot Chili Peppers, no Faith 
No More, and even Prince would be struggling for a musical 
identity.

The Beastie Boys started as a NYC hardcore act with little 
or no talent which tried rap out as a joke and has since 
become one of the biggest and most important hip-hop acts 
around. From their first album, the humorous Licensed to 
Ill, the Boys have come a long way in helping to redefine 
and reshape hip-hop. They are unique in that they have been 
able to continue to produce music that is wholly their own 
and still draw fans of every discriminating taste. They 
were, most importantly, one of the first hip-hop bands to 
actually play their instruments both on their album and on 
stage, replacing a drum machine with a live drummer, and 
using guitars instead of samples. Their next release, due 
May 31, promises to deliver more of the same with further 
innovations.

Headlining Lollapalooza is The Smashing Pumpkins, a Chicago-
based psychedelic band whose haunting melodies and harmonies 
make them one of the most successful bands of their sort. 
Like Jane's Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins attract fans from
heavy metal, alternative rock, and just about every other 
circle of music listeners. Their second, critically 
acclaimed release topped college charts and made them one of 
the premier bands of the '90s. Unfortunately, judging from
interviews on MTV and in Rolling Stone, it looks as though 
this may be one of the last times they play live.  At least 
they're likely to go out with a bang.

There you have it. Lollapalooza 1994 looks as if it may be 
the best yet, topping even the tremendous lineup of the 
first Lollapalooza in 1990. Definitely worth the money and 
who knows, they might even have the body-piercing booth 
again, and you can go home with a little permanent memento.

- Russell Weinberger, Davis, California, USA
  c/o tt-entertainment@teletimes.com


Music Notes: Reviews
--------------------

All reviews based on a five star rating system

Van Morrison - A Night in San Francisco                 ****
(Polydor/Polygram)

With his last few releases approaching snooze-control, it's 
only natural to see a Van Morrison live record as a plain 
holding-pattern move. In fact, one glance at the song-list 
sets off alarm bells: isn't this the third time around for 
"Vanlose Stairway"? But the proof is in the listening, and 
it turns out this two-disc, 22-cut album--recorded on two 
Bay Area nights last year--is for people who miss the old 
rambunctious, eclectic Van-the-Man. There's little 
meditative about his rowdy, Celtic-flavoured reworkings of 
early fare like "Moondance"  or "Tupelo Honey", and even his 
mellower recent stuff, like "In the Garden" and "So Quiet in 
Here" is interrupted by surprising snippets of tunes from 
James Brown, Sly Stone, and Rogers and Hart (as in "My Funny 
Valentine"). Expected guests like Georgie Fame, John Lee 
Hooker, saxist Candy Dulfer, and guitarist Ronnie Johnson 
(Morrison's current musical director) turn up the fun 
quotient, and he has bluesers Junior Wells and Jimmy 
Witherspoon shouting some of the songs which first inspired 
the Belfast Cowboy in his pre-Them days. He also shows the 
sense to have other singers tackle some of his over-exposed 
ditties, like Hooker's growling "Gloria" or Brian Kennedy's 
subtle take on the sentimental "Have I Told You Lately That 
I Love  You?". But even without the cameos, the record 
offers something Morrison hasn't delivered in years: real 
excitement.


Boz Scaggs - Some Change                              ***1/2
(Virgin/EMI)

In the 1970s, Boz Scaggs was an Al Green for people scared 
of black music, and little happened in his sporadic 
subsequent output to dispel that notion. The thing is, you 
imitate something long enough, sometimes you turn into the 
real thing. Actually, Boz was always a guitarist and singer 
of excellent taste, going back to his Texas days with the 
Steve Miller Blues Band. Surprisingly, some of that early 
enthusiasm infuses Some Change, a record more engaging than 
it has any right to be. His ersatz soul-man vocals are still 
up front, but the Jim Nabors goofiness--which always 
threatened to put another "O" in his first name--has fallen 
away in favour of a more genuinely ruminative style. Scaggs 
played most of the instruments, along with co-producer and 
drummer Ricky Fataar (although  guest key-boardists like 
Booker T. Jones and Smitty Smith pop up), giving the album 
an intimate, late-night feel. After a clumsy, pop-eager 
opening tune, it settles down to older-but-wiser 
observations of wayward love. And even if there's little
revelatory in the lyrics, tunes like "Time", "Illusion" and 
the gently propulsive title cut have a seductive sweep that 
makes everything feel as profound as a second scotch with a 
long-lost friend.


