Thursday, Jcnur ry 23, 1975
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page Five
Ronstadt and
friends
winover
By CHRIS KOCHMANSKI
"Linda Rcnstadt is the best damn female vo-
calist today," claimed Michigan freshperson
Pique Rockwell in anticipation of the country-
rock performer's near sell-out concert at Hill
Auditorium Tuesday night.
And as Ronstadt's strong, clear voice alter-
natingly belted out old rock favorites and sen-
suously crooned quiet love songs, by perform-
ance's end, many more in the audience were
convinced of her supremacy in the field of fe-
male singers.
The concert began on a less optimistic note,
however. An anonymous ,master of ceremonies
proclaimed the.urgency of student cooperation
with Hill Auditorium's smoking regulations. The
announcement drew polite response from an au-
dience which generally maintained orderly con-
cert behavior throughout.
The opening act, Leon Redbone, was intro-
duced as "a helluva nce guy," and the local
favorite amused his audience with offbeat dress,
a distinctive apathetic style, and lyrics that
defy definition. Reputedly "a rumor in his own
time," Redbone pleasantly plucked a series of
pseudo-folk numbers that mystified, yet en-
tertained.
Dressed in a tattered, non-matching suit and
a felt hat, Redbone physically and vocally re-
sembled a cross between Groucho Marx and
Jim Croce. His proficiency at yodeling, a mo-
tif common to all the night's acts, highlighted
his performance.
Redbone was followed by a set from Paul
Siebel and David Bromberg, a collaboration that
proved limited in its appeal. Throughout his
performance, Siebel projected little stage pres-
ence and had to contend with an unreceptive,
fidgeting audience.
Bromberg's work on the dobro outshined
Siebel's monotonous melodies, evidenced by the
fact that the audience also called for Brom-
Congress-
1-m r s s
Iill crow
berg when Siebel returned to the stage for a
gratuitous encore. Though often obscured by
his wailing voice, Siebel's lyrics (particularly
in Women Won't Make No Fool Out of Me) are
the center of his work.
When Ronstadt at last took the stage, the
impatient audience was quite ready for a more
identifiable type of music. She began with her
specialty, a slow country melody that proved
her voice was truly clear as a bell. She followed
that with a rocking version of Buddy Holly's
That'll Be the Day, in which at no time did her
talented band drown out the vocals.
Her set consisted mainly of cuts from her new
hit album Heart Like A Wheel (including the
favorite Willing), and in part of old personal
favorites like Long Long Time. Throughout, Ron-
stadt's vocals expressively fluctuated between
strong, emotional passages and soft, loving in-
terludes.
Between songs, she spoke of management
problems and being "ripped off in Cleveland,"
but referred to An Arbor with affection. Dres-
sed casually, the attractive Ronstadt received
on stage numerous bouquets of flowers from
adoring male fans.
Her current Top 40 smash, You're No Good,
received powerful treatment from the hyped-
up band, and at its close brought the crowd to
its feet. For an encore, Ronstadt belted Heat
Wave and a moving final number, accompanied
only by a lilting piano melody.
Outside the Auditorium, resnonse was unani-
mously appreciative. The Ronstadt concert
brought a much-needed change to live music
in the area. As Susan Ziel, a nurse at Univer-
sity Hospital succinctly summed it up, "I real-
ly appreciate this type of music."
Or more expressively put by a museum tech-
niques student: "Linda Ronstadt is like an
audio-visual climax."
mayVote to
Daily Photo by PAULINE LUBENS
David Bromtberg (left) and Paul Siebet
Daily Photo by PAULINE LUBENS
Belting it out
Country-rock vocalist Linda Ronstadt performs during her
UAC-sponsored concert at Hill Auditorium Tuesday night.
'Harold and Maude':
Fantasucally popular
By JAMES VALK '
RETURNING TO THE campus film showings for the second
time in as many weeks, hal Ashby's Harold and Maude at-
tempts to secure its place as perhaps the most popularily sus-
tained film at the Big U.
