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1166 South A • Springfield • 726-6969 • Open 24 Hours (Almost)
School
& Department of DANCE
JANUARY CONCERTS
Clip and Save this Calendar!
For more information on School of Music events, call 346-5678,
or call Guardline at 485-2000, ext. 2533 for a taped message.
Sun. FRITZ GEARHART, Violin
1/9 Faculty Artist Series 4 p.m., Beall Hall
Performing Beethoven violin sonatas.
$7 General Admission, $4 students & senior citizens
Thu. COLORADO STRING QUARTET
1/13 with cellist Rhonda Rider
Chamber Music Series 8 p.m., Beall Hall
Reserved seats $8, $18, $22, available at the Hult Center
(682-5000) or EMU (346-4363); student rush $9, $5 at the door.
Sat. SUPER STRINGS
1/15 Children’s Concert Series 10:30 a.m., Beall Hall
t $3 adults, $2 children & students, or $5 for a family
Fri. OREGON JAZZ ENSEMBLE
1/21 UO Ensemble 8 p.m., Beall Hall
$5 General Admission, $3 students & senior citizens
Sun. MARK BUEDERT, Tenor
1/23 Faculty Artist Series 4 p.m., Beall Hall
Performing Gypsy songs by Dvorak and Janacek.
$7 General Admission, $4 students & senior citizens
Tue. AN EVENING OF BRAHMS
1/25 Faculty Artist Series 8 p.m., Beall Hall
Featuring hornist Ellen Campbell, violinist Fritz Gearhart, ^
and pianist Victor Steinhardt.
$7 General Admission, $4 students & senior citizens
Thu. UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY and
1/27 UNIVERSITY SINGERS
UO Ensembles 8 p.m., Beall Hall
FREE Admission
Mon. KAMMERER-DOWD JAZZ REUNION
1/31 Benefit Concert & CD Release Party
Faculty Artist Series 8 p.m., Gerlinger Alumni Lounge
$7 General Admission, $4 students & senior citizens
By Yael Menahem
Oregon Daily Emerald
PARIS — “I love Paris in the
springtime,” sang Frank Sinatra,
and I love the city in the winter.
The trees are decorated with
strings of white lights. Holiday
decorations stretch from one end
of the
street to
the other,
and the
freezing
weather
never
stops the
people from filling the streets and
their favorite cafes.
The city is undoubtedly best
known for its fine art and land
marks — the Notre Dame Cathe
dral and the Eiffel Tower, among
others — but it is also a' cultural
and intellectual hotspot.
Visiting Paris during this once
in a lifetime New Year’s holiday
was truly a treat. These are a few
impressions the city left on me
during the last several days of
1999.
Pop Culture Madness
Although Paris, or France for
that matter, does not have a televi
sion culture like the United States,
if you flip through the channels,
* you will fiftc! many talk shows,
ones unlike those in America.
Mostly the shows consist of one
on-one interviews with, authors,
filmmakers or philosophers.
French television, although enter
taining, seems to be more of a
learning tool in many cases with
many documentaries, game shows
and lots of analysis of the world.
One thing the French do appre
ciate through on the tube is their
music. MTV Europe, a popular
station, offers less variety than the
U.S. version, but it sticks to the
original formula of music videos
24 hours a day. As of one week
ago, Lauryn Hill’s duet with Bob
Marley to “Turn Your Lights
Down Low” was a big hit on the
station, as well as on the radio.
Puff Daddy and Jennifer Lopez are
popular, as is Destiny’s Child and
Whitney Houston.
Oddly, the French have almost
adopted Celine Dion as one of
their own, although she is French
Canadian. Even more peculiar,
one bad word about the King of
Pop, Michael Jackson, can attract
dirty looks.
Other American-made stars
also flourish in Paris. The Artist
Formerly Known as Prince recent
ly made a rare appearance on TV
and held a sold-out concert, while
the sultry Barry White is a thrill to
Parisians who enjoy his sexy
voice.
Television and music aren’t
. everything- though, films* Ire a
popular art form too. Many films
are introduced from the United
States, but the French certainly
have a knack for making touching
films filled with deep medita
tions. One of France’s great direc
tors, Claude Lelouch, just released
his latest film, “Une PourToutes,”
translated to “One for All,” a com
edy about five 35-year-old actress
es, their lives and their questions
about life.
