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MEDFOBD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFQRD, ORE.
THURSDAY. JANUARY 19. 1961
THE SHAPE OF THINGS
Times Square Brilliance
Suggests IMIev Art Form
By RICHARD HIRSCH
Director
Alltntown Art Muitum
Ritually, once a year, sev
eral hundred thousand usually
rational people crowd into
. Times Square just before mid-
mgnt. When the hands ot the
clock both point to the verti
cal, several tens of thousands
of people blow horns with the
intent of making noise, not
music.
Newsreel cameras lake in
the whole performance. TV
sets bring the noise and the
electric advertisements of New
York's Times Square into mil-
ions of homes around the na
tion. Newscasters ritually rant
(or rave) about the New Year's
arrival
It's quite a show, I'm told.
But Times Square is not a
nauonai snrine. no monument
even hallows it with some ref
erence to national rjumose nr
national memory. It is not
beautiful. It commands no
grand national vista. It over
looks neither a great river nor
is it flanked by great build
ings whose past embody some
symbol of this great country.
Chaotically Ugly
Times Square is simply
ugly, chaotically. It is drab
and patched by day. It is a
traffic clutter surrounded by
unplanned, unmeaningful, un
inspiring and obsolete build
ings whose principal functions
- Is to hide behind great blank
panels which support ads for
familiar products.
At night these aus, random
ly plastered over decrepit
house fronts, light up. Neon
tubes and incandescent bulbs
flicker on and off. Greens
dance and reds creep, whites
serpentine and yellows spread.
It is, everyone says, very live
ly. Painters even select spots
of color from all this and call
their works "Times Square
No. 2." Or something. (Mon
drian reduced this chaos to
rectangles and gave us
"Broadway Boogie Woogie.")
In the eyes of history should
we be judged by this cross
roads of unplanned streets,
this welter of ugly signs? We
should and the judgment
should be harsh.
ah ran ox runuvr
But, says the optimist, this
is all part of the brash, vivid
growth of the frontier, trans
planted into urban terms.
These flashing signs, these
monumental arrays of clash
ing lights, are symbols of the
raucous competition in a free
society. This is the great mar
ket place and the hucksters
must shout.
True, perhaps, but there is
an unchallenged neglect in all
this, an indifference for which
history will judge us, again
harshly.
Neon, and incandescent
lights are now a new medium.
They create shapes in the
great vacuum of the night.
They stimulate the eye so ef
fectively, that even when they
are but a jumble of brand
names, a chaos of Pizza Palace
invitations, the human eye is
fascinated.
All We Choose To Do
But is this all that we can
do with the resources of light?
Obviously not. Unfortunately
it is all that we choose to do
with it.
. T h i n k of the millions of
Americans who use U.S. 1
from New England to Florida.
At night what do they see?
Neon lights for hundreds of
miles, randomly touting wares
and services in a glittering as
sault upon the eye. The psy
chological assumption behind
these thousands of s i g n s is
sound. The eye is attracted by
light and color, even harsh
lights and harsh color. But is
there no other use for this
fascination than to announce
that you are speeding by Joe's
Diner or Milton's Paint Shop.
Boldly, one should insist
that there are other uses and
better uses for devices which,
appealing to the human eye,
are inherently suitable for en
chanting it as well. That such
uses are not common is be
side the point. The point is
that, with light, the Twentieth
century has a new visual tool
a new art medium.
As of January, 1961, it is
being used only to identify
Splat's Root Beer and Deckle
Edge Filters. And, one adds
hastily, with letter shapes that
would not have seemed "mod
cm" to a Gibson girl.
Piychological Rut
This is all, somehow, per
verse. It belongs to the psy
chological rut that saw man's
first self-propelled private con
veyance not as a new thing,
which it was. but as a "horse
less carriage." Edison gave us
a new object, the light bulb.
Georges Claude gave us the
neon tube. In what guise did
our times choose to view these
inventions and those that fol
lowed? "Artificial light," nat
urally, rated in candlepower.
In Ihe meanwnne we nave
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GIVES SUGGESTION - Times Square and the Great White
Way in its traditional New Year brilliance of light and
color. The fascination of these lights suggests that the
same devices have the potential of a great art form.
(AP Photo)
C 5
Great Entertainers
Names Imbedded in
Hollywood Sidewalk
Holly wood-UIPU-Some 1,550
stars are embedded in the
sidewalks of Hollywood, bear
ing the names of the great
entertainers of the past and
present.
And if the number of
plaques is any indication, the
two greatest performers in
show business history are
Gene Autrey and Tony Mar
tin. They have been honored
with four each.
They scored in all categories-movies,
television, radio
and recordings.
This week the full list of
names was revealed, and
Charlie Chaplin still is among
the missing. But Charlie
Chase is there.
Sponsored by the Holly
wood Chamber of Commerce,
in cooperation with the Holly
wood Property Owners Asso
ciation and the Hollywood Im
provement Association, the
"walk of fame" has someone
for everyone.
Many middle-aged tourists
will be puzzled when they
come upon a star bearing the
name of Ferlin Husky, who
made the trade in the record
ing business.
