U. THE NATIONAL C EGE NEWSPAPER IOTBR18 IasadSneU H AILCLEENW

OCTOBER 1989 Itars and Sense

U. THE NATIC&L COLLEGE NEWS

Music promotion
Music buffs from
Carbondale, Ill., start a cat-
alog for aspiring bands.
Page 13

AGA
Vicious rag
Rich and famous celebrities beware: SPY magazine is out
to get you. The iconoclastic monthly features a host of rich
and famous folk on its hit list.
Page 13

Student compiles low-budget tips for touring Eur

Hip hop explosion
Cutting edge rap bands
achieve mainstream
success.
Page 14

By Sing Chan
Oregon Daily Emerald
U. of Oregon

Visually-impaired see films

By Rebecca Tauber
The Daily Californian
U. of California, Berkeley
Storytellers have been creating
images with words since the advent of
language, and although the invention of
movies and television has reduced the
prominence of narration as an art form
it still has a purpose, particularly for the
visually impaired.
Under the guidance of San Francisco
State lecturer Gregory Frazier, SFS stu-
dents are learning to translate the look
and feel of movies, television and theater
into verbal description to make the
media more accessible to the visually
impaired and the blind.
Using a process Frazier has dubbed
AudioVision, describers narrate perfor-
mances as the film rolls, talking only
during breaks in the dialogue. They are
instructed not to make reference to
themselves or their personal opinions,
but are encouraged to paraphrase series
of events for brevity
;We try to pay a lot of attention to
detail, including color, because 80 per-
cent of all visually impaired persons
have some color memory," said Frazier,
a tall man in his 40s. The trick, he said,
is "to build a visual image in the person's
mind's eye."
Marianne Dole, who has been blind
from birth, attends Frazier's class as a
consultant. "I like it when they use color
in their descriptions," she said. "Even
though I've never seen it, I have an idea
of color in an emotional sense."
Frazier completed his first big project
in the summer of 1988, a description for
Francis Ford Coppola's7hcker:The Man
andHisDream. The preview was attend-
ed by about 100 visually-impaired
moviegoers, who were enthusiastic
about AudioVision but felt the technique
needed more development.

Mike Cole, director of the Living Skills
Center for the Visually Handicapped,
said of the Tucker performance, "I know
they're told to only report factual things
and to include as few interpretative
things as possible, but I would like to
have them communicate emotions as
well as facts."
Rose Resnick, founder of the Rose

Resnick Center for the Blind and
Handicapped, suggested that Frazier
choose describers by the quality of their
voices as well as their talent for describ-
ing. "Voices are to a blind person what
faces are to a sighted person," said
Resnick, who is blind.
Frazier's methods have been so suc-
See NARRATORS Page 13

A U. of Oregon student has written a
book for budget-conscious students who
want to tour Europe, but he warns that
his advice is geared toward people who
want to ride the rail system and use a
combination of sleeping accommoda-
tions, not toward the five-star class busi-
ness person who wants to see Europe
"the American way."
John Fitzgerald wrote "Europe in an
Hour" after taking part in a Danish
exchange program during his sopho-
more year. The book combines his travel
notes with research taken from other
travel books.
"There's no other book like it on the
market," he said. "I'm trying to fit in
where no one else has." More than justj
a guidebook for tourists, the book is a
travel planner that provides step-by-
step instructions on planning a success-
ful trip.
"The idea is that if you are going to go
to Europe, you should experience it the
European way," said the marketing and
international business double major.
"Eat the food the Europeans eat, talk
with the Europeans. Immerse yourself

in the culture."
Fitzgerald dispels the myth that travel
abroad requires a great deal of money
and language fluency. "I lived in Greece
on $10 a day. And about 85 percent ofthe
time you can survive on English." When
English will not suffice, he stresses the
need for creativity in communicating.
Actions are sometimes better than
words, he says.
In his book, Fitzgerald discusses the
importance of setting an itinerary and
obtaining money and health protection
coverage.
He explains how to obtain the neces-
sary travel documents, plane tickets and
Eurail passes, and he stresses the impor-
tance of finding a good travel agent in
order to keep expenses to a minimum.
All that's needed to ride the rails is a sin-
gle backpack, he said.
Lists of hotels, pensions and youth
hostels are provided, although
Fitzgerald says, "A lot of people don't
realize that you can sleep for free in the
train stations, beaches and parks."
Fitzgerald's final suggestion is to
"relax. Don't agonize over what you don't
know. You'll fill in the gaps as you go, and
the experience of Europe can be as fresh
and spontaneous as you're willing to
make it."

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GERALD KELLEY, THE UNIVERSITY DAILY.

Psych major tries for Guinness rec

Memorizes 6,000 digits a day
By Catharine McSwegin
Kansas State Collegian
Kansas State U.
Rajan Mahadevan has no trouble remembering
phone and claim ticket numbers.,
The Kansas State U. graduate student memorized
31,811 digits of pi in 1981 to break the memory record
in the Guinness World Book of Records.
The record has since been broken, but three K-State
psychology professors and a graduate student have
received a $157,000 grant to study the psychology
major's ability to memorize about 6,000 digits a day in
preparation for a new record.
During the testing, four control subjects perform the
same tests as Mahadevan, and then the results are
compared. A distinction can then be made between
practice and ability, explained Rod Vogl, the graduate
student involved in the study.
Mahadevan said although he often makes associa-
tions between numbers and certain things, he doesn't
have a specific pattern. If a number is matched with a
date or a set of numbers during one memorization set,
the pattern won't necessarily be used the next time.

