MANUAL
Hand
in the life of ... // A STOCKBROKER
living vicariously through others is ok with us.
Take whatever you think you know about stockbrokers and throw it out the window, says Scott Kaufmann, 1983 graduate and financial adviser for Edward Jones Investments.
Contributed photo
First of all, "stockbrokers" don't really exist anymore. The correct term is "financial adviser" because professionals help customers manage all financial assets, not just stocks and bonds.
Although Kaufmann graduated summa cum laude, apparently you don't have to be all that bright to become a financial adviser. The smart business students get their MBAs, become investment bankers and make a lot more money than financial advisers, Kaufmann says.
"Most people in my industry, you would be surprised how low their GPA was," he says. "It doesn't tend to attract straight-A students."
And financial advisers usually don't work in skyscrapers, wildly running around like Wall street stockbrokers portrayed in movies, he says. Kaufmann is the only adviser who works at his Edward Jones branch, which is located in an old shopping center at the edge of Kansas City, Kan. Big buildings located downtown are not conducive to meeting with clients.
Finally, most "stockbrokers" are not sleazy, greedy scumbags who are out to steal your money. Independent auditing companies have
Misunderstood. Financial adviser Scott Kaufmann says the real life of a stockbroker is much different than how it is portrayed in movies.
actually ranked Edward Jones as one of the most ethical companies in the U.S., he says.
He and his wife take a few trips across the world each year, but Kauimann says he built up to that standard of living. When he first began working for Edward Jones, he went door-to-door to recruit clients.
When it comes down to it, Kaufmann is just a regular suburban businessman who enjoys helping people protect their financial assets.
// FRANCESCA CHAMBERS
get some culture // SPENCER PRINTROOM
it's not all about fast food and beer pong.
Fridays in the printroom at the Spencer Museum of Art are all about you. From 10 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., you can visit the printroom and request to see the original copy of any photograph, drawing, lithograph or other type of the 14,000 works on print the museum owns.
"Part of the reason to put them away is to keep them nice," says Kate Meyer, curatorial assistant of prints and drawings, about the prints. "Part of the reason for Fridays is that they don't do anybody any good if you don't get them out."
The only rules are no gum and no pens. Only penails are allowed in the "land of paper." Located just past the gift shop if you take a left at the main entrance, the printroom is easy to overlook. It looks like an office area, quite unlike the galleries meant for viewing art.
Waiting for you in the printroom is Meyer, Luke Jordan, lecturer of design, and maybe a few artsy graduate students who enjoy shooting the breeze about art with anyone who will listen.
You can search the museum's art collection online before your trip to figure out what type and era of prints fascinate you, or you can just stop by. Meyer's knowledge about printmaking
is as eclectic as the museum's collection.
She can tell you what the meaning of fruit is in different prints based on the culture and era, why artists use pseudonyms and how a print can still be an original, even if it is one of 50 copies.
Meyer will spend hours telling you anything you want to know — or anything she thinks you should know — about the prints because, as she says, "Fridays are about you."
// FRANCESCA CHAMBERS
Contributed photo
Contributed photo
Feast for the eyes: Butt Johnson's "Deluta del Castello di Greyskull" is one of curatorial assistant Kate Meyer's favorite works on print at the Spencer.
REVIEW
music review // KARL BLAU — 'ZEBRA' (K RECORDS)
KJHK's weekly guide to sonic consumption.
"Zebra." Noun, An animal. Now, looking at that definition, you have just as much of an idea of where this album is coming from as Karl Blau did. In the first two tracks, you get acid jazz, folk rock, electronica and psychedelia, crammed into just a hair more than six minutes. All of that music in such a short space makes it hard to not only find the focus of an album, but the big picture is blurry as well. Though this album doesn't demand your attention, it somehow draws you in. It doesn't grab you by the shoulders and throw you straight into Blau's world of off-kilter sanity, but instead it takes your hand and graciously invites you in.
All of the tracks have a comforting, thick bass line which walks around Blau's friendly voice and makes it easy to get lost in his definition of an album. The underlying power of all of this music is that it's very lo-fi, but feels so polished and smooth. All of the different styles and feelings combine in a way that seems simple, but is actually quite complicated. It seems as if Blau is asking the eternal question — is a zebra black with white stripes or white with black stripes? It appears that Blau's Zebra is both.
While the stripes of this record are very different,very black and white,the stark
differences found in the songs are so intrinsic to the album that you couldn't imagine it any other way.
LOGAN NICKELS
KJHK STATION MANAGER
AND ROTATION DJ
movie review //'ZOMBIELAND'
Zombies are great. Self-aware parodies, too, are great. Movies involving long journeys, solid action sequences and at least one badass character who is always ready with quips? Yeah, they're pretty awesome, too. One might think a movie that included all of these elements would be just grand, right? Well, yes and no.
Hollywood hits, indie flicks and everything in between.
The movie that puts all of these bits into the blender and whirs it up in a bloody, gory mass is Zombieland. Parts of it work really well, such as Woody Harrelson's battle-scarred burt-kicker Tallahassee. He's funny, tough, quirky and just a teensy bit vulnerable. Jesse Eisenberg does pretty much what he does best as Columbus, the movie's nervous, germaphobic, rules-conscious narrator.
Other parts ... well, let's just say Zombie-land isn't a perfectly blended smoothie. There are chunks. Big ones.
The writing is really clumsy at times. The characters aren't very strongly established, so pre-existing relationships seem weak, and developing relationships just don't make much sense. Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, as con-artist sisters, put in good efforts but, in the end, they just aren't very convincing. Little
to no background is given on any of the movie's characters, which makes it even harder to care about them.
This movie is super-stylish. It looks sharp and flashy, which was probably the goal. But it just feels like the writers had a great idea, thought it would make a neat movie, and churned out a script without much actual consideration for what happened beyond basic plot points or funny vignettes. Zombieland has its moments, but for the most part it just feels — pardon the pun dead.
ABBY OLCESE
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