ET CETERA
University Daily Kansan, February 14, 1985
Page 6
PAPER HEARTS
Valentine cards range from the sweet to the sober
Card courtesy of Hallmark Cards Inc. Valentines come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and Hallmark Cards Inc., the world's largest publisher of greeting cards, prints many of them at its Lawrence plant. The company, based in Kansas City, Mo., manufactures 11 million valentine cards every year.
By PEGGY HELSEL Staff Reporter
Poor Charlie Brown. Every year it's the same thing. Each Feb 14, Charlie camps out in front of the mailbox, waiting for a valentine from that little red-haired girl to be delivered
But alas, Charlie's love is unrequited, and the valentine never arrives.
Fortunately for the greeting card industry, other people who camp out by their mailboxes are Valentine's Day cards. In fact, 900 million cards will be sent to friends, relatives and sweethearts this season, according to Rachel Bolton, product information coordinator for Hallmark Cards Inc. in Kansas City, Mo.
CHARLIE MAY FIND SOLLE knowing that most cards aren't sent by sweethearts, but by relatives. Sixty-five percent of Hallmark's valentines are purchased for parents, children, grandchildren, uncles and aunts, Bolton said.
Hallmark, the largest producer of greeting cards in the world, sells 11 million Valentine's Day cards and has 1,790 different designs. Hallmark's plant in Lawrence prints 617 of the designs, she said.
JoAnn Fay, manager of Bowen's Hallmark Shop, 847 Massachusetts St., said that although Christmas was the store's busiest season overall, more cars were sold for Valentine's Day than for any other holiday.
"It's impossible to say how many cards we sell," she said. "It's probably in the thousands."
CONSUMERS APPEAR TO be lens old-fashioned about card selections these days, Fay said. The trend is moving away from lace-trimmed cards spouting sappy verses to simpler, more direct cards.
the main idea. She said that even grandparents - those relatives notorious for sending cards so sweet they might cause toothaches - complain about the excess of sentimentality in the cards.
"They say that cards for their grandkids are too muzzy," Fay said. "The cards say things the grandparents wouldn't say to their grandkids."
"The trend is toward simpler, more graphic designs, less frilly," she said. "We're getting away from cards that promise everlasting love to simple direct communication.
BOLTON SAID HALLMARK was selling more humorous cards, as well as ones thatdon't promise commitment.
"We've learned that love is not always everlasting with the divorce rate reaching 50 percent. A lot of valentine senders are not in their first romances or marriages."
Cards popular among the college-aged crowd emphasize fun and less commitment or romance, Bolton said. Other top-selling cards are ones that are a little sexually suggestive or that poke good-humored fun.
Diane Wall, a public relations spokesman at Hallmark, says an example of the modern crop of cards" and one that is her favorite.
— looks like a slice of watermelon. Inside the card it says, "You make my mouth water."
NOT A COMPANY to pass up a lucrative marketing opportunity,
filmmark has cashed in on the sticker craze among schoolchildren;
would you join?
"I put stickers in my cards to the kids," said Robyn Johnson, 1844 KU graduate and a paraprofessional at Tomahawk Elementary School in Olathe. "The kids are so sticker-crazy, they'll go ape over them."
Valentine's Day has always been a favorite of schoolchildren. Of the 900 million valentine cards bought annually, Bolton said, two-thirds are Valentine cards.
Johnson said Valentine's Day rivaled Christmas for enjoyment among the students.
"THEY'RE VERY EXCTED, very wound up about it," she said Tuesday. "They started bringing their valentines today. We decorated their sacks with cut-out paper hearts and made a heart-shaped pinata. The whole school is decorated."
Wall said the history of Valentine's Day remained somewhat hazy. Historians have found records of eight saints named Valentine, Wall said. The namesake for Valentine's Day appears to be the St. Valentine who was executed by the Romans on Feb. 14, 720 A.D.
The celebration of this romantic day may have originated in ancient Rome at the festival Lupercalia, Wall said. At the festival, a sort of love lettery, young men drew names of eligible young women and the men picked determined who they would court for the next year.
The first valentine sender didn't have Hallmark to help him send the very best. Charles, Duke of Orleans, is given credit for being the first to send a card on Feb. 14 to express love for his spouse. Charles, imprisoned in the Tower of London, sent the card to his wife in 1415.
FIVE CENTURIES LATER, Valentine's Day cards have made the leap into high technology. Students at Michigan State University can send their Romes or Juliette a Video Valentine. For $20, you can use the digital tape of themselves and have it anywhere in the country.