Most recently, Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s “End of Days”
and the latest James Bond film hit
the movie theaters on the Champs
Elysees. This week, Spike Lee’s
Reporter’s
NOTEBOOK
“Summer of Sam” and the eerie
“The Sixth Sense” open, with one
of the city’s favorite movie stars,
Bruce Willis, visiting to promote
the film.
The Fine Art Scene
Pop culture aside, what would
Paris be without museums and na
tional landmarks at each street
corner or building you walk by?
After more than six years worth
of a major clean-up operation, the
front of the Notre Dame Cathedral
is finally clear of scaffolds and is
shining brightly even under
cloudy skies. The smog that accu
mulates in the city took its toll on
the gothic church, but now thou
sands can enjoy the church as it
was meant to be seen.
The post-modern Centre
Georges Pompidou, complete
with tube-filled escalators and
funky colorful designs, officially
opened Jan. 1 following renova
tions and was free to the public for
the weekend. The center official
ly opens on Jan. 11, and it offers
exhibitions, a library and a cine
mateque where French indepen
dent films are featured.
A new exhibit following the
Fauvism movement has opened
and has drawn crowds by the
hundreds daily who line the
streets eager to see colorful
paintings by Henri Matisse
and Andre Derain. Fauvism
began at the end of the 19th
century in France and was
led by Matisse, among others.
The style concentrated on
bright, lively primary and sec
ondary colors and was a liber
ation of painting toward ab
stract art. The exhibit is held
at the Musee National de
L’Art Modeme de la Ville de
Paris and runs until mid-Feb
ruary 2000.
The Grand Finale
Speaking of 2000, how
could you ignore the New
Year’s celebrations altogeth
er but in Paris especially?
The avenue of Champs Ely
sees that leads to the Arc de
Triumph was lined with a
variety of structures that ran
from one end of the avenue
to the edge of it. The struc
tures resembled ferris
wheels, but they weren’t
there to seat people; rather
they were filled with cre
ative, sometimes surreal
images.
One structure ex
plained the human
body and the
of our arms, legs and
other limbs. There
were white screens
that showed how we
use our body parts
as the wheel rotat
ed. Another
wheel fea
tured great
monuments
from around
the world
small pieces of light-colored
wood. As it rotated, the Eiffel
Tower, the Great Wall of China
and the Leaning Tower of Pisa
were among those that circled.
The most innovative of the
wheels was one that featured a
life-size mobile that lifted people
dangling from the structure and
playing instruments. The artists
wore make up and were dressed in
colorful costumes, while between
the musicians were what looked
like three red cocoons.
To the crowd’s surprise, as the
mobile hit the top, a woman came
out of one of the red cocoon struc
tures and without a net to catch
her, twisted the rope-like material
around her arms and legs and then
slid up and down it in acrobatic
manner. The fantastic images
were reminiscent of the fantastic
Cirque du Soleil and the music
that accompanied the scene lifted
the crowd into a different reality
and left observers in awe.
Last but not least was the Eiffel
Tower, which was one of the most
talked-about structures in the
world as it was prepared for the
millennium, and it didn’t fail to
astonish. As the clock approached
midnight, fireworks started to
shoot into the sky from the lower
level and all sides of the tower to
the top, creating the illusion that
the tower was a rocket being
launched into space, and the spec
tacular image was not lost on the
audience.
At the stroke of midnight, more
fireworks continued to shoot into
the dark sky and the tower,
complete with spectacular
shining lights, lit like a thou
sand diamonds in the sky. It
was a magnificent sight to see.
Luckily, the newly-added
lights on the tower will light
up as it did on New Year’s
every hour on the hour for
the next year. If you have a
chance to visit, it is a breath
taking sight to see, even with
out the fireworks, which
were a one-time event.
One minor Y2K-related
glitch, which turned out to
be a technical problem,
came five hours prior to the
stroke of midnight, where
after 1,000 days of a millen
nium countdown on an
electronic screen set on the
tower, the screen faded to
black. It was distressing
news and unfortunately
unfixable as the clock
wound down. The experi
ence to count from 10 sec
onds to zero along with
the screen was lost, but it
didn’t deter the crowd or
the festive celebrations.
As the French would
say, c’est la vie.
With all of the hype
surrounding the millen
nium and the draw that
Paris has year round,
it’s no surprise that
the city doesn’t dis
appoint. ' Anyone
who visits the city
might recall that fa
•i;from
Yaei Mena hem Emerald