KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12. 2010 / NEWS
3A
CAMPUS
Alumnus author visits alma mater
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Robert Day stands with his horse Bandito Doc. Day will be visiting campus today to speak about his latest memoir, describing a journey he made as a KU student to New York City.
BY NICOLAS ROESLER
nroesler@kansan.com
In the 1960s, when there were only 9,000 students at the University, students would congregate in old Fraser Hall instead of on Wescose Beach. There, surrounded by the busts of philosophers carved in stone, students were eager for adventure.
As an undergraduate student at this time, Robert Day would sit with his friends at The Old Gaslight Tavern next to the Kansas Union, drinking beers, reading and planning trips.
Today, at the Spencer Museum of Art, Day will be speaking about his latest memoir: the journey of a KU student traveling to New York to visit the oldest bar in America.
His memoir is titled "Bar Art: John Sloan's McSorley's Ale House Paintings, a Vargas Girl behind the Bar at Ruby Red's in New Orleans. The Luncheon of the Boating Parly on the Kansas Prairie, and Manet's Folies-Bergere in the Old Gaslight Tavern — plus e.e. cummings, Bob Dylan, and Joseph Mitchell: A Travel Memoir with Pictures."
Day's talk will cover the collection of stories from his trip and will include paintings by John Sloan that are discussed in many of his stories.
Day knew that despite the long title of his memoir, there would be one way to attract students. "I figured students like bars," he said. "So they'll come to a talk with the word bar in it."
His tale began when he was reading E.F. Cummings' "Sampson."
AUTHOR ROBERT
DAY TO SPEAK, SIGN
BOOKS
WHEN: Oct. 12, 4:30 p.m.
WHERE: Spencer Art Museu-
sum Auditorium
sure whether or not it was him:
Sponsored by the Spencer Museum of Art, the Department of American Studies, and the Kress Foundation Department of Art History
Before publishing his novel "The Last Cattle Drive," Day spent his days at the University studying English. However, he said, being a writer is completely different than being an English major.
"There were days when I was a terrible English student," Day said.
When he began writing, Day would sit down and copy, word for word, works from jack London and others to see how they put together paragraphs and created a story. While writing as an undergraduate, Day was presented with the opportunity to start a literary magazine here at the University.
Day and a few of his friend start
story sing and tell Warm Inside McSorely's." Day and a friend decided they should visit McSorely's Ale House in New York in a moment of inspiration at the Gaslight Tavern.
"If I were a student I would still go to the oldest bar in America, just to see it."
ROBERT DAY Author
While living in Greenwich Village, New York, for a short time, Day said he met many of the icons from the '60s, including possibly Bob Dylan — but he's still not quite
ed Cottonwood, a literary magazine for undergraduates, in 1965. The magazine has lasted 45 years and is still a nationally distributed magazine. It has included the works of Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Dav himself.
Professor Phil
Professor Phil Wedge, the poetry editor of the magazine, said most magazines start the way Cottonwood did, but its success is extraordinary.
"I can't think of another literary magazine in Kansas that has lasted this long," Wedge said.
V'edge, who actually studied under Day in a writing workshop
here at the University, said although Cottonwood still publishes an occasional work of an undergraduate student, it now mostly publishes recognized authors and artists.
Despite being controlled more by the institution rather than by students, Cottonwood was born from the hands of a student wanting to write and be published.
Cody Charles, Residence Life coordinator and co-founder of The Little Magazine, had an idea similar to Day's two years ago. With his friend Jay Vaglio, Charles stared a magazine just for residence hall students and faculty. Run by both students and administrators. The Little Magazine is designed to give students who would never think of having the opportunity to publish something that chance.
"I noticed that there were a lot of students that used art as a hobby, whether that was writing poetry, or drawing or designing graphics,"
Charles said.
Charles said he wanted to give those students a forum to get their work out.
— Edited by Roshni Oommen
Day said students today should do what he himself did: start a magazine and go travel.
Having grown up in Kansas, Day wrote about what he knew best: his home state. He said he couldn't write about California or Alaska like Jack London was doing, but he could write about what he knew. But nothing held him back from traveling to places he read about in the books by the authors that shaped him as a writer.
"If I were a student, I would still go to the oldest bar in America, just to see it," Day said.
RESEARCH
Study: Americans have bad text habits
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
CHICAGO — Next time your significant other reads a text message while sitting with you at a restaurant, tell him he's rude. And tell him he's like a typical American.
Those statements would likely be true, given the results of a recent Marquee University study that compared the texting habits of cell phone users in the world's two largest democracies.
the U.S. and India.
In monitoring text messages from 137 college students in both countries, the study showed that India appeared to have better "textiquette." Researchers found that 52 percent of the Americans in the study read text messages while in public social settings such as restaurants, shops and movie theaters, compared to only 5 percent of Indian participants who read texts while out. Most Indians (41 percent) read texts
while at home or at a friend's home.
Americans were also seven times more likely than Indians to send texts from social settings (42 percent vs. 6 percent); and almost eight times as likely to text while in the middle of a conversation (31 percent vs. 4 percent).
Still, Robert Shuter, the Marquette communication studies professor who led the study, cautioned not to be too down on American texters.
"The truth is, neither Indians nor Americans excused themselves or took leave when they read or sent a message. They're both at fault," he said, adding that the point of the study was to emphasize how different cultural factors must be considered when developing universal texting rules.
Maybe he's right. Indians did rudely rank 10 percentage points higher than Americans in using swear words in texts.
ODD NEWS
Sky diver rescued after hours in tree
DUNSTABLE, Mass. — A skydiver stuck in a tree in Dunstable, Mass., for about two hours has been rescued and taken to a hospital as a precaution.
Kim Whorton, a staff member at Skydive Pepperell, says the man affiliated with the club does not appear to be hurt.
Chief instructor Carolyn Goldman says the man came
down in a wooded area about 11 a.m. Monday and was stuck 40 to 50 feet up. Goldman says the man was talking to rescue workers.
She says the man is "relatively inexperienced" but it was not his first jump. She did not disclose his name.
Goldman, who has nearly 20 years experience, says she can only remember a couple other times when a skydiver from the jump school about 30 miles northwest of Boston has been stuck in a tree.
Associated Press
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