Alison Moyet - Essex                                       * 
(Columbia/Sony)

It's hard to believe that the big-voiced Moyet, as part of 
the pre-Eurythmics Yaz (or Yazoo, in some places), was once 
a tower of soul in the vanilla-synth world of "New Wave" 
music. Now that everybody's rediscovered dance music, not to 
mention Aretha Franklin (the original edition, anyway), this 
once-innovative diva is just another singer, churning out 
would-be hits in the faceless English pop machine. Sure, she 
wrote most of these forgettable numbers, but she sounds numb
and detached in the Pet Shop Boys-like production provided 
by Ian Broudie and Pete Glenister. The only time she wakes 
up, ironically, is for one acoustic-guitar-based cut written 
by Jules Shear. But even "Whispering  Your Name" is shot in 
the house remix ending the disc. What's next, hitting the
disco-revival circuit with Gloria Gaynor?


The Brian Setzer Orchestra                                **
(Hollywood/WEA)

It's funny what happens to some rockers as they get older: 
as the edge goes, they slowly become whatever they were 
rebelling against. Of course, Setzer's retro-billy Stray 
Cats were always in pose mode, and his guitar often betrayed
more intelligence than the song selection let on. Now he's 
gone the Colin James route and embraced music made before he 
was born. Although many of the tunes were written by Setzer, 
they're intended to recall the late-'40s milieu in which 
big-band, blues, and hillbilly sounds collided for the first 
time. But primordial chemistry like that can't be recreated, 
and anyway, his voice isn't up to the task. His off-key 
Holiday Inn croon sounds silly on pseudo-raunchy items like
"Ball and Chain" and "Sittin' on It All the Time", and the 
sub-Jack Jones impression is driven home by ill-advised 
covers of "Route 66" and (I kid you not) "A Nightingale Sang 
in Barkley Square". His guitar-playing, though used sparely,
is always tops, and you have to wonder when Setzer'll stop 
kidding around and put out a smart instrumental record.


Sir Douglas Quintet - Day Dreaming at Midnight          ****  
(Elektra/WEA)

Sir Doug is back, and it's a testament to changing tastes 
that his retooled '60s sound fits in perfectly with today's 
jangly alternative music. What's startling is how little 
it's retooled. The Beatle hair may be gone, but the Austin,
Texas-via-Sooke, B.C. songwriter is still purveying his 
infectious blend of Tex-Mex rhythms, bluesy singing, cheesy 
garage-band effects, and wall-o'-guitar twang (maybe too 
much guitar on some tracks). It helps that veteran 
Quinteters, like Farfisa-man Augie Meyers and guitarist 
Louie Ortega, are back, and they're joined by Creedence 
Clearwater rhythm-men Doug Clifford and Stu Cook. Son Shawn
Sahm is also in the  fold, on guitars and vocals, and he co-
wrote the set's catchiest tune, "Too Little Too Late", with 
his gruff-voiced dad. "Intoxication" and "Dylan Come Lately" 
are other standouts, with lyrics about the music Sahm still 
loves to death.


