ARTS Monday, October 15, 1990 The Michigan Daily Mould isn't too far down Page 5 IN evi by Annette Petruso "I wish for things I never had/ *urrounds and wells up in my eyes! the screaming voice, it lies" - "Wishing Well." "I think the songs are uplifting, actually," Bob Mould replied when asked if he is a depressed person. When you think about it, that's what the songs are - an obvious emo- tional release which makes people think about life, their own and ould's. From the controlled yet omber rage disclosed on Workbook to the searing guitars and mostly bit- ter lyrics found on Black Sheets of Rain, Mould has allowed listeners to peer into his intricate conscious- ness. His pensive, self-reflective angst has been on public display for a number of years, first as a driving force in the band Hasker D. After *heir break-up in 1988, Mould lived alone on a Minnesota farm, working on what was to be known as Work- book. "Well, the silence in this house! it echoes in this house/ I pull myself together, say/ 'Today I will get out"'" -"Lonely Afternoon" Soon after Workbook's release, Mould moved to New York and Poured in support of the album. He released Black Sheets of Rain just a couple of months ago. AP: Did the change of environ- ment have anything to do with the change in sounds between albums? BM: It's got something to do with it, yeah. I think a lot of the :ouring from last year as well. You khow, just getting back out and playing for people, getting that en- rgy going again. Also, I really liked playing electric guitar again on this 'record. Not that Workbook didn't gave any but this record is a lot more forward, I think. "These sins, they seem to fit you well" - "Sinners and their Repen- tances" AP: Workbook uses the images of sins and lies over and over again. Why? BM: Because it's better than say- ing right and wrong. Right and wrong is the kind of thing you really can't put a finger on. I think the dif- ference between truth and lies is a lot more interesting question. "Checking in every morning to the sound of steam and caffeine/ the sludge in the bottom of the cup just like the sludge in the stream/ slag *heap keep growing higher! every morning the sky it's on fire and it's only 9 a.m." - "Black Sheets of Rain" AP: Why is Black Sheets of Rain so full of nature imagery? BM: It's just metaphors for states of mind. It's not an environ- Kiss In The Hotel Joseph Conrad - And Other Stories Howard Norman Penguin/softcover A hotel wallpapered with the pages of Joseph Conrad stories, an 4 skimo woman who believes her missing son is in a jukebox, two mannequins embracing in a truck - elements like these set apart the sto- ries of seemingly simple characters. Yet Howard Norman's short stories in Kiss in the Hotel Joseph Conrad do not rely on the shock value of bizarre images. Their straightforward narration and clear images come from the viewpoint of an insider, "one who finds these small town oc- mental statement at all. On Work- book, people were finding a lot of religious imagery that I really didn't think was there until they mentioned it. It's just words that I choose to convey a feeling. "Lately I've been thinking and how the whole world's come un- done/ everybody's got this sinking feeling/ feeling they're on the run." - "It's Too Late" AP: The nature imagery that you use seems negative. It could be called social or political commen- tary. And at the end of the video for "It's Too Late," the wall has the ACT-UP slogan "Silence = Death" on it. Are you becoming more so- cially or politically active in your music and in your own life? BM: The idea of the video is it touches on a lot of different things. It's interesting, the people who have seen it have all responded to different ones, whether it was the environ- mental stuff or whether it was the homeless scenario or whether the censorship thing or the AIDS thing. I think, what it comes down to... in popular music there are a lot of peo- ple who have felt a need to make their cause the most important one throughout their music. And I have a pretty basic fundamental problem with that because people look at what I do because I'm a musician and there's always that fear impact if I were to just stay on one thing or get really active in a way like being really environmentally aware in the music, people would go 'yeah Bob Mould, yeah we love his music,I'm into the environment now.' I guess what I'm trying to get at is that ev- erybody has to make their own per- sonal agenda as to what's important in their life. I think, with the video what we're trying to present is a lot of different options... maybe it's helping them sort out their agenda. "I've been on the mend/ I've been getting ready to change my name again/ and once I had a love so fair/ once I had a reason to keep on/ left a paragraph taped up on my door/ it said 'don't wait up cause I ain't coming home'/ so I've been driving far and wide to find a call in life/ been looking for a place I be- long" -"Hanging Tree?" AP: You use "I" a lot in your songs. How much of this is you? BM: Pretty much all of it. AP: Are you a depressed person or do you just use songs to relieve depression? BM: I think a lot. When I'm re- ally enjoying life, really having a good time with people that's not when I write songs. When I write, I'm by myself, just thinking about things, things that confuse me, things that aren't right. In writing those songs, it's maybe a way to find what the solution is. A delightful day at the Zoo "During that twenty seconds - or two hours -we made contact," said the character Jerry, played by Richard Perloff, about his landlady's hound dog from hell in the Basement Arts production