Kansan reader opportunity
(write your own editorial
and
if you can't say something nice,
don't say anything at all)
The people say...
Mighty fancy writing
To the Editor:
Since early this year, when Larry Ketchum displayed his barnyard taste in several incredibly puerile reviews, I have read with increasing alarm the Kansas's reaction to (put broadly) artistic presentations by, or under the sponsorship of, the University. Few of us are able to attend all of them; consequently we must turn to the Kansas to learn something
of what we have missed—something of the quality of the performance, and when relevant something of the work performed. There is of course much latitude; taste—the taste of the reviewer—provides the only real guideline.
THESE thoughts passed through my mind as I read the piece by Judith Faust purporting to review the Cleveland Orchestra's Thursday night concert. I say "purporting" because, after a bare listing of the program (omitting the encore; did she recognize it?), her subject slipped away from her; she turned instead to a cloying, fanciful description of a sweet young thing who enjoyed the concert ever so much, and who "mirrored the music as accurately as a conductor's score." (Interestingly, Mr. Szell did not use one). Bravo, Miss Faust. Mighty fancy writing. But rather than learning on a tired and wholly misplaced journalistic device, wouldn't it have been more honest, more responsible, to write straightforwardly of the precision, power, and yes, the magnificence of the Cleveland Orchestra. Bartok: leanness and thrust and brilliance; Weber: rich and expansive and clean; Tchaikovsky: sweep and crushing force, without clamor, without loss of proportion. It was a rare and beautiful musical experience, one that deserved so much better than the Kansan did by it.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"YES I DID WANT TO BE A ENGINEER—BUILT I THINK NOW I DO LIKE
SOME KIND OF MAORI WITH CLASSES CLOSER TO TD STUDENT UNION."
KANSAN TELEPHONE NUMBERS
KANSAN TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Newsroom—UN 4-3846 — Business Office—UN 4-3198
The Daily Kansan, student newspaper at The University of Kansas, is represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St. New York, N.Y. 10023. Students can postpone or delay postage paid at Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised in the University are offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin.
The opinions expressed in the editorial column are those of the students whose names are signed to them. Guest editorial views are not necessarily the editor's. Any opinions expressed in the Daily Kansan are not necessarily those of The University of Kansas Administration or the State Board of Regents.
No one expects the Kansan to be professional. But it must meet, not abrogate, its responsibilities.
MAY I suggest that you would better serve your readers by recognizing that laboratory journalism has limits, and that the wastebasket is often preferable to the press. If no one on the staff is qualified to review, as is probable from the strong evidence you have printed throughout the year, it seems the wiser course would be silence. Or you could seek out a qualified, non-partisan reviewer from an appropriate department of the university.
Ron Broun
2nd year law student
Phillipsburg
To the Editor:
She agrees
I for one agree with Daniel H. Janzen on the issue of a female draft. If we, as women, claim the same rights as men, then it naturally follows that we should be subject to the same afflictions.
Marianne Monaco
Dumont, New Jersey sophomore
2 Daily Kansan editorial page Tuesday, April 26, 1966
The appearance in April 22f UDK of a feature article, "Concert Has Magic Spell," in lieu of a legitimate review of last Thursday's performance by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra was most distressing. Whether reporting the reactions of "one young lady" was an attempt to exploit yet another approach to reviewing or to conceal an inability to cope with the performance itself, it had no right to its position as the only commentary on the concert.
Wanthonest appraisal
In such a review, one could have learned that the Cleveland ensemble, although committing a few technical errors, gave the best symphonic concert here since the Philadelphia Orchestra visited the campus in 1961; and in some respects, it might be said to have topped even that memorable event. Not one word was devoted to George Szell's agitated but commanding conducting style, or to his achievement in getting from the woodwind soloists matching tonal qualities in the imitative passages of the Tchaikovsky symphony, or indeed to any detail of the concert. And about Berlioz' "Hungarian March," the orchestra's encore, the writer merely remarked that it was begun.
METROPOLITAN Opera singer John Reardon, one of the guest artists who will star in "Carry Nation," had a most appropriate remark regarding this article. Upon completion he, rather surprised, said, "It isn't even a joke! I kept thinking the girl would turn out to be Szell's wife." No Mr. Reardon, unfortunately it is no laughing matter.
ONE CAN only hope that the subject of that article, if she be real, was able to gain more from the performance that did her observer.
To the Editor:
Larry Salmon Winfield senior
C C
Students and professors have been sticking their academic tongues out, saying "bleah!" to the University lately.
The Couldn't-Care-Less sickness they all suffer from is not sudden or unusual, but now during the post-midterm, pre-final period it's especially pronounced. It has afflicted even the most enthusiastically resistant.
THE SYMPTOMS are easy to detect. The professor looks out onto a sea of blank faces and mechanically asks, "Are there any questions over this material?" And the class sits vegetating, waiting for the professor to switch into low and continue with the next page of notes. Possibly, the funny little guy that sits in the third row might raise his hand. Whether he does or not, everyone sits expectantly, waiting for him to Come Up With Something.
A professor might try a line of attack, if he feels at all motivated, by making a distorted statement—a lie—just to get class feedback, punctuated with How-Does-That-Grab-You? written all over his face. The challenge is generally greeted like a fuzzy sucker.
CLASSROOM attendance falls off by a third. Eight o'clocks look like an incomplete study in sleep. Students become obsessed with Anything Unacademic. They complain of being 13 weeks behind; they say it's The Weather, it's Spring Fever, it's Being Close to Graduation.
Well, here we are...
No one really cares what it is. Students settle back and gaze at the professors and the professors gaze back at the students.
Well, here we are...
— Iowa State Daily