Stanley Jordan - Bolero                                   **
(Arista/BMG)

Like the world really needs a 23-minute fusion version of 
Ravel's sensual masterpiece. It is worth hearing once for 
the African rhythms and odd instruments (shakuhachi flute 
and jazzy flugelhorn) wafting through the mix. But the whole
thing is anchored--as in sunk--by one of those maddening 
click tracks which made the "Hooked On..." records so 
annoying in the early '80s. An antique air hangs over the 
rest, as well, with '70s tunes like "Betcha By Golly  Now" 
and Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" showing up. The effect is 
intentional, but Jordan doesn't really add anything new to 
the oldies, except that which any  modern studio can 
provide. Mainly, it's painful to see how the young 
guitarist, with that unique, fingerboard-tapping style, has 
failed to live up to his early promise. What good does it do 
to swamp a revolutionary technique in a sea of dated 
synthesizers? This mindless crossover approach even makes 
the 4-minute solo closer sound more like an apologetic 
afterthought than a hint of sweet things to come.


McCoy Tyner Big Band - Journey                        ***1/2
(Verve/Polygram)

In which John Coltrane's favourite pianist and enduring jazz 
warrior gets back to his compositional roots in a well-
recorded set of tunes in the vein of his classic turn-of-
the-'70s output for Blue Note and Milestone. With pals Billy
Harper, Joe Ford, and Steve Turr in the horn section, and 
with Avery Sharpe and Aaron Scott on bass and drums, the 
large group delivers punchy new versions of Tyner's 
"Peresina" and "Blues on the Corner" and lively Latin 
grooves on three cuts written by bandmembers (Turr's 
romantic "Juanita" is the stand-out). Still, the most 
effective piece mutes the ensemble for a lovely Dianne 
Reeves reading of Sammy Cahn's "You Taught My Heart to 
Sing", with lyrics by Tyner and a fine trumpet McCoy Tyner 
solo from Jerry Gonzales. This is the blend he tried years 
ago with Phyllis Hyman, and its success points to putting 
away the orchestra in favour of a quiet duo record of 
standards and more rediscovered originals.


Cyrus Chestnut - Revelation                             **** 
(Atlantic/WEA)

This young New Orleans pianist, known for supporting 
trumpeter Donald Harrison and singer Betty Carter, is more 
playful than Marcus Roberts, but he shares the latter's 
encyclopedic grasp of jazz piano idioms--albeit towards the 
modern end. With subtle help from bassist Christopher Thomas 
and drummer Clarence Penn (although a few cuts are solo), 
Chestnut recalls Thelonious  Monk on the title cut, Herbie 
Nichols on the sprightly "Blues for Nita", and Horace Silver 
on the groovin' "Cornbread Puddin'". He also assays 
Massenet's brief "Elegie" and approaches the traditional 
gospel of "Sweet Hour of Prayer. If the record has a flaw, 
it's that Chestnut favours the same few keys, and sometimes 
drives his homage-laden pieces a few minutes longer than 
necessary. Maybe after backing others for so long, he can 
barely contain himself; still, I'd rather see his prodigious 
talent meted out in tastier bites.

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


The Quill
---------

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th!nker of joy ends ?do u scan your box da!ly & = !t st!2l h2th!P ::.
,a set = a s!m!lar once only sp2edy w!2l! maC .never ever the same fun aga!n even
!n a new paC ?th!s joy-decay dr!ves par!ah & pr!esT 2 !ts scorE .test go''en4s
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,ski2ming the health-cream, dump!ng the flesh & b1 .holy s!x !n the brown,
speakers on 500+ bandS ?= !t that u R 2 g2od 2 b true w!th suprema-C .:::.

- Dr. Michael F. Schreiber, Vienna, Austria


Deja Vu
-------

* The Longest Day - Part 1 *

[In this month's Deja Vu column, we bring you Andrew 
Shaindlin's journal of his recent trip to Europe on the 
occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. More articles 
following the theme of "History" can be found in the January 
1994 issue.- Ian]

Cornelius Ryan called June 6, 1944 "the longest day." In 
1994 the same phrase is used by an overtired passenger on my 
transatlantic flight. Complaining of his fatigue after a 
sleepless six hours in economy class, he turns to his 
companion and says "I've had the longest day...."  Upon 
arrival, we shuffle through the cattle pens toward 
immigration. Ryan used the phrase in literal and in 
figurative ways. British glider pilots approached the Orne 
River and its strategically important bridges just after 
midnight on the 6th of June. 24 hours later the flow of 
Allied men and materiel into Normandy was just gearing up, 
and for everyone involved it had been a long day indeed.

