THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Arts & Entertainment Thursday, February 3, 1977 Page Five
Local poet shares his works
...the Osprey Suicides read
By SUSAN BURKHART
WORD COLLECTING is a poet's past-
time. In the case of Laurence
Lieberman, a contemporary American
poet, the words are sf'dom obscure and
always explibit.
Lieberman recently promoted h i s
pastime as a guest reader for the Eng-
lish Department's poetry series, in the
Union's Pendleton R/Oom Tuesday. Ear-
lier in the day Lieberman had been a
guest in the Hopwood Room, enliven-
ing the morning hours for some inter-
ested students.
The poet, not a newcomer to the
University, was both an undergraduate
and graduate student here until 1958.
He picked up three Hopwood awards in
that time: in the essay category, a
summer poetry contest, and for "major
poetry." Lieberman's ensuing success
as a poet and a critic suggests that
Hopwood awards are, in fact, propi-
tious.
THE POETRY reading opened with
"Frozen Pipes," from his most re-
cent collection The Osprey Suicides
(1973). Lieberman offered the audience
his sources - a recollection of frozen
kitchen pipes coincides with a remem-
braAce of his father's death and two
images marge:
In a recurring dream of my father,
who died last fall when the frozen
pipe burst in his heart, I try to fathom
the outrageous quantity of heat that
is stolen from life
when ice melts to freezing
iced water with no change in
temperature .. .
The poetry is replete with personal
experiences associated with concrete
metaphors as in the above poem. Lie-
berman divulged that "the most viable
metaphors in my poetry occur acciden-
tally, out of my experience."
LIEBERMAN'S experiences as a skin
diver off the Virgin Island coasts
prompted the underwater imagery that
dominates his poetry. We heard a read-
ing of "The Diving Ballet" which was
described as "an underwater love poem
to my wife:"
As I fall,
You rise. It is a diving
Ballet. Above, you break surface.
Below,
Leaning to
I touch
Bottom-
stay down,
Mingus to perform
at Michigan Union
By PAUL SHAPIRO
'HARLES MINGUS, premier jazz bassist and composer will be
appearing in the. Michigan Union Ballroom tomorrow and
Saturday evening at 8 and 10:30 as part of the Eclipse Jazz con-
cert series. One of the most proficient bass players of our time,
Mingus has created music that foreshadowed many of the avant
garde developments of the 1960's.
Mingus began his musical career in the early fifties, playing
with such jaz greas as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and
Theolonious Monk. Eventually emerging as a leader in his own
right, Mingus drew upon players from his jazz workshop, a
training ground for young musicians. A sampling of some of the
talent that has come forth from his workshops includes Eric
Dolphy, Rahssan Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef, Jackie Mclean,
John Handy, and Jaki Byard.
In terms of what to expect from Mingus, one can oky quote
a remark he made to jazz writer Nat Hentoff several years
ago that: "I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The
reason it's so difficult is because I'm changing all the time."
Lieberman's distinction comes largely
from his accidental discovery of poetic
substance beneath the sea.
THE TITLE poem "The Osprey Sui-
cides" is also the poet's favorite of the
collection. In two parts, the poem por-
tends the "suicide" of osprey birds as
natural resources become more scarce
and animals become increasingly com-
petitive. Its straightforward message is
rendered in block images, with journal-
istic force:
Bizarre symptoms reported.
Conjectured DDT-onset
of hastened senility.
Or osprey insanity.
Lieberman's reading on Tuesday was,
like his choice words, direct and unpre-
tentious. The audience responded warm-
ly to the poet, his poems, and the ane-
dotes in between.
The poetry series will continue on
March 1, when Anne Waldman reads
from her own Journals and Dreams
(1976).
THIS CONCERT has been made possible in part
from the National Endowment for the' Arts. Ticket
been reduced to $3.50 and are available at the
office, Schoolkids Records, and Discount Records.
by a grant
prices have
Union box
Additionally, Mingus will conduct a free jazz workshop Satur-
day afternoon at 5 in the Union Ballroom.
i .
POETRY READING
WITH
PATRIC PATILLO
Daily Photo by CHRISTINA SCHNEiDER
Poet Laurence Lieberman reads from his works Tuesday in
the Pendleton Room of the Michigan Union.
Reading from His Works
THURS., FEB. 3-7:30
p.m.
GUILD HOUSE
802 MONROE- (Corner of Oakland)
REFRESHMENTS'
'Silver
Streak :
Mixed
i
.'i
->'~''*"'By MICHAEL BROIDY
OWNE"B ..TAKE two established comic
'actors (Gene Wilder and Rich-
ard Pryor), an up and coming
4 .actress (Jill Clayburgh), a di-
rector whose non-descript film-
S{t.making style hasn't prevented
him from making one of the,
top-grossing films of all time
(Love Story's director, Arthur
Hiller); add a script which
ysmacks of a pseudo - Hitchcock-
, ian cuteness, and what do you
get? Answer: Silver Streak,
20th Century Fox's "big" re-
lease of the recent holiday sea-
" - y, son.
