t-AGE 4 - N.C. ESSAY
Films by Cotiiand Jones | .vp(,e Public Messiah" A Short Story by Robin Kaplon
Thurs., Feb. 18
8:30 p.m.
Fri., Feb.
19
7 & 9:15 p
m.
Sat Feb
20
2 & 7:30 p
m.
Sun. Feb
21
8:30 p.m
Tues., Feb
1. 23
8:30 p.m.
Thurs., Feb. 25
Sun., Feb.
28
8:30 p.m.
Fri., Feb.
26
3. 7 8. 9 p
.m.
Sat., Feb.
27
7:30 p.m.
Tues., Feb.
16
8:00 p.m.
Sun., Feb.
21
8:30 p.m.
Sun., Feb.
28
8:30 p.m.
For the next two weeks the
local universities and colleges
are showing the following films:
Wake Forest
Tribble Hall
■'Witness For The Prosecution"-
1958 USA With Charles
Laughton, Marlene Dietrich,
Tyrone Power.
"Some Like It Hot" 1959 ■ USA ■
with Marilyn Monroe, Tony
Curtis & Jack Lemmon.
"The Apartment" 1960 USA •
with Shirley McLaine
"One, Two Three" 1961 - USA
with James Cagney
"Irma La Douce" 1963 USA -
with Jack Lemmon & Shirley
McLaine
"Kiss Me Stupid" 1964 - with
Dean Martin
• The ‘fortune Cookie" 1966
USA with Jack Lemmon iS.
Walter Matthau
'The Night They Raided Min
sky's" 1968 USA ■ with Jason
Robards
Guilford College
Dana Hall
"Knife In The Water" Directed
by Poland Polanski
NCSA (Room 200)
"East of Eden" with James
Dean
"Wait Until Dark"
bv Alan Zingale
Review
(the fourth in a series of reviews of records in the NCSA library)
SCHUMANN: Kreisleriana, Op. 16 Variations on a Theme by Clara
Wieck. Vladimir Horowitz, pianist. Columbia MS 7264. (Only the
Kreisleriana is being reviewed.)
Today, a new recording by
Vladimir Horowitz is un
fortunately a rarity. When he
finally does take to recording (or
performing) it becomes an eager,
electric experience for all, filled
with suspense, curiosity, and
mesmerism. Witness the
television special and Carnegie
Hall recitals of the past few
years. In fact, this reviewer
knows of no record by Horowitz
that is not, at least, a con-
verstaion piece among pianists.
This new disc should prove to be
no exception. Horowitz has
chosen a delightfully inviting
work, the Kreisleriana of
Schumann, which well suits his
interpretive temperament and
technical flair.
Schumann originally designed
the Kreisleriana to portray
E.T.A. Hoffman’s literary
creation, Kapellmeister Kreisler,
a half-mad conductor-composer.
But the work grew in proportion
to incorporate portrait of Clara
Weick and even Schumann
himself. Composed in wild fits of
passionate inspiration and fire, it
is one of Schumann’s richest
scores. The complexity of this
three-in-one self-portrait is
fascinating, containing many
subtle levels of meaning. Cer
tainly, more and more music
lovers seem to agree with
Schumann himself who once
ranked the Kreisleriana among
his best works for piano.
Horowitz’s performance here is
staggering. The interpretation of
each piece carries serious weight
( surprising even for Horowitz!)
and the entire set holds together
well. The lines sing with ease and
flow in clear relief against a
NOTE; This new short story will
be serialized during the next
three weeks. WhUe it is of great
length, we feel it is an artistically
and socially valuable story. We
hope that our having to serialize
“TTie Public Messiah” wUl not in
any way deter the reader’s en
joyment or the author’s intention.
PARTI
carefully balanced ac
companiment and Horowitz’s
sensitive phrasing can be called
nothing but ‘elegant’.
In contrast, he also displays
fire, energy, and electricity in the
bold and passionate sections. But
never once does the listener feel
that the performer is exploiting
the music for his own ends.
Technique never interferes here
with Horowitz’s brilliant con
ception of the music. He executes
his ideas with ingenious spon
taneity and one is convinced and
aware of the idea at hand, rather
than its execution.
In sum, Horowitz is everything
he needs to be in this
music; haunting, poetic,
powerful, delicate. And happily,
his playing never approaches the
contrived ,or the academically
stiff, but weaves imaginatively
around the characters of
Kreisler, Clara, and Robert,
especially. With this recording,
Horowitz again confirms the fact
that he is one of the last of the
great romantic pianists alive
today.
Columbia’s engineering is
rewarding. The piano sounds
clear and fluid, with resonant
bass and good balance. Also,
there is sufficient stereo depth.
Regretfully, the pressing does
produce some slight interference
with surface noise, but this is not
terribly noticeable,
note: Incidentally, for those who
are interested, Artur Rubinstein
has also recorded the
Kreisleriana, which was released
by RCA at approximately the
same time last year (curiously
enough!) that Columbia released
Horowitz’s version.