The newangled valentine is the braincircle of Jerry and Steve Evanski, who are students at Michigan State. Looking for a way to raise money for their music fraternity, the Evanski brothers came up with the Video Valentine. With four backdrops, a couple of scripts for those lacking imagination and some video equipment, they started their business.
Joe Spaniala, a Michigan State student and Jerry Evanski's roommate, said that about 20 people had put their videos on game. However, not many students own videocassette machines to play the romantic messages on, he said, so most of the messages go to parents.
**IT COULD BE ECONOMICAL if you did it as a business**, *Spaniola* said. "You can get the cool down to where it's inexpensive or less expensive."
who she mastered. Debbie Saggau, Wichita sophomore, most likely will receive the traditional paper valentine. She said she d probably be heartbroken if she didn't get a valentine today.
BROKEN HEARTS
"I think maybe I'll get one from my boyfriend," she said.
So Samran said she'll get new birthday greetings for her.
"I think maybe I'll get one from my boyfriend," she said. Sugaua said she didn't expect any valentine gifts from her parents.
"Just my boyfriend," she said. "That's all that loves me, I guess."
Lonely men and women should not lament lack of love life, professor suggests
By RICK ZAPOROWSKI Staff Reporter
But people without special romances may feel lonely on Valentine's Day because of the emphasis put on celebrating the holiday with lovers.
Valentine's Day offers young lovers or old flames the chance to enhance or rekindle their relationships. It's the perfect day to show affection by giving a little gift or by sending a card with an intimate message.
Sharon S. Brehm, professor of psychology and author of a textbook, "Intimate Relationships" said people could avoid lapping into a rut resulting from loneliness by staying active. She said getting drunk, "sleeping for four days straight" and watching television weren't effective remedies for loneliness.
"PLUGGING INTO THE tube and sit
ting there will never lead someone to a lover," she said. "At any given time, there are a lot of people out there who don't have lovers. It's one of those difficulties life throws at you. The question is how one deals with it."
A person who says he's lonely, she said,
usually has many friends but wants to
have a lover, too. Brehm said such a per-
son shouldn't let the missing relationship
get him down.
"I think the worst thing people can do when they're lonely is to think they're bad people," she said. "It's usually just not the case."
Brehm said that a possible cure for the Valentine's Day blues was for people to show affection to friends and to worry less about not having a romance.
"VALENTINE'S DAY REMINDs people it nudges them to *express affection," she said. "I think Valentine's Day
would be better if it included friends as well as lovers.
"I think friendship in general is a very important part of life that should be even more important. I think we need to learn more about friendship."
Brehm noticed that elementary school children stressed their friendship on Valentine's Day, but the emphasis changed as people grow older.
In one chapter of her book, which was published this year, Brehm deals with the importance of a friendship being unconditional.
She says in the book, "It is important to keep in mind that friendship is not a medicine that one stores on the shelf and gets out to care loveiness. Instead, the ability to make and keep friends requires a continuing, active, pro-friend attitude along with continuing, active, pro-friend behaviors."
BREHM SAID THAT men and women could benefit from close friendships but that men generally had fewer friends with close emotional ties.
"Men have been socialized to have very strong boundaries," she said. "Women, on the other hand, have very permeable bounded walls, well so they can get close very easily."
Although women develop close ties more easily than men, Brehm said, women often don't rely on their friendships until they need them.
"WOMEN HAVE THE FRIENDS," she said, "but they don't value that resource."
Brehm said she liked Valentine's Day because it gave the men who normally didn't show their emotions an excuse to lower their barriers.
"For men it's particularly useful because it's a chance to show their feelings in a socially acceptable way," she said.
Brehm says she thinks Valentine's Day, unlike some other holidays, hasn't become too commercialized, so it isn't a financial burden to celebrate. She said a thoughtful gift, such as a homemade card or a single rose, still was accepted.
"I think what's important is the affection two people have for each other," she said.
Brehm said she thought that an intimate relationship between two college students varied "in every possible way," but that the couple often was aware of the potential for a long-term bond.
"There is tremendous concern, on the part of young people today, that relationships really last," she said. "There is an intense motivation for that. Whether that motivation will determine the outcome, I don't know."
Movie teaches heavenly lesson
By RICK ZAPOROWSKI
Staff Reporter
"Heaven Help Us," starring Andrew McCarthy, Kevin Dillon, John Heard and Donald Sutherland. Directed by Michael Meyers. Playing at Hilbert Theater, 925 Iowa St.
One of this winter's movies not competing for the prestigious Academy Award provides a pleasant alternative to Hollywood's cheap teen films "Haven Help Us" exceeds the normal intellectual level of poorly made geared toward the teen-age audience.