of The Zoo Story this weekend. Yet the statement ap- plies to the effect Perloff and Andy Newberg (Peter) had on the audience in Edward Albee's two character one- act play. They made contact. The Zoo Story, while one of the most intense and provoking one-act plays ever written, is extremely dif- ficult to perform. Making a conver- sation in Central Park between a Yuppie type and a transient exciting to an audience seems almost impos- sible, especially when one of them rambles on for 25 minutes. But Perloff and Newberg, as directed by Jeffrey Chrisope, succeeded in pulling in their audience, pushing them to the edge of their seats, and making them lean forward at a 45 degree angle to catch every word of dialogue. Perloff's intensity is the glue that kept the performance together, from the moment he walked on stage and said, "I've been to the zoo," to the final "Oh...my...God," that he gasped as the dying Jerry. When he described his small room in a brown- stone rooming house on the west side of Central Park, we saw it. When he rambled his account of poi- soning the "descendant of the puppy that guarded the gates o hell or some other such resort," we were right there with him, putting the rat poison in the hamburger. And when he pulled the knife-wielding Peter to him, forcing the blade to pierce his ribs, we were there, as bewildered and shocked.as Peter. Newberg's performance, with his congenial manner and confused looks, ("Why did you tell me all of this?") played off of Perloff's psy- chotic behavior beautifully. Al- though such phrases as "My good fellow," and the smoking of a pipe at the onset of the play did not come natural to the youthful Newberg, his anger, bewilderment, and fright throughout the rest (after about the first 10 minutes) were right on tar- get. In addition, the direction by Chrisope was extremely insightful, although the lighting was a little odd. The red light at the beginning of Jerry's poisoned dog speech was too dramatic, and given Perloff and Newberg's energy, altogether unnec- essary. - Mary Beth Barber Bob Mould and his guitar - sure to inspire multiple orgasms for anyone who hears him play live. "Well, I'm sorry your disap- pointed but times they change and so did I" - "Disappointed" AP: When people get really into certain musicians, a common phrase used is so-and-so is God. I've been hearing that lately about you. What do you think about that and what does it feel like to be called a God? BM: I'm glad they like the mu- sic. I don't know if I'd want that handle but if it makes them think about themselves and makes them realize what they go through is, it's unique to them, but the experiences or situations that I sing about, you know, happen to everybody. At whatever level people tap into this music is, I have no control over that. I've got a responsibility to make music that reflects what I'm thinking about and that's an honest representation. I don't have an obli- gation to be anything to anyone. I think everybody's strong enough in their own way to do what they need to do. "And everybody goes whichever way the wind blows" -"Vhichever Way the Wind Blows" AP: Do you identify with Jesus Christ? BM: No, but there's somebody that makes the whole thing spin... BOB MOULD appears tonight at the Nectarine Ballroom with ULTRA VIVID SCENE opening. Doors open at 9 p.m. Tickets are $13.50 available at Schoolkid's (plus an evil $1 service charge) and at Tick- etmaster (plus a larger evil service charge). s Have you and your friends discovered one of the 20th century's most influential thinkers? currences entirely normal. The stories read as variations on a theme; the solitary men (and boys) who are the main characters look for something they do not have, or can not find. Their abstract longings for understanding and solace in a lonely world take on different forms. Jake, a fourteen-year-old boy, finds escape from his unloving parents by writing long letters to his estranged Aunt Helen, whose life revolves around her experience as a shipwreck survivor. An ex-pilot nurses his unrequited love for a married woman during almost. 20 years of nowhere jobs and cheap hotels. He remarks on the Hotel Joseph Conrad, "The joke was that more people had checked in than had checked out... Transients, mostly, and old tenants who signed in each night just to make sure they were home." Themes of transiency run through the book; half the main characters are train conductors and no story is set in just one town. In the last story, a failed set designer from L.A. ends up running a drive-in movie theater in Vermont. Whether or not any of these characters find fulfillment is unsure; simple stories do not always have simple answers. Reading short stories can be fit into schedules with mile-long reading lists and ten-page paper as- signments. The benefit of reading what the publisher calls "Contemporary American Fiction" is See BOOKS, page 7 Famous for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand is also the originator of Objectivism, a philosophy as radical and elec- trifying as her novels. In a mere 33 years, as the walls of totalitarianism come tumbling down, Objectivism has spread from a lecture hall in New York to campuses all over the world. OBJECTIVISM-A PHILOSOPHY FOR LIVING ON EARTH Ayn Rand challenges the anti-mind doctrines still polluting our culture and classrooms. She holds that: - Reality exists as an objective fact - Reason is man's only means of knowledge - Rational selfishness is the essence of virtue -Laissez-faire capitalism is the moral social system "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." 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