AKU professor is mapping the earth breaking new ground and...
Making Waves
When Don Steeple fired a 22-caliber rifle into the ground in the summer of 1980, he never dreamed it would set off such a reaction.
Now he's got people calling him from all over the planet. People wanting him to help prove the Sphinx in Egypt is 9,000 years old instead of 4,500. People wanting
hier to locate World War II ammunitions caches in the Philippines. People wanting him to host for lost Spanish treasure. In fact, if people want something below the earth's surface, they are likely to give Steeples, a KU professor of geophysics, a call.
That's because in 1980, Steeples and a team of KU geophysicists recorded and analyzed the high-pitch sound waves created by that rifle not. In doing so, Steeples said they became the first people in the world to successfully may the earth less than 50 feet from the surface.
The technique Screepies use is called scientific reflection — charting and interpreting seawaves as they reflect from the subsurface. Oil companies have used this technique for more than 60 years. But they're only been able to use it for greater depths. Shallow depths are more difficult to map.
Steeple records sound waves on a geophone, or what is essentially a 96 channel stereo, he said. The device costs $100,000 and can be carried in a suitcase.
"When we set the gun off, we tell the machine to start listening," Steeples said. "And the machine then listens and picks up waves along the surface. It picks up waves that come through the air. It picks up waves that come in the subsurface."
For the last 15 years, two things that have kept Steeples' work interesting are the adventures he's had
from the offers he's accepted and laughs he's had from the outrageous offers he's rejected.
"If somebody calls me about something that I've never thought about doing before, then I'll put pencil to it and say, 'Can we do that?' Steeples said. "If it looks like, Well, maybe,' then I start talking money with them."
One time, a caller wanted Steeples to hunt for a boat dock below the Sphinx. The callg
wanted to
"We're basically the diagnosticians of the earth."
prove his theory that the Sphinx was built by stone floating down the Nile River.
in fatigue and flack jackets and stuff started having second thoughts," he said.
The process of mapping the subsurface is expensive sometimes as much as $10 a foot. Repees said. So if someone wanted the subsurface in a football field, he manned it would cost around $3,000.
He frequently gets calls from treasure hunters, some who offer him a percentage
The smallest object the process could identify would be about a meter in size, he said.
Don Steoples KU professor of geophysics
Steeples said he and the Aryan ran into trouble when looking for the Korean tunnel.
if any names are found.
"They were wanting to see tunnels about 10 feet across at a depth of about 100 feet." Steeples said. "We could probably see a tunnel 10 feet across at 50 feet but to see a tunnel 10 feet across at 300 feet is beyond the capability of the technique at this point."
Those offers are easy no thank you's, Steeples said.
or work into calculating in the first place so that we don't make fools out of ourselves very often," he said.
"When I got over there and they started outfitting."
Steeples' orientation has taken him around the world. He even teaches courses about the technique and its applications. Steeples' wife, Tammy often accompanies him, joking that she is the official guide for everything above the surface.
steeples said yes to offers in 1988, 1989 and 1990. The North Koreans were digging tunnels under the demilitarization zone. He was asked to consult the U.S. 8th Army as they searched for the tunnels.
We put quite a bit
Steeples said he had taken the job because of the fascinating nature of the problem and because it was in the interest of national security.
She said that when she accompanied Stefanie and one of his colleagues to Italy, she played the role of the tour guide.
"They're like 'We've seen a fountain, we've seen a statue, we've seen a seismic reflection we're ready to go home,' Tammy Steeples said, laughing. "I couldn't even get them out of the hotel at night. I do the touristy things and then go back and tell them what I've seen."
"It's kind of like, don't operate on the patient until you know what's wrong," Steeples said. "We're basically the diagnosticians of the earth."
Though Steeples originally developed the technique for ground-water exploration, most of what he does these days is considered environmental geophysics. Often, companies want to know what is underground before they start to dig.
Parisian art exhibit displays centuries of sexual expression
The Associated Press
PARIS — Erotic potpourri? Pornographic hodge-podge? Sex encyclopedia? Leave the Kids at home.
The show on sex in art at the Pompidou Center puts
The show on sex in art at the Pompidou Center puts
cattails on parade in a provocative display which
shows how sexy it can be.
class "Prospectus X" in polished bronze, photos of Andy Bunton to drag, Robert Gober's "Man Coming Out of a Woman" and Tony Wesselman's "Woman With a Cigarette."
The beautiful, the tinky cohabit in this labyrinthian display of paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, collages. Installations by 100 artists from around the world.
"Femininmasculin: The Sex of Art" includes things from bondage and sadomasochism to voyeurism, cross-dressing, masturbation, urination and fetishism.
art critic. "Until now, no one has looked into them in such a comprehensive way."
