THE MICHIGAN DAISY
Wednesday, March 31, 1971
IIIIIIIIII IIIIMarchI 31-April 3
The Carnal Kitchen:
Deserving a break
By BERT STRATTON
The Carnal Kitchen are so
good, ya, they're so good they
deserve a break, a big break.
Something good should happen to
the Carnal Kitchen, something
like what happened to me when I
went and heard them play at
Canterbury House and it was
for free yet!
It could have been some lousy
music for $3.50 or some even
worse stuff for $5 a head-but it
was free.
It could have been 1949 among
other things, but it was 1971, the
price was pre-inflationary, wvhich
was because the Kitchen can't
work for bread. Nobody wants to
pay to hear them, which is as
mad a thing as staying in to
watch Ed Sullivan when it's still
light out.
The fact the Carnal Kitchen
aren't better received is a kind
of giant, intergalactic madness,
which is something Einstein
could probably speak more
knowledgibly on than I,r but -he's
dead-we aren't in 1949 anymore,
but if we were, I'd run over and
catch Bird Parker and Dizzy
Gillespie for a $1, and then go
over and dig the Carnal Kitchen,
liking both just the same.
We're in the Ann Arbor of the
Overbearing Now, and what we
have are some good bands who al-
ways wind up hitting the road,
realizing that the world is bigger
than the Union Ballroom-but the
Carnal Kitchen have been here
for two years now and they're
still in one piece (more or less)
and they're blowing enormously
vital, compelling music--some-
thing big let's say.
I know I'm carrying on, and 1
know at least one person who is
going to tell me that I've got it
wrong and that the Carnal Kitch-
en just honk and blow weird in-
consistencies. But that person
has not heard the Kitchen- play
for a whole night. He has prob-
ably walked out on them after
their first jam.
The group did all kinds of
freaky jazz, straight jazz, Latin
jazz, rock 'n' roll, blues, goof-
music, and just Music. It was
sounds - coming from the band
plus a million and one half walk-
on performers who always turn
up when the Kitchen are playing.
Now for the star of the show,
call him what you will, there's
Steve Mackay on saxophones--
most importantly on tenor sax,
where he comes out sounding like
a blend of King Curtis and jazz-
man Sonny Rollins. It is the
rawest sound, and the most mix-
ed-up, unpolished tone alive. He.
just doesn't know what he's do-
ing! Ya, but he blows and it
comes out right.
The other members of the
Kitchen are David Kupelian
(guitar/violin), Marc Lampert
(drums), Buz Threlkeld (trum-
pet), Rick Manderville (bass),
and Larry Manderville (organ).
Marh -Apil3
Trueblood Theater
Noel Coward's
Presented by
Ann Arbor Civic Theatre
8:00 P.M.
t,
p.
BOX OFFICE OPEN
10 A.M. 'TIL CURTAIN
TICKETS-$2, $2.50
"at Stanger's or call 764-5387
ENDS TODAY!
art
OPEN
12:45
SHOWS AT
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r 70 D r~AA
LITT FAUSS
AWD916HALSY
Segal
By LARRY ADELSON
Centicore Gallery, 336 May-
nard, is currently showing mul-
tiple sculptures and serigraphs
by the American sculptor George
Segal; and aquatints by the con-
temporaryEnglish artist Pat-
rick Procktor'.
Segal is known for his scen-
arios of white, plaster figures,
formed by laying plaster-soaked
cloth over human models, gen-
erally arrayed around some
mundane object such as a bed,
or a television. Of course, Se-
gal's reputation is based on more
than his ability to convince his
subjects to hold still and be en-
cased alive, he has an acute and
subtle sense of the natural and
an ability to seize an appropri-
ate and expressive moment. His
direct and quick method of
sculpting is well suited for cap-
turing this kind of subject.
His major multiple, "Girl on
a Chair" is an assemblege of a
white plaster cast of the left
hihs
Lenticore
Db
St
half of a female torso placed on
the seat of a red, legless chair
and enclosed in a black, open-
faced box. The other multiple,
"Sleeping Girl" (see photo), is
simply a fragment: a face, an
arm, some bedding, all curled
nicely together. I find this piece
to be rather successful. It cap-
tures a peaceful moment and it
works well as a piece of sculp-
ture. The looseness of the edge
keeps it from becoming a bas-
relief and also allows it to ex-
tend in space towards where the
rest of the figure would be, giv-
ing it a sense of belonging in
space. "Girl on a Chair" I am
somewhat less moved by. The
blank back excludes the viewer
and the box is too confining.
. Segal's six serigraphs taken,
apparently from pastels (Segal
was, at one time, a pastelist),
rest between boldness and crude-
ness. My feeling is that o n e
would have to live with them for
a period of time in order to de-
cide which trend was dominant.
