The Michigai
in Daily-Sunday, Jar
Page 2-Sunday, January 21, 1979-The Michigan Daily
RAMLINGS/torn o'connell
ART/karen born stein
W OODY ALLEN has a line in Annie
Hall in which he tries to explain
why New Yorkers are so defensive
about their background. The rest of the
country, he says, believes all New
Yorkers are left-wing Jewish por-
nographers. "I live here," adds Woody,
"and sometimes I see us that way
myself."
Woody's dilemma is common among
New Yorkers, but his problem is
merely a part of the schizophrenic
sociological orientation with which I
am cursed: my home town is Westport,
Connecticut-the -most determinedly
snobbish upper-middle class com-
munity east of Grosse Pointe; by af-
filiation I consider myself a New
Yorker, since the Big Apple, a city close
to my heart, is where I spend as much
of my vacation time as possible. And by
birth and by university I am a mid-
westerner. The end result of all of this is
best summarized by recalling the
classic adolescent plaint, "nobody un-
derstands me."
Few people in elitist Westport can
conceive of why I'd want to be a New
Yorker (it's "so dirty" they observe
profoundly). Most midwesterners,
while accepting without question that
New York is indeed a mixture of Sodom,
and Gomorrah with an added touch of
Calcutta, are at least willing to assume
that the city's famous theatres con-
stitute a redeeming quality. Actually,
no one who lives in New York can afford
to go to the theatres, where one is faced
with the unappealing prospect of
paying $15 per ticket in order to sit with
pigeons and bats four miles up in the
balcony.
What actually makes New York at-
tractive to me are probably the same
qualities which make it so offensive to
outsiders. There is a certain kind of
reverse charm about a city where two
reeking winos are apparently assigned
by the city's transit authority to every
subway car. I like New Yorkers them-
selves-born fast-talkers, who in-
variably sound as if they're trying to
hustle you. Even when you're talking to
a priest or a millionaire, if his accent
tells you he's a local you unconsciously
tend to keep a tight grip on your wallet
.and slide your watch up your sleeve.
Even the real hustlers, the street
people, carry on their business with a
certain flair not to be found in other
municipalities. I recall a panhandler
who haunted a certain block in down-
town Manhattan and earned the
nickname "Superbum," because he in-
variably dressed better than the
residents he hit up for spare change and
would only drink in bars (never, God
forbid, stooping so low as to drink in an
alley like the run-of-the-mill alkies).
But this sort of Dickensian appeal so
much a part of New York is difficult to
explain to people who haven't spent
time there.
ALMOST AS difficult, in fact, as
trying' to explain the existence
of a place called Michigan to people
from Connecticut and New York. Ap-
parently, the geography classes in the
public schools of the Northeast teach
that between Pennsylvania and
Colorado the United States consists
solely of vast fields of wheat, with
Chicago -floating vaguely around
somewhere. They know, of course, that
cars come from Detroit, but assume
Detroit is an underground factory
located just over the border in New Jer-
sey. I myself am occasionally told that
my midwestern accent isn't too
bad-that I don't sound "entirely like a
hick"-but of course .I am met with
blank stares in restaurants if I use a
midwestern expression like "pop" in-
stead of the eastern "soda" when or-
dering a soft drink.
In Ann Arbor, actually, I get even
more flak. If I tell people I'm from Con-
netticut, then I'm informed that I talk
like an'"Eastern snob" or that I dress
like a preppie (especially when I don my
seven-year old corduroy sports jacket).
All this despite the fact that I was born
in Michigan and have lived in the state
on and off for a total of 10 years. If I
stretch the truth a little and tell them
I'm a New Yorker, then it's im-
mediately assumed that I'm a moral
degenerate. Which may not be entirely
untrue in my particular case. But still,
it is a stereotype. I can't win. As
Rosanne Rosannadana would say, "it
just goes to show you-it's always
something.'
So what can I do, besides move to
some midpoint between the Northeast
and the Midwest, such as the middle of
Pennsylvania? Not all people from
Connecticut, after all, are snobs. Just
most of them. Not all midwesterners
are hicks, although you wouldn't
know it if you lived in a frat. And not all
New Yorkers are depraved. Wait, I
take that back.