The tone is set by two French actors reading erotic literature on video screens in the main entrance. The show gets to the point with Gustave Courbet's famous "Origins of the World," a 19th-century hyperrealistic painting which shows a naked woman lying spread-eagled on her back.
Arranged thematically in five sections, the exhibition features familiar works by the 20th century's leading artists — among them Marcel Duchamp's 1919 mustachioed Mona Lisa, Magritte's "Rape" and Picasso's "Kiss," "Couple" and "Embrace."
Museum officials caution that some material may be found offensive, a rarity for a show designed as one of the season's main cultural events.
"The questions of sex and gender, transformation and identity are among the important issues raised by contemporary artists," said Joan Simon, an American
Dagen praised the works of Louise Bourgeois, the celebrated French-born sculptor who lived in the United States, but blasted others as pure gimmicks.
Also on display are portraits of the artist Georgia O'Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz and composing photographs by Edward Weston and Imogen Wellingham.
Smith's "Train," a sculpture of a woman looking back at the trail of bright, red beads flowing from her vagina.
American Robert Mapplethorpe whose sexually explicit photographs have fuelled controversy in recent years, is represented by the photograph of Ken Moody holding an umbrella, and Bourgeois holding a giant statue.
Fabrice Hybert's pair of untitled swings equipped with two thalluses was "a boring ioke." Dagen is note.
For art critic Philippe Dagen who writes for the respected Le Monde, the show was uneven, with works that "left out sublimation ... and wavered between different types of lyricism and realism."
the front page
A has taken down its pants," headlined the latest
Messengers carry loud and unmistakable social mes-
Sue Williams' "Try to Be More Accommodating" is a cartoon-like portrayal of a woman's mouth, eyes, nose and ear being penetrated by four penises.
Her 1992 sculpture of a naked woman is covered with boot prints, bruises and phrases commonly uttered by abusive men.
Indeed, there is nothing left to the imagination in Kiki
"Look what you made me do" runs up one arm, and "I
thinkyoubitcats runs down the other.
One of the most amusing pieces is a photograph by Noritoshi Hirakawa, "At a Bedroom in the Middle of Night."
The serene picture of people sitting on benches in Toyko's hogashira Park is accompanied by a certificate signed by a couple which swears they were having sexual intercourse when the photo was taken. They are not visible in the picture.
The exhibit is a multimedia experience. Visitors are invited into a separate screening room to try out Warhol's famous kiss projected on a huge wall.
Sylvia Burritt's 1994 "Wild Pair," features three pairs of olive-piked heels spray-painted on top of a collage of magazine covers and shows handsome men in various stages of arousal.
Elsewhere in the exhibit, there are photos of Warhol wearing a blond wig and his sexually-explicit drawings rarely seen in public.
Visitors exit through a huge room with Bourgeois' "Twosome," a monumental mechanized vision of copulation in which one giant black tube slowly and repeatedly penetrates another as red lights throb within.
Cultural Calendar
LECTURES
Lecture — "AIDS is a Women's Issue," 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Malawi Room in the Kansas Union. Sponsored by the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center.
Lecture — "On To Disembark" 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Spencer Museum of Art.
PERFORMANCES
Department of Music and Dance presents a student recital, featuring Mike MacFarland, 7:30 tonight at Swarthout
Recital Hall. Free.
Inge Theatre Series presents "Intruder in Autumn," 8 tonight and Saturday at Inge Theatre. Tickets $4, $7 and $8.
Department of Music and Dance presents a Fall recital, featuring University Camerata, 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Swarthowlet Recital Hall. Free.
Inge Theatre Series presents "Uncle,
Brother," 8 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday at the Inte Theatre. Tickets $4. $7 and $8.
University Dance Company presents an informal concert, 7:30 p.m. Friday
and Saturday at Sherbon Dance Theatre in Robinson Center.
Department of Music and Dance presents 71st annual KU Holiday Vespers, 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Lied Center. Tickles $4 and $6.
Inge Theatre Series presents "Here and Now," 8 p.m. Friday at the Inge Theatre.
Lawrence Community Theatre presents "The Sisters Rosensweig" 8 p.m.
KU Band presents Wind Ensemble Winter Concert, 7:30 p.m. Monday at Crafton-Prever Theatre. Free.
Missouri Repertory Theatre presents "A Christmas Carol," 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Helen F. Spencer Theatre, Center for the Performing Arts, 50th and Cherry streets, Kansas City, Mo. Tickets $16-$32.
Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at 1501 New Hampshire St.
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art presents "Green Eggs and Ham," 7 p.m. Friday at the Auditorium in the Museum, 4525 Oak St., Kansas City, Mo. Tickets $3 and $1.