I found the draughtsmanship to
be variable and felt that the
textures of the pastels at times
conflicted w i t h the areas of
flat color which he also uses. I
also find his use of "framing"
to be rather excessive. Framing
is the technique, taken f r o m
photography, of cutting objects
off with the edge of the picture.
Artists like Degas have used this
in a natural and unobtrusive
way, but, as I think back on Se-
gal's prints, I find it hard to re-
call a single complete object be-
ing represented. I have found
this kind of 'composition by ex-
clusion' to be rather contrived
and 'arty' in photography and
don't appreciate it in graphics
either. In Segal's sculpture (al-
though not especially those at
Centicore), he has also used on-
ly a small part of the possible
contents of the scene, but one
feels that he has chosen what
he feels will convey what he
wants to convey. In the graphics,
the choice seems to have been
controlled by what could be fit
into a square.
The rest of the show is devot-
ed to the aquatints of Patrick
Procktor's "India, Mother" and
"Invitation to the Voyage" ser-
ies. The former are postcard-
like landscapes and the latter
are livingroom scenes. The style
of representation is recognizable
but not realistic, characterized
by a spareness and by a distor-
tion which is somewhat humor-
ous, somewhat grotesque. I hap-
pen to enjoy Procktor's w o r k
very much. His w o r k, mostly
watercolors to my knowledge,
translates well into the medium
of aquatint and I find his style
to be rather charming. The only
qualm that I have about the
prints is the somewhat insub-
stantial quality of the colors.
The show, located in the new
Centicore Bookstore, will be up
until the end of the semester.
AL 662-6264
ate & Liberty
"A RAKDIKCTINUS TIIUI!,
THE '79: FlIST RIE IG!"
-Stefan Knfer, Time Magazine
Academy Award Nominee*
<-
Snyder: Study' in environment
against structural academics
1 $1.501
I
r
By BERT STRATTON
Writing about Gary Snyder's
poetry reading last night is about
as intriguing as doing an 8 page
English paper. In other words a
drag, which is not to say that
Gary Snyder's reading was a
drag.
I don't remember any lines he
said, what I primarily recall is a
4 B.C. caveman standing on the
stage of Rackham trying to ex-
plain the freak accident that
placed him here in the twentieth
century.
For a caveman, Gary Snyder
knew an awful lot, as much as
a professor, though I guess most
professors don't think all that
much of him, at least there didn't
seem to be many professors in
the audience.
Sour-grapes is a good name for
the above paragraph. A kind of
bitter riff on the academic scene,
the one in which an English stu-
dent wouldn't even know Gary
Snyder, Tom Clark, and Ted
Berrigan exist if he didn't drag
himself away from those stupid
"papers" he's supposed to write.
The other night Gary was talk-
ing on the subject of the obsoles-
cence of colleges, and the ab-
surdity of being forced to vrite
4 page or 4% page or 5 page "pa-
pers" on subjects which you are
guided toward (like a horse to-
ward the water) and where you
are not asked, "OK do you wsrt
a drink?" but instead are grab-j
bed from behind the neck and
forcibly drowned until you die or
admit, "I really do love T.S.
Eliot."
Meanwhile there's this poetry
reading going on in a lot of peo-
ple's minds. It is the after-effect
of Gary's reading. People are
hearing voices telling them to dig
the land, the animals, and the
flow of streams instead of the
flow of stainless-steel, formica-
crusted water.
I mean do you go a day on this
campus without meeting a friend
who's dropping out? What Gary
is talking about is what's in the
air, it's right in front of our eyes,
it's those tiny spirit-molecules
floating around in the morass of
pollution, it's what keeps our
hopes up.
For anybody who didn't go to
the reading last night and wants
me to to tell them how good Gary
is, and how he gets his messn ge
across, I'll say this: Gary i3 very
good, and his own body is the
message of his poetry. Buy his
books.
Now dig this, Gary gets some-
thing like $1,000 to spend a week
bullshitting with us students. Is it
too much to ask that he bring his
voice with him? What is James
Brown came out in a wheelchair,
or if Jimmy Durante came out
without a nose? Gary is suffer-
ing from larengitis, and lie had
to whisper into the microphone
last night, it sounded eerie, but
was as projective as his normally
resonant voice, so no harm was
done.
Tomorrow night Gary has a
discussion scheduled at Markley
Hall for 8 pm. The topic is not
specified, but you can noet that
ecology, American Indians, and
Zen will get into the talk. Gary
Snyder is a taut bundle of all
kinds of knowledge, feeling, in-
sight, and flesh. Who knows
what'll come out of him next?
i
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SUNDAY
April 4tH
Buddies in
the Saddle
Wednesday, March 31
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NEXT WEEK-
Lou Killen
TUMBLEWEEDS
(USA, 1926-SILENT)
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