ARTS
The Michigan Daily Wednesday, February 19, 1986 Page'
Poetic inuence
F
By Alan Paul
R ESIDENTIAL College
sophomore Phillip Barnhart is
from Byron, Michigan, population
7,000. Though the town is only an
hour's drive away from Ann Arbor,
Barnhart is the first Byronian in
almost twenty years to attend the
University. Barnhart is also a recent
Hopwood (writing) Award recipient.
"Byron has been a big influence on
my writing. I'm not unhappy to be
from there or anything, I'm just
really happy to be here. Ann Arbor is
too small now," Barnhart said
Barnhart, who last month won
$225 in the Hopwood poetry division,
studies prose in Warren Hecht's
Creative Writing tutorials for two
terms. Only this semester has he
concentrated on poetry with Ken
Mikolowski.
"I write narrative poetry," Bar-
nhart said. "Every poem tells a
story. The Hopwoods gave me a big
confidence boost," Barnhart con-
tinued. "I've been writing regularly
- two or three times a week." Below
is one of Barnhart's award winning
poems.
Monday
I
I get up on time because it's Monday and
Cycles are beginning again. Fifteen degrees
At Seven Forty-Five with the wind blowing,
Snow is flying. A newspaper blows across
The street and is flattened against my
Ancient apartment building. Like Laurence
Of Arabia I Make my way up the sidewalk
Underdressed and cold.
II
The long weekend has made tiny lush islands
Of mold in the leftover coffee. I look into
The cup on my desk and I see ships sailing to
Hong Kong and Singapore. I see a black sea
With islands covered by golden willow trees.
Hiding behind the trees is embroidered silks.
I can hear them rustling on the ground.
III
After two cups of coffee, fresh, you can hear the
Word Zing! around every corner -
The happy elevator takes you from the basement to
The seventeenth floor in a matter of seconds
And that's cool. Waitingrfor the happy elevator
You exhale and feel a surge of static awareness.
IV
By eleven o'clock you've had four solid hours
To reflect - the week is passing by and starting
Again. Crazy and big. You shut the door to the noisy
Corridor, lean back in your chair. The woman
On the Wollensak tape machine is singing about
Her mad existence-Have I said too much?
V
Monday reflects the residue of the weekend
Like tapping your fingers on thecover of
A book you've just read - wanting to start
Another but afraid you haven't felt all
There was to happen in the last.
-Phillip Bamhart
Kevin Bacon and Larry Fishburn race each other in the new movie 'Quicksilver.'
Quicksilver: a flash in the pan
Books-
Mr. Moto Is So Sorry
by John P. Marquand
$3.95, paperback
publisher: Little, Brown
& Company
288 pages
This book, more of an adventure
*novel than a spy mystery, tells the
story of American Calvin Gates' jour-
ney into China in search of a man to
whom he must lie. But, it being 1936,
his travels are complicated by Mr.
Moto-an intelligence agent for the
Imperial Japanese Empire.
During this time, Japan and Russia
were both eyeing the Chinese
mainland for territorial conquests.
Their maneuvers took place in a
fragmented China where princes
ruled over individual monarchies.
The MaGuffin in the book, a silver
cigarette case, has an ornate design of
birds and grasses carved into it.
However, to knowledgable people, the
design= "conveys more information
than just an artistic scene.
The game of espionage that Gates
stumbles into is played by a large,
colorful cast of characters : Boris, a
Russian acting as guide to Miss Sylvia
Dillaway, an American artist; Cap-
tain Sam Hamby, an expatriate
professional soldier; Major Ahara of
the Japanese Army; Lou Holtz, a
local "businessman"; the Prince of
Ghuru Nor (an independent monar-
chy in China); General Shirov of the
Russian Army; and Dr. Gilbreth, the
man that Calvin Gates must deceive.
Moving among these people, yet
truly always alone, is Mr. I.A. Moto.
Respected and feared, he is not to be
ignored either as adversary or friend.
Mr. Moto never changes.
Throughout the story, he is portrayed
as the quintessential stereotype of the
Japanese, as seen by the Western
World in the 1930's. He is presented as
subtle, scheming, somewhat comical
and not to be trusted. However, Mr.
Moto possesses more brains than
anyone else in the novel. As a matter
of fact in one paragraph, Marquand
redeems himself by going beyond the
-lw n~r Tir m r 0 . "Ur
By Kurt Serbus
UESTION: What has a gi
soundtrack, a shmaltzy,
tab e storyline, zero ch
development, and a cast that
even conjugate the verb "to at
Flashdance? Footloose? B
Well, it's all of the above, ro
one called Quicksilver, the h
try in the tried-and-true "go-f
dream s-you-crazy-bastar
genre.
In this one, Kevin Bacon st
stock analyst who loses it
trades in his three-piece suit f
speed bicycle as a delivery bo
Quicksilver Messenger Sei
New York.
garish That may seem a little iml
ath." at first, until you consider that
use one the other delivery boys are
happen college professors, mayora
re one- and prizefighters.
n they The script is chock-full of
n plots types, including a tough-but
ies the street urchin who lies about i
parents do for a living,
gth, it Hispanic who shows up in a
read. powder-blue tux when told
nice for a loan application. i
rummthere's Voodoo, the Angry
Black Man who picks up side-money
running drugs. Being both angry and
black, he naturally blames his
od awful situation on the Man. It's not the
predic- Man who keeps you down, one of the
aracter bikers tells him. "It's your bitter-
couldn't ness." Heavy stuff, kids.
ct?" Writer-director Tom Donnely ap-
reakin'? parently studied Flashdance frame-
lled into by-frame before conceiving this joke,
atest en- and in emulating that movie he
or-your- doesn't miss a trick. Jack Casey
d" film (Bacon) lives in a huge, sparse loft
with his girlfriend Randi (Whitney
ars as a Kershaw) who is an aspiring dancer.
all and This allows for a super-neat scene in
or a ten- which Randi does a series of dance
y for the steps which Jack comically emulates
'vice in on his bike. Ha ha, Jack and his bike
are so zany, you'll laugh 'till it's pain-
?lausible ful!
t most of There's even the obligatory strut-
former your-stuff sequence, in which the
d aides, bikers set up a jam-box in the middle
of the street and take turns doing all
stereo- sorts of bitchin' tricks on their bikes.
t-lovable Some of the stunts are pretty good,
what her but this scene will look awfully
and an familiar to anyone who's logged a few
ruffled, Mountain Dew commercials.
to dress As far as acting goes, well, it
And then doesn't. Kevin Bacon looks fairly
Young promising during his initial suit-and-
tie scenes, but after about 20 minutes
he seems to just give up. The rest of
the cast is a complete waste.
Quicksilver does have one
redeeming factor: it's so horrible that
it's kind of fun. It's a little tQo sluggish
to be a really good/bad movie, but for
the most part it's just inept enough to
make the grade for those of you who
dig flicks like Reanimator and The
Howling 11. Otherwise, save your
money to buy a copy of Flashdance
for the VCR. At least it's got Jennifer
Beals.
sentimental man, moving in a
world of intrigue and sudden de
The book is fun to read becau
doesn't know what is going to h
next. Some of the characters a
dimensional, but the terrair
move though is so enmeshed i
and counterplots that it carr
people along.
At 288 pages, a good len
makes for a pleasant
-Mickey Br
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