Just between the girls
Girl talk is the focus of a new magazine published by KII graduate Lisa
Allison Faling is editor of Girlfriend magazine.
by KU graduate Lisa
Brunner.
Lisa Brunner, KU graduate, is publisher of Girlfriend magazine. She got the idea for the magazine from conversations with her female friends.
By Cathleen Siechta
Kansan staff writer
Girl talk, that age-old ritual in which friends openly talk about their femininity and sexuality, has long been one of the only ways women could communicate on a personal level.
Until now. Girlfriend, a new magazine edited and published by KU graduate Lisa Brunner, offers a forum for women to share their experiences, concerns, ideas and fantasies with each other.
Brunner said she wanted to produce a magazine about sex that women could feel belonged to them.
Girlfriend magazine is scheduled to come out March 7.
"The bottom line of this magazine is that the contributions are written by women, from a woman's point of view, and are intended for a female audience," Brunner said. "When I say it's a sex magazine, I mean it's erotic, explicit in a lot of ways, using very frank language and talking very up front about sex. But it's for women."
Brunner said she had noticed a lack of magazine that openly discussed women's sexual issues. She said most women's magazines were either about "how to please your man," or, on the other end of the spectrum, hard-core lesbian sadomasochism.
"I'm not really trying to create something in the middle of those two options," Brunner said. "I just want to do something different that will be accessible to all women, not just lesbians, not just straight women, but all women."
Brunner decided to create *Girlfriend* about a year-and-a-half ago. She said that listening to friends talk about their experiences gave her the idea to put real-life stories into a magazine. The first issue contains written contributions and photographs by Brummer's friends. She said she hoped to find someone with a medical background to help her start a women's health issues column for future issues.
"Everyone involved in the first issue is an amateur," said Brunner. "The model in the photo layout is a first-time model."
Although a six-page photo essay in the first issue does include nudity, Brunner said that the pictures were done tastefully.
"The body images of women shown in commercials are, for the most part, created by men," Brunner said. "These pictures are beautiful. We want to show women of all body types and all ages."
Renee Spiker, a graduate assistant at Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, said a magazine that realistically depicted women was overdue.
"Clearly, women are depicted in the media from the sex-stereotype perspective," Spiker said. "It would be very advantageous to have the alternative, realistic view of women in the media. The unrealistic female persona that exists is formed by society and exploited by the media. We don't even carry Mademoiselle or any magazines like it at the center anymore because magazines like that just exploit that persona."
Spiker, who also is the coordinator for Watkins Center for Sexual Health, said that a magazine like Girlfriend may help women to accept their own sexuality.
"Women need to be comfortable with their own image and their own body type. If this magazine wants to help women do that, then it is very commendable."
"From a sexuality perspective, my job at Watkins deals a lot with demytriching the whole image that all women should have perfect bodies," Spiker said.
Brunner said she hoped to get contributions from a variety of women for Girlfriend. She said that contributions such as true sexual experiences, erotic fiction stories, questions about sexual issues and photographs would be helpful.
"In the first issue, I'm going to put in a big ad to generate contributions," Brunner said "I want to say, 'This is what I came up with for this issue. How can we help this magazine evolve?' I hope to get a lot of responsive mail. I'd like the bulk of the magazine to remain as close to real life as possible. You know how girls talk about sex when they're sitting around together. I want the writing to be just like that. We want people to open up so we can't really censor them."
Courtney Skeeba, Lawrence sophomore and member of Women's Student Union, said that a magazine like Girlfriend could be positive if dealt with correctly.
"I guess it were done in the proper context, it would be a good thing for women and even educational for men," Skeeba said. "But in discussing issues of sexuality, you should be careful that it doesn't get too vulgar."
Brunner said she was curious to see if Girlfriend would cause controversy. With features such as a mustache column, sex toy reviews and nude photo layouts, controversy may be hard to avoid.
But some women said they thought a little controversy could be a good thing.
"Well, I don't think you have anything worthwhile if you don't don'f some-
one." Sarah Zercher, Oklahoma City senior said. "I think there no way it should be censored. It's kind of an easy way out, to make a magazine about sex, because who isn't interested in sex? It's like using words to get a laugh. I think it would be very interesting."
Brunner said she thought that even those who were not sexually active would enjoy Girlfriend. She said she hoped to get material from women who had chosen to remain celibate.
"Women who are still sexually active are still sexual beings," said Allison Faling, Brunner's behind-the-scenes' assistant editor and partner. "There's much more to sexuality than what you do in bed."
Brunner said that was the point of her magazine.
"We are all sexual beings," she said.
"What we can learn from each other can help us grow as women. This is a celebration of women's sexuality. But it's not anti-male. It's just very woman positive and very sex positive. Actually, I think it would be great if women read it with their boyfriend. Men could be enlightened by it."
