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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Feb. 16, 1961
Dat Ole Debil ...
We always look forward to the second semester. The year is half over, the worst is behind, and instead of having to face snow, cold, slush and ice as you have to in the fall, Spring is just around the corner.
WEVE ALWAYS HAD THE FEELING that whoever arranges the weather, makes us Midwestern mortals pay for the bounteous beauty of Spring by putting us through the harsh, howling, hoary days of February and March. And it's worth it. It even makes us appreciate the buds and blossoms all the more.
BUT WE WISH WHOEVER IS MESSING with the thermostat that's regulating the weather these days would find some other source of entertainment. The sadistic delight he, she, or it is taking in teasing us mortals this way is more punishment than we deserve.
After all, we are emotional animals and nothing hits the emotions, glands, et al., harder than the warmth of ole Sol pushing the temperature
up into the 70's. Irrationally, we shuck the heavy coats, rip back the convertible tops, don the bermuda shorts, hesitate to make class and make plans for romps in the woods or soirees at Lone Star.
And just as we start believing it's here for good, on come the grey clouds, down goes the mercury, up go the tops, out go the plans and back we go to classrooms.
WE WISH THE "NEW FRONTIER" bad some sort of federal agency to govern the weather of each season. This merciless fluctuation calls for a protest of some sort. Though these Spring-like days are literally greeted with open arms, when it drops below freezing, we find a little fist-shaking skyward has little effect, except to keep the blood in one arm circulating.
So all we can do is accept it. Play a little tennis, get in some golf, take long walks, breathe deeply and soak up a few of those ultra-violets. Just don't make any plans more than three hours in advance. — Frank Morgan
Music Preview
'La Boheme' and Puccini
(Editor's Note: Following is a descriptive article on Pucciini's opera, "La Boheme," which will be presented tomorrow night at 8 o'clock in Hoch Auditorium by the Boston Opera Company.)
By Richard Byrum
The greatest hindrance to the understanding of any art that has its roots in a remote period is the tendency to judge that art according to our present values. Art has always been an accurate reflection of the societal concepts and ideas from which it originates. If these are neglected, no true understanding of art can be achieved.
AN ART WHICH HAS SUFFERed much in recent years because it is a product of a society quite different from our own, is the musical drama, or, the opera. Opera had its beginning in Italy in the early 1600's. Since that time it owes its more than 300 years of development directly, or indirectly, to the influence of the Italians.
The Italians are the greatest
natural singers in the world.
Furthermore, their outlook on life is governed by the emotions rather than by any deep-seated reasoning or scientific thought. These characteristics explain the unequalled ability of the Italians to associate simple emotional experiences with music—particularly music for the voice. The result is a true beauty which needs no apology.
OF THE MANY HUNDREDS of operas that have been written for the musical stage, "La Boheme," composed in 1895 by Giacomo Puccini, remains the most popular and beloved. The material was drawn from the book, "Seenes de la Vie de Bohême" by Henry Murger (1822-1861) and contains a series of sketches of Bohemian life in Paris. Puccini and his librettists extracted various characters and situations and fused them together for the plot of the opera.
"LA BOHEME" IS A LOVE story. Not only romantic love, as between man and woman, but the love of a way of life and of making the most of every precious moment.
In his flowing melodies, Puccini captures every emotion known to man. From the gay cabaret scene to the tragic ending, there is an artful blending of the romantic and the realistic. The story is simple, the characters are real, the moods are many. "La Bohème" lives.
ONE OF PUCCINI'S CLOSE friends best expressed the true feeling of La Bohème after listening to the composer play various parts of Bohème in its various stages of development.
"When those searing chords of death fell, we all shivered. Not one of us could hold back his tears. Our Mimi lay dead. We would never hear her sweet and tender voice again."
Editor:
I was interested in your editorial, "Letters and the UDK" (Feb. 10).
Jerry Andre's straightforward and altogether admirable letter to the editor (UDK, Feb. 9) must have hurt—the truth always hurts. And the truth, in this instance, happens to be that the staff members of Spectrum magazine have been subjected to irresponsible and highly inaccurate journalism on the part of the UDK.
We will be specific: the worst of the offending mis-statements was printed in the Feb. 7 issue, under a headline reading "Editors Stay Silent on Spectrum Deficit." It read: "Members of the magazine's 6-man editorial board have so far expressed a clear desire to
... Letters ...
decline responsibility for the flasco."
NOW, THIS STATEMENT IS patently misleading and inaccurate. It is worse—it is pure nonsense, because the members of the Spectrum editorial board, with one exception, were willing and even anxious to give a full account of their activities, and at the subsequent ASC meeting they did so.