Panther Busts
Cont. From Page 3
then another round of gunfire.
Finally, four youths surrendered.
When it was over, one policemen
had been injured. First reports
said that the policeman was
seriously injured, while later
reports stated that he was in
“satisfactory condition.” One
Panther was wounded.
Framed
These events are seen by
Cornell as a plot, on the part of
someone, to eradicate the
Panthers. He told the Essay that
every incident (except the High
Point case, which occurred after
I talked with Cornell) had been a
frame-up, an attempt to legally
or otherwise strip the Panthers of
leadership and render them
ineffectual. The meat truck in
cident seemed to have been a set
up, a trap, in which the police, the
media and “junkie nigger
lackies” were involved. (The
media’s participation was ex
plained as being their pre
knowledge of the event and
therefore their quickness in
getting to the scene).
Whatever the case, the Pan
thers feel as if they’re targets.
And they’re tired of being put on
the firing line. “The people in the
community are sick of being used
by the pigs,” Cornell said, “and
we’re not taking it any more.
Power to all the people!”
That is how the Panthers see
their current plight. Obviously, it
differs radically from the police
reports. Somewhere, someone is
lying and it would be imporant
and necessary for all citizens to
watch this closely and try to
determine who . . . and why.
He has no control of his lips;
they are like the eyelids of a man
with his eyes put out.
He wears part of a tweed suit,
and in summer, a large colonial
style gray jacket, either flecked
or filthy. The hair is black and
part^ if there is enough rf it:
sometimes it is short, sometimes
it is long and rancid. He wears a
gold earring in his left ear, or a
safety pin hooked into it, if the
ring is in the pawn. He is five feet
two.
He talks almost all the time,
but his speaking from a platform
always coincides with the end of
the unemployment check
collected the week before from
Alder Street in a taxi.
People come up to Dardin time
and time again at the Good
Humor stand asking him to
speak, but he refuses. He’s the
only speaker who walks away
from a crowd, but if he wants
money from them, nothing will
stop him.
Dardin, then, in Washington
Park: He stands on an oil drum,
hunched up, speaking in every
direction; his tongue is as dry as
a parrots, and he sticks it out for
punctuation. It doesn’t have
much other use, covered as it is
with white moss and tongue scab.
The talking goes on at the back of
the throat, the harsh Irish vowels
wound out by an athletic
epiglottis.
Now when you go into a toilet in
this country, says Dardin to the
crowd, all you can see is the
writing on the wall, and it doesn’t
mean Kilroy was here. I'he
average time spent a day in a
lavatory by American citizens is
sixteen minutes, which does not
give them enough time to tran
sfer all the rabid mutterings of
their fertile minds...
He starts speaking over his
shoulder and spots a woman in
the crowd behind him. He turns
around to face her.
Have we been married?
She laughs, makes no reply.
No brain...no brain at all.
Nothing upstairs...but have you
seen the staircase? You will
always find that a woman with a
big bust has a small brain and a
woman with a small bust, Jesus,
she’s no brain at all. The woman
leaves. Dardin talks faster:
Now in America today, as I
have said, any man who is not
queer is not normal. Any man
who marries a woman is queer.
Mixed marriages never...
Now twenty years ago, you
Americans, the few of you that
are left, you were the most potent
poeple the world has ever known.
I mean you were out there
fighting wars and you were
robbing and ravishing, you were
men after my own heart. I
couldn’t wait to get over here and
do some ravishing myself.
Well, many of you people must
believe in the hereafter. I believe
in it. I’m here after a few dollars.
Dardin is the last of the free knee
orators. Dardin earns his living
by breaking the law. It is against
the law for me to ask you for
money, but it is not against the
law for you to give it to me, which
is of course the same thing. Those
of you who wish to continue my
upkeep; I assure each and every
one of you that I shall not insult
any one of you by refusing to take
money off you. If you have no
money, but you would give it to
me if you had it, there’s no need
to walk away ...SMILE
...SMILE....don’t let there
be too many smiles though.
Then again, if you have money
and you’re enjoying listening to
me, and you give me nothing, let
me give you a bit of gypsy advice.
When you get to a street: look
left, look right, and look left
again, because if you were run
down by a bus, honest to God, I
should hate to see you die with
anything that could have
belonged to me in your pocket.
He gets down from the plat
form, whips round the crowd with
his hand out, and shovels money
into his side pocket. The last inan
he comes to just stares at him:
Come on, says Dardin, pay
your fare.
You are Raferty the Poet
playing to empty pockets, says
the man.
I am not a poet, says Dardin,
I’m a con man. Pay your fare.
The man pays.
He used to be such a great
speaker, said Freddie Klein once
to Lomas when they had been
listening to Dardin in the park.
Do you remember him before he
took to drugs?