Fifty years later some of us seem to be prolonging that day, 
not wanting it to end. How else to explain my arrival from 
the States to accompany one of the many "D-Day Remembered" 
tours with about 20 of my alma mater's alumni? Many, 
especially those who were there, will say that the 50th 
anniversary celebrations are a solemn occasion, more 
properly considered a commemoration. Maybe our trip should 
be called "D-Day Remembered." But what are we remembering? 
Not only the sacrifice of young Allied lives, striking "the 
ultimate blow for freedom," but also the hopeless self-
sacrifice, in the worst sense of those words, of young 
German lives, for no reason at all. Which is more stirring? 
Which more tragic?

London's air in April has that same grimy, coarse, polluted 
quality that I remember from some time I once spent here 
during November. The best way to summarize it is to say that 
should one stop to blow his nose, the handkerchief comes up 
black. It's the accumulated airborne soot of a thousand 
diesel lorries careening in endless circles around a 
thousand cobbled sidestreet roundabouts. The green spaces in 
this city provide a kind of respite from the urban oxygen of
Westminster.

Sitting in Regent's Park, watching the inhabitants of the 
city, I'm suddenly aware of a subrace of British men, a race 
of mutant giants striding on their way to meetings at the 
Home Office, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, the Old 
Admiralty, the Reform Club. They are a type of extreme 
vertical ectomorph best characterized in popular culture by 
the comedian John Cleese. You know them. They're too damn 
big. Their feet are huge, awkward barges, impelled by the 
conserved momentum of legs five feet long. Pell mell down 
Pall Mall, they wear striped bespoke Bond Street suits and 
their heads, invariably topped with uncombed thinning hair, 
bob and teeter chaotically above crane-like necks. And no
matter what amount they seem to have spent on the tailoring 
of their suits, their shirt collars are always uneven and 
their ties knotted too loosely. Their average height is six-
foot six. They're harmless, yet vaguely unnerving. They're 
English, they're too big, and they're coming from all 
directions.

Then there are the French women. If you look carefully you 
can spot them. They aren't obvious in their appearance the 
way we Americans are. Americans look...well, they look 
American. The French women have what the French call "un 
look." Their three primary characteristics are the mystery 
of their age (is she 25, or 40?), the shortness of their 
skirts, and the fact that they wear hats and manage not to 
look silly. Rather, they look...well, they look French.

The tour group is three hours late arriving from the US. 
I've come over independently a couple of days in advance. 
Good god! What if our troops had been delayed three hours 
back in '44? We'd all be wearing lederhosen and swilling
Bavarian lager....

The group in question consists of alumni from two Ivy League 
schools, accompanied by a professor from each school. Each 
faculty member will lecture to the entire group four times. 
The itinerary calls for a couple of days in London, then by 
motorcoach to Bath, Devon, Dorset, and then a Channel-
crossing by ferry. Finally, in a kind of Overlord for 
weaklings, we'll re-enact the breakout for ourselves on into 
Paris, fifty-overladen American tourists, trying to get a
feeling for that longest day. I'm not one of 'them.' I'm a 
staff member at one of the two schools, along for the ride 
to act as "host" for my school's alumni. In the end, the 
group arrives, listens (fighting back jet-lagged sleepiness) 
to an introductory lecture on the "Difficulties of the 
Second Front" then has a welcoming cocktail party before 
turning in for a 16-hour sleep.

It is seventy degrees, dry, and quintessentially English on 
the grounds of Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, a few miles 
from Oxford. Today's highlight is a kind of private 
"audience" with Charles George William Colin Spencer-
Churchill, brother of the 11th Duke of Marlborough and 
cousin of Sir Winston Churchill. Lord Charles, as he is 
known, is personable enough.  After we've seen both the 
public and private apartments, Lord Charles regales us with 
suitably witty and essentially sincere recollections of his 
cousin Winston.

