Today’s crossword solution
1
THtAMHEOtOGKItMl
INTERNATIONAL
FILM AND VIDEO
FESTIVAL
5-day film package $29
1-night $6
All-day Saturday $10
For details,
video clips
& tickets:
website:
www.archaeology
channel.org
e-mail:
f ilmfest <g> archaeology
channel.org
telephone:
(541)344-5572
mail:
TAC Festival
4147 E. Amazon Dr.,
Eugene, OR 97405
Tickets can
be purchased
at the box
office during
the festival.
July 13 - 17, 2004
McDonald Theatre Schedule
Tuesday, 13 July 2004
5:45pmDoors open
6:30 Opening Ceremony
6:50 Guardians of Angkor (USA)
7:53 Cultural Wars: Tales from the Trenches, Keynote
address by Dr. Jane Waldbaum, American
Institute of Archaeology
8:45 Iraq’s Lost Treasure (USA)
Wednesday, 14 July 2004
5:45pmDoors open
6:20 Introductions
6:30 Alexandria-Center of Knowledge (Germany)
7:33 Secrets of the Dead: Search for First Human
(USA)
8:41 Tubabs in Africa (USA)
Thursday, 15 July 2004
5:45pmDoors open
6:20 Introductions
6:30 The Mystery of Chaco Canyon (USA)
7:38 Tonto (USA)
8:17 Searching for Blue (Peru)
9:03 Sastun: My Apprenticeship With a Maya Healer
(USA/Belize)
Friday, 16 July 2004
5:45pmDoors open
6:20 Introductions
6:30 Bilad Chinqit-The Land of Chinguetti (Italy)
7:40 A Forgotten Place: The History of an Abandoned
Farming Community (USA)
8:45 Ephesus-Metropolis of the Ancient World
(Austria)
Saturday, 17 July 2004
10:15am Doors open
10:50 Introductions
11:00 The Mummies of Taklamakan (France)
12:03pm Sagalassos, the Forgotten City (Belgium)
1:06 Kurtal-Snake Spirit (Australia)
1:35 lunch break
2:35 Time Team-Garden Secrets (UK)
3:25 Skull Wars Revisited, Keynote address by Dr.
David Hurst Thomas, curator of anthropology,
American Museum of Natural History
4:17 Guardians of a Legacy (USA)
4:28 The House of Julius Polybius in Pompeii (Italy)
4:37 The Splendor of Rome (Italy)
Festival Events
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, July 13-15
1-4:30pm Teachers’ Workshop, Downtown Athletic
Club, $49
10 a.m. Guided trips to Heritage Sites, length varies,
$15
Fri., July 16
10am-1pm, Children’s Workshop, Alton Baker Park, $15
10am Guided trips to Heritage Sites, length varies,
$15
1 - 4pm Heritage Film Symposium, Downtown
Athletic Club, $20
Aaron Sullivan Illustrator
Enid and Seymour of 'Ghost World’ express increasing alienation from the materialistic
nature of others.
MOVIE
continued from page 7
around them says everything about
what high school must have been
like for them. Upon seeing that two
of the popular kids in school have
hooked up, Enid remarks: "He better
be watch out or he'll get AIDS when
he date-rapes her."
Enid and Rebecca's relationship is
of a type that seems to develop
among those neither pretty enough
to advance socially nor ambitious
enough to advance academically.
They stick together, watch each oth
er's back and mock the superficiality
of those around them. But as they
enter the world outside of high
school the relationship begins to fall
apart, as Rebecca begins to yearn for
a normal life.
Around this time the two come
across another outcast in the form of
Seymour, played by the excellent
Steve Buscemi. They meet him during
the course of an elaborate prank in
which they call the number in a pa
thetic-sounding personal ad in order
to check out what a guy who would
write something like that looks like.
After watching him sit alone at a
restaurant counter for hours, they fol
low him home and check out his mail
to find out more about him. Once
again, small details say everything you
need to know about a character, as the
girls find out Seymour belongs to a
W.C. Fields fan club and the National
Psoriasis Foundation.
He is also a collector of old records
and advertising art, as Enid finds out
later when she befriends him. It is
their relationship which sets the tone
for the rest of the film, as both are
cynical smart-asses being slowly beat
en down by the world. Seymour is
more withered than Enid, having long
had to deal with an environment he
finds grating and senseless. He has re
treated into a world made of collec
tor's items and the minutia of old
jazz, blues and ragtime 78s.
By this time it becomes clear that
Zwigoff is beginning to make more
subtle points about the relationship
of people and their belongings. Char
acters in the film define themselves by
what they buy, what they wear and
what they posses.
As Enid and Rebecca begin to grow
apart, the split is shown through Re
becca's sudden craving for a job, fur
niture for her new apartment and the
other aspects of commercial life, all
of which Enid finds distasteful. On
the flip side, Enid is unable to keep a
job, and when she tries to hold a
garage sale she is too sentimentally
attached to her old things to be able
to sell them. She finds it ever more
difficult to relate to those around her.
Her and Seymour's mutual discon
nection becomes associated with
their attachment to old, unmar
ketable objects and their disgust with
the sleek and commercial. People
find them strange because of their
tastes and their intelligence, as well
as their personal quirks.
This subtext wouldn't work if their
loneliness weren't so palpable to be
gin with. Each deals with an empti
ness in their lives which they deal
with in different ways. Their relation
ship soon develops into something
more bittersweet than it started out as.
Seymour deals with his issues
through a bout of impotent violence.
Enid's solution is different, leading to
the film's sublime ending.
It is this sublimity which infects
the film, making it one of the best
cinematic character studies of the
past decade.
rya nnybu rg@ dailyem era kl.co m
NYBURG
continued from page 7
albums are hard to come by these
days, having been out of print for
ages, but his more recent work from
the early and mid 1990s is worth
checking out, especially Tribal Thun
der," which should belong in every
surf rock lover's home.
Now let us move to the other side of
the ocean and examine another popu
lar style. Punk rock was an interesting
phenomenon to say the least, seeing as
it produced so many bands which pro
duced so little material of worth. A lot
of great work came out of the late
1970s punk rock era, but so did a lot of
crap, which is why it surprises me that
some of the great stuff isn't always giv
en the credit it is certainly due.
Pop quiz: Who released the first
United Kingdom punk rock album? It
was not the Sex Pistols, as seems to be
the popular myth, but rather a gangly
looking group of freaks called the
Damned. This group had the first U.K.
punk rock single ("New Rose"), al
bum ("Damned Damned Damned")
and was the first U.K. punk group to
play in these here United States. Prob
ably the closest parallel to the
Damned's sound is the Misfits, or
maybe the Cramps. Like those groups,
the Damned members didn't so
much play punk as they did create a
freaked-out, hyperventilating form of
early rock 'n' roll. It's interesting that
all these bands used variations on B
movie imagery for their lyrical con
tent, but I'll leave the theorizing about
that for another column.
The Damned members didn't re
lease much of value during their con
voluted careers. The first album is a
must-own, as is their third, "Machine
Gun Etiquette." Both of these albums
were recorded with guitarist/song
writer Brian James in the band, and as
such are the only truly necessary
recordings by the outfit. Everything
else ranged across degrees of forget
table, but if the Sex Pistols are remem
bered for producing one truly classic
punk album, the Damned can at least
merit a mention for putting out two
great ones. That's more than most did,
and it's a shame that more people
don't remember it.
rya nnyburg@da i lyemera Id. co m
GOT A STORY IDEA? in
■fc-C