The phenomenon of the movie is a mystery. Hardly to be
classified as a trend, Harold and Maude is simply a film that
has been ardently received by a relatively small band of cinema
enthusiasts. Its viewers are not exclusively nomads of Ingmar
Bergman, nor are they among those that thrive vicariously on the
Sound of Music. Harold and Maude viewers are a cross-section
of loyalists: wide in diversity but narrow in numbers - the lat-
ter being a negated statement in Ann Arbor.
The film, if you don't already know, concerns an odd rela-
tioriship between a 20 year old youth preoccupied with death
and an 80 year old woman preoccupied with life. Meeting at a
funeral, the two form a bizzare liaison that surpasses anything
Happy Rockefeller's niece could ever dream of.
REAL FLOW of Harold and Maude can be attributed to
Hal Ashby's direction of Colin Higgins' screenplay. Ashby, a
director brought up through the ranks has only recently come
in standing with The Last Detail and the yet-to-be-released Sham-
po. Nevertheless, in Harold and Maude Ashby created his most
memorable film.
Combining a comical sense of the absurd with a genuine feel
for his material, Ashby, along with the talent of Ruth Gordon
and the presence of Bud Cort, has created a derivation of a great
film.
Issuing restraint to a movie that would be doomed without
it, Ashby comes off with no pretensions. Harold's almost mania-
cl fascination with death is beyond any definition of the scope
of reality. His bizzare "suicides", designed to shock his socially
elevated mother, are merely vehicles employed to enhance the
premise: Harold is living a fictitious life in a claustrophobic en-
vironment
With the emergence of Maude into Harold's personality,
the slow circular process begins to proceed. While issuing a
leery curiosity toward this ageless woman, Harold continues to
dwell into his gruesome escapades, staging elaborate vignettes
to ward off computer matched dates set up by his mother.
And by the last third of the film, Harold's preoccupance with
death has become all but extinct, replaced by Maude's simple
appreciation of life.
BUT AS THE circle is completed, the continuity of natural pro-
gression runs its course. Just as Harold takes on the ex-
hilaration of youth, Maude falls to the vestiges of time. As Har-
old philosophically becomes Maude, Maude physically becomes
Harold; not in the sence of fascination from alienation, but as
the end result of the closing of the circle: death into life -
life into death.
In the span of the film, Ashbv creates a grand paradox of
attitudes - only one -which is ultimately resolved in the end.
While Harold has literally gained life, Maude has reached a
pinnacle of personal satisfaction, and quietly steps aside to allow
her newly-sponsored ode to life his chance to exist as she did,
free in both spirit and commitment.
And with the merging of Harold into Maude, one senses
a newly founded union; the passage of life from one body in
order to yield to another. It is a rebirth, and the final shot of
Harold on the mountain cliff, strumming Maude's vibrancy into
himself, reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's Star-Child in the
final sentences of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
With this "mystical" significance, Harold as the trans-
formed and Maude as transformer, perhaps there is more to
this film than we could ever imagine.
s
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lock,
EFord's]
By AP and Reuter
WASHINGTON - Chairman
Al Ullman of the House Ways
and Means Committee predict-
ed Wednesday that Congress
will vote to block President
Ford's proposed oil import tar-
iffs, which Ullman said would
impose "a hardship on the
American people."
He also said he though there
were enough votes against the
plan to override a presidential
veto, should Ford veto the leg-
islation.
Ullman, D-Ore., said he will
hold special committee hear-
ings Thursday or Friday on
legislation to force a 90-day de-
lay in the tariffs to give the
Congress time to come up with
its own energy program.
"Time is really critical," he
told newsmen.
Battle lines thus appeared to
be drawn for a showdown be-
tween the President and the
Democratic - controlled Con-
gress on the issue of how to
reduce the country's imports of
oil - by means of the higher
taxes proposed by Ford or by
rationing of gasoline, a course
which the Democrats appear to
favor.
The oil import tariff repre-
sents a major portion of the
President's new economic pro-
gram. Ford said the combined
effect of the tariff and other
proposed energy taxes would
cause a drop in domestic oil con-
sumption and reduce foreign oil
imports by one million barrels
a day this year.