We make our way to Bladon nearby, to look at Churchill's 
grave. I'm more interested in seeing the resting place of 
Consuelo Vanderbilt, first wife of the 9th Duke of 
Marlborough, and Lord Charles' grandmother. The private and 
public spaces of the Palace have on display at least four 
portraits of this striking beauty. Three of the four are 
likenesses by John Singer Sargent, each notable for a 
different reason and Sargent's authorship means that 
Consuelo's beauty may well have been idealized and 
exaggerated by the artist.

The first instance is a charcoal sketch about 9 x 14 inches. 
Dated 1907, the sketch plainly shows Sargent's excitement at 
the exploration and discovery of a new, beautiful subject. 
The second is a formal commission, an enormous stereotypical 
Sargent family portrait in oil. Clearly, again the painter 
has lovingly rendered what was for him the true subject of 
the work. The background is all but non-existent, a murky 
slathering of brownish black, seemingly applied with a six-
inch house-painting brush. And in an attempt to cover up for 
the obvious lack of attention to detail in the subject of 
the Duke, Sargent has compensated by casting the Duke's head 
in a luminist glow as if his head had been targeted by a 
single shaft of sunlight. The ruse very nearly works. But 
not quite.

The final and most evocative treatment of the transplanted 
American socialite is dated 1914, and is another simple 9x14 
inch sketch. Done in soft charcoal, there is no intermediate 
shading. The only smudging is to grind the powder into the 
blackest black, for Consuelo's penetrating eyes, latin brow, 
and stylish hairdo. The portrait is casual, consistent with 
the others, but above all it is intimate. Whether Sargent 
really connected so strongly with his female subjects, I do 
not know. He was in such control of the medium that I wonder 
whether he just made the connection seem that real and that 
strong.

As we cluster about Churchill's simple tomb, Lord Charles 
appears again, in the corner of the churchyard. It's as if 
he had wheeled about upon leaving us at Blenheim, taken a 
single giant step, and reappeared in front of us here in 
Bladon, two towns away. He reads affectionately a poem 
written about Churchill after his death, and we're quiet for 
a short spell. Then he thanks us and disappears again.

Lord Charles Spencer-Churchill gives the impression of a 
straight-arrow English aristocrat--not quite an upper-class 
twit who potentially harbors some harmless eccentricity, 
like believing that any illness can be cured, if only the 
sufferer would drink enough water.

Churchill, of course, is genuinely upper-crusty. On the 
other hand, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein is not, despite 
his title, which sounds impossibly lofty to the American 
ear. Montgomery is the only child of that larger-than-life 
British military hero, General Bernard Montgomery, known 
universally as Monty. Monty gained well-deserved fame for 
outfoxing the desert fox himself, Field Marshall Erwin 
Rommel in the North African campaign. Monty's son, who 
inherited the honorary title which commemorates the 
destruction of Rommel's Afrika Korps at El Alamein, readily 
admits to his very middle class background. But what Lord
Charles lacks in the way of stereotypical twittish 
mannerisms, the current Viscount Montgomery actually affects 
and compensates for.

Over an elegant private luncheon at the vaunted Cafe Royal 
in London, Montgomery addresses our group. He's actually 
pushing for us to buy "his" upcoming biography of his 
father. It is not really his book, any more than it is a 
biography. The cover announces that it was written by 
Alistair So-and-So "with" Viscount Montgomery, and it covers 
just the years 1944-1945.

Montgomery is, in any case, a definite Type A personality, 
and as he relates anecdotes about his father his lower jaw 
recedes, and his upper lip recoils to reveal a large front 
teeth. And instead of laughing, he snorts and hiccoughs his
way through his talk. Nonetheless he is mostly genuine, 
quite entertaining, and not overly-long with his remarks. 
Maybe I'll buy the book...no, probably not.

