The Michiqan Daily-Sunday Page 2-Sunday, April 1, 1979-The Michigan Daily RAMBLINGS/joshua peck AIRT/r.j.smith A It MOMA, the walls have4 D OGMA IS everywhere. Political and religious ideologues and zealots of every stripe rail with abso- lute certainty that their particular con- tingent has found the Truth, and that that Truth is the only idea entitled to a capital 't.' All that ideological vigor is really all right with me. I am pleased by the diversity of this town as it is manifested by the mad flurry of leaflets one en- counters on a brief diagonal traverse of the Fishbowl. Maoists to the left of me, Marxists to the right of me, Chassidic Jews and Zionists on the rear wall, and the Palestinian support group by the front glass. The crazy array of causes that is allowed to flourish in this coun- try is the single element of American life about which I find it easiest to get teary-eyed and patriotic. But there are those True Believers who have thrust their way past a cer- tain point, and these are the beatly ones who offend me. They leap into their political programs wich such en- thusiasm that opponents oft-times find their toes trampled. Through a variety of techniques, they rob the public of the right to sample the other side's words, or they take steps to, interfere with arriving at any democratic decision that opposes their own beliefs. Examples are plentiful: In 1976-77, four Soviet dissidents arrive at the 'U' at different times to air their views on the unquestionably repressive nature of life in Russia for any who dares to differ. Members of the. Young Socialist Annoyance and other communist groups turn out-not to learn about the very dangerous ways in which their utopian plans can go astray, not to ask any . of these politically astute men for help in shaping a Marxism that can work, but instead to chide dissidents, to heckle them, and to block the transfer of in-. formation altogether. Jonestown. Moonies. Hare Krishna. Jews for Jesus. Rabbis who phone me at 7:30 a.m. to beg my presence at prayer. And now (oh Christ, my feminist friends are going to kill me for this), supporters of the Equal Rights Amen- dment-with the successful drive to ex- tend the ratification deadline under. their belts-have initiated a deter- mined effort to keep the four state legislatures that have changed their minds since ratifying the ERA six or seven years ago from rescinding their votes. It is clear that there has been an overall rightward shift since the early seventies. The citizens of the recession-bent states have expressed their conservative leanings by electing legislators anti-feminist enough to abrogate their predecessors' approval of the amendment. "YOU CAN'T," shrilly choruses the National Organization. for Women. "Once decided, always de- cided." So it seems that they would have an amendment approved that has fewer than 'the requisite number of states behind it at the actual time of its approval, possibly as much as ten years after its introduction. Sickening. A Maoist once accousted me on the Diag, and badgered about how my thinking was not "correct," about how it needed to be aligned with the "correct" mode of thought. Her vision, and that of many of her radical brethren, is that somewhere up high in the ether there is a perfect political line; a human's simple task is to iden- tify it. Her little band of leftists, she im- plied, had already succeeded. But there is no perfection, any more than there is an Absolute Good or a San- ta Claus. There is only a set of political choices that benefits the greatest num- ber of people and harms the fewest. We search it out through a painfully slow process of debate, argument, and discussion. The Founding Fathers knew that, and arranged an incredible maze of checks and balances to keep anybody from being deprived of an audience. To attempt to disrupt that complexity is worse than selfish; it is perfidiously subversive. When I was younger, my parents sen- tenced me to four years in a Jewish parochial school. I sometimes engaged my religious chieftains there in arguments about the existence of God. I did admit to them that I was unable to assert without question that there in- deed was no Head Honcho. They replied that they were certain that they were right, and that their certainty proved them right. But it did not, and does not. The test of Truth is just that, to test it, challenge it, and answer its detractors. When will they ever learn? sundir!' ingazine iCIIId[! CPUZZLE BY STEPHEN . POZSGAI Copyright 1979 I-I-I-I- U 1I U 76 1 1 I 27T 28 52 C 53 L 54 3 77 78 101 102 103 V 4 J 29 155 R 30 31L 32 0 56 57 J1 81 82 ,B io6 107 X 37 p 38 -3 J 1 D 1 E A 1 I G 21 P 23 W K 10 l 04 1o5 G 58 s U 93 108 U 1 132 J H 156 F1 N 182 F F 208 B2 P 4 S 4 L R46 4. I 1 - I-1 T 60 IR 61 N 62 f 63T 4 LYWH1R1 K 2am 21 S R6 F T 11 N 112 I 135 IA7 P 114 P 138 6 P 6 G 6 9 T 91 K 11 4 