Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Oct. 7, 1982, edition 1 / Page 3
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entertainment etc. Thursday, Oct. 7, 1982/Kaleidoscope/3 Book revie By Dana Murdock Ellie: A Child's Fight Against Leukemia, by Jonathon Tucker. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 338 pages. $15.95. Although the lives of many are affected by cancer, few of us are tru ly informed about the disease and its treatment. Ellie, by Jonathon Tucker, educates readers about leukemia and the methods used to treat the disease, while at the same time in volving readers in a moving story. Ellie Murphy is a fictional 4-year- old girl, whose character and story are compiled from three separate case histories of leukemia victims. Ellie’s recurrent bruises, rashes and sudden high fevers concerned her parents, yet they passed off her symptoms as mere childhood ailments. It is not until Ellie’s visiting aunt, a nurse, insists on calling a doctor that the family’s long struggle begins. The child is diagnosed as having Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, or ALL. / From chemotherapy to remission, to bone marrow transplant, Ellie il lustrates the anguish of a family faced with a potentially fatal disease and how each member copes. Coping varies from total absorp tion with the child on the mother’s side, to sullen withdrawal from the child on the father’s side. Tucker combines sketches and descriptions of procedures, with the characters of the Murphy family to show the “life goes on” aspect of cancer [or any disease]. He provides a portrayal of human strength when faced with death. He also provides complete medical history, including all clinical procedures. Ellie’s story ended happily with her apparent cure, yet her family will never be the same after the months and years of Ellie’s pain and treatment. Both cancer victims and their families will be comforted in know ing what to expect from the disease. Tucker describes each procedure in clinical as well as layman’s terms. He also shows possible side effects of all treatments. Although every victim’s story varies, and everyone may not sur vive this devastating disease, Ellie shows the vast improvements made in cancer treatment in the past decade. CONCERTS Oct. 7 Jethro Tull Atlanta Omni 8 Conway Twitty Asheville Civic Center 9 Conway Twitty Charlotte Coliseum 10 Conway Twitty Knoxville CoUseum 13 Scorpions Charlotte Coliseum 16 Jimfhy Buffett Littlejohn Coliseum Clemson University 19 Glen Frey Atlanta Fox 20 Crosby, Stills and Nash Atlanta Omni 20 38 Special Reid Gymnasium Western Carolina University 22 Crosby, Stills and Nash Charlotte Coliseum 30 Floyd Cramer; Boots Randolph Chet Atkins Freedom Hall-Johnson City Nov. 3 Van Halen Atlanta Onmi 26 The WHO Atlanta Omni Information courtesy of WWIT Canton, N.C. Btllage (iallericH 9 Boston Way • Biltmore Village I r Movie review Pink Floyd The Wall Butch Ochsenreiter (704) 274-2424 P.O. Box 8442 Asheville, NO 28814 By Kari Howard It went beyond my wildest night mares. PINK FLOYD THE WALL reaches a height of horror unsur passed and -I hope- unsurpassable. Like one’s own worst nightmare, it cannot be forgotten; instead it grows, devouring the mind in its hideousness. Needless to say. Pink Floyd fans expecting to see some meaningless footage showcased by the sound track of the monumental album of the same name will be disconcerted. That is not to say that those cuts are not included; indeed, they are the film. There is no dialogue to speak of, save a despairing scream that echoes dully in the bowels of the soul. Stunned audiences view with in creasing alarm a montage of scenes piiBced together with amazing and graphic clarity. Dispassionate school children singing “we don’t need no education” march through murky tunnels while a monstrous headmaster counts time; at each count they passively fall into an obscene meat grinder. Moments later they metamorphose into rebellion and burn the school and its dictator down. Childlike qualities are con spicuously absent in both these pitiful cWldren and the grotesque cartoons that flicker throughout. An imagination gone amuck animates evil. A cartoon dove is decimated and transformed into an ugly black death machine of World War II that rains destruction on London. Fear stampedes the city, leaving idealism trampled in its wake. Here is the story of one man’s futile strug gle to dismantle a wall of hurt that society has built around him. It is a story that is devoid of all hope; Pink Floyd [played with hor rific anguish by Bob Geldof of the Irish band. The Boomtown Rats] is a burned-out rock singer who cheerlessly sifts through the ashes of his life. Here he encounters the charred remains of his father, in cinerated in a furious holocaust. He focuses briefly on a document sent from King George -stamped with his royal highness’ personal rubber stamp- that praises the dead soldier for dying valiantly for his country. Each brick is irrevocably cemented in. The final brick, an ex plicit flash of Mrs. Floyd’s infideli ty, leads to the ghastly last battle of self-destruction. He bleeds but feels no pain; his soul is numb. The ravaged Pink Floyd symbolically dies and is resurrected. In gruesome contrast to the Christian rebirth, he becomes an antichrist of sorts. The wall stretches into infinity. Pink Floyd cannot escape. He no longer wants to. Garbed in a sinister black uniform, he orders euphoric masses to pay homage to hate. In a fervor his followers pas sionately obey the commands to persecute suspected undesirables: “He looks Jewish! Throw liim against the waU.” Pink Floyd is in sane; his mind seethes as his soul is annihilated. It is frightening to watch a man disintegrate. I cannot recommend it, but you cannot miss it.
University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper
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Oct. 7, 1982, edition 1
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