Gene Wilder plays a mild-
:'.w.mannered publisher who boards
,:."- . a train - the Silver Streak -
f~ A.~ for a leisurely trip from Los
H__ <. 9.4. , Angeles to Chicago. A few
minutes into the film, he
, ..f.,...., meets Hilly Burns (Clayburgh)
Burns works for an scholar
."",f:, ,.k , whose research will expose the
.fakery of 'Roger Devereau, an
urbane and despicable villain
played by Patrick McGoohan in
the classic tradition.
: fGeorge Caldwell, the Wilder
character, sees Hilly's boss
falling off a train, tries to re-
port the incident, but predict-
ably, no one believes him ex-
cept for an FBI agent posing as
a travelling salesman. Unfor-
tunately for George, the agent
is also knocked off by Dever-
eau's hoods and George is on
his own.
MUCH OF Silver Streak is
undeniably quite funny and en-
.' joyable. Wilder, in the course
of the film, is thrown off the
train a number of times, each
time provoking more laughter.
....The film really picks up
'..when Richard Pryor, playing' a
petty thief with the improbable
name of Grover Muldoon, en-I
i .ters the scene. Pryor's presence
adds some much needed snap
ry. ;and energy to the film, and he
Avorks marvelously with co-star
Wilder, particularly during a
AP Photo scenewhere Pryor dresses Wil-
The ce m n cm ieihder in blackface to avoid the
The ce m n (')n~t'tjZnolice (who now think Wilder
No, it's not the Polar Bear Club taking a brisk dip in zero is responsible for the murders).
degree weather - it's just a couple of mightly cold statues It is a truly hilarious scene,
at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills yes- and one that is sure to be re-
terday. The one on the right, like most Michigan residents, cognized as a classic.
seems to be shaking his fists at the falling snow. Coln 1niiggins' screenplay
zdisplays several other nice
comic touches, but 'unfortunate-
- Cham pag nspi it o . ly, his script is also laced with
R R IEC ill $ u't OflI y* a disturbing cruelty, as was
his earlier scenario for Harold
NAPA, Calif. (E - It bubbles other regions of France must and Maude, which is now an
like champagne. It tastes like use other names. So for Moet's enormous cult favorite. For ex-
champagne. It looks like cham- subsidiary 8,000 miles from ample, I fail to see the humor
pagne. In fact, it is champagne. in ascene where a plane buzzes
But you won't catch the folks m grazing sheep, or people be-
who make it calling it that. name is "Chandon Brut Napa ing mowed down by the dozens
Valley Sparkling Wine." in the latter portion of the
The reason is simple: Do-
maine C h a n do n, the winery
which makes this new "cham-
pagne," ,is owned by Moet-Hen-
nessy, the French firm that is
the world's largest producer of"
bubbly, -and under Gallic law'0®
there is only one source for
chafnpagne: The district of the
same name in France. e
film; it's almost as if Higgins ton James as a hayseed sher-t
lost track of what he was writ- iff has perhaps done this type of1
ing. role a few too many times as,
THE SCRIPT also reeks of has sauve, sophisticated Patrickt
a seedy familiarity. I'd like to McGoohan as the sauve, so-'
think that Higgins and director phisticated phoney.1
Arthur Hiller were satirizing Henry Mancini's lush and ro-
Hitchcock's classic, The Lady mantic score is nice to listen
Vanishes, but by the end of, the to but a little inappropriate fort
film, it is obvious that this is this film; at times it is even
giving Hiller and Higgins too ineffective as a counterpoint to
much credit. many of the faster - paced
The performances are a mix- scenes (what few of them theret
ed bag. Gene Wilder is fine as are).l
the beleaguered publisher and1
Jill Claybaugh is equally good THE SPECIAL EFFECTSl
in her Madeleine Carroll-type are quite good, especially dur-t
role; it's time, though, that she ing the climatic sequence of the
find a suitable vehicle (no pun film where the by now runaway
intended) for her talents. Clif- train crashes into the Chicagoj
4
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train station (actually staged at
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The principal fault with Sil-
ver Streak is' the lackluster di-
rection of Arthur Hiller. At
times it is underpaced and
limp, detracting from the zest-
ful energy of the performances.
in fact, the film really belongs
to Richard Pryor, whose im-
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ous portrayal prevents the film
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I777
uninspired direction.
__ ..
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