11 14 C 141 R 14 16 U 166 19 S'19l H 192 21 W 217 N 6 J 7" J 9 N 9 .F W 11 -G119 U 71 X 72 'C 95 T K 9 N 97 r i'itTl22 E 9 T L 74 B 41 F 41 Q 41C I - i i I i 'r- H W 14 F 1 v 1 R 144 Q 168 ic4 Q 14 T 14 171 T -- --- ----: -t--T-- 194K: 19 A 19 N 197 J 19 V 19 x 20C T 1 82R22 i F 1 3--F---- ' U 2 2 22 0 223jXj2N ..22! A. Regard for one's own interest to the disregard of the well-being of others B. Science of character formation C. Egocentrism D. Humbug; trifles E. Oust; dismiss F. "-Absurd"-Waitng for ' Godot e.g. (3 words) G. One of the months in the French Republican calendar adopted in 1793 H. Fit of uncontrollable laughter or crying . Due to external causes J, Untrammeled; free (.Genuine; trustworthy 1. Communist who believes that only forcecould produce serious social change, and that by force almost any change could be effected 12 19 130 84 102 113 128 152 169 196 225 7 47 89 180 209 219 35 106 14 53 50 146 82 95 123 141 174 187 17 13 34 139 150 181 204 154 3 98 124 18 51 1 48 63 80 87 94 '137 157 167 178 183 208 21 58 68 176 111 119 153 186 202 2 44 132 75 85 f92 104 156 200 10 135 27 36 90 120 175 201 207 29 16 70 81 198 92 110 133 145 8 96 24 79 116 164 190 195 213 M.Raw recruits often possess two of these (2 words) N. "That-of Desire" Bunuel film (2 words) 0. Incite; instigate P. What government officials retire to (2 words) Q. Senior males 43 25 126 57 171 108 131 101 5 97 26 69 151 93 112 163 173 62 188 197 182 77 223 215 134 56 88 9 22 40 67 114 127 138 170 179 206 216 39 136 177 49 155 100 125 147 165 168 185 203 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- ,ate 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 Last Week's Puzzle "Theoretical discoveries that have radical conse- quences can usually be seen at once to be striking and original. But practical dis- coveries even when they turn out to be far-reaching often have a look that is more modest and less mem- orable." (J.) Bronowski The Ascent of Man A N OUTSPOKEN writer and a visionary, the Swiss architect Le Corbusier was guided in his plans for buildings (specifically houses) by the ideal of creating structures which would be "machines for living." In a quote which dates from the same decade, the 1920s, in which Le Cor- busier began to receive architectural acclaim, the German-born architect and teacher Walter Gropius wrote, "We want to create a clear, organic ar- chitecture, whose inner logic will be radiant and naked, unencumbered by lying facades and trickeries. . . . We want an architecture adapted to our world of machines, radios, and fast motor cars." Although the work of these two is not greatly similar, and has lead architec- ture down distinct paths, the work of both has spurned a certain general paradigm of thought; a kind of thinking, some would say, which puts too much stake in conforming to the realities of architecture as a business, and not in working on what that business could be-a frame of thinking which fails to consider closely whether architecture should serve the most essential physical human needs, or be allowed freer reign in its ability to in- spire. To the Italian visionary architect Gaetano Pesce, that conflict requires no decision at all-to follow the path of almost all conventional architecture, he seems to say, ensures a deathful, stultifying prison sentence. "The system of pillar-girder-pillar has brought about boxes and only boxes (have we forgotten what Wright said: The box is fascist?)," he writes. Pesce's designs mirror his hatred for the conformity of so much of modern architecture. They are skyscraper-tall blob-like structures which at first glan- ce seem remarkably awkward; odd, monumental biomorphic forms which would stick out of a skyline scene as one would imagine a tower of smelly foam rubber to do. In his fantasy-plans, Pesce has inverted the architectural mechanization of both Le Corbusier and Gropius: the "machine for living" has become a nearly living machine-and the architecture meant to be "adapted to our world of machines" instead of demands that an ethic based on machine be abandoned, replaced by one which values the organic. Pesce's latest project is part of a major exhibit of modern architecture now, being shown at New York's Museum of Modern Art, called "Trans- formations in Modern Architecture." A troubling, darkly humorous work (ghettoed to a third-floor spot only after Pesce fought MOMA administrators who wanted to oust his exhibit com- pletely), Pesce's group of building plans offers a stark contrast to the rest of the exhibit. The bulk of "Transfor- mations" consists of some 400 photographs of buildings of various sizes from all over the world, presen- ting well the case that modern ar- chitecture if far from an art risking a death by homogenity, and in fact is flourishing in numerous styles lacking any central trend. Meanwhile, upstairs, five brown foam rubber sculpted panels and a R. J. Smith is co-editor of the Daily Arts page. rambling posted text harshly whine Pesce's discontent: as is sculpted into one of the panels, "We are no longer satisfied by this space.