The first issue of Girlfriend will be free, and Brunner said she would try to make it available at many locations around Lawrence. She said that she would to print about 500 copies and that she hoped people would read it and send comments and contributions to Girlfriend magazine, P.O. Box 1365, Lawrence, KS 66044.
"I'm very excited about this magazine," Brunner said. "I just can't wait to get that first issue in my hand and start promoting it."
review
Familiar faces, lively action keep 'Blue Chips' enjoyable
In a town that loves basketball as much as Lawrence does, at a time of year when college basketball excitement traditionally begins to rise to fever pitch, the opening of "Blue Chips," the new basketball comedy-drama starring Nick Nolte and Shaquille O'Neal, and the highly anticipated KU-MU game combined to create quite a stir this weekend, wouldn't you say Sludge?
"Yup. I'm basketballled out, though. If only the 'Hawks could have pulled it off Sunday, that would've made it the perfect weekend."
The perfect weekend, huh? You're easy to please, bud.
"You don't know the half of it."
"Let's just say it says the difference between riding in a limousine with a fully stocked bar and riding in an Oldsmobile-Bulck with a Big Gulp in a drink holder on the dash. Sure you're comfortable in the Olds, and it gets the job done, but which is more excited?"
Let's keep it that way. Even though KU couldn't overcome MU, the game still was more exciting than "Blue Chips." This is not necessarily a negative. Not much can compare to a pumped-up Allen Field House on a big game day, regardless of the outcome, right Shudge?
Well put, Sludge. Anyway, Note's gravelly voiced Coach Pete Bell, after his first losing season at the fictional Western University, must decide whether to sell out when given the means by a crooked alumnus, Happy (J.T. Walsh), to "buy" three standout recruits, played by O'Neal, "Penny" Hardaway and Matt Nover.
"Yeah, but what do they give Shaq? A Lexus? How boring is that? I'd tell them to shove it."
Well, Sludge, what would you want if you happened to be 7 feet 2 inches tall and still coordinated?
"I'd want one of those new Ford trucks, you know, the ones on those commercials that you can use to catch fish the size of a mobile home and to golf off of a rocky mountain top."
You've put some thought into this, huh?
Exactly, Sludge. The cameos included former KU standouts Rex Walters and Adonis Jordan and Indiana head coach Bob Knight. Knight actually helped Nolte prepare for the role by giving him coaching tips and advice.
"There were so many big names! I felt as if I was watching ESPN, only I couldn't change the channel, and there weren't any commercials."
That's true. Even though the basketball action is well-staged, the moral dilemma about buying players (the "blue chips") facing Coach Bell is convincing and timely enough to make the intended impact and there are enough actual coach and player cameos to satisfy any fan, overall "Blue Chips" is only a modest success.
"Well, you never know..."
"Why didn't he give him a throat lozenge? Nolte sounds as if he's got perpetual phlegm."
Well, Sludge, he did have to do a lot of yelling for this role. It looked like he got Knight's act down pat.
though.
"What? Pat Knight? You mean Bobby Knight's son and player for the Indiana Hoosiers whom Bob kicked during a game when he screwed up once?"
Allegedly kicked, Sludge. Noite must have decided that was too extreme for his role in "Blue Chips," so instead, while yelling at the refs in one scene, he picks up the ball and puns it high into the stands. Hey, Sludge, since you're the aspiring baseball coach, what was your assessment of Bell's antics?
"No way! But can you imagine trying to put a baseball? I'd kick fences and bat racks instead."
"I'm never going to do that when I'm a coach."
I see. With all the sensationalized insurgency on in both amateur and professional sports today, a coach playing players may seem like small potatoes. But screenwriter Ron Shelton ("Bull Durham" and "White Men Can't Jump") and director William Friedkin ("The French Connection" and "The Exorcist"), defy balance the basketball action with the deeper conflict and manage to give "Blue Chips" an authentic sense of importance that continues throughout the film. Despite the occasional soapbox offering, often coming from Bell's ex-wife (Mary McDonnell, whose performance transcends her scripting), "Blue Chips" doesn't try to fix the problem of player payoffs, and wisely so. The result is a film that's lively and fun to watch and not a whole lot more.
You can control your temper, then?
"Yeah, there were enough monster slam dunks to make me a happy camper."
That's all we ask.
music
A prayer's chants: Gregorian monks now music stars
MADRID, Spain — Still spinning from the unexpected popularity in Spain of their double compact disc of Gregori-an chants, the singing monks of Santo Domingo de Silos are going global.
EMI-Odeon records announced yesterday that "The Best of Gregorian Chants" soon will be available in 18 countries. It has sold 300,000 copies and has rocketed to the top of the pop charts since it hit Spanish stores just before Christmas.