During the school year, he is tested abc
each day. One such test involved reading f
10-digit numbers to Mahadevan. He then s
recited the numbers in the correct order a fR
later. He also said them backwards.
Mahadevan says he can remember the r
memorizes for nine months to a year withc
and several years with practice.
Mahadevan has received national expos
ability and is often overwhelmed by publici
64 interviews in a period of two months
Nightwatch and the NBC Today Show. I
honored by the Indian Ambassador in \A
D.C., for distinguishing himself in this cou
Mahadevan said his ability to retain and r
bers was first noticed when he was five. I
had a party for about 40 people, and he men
recited the license plate numbers of all the
His grandfather, father and brother also ]
tional memories, so Mahadevan said his al
stand out. "I never treated it seriously. It's
of me, like fingers are a physical part of m
"When you have some skill, and if by usin
achieve a level of excellence, you'll go for it
challenge involved to see to what extent you
human potential."

SHERI JACOBS, THE DAILY STUDENT, U. OF INDIANA, BLOOMINGTON
Indiana University senior Brigette Clumb takes the tricycle from senior Beth Blake.
The sorority members were practicing for a competition called the Mini 500.

Former tennis star directs theater

r

By Laurie Whitten
The University Daily Kansan
U. of Kansas
Gazing down from his director's chair onto the darkened
stage below, Reggie Hodges began to smile..
"You have to have such a complete eye for this," Hodges said
as he watched an assistant push a ladder across the floor. "So
many details have to come together. You can't just be concerned
with what the actors are doing. There's a million technical ele-
ments to take care of. Basically you're required to have a hand
in everything."
For Hodges, a fifth-year senior from Washington, D.C., jug-
gling many responsibilities at once is nothing new. The 22-
year-old theater major has played four years of U. of Kansas
varsity tennis, acted in several university productions, and
recently directed the play Sexual Perversity In Chicago, by
David Mamet, in conjunction with his Theater 609 class.
When he was recruited to come to Kansas in 1984, Hodges
said, he had no plans to pursue a career in acting or directing.
Playing tennis year-round left him no time to even consider it.

"With all the traveling and practicing involved with tennis,
I could never commit to theater, as far as performing or direct-
ing," said Hodges, who was team captain when the Jayhawks
won the Big Eight Conference championship last year.
"Theater is like a sport as far as time demands. With rehearsals
and shows, you just can't pull off and say, 'Hey, I'm playing in
the Rolex tournament this weekend.' So I postponed taking
my performance credits until my eligibility was over. I wanted
to make sure I could commit to it 100 percent."
His theatrical talent was first discovered in an English 102
class, Hodges said. The students had finished a reading of
Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, and the teacher, Paul
Steven Lim, suggested that he take an acting class.
"I took the class my sophomore year, and I really liked it,"
Hodges said. "Before, I knew that I wanted to go into some sort
of broadcast or communications field. After that class, I started
to lean toward theater. I dove in with both feet this year once
I knew I had the time."
Although-auditioning was a terrifying experience for him,
he said that tennis had helped prepare him for performing
under pressure in front of an audience.

-|V. . . .. .
CHRISTOPHER T. ASSAF, KANSAS STATE COLLEGIAN, KANSAS STATE
Rajan Mahadevan earned a Guinness World Book record in
1981 when he memorized 31,811 digits of pi.

Campus ad agency offers competition, real-world experien

By Teresa Granda
The North Texas Daily
U. of North Texas
A small house on the corner of the U.
of North Texas campus holds what stu-
dents call a creative romper room for
adults.
The room is part of a unique advertising
agency calledFineline, where 15 ofthe top
advertising art students at NT put in long
hours gaining practical experience.
An extension ofthe advertising artpro-
gram, Fineline offers a professional envi-

ronment for students, said Faculty
Adviser David Blow.
Fineline completes projects that many
professional agencies will not take
because they cannot afford to or clients
cannot afford their services. Students
have worked on campaigns for the
Humane Society and the Dallas
Handicapped Society.
When Fineline receives a project, each
student submits his work for the job, and
then a client chooses which submission
most closely suits their needs.
"Just like the real world, it's very com-

petitive among the students on what is
the best idea for an assignment. That's
what we strive for," Blow said.
Fineline's creative director, senior Joe
Goodwin, said this competition is
healthy. "Usually when we work togeth-
er as a group, better ideas, better con-
cepts, better designs come out. It's a com-
munity effort. If no competition was pre-
sent, we'd be satisfied with the first solu-
tion that came up."
The primary goal of Fineline is to
establish professional portfolios for the
students while familiarizing them with

professional standards, Bloc
operate like a professional d
and at the same time help t
improve their weaknesses.
In addition to building thei
students are paid for their
agency generates its ow
through commissions.
Senior James Lacey said,
are some of the hardest-wor
on campus. You look at the
people are partying all the
just seems like they have a
We're up here to all hours of