PULS0
Thursday
PULSE EDITOR: REBECCA WILSON rrw1 n80@gladstone.uoregon.edu
Courtesy
Renowned photographer Kenro Izu’s exhibit in the EMU’s Adell McMillan Gallery, ‘Light Over Ancient Angkor,’ fea
tures original prints of Angkor, an ancient Cambodian city. The show begins today and will run through April 16.
Ancient city comes to campus
■ Photographer Kenro
Izu’s exhibit in the EMU
brings to life the ancient
civilization of Angkor
By Rebecca Wilson
Oregon Daily Emerald
Tucked deep within the
Southeast Asian jungles of
Cambodia lies the city of
Angkor, home to some 15 mil
lion inhabitants — who lived
more than 700 years ago. The
cultural relics of this lost civi
lization constitute possibly
the most spectacular architec
tural ruins on earth. For exam
ple, the temple of Angkor Wat
is the largest temple in the
world and contains a volume
of stone greater than the
Cheops pyramid of Egypt.
Unfortunately, Cambodia is
n’t the most convenient vaca
tion destination: Tourists must
acquire vaccinations and visas
from Cambodian embassies
before they enter the country.
Fortunately, the University
community has the opportu
nity to experience the ancient
ruins through the eyes of
world-renowned photogra
pher Kenro Izu and his exhibit
“Light Over Ancient Angkor.”
The Cultural Forum procured
this coveted exhibit for the
Adell McMillan Art Gallery
starting today and lasting
through April 16.
Daniel Karp, the Cultural
Forum’s visual arts coordina
tor, said Izu’s work stood out
not only for its visual quality
but also because of the artist
himself.
Izu, who is Japanese, relo
cated to New York City be
cause photography is not usu
ally respected as high art in
Japan, Karp said. However,
some of America’s most re
spected visual artists are pho
tographers.
When Izu stumbled upon
Angkor, he was struck by the
challenge of photographing an
area that had never been
caught on film.
“Kenro Izu devoted four
years of his life to photograph
ing Angkor,” Karp said. “Then
he used the sale of the prints
to create an organization
called Friends Without a Bor
der, which created one of the
first children’s hospitals in
Cambodia.”
Furthermore, the photo
graphs in the McMillan Art
Gallery are not reproductions
or prints, Karp said, but the
original photographs.
The photographs’ signifi
cance goes beyond the aes
thetic quality of the images.
Jeffrey Barlow is a professor of
history at Pacific University in
Forest Grove; he will be giving
Turn to Angkor, page 9
Program not kidding
about writing skills
■ The Kidd Tutorial in the
creative writing department
offers a year-long course for a
handful of serious students
By Mason West
Oregon Daily Emerald
In a year that brought such literary
driven movies as “Wonderboys” and
“Finding Forrester,” the craft of writing
is easy to glamorize and remove from
real society. But the University offers a
program for students with the same
drive as those whose scripts we see on
the big screen, minus the Hollywood
glam and big-name stars such as Sean
Connery and Michael Douglas.
The Kidd Tutorial Program has been
a part of the creative writing depart
ment since its foundation in 1991. For
merly the Walter and Nancy Kidd Tuto
rial Program, it was founded with a
large fund bequeathed by the couple to
the University. The year-long course is
open to all students at the University
wishing to develop their creative writ
ing skills in any discipline.
The program is in constant flux
bringing up to 35 new undergraduates
a year together with graduate students
to create a core group. The graduate stu
dents are the tutors of individual sec
tions, each containing no more than six
students. Head tutor Rebecca Barniskis
does not tutor a section but oversees the
program as a whole by meeting with all
the individual tutors. She said each tu
tor develops a line of study for his or
her students, which includes certain
core texts read by all students fall term.
From there, students begin to go in their
own directions, developing a “line of
inquiry,” which they will follow for the
rest of the year.
“We want students to figure out:
What are their obsessions in writing,”
Barniskis said. “What they’re expected
to do by the end of spring term is to
have some substantial project equiva
lent to an undergraduate thesis.” ‘
Britta Ameel, a student in the pro
gram, is pursuing the relationship be
tween the mind and body in writing for
her line of inquiry.