Under the plan, Ford plans
to impose a $1-a-barrel tariff on
imported oil beginning Feb. 1,
rising to $2 on March 1 and $3
proposed oi ipor ttax
NOON LUNCHEON
HOMEMADE SOUP AND SANDWICH-50c
FRI., JAN. 24
Prof. James E. Crowfoot
School of Natural Resources:
"ETHICS: THE RATIONALIZATION
OF SPECIAL INTEREST"
(series :"Ethics and Values in Higher Education")
GUILD HOUSE-802 Monroe
. . ,
PRESENTS
PONTECORVO'S
THE BATTLE
OF ALGIERS
The moving drama of the Algerian revolution
TODAY! Thurs., Jon..23
Aud.A Angel Hall
7:00-9:15 $1.25
Next Tuesday see YELLOW SUBMARINE
AUD. A 7, 8:45 & 9:30
on April 1. Administration
economists expect the $3 tariff
will increase prices of gaso-
line and home heating oil by
about 3 cents a gallon.
Treasury Secretary William
E. Simon told the committee
during testimony Wednesday
that Ford's over-all energy
package, including a $2 domes-
tic excise tax, would increase
prices of gasoline and home
heating oil by about 10 to 11
cents a gallon.
Ford's latest expression of
determination to push ahead
with his tax on oil imports with-
out waiting for Congressional
approval came in a telephone
call to Ullman.
The committee chairman and
his colleagues had been told
earlier by Simon that the Presi-
dent was thinking, in answer to
the protests they and others had
made, about postponing the con-
troversial oil import fee pro-
gram.
But Ford did not allow any
time.for the impression to gain
ground that he was backing
away from his plan in any way.
He called Ullman to say, ac-
cording to the chairman, that
"lie must go forward with the
schedule of import fees."
At the same time, Ullman
told the committee he had let
Ford know he himself would
take swift action by convening
the group to approve legislation
which would delay' new oil im-
port fees for 90 days while
Congress reviewed the situation.
Strong efforts went ahead in
the Senate as well as the House
to try to balk the President's
plan.
Democratic leader Senator
Mike Mansfield and Senator
Lowell Weicker, a liberal Re-
publican, introduced legisla-
tion to make gasoline rationing
compulsory.
Senator Frank Church, chair-
man of a Senate subcommittee
on multinational corporations,
said he was drafting legislation
to set up a Federal Govern-
ment purchasing agency to buy
oil from other countries. This,
he explained, would be part of
a proposal by the subcommittee
to reduce oil imports by 15 per
cent in an effort to break the
oil producers' price cartel.
Representative Henry Reuss,
newly elected chairman of the
Banking Committee, flatly pre-
dicted Congress would approve
rationing of fuel.
Meanwhile, T r e a s u r y
officials said they will need to
borrow an estimated $28 billion
over the next six months to fi-
nance the administration's anti-
recession program.
That figure amounts to seven
times the maximum borrowing
during comparable periods over
the last five years and repre-
sents the federal government's
heaviest financing operation
>ince World War 11, officials
srsid.
Jack -. Bennett, assistant
secretary of the Treasury for
Monetary affairs, said the bor-
rowing will require "a sub-
stantial increase in the debt
ceiling." But he declined to
specify how much the ceiling
woUld have to be raised.
The ceiling is temporarily set
at 5195 billion and the nation's
debt is only $1.3 billion shy of
that limit.
Simon also said the Ford ad-
ministration believes permanent;
changes in individual income
tax rates can be justified inde-
pendently from the energy tax
proposal.
Hove a flair for
If yu are interest-k
ed in reviewing
piet ry. and nu
or writing feature
stories a b o u t the
drama, dance. fitm
Sart.: Contact Arts
Editor. c/o The
I,-, Michigan IDaily.
Indochina Peace Campaign
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SOON!
SACHA GUITRY'S 1937
PEARLS OF THE CROWN (at 7)
This French film traces the fate of four pearls as they change hands through the centuries
from Pope Clement VII to Mary, Queen of Scots to Napoleon. By Guitry, kingpin of the
modern French popular theatre and master improvisor.
MARIA CALLAS in her first
dramatic role as