- The system designed by last century's construction engineers is no longer able to stimulate our creativity. Almost every architect has savagely obeyed the system. Today however it has nothing left to offer us." SO WHO DO we believe? That is a persistent question one is left with after leaving the museum. But if one sees only the first-floor main section, most likely he would be overwhelmed by diversity. The architecture of the past 20 years, "Transformations" exhorts, has not presented us with any major new architectural approaches, and instead has been a series of refinements on advancements con- ceived largely in the thirties and for- ties. The tale of architecture in the fifties and sixties is largely unfolded by examining the interphase between "classical" modern architecture, which stresses that all architectural pleasures derive from a straightfor- ward encounter with the necessary, and various "architectural fictions," a term which encompasses any sort of unnecessary use of form. The work of such architects as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and in many ways Wright falls, under the classical heading; so- called architectural fictions predate the work of these architects, and also live on in various examples of regional and vernacular styles, largely found away from urban settings. In perhaps its purest form, classical architecture sought to solve the problems of design efficiency versus the nature of form; that is, to devise an architectural aesthetic that would be true to all the functions of a building yet also wholly pleasing. "Transfor- mations" leads us to believe-that this is by and large exemplified in the Miesian "skin and bones" architecture. The relationship between the skin of a building (the windows, or similar flat space), most usually a skyscraper, and its bones (the structure-girders, braces, reinforcements between win- dows) has been a rich area for architec- tural experimentation. The bones can be completely inter- nalized, as a result of technological ad- vancements which create lighter and Daily Photo By MAUREEN O'MALLEY' Detroit's Renaissance Center is included in "Tranformations in Modern Archi- tecture," currently on view at New York's Museum of Modern Art. less obtrusive building materials, leaving the skin seemingly stretched un- broken over the building surface; they can be clearly visible and even exaggerated, establishing a feeling of powerful structural strength. The most prominent and recent exploration of skin and bones architecture is the ex- panding use of mirrored glass in skyscrapers, which, when used with thick, witheld building supports, creates an impermeable surface not seemingly of a building, but of sky and sunlight. Advancements in this design made for greater variations in struc- tural effects, and helped the skin and bones approach to be applied smoothly to buildings of less than skyscraper proportions. But, of course, classical modern architecture has roots before Mies. The most open-ended and influential, it seems, was the "brutalist" architec- ture for which Le Corbusier was greatly responsible. Whereas Mies was concer- ned with exposing the nature of glass and steel in architecture, Le Corbusier focused on concrete, creating works that were massive, had many closed surfaces (no windows or doors), and exerted the displacement of the area surrounding them. In the hands of Le Corlbusier, brutalism exerted the rough, sculptural nature of concrete. The approach was used to create a variety of structures, from chapels to many-storied office and apartment buildings; when applied by other ar- chitects, brutalism was often respon- sible for extremely blocky forms and windowless planes. The general ap- plication of brutalism was with in- stitutional buildings-quite natural, considering their generally improving quality. The use of "architectural fictions" can fall under no such headings as classical modern architecture, for in the past 20 years these fictions have themselves come to be single, un- similar responses -to the oft-followed forms of classicism. Thus, "Transfor- mations" shows us a bewildering assor- tment of structures to illustrate such fictions, everything from Japanese teahouses to Mexican nautical clubhouses to French housing projects. A RCHITECTURE in the first half of the century followed various trends in ar examples of also many b have the sop pressionism. years, architf the possibiliti has become willing to pi stylistic varia Clearly, su by any lal "regional"; i mon desire to and personal. are most oftei churches, designed wit etion in min buildings, or must be). 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