Honor Many Stars
And more than one of them
New Fibre Retains
Strength After Heat
St. Paul, Minn. (UPD - Min
nesota Mining and Manufac
turing Co. has developed a
fiber which retains its flexi
bility and part of its strength
after exposure to intense heat.
The new fiber, available as
a fabric, will not char or melt.
It's possible uses include fire
protective curtains and lin
ing for the motor compart
ments of missiles.
will ask, "Who the duce Is
Jimmy Boyd?"
On the other hand, the
younger generation will be
thrown by such as Helen
Twelvetrecs, Annette Rod La
Rocque and Mae Busch.
Everyone you can think of
has been honored, from Bud
Abbott to Adolph Zukor. In.
eluded are Sarah Bernhardt
movies and Arturo Toscanini
radio and recordings proving
there is nothing provincial
connected with the project.
Many stars have three
plaques posted along Holly
wood Boulevard and Vine
Street -among them, Jack
Benny, Edgar Bergen, Eddie
Cantor, Perry Como, Lou Cos
tello, Blng Crosby, Nelson
Eddy, Tennessee Ernie Ford,
Jane Fioman, Arthur God
frey, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye,
Spike Jones, Al Jolson and
Guy Lombardo.
Sinatra Three-Timer
Frank Sinatra's a three
timer, and could have joined
Autrey and Martin as a mem
ber of the four-star club, but
evidently his radio stint was
overlooked.
"Lassie" made the grade
lor movies rather than TV
and is the only animal rep
resented. Fans of "Francis"
the mule can write letters of
disenchantment, but it won't
do any good. The list is final.
People named Brown were
the most numerous, landing
eight in all-Cecil, Clarence,
Harry Joe, Joe E., Johnny
Mack, Les, Tom and Vanessa.
Visitors to Hollywood can
cover the promenade of stars
in approximately one hour.
The odds are they won't find
their favorites without run
ning headlong into other tour
ists seeking a familiar name
or two.
Makes Getaway By Three Story Leap
San Francisco IUP11 - A San
Francisco burglary suspect
who was supposed to be tnk
ing a bath made a "clean"
getaway by leaping three stor
ies to freedom from a window
at San Francisco General Hos
pital. John Baca, 43, clad in pa
jamas and a robe, jumped out
the window as a policeman
stood guard at the door. Baca,
who was being held on a
burglary charge, was recuper
ating from an arm Infection.
When the policeman failed
to hear water running in tha
bathroom, he looked Inside
and found his charge had disappeared.
Let llhw4 0
'i -: , . ?n i i w
'Mmmi i mm
STARS IMBEDDED - Some 1,500 stars are imbedded in tha
sidewalks of Hollywood, bearing the names of great enter,
tainers of the past and present. Stars in movies, television,
radio and records are honored, with some listed in all fbuf
categories. (UPI Telephoto)
the neon tube with its broad
color range can be sculpture
and painting and stained glass.
It can be even better than
that: It can be, itself, an art
medium of great versatility,
suitable for many applications.
It will be found that our
cheapening of concept through
the hot dog stand sign will
make it difficult to break new
ground in the direction of art
expression. This will be the
early pitfall, adding to the
challenge. Nothing, however,
intrinsically limits this field
any more than any other field
of art is limited. Craft solidly
applied sustaining imagina
tion and taste, is the sole re
quirement and the sole limi
tation. .
First Experiments
What could one expect from
the first experiments in work
ing with light as an independ
ent' medium? Timidity and
"horseless carriage" thinking.
Some persistence in the face
of the predictable failures,
however, could produce a rich
art form without precedent. Is
this not a prize worth the
thought and energy of some
good designers and patient art
ists? One feels it is.
Those tin and cardboard
horns which blared the other
night on Times Square were
noise makers and not music
makers. We do not, merely be
cause of this poor application,
refuse the thought of man's
breath being more modulated
and controlled, to create,
through other horns and
mouthpieces, the disciplined
sounds and harmonies which
we call, music.
Ih the same way the flicker
ing lights of the Great White,
Green,, Red and Yellow Way
should not mislead us into
thinking that man-made light
cannot, also, weave strange
new patterns to enchant the
eye and elevate the mind.
(Copyright 1961, General
Features Corp.)
Ton of Top Resources
Costs Only 10 Cents
, Washington - (Science Service))-
The world's most im
portant natural resource, wa
ter, sells for about 10 cents
a gallon but nearly 100 bil
lion dollars will have to be
spent by the United Stales to
meet the demand for it in the
next 20 years.
Dr. A. L. Miller, director
of the Interior department's
Office of Saline Water, said
this about water at the Amer
ican Institute of Chemical En
gineers meeting here. He re
ported that his office has 54
different contracts with pri
vate industry, universities and
technical institutions dealing i
with the problems encounter
ed in the conversion of saline!
water to fresh water.
Forty million Americans
are on the verge of a serious
water shortage. The water
supplies of 42 per cent of the
cities of the United States are !
considered inadequate. Yet the
oceans have an unlimited sup
ply of water estimated at 320
rhr.inmed the use of our new million cubic miles. Low-cost
light and color sources. Is it
too late to do better? One
hopes not. The flexibity of
salt water conversion process
es would provide an inex
haustible water supply.
Jrrl
3C
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