The one exception that we just mentioned was Bill Blundell. Blundell, alone of the six Spectrum editors, "expressed a clear desire to decline responsibility."
Why? Because he was guilty? Certainly not, but because never at any time was he an active member of the Spectrum staff. The facts in the case now become clear: the
writer of this offending news story apparently interviewed one and only one member of the Spectrum board, Bill Blundell—then wrote the story as though Blundell were speaking for all six editors. What makes this laughable is the fact that Blundell never picked up a pencil to work on Spectrum magazine in any way.
AND THIS IS PRECISELY what we mean when we use the phrase "irresponsible and highly inaccurate journalism." We shall continue to use such phrases as long as the Spectrum staff continues to receive such unfair treatment—at the hands of the UDK or of any other publication.
Dailu Transan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 11, news room
Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press Represented by National Advertising Service. 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
Extension 711, news room
879-202-0033
Bill Blundell. Carrie Edwards, Lynn Cheatum and Ralph Wilson. Assistant Managing Editors; Tom Turner, City Editor; Bill Sheldon, Sports Editor; Sue Thieman, Society Editor.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
John Peterson
We might not have been so vigorous in this protest, had we not felt that the offending statements were virtually tantamount to libel. Our friends have been coming up to us lately and asking us what we did with the money from Spectrum.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Frank Morgan and Dan Felger
Managing Editor
Frank Morgan and Dan Felger
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Co-Editorial Editors
John Massa
Business Manager
This may be a joke, but it isn't very funny.
So we have a word of free advice for the UDK editors: the next time you print such statements—make sure you have your facts straight.
Richard Garnett Mission Hills senior Editor. Spectrum
(Editor's Note: It is unfortunate that the article Mr. Garnett refers to failed to give him and the rest of the Spectrum staff an opportunity to explain the magazine's failure. An attempt was made to reach them during the day of publication but they were not available for comment. His career was increased. He and Brett Schreeder, another Spectrum editor, had worked the entire summer on the second issue by themselves and received no salary.)
The Omelet-Maker
the took world
It is pointless to review the plot. Almost anyone knows the plot, from book, film or television version. Neither film nor TV was able to convey the political implications (the movie, as I recall, carefully shied away from the matter). Neither could do much with such aspects of the novel as Pilar's long disquisition on the smell of death, or her description of the massacre of the Fascist leaders of a small village, or El Sordo's hillside battle, or, of course, Robert Jordan and Maria feeling the earth move as they make love.
If I have any particular criticism of the book on re-reading it, it is that Hemingway's attempt to translate Spanish into English amounts to a stilted and frequently embarrassing style. Reading Hemingway aloud can be destructive to the writer. In the TV version, as Jordan lay on the floor of the pine forest, awaiting the 'arrival of the Fascist troops, he talked to himself—"Think about Montana. . . . Think about Madrid. . . . I can't wait any longer now, . . ." And so on. Forgetting the novel, I could only think, "Oh, why can't television leave a good piece of writing alone?" I went to the book, and realized that it wasn't television, it was Hemingway.
Admittedly, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is dated, from a topical standpoint. It contains references that may puzzle literary historians of 100 years from now. But its majestic central theme is one that has become part of the world conscience. It is without question one of the most powerful novels to come out of the totalitarian conflict of the 1930s and 1940s.
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
I should never have attempted "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in 1940. A college boy who thinks the great American novelists are Kenneth Roberts and Hervey Allen is ill-equipped to handle Hemingway. I recall struggling through the novel and wondering why others seemed so excited. I hadn't the slightest comprehension of the political meanings of the book.
Gtor orac the Eam Com at 6 room
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FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, by Ernest Hemingway. Scribner Library, $1.95.
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Worth Repeating
Those who do not approve of birth control would do better to base their opposition on religious or absolutist moral grounds alone. These are, of course, the real grounds for opposition in most cases, but their upholders invariably seek additional support by advancing questionable arguments about the purely secular problem of the relation between population growth and economic progress. Even those who do not share a truly religious position can respect the integrity of it. But such a position should be stated forthrightly—even when, as in the present case, it can only make the ancient demand, unacceptable to most of us, that justice be done though the world perish—Dennis H. Wrong
A.
I had a sobering lesson in the stultification of students recently I asked a literature class I was teaching to read a background book and do a critical commentary. Paper after paper proved to be little more than a summary. With some exasperation I asked why this happened when I had specifically asked for critical impressions.
N T
"It was safer that way." students said. "It's what we thought you wanted; it's what other instructors usually want."—David Boroff