Tours:* How'd
they get so fu
I N TODAY'S society status isn't
simply what you own-it's what
you've seen. Currently taking its place
alongside Perrier -water and designer
fashions is attendance at as many
touring art exhibitions as possible. A
large many of these roving displays of
relics have seemingly blossomed out of
nowhere, offering pleasure, prestige, or
both.
There's "The Second Empire: Art in
France Under Napolean III," widely
considered the greatest exhibit of 1978.
It consists of a group of French pain-
tings by such artists as Courbet, Manet,
Degas, and Rodin, and moved from
New York to the Detroit Institute of Ar-
ts January 18. "The Spendor of
Dresden: Five Centuries of Art Collec-
ting," now at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, is a visual history of how art
collecting began in the small European
city of Saxony, and includes a diverse
array of art objects.
But the majority of these large-scale
touring shows are archaeologically
oriented, involving the rediscovery of
ancient artifacts as in "Pompeii,"
"Peru's Golden Treasures," and, of
course, "Artifacts From the Tomb of
King Tutankhamen."~
Without doubt, these are all
historically important and often spec-
tacular shows-cornucopias overladen
with a wealth of organized information
and stunning aesthetic appeal. But as
Steve Martin made painfully obvious,
this alone does not explain the frantic
-desire of so many to endure
claustrophobic lines for hours and
grovel for scalpers' tickets just to catch
a glimpse of Tut's treasures.
A salient feature of many of these
exhibits is their carnival, almost
Karen Bornstein wrtles for the
Dail A Ars page
Disney-like quality. They are not only
entertaining, but packaged and
displayed as entertainment, as the
aesthetic counterpart to a trip to
Seaworld. All the valuable information
is presented by way of music, wall-
sized posters, and modern infor-
mational devices. Alnd, like a day at the
fair, you roam from one beckoning relic
to the next as you would move from
poster, you find it is totally unnecessary
to seek out any information actively, to
ask for any response to the images you
are receiving-all the stimuli, instead,
come to you, entertain you, and
make the experience of viewing pre-
Columbian gold artifacts a truly
passive one. It's glamorous, and fun,
and a bit like watching TV. And, unfor-
tunately, it is exactly this pat, polished,
'Many of these exhibits are not only entertaining,
b.ut packaged and displayed as entertainment, as the
aesthetic counterpart to a trip to Seaworld. '
sunday iRidQZInCEISTIC PUZZLE
A. Pertaining to the underworld_-- _
24 15 28 59 74 100 144 114
B. Original model or pattern
C. Officials
D. Prison utimate
(2 words)
E. Demoniac; fiendlike
F. Persecute or harry a certain
minority group
G. Raise; thrust skyward
H. Connections; links
I. Empiricism; speculation
J. Hundu or Buddhist symbol
represented by a square
within a circle
K. Adjustable: flexible
L. Mild emotional disturbance
60 66 89 103'
110 124 120 142 164
7 12 46 85 163 91 116 139
_ _- __- - - - - - - - - -
98 19 27 69 87 107 154 167 183 184 37 198
79 84 95 140 115 42 51 182
121 4 75 169 185 193 14
(Hyphenated word)
187 86 20 161 39 178 94
32 9 18 53 126 30 138
57 63 80 93 105 151 168 188 171
141 117 35 8 125 158 128
50 78 97 65 150 157 180 165 194 131
10 17 40 196 62 68 104 123
M. Negatively charged atom
N. Oblivion; seventh heaven
0. Ancestry; decline
P. Eager for action (Colloq)
(3 words)
4. High mental ability
R. Twisted to one side
S. Clams, crabs and lobsters
T. Turns from a straight course;
goes unsteadily
U. Dwarf; pygmy: dummy
V. Strike repeatedly
W. Privy
X. Common phrase used at the
end of a list of
introductions
(4 words)
Y. Cloying
137 56 44 34 70
45 55 64 5 132 175 149
101 25 41 48 162 73 186
2 26 49 61 81 96 118 145 147
11 23 71 77 108 119 136 33 143
133 153 6 174
13 29 67 129 159 82 92 113 135
BY
S TEPHEN J.
