Page 6-Sunday, Noveinbr 5,1978-TheMichigan Dail y
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"" Drawings by Carol Strick/and
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I EAT; THEREFORE I AM
By Curt Feldman, Andrea Satkar
and Bobby Frank
Curt Feldman and Andrea Sankar,
publishers
55 pp., $2.95
and
A GUIDE TO THE CAMPUS OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
By Mary Maclnnes
University Press
160 pp., $3.95
THE PROBLEM with Ann Arbor is
that; by the time you get to know
it, you're ready to leave.
That's the way things work in a
college town like this one, where every
four years brings a brand new
David Goodman is co-editor of
the Daily.
By David Goodman
generation of students to campus. By
the time they start to figure out where
to go for what and when, they're half-
way out the door.
Ann Arbor does indeed have a lot to
offer in many areas - music, drama,
sports, and even dining. Some would
add that it has a lot for a small town,
but that's mere quibbling.
Between Ann Arbor's cultural ;riches
and its neophyte student masses lies an
information gap. Two recently
published books attempt to bridge that
gap, and succeed to varying degrees.
They are I Eat; Therefore I Am: A
Guide to Restaurants and Bars in Ann
Arbor, and A Guide to the Campus of
the University of Michigan.
A PERCEPTIVE and long-time Ann
Arbor resident once remarked
that the city was blessed with a wide
variety of great, mediocre restaurants.
What he meant by that cryptic remark
was that truly top flight cuisine was not
really available here. But what was to
be found was a surprisingly diverse
assortment of eating establishments
running the full spectrum of inter-
national and domestic fare.
I Eat; Therefore I Am, was written
and published by three Ann Arborites
with 13 years of residence among them.
It offers brief glimpses of local
restaurants and bars.
Obviously geared for a University
audience, it first covers campus
establishments, and then provides
reviews of off-campus eateries.
The reviews range in length from a
couple sentences to a full page. They
also range in quality from highly per-
ceptive to glib and superficial. The
former predominate, fortunately.
A writer who sets out to create any
sort of comprehensive guide begins
with what he or she is most familiar
with, and then sets out to fill in the gaps.
The authors of I Eat; Therefore I Am
appear to have done this, too.
SOME OF THE reviews show the
signs of long experience. For
See GUIDES, Page 8
The housewife alone,
THE ROCKY Horror Picture Show
has a place in history as the first
film to become a religious ceremony.
And, like many figures of idolatry, the
film has humble origins. Based on a
popular London stage show, Rocky
Horror was resurrected by second-run
movie houses and college film societies
after an unsuccessful release in 1975.
Hordes of young fans viewed it so many
times they were no longer content to sit
passively watching the movie, but
crammed into sold-out midnight
showings dressed in cheap imitations of
the stars' costumes, shouting extra bits
of dialogue at the actors, throwing ob-
jects, and trying (usually fruitlessly) to
make their friends dance the Time
Warp in the aisles. Circus, Time and
Newsweek ran feature stories on the
Rocky Horror craze, usually, in their
excitement, getting several important
details of the film wrong. Though the
film's devoted following seems to have
tapered off, the Briarwood Movies, not
exactly a charity outfit, 'still shows
Rocky Horror each Friday and Satur-
day at midnight.
Rocky Horror's cast, three years af-
ter its original performance, is now en-
joying its moment in the limelight.
Meat Loaf, who played Eddie in the
film, and also portrayed that elephan-
tine punk motorcyclist and his uncle,
Dr. Everett Scott, on Broadway, made
the charts with his album Bat Out of
Hell and two singles, "Two Out of Three
Ain't Bad" and "Paradise By the
Dashboard Lights." He also did a guest
turn on Saturday Night Live and last
summer went on a successful concert
tour. Tim Curry, the definitive
Frankenfurter on both stage and
screen, surfaced in St. Louis and Boston
recently with a stage show promoting
his new album, Read My Lips. Just
recently, I saw Little Nell's name
among the New Wave singles at
Schoolkids Records. Nell, of course,
played Columbia, boasting ox-blood
hair and a squeaky violin voice.
Rocky Horror is no Citizen Kane, but
it's tightly paced and so detailed it's
impossible to appreciate all its nuances
in one viewing. For example, in the
opening scene, while Brad proposes to,
Janet on the church steps, Magenta and
Columbia, the Transylvanian villains
Riffraff, whom we haven't seen before,
and who otherwise never appear
without their weird makeup and
costumes, appear in the background as
figures from Grant Woods' painting
American Gothic. At the same time
Tim Curry, almost unrecognizable.
without his Frankenfurter makeup, is
seen for a few seconds dressed as a
minister.
HERE ARE bright colors and spar-
kly fabrics, sexy costumes over
Anne Sharp, is a,.metgnr of the
D41ily Arts staff.
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through a man
'S
eye
By L.M. Hahn
A LEFT-HANDED WOMAN
By Peter Handke
Farra, Straus, Giroux
88 pp. $7.95
SHOULD A filmmaker light upon A
Left-Handed Woman, I doubt if he
or she would have much difficulty in
translating the prose into cinematic
images. The sense of reading a film'
outline which captures camera shots
prevails throughout the novel. With a
master's skill, Handke chose his
elements and vividly sketched people,
relationships, places, and events.,
Marianne, the main character, is
constantly in motion during her 88-page
life: to the window, through the city,
around her apartment, along the river.
While she speaks little her actions and
eye movements are subjectively em-
phasized as Handke frames his words
in photographic fashion.
L.M. Hahn is a Mosher-Jordan
This novel lends itself to cinematic
expression, but remains firmly
established in its own medium. As a
good film demands several viewings to
catch its subtle points, I was compelled
to reread this peek into the life of
Marianne, her husband, her child, her
acquaintances, and her friends who are
tied into the scenario. Handke alludes
to Marianne's torment with grace and
simplicity. Her thoughts are con-
tinually conveyed through her actions,
and her actions are subtle. They leave
one keenly aware of the motive un-
derlying insignificant gestures.
A Left-Handed Woman is the story of
a woman and her separation from her
husband. Marianne is the one who asks
Bruno to leave and underneath, the
-woman is a child trying on a new role
which she desperately wants. She at-
tempts to pull together a new life.
But it is also the story of Marianne's
loneliness. A Left-Handed Woman deals
See HANDKE, Page,8;' .{.
Deca den ce,
depravity
can-be fun
limber bodies, cheap, flashy special ef- on to bigger and better things (notably
fects, and lots of rock and roll. Not par- Louis Malle's notorious Pretty Baby)
ticularly good rock, but nice and loud, plays Janet, and Barry Bostwick is that
and sung by people with terrific voices. stalwart edifice of American jerkdom,
Those voices belong to people like Brad. And, of course, there is Tim
Meat Loaf and Little Nell. There's also Curry.
Richard O'Brien, who wrote the What is the allure of this dark,
original stage musical and co-authored Jaggeresque actor? When, in his
the screenplay, as Riffraff, the lanky, opening number, -"Sweet Tran-
brooding hunchbacked assistant with svestite," Curry whips off a black cloak
the third-rate Boris Karloff accent. The revealing a sequinned corset, tight
lovely Susan Sarandon, who has gone black panties and long legs coquettishly