"We thought it would be a modest success, but nothing like it has been," said Rafael Gil, president of EMI Music Spain. "Since it's been such a success here, we can't help but think that it will do as well elsewhere."
The compact disc will be on Japanese shelves on March 1 and the U.S. market on March 15, with staggered release dates in Latin America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere in Asia. In Europe, it will be sold in Great Britain, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Greece.
Fame has surprised the 36 monks who live a cloistered existence in Santo Domingo de Silos, a small town in north-central Spain.
Now the monks appear with the likes of Gloria Estefan and Frank Sinatra at the top of the Spanish charts — a stunning achievement for a recording of monophonic, liturgical music used to accompany the text of the Roman Catholic Mass.
The chants take their name from Pope Gregory I (590-604) under whose reign the music was first collected.
When the Second Vatican Council authorized Roman Catholics in 1965 to celebrate the Mass in languages other than Latin, the monks faced the possibility that the prayers they chant seven times a day would disappear.
Because they thought that the selection of Spanish prayers in song was skimpy, the brothers chose to stick with their Latin chants, a decision that led to their first recording contract in 1973 and now to a wealth of royalties well beyond their simple needs.
"We prefer not to need money," said Abbott Clemente Serna. "But you can be sure that it will be put to very good use, for example, in helping out other cloistered monasteries, particularly where there are nuns in need.
"You can be sure this will go to help the Third World."
Neither the monks nor EMI has revealed the terms of their contract.
In Spain, the disc sells for the equivalent of $21 and features 38 selections, some dating as far back as 1,300 years.
People and places at the University of Kansas.
NIGHTLIFE
Benchwarmers Sports Bar and Grill
1.001 W 23rd St
These Day, 9:30 tonight, cover charge
Crap Supper, Sunday Drive and a special guest,
9:30 p.m. Saturday, cover charge
Suave Octopus with Sun Sawed in Half, 9:30 p.m. tomorrow, cover charge
Michelle Malone with Band D Soleil, 9:30 p.m.
Thursday, cover charge
The Bottleneck
737 New Hampshire St.
Walking on Einstein & Soleifh, 10 tonch, $4
L.A. Rambers, 10 p.m. tomorrow, $4
Ditch Witch with Starkweathers, 10 p.m. Wednesday,
$3 (18 and over)
The Crossing
Machines of Love and Grace with Course of Empire 10 p.m. Monday, $7 advance tickets (18 and over) Joe and Al, 10 p.m. Tuesday, $3
Tenderloin with John Brown Underground, 10 p.m.
Saturday, $4
618 W. 12th St.
Webb Wilder with Savoy Truffle, 1.0 p.m. Thursday,
$6 advance tickets (18 and over)
King Trash with Danger Bob, 8:30 tonight, $2
Lou's Revenge, 8:30 p.m. tomorrow, $2
The Lonesome Houndogs, 8:30 p.m. Saturday, $2
The Hideaway
106 North Park West St.
Murphy Rule and Ivan Hoes, 10:30 tonight, cover charge
Queers 5-0, 10:30 p.m. tomorrow, cover charge
Johnboy, King Trash and Shiner, 10:30 p.m. Saturday, cover charge
KJHK Benefit with the Eudoras, Chubby Smith Orchestra and the Spamskinners, 10:30 p.m. Thursday, cover charge
Granada Theater
1020 Massachusetts St.
"WHACKI" 9 tonight, cover charge
'70s, '80s and Alternative, 9 p.m. Friday, cover charge
Colorado vs. KU game, 1 p.m. Saturday
Nick Cosmos with Grumpy, 9 p.m. Saturday, cover charge
'80s Night with DJ Jim, 9 p.m. Wednesday, cover charge
Hockenbury's Tavern
1016 Massachusetts St.
Transylvania 2000 with Subduing Mara, 10 tonight,
$3
Hellcat Trio with Transylvania 2000, 10 p.m. tomor-
row. $3
Kelley Hunt, 10 p.m. Saturday, $3
Hurrican, 10 p.m. Saturday.
Little Slater, 10 p.m. Tuesday. $3
Crown, 10 p.m. Thursday.
The Strangers, 10 p.m. Thursday, $3
Full Meal Cafe
803 Massachusetts St.
Tim Cross Jazz Group, 8 tonight, free
Timber Rattlers, 9 p.m. tomorrow, free
White Trash, 9 p.m. Saturday, free
Seventh Day and Tom Krause with friends (?) plus surprise guest, 7 p.m. Tuesday, free
Uncle Dirty Toes, 8 p.m. Wednesday, free
Tim Cross Jazz Group, 8 p.m. Thursday, free
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