May 14, 2003 * The Clackamas Print • 5
ARTS & ENTERTAINMEÑT
Famed poet shares
work, humor, stories
Elisabeth Meyer
The Clackamas Print
Peter Sears brought his poems
and famed good humor to campus
last Wednesday. His easygoing
demeanor made challenging poems
from his award-winning book “The
Brink” more digestible.
He opened the reading with a
light-hearted
comment
about
Clackamas. “I asked somebody the
name of the (parking) lot, so I would
know where I parked. ‘What’s the
name of this lot?’ I said. ‘Uhh...the
parking lot,’ he said. ‘Well, what’s
the name of that road?’ I asked. And
he said, ‘It doesn’t have a name.’
This is a very intuitive campus.”
“I write a lot about violence and
the biases that are so deep in your
blood,” Sears continued cheerfully.
Several of the poems he read dealt
with recognizing children’s ability to
be violent. He addressed topics such
as torturing a fish and harassing the
neighborhood “crazy lady and her
retarded son” at Halloween.
With an air that belied how much
he’s dwelt on the topic, Sears casual
ly said, “I’m really trying to come in
on that business of violence.” He
then paused and abruptly switched
gears. “Okay, enough about that
serious stuff. Let’s talk about base
ball.”
Sears then read a baseball poem,
but not before joking about the
team’s
sponsor
(“Precision
Grinding—that’s one of the great
names”) and pointing out the need to
collect team equipment for memora
bilia.
“You need to get a hat. When you
can’t play baseball anymore, you
don’t have much left—you need a
hat and t-shirts,” said Sears.
Sears’ mellowness softened much
of his material. He read an unpub
lished anti-war poem with the repeat
ed line “we’d better hurry to count
the dead” thundering through it, but
the harshest comment he made about
the politics of the war was, “It’s very
weird, what’s going on now.”
He recalled driving a state car
while working for the Arts
Commission and getting offers like,
“Want an owl in your gas tank?”
which he merely characterized as
“interesting.”
Even personal worries were
expressed offhandedly. In “Double
Ghazal” Sears writes about being
concerned for his daughter, though
he’s not sure why he should be.
“My daughter speaks so fast,” he
read, “I can’t tell if she is trying to
tell me something or trying not to.”
Sears shared his work so affably
that even the more difficult themes in
his work were accessible. His good
humor came through perhaps best
when announced to the crowd that he
had taken to pronouncing “ghazal”
wrong (GAH-zull) intentionally,
because he thought it sounded better.
“You can do that, you know,” he
said. “This isn’t being investigated
by the feds.”
White Stripes mix punk,
folk, heart in 'Elephant'
Isaiah Creel
The Clackamas Print
While The White Stripe’s latest
album “Elephant” lacks musical
complexity, it makes up for it with a
whole lot of heart.
Both punk rock and folk rock
have always been genres based
more on raw emotion than musical
taleht, but that has not inhibited the
popularity of either of them. On the
contrary, many listeners of modem
music seem drawn to these sounds
like moths to the burning passion of
simplicity in form.
Although folk rock seems to
have slipped by the wayside' in a
recent resurgence of punk, The
White Stripes have found a happy
medium between punk and folk
rock (with a heavy dose of blues as
well).
“Elephant” starts out big with
the dark, edgy “Seven Nation
Army,” driven mostly by a very
steady bass drum kick that com
mands attention. From there, the
punk roots of The Stripes show in
“Black Math,” a down and dirty
track featuring that
steady driving beat
Meg White has adopted
as the signature of The
White Stripes’ sound.
The next track “There’s
No Home For You
Here” is vocally remi
niscent of “Magical
Mystery Tour,” and
again utilizes the signa
ture drum beat.
The
whole
album continues on in a
similar fashion of folk
punk simplicity with a
high point at track
ELEPHANT number
10, “Little
Acorns,” which goes
aggressively grungy after relaying a
sophisticated message of hope in the
form of squirrels.
The final song on the album,
“Well it’s True That We Love One
Another,” is sappy and silly, but
really outlines the heart of the
album.
My favorite track on the album
has to be “Girl, You Have No Faith
in Medicine” due mainly to the
social commentary on the outlying
reliance of society upon drugs...
prescription drugs, with lines like,
“Don’t even need a drink of water to
make the headache go away.”
(Author’s note: the majority of
headaches are caused by dehydra
tion.)
This album holds a range of
sound and spirit that provides great
background music for social events
involving college students, but the
lack of musical genius will put off
any “serious” music fans.
Overall, I give this album a
seven out of 10. It has spirit by the
truckload, but the repetition of the
same drum beat put off even me.
Mitch (Eugene Levy) and Mickey (Catherine O’Hara) reflect on ‘the good years’ in
Christopher Cuest’s latest film, which arrived in Portland May 9.
Guest's 'Mighty Wind'
blows audience away
plenty of screen time, but not much
depth.
One drawback that the well-
peopled cast presented was that the
characters were under developed.
Not much time was spent on the
individual characters, straying
from the pattern set in Guest’s ear
lier movies. The extent of the char
acter development seen in previous
mockumentaries bordered on “too
much information,” while the char
acters in “A Mighty Wind” seemed
somewhat thin and distant.
To call “A Mighty Wind” hilar
ious would be a gross understate
ment. Guest brings a rare and
unexpected type of humor to the
screen that no one else can match.
Although it paled slightly in com
parison to some of Guest’s other
films, it still can undoubtedly be
considered the funniest, cleverest,
most distinctive movie currently
playing on the big screen.
request of Steinbloom’s son to sing
a tribute concert in honor of the
deceased.
As die-hard Guest fans already
know, the movie was filled with
dry, understated humoi;. Done in
the classic mockumentary style
Guest is known for, the film
explores color-based religions,
model train obsessions, PR work
ers’ attitudes and plant phobias. Oh
yeah, and folk music.
The enormity of the cast incites
amazement from anyone who has
seen “Spinal Tap,” “Waiting for
Guffman” or “Best in Show.”
Almost every character that played
a major role (and in some cases a
minor role) in any of these three
movies appears in “A Mighty
Wind.” Eugene Levy, Catherine
O’Hara, Jane Lynch, John Michael
Higgins and Bob Balaban play the
main characters, and there are sev
eral other characters that are given
S.hadra Beesley
Editor-in-Chief
“I feel as though I’m entering a
very prolific phase now,” Eugene
Levy said as Mitch in “A Mighty
Wind.”
While “prolific” may not be a
very accurate description of
Christopher Guest’s career in
terms of the number of movies he’s
written/directed/starred in, it aptly
describes the quantity of humor,
wit, uniqueness and intelligence
contained in his movies.
Guest’s latest masterpiece, “A
Mighty Wind,” arrived in the
Portland area May 9. The story
begins with the death of Irving
Steinbloom, a man who made folk
music into the popular genre it
became in the 1950s. Three folk
groups, The New Main Street
Singers, The Folksmen and Mitch
and Mickey, collaborate at the
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