The film takes a welcome turn away from the typical teen movies, leaving out the cheap sex jokes and side-steping any flesh (besides a row of boys' bare bottoms).
INSTEAD, THE MOVIE highlights the camaraderie of a few boys in St. Basil's Academy, a Catholic boys' high school. The film takes place in 1965 in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The plot of "Heaven Help Us" focuses on Michael Dunn, the school's new kid, played by Andrew McCarthy. Dunn is a likable man, who becomes for him a模型, personality and brains.
After he makes the initial adjustments to the new school and his new classmates, Dunn leads a determined fight against the school. One of the teachers, Brother Constance (Jay Patterson), creates academic problems for the students and violent wives in which he disciplines them.
The boys' pranks are harmless and worthy
of at least a smile from the audience. Director Michael Dinner uses a number of visual gags, such as a few bathroom stall surprises and the old "vomit on someone else" scene. The film keeps moving and its pace doesn't slow down to milk laughs from a joke.
THE MOVIE CONTAINS some sensitive scenes that are more tasteful than those in the typical teen flock. Particularly appealing is the development of a romance between
The film employs a simple plot that will keep most cynics in their seats and will completely entertain those who aren't too demanding about a script.
Dunn and an out-of-school neighborhood girl who, before Dunn came along, was unavailable to the St. Basil's boys. Even the stud Rooney — played by Kevin Dillon, Matt's brother and look-alike — can't get more than a Coke from the girl.
The movie, however, sacrifices the believability of the plot by exaggerating the character of Brother Constance and several of his colleagues. They quickly become the bad guys and rarely show contemporary human values.
Concert to feature harpsichordist
Bv SHELLE LEWIS
Staff Reporter
Three master composers, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, were born in 1685. Since then, their music has flourished.
The Lawrence Chamber players, with world-renowned harpsichordist Igor Kippin, will give a special performance of works by the three composers at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vermont St.
The concert will mark the 300th anniversary of the births of the three composers, said Leon Burke III, music director for the Lawrence Chamber
EACH COMPOSER, HE said, played a dramatic part in putting together the music of the baroque period, which stretched from 1600 until 1750.
Burke said he came up with the idea to have Kipnis perform with the Lawrence Chamber Players, now in their 13th season, after seeing him perform at a concert on the KU campus several years ago.
And the harpischop which was popular during the barque period = the harpischop of the baroque period.
"BACH'S CONCERTO NO. 1 in D minor or harpischord and strings, which Mr. Kiplips will be playing, is the "harpischord," Burke said. "It is a first and,
therefore, appeals to comnoisseurs of baroque."
In a telephone interview from his home in Connecticut, Kipnis said he was glad to be performing in Lawrence again.
Kiphus, 54, received a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Harvard in 1952 and didn't make his debut on the harpischord until a 1959 New York City radio show.
"I didn't own a harpsichord until I was in my late 20s," he said.
At the time of his radio debut, Kipnis said, he was working in the record library of a Top 40 radio station.
Burke said, "He is one of the few who can make a living at playing the harrisichord."
KIPNIS HAS EARNED many honors, including six Grammy award nominations and three awards for "Record of the Year" from Stereo Review magazine.
Kipnis remembers his last Grammy award nomination vividly.
Even if he had won, he said, he would
"There wasn't time to take a breather or smoke a cigarette or anything."
"They decided they wanted me to play on the show because they'd never had a harpiskorist on before," he said. "There wasn't any time to really warm-up, and I got up there and played for something like three minutes. And then I had to go right back to my seat because they were getting ready to announce the other nominations.
have been unprepared to accept the award.
"I DIDN'T HAVE an acceptance speech or anything." Kipis said. "I was mentally trying to think of what I would say and I came up with all sorts of insane ideas, such as I'd like to thank Bach for writing this music."
When the master of ceremonies finally announced that someone else had won, Kipnis said he felt great relief and total disgust.
Kipnis said. "Following the program everyone in the presentation was invited to go to the Belmont Hotel.
"The dinner was free, but the drinks weren't — which really disgusted me."
Kipnis, who has performed in Europe, the Far East and in #2 of the United States, said he enjoyed introducing the harp to children, whom that weren't familiar with the instrument.
"I call it the Baskin-Robbis treatment," he said. "I'm delivering free spouffels of a little bit of everything from baroque to some of the classical contemporary."
The concert is sponsored by the Lawrence Society for Chamber Music and partially financed by the Kansas Arts Commission. Tickets are $7 in advance, $7.50 at the door and $5.50 for students. For more information, call 842-6265.