A word on quipping and punditry. Shaw and Wilde are well-
known as having set the standard against which all witty 
ripostes must be judged. But let me put in a good word for 
Sir Winston Churchill. It seems everyone in London has a
"favourite" Churchillism. Some representative samples:

Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, you're drunk!

Churchill: Madam, I may be drunk, but you are ugly, and 
  tomorrow, I shall be sober.

or...

Lady Astor again: Winston, if you were my husband I would 
  put arsenic in your coffee!

Churchill: Madam, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.

or...

Noted playwright: I enclose with this letter two tickets to 
  the opening of my new play. You are invited to attend with 
  a friend (if you can find one).

Churchill: I regret I cannot attend the first night of your 
  play, but will come on the second night (if it's still 
  running.)

Not deep; but one can't help feeling that Sir Winston's 
sense of timing, delivery, and facial expression were finely 
honed.

6:30 pm

We enter the Houses of Parliament. We are the guests of Sir 
Fergus Montgomery, Member of of Parliament from the Labour 
Party. Sir Fergus regales us with bawdy puns, fond 
recollections of his first visit to the states in 1959, and
his general unhappiness with the personal and ad hominem 
nature of the bitter exchanges so common in the modern 
Parliament. Of course, he may just be bitter from 15 years 
in the Opposition....

Stonehenge looms over a gentle rise by the side of a 
highway, like a Stone Age rest stop. Much to my dismay I 
have the same feeling here today that I had during my first 
visit, six years ago. I can't clear from my mind the ending 
from Hollywood's version of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. But I 
resolve to put Hardy and Nastassia Kinski from my mind, at 
least until Dorchester when I can contemplate the Mayor of 
Casterbridge. I do take solace in the complete lack of 
development in this area. If Stonehenge was in the US, I'm 
quite sure that visitors would be able to take advantage of 
a meal at the nearby BurgerHenge.

Bath in the Valley provides an opportunity for lunch with 
our local guide, Esther. She and I sit in Demuth's, an 
excellent vegetarian restaurant behind Bath Abbey. For two 
hours we exchange personal theories, covering everything 
from the neolithic roots of anti-feminism to the merits of 
graduate level education in various countries. I thoroughly 
enjoy our conversation, but it leaves me with only an hour 
or so to poke around the side streets of old Bath.

Napoleon is reputed to have said: "A reasoning army would 
run away." The same could be said of tour groups. The sunny 
weather and irrepressibly optimistic atmosphere of Bath on a 
weekend make one think about not climbing back aboard the 
motor coach. I proposed to my wife here in Bath six years 
ago, so my reminiscences of that first visit here are even 
more pleasant (and distorted, probably) than they might be 
otherwise.  But like obedient soldiers, we do climb back on 
board the bus, an air-conditioned behemoth rumbling 
impatiently in front of the Abbey. And continuing on, we 
arrive at length in the coastal resort town of Torquay.

Life at the Imperial Hotel in Torquay is eminently bearable. 
The clannish omnipresence of rich people lends the necessary 
blaseness, while the Edwardian decoration and gilded resort 
surroundings give one something tangible to enjoy.

For reasons that are to remain unclear, we drive today to 
the village of Dartmouth and then to Slapton Beach. Besides 
the remnants of Operation Tiger, an ill-fated Allied 
training operation of early 1944, there is not much here of
special interest. In Dartmouth, home of the Royal Naval 
Academy, I discover a wooded footpath which leads, after a 
precipitous, switching-back climb, to some farmer's hilltop 
pasture. Half a dozen cows eye me warily then return to 
their stoic munching.

As I survey the little village, nestled in a crook of the 
river Dart below me, I imagine that it looks today much as 
it did fifty years ago when over a hundred thousand 
American servicemen invaded Dorset and Devon, in preface to 
their subsequent invasion of Normandy.  The entire region 
was evacuated of its residents and made into a military 
staging ground. The means by which the Allies confused and 
misled the Germans about the time and place of the D-Day 
landings are well-documented. But even taking into 
consideration the elaborate precautions the Allies took to 
that end, it seems absurd that the build-up to the Channel
crossing went essentially without response from the Germans, 
billeted comfortably about fifty miles away.

