The Michigan Daily - Friday, October 2, 1992- Page 9 Neglected *author recollects a colonial *:Barbados byJohn Morgan ___ George Lamming, a native of Barbados, certainly ranks among the most neglected writers of contemnpo- rary literature. i s works, especially his first novel, "In the castle of My Skin," (1953) are considered ground-breaking in that they have proven to the natives of the * Caribbean that their home land is something that can be dealt with in fiction. He has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize ... and yet hardly anyone rec- ognizes his name. "It's shocking that more people don't know who he is," said Joanna Rubiner, a publicist at the University of Michigan Press, which has reprin ted three of Ia unm ing' s books *and has plans for several more. She feels that this is a result of a bias in our educational system. "It's only recently that schools have started teaching African-American writers, let alone writers from other coun- ties," she said. La mming's work looks into the people of a land once subjected to European colonization, and the ef- .fect this has had on the culture of the area. His novels call for a confronta- tion between the peoples of the Caribbean and their colonial past. Lo-mrming has also revised percep- tions of Shakespeare's "The Tein- pest,"which he sees as an allegory for the relationship between Euro- pean colonists and those who were colonized. Lammuing examines the psychology of both groups in an at- Otemrpt to characterize this often un- pleasant part of our history. In addition to the contribution he has made to literature, Lamming is considered a major force in the African diaspora. Many writers have matned himn as a source of inspira- tion, including the poet Edward Bcathiwaite. He spends much of his tipme traveling, and as a result has become a sort of ambassador for his Wpeople and culture. "lie is a tower- 'IT fi gure, and also quite a statesman because he has had so many connections with other writers in other countries," Rubiner said. "H-e stays true to his country. So often a writer will make it big and leave the homeland behind." Lamming's other achievements are numerous. Hle has lived in the U.S. and Great Britain. As a jour- *nalist he was involved in the strug- Band breeds eclectic teenbeats Lamming by Greg Baise Unrest sounds like a more or less non-hokey "love rock" band produced by Martin Hlannett, only better. They kind of didn't used to, but that was then, and this is, well, this is inrest, with a new British label (Guernica -- which is the new project of 4AD1 gauze collec- tor Ivo), a new bass player since the last time we heard from them, and one of the best albums of the year -- "Imperial f.f.r.r.' It comes on like a beautiful late sum- mner/early autunmn afternoon that begins with a picnic, continues through hours of intimacy, and ends with a stellar musical cre- ation. The band keeps getting better and better, maturing from their days of guitar monster/folk-rock/ Kiss cover luxtapositions into something that makes the sublime Galaxie 500 seem uninspired and makes the Joy Division/ Factory heyday seem like yesterday. As drummer Phil Krauth explained, "I think we're just doing the stuff we really want to do, as opposed to just kind of goofing off." "Imperial f.f.r.r." (on No. 6 here in the States) strips both the unbridled vortex guitars of "Kustom Karnal Blackxploita- tion" and the avant-Kiss-Elvis- goof productions of "Malcolm X Park" and focuses on the vintage Factory-ish feel of early songs like "The Hill" in a quite unembarrass- ing fashion. Krauth sees this streamlining as indicative of Unrest's future di- rection: "I think it's not going to be as erratic or hard-edge sound- ing." Still there's the modern lov- ing propulsion of "Suki," the hal- leludubbed "Champion Nines," and the acoustic ballad "Isabel," all to be found on their latest "full frequency range recording." Unrest was founded in Wash- ington, D.C. in 1985, when gui- tarist/touching wordsmith/quite cultured guy Mark E. Robinson and Krauth were still in high school. The band culled its name from the second Henry Cow record, as Robinson explained: "We were listening to old King Crimson records, and things like that, and I think somebody just kind of accidentally picked up on that, because this one record store we went to sold a lot of art rock stuff, and they had all of these strange albums with socks on them. Those were the Henry Cow records, for $4.99. So we bought them, and they were really good stuff." When the band started out, Robinson started his own record label, Teenbeat. "We used to make tapes of our friends' bands and we would sell them around school," he said. One of the more recent Teenbeat releases has been a CD edition of "The Tube Bar," which are recordings of a series of prank phone calls to "Red," the proprietor of the eponymous bar. No doubt these recordings influ- enced Bart Simpson's similar ef- forts. Robinson explained that this was one of the label's most popu- lar recordings: "Teenbeat is a small, independent label, and we usually don't do more than two thousand of anything. But of the Tube Bar we've probably done four thousand, which is pretty amazing considering that it's not music." Rounding out the Unrest lineup is bassist Bridget Cross, who joined the band about a year and a half ago. She said, "I hadn't really been playing bass until I started with Unrest. For some reason they wanted me to do it - God only knows why!" Before joining Un- rest, Cross sang with Velocity Girl. After joining Unrest she sounded like a mixture of a dubby Holger Czukay, a straight-ahead Peter Hook, and an electric Mod- em Lovers-era Ernie Brooks. That sounds like the makings of a band you can be proud of, and Unrest sounds like the best band in America right now. But that's only because they are. Screw Na- tion of Ulysses, Superchunk, Pix- ies, Lemonheads, and all that prep / college / 90210 heartthrob stuff. Unrest is the sassiest band in America. UNREST really does fit in be- tveen HIS NAME IS ALIVE and THE BREEDERS tonight at St. Andrew's Hall. A gle of African-Americans in Al- abama during the 1960s. He helped to establish a connection between Latin American writers and the Caribbean, including Cuba, which he began visiting annually in the wake of Castro's revolution and continues to this day. He has known Langston Hughes, Chinua Achebe and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Lamming is being brought to Ann Arbor by the American Culture Program. Rubiner hopes that this reading will have a "casual atmo- sphere" that will allow those attend- ing to learn more about the man and his work. Great minds are too often ne- glected by their contemporaries, and this unfortunate trend has once again taken its toll in George Lamming's case. But we are now presented with the opportunity to reverse this situa- tion. It is still possible to do justice to the author who has done so much to document events and places that are frequently ignored by our own culture. GEORGE LAMMING will be read- ing at the Trotter House tOdaly at 4 pm. Admission is free. 4 r " " "" "" " I M FLICKS 1992/93 1 'OCT 2 1 1 3 1 1 1 6 x 9 10 d 16 & 17 z 23 24 U 30 1 Diner The Graduate Diner The Graduate *SNEAK PREV Beauty and the -""""N CLIP-N-SAVE ' - 3 FILM LIST -Times & Dates are subject to change. 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