The Michigan Daily - Weekend etc - Thursday, January 20, 1994 - 3 0v Hits keep on coming Mini-disc player expensive toy By TOM ERLEWINE Recently, I was given a Sony Mini-Disc player to experiment with for a week, to take on a test drive. The University was part of Sony's target audience in an attempt to spread the word of the Mini-Disc. Big-Ten schools were chosen to be the core of Sony's fall marketing campaign because we, as college students, are the audience that is most receptive to new technologies. We are also the audience that spends the most money on music, but that's beside the point. Theoretically, what makes the Mini-Disc so attractive is its combination of portability and recordability. It is smaller than any Discman; the discs themselves are smaller than a 3 1/2" computer disc and the player itself is very compact, about the size of a large Walkman. Although the size.of the player is attractive, what makes it more appealing is the fact that it can store information in its memory so the music never skips. You can swing the Mini- Disc around in a circle above your head and the damn thing would still sound as if it were lying on a table. Sonically, the Mini-Disc is very impressive. Through headphones, the system sounds identical to a Discman. When it's run through an amplifier, however, the differences between a CD player and a Mini-Disc become apparent. Compact Discs remain the superior format - CDs have a warmer, fuller sound than the comparatively thin, trebly Mini-Disc (which is odd, considering that they are frequently criticized for being harsh and inorganic by some vinyl-loving audiophiles). In particular, Pearl Jam's "Ten" benefited by the extra sonic presence of the CD. Still, these minor sonic differences are barely noticeable when you're walking around town underneath a pair of headphones. Noticeable, unfortunately, is the sonic inferiority of home-recorded Mini- Discs. On the sample blank Mini-Disc I recorded several songs that featured extreme dynamic levels. At first I recorded Urge Overkill's "Sister Havana," which begins with a few seconds of sound effects before a single guitar plays the riff, followed by the rest of the band in a couple of measures. The Mini-Disc player read the quiet sound effects at the beginning as the overall dynamic of the track; when the guitar part began, it was quite loud. Instead of the music becoming even louder when the bass and drums kicked in (as it was supposed to), the player realized its mistake and adjusted for the new level, making the music muted and quieter. Thinking that this might be a fluke, I decided to see what the organ to guitar transition in the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" sounded like - it suffered from the same muted dynamics as Urge. For some this might seem like a trivial complaint, but the fact of the matter is, these changed dynamics alter the emotional impact of the music. On PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me," a song where the guitar and vocals are barely audible for the first ninety seconds, the music was brought out to the front, completely ruining the devastating impact of the full band's explosive entrance later in the song. Some music fans can ignore these fluctuating dynamics, preferring to concentrate on the fact that you can record the tracks on the Mini-Disc in any order and rearrange them later. Others, like myself, will be frustrated by the sonic inadequacies of the Mini-Disc. Still, the sound of the pre-recorded discs remains impressive and more and more titles are being pressed in this format, including such unlikely candidates as Sugar's magnificent "Copper Blue" and the Outfield's largely forgotten "Play Deep." No matter how many titles are available, the question of whether the market is ready for another format remains. Competing for the same market as the Mini-Disc is Phillips' Digital Compact Cassette, which can also play normal analog cassettes in addition to the digital cassettes. Both formats boast similar list prices (around $750) and both feature allegedly similar sound. Neither format is selling very well because the market doesn't need another piece of hardware; it needs cheaper software. Even the difference between a Walkman and the Mini-Disc is quite small.. It is very hard to notice the sonic differences between the two systems on a portable player because, no matter what anyone says, you don't really listen for sonic details when you're walking out on the street. The Mini-Disc does offer several neat features as well as remarkable sound, but ultimately it is a luxury. Still, it's a lot of fun for those who have some extra cash. Abel Ferrara's first mainstream film will be a remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and some are wondering if it will equal his independent work. Will manstream prove rise or fall of Abel Ferrara? By ALEXANDRA TWIN Home for Christmas and I started reading the papers again. New York papers are slightly differ- ent from other forms of syndication. They take a certain pride in uncovering and exposing raw, homegrown talent not simply because it's from New York, but because they figure that everybody else will find it interesting simply because it's from New York. It's a certain acquired arrogance that you gain if you live there long enough; I'm no stranger to it. So it was with a certain gloating interest that I turned to New York Newsday's Abel Ferrara article, expecting to be patted on the back for sharing the city with such a cool, weird, "out there" kind of guy. Well the writer was certainly pleased with this independent filmmaker, but not for any of those reasons. She first half-apologeti- cally referred to the trademark use of violence in his films and then went on to applaud him due to the fact that his newest and soon-to-be released "Body Snatchers" remake is a $20 million thriller from some major production company. Appar- ently this factor indicates his "progress towards the mainstream" as she put it. Progress? I don't know. Maybe. But there's something that really bothers me about a state- ment like that. Consider the fact that the majority of independent films are far better than the major- ity of mainstream films. Consider the fact that Abel Ferrara's a guy who's spent a good deal of his career attempting to expose the scratchy un- derbelly of American culture. All this in mind, it seems ironic at best to indicate that Ferrara's sudden involvement with mainstream films is a sign of progress (it also supposes another