As I stand on the hilltop watching the Dartmouth ferry 
trolling patiently across the river, I realize that 
Operation Overlord was not only historically unprecedented, 
it can never be repeated. Marvin Minsky said that we are in 
"the thousand years between no technology and all 
technology." As we approach the age of almost total 
information (albeit only partial knowledge) technology 
provides even the most ignorant commander with clear 
physical evidence of his enemy's presence and inclination. 
No future Hitler (or Eisenhower) will rely successfully on 
the fog of war to cloak his intentions.

I'm a week into my European trip. The top headlines of the 
week roll across my hotel television screen. Some are 
memorable, some not. Decide for yourself: Mandela is 
President elect of South Africa; Brazil plans a State 
funeral and declares three days of national mourning for 
race car driver Ayrton Senna; President Clinton is sued for 
sexual harrassment; Prince Charles' Jack Russell terrier, 
Pooh, has gone missing; and His ex, the Princess of Wales, 
has been photographed topless and the pictures can be yours 
for a half-million dollars.

A day's drive includes a brief stop in Dorchester--I do 
indeed find the house of Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge--and 
culminates in Portsmouth. This is the embarkation point for 
our re-enactment of the famous event, which one of our 
professors reminds us is "1066 in reverse."

We take in Southwick House, with its map room. It was here 
that fetching WRENs (Women's Royal Naval Reservists) stood 
confidently on step ladders, posting the various military 
units' positions on the map as the invasion and breakout
progressed. A suitably British anecdote relates that a 
female Member of Parliament, stereotypically naive or 
innocent, was alarmed by the shortness of the WRENs' skirts. 
The Minister for Defence explained how the serge material 
was in minimum supply and that large quantities were needed 
for the Royal Navy's uniforms.

"Am I to understand," she is reputed to have replied, "that 
the WRENs' skirts are to be held up until the entire Royal 
Navy has been serviced?" It makes for a good English chortle 
and a wink over a pint of bitter....

After a visit to the unremarkable D-Day museum we hear 
another lecture, this one on William the Conqueror and the 
Battle of Hastings, in anticipation of our visit to the 
Bayeux tapestry in two days. I can't help thinking of the 
humorous book 1066, And All That. The summation of the book 
is the ultimate spoof of the Anglo-Saxon version of history, 
along the lines of "So William won the battle and history 
came to an end."

5:15 am

Wake-up call. The hotel operator is smug. "Your early 
morning wake-up call..." Our crossing to Cherbourg is 
bearable. Club class seating resembles business class 
airline service, but with three times the leg room. Some 
fresh air and a pair of "sea bands" preserve my breakfast in 
its rightful resting place. The crossing takes five-and-a-
half hours and is not uncomfortable, despite a minor run-in 
with a French TV crew who are lighting up their Gitanes in 
the "No Smoking" section.

The English learn how to smoke discreetly. Holding the 
cigarette down as if trying to deny the fact that they are, 
indeed, puffing away, they avoid looking at the cigarette 
and affect an air of denial about the whole dirty business. 
The French, on the other hand, smoke at you. They brandish 
the cigarette in a defiant challenge and occasionally watch 
the cigarette while it smolders. They have the look of a 
soldier who examines his rifle after cleaning it, convinced 
of (and satisfied by) its potential to harm someone someone 
else.

Hobbes might have been describing the prospects for a 
soldier in the D-Day invasion force when he wrote that life 
is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Well, maybe 
not solitary, but for a G.I. born in, say, 1922, the war
followed all too quickly on the heels of a decade of false 
hopes (the '20s) and a decade of extreme economic hardship 
(the '30s). And to be in the first wave at Omaha Beach on 
June 6, 1944 was to learn a first-person lesson in nastiness 
and brutishness.