“I’ve always been interested in the
philosophical idea that the mind can be
separate from the body,” she said. “His
torically, everyone has said that women
can’t do it.”
Ameel said she is not trying to
achieve that separation but is playing
with what happens in the attempt as
well as whether there should even be
an attempt. The line of inquiry is a
broad thing that allows Kidd students
to explore their writing in many differ
ent directions.
Ameel is focusing almost exclusive
ly on poetry, but fellow student Luke
Houck has decided to mix his poetic
development with his increasing inter
est in fiction. Houck said that the pro
gram has been his most challenging
course at the University, but in a good
way.
“I want to be a writer,” he said. “But
instead of just finishing one piece, I
want to accomplish something bigger.”
Having to stick with his line of in
quiry is motivation to keep going for
that larger goal. Ameel said that all the
students being in the same boat togeth
er helps them deal with the daunting
task. In each small section, the students
become intimately familiar with others’
inquiries, which allows them to help
each other. Not only do they look at
each other’s work through the different
lenses, but they become able to see their
own work differently.
Houck said that having a graduate
student — in his case, a master of fine
arts — as a tutor is very helpful to the
idea exchange in groups.
“He’s still a student like we are, and
that keeps everything on the same lev
el,” he said.
Ameel has a different experience be
cause her tutor is this year’s program di
rector, Shelly Withrow, who has re
turned to the program after helping
coordinate its original incarnation in
1991. Working with Withrow, also a
poet, has been a challenging experience
for Ameel but one she believes has
helped her grow.
“It’s been really amazing but really
challenging and at times dishearten
ing,” she said. “Shelly is so smart, and
she expects the same of us.”
The level of expectation is high in the
Turn to Kidd, page 9
Pocket Playhouse will teach audiences ‘The Lesson’
■This play tests the boundaries
of authority and inferiority
between a professor and his pupil
‘The Lesson’
Pocket Playhouse
★★★★★
By Mason West
Oregon Daily Emerald
Today, Rich Brown hopes to give
people a lesson, if they are brave
enough to accept the tutelage. Instead
of a lecture hall, the Pocket Playhouse
becomes an educational institution
with Brown’s interpretation of “The
Lesson,” a play by Eugene Ionesco. The
show will challenge and confuse audi
ences, but the experience is well worth
it.
The play was written in 1950 by “the
father of absurdism,” but shows no
signs of being dated. The story is about
a respected professor giving a first les
son to his newest pupil. As the Profes
sor continues the instruction, he gets
progressively more aggressive and
frightening, a far cry from the feeble
man he is at the beginning. The Profes
sor feeds his ego off the domination of
his Pupil’s inferior knowledge. The fun
nier moments in the play take place
over his instruction of subtraction, a
theory that the Pupil cannot under
stand.
His maid, Marie, warns him that if he
continues with the lesson it will end in
calamity, but her statements are more
suggestive than warning. From mathe
matics the Professor moves to linguis
tics, where he lectures on and on in an
incomprehensible way. The Professor
builds and builds while the Pupil
grows weaker with the physical mani
festation of a toothache. All the while,
Marie is watching in the shadows.
Brown has added a second influen
tial force that Ionesco never intended,
and it becomes a vital part of the pro
duction. It takes the form of a man with
a saxophone who manipulates all the
characters with his melodies like a
jazzy pied piper. The music is all im
provised by local musician Skip Moses,
and it gives the play a more up-to-date
feeling while adding visually and audi
bly to the absurdity of the text.
Anyone who is interested in theater,
language or culture must go see this
play. It is a shame that it is only running
three days. The experience of this play
is one that I have never had in theater
and the University is lucky to have it of
fered in the Pocket. Quinn Mattfeld
Turn to Lesson, page 9
Quinn Mattfeld and Sarah Turnquist (standing) argue over the fate of the
unsuspecting pupil (Amanda Dumler) in this must-see Pocket production.