Page Two

THE N\ICHIGAN DAILY

Thursday, October 16, 1969


THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, October 16, 1969




Ginsberg:

-_-poetry and prose
Throbbing, bouncing, pushing, pulling


NOW!
at Regular
Prices

6
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N-A

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I By DANIEL ZWERDLING

Allen Ginsberg sits there,
stocking feet tucked under him
on a Persian rug on the stage
in Hill Aud., throbbing and
bouncing to the tambourines
and drums and chimes of 12
members of the Detroit Inter-
national Society of Krishna
Consciousness.
He has a great bushy black
beard with more flecks of gray
than you might imagine, and
although there are only sparse
tufts of hair on his head, thick
black curls dangle from behind
his ears in bunches on his
shoulders.
He looks ecstatic, smiling,
singing, pushing and pulling
with one hand the bellows of a
miniature organ at his feet,
pressing two drone tones with
the other:
"Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna,
Krishna Krishna, Hare, Hare,
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama
Rama, Hare Hare."
When it is time to start, the
chanting stops - the Krishna
Consciousness disciples wrap
their drums and leave through
a side door. And Allen Ginsberg
gets up, takes off his blue denim
jacket with an American flag
unfurling from one pocket, and
sits down to business with the
punctuality of a market re-
seacher.
"Today is Break Through Con-
sciousness Day in America,"
Ginsbergsbegins, and then sings
a Buddhist sutra to invocate it.
While he chants, droning,
people flock from their cush-
ioned seats and join him cross-
legged on stage, passing flasks
of wine. One boy is eating small
curd cottage cheese.
Now English Prof. Donald
Hall, a renowned poet in his
own right, introduces Ginsberg,
calling him and Robert Frost
"the two most famous good
poets in America."
Finally, Ginsberg starts to
sing William Blake's poems-

like simple nursery rhymes
about lambs, and children
(' Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made
thee"); then he shouts them
in a chant. His voice, hoarse
from speaking all day long,
sounds very gruff, but very
kind. And Ginsberg looks so
happy - as if it is too hard to
keep from laughing, as if he
must slump back in his seat,
hugging himself and the audi-
ence, and having a great happy
sigh.
"I saw the best minds of my
generation destroyed by mad-
ness," Ginsberg reads - and
launches into a marathon poem
of nightmarish visions of de-
stroyed hulls of bodies, torn
apart by smack needles, wood
alcohol and drugs.
Squirming in his seat, jerk-
ing his arm up and down, spas-
modically pointing his finger
for emphasis, clenching his fist,
Ginsberg entrances 4,000 people
- shouting in pulsing cadences,
becoming jubilant as he chron-
icles a new generation "copu-
lating ecstatically."
His poem ends revering the
holiness of life - "Holy, Holy,
Holy, Holy," shouts Ginsberg,
are the solitudes of skyscrapers
and pavements, the crazy shep-
herds of rebellion, the cocks of
the grandfathers of Kansas,
our tongues, skin, hands, de-
serts, seas and locomotives -
all Holy.
A silence, some scattered
claps, spreading and building
steadily and the crowd rises in
a standing ovation.
Ginsberg read, shouted, and
exalted in more poems - leav-
ing the enthralled audience just
enough time to get to a Diag
rally and march to the Stadium.
",_ _ -


oO O
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People who see "Funny Girl"
are the luckiest people in
the world

TONIGHT
at 8 P.M.
BARBRA OMAR
SIREISAND - SHARI


- - - cinema
Oh! What an unlovely look at war

By NEAL GABL It
Back in 1963, Joan Littlewood
got the idea, "Since war is ab-
surd, why not take it to its lo-
gical tor illogical' extrcme and
show war as zany burlesque?
So instead of grim battlefields,
dingy hospitals and tearful
partings, we got a ply with
songs. dances and jokes.
Oh What a Lovely War is now
a film. A few grim battlefields,

dingy hospitals and tearful part-
ings have been added to the
play, but behind it all is the
m i e old idea - World War
One as burlesque and this time,
carnival as well.
Somehow, out of all the non-
sense, we are supposed to feel
the horror of war. At least the
advertisements say this is an
anti-war film. Frankly. I wasn't
moved. I hate war no more or

Th liIUSLCUflS role
Socil chanlge today(

no less than before I saw the
movie. My only emotion, if you
want to call it that, was bore-
dom.
0 What a Lovely War is
rather like a visual Ny-Tol.
Gripping anti-war films, show-
ing destructiveness of battle in
human terms, have been made.
Grand Illusion, Paths of Glory
and Shame, are pictures both
disturbing and effective. But
the war as carnival, while it
may make us s'nicker occasion-
ally. never raises our ire. Our
reaction is, "My goodness! Isn't
war terrible!". instead of the
speechlessness we should feel.
Several scenes do approach
?sensitivity, such as a Christma":s
exchange of songs and schnapps
by the British and German
troops. But a song follows,
breaking the mood. Other
scenes are picked up by the ex-
cellent cast. Laurence Olivier is
funny as Colonel John French.
a stereotype of the British officer.
And -Maggie Smith's sequence
in which she plays the recruiter
who promises "to make a man
out of you" almost achieves
the tragedy the filn must have
souht amidst its vaudeville.
ichard Attenborough, actor