Carrying fully-loaded packs which often weighed more than 70 
pounds, these soldiers were shooed from the landing craft 
too far from shore--the crews of the craft feared getting 
any closer to the German gunfire. Most of them sank to the
bottom and drowned; the ones who didn't were either run over 
by the craft or were sitting ducks for the Nazi gunners on 
shore.

As we disembark in Cherbourg we anticipate seeing the site 
of this carnage, but first we visit St. Mere Eglise where 
John Steele of the 101st Airborne spent four hours dangling 
by his parachute above the town square (which is now a 
parking lot). With no sense of the obvious, from April to 
November every year, the town puts a parachute on a cruddy 
mannequin which hangs, cartoon-like and unconvincing, from 
the church spire.

The fiftieth anniversary is now four weeks away. All over 
Normandy workmen are preparing. There is a feeling of 
resigned yet intensive desperation about their work. At 
first we see them polishing plaques and markers. In St. 
Mere Eglise some masons are replacing the cement and brick 
pavement at the entrance to John Steele's church. Later we 
see a memorial which is to be dedicated to General 
Eisenhower; it looks like the work is less than half-
finished.

We finally realize how hopelessly the French are working to 
complete their monuments and preparations when we see the 
central island of an enormous traffic circle at the juncture 
of two highways, where there will be yet another elaborate
memorial. Just thirty days before the arrival of the Prime 
Ministers, the Presidents, the Kings and Queens, this 
particular site is nothing but an enormous mudheap. It looks 
as if it were dug up and turned over for the first time 
yesterday. Normandy will once again be unprepared for the 
coming invasion.

Our French guide, Liliane, speaks English fairly well. 
However, there occur small crises in her conjugation which 
cause her to utter vaguely alarming phrases, like "So, after 
the Germans arrive, there will be an invasion of France. 
Many thousands will die." She sounds like a less-cryptic 
Nostradamus.

The Chateau d'Audrieu is a very expensive, impossibly 
luxurious hotel located in an impressively authentic 18th 
century chateau. Part of the association of fancy inns and 
restaurants known as Relais & Chateaux, Audrieu has been in 
the same family since the 11th century. It's the kind of
accomodation which makes one comfortable, relaxed, and 
pleased with oneself for being there. My room has two sets 
of french doors (literally, I realize) which open onto views 
over the 50-plus acres of private land on the estate. 
Gardens, wooded trails, contented cows grazing, the village 
steeple which chimes every fifteen minutes....This is the 
world right outside. It's a pleasantly bygone world for me, 
and as I look around the room at the lovely antique 
furniture and sheer gauze curtains rippling from the Norman 
spring breeze, I lie down, thinking about the taste of 
calvados and realizing that here, at last, is a hotel where 
a person traveling alone can sleep in the middle of a king-
size bed.

[Next issue, the second half of the D-Day Journal - Ian]

- Andrew B. Shaindlin, Providence, Rhode Island
  abs@brown.edu


------------
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

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-----------
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."

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.

Sheila Eldred
Currently studying English at Oxford University, Sheila will
return to the U.S. in July to continue her undergraduate 
education at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, MN. 
She has been a runner for six years, and runs both cross-
country and track for her college teams. At Oxford she has 
also been rowing with a novice team, but she is still a 
runner at heart.

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 studio<69> not to be seen for 
months.

Andrew Shaindlin
Andrew is Senior Assistant Director of Alumni Relations at 
Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. His 
travels have taken him to many of the commonly-visited 
places in Europe, as well as some of the less commonly-
visited ones. Among his favorites are Iceland, the Channel 
Islands, Malta, and Tunisia.

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. 

Russell Weinberger
Russell is a senior double majoring in Creative Writing and 
Sociology at the University of California in Davis. He grew 
up in the middle of wine country where he spent his weekdays 
in Catholic school and his weekends making sorties into the 
depths of the San Fransisco night life.

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".