false- hood - that mainstream films are generally and automatically better than their independent coun- terparts). Progress? Why does this define progress? Granted, it's a tricky word to pinpoint, but in this case, it would seem that if Ferrara is moving any where in the direction of progress, it is away from and not toward. No, this is not the standard "all filmmakers, musicians, writers, etc. who leave their indepen- dent roots to get involved with major companies are sell-outs" argument. That's not the point. There's nothing wrong with seeking a broader audience. The problem lies in the fact that in deliberately seeking a broader audience on some- one else's terms, you automatically run the risk of compromising yourself and your artisitic ideals. There is also the idea that art at its best tends to come from a state of being tat's not completely comfortable. This may be true for the artist per- sonally or for the people who observe it or even just for the material as a separate entity unto itself. "Outlaw stuff," as independent filmmaker Hal Hartley staunchly refers to it, "Art is very often outside of society, a thorn in society's side." Regardless of whether or not you personally agree with that arguably extreme position, it would seem to be almost undeniably true that the notion of art as stemming from discomfort is pretty incompatible with the notion of art as stemming from an all-expenses paid, mass-audience-appeal- at-any-price seeking company. Maybe it's completely unnecessary to judge films as works of art, instead of simply as movies. All filmmakers are certainly not artists and most artists are not filmmakers, or at least not modern- day filmmakers. So let's leave it alone. Let it go. Put your feet up and enjoy the movie. Two hours of unconditional bliss. Yeah, that works. That works for a while. It works through "Die Hard;" it works through "Cliffhanger;" it works through any James Bond film. And then after awhile it doesn't work quite so well, and you find that you want something a little more substantial. That's when it comes back to art. Film is a form of art. Bottom line. It may not be the best form, but that's what it is and that's how it ought to be looked at. When you remove the key artistic element from art and center it around the desire to garner mass-appeal, you've not only set the writer up to be a whore and the producers his pimps, but you've stripped art of the very element that defines it - that it is a genuine and unlimited form of expression. That's progress? I don't know. Maybe it's a pretentious New York thing or maybe Ijust didn't like "Cliffhanger," but as for me, I'll take Abel Ferrara in the gutter over Abel Ferrara on a soundstage anytime. While day people sleep, night people sweep By JOHN R. RYBOCK Plowing the streets after a major storm. Patching up broken watermains or fixing potholes. Maintaining lines. Without these jobs, the city of Ann Arbor would grind to a halt. But there is more to Ann Arbor than the mere practicalities of run- ning the city. There is also the *ightlife. And, I am proud to say, that life would grind to a halt if it wasn't for me. OK, I am not alone. I am part of an almost secret society which resides not just in Ann Arbor but in many cities across the country. We start our day after the first soap operas have aired and been forgotten, as Oprah starts talking to Nazi cross-dressers . We work into the night, punching out f work as most of our peers are passing out on their floors. We are, in case you have not fig- ured at out, the people who make the restaurants, bars and other staples of the :Ann Arbor nightlife function. Bartenders, floormen, waitstaffers, cooks and behind-the-counter jobs. When our classmates are cutting loose on a Thursday night to blow off steam, *om their exams, we are serving them the shots that help them in their en- Know how to read? Like to read? deavor. When students make it out to one of Ann Arbor's fine restaurants, we wait on them and make them their capellini. Not that many of us actually com- plain. For many, the jobs pay our I am part of an almost secret society which resides not just in Ann Arbor but in many cities across the country. bills. Most of us wait tables in a crowded bar or a nice restaurant, get- ting paid $2.52 an hour (Michigan state minimum wage for tip-receiv- ing jobs), giving the best service we can to earn our tips. Jobs off-campus often prove the best in that regard, making up for their inconvenient lo- cations by the older, more generous clientele. It's tough to get a tip from a guy with three bucks to his name buying a dollar pitcher. And in the often closed Univer- sity community, these jobs allow us some interaction with the outside world. In Ann Arbor, we are not just University students. We attend EMU, Washtenaw Community College or maybe we have recently graduated. It was amazing at first to realize that there was something in the Midwest other than the University. And those of us working the bar scene, we truly become creatures both of the night and of little sleep. We clean up the spilled beer and crushed cigarettes (to name some of the nicer things). And for us, the party hasn't even begun. For many of us, it seems gmazing when friends who are not part of the society say "Boy, it's one already. I better head hofme." When we get off work, the bars are closed (we closed them), so we find someone's place and blow a little steam. We start thinking of heading home only as the morning's papers are dropped on the doorsteps. Somewhere in there, some of us manage to get our school work done. And seemingly more often then not, by some grace of God, we manage decent grades. Maybe it has some- thing to do with the fact that we often can't drink on school nights. But in the end, we enjoy being the motor that keeps Ann Arbor's night life going. Customers are often en- joyable to talk to when they are not in adrunken stupor. And on some nights, those of us making tips actually go home with some decent money. But you'll never see us go home.' You're already in bed. I Weddings Memorable THE ,BRIDAL SHOW Sunday, January 23rd Sheraton Inn, Ann Arbor Over $5000 in door prizes including two free airline tickets to Florida courtesy Regerncy Travel and Key Tours J\ ~ 12:30 pm to 3:30 pm Donald J. Munro Professor of Philosophy and Chair, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures 1994 Warner G. Rice Humanities Award Recipient The Distortion of Inquiry in China January 25 Consequences of an Elite Disease February !