turned director, has improved
the play. By adding the battle-
field scenes, rather than de-
stroying Miss Littlewood's con-
ception as some reviewers have
charged, he brings it about as
far as it is likely to go toward
evoking anything beyond ennui.
But nothing can save the
film. It fails in its basic premise;
war as song, dance and jokes
just doesn't make it. Atten-
borough has made a passionless
film about a very passionate
subject, war. As the movie closes
and the screen is filled with
thousands of white crosses. we
never feel for one moment that
there is anyone beneath them.

Tickets $2.50. 3.00, 3.50 now on sale at Marshall's, Campbell's,
MSU Union. and at the door.

.
1

I

THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS OF MSU
POP ENTERTAINMENT SERIES
proudly presents
THE ASSOCIATION
SATURDAY, October 18--8:00 P.M.
At Jenison Fieldhouse

"The film is a very now one in style and technique and in
theme. It is about a guy who cops out on the Establishment
and on the affluent society, deciding that there's more to
living than work and the acquisition of money. A

I

By ILA1 IME hAR1,1S
T1he imusic school st epl)ed di w n
f r o 1! its usually ethereal ivory
tower' yesterday to engage in a
concert, and discossion of the
role of the creative artist in ef-
fecting serial change)..
A short avant garde choral by
Richmonde Brown, a collage of
whist-ling, singing, rilling of pa-
pers and jangling of c a r keys
went first.
Theworeds were extracted from
psalms and the Old and New Test-
aments and typed onto a sheet
which every observer h e 1i d and
read. Little of the chorale ollow -
ed the printed mat ter. though, but
was instead an interprettion of
what '"Thot causeth.''
A culmination of murner :a"nd
dissonent sinng was reaedk
with th erhydunic cantin o l
'cry' and then resmed. Thlst t
sentence was never said -- though
it was read and felt -- "For we
are consumed by Thine anger, and;
by Thy wrath are we troubled."
A panel of six professors and
two students then debated h o w
artists can partake or are partak-
ing in various social movements.'
Willis Pat terson, a black voice
instructor, explained his role as
self-involvement, taking subject
matter from human experience.
"My identity as a black artist
is to involve myself in the ques-
tion" of the reappraisal of blacks
in our society, he said. "I speak
through music" to attain 1o v e,
empathy, and understanding.
Prof. Thomas Clifton in an "un-
characteriic ion of hope''
quoted Nietsche, "What is pertect
teaches hope"
"'I l a v e no hope, he added,
though, ''The reason most artis
can't efect social change is that
most artss do not have any mon-
"To be crealtye at all is to effect
change,'' said Prof Oliver Edel,
differing from Clinton. "A ca -
t i v e performance cre1a1hs an
awareness'' positively afft eeting
those contacted.
Profs. Wallace Berry and Paul
Boylan saw the artist presently
involving themselves in political
and social questions.
'The artist must do more than
Read nid Use
Daily Chassifieds
October 16-17
JUD KEX

gather flowers.- Berry said. "The
issues are of human life, not of
ptrfect pitch."
"Art, reflects social change,"
Boylan added, citing examples
from cinema, art, drama and the
iolkock era of music.
Prof. Louis Nagle explained a
pro am run through Juilliard
vhi'h is designed to create music
in Iront of people frmcommon
everyday topics, and in this man-
S viate he necessity of soc.
The one student who spoke 01
the panel. Paul Keenan, said the
:itist mtst constantly remain sen.
stive 'Whethr it is being de-
eloped by association with an in-
trument 'orhuman beings.'
There can be no complete de-
SIsion. between practicing music
ur bing_ socially active, Keenani
id, o the artist would be shut-
ting himself off on either count.
Tha panel in conclusion, seem-
ed to feel the artist does play a
role in this era of social change
and that it can be an effectiv
"Artistic people have time to do
other things that just human be-
ings do," one observer said.
OX A .TEk RN THATES 1
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picture about
young people
I have seen!"
-jth,,Two,, . ASC TV

delicious happy comedy."

-Judith Crist'

"A funny picture.

Impudent and

Wise."

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're Michigan Daily, edited and man-
ad by students at the University o
Michi:n. News phone: 74-055. Second
Clas pstae paid at Ann Arboxr, Mich-I
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Mihin 481 04. Pulished daily Tues-
'a through Snay moro a n iver-
sh em.. o.rpinrae:$0b
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LasT SNWER,

--N.Y. Times
"Probably one of the
most immoral, most
subversive and most
hilarious movies you will
see this year"
-Morning Telegraph

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HOMECOMING '69
PROUDLY PRESENTS

NOEL COWARD'S

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