BWiWIhau
Community
Center tar the
Pertonriny Arts
8th &
Lincoln
■ Friday ■
Bi; Hippie
CD Release Party,
Contesy Clerks, Welsh Rabbit
Rock
$7 at door, 8:30 pm
■ Saturday ■
The Cherry
Poppin’Daddies
CD Release Party, 0PM
Rock/Funk/Swing
$13 advance, $15 door, 9:00 pm
■ Sunday ■
Gref's Eft's
(featuring members of Zero), Roy C. Biv
Jazz Rock
$10 advance, $12 door, 7:00 pm
All Ages Welcome • 687-2746
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PULSE EDITOR: MONICA HANDE
‘Average’ is anything but
■ The Lite and Death ot Joe
Average/ a play appearing at
Pocket Playhouse, is a light
hearted comedy
REVIEW
Death of Joe
Average'
Pocket Playhouse
By Mason West
Oregon Daily Emerald
Most people have some goal
they want to reach, something that
will be a challenge. Certainly, we
are not content to just take our lot.
Neither is Joe Average, but his goal
is actually to be a lesser man than
he is.
Joe Average is a guy whose only
goal in life is to live up to his
name. But mediocrity and normal
cy aren t in the cards tor Joe. As it
turns out, Joe Average is anything
but that.
“The Life and Death of Joe Aver
age” is a play written and directed
by sophomore theater major Matt
Chorpenning. It begins its three
day run in the Pocket Playhouse
today.
As the play opens, we see Joe
Average having just graduated col
lege and being given an entry-level
position at a urinal-mint company.
With this bright future ahead of
him, Joe rushes off to propose to
his girlfriend. As Joe is down on
one knee proposing, she is so hap
py that she promptly dies. Upon
finding this out, the mother of the
unfortunate girl also keels over.
One might think that this play is
turning out to be rather sad, but it
is surprisingly humorous. It isn’t a
dark comedy; it’s just funny. Ac
cording to Chorpenning, the audi
ence is supposed to have a good
laugh at Joe’s expense. We don’t
feel guilty about doing this be
cause Joe takes everything with a
grain of salt and somehow man
ages to get back on top — until
something else happens.
This light-hearted play has no
great purpose and no catharsis —
it may not even have a point. But
what it does have is hilarious ab
surdity. Joe’s father went insane af
ter his mother died from a fatal ad
diction to canned cat food. As a
result of this insanity, Joe’s father
believes he is the Virgin Mary and
that his son, Joe, is Jesus. Of
course, that’s only when he doesn’t
take his medication.
Ultimately, “Joe Average” gives
audiences a much-needed emo
tional break. It is the only one of
the five shows being performed in
the Pocket this term that is a pure
comedy. It reminds us that some
times legitimate theater doesn’t
need to do much more than cause
a little laughter.
“Joe Average” runs today
through Saturday at 5 p.m.
Synthesizers go hog wild on CD
■ The new magnetophone
album features varied time
signatures and neat beats
magnetophone
two studios
By Mason West
Oregon Daily Emerald
On the surface, it might look like
magnetophone is another two-man
electronic group following in the
footsteps of others like the Pro
pellerheads and The Crystal
Method. But that assumption is
proved wrong as soon as one hears
their music.
The band’s latest release, “i guess
sometimes i need to be reminded of
how much you love me,” is their
first on record label 4 A.D., which
boasts other artists such as the Pix
ies and the Breeders. The two mem
bers, Matt Saunders and John Han
son, run old synthesizers through a
multitude of various effects pedals
to create music out of odd sounds.
If you were to take any one sound
from a song and let it last only a
second, you might think that it was
the cry of a dying VCR or a comput
er connecting to the Internet. But
when mixed together in the medley
of songs on the album, sometimes
the sounds are almost relaxing.
The 13 tracks vary from light to
hard in texture, but the most inter
esting variations are in rhythm.
When you hear a song, you have
an underlying knowledge it has a
rhythm, but that rhythm is not al
ways easy to pick out. Some songs
are in 3/4 time, some in 4/4; one is
even in 5/4, which is unusual in
popular music. The rest of the time,
the rhythm is indeterminate.
Those tricky guys in magneto
phone will even fool you by estab
lishing a steady rhythm and then
disturbing it. When listening to the
album for the first two times, I was
constantly checking to see if the CD
was skipping. So if you hate it
when CDs get scratched, buy this
album on the sole principle that
you won’t be able to tell the differ
ence.
The titles of the songs are another
oddity. Names such as “humdah”
or “how I learned to love the fu
ture” have nothing to do with any
thing and were created with a com
bination of Scrabble tiles and a
Ouijia board. The band seems to be
playing some joke, mocking the se
riousness of musicians in the elec
tronic industry.
It is true that with the growing
popularity of electronic music, peo
ple are beginning to grow weary of
artists who try to be too deep and
meaningful. This band seems to be
just a couple of guys who like to
make fun music. The odd sounds
and rhythms and even the title that
they use to disturb and intrigue lis
teners are like little funny jokes.
The bottom line is that magneto
phone has made an album that is
multifaceted. You could sit down
with your headphones and intent
ly listen to the music, or you could
have it be an ambient sound in the
background. Either way, it is equal
ly enjoyable.
PlayStation2 not yet worth price
Sony Corp.’s PlayStation2 is an in
triguing middle step in the evolution
of video games — somewhat like the
first fish to pop out legs and awk
wardly scramble onto the beach.
Home video game systems have
been around for almost a quarter
century, from nearly forgotten pio
neers such as Atari and Coleco to
modern heavyweights Nintendo,
Sega and Sony.
But even as these systems have
grown incredibly in computing
horsepower, they still aren’t used
for anything more than playing
games.
Industry leaders have been talk
ing for almost a decade about using
that horsepower for other tasks,
ranging from loosely defined “in
teractive entertainment” that
would appeal to a broader audience
than conventional video games to
Web surfing and online shopping.
PlayStation2 (www.playsta
tion.com), arriving recently in very
limited quantities at $299, is the
first video game console created
with these broader goals in mind.
Because of component shortages,
Sony made only 500,000 units
available Oct. 26 instead of the 1
million promised earlier this year.
Even though Sony promises to
ship 100,000 units a week through
the end of the year, the PlaySta
tion2 will likely be hard to find on
store shelves until after the holiday
rush.
Gamers are excited about
PlayStation2 because it is much
more powerful than the original
PlayStation, making for more real
istic characters and backgrounds,
faster action and better sound.
The central processor, for exam
ple, runs at 295 megahertz and
crunches instructions in 128-bit
chunks, while the original PlaySta
tion’s electronic brain works with
paltry 32-bit instructions.
PlayStation2 is built around a
DVD drive, so the system can play
DVD movies as well as game discs.
In a first for video game consoles,
the PlayStation2 is backward com
patible; it will play the complete li
brary of original PlayStation titles.
I borrowed a PlayStation2 from
Sony but could only get my hands
on one game: a martial-arts fight
fest called “Tekken Tag Tourna
Turn to PlayStation2, page 6B