The Michigan Daily
Swingers of the

ARTS
Wednesday, April 18, 1990
world unite!

Page 5

by Peter Shapiro

SWINGERS unite! You have noth-
ing to lose but your acid-washed
jeans. Swingers in Michigan have
been oppressed for far too long by
the cultural imperialism of the
state's power structure. The mani-
festo for statewide liberation of the
unbearably hip will be proclaimed
soon. The Voice is coming.
Swingers are born free, but ev-
erywhere they are in chains. Until
now, that is. The Chairman of the
Board of the union of ultra-swingers
is coming to the Fox Theatre in De-
troit for four shows of liberation and
communal celebration. Swingers
from Sault Ste. Marie to Milan will
be able to congregate without fear of
reprisal for the first time in years.
Yes, Ol' Blue Eyes is coming.
The man who single-handedly in-
vented not only pop music in gen-
eral, but everything that bears the
label of hipness, will be at the altar.
Suavity, cool and hip ooze from his
furrowed brow in streams of am-
And Eternity
by Piers Anthony
William Morrow /$15.95
Everyone should, at one time or
another, sit in the back of a really
I boring two-hour English lecture for
which they haven't done the reading
,and stare. At the blackboard. For two
W:hours. The effect is unnatural, drug-
:like. Odd things come to mind. Odd
;:things, like a scene from this book.
The scene is set in Heaven. The
main character, a very religious
'woman who just spent 90 percent of
R.the story getting there, enters the
a presence of God to beg for the soul
of her dead baby. She beholds the
::Face of God: He is staring into His
own glorious reflection in a triple
ring of haloes around Him. She falls
to her knees and pleads for her baby.
God just stares. She continues,
telling Him of the evil she has seen:
that Satan is preparing to take over
the world. He continues staring. Fi-
nally she begs that if nothing else,
He do something to save the world,
because she has seen that World War
III is about to end all life on Earth.
God continues staring at Himself.
He is-captivated by his own beauty.
He has been for the last thousand
years. The woman leaves in tears.

brosial nectar. Religion and ritual are
no longer necessary, preachers lose
their social significance, and politi-
cians lose their power when Frank
sings "I've Got You Under My
Skin."
This occurs not because Frank
has you under his skin, but because
you have Frank under yours. When
he performs, Frank is omnipresent;
his emotional power is so great that
he seeps into the audience's collec-
tive psyche. This power comes from

Mandalay and seen things on State
Street, that great street, that they
just don't do on Broadway. By crawl-
ing under the audience's skin, Frank
exhibits the virtues of the true egali-
tarian. Everyone in attendance at his
shows, for they are not merely con-
certs, acquires some minute portion
of his power and his hipness. This is
why these performances have such
monumental importance in the
Swingers Liberation Movement.
But Frank is important for more
reasons than just his political rele-

thing Frank sings, he makes his
own. Just as Truffaut made Brad-
bury's Fahrenheit 451 his own, so
does Frank with his versions of Cole
Porter classics and that inimitable
Harrison ballad, "Something." No-
body else in the world can get away
with lines like, "there's a Burma
broad asettin'/ and I know she thinks
of me," or "the mamselles and
frajileins and the senoritas are sweet/
but they can't compete/ because they
just don't have/ what the models
have/ on Madison Ave."
Sinatra stands for all that is
America. He is a self-made man, a
rugged individualist who is con-
stantly striving to re-define himself
in an ever-changing world, making
himself more relevant, and most im-
portantly, more hip. Besides, his
daughter sang "These Boots Are
Made for Walking."
FRANK SINATRA will hold ser-
vices at the Fox Theater in Detroit
from April 19-22. Tickets cost a lot
of money.

Religion and ritual are no longer necessary,
preachers lose their social significance, and
politicians lose their power when Frank sings
"I've Got You Under My Skin."

his experience. Frank has travelled
the camel route to Iraq, peeked at the
Niagara Falls, traversed the road to

vance in an oppressive regime.
Frank is a true craftsman, an artiste,
or more precisely an auteur. Every-

Frank Sinatra is working to usher in a new era, one of the dictatorship of
the truly hip.
Wanna write? The Summer Daily
mass meeting is tonight at 7 p.m.
We're at 420 Maynard, second floor.

The whole novel is poorly writ-
ten (I wouldn't ruin an important
scene if it weren't, now, would I?)
and the idea has been used before.
The problem was, though, that
the only reason I'd been chasing this
train of thought was that I hadn't
read the amazingly super-proficient
masterpiece that had been assigned to
the class. I'd been reading modern
crap instead. The author of the stuff I
had read wasn't dead yet. He wasn't a
master of prose or plot or symbol-
ism or anything. And this got me
thinking (in a classroom, no less)
about literature as a whole.
I suspect everyone has, at one
time or another, thrown a book
across the room in disgust, cursing
it for being boring. Even if it is
stuffed full of Characterization,
Symbolics, beautiful passages of
prose or any of that other stuff that
the Literature people study. Why?
Well, if you've got a headache
and only have 12 hours to read 300

pages of stuff written in weird 16th-
Century English about the trials of
being an aristocrat, admittedly you
may not be in shape to fully appre-
ciate the Subtle Imagery in a passage
of prose. But there are times when a
book will force itself on you, and
not always just by losing its sub-
tlety. All those wonderful literary
devices add up to zip unless they
point to something, something in-
tangible and always just beyond the
page, but something the author
thought was so important that he or
she sat down and wrote and wrote
until he or she thought the point
was finally made. See, Anthony is
talking about God: the sort of thing
that brings on wars and relation-
ships, and using this to show the
frailty and destruction of faith. Who
cares if he does it badly?
In the end, I think, no matter
how poorly written or how empty or
simple it may be, the final criterion
See BOOKS, page 8

Just Kidding, a group that bills
itself as "The alternative to stand-up
comedy," is holding auditions for
new performers until next Monday.
For specifics call Rob Marks at 971-
5635.


.
"T'

- .

0
0
0

SHIPPING STORAGE BOXES AND TAPE
THINGS TO DO:
L jc mmm6[M M





~- -~ -
-~-~'. - ,. -

2t
ey3s

r, .,"

Good Time
Charley's ss411I
Restaurant & Bar

SUMMER
JOBS
AVAILABLE
ALL OFFICE SKILLS
NEEDED INCLUDING:
WORD PROCESSORS
TYPISTS
SECRETARIES
GENERAL CLERICAL
TELEMARKETERS
Your choice of
location in
Detroit Metro Area
Work as much as
you want.
NO FEES
CALL FOR APPT.


m