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University Daily Kansan Monday. Sept. 28, 1959
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The New Rock Chalk
When the revised Rock Chalk Revue opens on March 18, KU audiences should discover that the traditional program has become quite a different show.
A major change, which should add a great deal of color and spirit to the production, is the integration of men's and women's houses for each skit. Although only five skits, instead of the former six, will be performed, each promises to be a more gala event than some of the drab sequences of the past.
Begun in 1950, Rock Chalk has been the only expression of original humor here, discounting a series of ill-fated campus magazines. Set in musical-comedy, and containing all of the atmosphere attached to show business, the revue's popularity has risen through the decade until it is now one of the more looked-toward events on the school calendar.
But the past two years have hurt Rock Chalk's esteem. Campus humor must have been at an ebb then, because the over-all productions did
not achieve that success the publicity people predicted.
Now that producer Roger Stanton has provided a stimulant through his reorganization of the show's format, only a lack of cooperation can prevent the revue's expected success.
Since the houses will be matched before scripts are considered, it would be wise for all interested living groups to have a representative at the Oct. 8 meeting. The plan is for each house to submit a list containing the names of its first five choices for a partner. The resulting teams will be matched according to each house's preference. The teams will then have roughly two and one-half months to enact a script. Previously, the basic scripts were the only qualification for entry.
Another advantage, naturally second to the great social angle involved, is the prospect of a new line of thought in Rock Chalk plots. With men and women cooperating on each skit, a certain revolution in the Oread brand of humor could be mighty refreshing. —John Husar
Profs Cause Cuts? Absurd!
Now that at least one newspaper has actually come out and accused dull professors of being one of the prime reasons for excessive class cutting, we feel that the extra-curricular-minded class-cutter has been somewhat vindicated.
An editorial in the Oklahoma State U. Daily O'Collegian recently blamed uninspiring lectures, a lack of vitality in course content, and the irrelevance of some academic material to current events for influencing many classroom absences. The O'Collegian did qualify this by first stating that most cuts are taken by disinterested, lazy students who have no interest in learning anyway.
A few lines are sufficient:
"... Students will attend classes that are interesting and informative.
formed on the latest developments in the field. They go on year after year teaching the same old stuff when the world is in a period of transition and new discoveries are made everyday.
"Many professors do not keep the class in-
"In addition to keeping up with developments in the journals of his field, a professor can make his class more meaningful and interesting by reading and keeping up with news pertaining to subjects in lay magazines and newspapers.
"It is of great value to the student, particularly in elective classes, to be able to relate classwork to happenings he reads about in the daily papers."
Unfortunately, most KU cutters can't excuse themselves with the above reasons. Apparently we are of the disinterested, lazy type. For heaven knows there are no dull, uninspiring teachers on OUR faculty. —jh
Editor:
Greeks and Cars
I am an independent student and live in an apartment at the base of the 14th St. hill. Every night when my roommate and I are trying to study, we are bothered by the loud noises coming from cars hot-rodding up and down the street.
I know that most students, if they are interested in really studying, are in their rooms or in the library or in bed at night. But a lot of them spend their evening time in beer joints and unimportant club meetings, and then have to speed all the way home in order to make closing hours.
I know that this doesn't matter to the fraternity and sorority students who are either shut up in their insulated houses or are the ones tearing around the streets. But I would like them to know that
we independent students who are trying to get some studying done would appreciate having the streets kept quieter at night.
I am sure that many students would benefit from a more considerate attitude, because the problem is bad. It sounds like a bunch of junior high school kids holding races between the campus and Tennessee St. every night.
Frank Spolletti.
Summit, Ill., sophomore
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
Daily Hansan
Founded 1889, became bweekek 1904,
triveley 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
University of Kansas student newspaper
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service. 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
International. Mail subscription rates for semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays, and夏季 periods. Entered as second-classmanion periods. Entered as second-classmanion periods. Entered as second-classmanion periods. Post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Jack Harrison ... Managing Editor
Carol Allen, Dick Crocker, Jack Morton and Doug Yocom, Assistant Managing Editors: Rael Amos, City Editor; Jim Trotter, Sports Editor; Carolyn Frailey, Society Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
George DeBord and
John Husar
Sandra Hayn, Associate Editorial Ed-
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Kane ... Business Manager
Ted Tidwell, Advertising Manager;
Joanne Novak, Promotion Manager;
Robin Riordan, International Advertising Manager; Tom Schmidt, Circulation Manager; John Massa, Classified Advertising Manager.