Yes, said Lomas. He’s still up
to the standard. He has a very
saleable personality...and he
uses it for nothing, except money.
If you have a saleable personality
and you use it to make the breaOi
of this or thatrism smell sweeter,
your personality’s in the wrong
hands. But Dardin, he just slips
his personality into the mind of
the crowd and they exorcize it by
paying him. There are no side
effects. He’s just a tourists’ Irish
man...bleeding at the gills...
It takes some time for the
platform manner to wear (rff.
Dardin has to wait for some in
cident to occur before he tires of
stopping people in the streets,
around Fourth Street, and asking
them: How’s your wife and my
two babies getting along? and
before one of the chains which
links all the jokes is broken.
Either he is arrested, drugged,
taken in hand by Jenny Drake,
who has looked after him on and
off for five years, or he is
rebuffed; he once asked the
newsvendor at the corner of
Waughtown and Chappel how ^
wife and Dardin’s two babies
were getting along. The
newsvendor replied. Dardin took
a newspaper from the newstand,
gave the man a quarter, told him
to keep the change and tore the
paper into shreds, hurling them
mainly at a poster for the film
ARISTOCATS. KEEP THE
CHANGE AND KEEP YOUR
FILTHY PAPER....The
newsvendor replied again. The
jokes were thwarted for a time.
Dardin belongs to the all night,
under the armpit cafes. But his
vampire egoism and the drugs
cushion him, against them.
Why Dardin this, Dardin that?
said Dardin once in Jason’s when
Clapp had asked him why he was
so full of hims^. Why Dardin,
Dardin all the time? because
Dardin is everyone. Dardin is you
and Ray. Ray and me are
brothers and you are Jesus
Christ. Therefore I am the son of
God. If you are schizophrenic,
you are only two thirds there.
God is a threesome...
Dardin got up to go to the bar.
He means, said Lomas, that his
speech rhythms linger in the
mind of the crowd. He’s wrong.
Ray is the only person Dardin
seems to have any respect for.
Ray used to live in Happy Hills;
he planted Indian hemp in the
flower beds.
I swear, said Dardin coming
back, that the grass growing
there now is the pure blade of
twilight.
But no one has ever seen Ray.
Dardin left.
His egoism has to be justified
by success, said Lomas when he
had gone. In the end he’s just a
Washin^on Park lunatic.
It is justified by success, said
Freddie Klein. He had some
articles in FACT.
I’ll believe them when I see
them, said Lomas.
The next week Freddie Klein
brought the articles into Jason’s.
There are two of them, he said.
Read them out loud, said
Lomas. Read them.
They’re called “Smokes Are
Where I Find Them,” said
Freddie Klein, and “How to Fail
at an Interview.” I’ll read you the
best parts. “Smokes Are Where I
Find Them” is about picking up
butt ends. This is it: “In prison
I’ve smoked...’”
He’s never been in prison, said
Lomas. All he’s ever done is one
day instead of the fine, on the
Monday morning drunk or for
disorderly conduct on Mock
Street.
Be a little patient , will you?
This is fiction. “In prison I’ve
smoked the fiber dust from my
prison mattress. During the war I
smoked dried tea leaves, and
once I attempted to smoke turf.
But how low can a man stoop? To
the gutter! The man with the
bowler hat would say, ‘I’d starve
first.’ To this I would say, ‘You
are not a real smoker, Sir.’ ”
“No matter how high in life you
are at the moment it’s only your
wage and your pride that keep
you from the gutter. And it’s so
easy to get there. I was bom in
one; since then I’ve descended
and arose from many, and I know
that with a few bad breaks I may
tomorrow in the coldness of a
southern dawn drone down
Winston’s Fourth Street on a
wing and a prayer and dive bomb
for, perhaps your castaway
cigarette butt, sir. Or you for
mine.”
Very witty, said Lomas. What’s
the otter?
“How to Fail at an In-
terview”...It starts off: “To do
nothing and to do it slowly has
long been the aim of my life.” and
it provides a solution to toe
problem, “...when some civil
servant of an unemployment
agency clerk, who takes his
illness seriously or wishes to save
the taxpayers’ money by getting
you a job, may try to inject you
with his miseries by handing you
an engraved card to go for an
interview.” Dardin solves the
problem by being dynamic
during the interview and ends it
up: “Work is just another of
man’s diseases and prevention is
better than the cure. If you don’t
look for work it won’t look for
you. No man is born with the urge
to work, for you cannot work and
think.”
Dardin came into Jason’s and
heard Freddie reading his ar
ticles. Lomas looked away and
pretended not to have been
listening.
Where did you get hold of those,
Freddie?
Had them for a long time.
Another Dardinite. They’re
everywhere. But those articles
are garbage. My sj)eeches are
garbage. I speak garbage to the
audience, but when I speak to
myself, I’m speaking to one of the
intellectual few.
Dardin bought a round of
drinks three deep and left.
Cont. Next Issue
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