POZSGA
Copyright 1979
INSTRUCTIONS
Guess'the words defined at the
left and write them in over
their numbered dashes. Then,
transfer each letter to the cor-
responding ,numbered square
in the grid above. The letters
printed in the upper-right-hand
corners of the squares indi-
cate from what clue-word a
particular square's letter
comes from. The grid, when
filled in, should read as a
quotation from a published
work. The darkened squares
are the spaces between words.
Some words may carry over
to the next line. Meanwhile,
the first letter of each guessed
word at the left, reading down,
forms an acrostic,'giving the
author's name and the title of
the work from which the quote
is extracted. As words and
phrases begin to form in the
grid, you can work back and-
forth from clues to grid until
the puzzle is complete.
Answer to the Christmas Puzzle:
Oh, but he was a tight-fisted hard
at the grindstone, scrooge, a
squeezing, wrenching, grasping,
scraping, clutching, covetous, old
sinner, 'hard and sharp as flint
from which no steel had ever
struck out generous fire, secret
and self-contained and solitary as
1- an oyster.
(Charles ) Dickens
A Christmas Carol
booth to booth. Experiencing "Peru's
Golden Treasures," a magnificent
exhibition of shining gold artifacts that
left the Detroit Institute last month, is
similar to taking a mini-trip to ancient
Peru, complete with audio-visual
echanceinnis (as if they were needed!).
Prior to entering the exhibit everyone
receives a mysterious apparatus
referred to as a "by-word" case,
resembling a telephone receiver minus
the portion for speaking. Upon ap-
proaching designated cases of dazzling
gold figurines, jewelry, headdresses,
and armor, and putting the receiver to
your ear, you are treated to brief lec-
tures on the objects within, accom-
panied by eerie Peruvian music
chiming in the background. The exhibit
walls are plastered with huge aerial
photographs of Peruvian lands and
color-coded maps, all of these stimuli
pleasantly reaching the senses and
filling them with the aura of "Peru."
A S YOU mill from what appears to
be the most sparkling showcase to
the cutest little lecture to the brightest
packaged quality that makes these
exhibits so trendy.
Ann Arbor has not been blessed with
the fanfare of any of the large-scale
exhibits that are making the museum
rounds. Although it is, of course, unfair
to compare the presentation of touring
exhibits with local shows, many of Ann
Arbor's exhibits gain from their in-
timacy, and can be as rewarding. Many
of these shows demand that you look,
study,sinterpret, and experience. They
beckon to the viewer, without the
deadening insulation of the larger even-
ts.
One such exhibit can be found at the
Univesity Museum of Art through the
end of January, a small, spare collec-
tion of prints and etchings by Jacques
Callot, a French engraver who lived
and worked in France and Italy during
his short -lifetime (1592-1635). The 34
pieces are diverse in subject matter,
small in size, but large in impact.
Revealing the innovative technique of
repeated biting to obtain varying dep-
ths of line on the same plane, Callot's
works thrive
depth, and a
details. Even
a line or sw
pressive func
depth, a coun
It has be
executing the
Callot work
magnifying-
meticulous de
viewer cann
prints ever s
have 400 yea
portance of ti
sudden curv
triguing worl
sists of two r
three-dimen:
many folds c
than oblitera
reveal the vo
of the bodies
pressions ar
toonish, and
larger than th
an -incredib
presence.
A viewer i
collection of
more person,
You look, for
without bann
and fireworks
the artifacts
hype. On the
and the other
richness of
splendid exhi
packaging.
stultifying in
pounded by th
of would-be
somewhere
because they'
never had au
was probably
' 88 189 156 166
54 99 172 38 72 112 192
177 191 111 127 152 21
3 31 83 148 173 179 43 195
76 47 52 58 106 122 134 146 155 160 1901
176 197 181
36 1 16 22 102 109 130 90
Pictured are a Moche metalworker from "Peru's Golden Treasures" (left) and the head of King Tut,
from two of the fashionable exhibits currently making the rounds.