It Looks This Way . . .
By George DeBord
I was beginning on the reading list for one of my history courses yesterday, when the door to the Hawk's Nest flew open and Bobby the Beat breezed in on the latest note from Brubeck.
Bobby did not carry his bongo drums this year. Cradled fondly under his left arm was a lute, or it might have been a guitar.
"Where's the drums, man?" I asked.
"Cat, you're still in vacationland. We're building a new world with strings."
"Bring your leader to me," I said, taking a long drag on my cigarette.
"I can't man, he's too far out," he said, scuffing his tennis shoes against a chair to make them look old.
"New shoes?" I asked.
"Yeah, man, but keep it under until I get some dirt on 'em. I don't want to get tossed out."
"Out of here?" I asked, amazed.
"Nowhere, man. Out of the Group. You see the Big Eye says we got to wear the old and be alike to retain our Individuality."
I killed the last of the coffee. "I see. What courses are you taking?"
"Not just courses, man, the New Order. Courses went out with Lombardo. You take 'em in sections like group living. Make ready for the big blast."
"I see."
"Like a package deal. We borrowed that from Madisonville, but it lives instead of dragging you down. We got Nature Study, Public Apathy, Noncommittal Politics, The Psychology of Nonconformity, and Hydrogen Fallout for Family Living."
"Sounds like a tough load," I said, eyeing my book list. "You got your books yet?"
"Books? Like who needs 'em? Osmosis. You absorb it, man. You don't make eyes at it."
"I'm a nonconformist," I said. quietly.
"I don't want to get cured," I replied, dusting my shoes with a napkin.
"That hurts, man. Can they cure it!"
"You should, man. You ought to get ready. Us individuals have all taken it. We all live alone, in the same way."
"Yeah," I said, picking up my reading list. "You Individuals have all the aces."
As I left, I watched out of the corner of my eye as he tucked the lute under one arm and his ball and chain under the other. Looked like he was going back to his pad to contemplate fallout or something...
"Like the end."
"That's pretty far out," I said, trying on the new language. "Like the end."
By Stuart Levine Instructor of English
HENRY ADAMS: THE MIDDLE YEARS by Ernest Samuels, Harvard, $7.50.
It is almost refreshing to look back at Henry Adams. It affords one the sort of pleasure that a person in for a rest cure must feel when he considers the unfortunate in the padded cells. "If I'm sick," he muses, "those poor fellows are sick, sick, sick." It is bad enough for a writer to be dated, and Adams is dated in many ways, but it is worse for him to hold ideas which his own good sense should tell him are insane.
Prof. Samuels' method is to move topically through the events and problems of these years, presenting a continuous narrative heavily loaded with quotations from Adams. This is much like Adams' way of writing history; one lets one's subjects talk for themselves. It makes for extremely good reading because it is done with great skill.
This volume, the second in what will be a series of three, treats Adams' life from 1871 to 1890. It covers a wonderfully interesting time, a period which includes some of Adams' most fruitful years of writing as well as the tragic suicide of his wife.
I have one criticism: very often Adams is wrong. When this is perfectly obvious, there is no reason for Mr. Samuels to say so, but frequently Adams is wrong on subjects which are not general knowledge, and I think that it would be useful for the biographer to point out these places, particularly when they are simply matters of historical fact.
He was unable to see that there was a conflict between the family tradition of public service and his own sick ideas about the virtues of war, racism, and social suffering. Adams blamed his times, and in truth his times were bad enough, but the fault was in himself. He was too good a student of what is great in the American tradition to have held such ideas.
Adams is still with us because of the unflagging brilliance of his mind. It almost, but not quite, redeems him. Some things are unforgivable. A really great man might have seen the contradictions for what they were, and even risen above them. Perhaps the trouble finally was that Adams was not a great man.